The Adventures of Duncan & Mallory: The Beginning

by Robert Asprin

  Duncan shrugged. Of course he did.

  “Well I don’t. Let’s go northwest.” Mallory pointed into a section of the woods Duncan was pretty sure at random.

  “That’s not northwest,” he said.

  “Then what direction is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then how do you know it’s not northwest?”

  “How do you know it is?”

  “I don’t, but since we don’t know for sure it’s not, let’s call it northwest,” Mallory said. He started walking, so Duncan shrugged and followed him.

  Every once in a while Duncan stopped to cut an arrow on a tree with his knife to mark their trail. Once he made the arrow point in the wrong direction and had to cut it out and start again, so he got a bit behind Mallory.

  He ran to make up the distance and as he caught up—out of breath—he asked, “Mallory, just how do you make fire if it isn’t in your belly?”

  “Well as we both know, you constantly have gas blowing out one end or the other.”

  “What’s that have to do with anything?” Duncan said, taking offense.

  “The point is that we all make gas as we digest food. Dragon’s don’t pass gas…”

  “Yeah right.” Duncan rolled his eyes.

  “Did you ever hear me rip one?”

  “No but…”

  “Tozactly. We have a chamber just over our stomach that collects those gasses. We have control of our gas. We can burp whenever we like—or not if we’re in polite company. For the record, you, human, are not polite company. We can release it—all or none of it, a little or a lot. Lighting the gas…” Mallory laughed. “…well, it’s a bit of a parlor trick really. I—like most of my kind—wear a flint ring on my bottom back-most tooth and a steel ring on the top one. It’s as simple as burping and clicking my teeth together then opening my mouth and blowing the flame out.”

  “That is pretty cool,” Duncan said. “I knew a guy who could light his farts.”

  “How uncouth,” Mallory said, making a face.

  “I don’t really see the difference,” he mumbled.

  “I wouldn’t expect you would.”

  They walked till midday and stopped to eat a quick lunch of what was left of the fish from the night before. They were getting ready to call it a day and head back to the ship when Duncan saw Mallory’s ears perk up. The dragon’s head turned towards some sound, something that a dragon could hear that a human obviously couldn’t.

  “What is it, boy?” Duncan asked with a laugh.

  Mallory back handed him, nearly knocking him down. “Quiet. I hear whistling.” The dragon started walking with a quiet precision Duncan couldn’t match, though he did try, and he still didn’t hear any whistling.

  Mallory stopped in his tracks and whispered, “No, no! Don’t quit whistling.” The dragon listened very closely, glaring at Duncan, implying that he was making too much noise.

  Duncan held his breath till he almost passed out in an effort to be quiet.

  Mallory started moving again. “It’s close. I can hear a squeaking wheel. Come on.” The dragon started running and he followed.

  * * * *

  Mallory was afraid he was going to lose track of where the sound was again. He ran blindly through the woods dodging trees and rocks. Before he’d even realized he was close, he’d run onto a road.

  The human pushing a wheelbarrow full of turnips jumped, dumping his load. He took one look at what had startled him, turned white as a sheet, and screamed, “Dragon!”

  He and took off running in the direction he’d been pushing the wheelbarrow, leaving it and its contents behind without a second thought.

  “Nice,” Mallory said, shaking his head.

  Fighting for his breath in the cold air the human ran up beside him and stopped. “The idea was for you to hang back. Not scare the living hell out of the locals.” Duncan looked down the road at the back of the departing man, took a couple of moments to catch his breath, and then took off after the man calling out, “Wait a minute, wait!”

  The man screamed in terror and doubled his pace. This forced Duncan to give up his chase and come back to where Mallory stood next to the over-turned wheelbarrow and the turnips.

  Before Duncan could make another disparaging comment, Mallory explained himself. “I didn’t have any idea how close to the road we were. Town, or whatever, must be that way because that’s the way he was and is going. Come on.” Mallory started walking.

