Once in every five human generations the dragon king flew in from far across the western sea, as he had done for a thousand years. He swung around the castle in a lazy swirl, flapped once and glided across the countryside. Sharp dragon eyes scanned the countryside, missing nothing. Every so often a spurt of flame issued, almost idly, from his mouth, occasionally singeing a tree or heating a small pond. Had anyone ever closely observed, it might have been noticed that the dragon's fire seldom touched a living creature or damaged any property. Once, the flame burned a peasant's cow, and she was shrivelled to a cinder. An hour later the terrified peasants eventually came out from their hovel where they had huddled in terror. They found beneath the dead animal three gold coins. More than enough to replace the cow; sufficient in fact to purchase ten. Dragon gold, they told themselves, but were quick to pocket it. And once when a haystack caught fire a dozen silver coins were found under the pile of blackened stalks.

Every man with a family who looked up and saw the dragon king in the sky felt a chill upon his heart, and a guilty feeling of relief that he was not the king. The dragon circled the castle three or four times, his green gold eyes observing, almost with amusement, the tiny figures on the battlements and at the windows of the towers. Clearly, his presence had been noted. Finally he swung low and drifted gracefully through a dark opening low on the rocky spire where the castle perched overlooking the sea. The entrance led to a cavern deep below the castle.

Far above, the king and his wife exchanged appalled looks, and they both turned to look at their eldest daughter. She stood, with her sisters and brothers in a group of other children and young people by the window They were pointing to where the dragon had been, speculating on why it had come and where it had gone after disappearing from their view. Both the king and queen knew only too well why the dragon had come. They had always known. The adult courtiers stood around, avoiding the gaze of the king and queen. Some found sudden reason to depart, none of them happy, and all giving the king and queen sad respectful salutes as they exited the hall. None of the courtiers approached the royal children where they clustered by the window. Every adult present knew why the dragon king had come.

The queen shook her head, blinking back the tears. Beside her the king's mouth tightened and he stood up.

"It - must be done," he said quietly. "You know that."

"Yes." She looked down and shook her head. "That doesn't make it any easier."

He gave a short hard laugh that had nothing of amusement in it.

"Easier, I think, for you than for me. I am the one who must do it." He let out his breath. "And soon, before I lose my nerve."

She nodded sadly, and rose to cross to the group of young people. Taking her daughter by her hand, she led her from the room, and the king followed, slowly and with a heavy heart.

A short time later two people descended to the deepest chambers of the castle. It stood perched almost precariously on a high peak jutting out into the western sea. There it had stood for over a thousand years. Legend said the castle had been built by the dragon king, and that he had given it to the human king for as many years as he would do his bidding.

To children, legend was rather vague as to what it was the king was to do for the dragon king. When as adults they discovered the truth, they all felt pity for the king who ruled when the dragon king flew in from across the western sea, and for his queen. No one then envied them their royalty one iota.

The two people crossed the stone floor of the deepest chamber, to where a narrow high door was built into the furthermost wall. It was hard black wood, studded with iron nails, and was opened but once in every five generations. It creaked and scraped as the man pulled it open, showing a narrow set of steps beyond, built into the rock of the peak whereon the castle was built. It was so narrow that he and the young girl accompanying him were unable to walk side by side, and he gestured for her to precede him. She gave him an almost puzzled look, but he gestured again and she started down the steps.

Within the narrow cleft, it was not dark, but filled with a pale greenish light that seemed to surround them from no discernible source. Dragon light. The steps descended, twisting and turning but ever going downwards, and on either side the rocky walls rose to meet each other only a short distance above their heads. Had it not been for the light around them, it would have been a most claustrophobic descent.

The man was tall and solid, with long black hair braided intricately with gold and copper and onyx beads. He was bearded, and his dark eyes were fixed on the maiden walking before him. Her hair also was black, long and straight, hanging half way down her back. She wore a plain white robe of silk, softly draped around her body, caught at the shoulders and waist and hanging almost to her bare feet. There was a vagueness in her eyes, as if she knew neither where she was nor what she was doing. Or as if she were drunk, or drugged.

Under the long hanging sleeves her wrists were caught together with a piece of cord.

Behind her the man was dressed in black, tunic, doublet and hose of velvet, leather, fine cotton and silk. Around his waist was a belt of black leather. From it hung a scabbard containing a narrow bladed knife. He had never worn the belt and scabbard before; had never handled the knife. His kingdom had lived at peace for many generations, and although the young men enjoyed fighting as a sport, never had they carried weapons into battle.

He was the king, and the maiden walking before him was his eldest, favourite daughter.

He had known since the moment of her birth, sixteen years ago, that this day would come, as inevitably as the night came after the day. As inevitably as the dragon king returned every five generations.

