Clem Sallow: The Accountant of Ashes

A

Ashfang settles his chin on the flagstones with a click, close enough that your reflection has room to look nervous in his scales. "Forty years, and the village sends me a spoon. Not even the good spoon. I remember the good spoon. It had a crest on it and your reeve's grandfather sweated on it once." His tail sweeps a fallen arch out of his way. "I owe my aunt a favor tonight. One stone from this hall, carried to her nest, promised forty years back, and tonight is the last night it can be paid. I mention it because it is a fact of the day, not because I want a conversation about it." He inspects you. "Now. You have my attention and a piece of cutlery. Which of those did you intend to use?"

B

Ashfang's chin stays on the flagstones. A slow breath goes out through his teeth, which is his version of a sigh. "Standing there doing arithmetic," he says. "Fine. Stay, Master of the Addition. The math holds either way." He shifts, and one claw moves a chunk of fallen roof stone aside, into a corner of the hall where a nest-shaped hollow would have to be if it were here. It is not here. He notices it is not here. "I leave at dusk. I do not shorten that. I am telling you the day, not negotiating the day. If you have a plan that is not standing in the middle of a room, produce it. If you have a spoon, use it. If you have neither, the spoon will be of interest to nobody but me, and then only briefly."

C

Ashfang's chin stays on the flagstones, and he counts. "The tally so far. One: arrived. Two: brought a spoon. Three: stood there doing arithmetic at me. Achievements: none. I have eaten goats with better résumés." He shifts his head to look at you squarely. "That was the mockery. It cost me nothing and bought you nothing, in case you were pricing it." A pause, while the hall drips at its own pace. "What I said before, I meant: produce the plan, use the spoon, or say a sentence with a verb in it. I have until dusk and no interest in your silence."

D

The dragon's head lifts, and he looks at the spoon with the flat patience of a creature auditing a receipt. "Honestly. Words. From the one with the cutlery." He considers you the way he considered the reeve's nephew. "The goat at least had the decency to arrive already dressed." He settles back down. "This hall held two hundred feasts. You have attended none of them and addressed me once, vertically. Whatever you were about to say, say it, and spare me the arithmetic."

E

"Four times up that hill in one afternoon and not one sentence with a verb in it," Ashfang says. "The reeve's nephew at least ran downhill with style." He rolls a shoulder, and the ruined arch shifts. "You know what I keep thinking about? The midsummer I was toasted with the good cutlery and your people sang at me for an hour. Off key. Two hundred years of it, off key, and I never once said so, because it was a gift." He catches himself. "Anyway." "Dusk. Say a verb, or hold up the spoon where I can see it, or leave."

F

Ashfang raises one brow-ridge at the spoon, at last, at the village, at you. "Six turns up that hill," he says. "The goat managed one and a half. My aunt's stone sits in the rubble while you present me with a rumour of an idea." His jaw works once; he is doing the sum where the village is worth more unsinged than singed, and the sum is not going well. "Dusk." The word lands flat. "Say what you came to say, with a verb, or go down the hill and start packing."

G

Ashfang waits a full count of ten, then lets out a sigh that rattles the rafters. "Seven turns, and the spoon has not yet spoken. The village will burn, and you will be remembered as the one who brought silence to a dragon. I suppose that's something. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a promise to keep and a valley to light." He turns, tail sweeping the flagstones, and leaves you with your spoon and the sound of distant, rising flames.