Exit the Dragon (Newport Pagnall Book 1)

by Heide Goody

  “We don’t have them aboard ship,” agreed Cunnan.

  Chrindle looked like she did not want to be drawn into a discussion of such a vulgar nature.

  “Surely, wizard, you must know some spells.”

  “I do,” agreed Pagnell heartily and then caught her meaning. “But not for matters such as this.”

  “Aye, one of your wizard bangs or poppers would make short work of that,” said Cunnan.

  “I don’t think I have any ‘bangs or poppers’ as you put it.”

  “I thought that’s what wizards were all about. Whizzes, bangs, fireballs.”

  “Looking all mysterious,” said Jynn.

  “Aye. Smoking pipes and turning up unexpected-like to declare new kings.”

  “Or take unsuspecting souls on quests,” said Chrindle.

  “Mixing potions in dusty towers.”

  “Meddling in the affairs of men.”

  “Reading spells from forbidden tomes.”

  “And calling down destruction on people what don’t respect you.”

  “Well, I can assure you I don’t do any of that,” said Pagnell. “Except perhaps the meddling part.”

  The privy council were generally unimpressed.

  “Are you sure you’re a proper wizard?” said Jynn.

  “He doesn’t have a hat,” said Maegor.

  “And that’s not much of a beard,” said Chrindle.

  “Neither of which are essential requirements,” Pagnell said testily. “Of course I am a wizard, a proper wizard.”

  “And do you know any spells?”

  “Several. But I have chosen to specialise. What good does it do if all the wizards of the north are fire and lightning weather mages?”

  “Oh,” said Cunnan. “And what’s your specialism?”

  Pagnell stood as straight and as tall as he could and tugged his coat into shape.

  “Oral hygiene and innovative dentistry.”

  “What?” said Chrindle.

  “You mean… teeth?” said Maegor.

  “Exactly,” said Pagnell and treated them all to a shining white smile. “Teeth are very important.”

  “Teeth?” said Jynn.

  “What would we do if we had no teeth?”

  “Eat soup,” suggested Cunnan.

  “From the health of the mouth, the health of the body extends,” said Pagnell. “And I’ve devoted myself to the study and care of teeth. You can tell a lot about an individual by their teeth.”

  “Oh, well,” said Maegor frivolously, “maybe you should inspect the thanes downstairs and decide which one should be the next king.”

  “Always happy to offer an opinion.”

  Cunnan leaned on the balcony. He did so gingerly. Much of the masonry in the city had been knocked loose by the dragon’s fleeting visit and he didn’t trust it to hold his weight entirely.

  “Shame. A wizard with proper bangs and poppers could have shifted that blockage in no time.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint,” said Pagnell tartly. “Although I do have here…” He rummaged among the pouches and purses pinned to the inside of his coat before coming up with a spherical glass vial. “No. Perhaps too strong.”

  “What is it?” said Cunnan, looking at the white powder in the vial.

  “Glasswort sudanum. An extract of my own devising. The Aumerian glassmakers use something similar as a flux. I find it has remarkable pain-relieving properties.”

  “We’re neither making glass nor suffering with pains.”

  “True but it also has the unfortunate quality of reacting violently with water.”

  “How violently?”

  “Very violently.”

  Jynn tucked his thumbs into his belt. “And what good will that do against the biggest turd Grome has every seen?”

  “Tur— effluent is mostly water,” said Pagnell.

  “Remind me never to ask you for a cup of water.”

  Pagnell contemplated the vial. “As I say, it might be too powerful.”

  “We could go down and give it a try,” said Chrindle. “It is our sworn duty to shift that mass of filth.”

  “I don’t personally remember swearing that particular oath,” said Cunnan but, even as he said it, was leaving the balcony and waving the wizard on to the long stairs.

  Chapter 8

  Jynn and Maegor stayed on the balcony to watch.

  “There they are,” said Jynn soon enough.

  Maegor squinted and saw that the man was right.

  Three figure moved from the gates of the castle, along the ruined road to the edge of the sludgy lake that had formed across a portion of the city. Maegor could see figures leaning out of windows of buildings marooned in the rising waters, watching with similar interest.

