The Unwanted Dragon

Donato Giancola looked into my soul and destroyed it for my own benefit.

Look at these guitars.

Beautiful, right?

And what’s that art behind the guitar?

I wonder.

Well, that’s the gift that nobody wanted to keep.

Just like Donato predicted.

---

Houston, 2002

I attended this Pro Tour as a Wizards of the Coast employee, and was dating someone at the time.

My friend Justin Gary would go on to win this tournament.

Players were starting to grow up in ways I couldn’t really relate to — more drugs & rock n’ roll vibe than sweet-hearted curiosity.

We were growing apart.

I had this idea that I should ask one of the artists if they’d do a drawing as a gift to the girl I was dating, with she and I in the scene, and Donato looked at me slowly, eyeing me, casting eternal judgment.

“Yes. I will do it.”

“How much?”

“$30. I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”

---

“Appointment in Samarra” — Somerset Maugham.

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

---

The way life worked out, I did make a gift of this drawing, and it is a gift that was left with me post-breakup as a reminder of lessons learned.

When Donato delivered the drawing, he told me, “this couple is fighting the dragon, and the dragon is going to sneak up behind them with its tail and take them both out.”

And he was right.

It did.

---

Donato won multiple Hugo Awards for various SciFi/Fantasy book covers after this.

He did a lot of the coolest Magic: the Gathering art in his time, too.

I never did thank him for the below.

And I never will. :)

Just kidding — appreciate the effort & forethought, Mr. Giancola.

It all turned out alright in the end.