As is usual even with a short, purposefully lighthearted story, several things led to “The Old Scale Game.”
First off, I love buddy pictures and buddy stories. Most of us do. Mismatched buddies, better still. Nothing original there, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
I also have a thing for the idea of retired dragonslayers. I mean, if what you do is kill dragons, there’s going to be a point where you get too old to ply your trade. (That’s if you’re good. If you’re not, you’ve already been charbroiled a long time ago and the issue is academic.) I mean, it’s dire, hard work killing a full-grown dragon. At least I assume so, not having done it myself recently.
And last, there was a film from back in the early ’70s, if memory serves, with Lou Gossett and James Garner, about a couple of pals—one black, one white—pulling a scam whereby the white one pretends the black one is a runaway slave he’s caught, so he takes him to the authorities and earns the bounty, then sneaks back and helps his friend escape, and they split the money and then go do it again somewhere else.
Actually, I falsely remembered the title as The OLD Skin Game, but even when I realized it, I left the “Old” in, because it adds to the sort of we’re-having-fun-here feeling. Once these ideas bumped into each other, they began to turn into something, and I had to start figuring out how to make it all happen, who’d be in it, and also how to end it. Fortunately for me, as the story went along it took a decidedly not-quite-historical turn (although I threw in a lot of real English locations because they it gave it the right feel, and because English place names are just inherently amusing for some reason) which made it easier to come up with an extremely silly but (at least for me) satisfying ending for all involved.
And the rest is, if not history, I hope a pleasant next ten or twenty minutes of your life.
You’re welcome.
— Tad Williams
THE OLD SCALE GAME
Tad Williams
“Flee or be broiled to crackling! Those are your only choices!” The monster rustled in the depths of the cave. Its voice was loud because it was large, and dry because centuries of breathing deadly fire had roughened its throat.
“Neither, if you please.” The man in armor waited as patiently as he could, hoping he was far enough back from the entrance that he would not actually broil if the tenor of conversation failed to improve. “I wish to discuss a proposition.”
“A what?” The outrage was unfeigned. “I had heard that there were knights abroad in this miserable modern age who practiced such perversities, but I never dreamed I should ever suffer such a foul offer myself! Prepare to be radiantly heated, young fool!”
“I am not remotely young, and I don’t think I’m a fool either,” the knight said. “And it’s not that kind of proposition. Ye gods, fellow, I haven’t even seen you yet, not to mention the smell of you is not pleasing, at least to a human being.”
When the dragon spoke after a longish silence, there was perhaps a touch of hurt feelings in its voice. “Ah. Not that kind of proposition.” Another pause. “How do I know that when I come out you will not attempt to slay me?”
“If I felt sure I could slay you, I wouldn’t be here talking. I give you my word as a knight that you are safe from me as long as you offer me no harm.”
“Hmmmph.” That noise, accompanied by a puff of steam, was followed shortly by the sound of something long and scaly dragging itself over stone as the dragon emerged from the cave. The knight noted that, although the great worm had clearly seen better days, his scales dingy and nicked, his color decidedly less than robust, he was still quite big enough and probably quite hot enough to keep negotiation more appealing than attack.
“I am Guldhogg,” declared the worm, each word echoing sonorously across the hillside. “Why do you seek me? Have you grown tired of living?”