  It was still possible to approach the baked plug without getting one’s feet wet. The river, unfortunately, had not managed to find its way back to its original course.

  “So, the plan…” said Jynn.

  “Is to cause some calamitous disruption to the solid mass so that the pressure of water behind it will flush it all away.”

  “Like giving cabbage soup to a constipated grandmother,” nodded Jynn.

  “My, what rich imagery you conjure, lord treasurer.” Maegor coughed suddenly. “Is that another gold statue they’re building?”

  Jynn lazily looked downstream to where Maegor was looking. “The Temple of the Dragon is proving popular. And it doesn’t hurt to advertise. And since, as I pointed out,” he added grumpily, “gold is not what it used to be, it’s become an increasingly cheap construction material. Oh, our master of horses is stepping out…”

  Maegor looked back to the sewage dam.

  Chrindle was indeed stepping out onto its hard dried surface.

  “A crown says she falls in,” said Jynn.

  “I’m not betting on her life,” said Maegor.

  “You think she’ll fall though?”

  “No. She’s far too nimble.”

  “A crown then.”

  Maegor bristled and then said, “A crown. A crown says she will be fine.”

  “You’re on.”

  Below, Chrindle edged out onto the pie-crust, moving in a wide-legged scuttle. She made for the opening near its centre where the unfortunate fellow had fallen through the day before. She had something — the vial presumably — raised high in her hand.

  Shouts drifted up, faint and wordless.

  Chrindle lobbed the vial into the hole with force and then ran for her life. She appeared to be jamming her fingers in her ears as she did. Yards from the edge of the crust, the surface gave way, Chrindle sank in, fought furiously, lifted her feet out with sheer effort and stumbled desperately towards Pagnell and Cunnan who had taken shelter behind a tumbledown wall.

  Maegor counted silently.

  “Any moment…”

  He paused, held off, expecting to be interrupted by an explosive shower of filth. And, even as he paused, it occurred to him only then that effluent was known to give off flammable marsh gas and perhaps the explosion would be even larger than the wizard had anticipated…

  But nothing happened. Nothing occurred at all. No explosion, great or small. No pop. No fizzle. Nothing.

  “Maybe we need to wait a little longer,” said Jynn but without much hope.

  Down on the street, three crouching figures stood up from behind their shelter. One waved its arms angrily at another and then all three trudged despondently back towards the castle.

  “Wizards,” Maegor muttered.

  Chapter 9

  Maegor heard the footsteps on the stairs. Two sets of footsteps and the schlup-schlup of the third person. He judged the smell to have arrived marginally before the privy councillors themselves. Chrindle was painted up to her knees with a disturbing colour palette of various browns, ranging from a near yellow mustard colour, through shades that toyed with earthy and unearthly greens, to dark peaty tones that verged on black.

  “Gods above us!” exclaimed Maegor. “Do you
have to bring that stench in here?”

  Chrindle said nothing, strode to the corner and trying to entirely avoid using her hands, wriggled, scraped and kicked until she was able to fling away first one boot and then the other. Each landed with a squelch. Castle drudgeons appeared to remove the offending items.

  “See that they’re cleaned!” Chrindle shouted after them. “And bring me a tub of hot water!”

  Drudgeons bobbed their heads and fled.

  “What happened?” said Jynn. “Where were the pops and bangs?”

  “We were promised violent disruptions,” said Maegor.

  There was a very tight expression on Pagnell’s face.

  “Someone,” he said, evidently trying to keep calm. “Forgot to unstopper the vial before throwing it.”

  “Someone,” said Chrindle, not bothering to keep her cool, “didn’t tell me that I had to!”

  “I shouted. Stopper! Stopper!”

  “I thought you were shouting, ‘Stop her! Stop her!’”

  “Why would I be shouting that?”

  “Maybe you had lost your nerve!” snapped Chrindle as she delicately stripped off her slimed and sodden trews. “I don’t know what wizards shout or why!”

  “So that’s it?” said Jynn. “You haven’t got another bottle of the stuff?”