They continued ever downwards. Once the girl paused and half turned to him, but he spoke curtly.

"Keep going."

He had lost count of the steps when finally they came out into a rocky cavern far below the castle walls.

It also was filled with the dim illumination that had guided them down the stone steps. It brightened as they came into the cavern, and they saw the dragon sitting awaiting them. The maiden stopped then, backing up against the king, but he held her firmly, pushing her forwards.

The dragon's cavern was enormous, as large as the great hall of the castle. It was empty but for the dragon and the two people standing before him. He had curled his tail gracefully around his body, his great wings were furled in rest, and his mighty claws gently scratched the stony floor as he waited for them.

But that was not quite all. The king's gaze was caught at once by the stone altar before the dragon. It was black, wider and higher than the bed he slept in at nights in the castle, and in two corners were small metal rings.

The king stared as the dragon slowly unstretched itself, flicked its tail behind its scaly back and stepped towards them. The maiden's stare was still blank and unnoticing, and she did not stir even when the creature stretched out one claw and delicately touched her hair. She looked at the dragon, but did not move.

"Your daughter?"

"Yes." The man swallowed.

"She is sixteen." The previous day had been her birthday. "She is - "

"She has been drugged." The dragon's voice was accusing. "Is this how you brought her down here to me - drugged and bound, like a sacrifice?"

"But she is - " The man started and the cold greeny gold eyes of the dragon rested on him in disdain.

"Yes, that is what she is. And you would do well to remember it. Why did you drug her?" He leaned forwards, his pointed snout close to her face. She blinked, and he stepped backwards with a grimace of distaste. "I can smell wine on her breath. You made your daughter drunk before you brought her down here?"

"I - gave her wine, with a powder in it, to soothe and calm her." He had given her a glass of brandy wine, but had been unable to drink any of it himself, before they had started downwards. "I thought - it would be kinder if - she did not know." He shook his head. "She is not drunk."

"Oh, did you now? Heh!" The dragon seemed to consider, sitting back, swishing his mighty tail gently from side to side, almost like a cat. "A kindness to her. I see." He stared at the king coldly, unblinkingly. "You did not wish your daughter to know what was to happen to her?"

The king said nothing. He looked down at the ground, then shrugged and shook his head, raising his gaze to the dragon again.

"She is a virgin. Innocent and untouched by any man."

"Oh, is that so?" The dragon sniggered slightly. "That will make her taste all the better, you think?"

The king winced as if he had been struck. Leaning forwards again, the dragon touched the princess again with the side of his claw, brushing the silk of her dress. She blinked, as if she had just awoken from a sleep, and shook her head slightly. If the drugged brandy wine had affected her, she was now suddenly cold sober, alert and shocked.

"Father? What are we doing here? The dragon - aah!" Her mouth opened in fright, and when she tried to raise her hands but found them pinioned together she stared at him, puzzled. "What - "

Her father spoke sharply, not to her but to the dragon king.

"It would have been kinder for you not to have done that."

"Better, you think, if she didn't know?" The creature regarded him with scorn. "Or easier, perhaps, for you, if she didn't know? Hah!"

Bewildered, the princess turned to the king.

"What are you going to do?"

"I have to," he murmured. "I must."

"Must - what?"

"I must do this," he repeated. "It is said, that the day the king refuses to do the bidding of the dragon king, the pinnacle will crumble and the castle, with all its occupants, will fall into the sea. And then the kingdom will be ravaged by invaders from the north and east and south." He looked at her imploringly. "Our kingdom has enjoyed unbroken peace and prosperity for over a thousand years - "

"And this is the price?" she said, raising her hands before him. "Me?"

"That is so," the dragon whispered, and she let out her breath in a long fearful shudder. "Only one princess every five generations. That is a small price for peace, do you not think?" He shrugged, and tilted his head at her mockingly.

"But it is not fair!"

"Not fair, maybe, but it is so." The dragon king nodded his head towards the altar. "So, let's get on with it."

The princess screamed, once.

"Be silent!" The second scream caught in her throat and she subsided into mere whimpers.

The dragon fixed the king with a chill expression.

"Now bring her to the altar."

She struggled then, and his hand tightened on her arm. In spite of her struggles she remembered those green-gold eyes upon her and she made no more sound.

"You should have left her drugged," the king said accusingly to the dragon. "I didn't want her to know what was happening." The dragon gave a careless shrug of his elegant scaly shoulders.

"It is too late now."

They had approached the stone altar. The princess's struggles ceased and she froze as her eyes caught the small white object lying on it. A finger bone. The dragon smirked, and reached a claw across to flick it from the stone. His eyes glinted maliciously as he spoke to the king.

