“I’m surprised no has tried a rescue before,” Tarrin mused, “if it’s so easy.”
“I understand that the prior king forbade any rescue attempt, for fear of the dragon’s wrath,” Sigrun explained. “I suspect the fear of the warlord Malconte is behind King Eric’s decision. If the princess has lived with the dragon for several years, it’s not her ‘desperate plight’ that motivates her brother’s order to get her back. He’s been king for well over a year.”
Tarrin looked at her with level gray eyes for a long time before nodding in agreement.
“We ride three hours before dawn,” he told her.
~o0o~
It had been a remarkably easy rescue. Tarrin and Sigrun had led a picked party of riders into the hills. The dragon had been gone, and they had easily packed up the sullen, and silent, princess and set her on a spare horse for the ride back to the castle. Now she sat in her brother’s library awaiting her fate, with only Sigrun and the Lady Frideswide for company. She had bathed and changed into fresh clothing, but for some reason she affected the Southern custom of veiling her face. Those who remembered her looks thought they understood.
The door opened and King Eric entered with a flourish. It seemed to be his habit to do everything with a flourish. “Ah, my dear sister,” he greeted Rowena, taking a seat near her and closer to the fire. “So good to see you at last.”
“Greetings, my dear brother,” Rowena replied. “The crown becomes you.” Her brother smiled at that.
“You will soon have one of your own, as a queen,” he informed her.
It was a very good thing, Sigrun thought, that he couldn’t see Rowena’s face.
“You are to marry a most powerful warlord, a certain Baron Malconte.”
“That will make me a Baroness, not a queen,” Rowena pointed out.
Eric waved a hand in airy dismissal. “He has prospects,” he told her.
Doesn’t he just, Sigrun thought, and Rowena would be queen here, when you are no longer king in your ancestral hall.
“Oh, brother mine, are we really blood kin? Or did I get all the brains as you got all the looks?” Rowena muttered, too softly for Eric to hear. Sigrun stared into space and pretended she had not heard either.
“But what if I do not want to marry him?” Rowena asked aloud.
Eric looked annoyed. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s a good match, and it is your duty to marry. I have found a powerful husband for you. You should be grateful.”
“Excuse me,” Sigrun spoke up quickly, before Rowena could tell her brother what she thought of his choice, his character, his morals, and his intelligence—or lack thereof. Eric looked at her, slightly surprised. “We have returned your sister to you, as we pledged, have we not?” Eric nodded.
“Yes, you have,” he said. “And you will be rewarded.”
“Your acknowledgment of our service is reward enough for me,” Sigrun said. She stepped back, a soft smile on her face.
“They may have brought me to you, but I am not staying!” Rowena announced. She stood, a handful of gems falling from her lap where they had been hidden by her veil. Quickly she ran to the balcony and slammed the doors shut behind her. There was a rush of wind and a large shadow over the balcony, and when they managed to force the windowed doors open, all they could see was a speck in the distant sky that marked the dragon carrying Rowena off, again.
~o0o~
“We returned your sister to you, as we pledged,” Tarrin said. Eric sat in his chair at the end of the table, despondent. “If we were to try again, how can we be sure that she would not be carried off again? It seems like a futile exercise.”
“Malconte will be here by next spring,” King Eric moaned in a voice filled with anguish. “There is no way we can raise an army large enough to stop him in the time left.”
“There may yet be a way, your highness,” Sigrun said from her side of the table.
“How?” the King asked. A note of hope quavered in his voice.
“The dragon has sent word that she wishes to parley. She is flying overhead now. If you will follow me onto the roof?”
“How do we know it is not some trick?” Tarrin asked. His hand went to his sword hilt.
“What is there to lose?” Sigrun asked reasonably. “King Eric’s kingdom is lost by next spring anyway. Let him hear the dragon out.” Eric nodded numbly and Sigrun led them out and up on to the roof. Frideswide was already there, wrapped in furs. As they stepped out on the wind-whipped stones the dragon came to a landing on the battlements. Rowena was mounted on her back.
