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It was nearing dark in the woods near the plains; the sun was about to disappear behind the mountains in the west. Some of the work to be done that day was left undone, but there was a reason: a visitor of great stature and reputation had arrived.

The wingless dragon rolled the jug of beer given to him by Fat Jules the brewer back and forth between his claws. The great beast was taller than any man, even taller than any bear. He stood like a man sometimes and other times walked on all fours. He looked like the mountain dragons but could not fly; there were scars on his back where his wings would have been, so many of the old women said it must be because the dragon's wings were cut off. Some of the younger hunters and warriors looked for signs of the wanderer and tried to decide if he tracked some spirit prey that only he could see, or whether he migrated like the mountain dragons he resembled.

The oldest man, Owl, said that he remembered another wandering dragon but he didn't drink and he didn't gamble like this one sometimes did, and the other one didn't speak to any of the tribe more than to demand food or special herbs. The older dragon had been friendly, the old man said, but didn't want to help the people. This new dragon wanted to talk to people and he was much better at it. Anyone not old enough to have not only founded his own tent and family but to have his children gone to begin their own families would only know of this dragon, and not his predecessor.

Nobody dared to ask the dragon about any of these things, since he towered over them. While he seemed gentle, he also had no need for spears or snares or daggers; his claws were not sharp like the dead mountain dragons some had found, because this wandering dragon climbed and walked everywhere. But he smoked like the flying mountain dragons, with every breath, and his teeth were as long and sharp as any dagger. A man would be an easy meal.

"I have had something like this drink," he said in a deep, rumbling voice that could never be mistaken for the voice of a man. "Another clan unknown to you on the other side of the mountains makes it. Yours smells different and tastes different; and no, I don't know which is better." The last was said to Fat Jules, whose face fell, his question being anticipated. The dragon leaned back, exposing the slightly lighter, reddish underside of his neck, and drank again. An empty jug already lay off to the side. "I think I'd have to taste them both at the same time to make up my mind."

The brewer and Old Owl sat in front of the tents of the most respected hunter, Fingerfinder, and his family; Fingerfinder's mother's sister, Windy Star, was there too. The majority of Fingerfinder's family was staying hidden within the roomy tents and away in a cove of trees, spying from afar. Speaking with him, despite his seeming friendliness, was not a simple thing to do. Just as no little child, except in foolishness, would boldly approach the clan's greatest hunter with demands, they felt that should remain silent and at a distance out of respect.

"Tell us," the old woman Windy Star said, "Tell us, Jaeghi--What of these other people? They hunt like us too? Or do they grow their food, as I've heard?" This caused murmurs among the watchers, as they admired her courage in addressing the scaled visitor by name, instead of "dragon".

Jaeghi continued to roll the jug back and forth in his violet-tinged claws. "I've had one jug already; I'll finish this one, and I'll have one other after this one. And maybe more after that." He seemed to be ignoring her question. "In my wanderings, your folk is the only one I cannot pay back easily. Your kind does not need the only service I've been trained to give, as you never lie in the potential state as all other speaking races on this continent do."

"The potential state?" asked Old Owl.

"Yes. Before you're born, you stay shielded by your maternal parent, inside of her body; you are protected from most influences of the universe until you come forth. This is why the position of the stars at the exact time you become alive, free of your mothers, has such an effect on you. Most other races here, including myself, were brought forth from their mothers, but then lay still with only a thin eggshell between us and the universe; fate and other powers have their effect on us for a much longer time before we come forth as infants.

"My service to others comes in providing names and signs to affect the destinies of those before they hatch; the gryphons, the kobolds, my own kind, and the other tribe that makes their own drink. It filters out the worst influences of the universe, and attracts the best.

"I myself was called to this position before I hatched, by my distinguished predecessor, Ruhdrew. He was called to name, as was he who called him. Someday I will name an egg the special name to call forth my successor--but not yet."

Old Owl nodded his head. "Ah. I remember Ruhdrew." He chewed some of his tobacco and spat.

