The Adventures of Duncan & Mallory: The Beginning

by Robert Asprin

  “Since it’s going to be my last meal and all,” Duncan said with a half smile.

  “You don’t seem scared at all. The odds are six to one that the dragon will kill you.” She was a pretty little thing, and there was a note of real concern in her voice.

  “I know something they don’t know. I have fought a dozen dragons, and though I’ve had bones broken and a few cuts and burns, I’m still very much alive. Did you,” he picked up a piece of sausage took a bite and swallowed it before finishing his question, “bet against me?”

  “Most certainly not,” she said, a note of disgust in her voice. “A stranger with no ties to our community offers his services to fight a dragon that’s terrifying our town. Why, to bet against you seems like a horrible wrong to me, and…no offense, but to bet against the dragon just seems foolhardy. I’m only a chambermaid. I don’t make much money, and certainly not enough to make a bet when I might lose.”

  “There is too much food here for just me. Would you care to join me for breakfast?”

  “The manager…. He would say he only pays me to work not visit with the guests.”

  “Then you tell the manager it was my wish that you have breakfast with me. Surely he wouldn’t begrudge a man his last wish.”

  She nodded, and Duncan picked up the table and carried it over till he could sit on the bed. With a wave of his hand indicated she should sit in the chair. She carried it over and sat down across from him. She poured him a cup of coffee.

  “Do you think it is your last day?”

  “I know it’s not,” Duncan said, happy to talk to perhaps the only person in town—besides of course Bilgewater and Sadie—who wasn’t hoping he was going to die.

  “You are very brave,” she said, buttering a piece of toast for herself.

  “Yes, yes I am,” Duncan said, realizing that what had been missing for him was playing the hero. This town had treated him like a mercenary from the start, trying to get him to take less money and then putting out wanted posters for Mallory.

  They hadn’t been playing by the rules Duncan had made for this con at all. Now suddenly everything seemed right because he was getting a free breakfast and a pretty girl thought he was a hero. “I also have faith in my skill as a warrior. I know what I’m capable of. They don’t,” Duncan added. The fact that he didn’t choke on the piece of bacon he was chewing on told him that he really had become quite the actor.

  In fact, here he was trying to eat as much of this food as he could, and he had been taught all his life to eat light before going into battle.

  “Did you…did you always want to be a dragon slayer?” she asked him curiously.

  “No, I thought I wanted to be a blacksmith once,” Duncan said truthfully.

  “Why didn’t you?” she asked.

  “What’s your name, miss?”

  “Lucinda.”

  “Well, Lucinda, the truth is that I’m a Romancer. I came from a family of great fighting men, and nothing would do but that I grow up to do as they had done. I wasn’t allowed to make a decision about what I wanted to do or be,” Duncan said, and thought and once I got away from them, I found that the easiest way to make a living and do mostly what you want to do is to pretend to be something you never could be. “What about you, are you happy to be a chambermaid?”

  She laughed—a musical sound that made Duncan smile. “No one’s happy to be a chambermaid, mister….”

  “Just Duncan.” He smiled.

  “Anyway, Duncan, chambermaid isn’t a career choice. It’s what you get stuck with.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “You’ll think it’s silly.”

  Considering what I actually do for a living I’m hardly the man to pass judgment, Duncan thought. Then he smiled and said, “Try me. After all, I fight dragons for a living.”

  “I want to be a seamstress. Make clothes. You know, design them, sew them, maybe someday have my own shop where I sell what I make.”

  “That doesn’t sound silly at all, and certainly it’s not an unattainable goal.”

  “Are you kidding me? A sewing machine that will do what I want to do costs eighty-five coins. That’s more than I make in six months. Katy Smith…she’s the school teacher. She told me that I should save just a little money each time I get paid, and that eventually I’ll be able to buy a machine. I don’t think she knows what it costs me to live. By the time I pay room and board to the manager here I’m mostly working to pay my debt. I managed to save five coins in eight months, but then I had a toothache. It took everything I’d saved, and I still owe the dentist ten coins. Doesn’t seem fair. Guy pulls one of my teeth, it takes him less than ten minutes to do it, and he charges me more money than I make in two months’ time.”