“Greetings, brother!” she called. “Nice day, isn’t it?” Like her aunt, she was wrapped in warm furs, and as before, she was veiled.
“Let’s get to the point,” the dragon said, her voice cutting through the wind. “Malconte seeks to sit on your throne by spring, and there’s precious little you can do to stop him.” Eric nodded in answer.
“Good,” the dragon said. “I’m glad we agree. Now, if I had a good human guard company of my own to help, I could defend this land, and with my treasure hoard I could pay them.”
“Why should you do this?” Eric asked.
“If my foster-daughter were queen, I would be obligated to do so,” the dragon told him. It took a moment for the meaning of the words to sink in.
“You want me to abdicate in favor of my sister?” Eric sounded appalled.
“I would not need this castle, dear brother,” Rowena said. “Just the crown. And you would still be alive, which is more than Malconte plans for you. Your children would be my heirs, for I assure you that I don’t plan to marry, and you could rule here as my viceroy. You could live a life of comfort here, and we, with your mercenary band, would do all the work. I rather doubt that Malconte will want to take us on. A dragon with a mercenary company would be quite a mouthful, even for such a powerful warlord as Malconte.”
It took a while to negotiate the details of the transfer, but eventually it was done. Even Eric could see the logic of it all. By day’s end Rowena was queen, and safely back in the cavern. Tarrin and his company were encamped on the hillside below the cavern’s entrance.
“This is working out well,” Sigrun said. “Now all we need is a name for our new company.”
“How about ‘the Dragon’s Horde’?” Rowena asked. Only her fleetness of foot—and the fact that no one wanted to push past the dragon to go after her—allowed her to escape into the darkness of the cavern unharmed.
A Prince Among Frogs
Elisabeth Waters
Jan looked into her refrigerator and frowned. “Out of diet soda again,” she muttered. “When am I ever going to learn to shop properly?” She closed the refrigerator door and went outside to her back patio.
She decided to go next door to her cousin Julian’s house. Julian was 16 years old and a neatness freak. Over the past year, with the help of his decidedly unusual cleaning service, his home had gone from total chaos (courtesy of his absent-minded parents) to a place that could be depended on to have whatever Jan had just run out of. And she knew Julian was home; she could hear him talking to a friend on his patio.
She walked through the gate between their back yards, calling out a greeting to Julian and his friend, just as the sun set.
Since both of them were looking at her, she was the only one who saw exactly what happened next, and even she didn’t believe it at first.
There was a flash of bright light, outshining the floodlights which lit the terrace, and a loud popping sound from an aquarium which had been sitting on the terrace next to Julian’s friend. When she had opened the gate, the aquarium had contained a frog. Now it was on its side and a naked man was sitting beside it. He looked to be about Jan’s age (mid-twenties), and the first thing she noticed as she stared at him was that he was gorgeous. His eyes were brilliant blue, his hair was blond and shoulder length, and his muscles... His pecs looked like something off the cover of a romance novel, but he had the leg muscles of a figure skater. Of
course, a tiny voice in her mind said, if he really was just a frog, he would have great legs.
He also looked disoriented by his surrounding and very embarrassed by his nudity, especially when he noticed Jan staring at him. He blushed and moved quickly to stand behind the nearest chair. Since the chair was wrought iron filigree, it wasn’t much cover, but Jan supposed it was the thought that counted. She felt a bit embarrassed herself—it wasn’t like her to drool over a man’s muscles.
The boys’ conversation stopped dead as they twisted in their chairs and saw what Jan was looking at. Julian, his jaw hanging, just stared at the man for a second. Then he found his voice. “Aiken!” he screamed.
The door to the kitchen opened and shut again. “What’s wrong, Julian?” a gruff low-pitched voice asked.
“He, uh—” Julian pointed to the naked man.
The man, still clutching the back of the chair, twisted to face the door and inclined his head gravely, looking relieved at the sight of the small brown man.
