while Iâm away, Mrs K.â
âOh, Iâll be too busy wrestling crocodiles,â said the frail old lady. âHow are you getting there?â
âSmelding,â replied Dirk.
âOh, really? How interesting. Good luck.â
Dirk left her and went down to the cellar, climbing into the hole Karnataka had made and clawing his way through the broken bits of concrete into the ground.Soon he reached the rock that lay beneath the foundations of the house.
In the dark Dirk lay flat on the rock and concentrated on relaxing every muscle in his body. It wasnât easy but after a few seconds he felt a tingling pain on the soft skin of his belly and the underside of his neck and limbs.
In his book, Ivor Klingerflim described smelding like this:
The act of smelding is unique to Mountain Dragons and is an extension of blending. Only, rather than repositioning particles that form the colour of a surface over the dragon, it involves the dragon squeezing each particle of his body between the particles that form the rock beneath him. The process of reducing itself to formless particles takes the dragon around an hour but it means there is no resistance and that he can choose to re-emerge anywhere in the world.
Dirk wasnât sure about the science of it but he did know that it hurt. The knack with smelding was to stay relaxed during the extremely painful process, which felt like being eaten by a million tiny sharp-toothed fish. It was a technique developed during theIce Age, when dragons had to travel thousands of miles to find edible vegetation. Dirk was grateful that he lived in more convenient times. It was bad enough when his supermarket got his order wrong and sent him the cheap tins of beans that were all sauce and no beans.
Eventually he felt himself smelding into the rock, his skin, bones and green blood slipping into the spaces in between the particles. Once fully immersed, it was an odd feeling. Without eyes he couldnât see anything, and without paws he couldnât feel anything. He knew he still existed but, without a physical body, there was an extreme lightness to his existence that was ultimately very relaxing. He had heard of dragons who had never reappeared after having smelded and Dirk could understand why. He fought the lethargy that had swept over him and sensed a rock in the Californian Desert where he could begin the equally painful re-emergence.
By the time he felt sunlight on his face Dirk was exhausted. He looked weakly at the scenery in front of his newly formed eyes. A dusty, stony landscape stretched out in front of him as far as he could see. Strange leafless trees with twisted branches were dotted around, each growing a metre or so apart. Thethick branches were covered in light brown spikes with clumps of green spikes at the end. Dirk recognised them as Joshua trees from a nature programme he had seen once. Between them dry shrubs struggled to find enough water to survive. All around were huge piles of boulders and rocks, like the one where Dirk was emerging. The sky was pastel blue with only a couple of fluffy clouds to accompany the blazing sun. There wasnât a living creature in sight.
The final piece of Dirkâs claws appeared and he collapsed and passed out from exhaustion.
When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky and every part of his body ached. Vowing to take a slower but easier route home he stretched, jumped down from the rock and began searching for any signs of dragons. He checked the more healthy shrubs, looking for nibble marks. He examined the ground for footprints. The problem with tracking dragons was that, unlike humans, they left very little indication of where they had been.
Dirk heard a noise. He stopped dead. Something had moved but all he could see were the strangely shaped Joshua trees. It was probably a desert rat or a wolf but as a precaution he raised himself on to his hind legs and drew his claws, prepared to fight if necessary.
He
âOh, Iâll be too busy wrestling crocodiles,â said the frail old lady. âHow are you getting there?â
âSmelding,â replied Dirk.
âOh, really? How interesting. Good luck.â
Dirk left her and went down to the cellar, climbing into the hole Karnataka had made and clawing his way through the broken bits of concrete into the ground.Soon he reached the rock that lay beneath the foundations of the house.
In the dark Dirk lay flat on the rock and concentrated on relaxing every muscle in his body. It wasnât easy but after a few seconds he felt a tingling pain on the soft skin of his belly and the underside of his neck and limbs.
In his book, Ivor Klingerflim described smelding like this:
The act of smelding is unique to Mountain Dragons and is an extension of blending. Only, rather than repositioning particles that form the colour of a surface over the dragon, it involves the dragon squeezing each particle of his body between the particles that form the rock beneath him. The process of reducing itself to formless particles takes the dragon around an hour but it means there is no resistance and that he can choose to re-emerge anywhere in the world.
Dirk wasnât sure about the science of it but he did know that it hurt. The knack with smelding was to stay relaxed during the extremely painful process, which felt like being eaten by a million tiny sharp-toothed fish. It was a technique developed during theIce Age, when dragons had to travel thousands of miles to find edible vegetation. Dirk was grateful that he lived in more convenient times. It was bad enough when his supermarket got his order wrong and sent him the cheap tins of beans that were all sauce and no beans.
Eventually he felt himself smelding into the rock, his skin, bones and green blood slipping into the spaces in between the particles. Once fully immersed, it was an odd feeling. Without eyes he couldnât see anything, and without paws he couldnât feel anything. He knew he still existed but, without a physical body, there was an extreme lightness to his existence that was ultimately very relaxing. He had heard of dragons who had never reappeared after having smelded and Dirk could understand why. He fought the lethargy that had swept over him and sensed a rock in the Californian Desert where he could begin the equally painful re-emergence.
By the time he felt sunlight on his face Dirk was exhausted. He looked weakly at the scenery in front of his newly formed eyes. A dusty, stony landscape stretched out in front of him as far as he could see. Strange leafless trees with twisted branches were dotted around, each growing a metre or so apart. Thethick branches were covered in light brown spikes with clumps of green spikes at the end. Dirk recognised them as Joshua trees from a nature programme he had seen once. Between them dry shrubs struggled to find enough water to survive. All around were huge piles of boulders and rocks, like the one where Dirk was emerging. The sky was pastel blue with only a couple of fluffy clouds to accompany the blazing sun. There wasnât a living creature in sight.
The final piece of Dirkâs claws appeared and he collapsed and passed out from exhaustion.
When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky and every part of his body ached. Vowing to take a slower but easier route home he stretched, jumped down from the rock and began searching for any signs of dragons. He checked the more healthy shrubs, looking for nibble marks. He examined the ground for footprints. The problem with tracking dragons was that, unlike humans, they left very little indication of where they had been.
Dirk heard a noise. He stopped dead. Something had moved but all he could see were the strangely shaped Joshua trees. It was probably a desert rat or a wolf but as a precaution he raised himself on to his hind legs and drew his claws, prepared to fight if necessary.
He
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