The Adventures of Duncan & Mallory: The Beginning

by Robert Asprin

  “It doesn’t really seem their style, does it?” Bilgewater shrugged. “I doubt they would do it at all unless they were provoked or threatened. I can see that moron doing both those things. A dragon is always a dragon no matter how civilized he may be.”

  “You don’t poke a bear with a stick.”

  “Precisely, my dear.”

  “He’s still alive. If the dragon wanted him dead, he’d be dead. I think those two would rather run than fight,” Sadie said. “For a minute there I was sure you were going to tell him where Duncan and Mallory most probably are.”

  “Why would I do that? Those two might just mean a big payday for us someday. At the very least they amuse me, and I certainly have no fondness at all for Humphrey,” Bilgewater said.

  * * * *

  Bilgewater and Sadie had happened to be in a little boat bar trying to decide where they should winter when a fishing crew had come in, smelling of fish and eager to celebrate the end of their season by getting quite drunk.

  They’d been playing cards with some of the crew when they started laughing over some poor fool and his dragon who’d gotten their boat stuck.

  Their captain walked over and it was clear he didn’t share their amusement.

  “We pulled them lose easy enough,” he told Bilgewater, “but their motor is broken and they’re stranded there. I felt bad leaving them like that, but there was nothing I could do. I have to take care of me and mine first, right?”

  “Of course. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know. It’s a backwards place and the winters are foul. Not a good place to be a dragon and a foreigner.”

  “Where were they stuck?” Bilgewater asked.

  “On the Sliding West, right in the middle of Winterhurst, with a snow storm on its way. I hope they are a lot smarter then they seemed, or no one will find them alive come spring.”

  * * * *

  Bilgewater looked into the last of his glass of wine. “I think, Sadie, that Duncan and Mallory have enough to worry about right now without siccing Humphrey on them.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Because dragons don’t wear pants! It’s degrading, like putting pants on a duck,” Mallory said indignantly. “Tell me, would you put pants on a duck?”

  “If it was cold I’d at least put a shirt on him. Who are you trying to impress, anyway? There’s no one out here to see you except me, and I think you’re incredibly ugly anyway.”

  “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Mal muttered. He looked at the old pants Duncan was offering him skeptically.

  “Look, I made myself a new pair so you can modify these however you have to. You know you’ll be warmer.”

  Mallory took the offered pants, tore a hole in the seat, stuck his tail through, and pulled them on.

  “See? That’s not so bad, is it?”

  “They’re warm. Sometimes one must forget about fashion for the sake of comfort,” Mallory said.

  “Fashion? Seriously, dragon, what sort of fashion statement does being naked make exactly?”

  “Well, for one thing, it screams out that my race is much more advanced than one with skin they have to cover to keep from sustaining injury. That we aren’t so ugly that we have to cover ourselves….”

  “Do you have an answer for everything, dragon?”

  “Well I wouldn’t be very clever if I didn’t, would I?”

  Duncan smiled and shook his head.

  Over the last two weeks the weather had gotten progressively worse. It seemed it snowed nearly every day, and the more it snowed the colder it got.

  Duncan had made another bed frame for himself. They had spent a couple of days splitting bamboo and weaving it into mats that they attached to the bed frames.

  They’d measured out the right amount of cloth and then Mallory had sewed his own mattress as Duncan had sewed his. They’d made what looked like big pillow slips then stuffed them with the leaves and grass they’d hauled into the boat before the snow fell. Then they’d stitched the ends closed. They made themselves some pillows in the same way.

  Duncan wouldn’t have believed it before, but you really couldn’t just sleep all the time. He would have said he was an expert at killing time, too, but the truth was they were more or less stuck on the ship, and there wasn’t all that much to do.

  Whenever it wasn’t actively snowing and the wind wasn’t blowing they’d venture out to gather more wood. But they couldn’t stay outside long before they had to worry about frostbite.