Stranger and stranger, Jan thought. He can see Aiken, and he’s not freaking out—which is how most people react to him.
“Good evening, gentlebeing,” the man said. “Peace be to the house thou keepest.”
“I thank thee, Highness,” Aiken replied. “Master Julian,” he continued, “I am a brownie. I do floors, I do walls, I do windows, I even do ceilings. I do not, however, do enchanted princes, enchanted frogs, or any combination thereof. You’ll have to get help for this little problem elsewhere.” The kitchen door closed behind him with a definite snap.
“An enchanted prince?” Julian asked incredulously.
“You have a brownie for a housekeeper?” his friend said in disbelief. “I thought brownies existed only in fairy tales—except for the chocolate kind.”
“What’s wrong with having a brownie?” the prince asked curiously. “I’m sure he’s an excellent housekeeper. And, to be frank, I consider his suggestion that we seek further help an excellent one.”
Julian looked helpless. “Jan? Have you got any ideas?”
“Jan?” the prince asked, turning to look at her.
“This is my cousin Jan,” Julian explained. “She’ll know what to do; she’s a witch.”
“A witch,” his friend repeated. “Your housekeeper is a brownie, and your cousin is a witch. I suppose your aunt is the tooth fairy?”
“Not that I know of,” Julian said calmly. “And who are you to talk, Danny?” he added, somewhat less calmly. “You’re the one with the enchanted frog prince!”
“He’s not my prince—or frog—or whatever,” Danny protested. “I never even saw him before last night! Thea brought him to my little sister’s slumber party and persuaded Jennifer to kiss him, and then—” he broke off, shaking his head.
“Is your cousin a powerful witch?” the prince asked Julian hopefully.
Julian nodded. “She called up a tornado for her very first spell when she was only eleven.”
“Impressive,” the prince remarked.
“Maybe,” Danny said dubiously. He seemed the most unnerved of them by the whole business. Jan guessed that it was his first exposure to magic. She and Julian had become a bit blasé on the subject. “What was she trying to do when she called up the tornado?”
Jan laughed. “I was trying to make it rain so that my brother Peter and I wouldn’t have to weed the vegetable garden. I’ve learned better since then. I’ll do what I can, Julian, but I’m due at the theater tonight. Now, what’s going on?”
“Well,” Julian, belatedly remembering his manners, started with introductions. “This is my friend Danny, and this is—”
As Julian groped for a name he did not know, something seemed to jog the prince’s memory. Suddenly he looked a good deal less dazed and confused than he had a moment ago.
“Prince Florian of Astrefiore, at thy service, Mistress.” He bowed from behind his chair. Jan got the impression he would have kissed her hand if he could have reached it.
“But when I brought him here,” Danny said, pointing to the aquarium, “he was a frog.”
“Well,” Jan said calmly, dropping into a chair, “why don’t we start with getting him some clothes to wear. And, Julian, do you have any diet soda here? I’ve run out at home.”
“Yeah, sure; I’ll get some.” Julian looked relieved to be dismissed, however temporarily. “You want ice in the soda?”
“Please.”
Julian disappeared into the kitchen, and Jan looked at Florian and Danny. “Why don’t you sit down,” she suggested, “and tell me what happened?”
Danny sat down again, but Florian clearly did not wish to leave the shelter of the chair. He did, however, start talking.
“There was a beautiful young princess named Rowena,” he began, “who was abducted by a dragon on her fourteenth birthday.”
Danny made a sudden choking noise; Jan glared him into silence.
“My eldest brother was among the guests at the party when she was carried off,” Florian continued, “and he came home and told us of her abduction—and of how her own father forbade all of the princes gathered there to attempt her rescue!” He obviously still felt indignant at such injustice and at the king’s lack of feeling for his daughter’s plight. “As it is the clear duty of a prince to rescue such an innocent victim, and as King Mark’s unnatural command was not binding on me, I set out for the mountain where the dragon laired.” He stopped and frowned. “I remember the journey to the mountain, and I remember approaching the dragon’s cave and hearing the most frightful shrieking noise ... and the next thing I remember was being in a most strange room with a very soft floor, full of maidens I had never seen before, dressed in odd apparel—” he broke off, eyeing Jan’s blue jeans.
