The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company

by L. G. Estrella

  “Uh… what are you – ah!” Katie shrieked as Spot unleashed a cloud of fire at his sandcastle. Rather than the terrible black flame he used when he really wanted to destroy something, the cloud of fire was bright, almost white, and it seemed to be almost all heat with very little force behind it. When the flames subsided, Katie couldn’t help but stare. He’d managed to preserve his sandcastle and its surroundings by melting them into glass.

  There. Spot wagged his tail and grinned. Can show mother later. Exploring now.

  Katie chuckled. “Well, I guess that works too.” She headed back toward Gerald and the rats. “I should probably help Gerald and the others. We should be able to finish the sandcastle in another hour or so.”

  “Wait a second.” Katie stared as her master got up and slung his shovel over his shoulder. “Watching Spot build a sandcastle has inspired me. I think it’s time for me to show you my true power.”

  “Your true power?” Katie asked. Knowing her master, he was probably going to find a way to slack off extra hard or something.

  “Up until now, Katie, you’ve only seen me make sandcastles with my magic.” He struck a truly menacing pose, and Katie made a mental note to copy it and practice it later. “But I’ll have you know that my sandcastles were unbeatable when I was attending the academy with James and Vicky, and I didn’t use my magic to make them.”

  “Seriously?” Katie stared. He had to be making that up.

  “Yes, seriously. In fact, if you don’t believe me, why don’t we bet on it?” Her master smirked. “If my sandcastle is better than yours, then you have to do all of my paperwork for the next month.”

  Katie’s eyes narrowed. There was no way he could build a sandcastle better than the one she, Gerald, and the rats were making without magic. “And you’re not going to use your magic?”

  “If I use my magic, I lose the bet.”

  “Then what do I get if I win? No. What do I get when I win?”

  “If you somehow manage to win…” Her master’s smirk widened. “I’ll do your paperwork for the next three months.”

  Three months of her master doing her paperwork? Katie smirked back. “Fine. It’s a bet!”

  * * *

  Spot ambled down the beach. He had enjoyed building a sandcastle. He might build another one with his mother when she woke up from her nap. But right now, he wanted to explore. It was a nice, sunny day, a perfect day, really, to have a look around. He was tempted to simply flop onto his back and enjoy the sun, but the beach wasn’t going to explore itself.

  He stopped not far from his rock when he remembered something his mother had told him. She had warned him to bring at least a couple of the rats along if he wanted to explore. He was a dragon, but he was a young dragon. As some of his battles had shown, he wasn’t invincible. In a few centuries, perhaps, he would be, but not yet. He gave a low trill, and two of the rats ran over to him and jumped onto his back. He grinned. These were two of his favourite rats. They liked blowing things up almost as much as he did.

  Spot resumed his stroll down the beach. He doubted he would find anything dangerous here. The idiot wouldn’t be building a sandcastle of his own if he didn’t think the area was safe. Even if he did, he had his teeth, his claws, and his flame, and the rats were sure to have at least a few explosives with them.

  The waves made a calming, rhythmic sound against the shore as Spot savoured the feel of the sand between his claws. The sand here was much nicer than the sand in the Desert of Glass. That sand had been rough and coarse. This sand was fine and smooth. He could roll in it all day long. But as good as the sand felt, the water would probably feel better. He gave the rats a quick warning and then waded into the shallows before swimming out into deeper water. It was cool and refreshing, and he made sure to stay on the surface, so the rats could stay relatively dry on his back. His tail, short as it was, acted more like a rudder as his wings did most of the work.

  Movement on the beach caught Spot’s eye, and he asked the rats about it.

  Crabs?

  Spot perked up. He’d eaten crab before, and it had been very tasty. However, he’d never seen one alive before. It might be interesting. He swam back to the beach and poked his head at the crab’s burrow only to jerk back an instant later. The crab had tried to get him with its claws! He gave a low growl, and the crab tried again before scuttling back into its burrow. Spot was tempted to spew fire down the burrow, but there was no point. The crab was too weak to be a threat and too small to be food. The crabs he’d eaten before had all been much larger. There must be different kinds of crabs, or maybe this one was very young. Besides, he had more exploring to do.

  But if the crab tried to attack him again…

  Spot was a dragon, a son of wind and fire. Nobody clawed him and got away with it!

  A shout from the beach drew his attention, and he leapt into the air in excitement. His mother was awake! She was walking toward his sandcastle. Now, they could build one together!

  * * *

  “A sandcastle?” Avraniel yawned and struggled to stay upright as Spot leapt onto her back and began to babble about sandcastles. “What?”

  Look! Spot eagerly pointed at the glass… thing on the beach in front of them.

  Avraniel squinted. She’d been wondering what that thing was. But now that she really looked at it, it did kind of look like a sandcastle. It wasn’t as good as the one the twerp, the paper pusher, and some of the rats were building, and it wasn’t as good as the one the idiot was making, but it wasn’t half bad, all things considered. Not only was Spot a dragon but he had also never made a sandcastle before.

  “Is that yours?” Avraniel asked, already knowing the answer. Who else would have turned their sandcastle into glass?