"But what of this other tribe?" Windy Star asked, impatient and perhaps disgusted at her fellow elder's vulgar manners. "And you speak of payment? Painting signs? We have our own ways, you are right...and no mother I know would let you paint on her belly!" She cackled and spat her tobacco into a gourd, not the ground.

Jaeghi smiled. "I was old when you were young, and I will be old when all of these here," the dragon said as he gestured toward the children hidden behind the trees, "have their own offspring. Don't let the shortness of your time make you impatient! I will pay you not with my naming but with telling; I will tell you lore that no human shaman ever spoke. Don't you know that you, Owl, and you, Star, are my peers? Yet my wisdom is deeper because of my race. You may pay back the brewer for me, and I will pay you with lore, and answer your questions."

Both of the older humans suddenly adopted faces and expressions not seen on them since they had eagerly learned from the elders who preceded them. Fingerfinder's oldest boy, not suited well to hunting, came forth and sat nearby Old Owl, drawn by the promise of inhuman secrets.

The dragon drained the jug, and waved at Fat Jules for another. "You asked of this other race, and I will tell you. They are not like you, and not like me; perhaps closer to me in many ways. I know their story well, as none other of the mountain dragons does, because one of my greatest predecessors was there when that race began. You humans would call him Fungi Digger, or something similar. He was called Cen-Incend by his own." Jaeghi's story went for the rest of the night:

"Fungi Digger was a namer, a symbol painter, as I am now. He would fly along the paths that I now walk along, through the mountains and into your valleys and up and down the river. My great talent is speaking to you, and to all others, with great ease; his talent was finding herbs and plants. If only I remembered half the things he taught his followers! He could cure many illnesses; banish sadness and despair, or bring them about. He could use herbs to instantly call visions that normally only come to those who fast and meditate for weeks. He could do many mysterious things through his wisdom with plants.

"There was a different kind of dragon, wingless all their days and at home underground and in the water, but also with fire from their nostrils. Among these, at the foot of the mountains at that time, was the territory of the family of Precamek. He was not old but he had lost his virility...

*****

"You," called Precamek, the arrogant would-be head of the Pipefixer clan. "You, wandering eggnamer. I stand to inherit my house soon--but then my line will die with me. I have no heirs. I'm told you know cures for impotence."

Cen-Incend leaned against the wall of the grand cave of the white talon clan, where he had stopped for food and a summons to the caves of a clan where he had not worked his trade in many seasons. Now he understood the nature of this summons. "What is your bargain," he asked.

"I'll give you double what you've eaten tonight, and perhaps more. You know that my hoard is rich; all members of my house are wealthy. With our job, exploring the water systems, both the streams and the channels cut deep in the mountains, we find many things of value that were cast off by the careless, in addition to undiscovered riches."

The eggnamer slowly exhaled smoke through his smile. "I have no need for that type of treasure. But I will help you. We must travel."

And so they went, Precamek by swimming and towing a raft, for that is how his kind travels; and Cen-Incend by wing, wandering in a wide spiral so as not to get ahead of his traveling companion. For several days they went, to the mouth of the river and to the shores of the ocean, miles away from the mountains. Traveling back would take days, too far to return in a week against the current, to a beach.

Precamek waited on this beach, setting up a small shelter; Cen-Incend joined him shortly. "In these thickets," Cen-Incend told the other wingless dragon, "is a bush. We need its root. Look for a bush that comes to your knee as you pass through the undergrowth. It will have red and green flowers." The dragon folded his wings, and lay out on the beach, his tail in the water.

Precamek was used to working in tight corners and low places, searching for things in the great pipe works his people built to pull water to and from the rivers; but it still took him a long time to find the plant. He dug it up, and pulled the whole thing out to Cen-Incend. "Now what?"

The larger winged dragon snorted. "We wait. We will need one more thing and nothing on the land can provide it. It's good that you requested my help at this time and were so fast to find that bush, or we could have had a much longer wait." He said no more, but gazed out to sea.