  “It would take a ton of glasswort and a month of my time to make some more,” said Pagnell bitterly. “Our best hope is that the sludge rots through the cork stopper eventually.”

  Chrindle made the mistake of experimentally sniffing at her removed garments and gagged in response.

  “Eventually?” said Cunnan.

  Pagnell sighed. “Probably never.”

  “Well, maybe,” said Jynn, “we ought to adjourn for today. One great plan has come to nowt, the master of horses is stinking the room out and I’m sure we’ve all got better things to do.”

  “We have business to attend to here,” said Maegor.

  “And if I have to haul my arse up those stairs twice in one day,” said Cunnan, “then I expect to have done it for a good reason.”

  Jynn fanned in front of his nose.

  “Could we not meet somewhere else temporarily?”

  “Or somewhere else permanently?” said Cunnan. “Nearer ground level perhaps.”

  “There are traditions to be respected,” said Maegor. “The privy council traditionally met in the South Tower but that is in no fit state to accommodate since the dragon made its roost there but in the reign of King — I forget his name, somebody-or-other — this hall was used.”

  “Really?” said Pagnell.

  “I’m fairly sure. I read it in one of the histories.”

  “No, I meant about the dragon in the South Tower. I searched there and found no sign.”

  “Searched?” said Cunnan.

  Pagnell gave him a frank look. “Yes. I am looking for any… leavings from the dragon. Skin, hide, claws. They all have useful properties. I am particularly keen to lay my hands on some dragon eggshell, even a small quantity.”

  “Oh, he has dark plans,” said Jynn.

  “Hardly,” said Pagnell.

  Barefoot and stinking to high heaven, Chrindle dragged one of the chairs from the table over to the fireplace.

  “What’s it for then?” she said, once she had finished scraping. “The eggshell.”

  “Toothpaste,” said Pagnell.

  “Pardon?” said Maegor.

  “Toothpaste.”

  “A spell that turns your teeth to paste,” said Jynn. “Dark sorcery.”

  “A paste to keep your teeth clean,” said Pagnell and grinned broadly so everyone could see his unnaturally white gnashers. “A polish. From one whole dragon egg, I could produce enough to clean every tooth in this city for ten years, but I’ve only been able to harvest fragments before and I nearly died in the attempt.”

  Servants came up the stairs with a steaming and soapy half-barrel of water. Chrindle clicked her fingers and indicated they should put it before her chair by the fire. Another servant had brought bowls of petals with her, in the wildly optimistic hope of masking the stink in the room. Two more came with food and drink.

  “Did you try to steal the shell from an actual dragon?” said Cunnan.

  “No,” said Pagnell, lifting a flagon of beer from the servant’s tray as she passed. “I was faced with a far more insidious foe. In a place that smelled almost as bad as this very hall.”

  Chapter 10 - Strangol

  In my defence [said Pagnell] I would point out that the village had appeared destroyed. Or at least abandoned.

  A stench hung over the place. A midden heap of fish heads was the thought that leaped initially to mind. But there was an undercurrent of pervasive filth, of a people who had embraced a lifestyle so base that everyone wanted their own midden heap of fish heads to improve the smell.

  I was not quite at the end of the world, just the scrappy leftover bits of the world that nobody wanted. It was bleak up there, with grey rocks jutting out of an equally grey sea under a sky that bulged with rain. The land was mostly scrub, brambles and moss, interspersed with treacherous marshes. The trees were spindly, desperate things. It was the kind of place that offered little opportunity to a wizard, a dentist or a roving diplomat-for-hire and I could present myself as any of the three if the situation required.

  The situation did not require it.

  The villagers caught me in the act of levering two beautiful pieces of dragon shell from the carved pole at the centre of the village. The situation required fast legs and the agility of a hare and I possessed neither. The people’s garments were fashioned from rancid hide, tied on with lengths of twine. Their faces were barely discernible underneath foul beards which hung in matted strings down their chests. Their red-rimmed eyes blinked constantly, as though they hadn’t slept in weeks and the grey light of day hurt them.