  Duncan used his sword to cut down small trees and chop wood. Oddly it seemed to him that his aim was truer when he was chopping wood than it ever had been in sword practice. Of course it was easier to hit something if it wasn’t moving around trying not to be hit.

  Only two weeks had passed, and they’d already made beds and cut and stacked all the wood they brought into the boat. It made it a lot easier to walk from the kitchen upstairs to the bathroom when they needed to fish or pump water but made him wonder just what they were going to do for the rest of the winter.

  He had sharpened his sword more in the last two weeks than in the entire time he’d owned it. Since he’d been given the sword when he was twelve that in itself spoke volumes.

  He looked out the window. The snow was falling again and there was already at least a foot and a half on the ground. The ice on the river was now thick enough he could have walked on it if he wasn’t afraid of slipping and falling.

  Mallory had suggested that Duncan make some snow shoes from woven bamboo. Duncan did so, and while they worked pretty well they were hard to walk in. They had cleared the ice on the gangplank and the deck where they had to walk by dumping the ashes from the stove on it every day.

  Duncan hoped they had enough wood because he was pretty sure it would be impossible to get any after this next snowfall.

  It was too hard to walk in the snow, and it was too cold to be outside long enough to relieve themselves. They had, in fact, started going in a bucket they kept in the boiler room, and once a day they argued over whose turn it was to dump it. Whoever lost had to hold his nose with one hand, and carry the bucket to a pit they’d dug on shore—the whole while praying that he didn’t slip on some ice, falling flat on his rear in the freezing snow, watching in horror as that bucket of waste flew up in the air to land…where ever it may.

  Outside the wind was really blowing. In fact, the windows on the starboard side of the ship were coating over with snow so fast that soon you wouldn’t be able to see out of them. Yet the boat barely moved at all, no doubt because of the thick ice all around it.

  At his shoulder, Mallory, no doubt seeing what he was looking at said, “Another bad storm.”

  “You know at first I thought the snow was pretty,” Duncan said. “Now it just looks cold.”

  “No doubt about it, we’re wintering right here,” Mallory said with a laugh.

  “I guess by spring we will have thought of every way there is to eat turnips and fish,” Duncan added with a sigh.

  They’d already had fish and turnip stew, fish cakes, turnip cakes, turnip bread, fried turnips, baked turnips, mashed turnips, etcetera, etcetera.

  “Variety is the spice of life.” The dragon laughed.

  “What are we going to do all day, every day?” Duncan asked.

  “What we’ve been doing. Working on getting this boat ship shape and ready to sail. Keeping the fire fed, eating, sleeping.….”

  “It’s pretty monotonous, isn’t it? I swear, Mal, if we have one more conversation about how cold or white it is, I’m going to scream.”

  Mallory chuckled a little. “I hear ya. Snow-covered landscape is only pretty when it’s a novelty. When it’s all you see out the window all day every day, well, the bloom is off the rose as they say.”

  “I wish we could have managed to get that part fixed and steamed out of here before the cold hit. That jerk blacksmith.”

  “That man will rue the day he messed with us, that’s for sure. I�
�m cooking up a plan that blacksmith won’t soon forget. Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got plenty of time, and by spring thaw I’ll know just how to get him to fix the part. Maybe even be able to get him to pay us for the privilege.”

  “Just what do you have in mind?”

  “That’s the thing about a really good plan, Dunc. It doesn’t come to you all at once. The minute it has fully gelled, all will be revealed.”

  * * * *

  In the next two weeks the arguments about whose turn it was to dump the bucket became more heated as the snow got deeper and the wind colder. And in spite of their best efforts they had way too many conversations about how cold and white it was.

  They took turns fishing and cooking without fighting at all. They kept themselves reasonably clean heating the water on the stove and taking washcloth baths in the sink. They washed their clothes in the same sink and hung them on some ropes they had strung near the ceiling in the kitchen to dry.

  They made a broom from some dried grass they’d pulled before the snow got too deep. They tied it to a stick with some wire and used the broom to sweep every room on the boat. Twice actually.