  No, it didn’t seem fair at all. Once again Duncan saw himself as not just a guy out to make a quick buck but as a great equalizer of sorts. He knew exactly what he was going to do, so he finished eating, enjoying the pleasant conversation and good food.

  When he was done, Lucinda stood up and started to clean up the mess, loading everything onto the tray. She looked at him, smiled, and then said, “Now don’t you go and get yourself killed today.”

  “I have no intention of it, and who knows, that varmint dragon may not even show up today. He may never come back, in which case I’ll have to leave with my pockets light, but at least your town will be safe.”

  “You think that could happen? That he might just not come back?” Lucinda asked.

  “Not for a minute.” He smiled, wrestled his pouch from his belt, and dumped a bunch of coins into his hand. “You said the odds against me are six to one, right?” Lucinda nodded, staring at the pile of coins in his hand. “Well, I have no intention of dying and every intention of ridding this town of their dragon problem. So here are fifteen coins.” He counted them out. “I will only give them to you if you promise to run right to the betting parlor and bet it all on me. Fifteen coins won’t do much more than put you back where you were before you went to the dentist, but if you bet it on me and I slay the dragon…which I will…then you’ll have ninety coins which ought to pay off the dentist and buy you that sewing machine you want.”

  “I…I can’t take your money.”

  “Sure you can.” He took hold of her wrist, gently opened her hand, and put the coins into it. Then he closed her fingers over them. “It will bring me luck and give me strength to know that one person in this whole town will not be cheering for my death.”

  She nodded. “I will place the bet right now, and when you beat this dragon I will put the money to good use. I will think of you often and fondly. Is there no way you can stay?”

  Duncan wished there was if for no other reason than to get to know Lucinda better. He’d already told her the story of how he had to keep moving because the family of all the dragons he’d ever killed was after him. In fact he had shared the whole other list of lies he and Mallory had concocted, so that the things Duncan did, and the fact that none of them could see the body of the dead dragon, made perfect sense.

  The people in the villages and towns of Winterhurst were extremely superstitious. Because of this they were gullible. As Mallory would say, they were an easy mark. Duncan once again felt a little guilty about what he was doing, but only a little.

  As the dragon had pointed out they wouldn’t be gullible if they weren’t ignorant. And they were ignorant because they chose to learn only those things that were easy for them to understand, didn’t take too much thought, and didn’t go against anything they already believed.

  Mallory had even explained that by taking advantage of these people’s ignorance they were helping them to evolve. They would learn nothing about how to protect themselves from being swindled if they were never swindled, and they would never get any smarter.

  Of course the dragon had a way of rationalizing anything away.

  It didn’t matter. It made Duncan feel better, and at the end of today they’d all think he was a hero. He’d collect h
is reward, and if nothing else he and Mallory would have shaken the boring out of the town for a few days. They’d put on a good show and leave the people with something to talk about for years to come.

  As he watched Lucinda leave with the money and the tray he sighed. His only real regret was that he wouldn’t get the chance for her to show her gratitude to him for all he’d done for her.

  It was the price he paid for being a hero.

  He packed all his gear into his backpack, put on the rest of his clothes and his armor and left the hotel. He walked to the general store, went in and started shopping. He got a section of rope and some vegetable oil.

  “What you going to do with these?” the shop keeper asked as he rang up his purchases.

  “This dragon is tricky, so I’m going to have to keep my wits about me. I’m going to try to set a trap for him, string the rope across the road just out of his line of sight—dragons have trouble seeing below their knees you know.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well they do. It’s all about where their eyes are in their head and because their knees bend backwards.”

  “Their knees bend backwards?”

  “Yes, they do. Any way I figure I’ll go find him, get him to chase me and trip him with the rope.”