"Your great great aunt, I think." He put his head on one side, as if considering. "Or was she your great great great aunt.... I do not recall." He licked his lips appreciatively. "She was....delicious, nonetheless." The princess cast one appealing look at her father the king, and closed her eyes in a faint. "Be quick, now, while, she is unconscious."

The king lifted her, laying her flat on her back and releasing her wrists. The dragon pointed with his snout, and then retreated several paces and settled himself to the ground, curling his tail again and resting his head on his front paws. Cold eyed, he watched the king.

On a small stone shelf below the altar lay a number of short pieces of silken cord, and the king used two of these to bind the girl's wrists to the iron rings. She blinked back to consciousness to find herself helpless, and the king reaching to draw the knife from its scabbard.

In disbelief and terror, she closed her eyes again, as he leaned over her, then raised the knife to hold it poised above her breast.

"There are words to say," the dragon reminded the king coldly. "You must do this properly."

He sighed, a shuddering breath, and shook his head slowly. Always, he had known this would have to be done, but humanlike, he had always forced the image of the actual deed from his mind.

As the dragon had remarked, a small price to pay....

Except for the princess.

"I - do this as token of the agreement between mine and thine. For peace between my kingdom, yours and others. I do it as a sign of the debt my ancestors owed yours." The king had always known the words; he had learned them when first he became an adult. They, and the distasteful task that went with them, were among the burdens of kingship. He would not fail in his duty. The pride and honour of his position, and the security of his land and people, had to exceed the love he felt for his eldest daughter.

The words said, he again raised the knife, refusing to look at the princess's face, at her now open and accusing eyes. She did not however make a single sound as she looked up at him.

The king stood still, then brought the knife down quickly and hard.

He sheathed the knife, mercifully not to be used again for another five generations, and started blindly for the steps to lead him back to his castle. If he had checked the blade, he would have realised it was dry, and clean. There was no trace of blood either on it, or upon his clothes. Through the dragon's magical power his memory was affected. He would never remember the full truth of what had happened in the cavern of the dragon king.

Mere seconds from the death of the princess, the king had frozen, as the dragon flicked his claw and spoke.

"Stop."

"What?"

"This does not have to be." The dragon's eyes were cold and green, but there was promise in its voice. "There is a way out. For you, and for her."

"Tell me." The king cast a quick glance down at his daughter. She remained frozen, perfectly still and silent, and the dragon gave a slight laugh.

"She does not hear, or see, what we are saying, and doing. This is between but you and me."

"Go on."

"She may live. You may free her, and return to your castle. There will continue to be peace and prosperity. The price need not be paid...yet." The dragon king lowered his voice. "She will not even remember any of this. Things will be as they always were. Until - "

"Until when?" The king's eyes were filled with hope.

"Your daughter will grow to adulthood, and she will wed. I will accept her eldest son, on his sixteenth birthday, in her place. You will bring him down here, and his death then, rather than hers now, will be the sign and token of our continuing agreement." The dragon smiled, showing all his fearsome teeth. "What say you to that?"

"My - grandson? "You would have me murder my own grandson?"

"Instead of your daughter. Yes. Well?" The dragon king put his head on one side, and regarded the man.

"Is that agreed? Your grandson's life instead of that of your daughter. When he is sixteen. Yes?"

"No!" The king's voice was a mighty roar, compounded of both pain and anger as he swung back to the altar where his daughter lay, raising the knife and preparing to bring it down into her heart. "I will not do that! Never!"

"So be it then." The dragon king's voice was resigned, almost bored.

As the king left the cavern, in haste to be away from what he had done, the dragon king sat and regarded the princess where she lay on the altar. Her gown was still as pristine white as it had been when she had come down with her father. Above it her face was almost as white. She did not move as the dragon rose and moved slowly across to bend over her. He reached down with one claw delicately to wipe the tears from her cheeks. She swallowed, and looked up into fathomless green eyes. They were no long icy cold, as they had been when they had rested upon the king, and she shook her head slowly.

"What - "

"He believes that you are dead. His memory is inaccurate."

"Tell me - please - what you have done. He did not touch me. He stood there, and then he just turned around and went away. My mother - "

"She will never forget you. But he and she always knew this day would come." He shrugged elegantly. "One of the burdens of kingship. Believe me, I understand."

"He - why didn't he finish it?" A note of terror crept into her voice and she tensed where she lay. "Are you - going - to kill me now?"

"Certainly not." The dragon looked almost offended. "It really is nonsensical, you know, to suggest that dragons - even the dragon king - might enjoy a diet of young virgin princesses." He reached down carefully and with the sharp edge of his claw sliced through the silken cords binding her. She sat up, rubbing her wrists carefully. "You are not hurt?"

"N-no." She swung her legs to remove herself as quickly as possible from the altar. It was cold and hard and she had to wish at all to remain anywhere near it. Oddly, not for one moment did she think to doubt the dragon's reassurances. "Can I - go home now too?"