The light was fading, and the impatient freshwater dragon was pacing back and forth. Cen-Incend had told him not to start any fires, and occasionally told Precamek to settle down and not move so much, hinting at the arrival of some great guest.

When sea turtles started to arrive, Precamek was incredulous. "These are what we waited for? Ponderous swimming tanks? There are turtles back home."

"But none quite like these, I think," said the dragon, who still waited. Many, many sea turtles, each rivaling in weight the smaller dragon, made their way up the beach, dug pits for themselves, and with laborious grunts and sighs, laid their scores of eggs.

Cen-Incend roused himself. "We need the tears of one of these," he said with a small amount of flame illuminating his nostrils and jaw line as he spoke. "Tread softly, to one who is already nesting, and gently collect the salty tears that they weep."

Precamek did as he was told; using leaves from the bush he had dragged out to the beach to hold the moisture form a particularly large and nearby turtle. He came back to the dragon, his tail quivering in excitement. "Here it is!"

Cen-Incend took the leaf away without spilling a drop, and to Precamek's surprise, popped it into his mouth and began to chew it. Through his full mouth, the dragon instructed him "Cuth offth a thecthion of rooth," and pointed at the bush. The river dragon grumbled but did so; Cen-Incend took it and began to chew it as well.

After a few minutes, the dragon snapped off another branch from the bush, and swabbed the inside of his jaws with it; a thick powdery residue clung to the branch. Shaking it around amongst the leaves of the bush, he withdrew the branch to reveal what looked like a small flower, which glowed faintly; an interesting, unexpected sight. Precamek was silent as the dragon extended his claw, holding the stick toward him. "Now...chew it. Eat a little."

Perhaps only because of the fact that it glowed in the dim twilight of the beach, Precamek believed in its power and accepted the branch. He gnawed on it, then chewed; rolling it back and forth on his tongue, as his kind normally eats meat.

By the fourth mouthful, he was suddenly taken with a raging, burning feeling he had not felt for a large number of seasons; and it was never as intense as now, not even in his youth. He felt the necessity of rutting and mating, a strong compelling command that rang in his ears and caused his penis to protrude from the small slit it had occupied, unaroused, for years.

"I...I'm cured, but here? Now? I can't make it back to the caves, I..." the smaller dragon looked around, desperate for some outlet, some target, for his lust. Cen-Incend watched him with a slight smile; Precamek dismissed the thought of attempting to molest the larger eggnaming dragon almost immediately, though he was so desperate that the thought had come to him. Cen-Incend was larger than he, but was probably not much heavier, being a creature of flight. But, he could be dangerous. "Also," thought Precamek, "if I'm no longer impotent, I'll have need of Cen-Incend's services in the near future!"

"This gift of mine will not fade away," the larger dragon said as he leapt into the air. Pumping his wings and gaining altitude, he called down to Precamek "You are cured. I will wait for you at your home for payment."

The need to mate became stronger and stronger, and Precamek of the Pipefixers finally gazed upon the very turtle who had donated the tears. She had finished her clutch and had buried it. She was pulling her heavy body back to the ocean.

"I MUST take you NOW!" the water dragon said, catching up to the large turtle in a matter of five steps. He covered her shell, spreading his legs behind her and working his feet under her hind flippers; his bobbing, swollen cock fit right up behind her tail and found an entrance.

The sea turtle, out of breath from her labors and not used to speaking on the land, merely moaned with anxiety and frustration. Most of the other turtles were far away, and what could they do against this spry, quick dragon anyhow? She moaned again, trying to crawl forward, but Precamek's grip was too strong.

Driven to near-madness by his ferocious desire, he humped the turtle and hissed out loudly "I burn with enough desire for an entire harem!" Thoughts of assembling a variety of mates to bear him heirs flooded his mind, causing his rutting to become more vigorous.

The turtle gasped and struggled, making very little headway toward the ocean. In a short time, Precamek's passion culminated in an infusion of his seed into the turtle, who wept anew. The dragon hissed, spent, and lay across the turtle's shell as she continued to drag both herself and him to the ocean's edge.