  “What’s the oil for?”

  Because I have a new frying pan and I want to fry up some fish, Duncan thought. Just like he’d bought the rope because he’d used his last piece to tie up Humphrey and he always needed rope for something. Of course the idea was for him to appear to be shopping for items with which to kill the dragon so that he could be seen in public and appearing busy when Mallory came to destroy the town. “I, ah…I’m going to oil the rope so that when he hits it, it will be slick and he’ll slide and trip. When he falls I’ll chop off his head.”

  The shop keep got an “oh-you-poor-boy-you’re-about-to-die-in-a-horrible-way” look on his face which Duncan figured worked for him. Before Duncan could pull out the coins to pay, the shop keep shut the drawer of the cash register and the No Sale tab popped up.

  “No charge, Duncan, and good luck to you son,” he said.

  “Thank you kindly.” Duncan nodded, loaded the oil and rope into his pack and walked out on the porch. It shouldn’t be long now. He walked off the porch slowly like a man on a mission but in no hurry to say hello to his death.

  * * * *

  Mallory checked the ropes on Humphrey where he’d tied him to a tree. He had decided after Humphrey tried to burn his ropes off that he’d best tie him to something so big he couldn’t move it, just to be on the safe side.

  “When I get loose, dragon, and I will get lose, I’m going to kill you and your little friend too!” Humphrey screamed.

  “See, when you say things like that you don’t leave much incentive for me to let you live,” Mallory said, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “This is all your own fault you know.”

  “What?”

  “If you hadn’t come in here trying to wreck everything we wouldn’t have had to tie you up. You’re a kill-joy, Humphrey, and nobody likes a kill-joy.”

  “So you’re just going to leave me here tied to this tree, without food or water.”

  “Well I was going to come untie you as soon as we were ready to leave, but then you’re going on and on about killing us and such.”

  This seemed to take all the wind out of the big man’s sails and he started to actually cry. And then there was the pleading, “Please dragon. Please don’t leave me here to die like this, please….”

  “All right, all right! Geez, I’m embarrassed for you,” Mallory said, shaking his head. “When we get done in town I’ll send someone back to untie you. But if you come after us again, I have to tell you I’m not going to be this nice again.”

  Mallory started for town mumbling. “I’m just too nice that’s my problem. It’s my real undoing at the end of the day, I’m just too nice.”

  Chapter Twelve

  If Duncan had walked through town any slower, snails and turtles would have run past him. He looked up in the sky. It was for sure high noon. He was starting to worry about Mallory when he heard the screaming start from the edge of town, followed by the roaring of his friend doing his best scary-dragon act.

  He ran towards the noise saying, “No time to spring my trap. Everyone run for cover! He’s in a killing mood this time.”

  As Duncan rounded a corner a fireball fell just at his feet. He jumped and glared at Mallory. That was a little too close for comfort. Duncan reached for his sword, had trouble getting it free, finally freed it—and tripped over the length of the blade and nearly fell. Mallory rolled his eyes, shook his head, and then ran at him.

  Duncan raised the sword high and ran towards the dragon, hoping he didn’t fall again. Mallory spit another fireball at him—this time not too close—and then he grabbed Duncan’s sword arm with his tail. They fell to the ground and started to wrestle, all for the benefit of the watching town’s people. Duncan pulled out a pomegranate he had hidden in his tunic and crushed it against Mallory’s side. Mallory cried out in mock pain, got up, threw Duncan several feet then ran off.

  Duncan jumped to his feet and chased Mallory out of town and into the woods. When they were well out of sight of the town’s people, Mallory started throwing fire high into the air so that it could be seen in the distance, and Duncan grabbed a couple of pots and started banging them together.

  “Die, demon beast, die!” Duncan thundered.

  Mallory screamed out a painful, wailing cry.

  “You’ll beseech this town no more!” Duncan hollered.

  “I think you mean besiege this town no more, beseech means….” Mallory started in a little more than a whisper.

