“You’re right!” The hard glint of determination shone in the dragon’s eyes. “I do!”
“You deserve an official, genuine, royally appointed dragonherd!” the Badger concluded, triumphant.
Bernice brought her huge head inches from the Badger’s left ear and nearly deafened him when she whispered, “Say what?”
The Blue Badger shook his head to stop the ringing, opened his mouth as wide as it could go a couple of times to make his ears pop, and when sufficiently recovered he replied, “Look, when you were a sheep, didn’t you need a shepherd? An expert on the care and feeding of sheep? Someone to keep watch over you and look out for your best interests and stick up for you?”
Bernice’s slit-pupiled eyes filled with pints of tears. “Dunwin,” she rasped. “My Dunwin always stuck up for me.”
“Well, that’s what a dragonherd does for his dragons!” The Badger smiled. “He knows all about what’s best for dragons the same way a shepherd knows sheep from the ground up. Only thing is, you can’t find a good dragonherd outside of the capital. If you come with us and give us a wee smidgen of assistance now and then—just in the course of destroying the Gorgorians and restoring the true Hydrangean king to the throne—I personally guarantee we’ll find you the best dragonherd in the kingdom and as the gods are my witnesses, you’ll never be hungry again!”
“No,” said Bernice.
“‘No’?” The Blue Badger was mortified.
“No one could ever replace my Dunwin.” She sniffled and cloudy wads of dirty smoke puffed from her nostrils.
“No one will,” said the Badger. “Your Dunwin is in the capital as we speak.”
There followed a flurry of What’s he doing there? And How is he? And Why didn’t you say so in the first place? And Does he miss me? It all ended on a rousing note of What are we waiting for! And the Bold Bush-dwellers set out for the capital, dragon in tow.
Wennedel came to his senses just in time to be told that they had accomplished their mission. He managed a muzzy smile. “Bet the Black Weasel’ll be pleased.”
“He ought to be,” the Blue Badger agreed. “It isn’t every day you find a dragon.”
* * * *
Several miles away, Ochovar peered into the gloomy interior of the cave, then turned and slid quickly back down the slope.
“I don’t see anything,” he said. “I mean, except for a bunch of bones.”
“All right, then, let’s go on to the next,” the Silver Squirrel said.
“Not so fast!” another Bold Bush-dweller protested. “Where’d all those bones come from, if there’s no dragon?”
“Oh, there’s any number of ways they could’ve got here, I’m sure,” Ochovar replied with a shrug.
“Name one.”
“Well, it could’ve been trolls, or bears, or ogres, or maybe a kraken that left them.”
“Ocho,” the Squirrel pointed out, “we’re in the mountains, and krakens live in the deepest part of the ocean; how would a kraken get up here?”
“I never said there were krakens up here,” Ochovar replied defensively. “I said maybe that’s where the bones came from!”
“But if we’re in the mountains, and krakens live in the ocean…”
“Maybe they got washed up here, years ago!”
The rest of the party stared at him silently for a moment.
“All right, forget the kraken, then,” Ochovar shouted. “It still could’ve been trolls or something. And even if it was a dragon, how do we know how old those bones are? They could’ve been there for years! The dragon might have died ages ago, been slain by one of those heroes that goes about slaying innocent dragons, you know…”
“And it might just be out getting a snack,” Red said—he had had an official Bush-dweller animal name once, but he hadn’t liked it much, and after a few judicious thrashings, the others had conveniently forgotten everything but the color.
“Well, yes, I suppose it might, if it’s a dragon at all, but really, I don’t think…”
“Take a closer look at the bones, why don’t you?” the Squirrel suggested. “You can see if they’re fresh, or old and dry.”
Ochovar cast the Squirrel a look that would have curdled skim milk. “I don’t see the point,” he said, “when it might just as well be trolls. There’s no good in my getting eaten by trolls when we’re looking for a dragon, is there?”
“Can’t you outrun a troll, then, if you have to?”