Water lapping at his hands and wrists made him sit up with a start. "Oh no you don't!" he said, straining to haul the turtle a short way back up the shore. "I'm not finished yet." He mated with the sea turtle again, and a third time, only needing a few minutes between each mounting to recover. The turtle, with the slow patience of her kind, endured this treatment but suffered greatly.

Precamek's lust was spent at last; he slumped over in a heap at the edge of the water and the sand, as the turtle disappeared under the waves. He took what was left of the bush, abandoned the shelter he had created, and left for home with his raft.

Time passed; almost a year. The seasons changed, and Precamek managed to get his wish to continue his house with several heirs. But nothing exists of his house today, because of what happened during the turtle's next migration.

One year later over the beach, as the turtles dragged themselves onto the beach for their annual labors, a dragon circled through the sky. He focused on one turtle in particular; she was marked with an aura different from the rest. Cen-Incend came from above, landing nearby, and approached. The turtle blanched, and said in a slow voice "Is the other here as well?"

"No, turtle, he is not." The dragon crouched, hands on the ground before him, wings folded, and gazed at her. She returned his look, fearful, and despaired that it was too late to flee back to the ocean; the trip would take too long. But the dragon spoke again. "I sought you out and found you for a purpose, sea creature. You were wronged, due to carelessness on my part. I will grant you something that I believe you desire."

"A curse on you!" the turtle cried. "A curse on you for teaching that monster his ways." The dragon suddenly appeared somewhat smaller, diminished by this accusation; he knew it to be true and he knew this curse would carry the weight of one who was wronged--and by his own claws.

"I had other works in mind; but your curse will settle. Begin the task which brought you here, started one year ago. And then I will do mine." He fell silent, and watched her.

She did what she had come to do; she tested the sand, dug herself a pit. Her labors were much greater than any of the other turtles, however; instead of five score turtle eggs, she was bearing fewer eggs of a larger size; some strange hybrid, never before seen. She struggled with their size, crying out with more than the normal tears on her face. There would be only a dozen of these, much larger than the ones she had laid in previous years and much larger than any she would ever lay again.

Too tired to cover her nest, she lay still over the dozen glistening eggs, illuminated by the moon. Cen-Incend moved forward, causing her to start and struggle. "Be still," he said. "I will bring my talent to bear, and make a mark the like of which was never seen before. It will bring down powers for your offspring, enough to use to destroy the clan of Pipefixers--their ancestors and step-siblings. I will do this in return for my wrongs against you, so that only your curse will fall on my head, not on the wrath of this new kind."

The dragon began mixing strange paints and dyes, and produced a brush made of hairs from some woodland animal. He passed his claw over the uncovered nest, muttering to himself as the turtle oriented herself around to watch, taken up with wonder. Cen-Incend seemed to make a choice for reasons only he knew; he reached down and gently pulled one of the monstrously huge dragon-turtle eggs. He began to mark its shell with the dyes, continuing his muted, hummed song. It was punctuated with occasional belches of smoke or flame; he named the egg of Precamek and the unnamed sea turtle "Killer of Pipefixers" and set the egg back into the nest with its siblings.

"Time will work on it now," the dragon said as he began to bury the nest. "I will guard it, so nothing will take these eggs. So many of your kind's young is devoured by thieves; but these will be as safe as I was in my own dam's nest."

*****

Jaeghi held up a brush, pulled from one of the bundles tied to his side. "See this? Many of its fibers are from that brush used by Fungi Digger that night. It has been passed down for ages." He put the brush away, and drank deeply from the next jug. Silence fell on the group for some time.

"So," asked Fingerfinder's oldest son after it had passed. "These turtle dragons still live there?"

"Yes," answered the dragon. "They grew into a tribe, and did as my predecessor intended; however, they did not stop there. They destroyed the clan of Precamek and hate all those who even do the work of that clan." Jaeghi finished the jug, and set it down carefully with the other three.

He coughed, belching smoke, and abruptly changed the subject. "I've decided; I enjoy your drink more than theirs," he said to Fat Jules.