  “It’s hardly time for a language lesson,” Duncan whispered back as he knelt to the ground and started smearing his clothes with dirt and mud. Mallory hit him with a couple of pomegranates so that the red juice sprayed everywhere. “Ow! You don’t have to throw them so hard.”

  Mallory picked up the pots and started banging them together. “Don’t be such a baby. You’re wearing chain mail, for heaven’s sake. Besides, we all must suffer for our art.”

  “I don’t see you suffering,” Duncan whispered, rubbing at the spot on his chest where Mallory had hit him.

  “Excuse me! I have to be the villain while you get to be the hero. Who was sleeping in a comfy bed while I was sleeping in a cold cave? I get no love, no admiration.”

  “All you care about is the money.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Aren’t you dead yet?” Duncan asked.

  “You getting tired already?”

  “Yes,” Duncan said.

  Mallory nodded and lay down on the ground playing dead. This time it was a tree that would block anyone from seeing where the dragon’s head had been “cut off.” And of course, Duncan wouldn’t let them get too close because it was for their own safety and all.

  * * * *

  Bilgewater and Sadie hung at the very back of the crowd.

  “They aren’t half bad,” Sadie said of Duncan and Mallory’s performance.

  “Quite good actually.” Bilgewater watched as the small gathering of those brave enough to follow—even though hanging well back—were suddenly elated at Duncan’s apparent triumph over scaly evil. It didn’t last long.

  Bilgewater could see the change in their demeanor as each one seemed to realize they’d just lost a bundle of money. Because, of course, those brave enough to follow the brawling man and dragon were also those who had bet the most money on the outcome.

  “Come on. There are a few people we’ll have to pay, and then we best beat a retreat in case some of the rest aren’t such good losers,” he whispered to Sadie.

  “Do we have to? I’d like to see how they’re going to pull off the whole dead dragon thing,” Sadie said.

  “Come on.” Bilgewater put a hand on her shoulder and propelled her along back towards town and their “office.”


  In all of town only three people had bet on Duncan. One, a young woman, was so excited about the new life she was going to buy with her winnings that Bilgewater found that he couldn’t begrudge her huge payout at all.

  As soon as they had paid the three people they owed money, they quickly packed their stuff and headed for the stables and their horses.

  On the way they noticed a small group had gathered outside the general store, and they stopped to watch.

  The mayor was standing on the porch and Duncan stood beside him. Considering how much money the mayor had bet against Duncan it was no wonder he seemed reluctant to let go of the small bag that no doubt held Duncan’s “reward” money.

  “Good people gather around! Duncan the dragon slayer has killed the dragon and we must all thank him.”

  Nearly the whole town appeared as if from thin air, but the muttering from the crowd didn’t sound at all thankful. Then the young woman who had bet all her money on Duncan started to cheer. She jumped up and down and chanted Duncan’s name until the crowd felt obliged to join in.

  “Thank you, thank you, but that’s not necessary. I was simply doing my job and….”

  A big, filthy man with ropes hanging around his wrists and ankles broke through the crowd.

  “Humphrey!” Duncan exclaimed before Bilgewater had even figured out who it was and obviously before Duncan had time to think about it. Then since he did have a chance to think about it he hollered, “Thank the gods you’re alive, man!”

  “Alive! Alive! You and your dragon friend nearly killed me. I’ve rubbed my arms and legs raw against that tree, but I’m free now—and just in time, I see. This man is no hero. He is a common grafter. The dragon isn’t dead.”

  “We saw the dragon dead just before its carcass vanished,” one man said and a bunch of others joined in.

  Humphrey laughed. “They have played you for fools. Can’t you see that nothing he has told you really makes sense? It’s all a hoax.”

  Duncan was a quicker thinker than Bilgewater would have previously thought. A look of real concern entered his eyes as he said, “The poor man. I thought he had been killed, but obviously he has been in the dragon’s lair all this time, tormented, torn, tortured. It’s no wonder he is delirious….”