"You can never go back home. They will all believe you dead." There was something like pity in the dragon's voice.

"So - what is going to happen to me now?" She tilted her head. "Why didn't - he - " She could not say the words 'my father', " - do what he came down here to do?"

"Ah, he thinks he did. He truly believes that you are dead. Sacrificed to the wicked dragon king." He made a short sound of amusement and looked at her. She tilted her head in curiousity and bewilderment.

"What did you do to him? Say to him?"

"I offered him another bargain." The dragon chuckled to himself. "I proposed that he take you home, and when you had a son, he could sacrifice him instead, on his sixteenth birthday."

"And he refused." It was not a question.

"That is so." He looked sad. "That choice has always been offered, to the king of the time. None has ever accepted it. I doubt that any ever will." She pulled a face. She was certain that no man in the kingdom - not even the king her father - would choose to sacrifice his first grandson rather than his eldest daughter.

"You don't really want a sacrifice at all, do you? And you're not going to eat me." The princess gave the dragon a faint smile. "So what do you want?"

The dragon smiled back at her. "I do not want you for a meal, and certainly not for a sacrifice, my lady princess. I want you for a wife."

"What?" She laughed a little, then shrugged. "Why not? There is nothing here now for me, is there?"

"That...is true."

"Ugh." Her bare toe had touched something and she bent to pick up the small white bone and hold it up to him, questioningly. "This - "

"A little dragon joke. It is the finger bone of a monkey."

"A joke....you said to him it was his great great aunt. He believes that you ate her. Hmm. In rather bad taste, I think," she said demurely and reprovingly, but her mouth curved slightly and he grinned, showing all his teeth.

"Leave it on the altar. It will add a nice touch, in another five generations' time, when the king of that time comes down here."

"I see." She looked sad. "Did everybody know what my - the king - would have to do?"

"Every adult, yes."

"No one ever told me, and none of my brothers and sisters know."

"That is true." There was sympathy in the dragon's green eyes now. "It is something your people are told, when they become adults. It is not for the children to know."

"I am not a child."

"No." There was a whisper of amusement in his tone. "You are sixteen."

"Will - he - remember the bargain you offered him?"

"No. Your father the king truly believes he has done his duty by the kingdom. He will never remember the alternative I offered him."

"I - see." She looked up at him. "And now you want me for your wife?" A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. "Aah, you are a dragon, and I am a human. There are...difficulties, are there not, associated with that...proposal?" They smiled at each other, and she continued.

"And - are you truly the dragon king? That is what everyone said you were, when we saw you from the castle windows."

"I am the dragon prince. My father is the king. Dragons are very long lived, but not as long as the people of your kingdom must believe." He snorted in amusement. "They think it has been the same dragon who has come here once every five human generations, from the land of the dragons across the western sea. But in fact over the past thousand years many different ones have come. All dragons look the same to humans, I suppose." She smiled at this and he continued. "My grandfather flew here, and my grandson one day will return." He looked obliquely, mischievously, up at her, and she realised with a shock that dragons must have eyelashes. This dragon certainly did. "Our grandson, perhaps?"

"Then your grandmother, she must have been my - ah - great great great aunt, yes?"

He shrugged. "Give or take one or two greats, I suppose."

"That doesn't make our blood relationship - yours and mine - too close, does it?"

"Certainly not. She looks forward to meeting you."

"She is still alive? But she must be well over a hundred! A hundred and twenty?"

"I told you dragons are long lived."

"I see." She felt like sitting down, but there was nowhere to sit, apart from the stone altar, and she would not approach it again. "So, if I agree to go away with you and become your wife - I also shall become a dragon?"

He nodded, his green gold eyes still fixed on her. They were no longer cold, but gentle. "Yes, that's right."

"Is it fun?"

"What?"

"Being a dragon?"

He laughed. "I've always been a dragon." He considered. "Yes, it's fun. As much fun as being human, I suppose. No, more. Dragons can fly."

The princess threw back her head and laughed. A delightful sound, he thought.

"All right then, yes. I'll fly away with you and be a dragon princess." A sudden thought struck her. "How do I get to become a dragon?"

"Like this. Stand very still." He leaned forwards, his scaly snout close to her face, and then he touched her. Rather like the princess kissing the frog to turn him into a prince, she thought dizzily, only in reverse...

It was night time, and few people were outdoors to watch as the dragon king circled the castle once and flew away in the darkness. Anyone who might have seen, probably would have blinked and imagined he or she had been seeing things. For not one dragon, but two, flying close together, flapped slowly off into the distance through the misty night, to the land of dragons far across the western sea.

As had always happened, every five generations, for over a thousand years.