“My sister’s slumber party,” Danny explained, picking up the story. “One of her friends brought him as a sort of joke present—you know, for Jennifer to kiss—but when she did, he turned human, and the girls all started screaming and I came downstairs to see what was happening—I thought he was on drugs, ‘cause he looked so spaced out—and then he turned back to a frog again, and my parents came home just then, so I took him upstairs and put him in my old aquarium. I thought maybe I dreamed the whole thing, but I brought him here tonight just in case, and now he’s turned human again, and I can’t take him home if he’s going to keep doing this—my mother will have fits!”
“When?” Jan asked.
“When what?”
“When did he change back to a frog last night?
Danny frowned and tried to remember exactly, “I think it was about seven-thirty, because it was right before my parents came home.” He shuddered. “If they’d come in two minutes earlier, they would have seen him change, and I don’t think they’d have liked it. But if they had seen him change,” he said, “I don’t think Dad would want to take him to school. He teaches biology,” he added in explanation for the last remark.
“Seven-thirty,” Jan murmured. “I assume that nobody kissed him again or did anything else that might have triggered a change?”
“Not unless you count screaming, running, and hiding behind the furniture,” Danny said. “I started to call 911, but when Thea said he’d been a frog, I decided I didn’t want to try to explain that to the police.”
Jan leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and tried to concentrate. She had a guilty feeling that part of this was her fault. She was a stage magician, in addition to being a witch, and she had been trying for days to come up with a really good original illusion. Prince Florian’s appearance in her life looked like a definite example of “Be careful what you pray for; you will certainly get it.”
“Magical transformations,” she muttered. “It’s not the standard frog prince spell, or a virgin’s kiss would have turned him human permanently—I assume your sister is a virgin.”
“She’d better be,” Danny said grimly. “She’s only thirteen.”
“Vampires don’t turn into frogs,” Jan continued to think al
oud, “and their transformations are voluntary. Werewolves change at the full moon—”
She looked up at the moon, low in the western sky. “The moon is waxing now. I wonder what time it sets tonight.”
Aiken and Julian returned, Julian with a glass of soda, and Aiken with a book, a clipboard and pen, a calculator, and a set of clothes for Florian. He dumped everything but the clothing in front of Jan, then took Florian aside and helped him to dress—Florian had obviously never seen a sweat shirt or sweat pants before and seemed unclear on the concept of underwear. Jan tried not to watch—at least not obviously—and managed to keep from giggling when Florian got tangled in the sweat shirt. Aiken looked as if he wanted to swear, but was restraining himself out of respect for the Prince’s rank.
Julian seemed happy to let Aiken handle this problem. He set the soda on the table in front of Jan and flopped into the remaining chair. “How’s it going?”
“I’m thinking,” Jan said, pausing to sip her soda. She looked at the book Aiken had dropped in front of her. It was an almanac and when she opened it, the pages turned to an explanation of how to calculate moonrise and moonset. Jan grabbed the clipboard and calculator and started figuring. It took about five minutes before she had her answer. The moon had set last night at 7:32 pm local time. “I think it’s some sort of crazy cross between the frog prince spell and lycanthropy. If it’s a sun-down moon-up transformation, which is my best guess at the moment, he’ll turn back to a frog about an hour later tonight than he did last night. We’ll need to observe him for a while and find out exactly what time he turns back into a frog.”
“Is there no way to stop that from happening, Mistress?” Prince Florian asked, poking his head out of the sweatshirt. “Before I was not aware when I was a frog, but now I am, and I do not enjoy it.”
“Not in the next two hours, which is all the time I have now,” Jan said briskly. “I’ve got to be at the theater in time to get ready for my act.”
The Princess, the Dragon, and the Frog Prince Page 5