“I don’t know,” Ochovar admitted, “and I’d just as soon not find out!”
“Trolls don’t come out in the daylight,” Red pointed out.
“Bears do.”
Red pulled an arrow from his quiver. “If it’s a bear, I’ll shoot it before it can eat you. Honest.”
Ochovar was not entirely convinced, having seen Red’s performance at the last archery match—he had placed eleventh in a field of twelve, after Dunci had caught an elbow in the eye and missed three shots running. However, Ochovar saw that he wasn’t going to get out of this without a lot of argument, and that it would be much quicker to just get it over with.
And the quicker, the better, in case the dragon came back from getting a snack.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll go check the bones.”
The others made encouraging noises. Moving rapidly but without enthusiasm, Ochovar clambered back up the slope to the mouth of the cave, climbed inside, and made his way down the broad passage, moving as quietly as he could, so as not to disturb anything that might be sleeping in the darkness below.
There were really quite a lot of bones, he realized—the cave was larger than it had looked from the outside. It widened out into a big round chamber, almost circular, the sides curiously smooth and even save for an immense boulder that stood against the back wall, details such as color and texture lost in the gloom.
Fortunately, there was no sign of ogres or bears or trolls.
Ochovar snatched up a bone—and then dropped it again; it rattled on the heap. He had been expecting something old and dried out, and the one he had picked was not dry at all. It was wet.
And it still had meat on it.
And when he had lifted it up into the sunlight, he could see that the meat was still red.
“Help yourself,” a deep voice said. “I’ve had all I want.”
Ochovar spun around, expecting to see a great green dragon’s head in the mouth of the cave, but all he saw was blue sky and sunshine.
“Over here,” the voice said.
Ochovar whirled again, back toward the interior of the cave, but all he saw was the heap of bones, the big rock on the far side…
The big rock with its two golden eyes, staring at him.
“Hello,” Ochovar said, in a weak gasp.
“Hello,” the boulder rumbled. It uncoiled somewhat, and Ochovar realized that it was, indeed, a dragon—a very large dragon. “What brings you here? If you’re looking for a fight, I’d really rather not, and you’re welcome to back down now—I don’t much like fighting on a full stomach. And if you came to commit suicide, or to sacrifice yourself to me for the good of your village, wherever it might be, I’m afraid your timing is all wrong; I’ve just eaten, and I’m really quite full. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow, or next week—I’d be glad to make an appointment.”
The dragon stretched its forelegs, each considerably larger than Ochovar, displaying claws the size of cats.
“That’s quite all right,” Ochovar said, “I don’t mind if you don’t eat me.” The dragon’s speech had relieved a good part of his anxiety, and he was now merely terrified, instead of utterly panic-stricken.
“Good,” the dragon said. “Would you go away, then, and let me finish my post prandial nap?” It closed its eyes and lowered its head to a comfortable position on its foreclaws.
“Uh…I’d be glad to, but…”
“But what?” One golden eye opened, and Ochovar didn’t care for the expression in it.
“Well, I hope you’
ll excuse me…”
“But what?!” A curl of yellow flame flicked from the monster’s jaws, and the blast of sound and warm air sent Ochovar reeling. When he recovered, the dragon’s eyes were wide open, its neck was extended, and it was glowering down at him from several feet up.
For a few seconds Ochovar stared, frozen, up at the beast; then, when it occurred to him that it was getting even more annoyed, he quickly asked, “Is your name Bernice?”
The dragon blinked.
“Is my name what?”
“Bernice,” Ochovar said.
“What kind of a name is Bernice for any self-respecting dragon?” the dragon bellowed.
“Well, it’s…it’s not,” Ochovar stammered. “It’s a name for a sheep.”
“A name for…”
The dragon stopped in mid-sentence, and fixed one eye on Ochovar. It glanced at the mouth of the cave, where Ochovar’s companions were conspicuously absent, then back at the terrified young man.