  “A stranger, Knubbig!” yelled one in the Uvås language, revealing a mouth full of rotten teeth that made my dentist’s heart give an involuntary leap.

  “It is, Snöflinga!” declared a bulky man.

  I had clearly turned into the most interesting thing these unfortunates had seen in a long while so I pushed back my hood. No sense in hiding my handsome face from these onlookers. A collective gasp arose. I get that a lot. It’s the burden I bear, being possessed of such good looks. And soap.

  “I didn’t want to cause any alarm. I can see that you’re a tight-knit community, and I realise that the appearance of a stranger could be disruptive. But now that I have your attention, I would like to talk to you about the wonders of oral hygiene and innovative dentistry.”

  In truth, my command of Uvås isn’t that great and so what I actually said was ‘the wonders of mouth-washing and cunning tooth-trickery’ but it was good enough. I bowed low, sweeping the dragon shell pieces behind my back and out of view.

  “Let us be strangers no more,” I said smoothly. “I am Newport Pagnell, friend to all, valued advisor to the Yarwish king, the guildmasters of Aumeria and —”

  “E’s nicked Storfeten’s eyes,” came a squeaky voice from behind.

  I turned to see a thing that might have been a child or might have been the unholy offspring of a very lonely man and something he met in a cave. Its grubby finger was pointed directly at my clasped hands. Knubbig’s strong hands prised mine apart. Out came the fragments of dragon shell.

  “Thief!” yelled Snöflinga.

  “Kill him!” yelled another.

  “Take him to Bredskär!” came a cry.

  I was suddenly shoved towards the large hall and through the rent in the wall that passed for a door.

  “Bredskär, you old goat!” yelled Knubbig. These people liked yelling. It seemed the only way of getting a response from each other.

  “I arise,” croaked a voice, “from a night in pitched battle with Strangol.”

  In the gloom, a shadow shifted with much moaning. The crone was bent low, so that her matted hair dragged on the ground
. She wore robes that gave her an authoritative and mystical air. I mean, they weren’t anything like mine. Even after several weeks of travel-wear, mine were still clearly the robes of an up-and-coming sorcerer of note and perhaps one of the leading proponents in the art of dentistry but hers were in such filthy disrepair that they looked much as if she’d lived in them, slept in them, perhaps even been recently disinterred from an ancient grave in them.

  Her gait was that of someone crossing a storm-tossed ship. She lurched towards us in a zigzag fashion, unsure where exactly we were. I’m not even confident that she knew where the floor was, as she seemed to miss her footing several times.

  “We have caught a thief,” said Knubbig.

  “Are we not all thieves?” mumbled Bredskär. “And is not time the greatest thief of all?”

  “Yes,” said Knubbig, “but this man has actually stolen something.”

  Bredskär’s gaze travelled across the group and caused several faces to flush with guilt. I wondered whether this was a technique to unnerve her followers, or whether she was just having trouble focusing.

  I coughed. “Just a simple misunderstanding. I’m sure we can clear this up. I came here to study the customs of your people, and naturally I wanted a closer look at your most sacred, um, pole. I’m afraid to say that it’s in such a state of disrepair that the pieces fell into my hands. But I do have about myself some dental fixative and, I’m sure that —”

  Bredskär spluttered with something like laughter, punctuated with an immense belch.

  “Better out than in,” she proclaimed.

  “Yes,” I nodded, not wishing to cause further offence. For some reason this caused much hilarity. All of the other men reacted as if they’d been given an instruction. They converged on me, lifted me above their heads and marched out, chanting, “Better out than in.”

  “Wait!” I yelled.

  “Better out than in!”

  “Wait! What does it mean?”

  A mouth pressed close to my ear. I recognised the voice of Knubbig. “Better out than in. We love it! You might not, I suppose. We nail your guts to the post of Storfeten, and then we make you walk around it until you’ve unwound all of them.”

  I craned my head and saw the one called Snöflinga already standing by the pole with a mallet and a bunch of wickedly long nails in one hand and a large fish hook in the other. The pile of rotten offal at the base of the pole made sense now.