  Mine! Spot slithered off her back and waved his claws at the glass sandcastle. Castle! Walls! Towers!

  “Yeah, you’ve got a bit of everything there. Who showed you how to make it?”

  Twerp helped.

  “Is that so?” Avraniel might have to cut the twerp some slack the next time she did something stupid. “Well, it’s pretty good.”

  Spot looked over at the others and then back at her. Make another. Together.

  “You want us to make a sandcastle together, huh? Well, I can’t remember the last time I made a sandcastle, but, hey, why the hell not? It sounds like fun.” She whistled sharply, and the demolition rats in the coconut tree hurried over. “Listen up, we’re going to make a sandcastle.” Spot and the rats all nodded. “And it’s going to be the best sandcastle on this beach. See those?” She pointed at the sandcastles the others were making. “They look good, don’t they?” Again, Spot and the rats nodded. “Well those sandcastles of theirs are going to suck compared to ours. They are going to be absolutely crap compared to the masterpiece we make. Is that understood?”

  Spot and the rats cheered, and Avraniel smirked.

  Sandcastles? She didn’t know a thing about making one, but how hard could it be?

  * * *

  Katie glared daggers at her master. If only she was a gorgon, then her looks could have killed. As it was, she had to satisfy herself with communicating as much of her hostility and anger through her eyes as possible. “How are you so good at this?”

  Her master sighed melodramatically. “Katie, I use a shovel for a weapon, and I helped my master rob more graves than I care to remember. Even without my magic, you should have expected me to be pretty good with a shovel and some sand.” Timmy stood proudly beside his sandcastle. It was truly a work of art – an almost perfect replica of Black Tower Castle, complete with all of the newest repairs and additions. After all, nobody knew the castle better than him except maybe Sam.

  “But… but… but…” Katie made a choking sound. “It doesn’t make any sense! I’ve never seen you make a sandcastle before! You shouldn’t be this good at it!”

  “Let me tell you a story, Katie.” Timmy used his magic to make a chair for himself and then sat down. “Once upon a time, the
re was a boy who was very good at making sandcastles. In fact, he was so good at making sandcastles that he bet everyone else in his class that he could make a better sandcastle than them, so long as nobody used magic. And because this boy was a big idiot, he bet a lot of money on it too.”

  Katie’s eye twitched.

  “In that same class was another boy who not only disliked the first boy but was also in need of more money. This boy spent almost a year secretly honing his sandcastle making skills before challenging the first boy. By the time it was over, the boy wasn’t sure which was better: all the money he’d won, or the look on the other boy’s face after he lost.”

  Katie’s eye twitched even more violently. She had to be careful. She might give herself a stroke if she got any madder, and Timmy was not in the market for a new apprentice. “Let me guess… Councillor Arthurs was the first boy, and you were the second one.”

  “That’s right. That idiot assumed he was invincible at making sandcastles. I knew I had to prove him wrong, and winning a lot of money from him at the same time made it even better.” He grinned. “Enjoy doing my paperwork for the next month, Katie.”

  She made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a scream. Finally, she calmed herself. “Master, teach me.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Teach me how to make a sandcastle as good as yours without using magic.” Katie’s scowl deepened. “Please.”

  “Sure.” He paused. “But you’re not getting out of doing my paperwork. You do realise that, right?”

  “I know.” Katie sighed and then pointed behind him. “Although maybe I’m not the only one you should be giving lessons too.”

  Spot and Avraniel were building a sandcastle with some of the demolition rats. No, that wasn’t quite right. They were trying to build a sandcastle with the demolition rats – trying… and failing. Their would-be sandcastle was a nightmarish, misshapen structure whose very existence seemed to defy the rules of geometry. The only reason it was even standing at all was because Avraniel had apparently decided that if the sandcastle kept collapsing, then the only rational thing to do was to melt parts of it into glass, so they couldn’t collapse.

  “I… what is that?” Timmy asked.

  “I don’t know, master.” Katie tilted her head to one side. “But do you remember those ancient, cyclopean ruins we raided about a year ago?”

  “Ah, yes. That was fun but tricky. They drove people insane if they stayed there too long because their geometry was all wrong and twisted.”

  “Their sandcastle reminds me a lot of that place.”

  Timmy considered the comparison for a moment before turning away from the sandcastle that Avraniel, Spot, and the demolition rats were building. It hurt to look too long at it, and Timmy was one of the people who’d actually stared into a real abyss full of unfathomable horrors and ultimate despair. “I think you’re right.” He paused. “Which means we should probably warn Gerald –”

  They were cut off by a terrified scream as Gerald looked at the sandcastle before grabbing his face and clawing at his eyes. “Ah! What is that?”

  “Too late.”

  * * *

  “So… what is in these?” Avraniel asked as she eyed the chests Roger had hauled up from the wreckage not long ago. The sun had only just set, and they were relaxing on the beach and making roasted marshmallows. Spot hadn’t bothered to skewer his marshmallows. Instead, he’d simply stuffed his mouth full of marshmallows and then stuck his head straight into the campfire. Apparently, he liked the way they literally melted in his mouth. “There had better be treasure in them.”