  “Mal, we don’t know what’s that way, or how far, and it’s going to take us the rest of the day just to get back to the boat. We aren’t prepared to spend the night in the woods in this cold.”

  “You’re right. How annoying.” Mallory thought for a moment. “Let’s make a big arrow on the ground here out of sticks so when we find it we’ll know which way to go.”

  Which they did. Then Mallory started loading all of the turnips back into the wheelbarrow.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Loading the turnips.”

  “Let him pick them up when he gets back,” Duncan said. “We need to get home before it gets dark.”

  “Because of course there is something in the woods scarier than either me or what’s on the ship waiting for us,” Mallory teased. “I was getting the turnips for us.”

  “You can’t just take the man’s turnips and his wheelbarrow.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because it would be wrong.”

  “You know what I think would be wrong Duncan? Us starving to death when fate has been kind enough to drop this lovely bunch of turnips right here at our feet.”

  Duncan seemed to think about that, weighing his moral outrage against the prospects of starving to death. “All right, but you can’t just take the poor guy’s wheelbarrow.”

  “Yes, I most definitely can,” Mallory said, flicking a piece of turnip out from under one of his claws.

  “Come on, Mal! You don’t know that it’s not the only thing he has for hauling stuff around,” the human said, giving him a stern look—which didn’t affect Mallory in the slightest.

  “I know we don’t have anything else to haul stuff in.”

  “We can put the turnips in my cloak and carry them between us.”

  “Tell me you’re kidding. This has a wheel. Think how much easier it would make life back at the boat for us. Besides, I’ve already filled it half way up.”

  “We’re already taking the guy’s turnips.”

  Mallory didn’t really want to stand in the cold arguing with the human over something he thought was stupid. “How about we take the wheelbarrow and the turnips and when fate smiles on us more favorably—than with a bunch of turnips—we’ll bring his wheelbarrow back with a couple of coins in it for his trouble.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Duncan said. “We’ll leave the wheelbarrow, take all the turnips, and put a couple of coins in the wheelbarrow to pay him for them.”

  “That’s not what I said at all, Duncan. That’s insane…”

  “It’s what we’re doing.” Duncan took off what was left of his cloak and spread it on the ground.

  “Come on, Dunc, this is seriously stupid.”

  The human was silent as he dumped the turnips from the wheelbarrow onto the cloak. Then he said, “Believe me, Mal, you have no idea just how vindictive farmers can be.”

  The human put the wheelbarrow back on the road and stuck a couple of coins in it. Then he went to pick up the rest of the turnips and throw them on his cloak. He looked up at Mallory expectantly. “Aren’t you going to help me?”

  Mallory started slinging the turnips into the cloak. “I don’t really see why I should have to help at all,” he muttered. “If Mr. Goodie Two Shoes wants to do a good deed he ought to have to pick up the damn turnips himself and haul them back to the boat.” He glared daggers at the human, knowing their trip back to the boat was going to be no picnic.

  “What’s that you said, dragon?”

  “You heard
me well enough.”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” the human insisted.

  “The right thing to do for who?” Mallory asked. “Not for us. Now we have to haul these things all the way home and we’re two coins lighter than we were when we left the boat. I swear, Duncan, if we’re stuck here all winter for lack of those two coins I’m going to kill you myself.”

  “Wouldn’t you feel bad just taking the guy’s stuff?”

  “Honestly? No, not at all.”

  “Come on, he only dropped his stuff and left it at all because you scared him near to death.”

  “Am I supposed to feel bad because he judged me without getting to know me first? Because he decided I was going to burn his town and eat his children?” Mallory spit back. “Come on, let’s just go before I take the money, the wheelbarrow, all the turnips, and leave you behind as payment.”

  * * * *

  Duncan didn’t talk to him most of the way home, but it wasn’t just because he was mad.

