“Will this dumb animal ever fully understand you?” the older dragon asked me, tired of my fruitless antics.

The black dragon had once again laid down.

I clenched my fists, in the process squeezing a laceration on my palm. The pain fueled my determination.

“He has to.”

The fourth try.

This time after leaping onto the older dragon, I slid down from him and ran all the way for no less than half a kilometer, out of the shadow of the monolith. The gaze of the black dragon followed me. I stretched myself on the ground to indicate that I wanted him to transport his buddy to where I was.

This time he decrypted my message.

The older dragon was placed just next to me in a matter of minutes. My heart swelled with self-pride. That I could communicate without words to an animal so big was easily one of my top achievements in Dharti.

The black dragon settled beside us. He didn’t seem very comfortable in the hotter ground and scratched the top soil with his claws to access the cooler layer underneath. Eventually he curled up and went to sleep.

“So, what do you say?” I raised a brow to the old dragon. “Are you going to give me your tears now?”

“I am impressed by you,” the old dragon said. “You are a worthy man. I will give my tears to you. But one last act remains. Kill the black dragon.”

“What?” I said. I reeled back. The black dragon no longer considered me his enemy, and after all our interactions I couldn’t help but think of him as a giant loveable pet gecko. I did not want to kill him. “Are you sure? But you told me that you would be liberated once you were out of the shade.”

“I have been liberated already,” the old dragon said. “Which is why the black dragon can be killed. He will not return this time.” The old dragon gave me an earnest look with his large aged eyes. “Are you reluctant to kill the black dragon?”

“Well, he doesn’t want to harm me anymore,” I said, casting a sympathetic glance at the other beast. “And I do not like to harm what doesn’t want to harm me.”

“That is a good thing to say and practice,” the old dragon agreed. “All the same the matter stands that you will have to slay the black dragon. It is a necessity. Do not feel pity, at the end of the day he is just a shadow. A shadow of me. I shall give you the tears right away after you complete this final task.”

In a way the black dragon was simply an illusion. Regardless, I had to put a stone over my heart to carry out the execution.

The process, though callous, was easy enough. I identified his heart and let my sword do the job. The black dragon had been resting in a manner that clearly exposed the part of his chest with his heart.

When the sword ripped into the heart of the unsuspecting black dragon, he opened his eyes wide, pleading us to help him, unaware that we were the ones who had planned his demise. His suffering was not lengthy. Within a minute life had abandoned him.

I pulled out my sword from his chest. The speedy decomposition of the body commenced immediately.

I turned to the old dragon. A drop of tear was oozing from each of his eyes. They didn’t flow down. Instead they remained near the eyes of the dragon, as though frozen. I gasped as I realized that the tears had magically turned into diamonds!

Each one was at least the size of a human fist, and they both dazzled in the sunlight.

“Take them,” the old dragon said to me, weakly.

The diamonds turned out to be rather heavy. But carrying diamonds was preferable to carrying tears. At least I could put them in my pockets.

“Now go,” the old dragon wheezed. “Let me be alone.”

He closed his eyes and became absolutely still.

Death was the ultimate liberation he had been talking about.

I set out for the spot where I had first found myself in the arid place; maybe there was a portal waiting there for me, now that the job was done. If not a portal, I hoped for some other way back to the island. If I found nothing I would definitely freak out.

***

I opened my eyes and saw that I was back on the island, the group of sirens encircling me. I tried to recall how I had returned. All that came to my mind was me walking on and on. When the arid place had vanished and when I had been transported back I never knew.

“I have them,” I said, “the tears.”

The Lady of the Well stooped, examining me. Her eyes rested on my bulging pockets.

“Take them out,” she said, her voice vibrating with uncontrollable exhilaration. “I… I want to see them.”

I retrieved the two diamonds. They cast a spell over the sirens, some of whom leapt up and down, while others sobbed out of happiness. The sparkle of the diamonds made it seem like two stars had been brought down to the earth.

“What happened to the black dragon?” the Lady of the Well said after a few moments when she had somewhat digested the sight of the diamonds. Her eyes were moist with tears.

“I killed him.”

“With that?” she pointed to my sword.

“Yes,” I told her. “So do I get to use the well now?”

I offered the two diamonds to the lady as I said this, however she wouldn’t accept them.

“Yes, you can use the well,” she said to me. “But before that you must give these tears to the well, since you are the one who brought them. They are too holy to be touched by us. Only you are the one worthy of handling these tears. So put them back into your pocket for now and come to the well with us.”

***

The Well of Resurrection stood before me. It was deep and its inner walls were lined by bricks to the bottom. It was a gigantic birth canal, I realized. The ash was the seed you needed to deposit there to reap baby sirens. The young girls too had gathered to watch the occasion. They knew something very important was going on.

“Before you give the tears to the well,” the lady in the black robes said, “you can resurrect the siren whom you helped.”

I took out the small bundle of ash.

“Be careful,” the lady said, “The ash shouldn’t fall outside of the well, or she would not be restored.”

With a good deal of care I untied the bundle. Then I let the ashes fall into the depths of the stony vagina.

Nothing happened. I turned towards the Lady inquiringly.

“Wait for it,” she said.