  “There is treasure,” Timmy replied as he continued to fiddle with the lock on the first chest. “Depending on how you look at it.”

  He glanced back at the campfire. Gerald’s hands were still shaking a bit, but he seemed to have mostly recovered from laying eyes upon the sandcastle that Avraniel, Spot, and some of the demolition rats had made. Timmy wasn’t sure whether to praise the group for somehow making a sandcastle that could mimic the mind-breaking qualities of ancient ruins built by creatures not all that dissimilar to Sam or to chastise them for, well, making a sandcastle that could break people’s minds. Thankfully, Spot had agreed to let them destroy the sandcastle after seeing its effects on Gerald although Avraniel had stubbornly insisted on compensation for what she viewed as their shameless attempt to get rid of her obviously incredible creation. As a result, Avraniel and Spot were now the proud owners of Timmy’s sandcastle, not that he minded much, and he had to admit that it looked incredible after they’d turned it into glass. He’d have to ask Gerald to store it away, so they could put it in the foyer of the castle.

  The lock gave a quiet click, and Timmy smirked and opened it as the others gathered around. Gerald, Timmy noticed, wasn’t drinking hot chocolate. Instead, the bureaucrat was indulging in a little bit of rum. “Behold! This is the treasure we were sent to find.”

  Avraniel peered into the chest. “You better be kidding, you bastard. I don’t know how you define treasure, but this definitely doesn’t count as treasure.”

  “Nope, this is definitely treasure.” Timmy smiled. “These are seeds for some of the rarest spices and herbs in the world, at least half of which are now extinct. However, they should still be viable thanks to the wonders of preservation magic.” He lifted one of the seeds up and studied it closely. Such an innocuous thing, but he recognised it from pictures he’d seen in an old book. This seed grew into a spice that vastly enhanced the flavour of any food it was added to. It was extinct now, so even a small quantity of it could sell for huge sums of money. “Think about it. People pay hundreds of gold coins for even a small quantity of some of these spices since the plants they come from are extinct. Imagine how much Everton will be able to charge if we become the only ones who can make more. And guess who happens to people who currently make a lot of money from selling these spices.” The others’ eyes widened. “That’s right. The Eternal Empire makes a lot of money thanks to the rare and extinct spice market. We’re going to take them down.”

  About the Author

  I am a writer with an avid interest in psychology, physics, history, and economics. Writing has long been a passion of mine, and I hope to someday make a career of it. Apart from writing, I have worked in education as a lecturer in one of the aforementioned subjects.

  I believe that writing is a wonderful thing and that good writing and the techniques required to develop it should be shared with as many people as possible. In that regard, I’m always open to hearing from anyone who was read my work. If you want to contact me (perhaps to praise or perhaps to put your proverbial stake and pitchfork to work), then by all means send me an email, or drop by my blog where I discuss issues related to books, writing, and my own work.

  My email: lgestrella@outlook.com

  My blog: http://lgestrella.wordpress.com

  If you send an email or leave a comment, I’ll do my best to get back to you.

  More From L. G. Estrella

  If you’re interested in reading more of my stories, you can find them on Amazon.

  There are also previews for each of my stories at my blog: lgestrella.wordpress.com

  You can also read on to find out more about my stories.

  Divine Assistance

  When the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father separated Creation from the Void, they also created the gods, beings of incalculable power who wielded cosmic energies far beyond the petty comprehension of mere mortals. The gods were supposed to preside over Creation with unmatched wisdom and knowledge.

  Well, that was the idea.

  But what is Death – a god of terrible majesty and splendour – supposed to do when his daughter asks for a pony? Is he really supposed to just go out and get a mortal one? Like that’s going to work. It’ll keel over and die in a couple of decades. No, his daughter deserves something better, a pony truly worthy of her divine heritage, which means he’s going to have to get a little bit creative
.

  And then there’s Bureaucracy. The Supreme Mother and Supreme Father might have given rise to Creation, but Bureaucracy is the one who has to keep everything running smoothly. But that’s easier said than done when there are hundreds of gods and countless mortals to consider – none of whom understand the importance of filing paperwork in triplicate. Luckily, not even gods can escape the awesome power of divine paperwork.

  And let’s not forget gods like Mayhem, Mischief, and Rabble. Their names speak for themselves. When the three of them take a holiday in the mortal world at the same time, trouble is right around the corner.

  Divine Assistance is a collection of fourteen short stories about the gods and their attempts to manage Creation. There are souls to claim, mortals to woo, and even the occasional city to smite. After all, what’s life without a little divine assistance?

  The Galactic Peace Committee

  In one universe, humanity conquers the stars. In another universe, humanity is overrun by monsters so evil that their very presence dims the light of the stars. In yet another universe, humanity is drawn into an endless battle for dominion over the galaxy.

  This is not one of those universes.

  In this universe, humanity is in charge of the Galactic Peace Committee. In theory, the Committee is an unmatched force for good, bringing peace and prosperity to countless worlds and ensuring that conflicts between different races are settled with words and not planet-cracking weaponry or super plagues designed to turn everyone into goo.