  No, it was because the dragon was right. Carrying those turnips in that cloak was just as difficult as he had said it would be. When they’d started out, the cloak full of turnips between them, Duncan had thought, this isn’t so bad, and I feel really good about not taking the guy’s wheelbarrow and paying him for his turnips.

  By the time they had walked less than thirty minutes his arms and legs were screaming, and all he kept thinking was that Mallory had been right. It would have made life a whole lot easier to just take the wheelbarrow. How stupid was he going to feel when and if they found town he was two coins short of getting just what they needed?

  Then he convinced himself that right was still right, and even living the way he and Mallory did they had to have some lines they didn’t cross.

  When they got to the boat they carried the turnips into the big room and dropped them unceremoniously on the floor behind the bar. Duncan dragged his cloak out from under the pile with an effort.

  His arms and legs felt like they’d been stuck with a thousand needles, and the boat was painfully cold.

  “Stove’s cold,” Mallory said, and headed for the boiler room. Duncan followed him and watched as Mallory filled the furnace with kindling then blew a plume of fire into it. It started with a loud crackle. “With our luck forty ships went this way today.”

  Duncan laughed and started to feed a couple of bigger pieces of wood into the fire. One thing about Mallory. It never took them long to get a good fire going.

  “I doubt it. And we’re close to people. I just know it. I’ll just follow the arrows till I get to the road, and then I go up the road till I find…well, whatever is there. Who knows but that fame and fortune is waiting just beyond where we left the turnip farmer’s wheelbarrow?”

  “Turnip farmer. Turnip farmer? Have you written a whole story about him? How do you know he wasn’t a turnip thief? Just a man who goes around with a wheelbarrow stealing other people’s turnips taking them to town selling them as magic beans. You gave our money to some grifter who goes around taking the food out of widows’ and orphans’ mouths. Selling them stolen vegetables and telling them they will do everything from heal the pox to getting rid of acne,” Mallory said.

  “You wrote a better story about him than I did,” Duncan said with a smile.

  “Yes, well all I can say is thank the gods we got hold of these turnips before he could use them to turn out the pockets of starving villagers. If only we’d taken that wheelbarrow we might have saved hundreds more…”

  “Are you quite finished now?” Duncan asked with a laugh.

  “Are you sorry you doubted my superior wisdom?”

  “My arms feel like they’re about to fall off. Is that the same thing?”

  “Close enough,” Mallory smiled and nodded. “So I guess we’re having turnips for dinner. I’m thinking boil them up and mash them? I’m cold. I’d rather eat something warm. How about you?”

  Duncan nodded and Mallory went inside. If the dragon was still sore over the money or toting the turnips, it didn’t show.

  Once he had fully loaded the furnace he started to go inside, and that was when he noticed something. There was a smaller pipe off the main steam pipe that ran the engine. It had a valve in it and it ran into the wall.

  Curious, he went into the kitchen, tracing the pipe which went through the kitchen into the big room and disappeared into the upstairs floor. He went back to the kitchen, grabbed a candle and lit it off the one Mallory already had going.

  Mallory was busy cutting up turnips and gave him only the slightest raise of an eyebrow as Duncan took off again. Like maybe as long as he wasn’t yelling that they were going to die, it wasn’t anything for Mallory to worry about.

  Upon further investigation Duncan found that the pipe went through every room in the boat including the wheel house.

  He ran back downstairs and answered Mallory’s unanswered question. “This boat has steam heat. Very primitive, but steam heat nonetheless.” He walked back out to the boiler room, reached up and turned the valve on.

  There were some odd screaming-type noises all around the boat that weren’t much different than the demon made.

  When he walked back in the kitchen the pipes were still banging and clanging and whistling.

  “What in hell have you done?” Mallory demanded.

  “It’s just the steam going through the pipes. It will quit as soon as it works all the air out of the system. I think.”

  “I’m beginning to see why folks hate tinkerers,” the dragon mumbled.

  “The worst that will happen is that the heating system won’t work and then I’ll just shut the valve back off. Nothing ventured; nothing gained.”