  They’d washed and scrubbed everything they could find to wash and scrub.

  After having done all that, they basically had nothing at all to do most days. Just fish, cook, do minor cleaning, eat, sleep and stoke the furnace. Of course there was always talking about how cold and white it was outside.

  In fact for the last three or four days everything had just been complete routine to the point that Duncan had started to look forward to seeing the demon at night. At least it was different from what was going on during the day.

  Fred had come up with several very useful items that he was happy to let them use. Among other things a tea strainer, several sections of rope, and some tin can lids. When he’d first showed up with the tin can lids Duncan had thought they were useless. Then one day he noticed that they fit over knot and rat holes very nicely. He’d nailed them over holes all over the ship and was sad when he ran out.

  They had just settled down on their respective beds and were starting to eat their dinner. As the last lights of dawn faded the demon popped in wearing a red-checked napkin tied around his neck. It had a bowl in one hand and a fork in the other.

  “You’re late,” Mallory said.

  “I was washing my hair,” he said with his big demon voice.

  Fred maybe had three hairs on his entire head. He walked over to the counter where Mallory had left him some food in the pot. He carefully spooned it into his bowl then flopped down on the counter to eat.

  “My gods I’m so incredibly, unbelievably bored!” Mallory said.

  “Me too,” Duncan said, sighing almost with relief.

  “Me too,” the demon said with his small voice. When they both glared at him, he shrugged and said in his big voice, “Me used to raise hell every night. Scare all hell out of rectangle guy. Now am like pet rat.”

  “Really ugly pet rat,” Duncan mumbled. Then he said to Mallory, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad we have plenty of food and are warm. I’m happy we have a nice place to live and comfortable beds and all that. But having everything we need, well…there just isn’t much to do, is there?”

  “Tozactly!” Mallory said. “It’s that whole ‘beware of what wishing for can get you’ thing.” He looked confused by his own words then shook his head. “That isn’t exactly what the saying is, but it means about the same.”

  “When I was back in Spurna all I ever used to do was lie around and hide from the war. I could happily sleep away most of the day. I didn’t care if I ever did anything at all. Maybe I’d tinker with something….”

  “Tinker!” Fred hissed in his big voice. “Me know there something about you I not like.” Then in his small one added, “Tinkerer. I shouldah know.”

  “Oh yes. You’re one to judge anyone. A walking fungus that lives to scare things and tear stuff up,” Duncan snapped. “My point is that since I left home, good, bad, or indifferent, I sort of got used to always being one step from trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Mallory said, as if he knew exactly what the human was talking about. “It’s nice not to have to worry about where we’re going to sleep or if we’re going to be able to eat. But because we don’t have a problem—at least not one we can do anything about right now—there is just nothing to do. Sit and wait the weather out.”

  Duncan sighed. “I keep thinking I would have been a few coins ahead if I’d bought fewer supplies and bought a set of checkers or a deck of cards. You don’t happen to have anything like that do you, Fred?”

  “Oh, Fred see how this is. You need something you call me Fred. You don’t, I am walking fungus,” Fred said all devil-voiced again.

  “Do you have something like that or not?” Duncan asked.

  “No…I have harmonica. Play real good. I go get.” And with a pop he was gone. He came back a few minutes later with a harmonica and he started playing. He wouldn’t have been bad at all if he didn’t play the notes loud and then low and then loud and then low.

  Duncan realized right then why the creature talked so funny. It was a matter of wind. He breathed funny, so he spoke funny.

  Mallory suddenly reached inside his vest and started feeling around. At first slowly and then more franticly. About ten minutes later he pulled out a deck of cards. “Five card stud! Aces are wild!” he called out.

  “Mallory, the only card games I know how to play are Go Fish and Spoons,” Duncan said.

  “Then I’ll teach you. Since you have the learning curve of a turnip, that should consume most of the winter.”

  * * * *

  The human was indeed a slow learner. It took forever to teach him the bare minimum needed to attempt a game.

