It was the moment of action. I snuck to the black dragon. A moment of indecision. To reach the dragon’s neck I would have to climb his back first. And the second I did so, the black dragon would realize my presence.

I let out a snarl and leapt atop the black dragon. He looked behind sharply. Thankfully unlike the mythical dragons I had seen in pictures, this one had a shorter neck, and there was no chance he could reach me with his mouth.

He flapped his wings to get rid of me. I stuck resolutely to the dragon’s spine and advanced towards the neck as fast as I could.

The dragon lashed his tail at me. I ducked, and the giant whip missed me. I accidentally stepped on one of the wounded parts on the dragon’s back. The dragon let out a groan, fire bursting from his mouth.

I arrived at the neck and lifted my sword. The dragon beat his wings harder and took to the air, I crouched to maintain my balance.

The great lizard hovered many meters over the ground. Somehow I was able to lift my sword again and this time, with all the force that I could muster, I pushed the blade into the neck of the dragon, piercing through the gaps between the scales. The dragon cried out and crashed down.

The impact tossed both me and the sword away from the beast. I landed roughly. The pain didn’t hit me instantly but was delayed by a few moments, which made it worse. I just barely held on to consciousness.

The sword was a few meters away. The black dragon recovered from the crash and came for me, with murder in his eyes.

My vision was blurred by tears of pain. I crawled towards the sword and picked it up. The dragon opened his jaws, his teeth glittering like great shards of glass, ready to barbecue me.

A small point in the chest of the dragon was glowing. The heart. The underside of the dragon had weaker scales than its back. I hurled the sword at the heart of the dragon, like it was a javelin. The sword went part of the distance propelled by the force I had put on it, and the remainder of the way it seemed to fly magically, although in a somewhat unstable fashion.

At the same time, the black dragon spewed flames. I closed my eyes, readying myself for death, an odd grin on my lips at the unique way I was dying.

A massive sound of blazing fire, accompanied by heat.

A lot of heat.

But the flames never licked my skin. A great cry stabbed my eardrums, followed by a sound of a humongous weight falling on the ground.

I opened my eyes a chink. The black dragon lay dead, upside down, its belly to the sky in a rather awkward position.

Blood oozed from a point in his chest over its heart and I could make out the hilt of the sword, the blade having sunk deep.

I couldn’t believe it. I had killed the black dragon. Kiara’s sword had done the job.

How had his fire missed me? The best explanation I saw was that when the sword had penetrated into his heart the dragon, overwhelmed by the pain, had turned his head away, and this spared my life.

I stood up and walked towards my defeated opponent. I climbed onto its chest and pulled out the sword. The sword was dripping with blood and I rubbed it against the dragon’s body to clean it. It was a good sword. It would come in handy in the future too. It was interesting that a few inches of metal could slay a grand dragon.

I noticed that the old dragon was looking at me. Was he angry? Did he want to avenge his friend? But the elderly beast made no movement.

The dragon spoke.

“Many came to kill him,” he said in an ancient voice that had a rumble like thunder. I felt like I was in the presence of a being far superior to me. “And many came not wanting to kill him, but just to free me. But he killed them all. All except you.”

“I came here seeking your tears,” I told him, “the sirens sent me.”

“That’s what everybody comes here for,” the dragon replied. “The black dragon at the end of the day is a version of myself. A version of me who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong. His sole purpose is to protect me from anything and everything, even though he doesn’t realize that he is the only cause behind all my misery. And thus in his ignorance and idiocy he has ‘protected’ me all these years. And he will continue with it… if you let him return.”

“What?” I said. “But he is dead… isn’t he?”

All that effort, and the black dragon was going to return? The pinnacle of disappointment indeed.

“He will, in a few hours,” the dragon replied. “Unless you do one thing, that is get me out of the shadow of this rock formation.”

The shadow cast by the monolith covered a large area.

“You see,” the old lizard said, “the black dragon is just my shadow. I have been lying in the shade for so long that my shadow took a life of its own and became the black dragon. However if you take me out of this place to where the sunlight can reach me in its full glory, then that will be reversed.

“Now, there will be consequences if I am out in the sun, but I am far more concerned about the return of the black dragon. I have already lived a long life anyway. Will you take me away from this shade? If only my limbs had allowed it, I could have moved out myself. But time has reduced my limbs to useless pieces of meat.”

The dragon’s words doused any euphoria I had felt on successfully slaying the black dragon. There was this brand new chore of dragging a beast weighing in the tons for at least a quarter of a kilometer.

The old dragon seemed to have read my thoughts.

“I understand that you came here seeking my tears,” he said. “But I cannot give them to you, unless I attain the ultimate liberation, which is not possible as long as my shadow lives. Get me out into the sun, and I will be happy to grant you my tears.”

I sighed, accepting the latest challenge. No point trying to reject it.

“Can you move?” I asked the dragon. “Even a little bit?”

“My mouth and my eyes are the only body parts that I still have in control, unfortunately,” the dragon said.

Bleakly, I considered the surroundings. Was there anything that I could use? If only I could become a stone giant, things would have been so easy! Heck, even a stone giant would have a hard time moving the dragon. Rocks, boulders and hot dry air were the only things available in the desolate valley.

There was the carcass of the black dragon too, and it was decomposing very fast. Oddly, there was no stink.

“The moment he turns completely to soil,” the old dragon said. “He shall return.”

As the hours passed, the carcass decayed even faster. Only some bits of flesh and skin remained on the bones now.

I was at wit’s end and fearful. I had dealt with the black dragon once, but the second time I would not be so lucky. My body was in aches, with many parts swollen, adorned in bruises and cuts. I couldn't fight a baby dragon in my current state, much less a ferocious adult.