  “As long as you’re sure nothing’s going to blow up. I have to tell you I’m going to be extremely put out if you blow us all up.”

  There was a popping sound that had nothing to do with the pipes, and this time Duncan didn’t even jump when he saw the demon. He guessed it was true you could get used to almost anything.

  “Pipe leak in bathroom,” it said, and then it handed Duncan an adjustable wrench.

  Duncan took the wrench and the candle and ran upstairs to find the leak. He put the wrench on the fitting, tightened it, and the steam quit hissing out of the joint. A few seconds later the pipes stopped screaming and thumping. When he touched it the pipe was warm.

  Duncan smiled, took the wrench and went back downstairs. “I think it works.”

  “If it does that means we won’t be confined to the kitchen for the winter,” Mallory said.

  “Of course if I find a town, and if we can fix the part, we may get out of here tomorrow.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs.” No doubt noticing Duncan’s attachment to the tool, the Dragon said, “Now give the demon his wrench back.”

  Duncan turned so that his back was to the demon and looked at the wrench in his hand. “But we need it.”

  “It’s not yours. It belongs to Fred.”

  “Ah come on, Mal,” he whispered. “It’s just that demon.”

  “Oh I see. You gave two coins and a wheelbarrow to a turnip thief, because, ‘It’s the right thing to do,’ but you’re just going to take Fred’s wrench because you need it. What a hypocrite.”

  “That thing lives on our boat and eats our food,” he defended. “It’s hardly the same thing.”

  “Why? Because that thing looked like you and Fred doesn’t?”

  Of course that was exactly why but Duncan knew that wouldn’t really go over well with his big, blue friend. “What does he need the wrench for?”

  “Look, dim wit,” Mallory said, so maybe he was still a little sore over hauling the turnips. “How much useful stuff do you think he has squirreled away? Do you really think he will be this helpful again if you take his wrench? Now give it back and say thanks.”

  “Thanks? Again I feel I must point out that he is a parasite that lives on our boat and eats our food.”

  “Exactly. He lives on our boat, so I think it
’s better for all of us if you make friends with him. Remember his name is Fred.”

  Duncan walked over to where the demon was sitting on the heating pipe, apparently warming his butt. Duncan reluctantly handed the wrench back. “Thanks, Fred,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” Fred said in his booming, straight-from-hell voice, then popped off apparently to put the wrench away.

  “Was that so hard?”

  “That thing is creepy, Mal,” Duncan said.

  “I don’t know. He sort of grows on you after a while.”

  “Yeah, like a wart.”

  * * * *

  The next day Mallory and Duncan took off walking the same trail they had before. When they got to the road the wheelbarrow was gone but their arrow was still there.

  “All right. You go on and see if there is a town. If there is, find a blacksmith and see if they can fix the part,” Mallory said. Duncan nodded his understanding. “That’s the top priority—get the boat fixed so we can get out of Winterhurst. If there is no way of getting the part fixed, for whatever reason, get us all the supplies you can get.

  “Meanwhile, I’ll get far enough off the road I can’t be seen, but stay on our trail. I’ll make us a camp, get a fire going and keep it going. If the town is so far away you can’t make it back before nightfall, you stay there, and I’ll wait here for you. If you can make it back today we’ll camp here tonight because there is no way we can make it back to the boat at night.”

  “I’m not an imbecile…”

  “If you say so,” Mallory said with a crooked smile.

  “Ha, ha, my point is that’s the fifteenth time this morning you’ve told me the same thing. I’d like to just get going.”

  “Oh really? Then why are you wasting time arguing about me wasting your time telling you what you already know?”

  “Argh!” Duncan took off at a near run, as much to get away from his infuriating partner as to find something approaching civilization.

  He hadn’t gone far when he saw a small wooden farmhouse with a wood shake roof and in front of it a sign saying something he couldn’t read. He saw a man splitting wood and called out to him, “Sir, how far to town?”