“All right,” the monster said. “Ordinarily, at this point, I would fry you to a crisp and eat you as an after-dinner snack, but I just know that if I did that, I’d regret it afterward. I’d get a stomachache, I’m sure, and I’d also never find out what in the forty-six green and purple hells of the ancients you’re doing here. So I’m going to keep my temper, interrupted nap or no, and I’m going to sit here and listen while you explain to me just what in the bloody world you’re talking about, and if I’m not satisfied by the explanation, then I’ll toast you. Now, would you mind telling me what I might have to do with sheep, or with anyone named Bernice?”
Ochovar gulped, and then explained. Not just that they were searching for a dragon named Bernice who had once been a ewe; one thing led to another, and he found himself telling the dragon about the Gorgorian invasion of Hydrangea, and the Black Weasel’s brave and determined and ineffectual resistance movement, and King Gudge’s reported demise, and the wizard who seemed to be doing thoroughly unwizardlike things such as working useful magic, and all the rest of it.
His voice gave out eventually, and he stood there, looking woefully up at the beast.
The dragon looked back, then sighed—fortunately, not including any flame, though Ochovar cringed before the blast of hot, fetid air.
“An amazing tale,” the dragon said, “simply amazing. And no, I’m not this Bernice you’re looking for—I am Antirrhinum the Inquisitive, and I’m a true dragon, born and raised a dragon, the scion of at least a dozen generations of respectable purebred dragons.”
“Ah. Well, in that case, I’m very sorry to have disturbed you, Lord Antirrhinum, sir.” Ochovar bowed, and then began inching toward the cave entrance.
“You should be,” Antirrhinum remarked, in a rather distracted fashion.
It was at that moment that the Silver Squirrel abruptly tumbled into the cave and came rolling down the passageway, to stop a few feet away.
He lay dazed for a few seconds, then caught sight of Ochovar’s worried face.
“Oh, there you are!” he said. “Ochie, we were getting worried. What took you so long?”
“The dragon,” Ochovar said, and for the first time the Squirrel noticed the creature watching, with mild interest, over Ochovar’s shoulder.
“Oh,” the Squirrel said, in a voice roughly the size of a nit.
“Lord Antirrhinum, this is my companion, called the Silver Squirrel. Squirrel, this is Antirrhinum the Inquisitive. This is his cave we’re in.” Ochovar glanced up at his host, and added unnecessarily, “He’s a dragon.”
“Oh,” the Squirrel said again, in a slightly larger voice. He swallowed, and said, “He’s not Dunwin’s Bernice, then? He’s a real dragon?”
“Quite real,” Antirrhinum said drily.
“Um…would you like to help us conquer the kingdom anyway, maybe?” the Squirrel asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Antirrhinum said. “I had other plans. Thank you for asking, though.”
“Oh,” the Squirrel said again.
“And now, if you don’t mind, I really would like to finish my nap,” the dragon said.
“Of course,” Ochovar said, hastily snatching the Squirrel’s hand and yanking him to his feet. “We’ll be going, then, and thank you very much.”
“Yes, thank you,” the Squirrel said, as Ochovar dragged him backward up the passageway. “Thank you ever so much.”
It was only when they were both safely out of the cave that the Squirrel turned to his compatriot and asked, “Thank him for what?”
“For not eating us, you idiot!” Ochovar said, whacking the Squirrel on the ear. Then, together, they slid down the slope to their waiting fellows.
Antirrhinum watched their departure from the comfortable depths of his cave, then settled back down, curling himself once more into the shape of a boulder, and tried to sleep.
Sleep did not come. Instead he found himself thinking about everything Ochovar had told him.
Gorgorians in Hydrangea? Antirrhinum had eaten a Gorgorian once, decades ago—tasty, once you got the dirt off. And wizards turning sheep into dragons? That was entirely unheard of, in all his long experience—ordinarily, the only process that turned mutton into dragonflesh was draconic digestion. There was something rather perverse, Antirrhinum thought, in making a dragon from a live sheep. That wizard might want some talking to. While the world could perhaps use a few more dragons—things had got rather lonely of late, especially after that last fad for heroism and knighthood fifty years back—it wouldn’t do to have a lot of Draco-come-latelies cluttering up the landscape and eating the livestock, stealing the food from the mouths of deserving members of the old established families.