  Fred, on the other hand, was actually quite a good poker player, which was good because two hands in, Mallory realized he was already getting rusty.

  No matter how many hands they played the human never seemed to improve. The truth was Duncan had no talent for cards. A sick three-legged cat could have read his tells. He was easily excited and whether excited or distracted it was easy to get him to bet far more beans than he should have.

  The more bored Duncan got, the stranger the things he did to amuse himself. He ran up and down the stairs several times a day. He said to keep in shape.

  “What shape?” Mallory asked in confusion.

  “Hah?”

  “What shape are you going for exactly? Won’t having huge legs just make your head look even smaller?”

  “My head’s not small, lizard.”

  “If you say so.” Mallory shrugged.

  “Still you could be right about my legs.” He then dropped to the floor and started doing pushups. It all seemed too much like work for Mallory’s liking. He assumed the human was now willingly doing things he’d worked his whole life to avoid doing. He didn’t say so because as long as Duncan was busy Mallory could have a little peace and quiet.

  “Well at least some peace,” Mallory mumbled as the thudding sounds of Duncan’s size fourteen feet slapping against the stairs echoed around the boat.

  Mallory put his mind on how best to deal with the crooked blacksmith and get the part fixed. The plan would start to form, he’d get pieces of it floating in on different thoughts, it would be almost complete, and then he’d become all too aware of some missing element—the one thing that eluded him. The glue that held his plan together just wasn’t there.

  Duncan ran in the room and Mallory had to work at not screaming at him. He had been close this time, so close. Duncan dove under his bed, dug around and drug something out.

  Taking a deep breath and swallowing his anger Mallory forced the calm words, “What on Overlap are you doing now?” through clenched teeth.

  “I was thinking I’d clean my armor.” Duncan held his charred chain mail up in front of him.

  As Mallory looked at him, suddenly that last piece of the puzzle was in place. He jumped off his stump, w
alked over and ripped the shirt out of the human’s hands. “Don’t you dare clean this!” He held the shirt up and looked at it. “I know exactly how to take care of the blacksmith, get our part fixed, and put some coin in our pockets to boot.”

  “Honest?” Duncan asked excitedly.

  Mallory smiled. “Oh, most definitely not.” He laid out his plan.

  “But do you think it will really work?”

  “You cut me to the quick! Of course it will work. It’s my idea after all.”

  “How do you know they’ll be afraid of you?”

  “That guy with the wheelbarrow was plenty afraid of me.”

  The human nodded, but then said, “Yeah but you ran up on him and apparently he’s a bit of a drunk.”

  “You were afraid of me,” Mallory reminded.

  “Yeah, but I’m afraid of caterpillars.”

  “True, but take my word for it. Those village folks ain’t ever seen the likes of me. You remember what our friend Anthony said? These people are backwards.”

  “Let’s do it,” Duncan said excitedly.

  “I think we better wait for this ice and snow to melt first.”

  Chapter Nine

  The winter seemed to drag on and ever on and yet Duncan never got any better at playing cards. It did pass the time, but they were both sleeping a lot. While Mallory spent more and more of his waking time working out the intricate details of his plan, the human was mostly delving ever deeper into cabin fever.

  The human was now working out four or five times a day. He had built a woman from bamboo, dried grass, and baling wire, and Mallory didn’t want to know what they did when they were upstairs alone.

  The absolute extent of Duncan’s ailment came to light when he argued with Mallory that it was his turn to dump the slop bucket. Mallory was trying to get out of it even though he knew it was his turn when he realized the human was saying it was his turn.

  “Knock yourself out,” Mallory said, letting Duncan win.

  Mallory thought his big dragon brain was better equipped to deal with boredom and confinement. He had been wondering about fish-eating ever since Duncan had pointed out that they weren’t a vegetable. They’d been baiting their “fishing hole” with fish guts and food scraps all winter and… Well the fish were easier to catch every day. They never seemed to wise up, so they must be pretty dim, and so Mallory came to the conclusion that they really were plants.