Dragon's Boy by Jane Yolen

that jewel you gave me. Magnus Pieter called it a sword from a stone and got all silly about it. And he had to try three times before he made what I wanted. He almost didn’t give it to me until Old Linn came in, shaking like an autumn tree, and reminded him of his promise. Come see. It’s a rare beauty and I’m going to call it Inter Linea because I can cut right through the lines with it.”
    There was no answer.
    Suddenly afraid that he’d really overstepped the bounds of good manners and rank, and that the dragon lay sulking far back in the cave, Artos peered through the gloom.
    The cave was dark and silent and cold.
    He walked a few steps farther, then stopped, surrounded by the icy silence. Always before, even when the dragon was quiet, there was a sense of it, large and brooding, in the cave. But Artos knew, with a sudden certainty, that this time the cave was empty.
    Still, he called out again in a more mannerly way, putting hope ahead of certainty. “Sir? Father dragon? Are you home?” He put up a hand to one of the hanging stones to steady himself and his sword clanged on the ground.
    â€œIt’s me. Artos. Pendragon. Son of the dragon. Are you there?”
    Then he laughed a forced little laugh that echoed peculiarly, like a demented dove’s coo. “You’ve gone out on a little flight, right?”
    It was the only answer that came to him, though the dragon had never once in their months together actually mentioned flying. But everyone knew that dragons had wings, great leathery wings stretched between mighty tendons. And wings, of course, meant flight.
    Artos laughed again, but this time it was a hollow little chuckle, as if the dove were mourning. He turned toward the small light at the cave’s entrance.
    â€œI’ll come back again tomorrow. At my regular time. And I’ll show you the sword then. I will. I promise.” He said it out loud, just in case the dragon’s magic and wisdom extended to retrieving words left in the still cave air. “Tomorrow.”

9
Friends
    B UT ARTOS DIDN’T GO back to the cave the next day, for the pattern had been subtly altered and, like a weaving gone awry, couldn’t be changed back to the way it had been without a weakness in the cloth.
    First of all, there was the sword. It changed Artos’ standing with the other boys and they invited him to practice with them. He understood that, with the sword, he was no longer a child to them, a child to be teased or ignored at will. With the sword he was immediately raised to the status of a young man, eligible to be a partner in their games, if not an altogether equal partner.
    Sword practice was not, of course, with swords but with stiff willow wands and under the watchful eye of the Master of Swords, a burly, brutish man whose broad arms were seamed with old scars.
    It turned out that Artos, being small, was compensatingly quick. He was able to turn and duck and roll away from blows that caught Cai on the shoulder and elbow and thigh, to the trumpeting encouragement of the Master. After Artos got the hang of it, he beat Cai soundly.
    However, his elation was short-lived. Bedvere beat him by simply overpowering him and Lancot beat him with smooth, liquid strokes that Artos could only admire. Still, he was one of them now, and the dragon’s familiar wisdoms seemed like nothing when compared to the unaccustomed and wonderful rioting of real friends.
    He spent both his small morning break and his longer afternoon break with his new friends, his voice roughening in their company, his language desperately off-color and mean. Many of the swears he used he didn’t even understand, but he borrowed them from the others and used them with fierce abandon.
    At dinner he amazed the boys with stories about naked warriors in the heather and carpets flying high above great towered cities.
    â€œYou’ve made it up,” Bedvere said with admiration, though previously