And this impending civil war might be amusing to watch. Humans always took these things so seriously.
He would have to look into this. Really, life had gotten a little stale of late, and an excursion to the Hydrangean capital might be just the thing to liven up the situation.
He would go take a look—as soon as he was done with his nap.
With that resolved, he yawned a great gout of crimson flame and fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I don’t see a cave,” Pelwyn—also known as the Green mole, when he wasn’t traveling incognito—said distrustfully, as he stared at the rocky hillside.
“Well, of course you don’t,” Armetta replied. “It’s a wizard’s cave, innit? So it’s whatchacallit, invincible.”
Pelwyn turned to stare at her. “It’s what?”
“Indivisible? Oh, you know the word I mean—you can’t bloody see it.”
“Invisible?”
“That’s the one.” Armetta’s customary smile reappeared.
“Then how do you know it’s there?” Pelwyn demanded.
“Oh, that’s simple enough—because it’s where the wizard lives.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s where he goes when he goes home, o’course.”
“You’ve seen him go into this invisible cave?”
Armetta considered that. “No,” she admitted, “I can’t say as I have.”
“Well, then,” Pelwyn said, “how do you know he does?”
“Well, he has to go somewhere, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but how do you know it’s here?”
“Because ’tis.”
“But…oh, never mind.” He kicked at a rock, only discovering upon impact that it was not, in fact, a loose rock, but rather, one that was still solidly attached to the outcropping on which it sat.
“Can I go, then?” Armetta asked. “I’ve an inn to see to.”
“Go on,” Pelwyn said, resisting the temptation to hold his injured foot in his hand while hopping up and down and howling. It had never before occurred to him that it was possible to be seriously tempted to do something like that, but the urge was really very strong indeed, and distracted him from any reason he might have had to keep Armetta around. The pain in his foot, as much as anything else, convinced him that he was n
ever going to get any sense out of her.
That there was no logical connection between his stubbed toe and the innkeeper’s mental processes didn’t trouble him; he was too busy keeping both feet on the ground.
Armetta stumped off down the hillside, leaving Pelwyn and the other two Bold Bush-dwellers in his party to their own devices.
“I don’t see a cave,” the Vermilion Sparrow said.
“I don’t see a wizard,” the Fuchsia Fox added.
Pelwyn glared at them.
“The wizard’s probably bloody invisible, too, just like his cave,” he announced.
“Then how do we know there is a wizard?” the Fox asked.
“We don’t,” Pelwyn said, “and for all I care, the damned wizard can rot in his invisible cave.”
“The Black Weasel won’t like that,” the Sparrow pointed out.
“I know, Dunci—I mean, Sparrow,” Pelwyn sighed. He looked the hillside over once again, but saw nothing resembling the mouth of a cave. They had searched the area for days before hiring Armetta, and found nothing; it was rather disappointing that after hiring her, they still found nothing.
Arnetta was so certain, though; the cave had to be here somewhere.
“All right, listen,” he said, “if we can’t go to the wizard, we’ll just have to make the wizard come to us, won’t we, lads? Like that old proverb, you can lead a horse to the mountain, but you can’t make him out of a molehill.”
The Ferret and the Sparrow looked at one another, confused.
“What?” the Sparrow said.
“’Snot how I heard that one,” the Ferret said.
“Oh?” Pelwyn sneered at his long-time companion. “And how did you, O great scholar, hear it?”
“’Twas something like, you can’t break a horse without him stepping in molehills, or thereabouts.”
“But wasn’t there one with mountains in it somewhere?” the Sparrow asked.
“Oh, that one,” the Ferret said. “That was, if you can’t climb a nice mountain, don’t climb any mountain at all.”
“No, that’s, if you can’t climb a mountain, sit right here by me, isn’t it?”
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