The Dragon's Choice

by Wesley Allison

  They didn’t speak again for several minutes, concentrating on their eating.

  “I’m not trying to make you cross,” she said at last.

  Just then, the waiters returned with large covered plates. One removed Augie’s appetizer plate, but Zoey just waved away the hands of the other, and moved her plate to the side. The waiters placed the dishes in front of the diners and removed the cloches.

  “Filet de boeuf and lobster tail.”

  “Only the tail?” asked Zoey, crestfallen, but the waiters were already moving away from the table.

  “Don’t worry,” said Augie. “I’ll make sure you get all the lobster you want.”

  “You’ve always been very good to me.”

  “And I always shall be.”

  All other conversation carried on over the main course concerned itself with nothing more than the meal. It was as if both were determined to stay away from any topic of greater gravity. Several times, Augie found Zoey staring at him, but when he caught her eye, she immediately returned her attention to her meal. Finally, the waiters returned to collect the plates. Augie had only been able to eat half of his meal, but it was no surprise that his companion had finished all of hers.

  “Madame,” said the waiter, setting a small covered dish on the table. “It is my very great pleasure to deliver this dessert to you.”

  He lifted the lid and carried it away. Zoey, perplexed, watched his back as he retreated towards the kitchen. When she turned back to her plate, she was startled to find Augie kneeling next to her chair.

  “What is this?”

  He nodded toward the dish. She stared down at a cinnamon raisin pudding, not quite understanding its significance. Then she spotted the ring adorned with a large diamond, stuck into the top of the dessert. She plucked it out and stared at it.

  “Zoey,” Augie started. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  She dropped the ring to the table, placed both hands over her face, and wept.

  “Are those tears of joy?”

  “No, stupid!” she bawled. “They’re tears of sadness! I can’t marry you!”

  “Why not?” He peeled her hands away and peered into her eyes. “You said you weren’t going back to Voindrazius.”

  “I’m not. I’ll never go back.”

  “Then… what? Oh. You’re going to be with Bessemer.”

  “Of course not.” She stopped to sniff. “I’m going to stay here in Port Dechantagne.”

  “You… just don’t want me?”

  “Oh Kafira! Have you always been this stupid? Why haven’t I ever noticed before?”

  “I think you’ve insulted me enough by refusing my proposal,” he said, leaning back. “I don’t think you really need to pile on.”

  Zoey reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Augie, I love you. I can’t marry you though.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are Lord Dechantagne. You have to have a proper family. You have to produce heirs. You can’t do that with me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve researched it. Really. Dragons can only reproduce with humans through the use of magic and at great cost. A long time ago, thirteen hundred years, Voindrazius mated with human women. All of his offspring were monsters, and I don’t mean they were unpleasant dinner companions. They were real monsters—the horrible, scary, eat an entire village kind of monsters.”

  “I see,” said Augie, a dozen emotions passing across his face before determination landed and stayed. “I don’t care. I want you.”

  “You have me.” She slid down onto the floor with him, spreading kisses across his face, as well as tears and snot. “I will be with you until you tell me to leave.”

  “Then you’ll be with me forever.”

  “Or until you find a wife that won’t allow it.”

  “Never,” he said. “I defy the stars to take you from me.”

  * * * * *

  Hundreds of lizzies stared up at the two humans riding atop the iguanodon. The number of lizzie homes that surrounded Dragon Fortress had multiplied at least tenfold since Senta had last been here, some nine years earlier. There were other structures too—tall obelisks, spraying fountains, wide gardens, and finely wrought statues of Bessemer. The plain below the fortress was now a broad but shallow lake, the ancient dam at the far end of the valley having evidently been repaired.

  The large bright blue butterfly that Stinky had been following for days, now led him up a path paved with shiny river stones. It wound up the hill, sometimes approaching the main road, which was filled with lizzies, and sometimes veering farther away.

  “They’re very picky about which road you take,” Senta told her daughter.

  Finally the path led to a small but beautiful gate in the cyclopean fortress wall. It was not as large as the main gate, but was lined with two beautifully carved statues of Bessemer. A male lizzie with a bright red feathered cape waited there.

  “You’ll have to leave the beast outside the gate,” he said in flawless Brech.

  “You’ll have him cared for,” said Senta, as Stinky knelt and she slid to the ground. “If he’s mistreated, I’ll hear about it. He has sentimental value to me.”

  “It will be done.”

  The lizzie waved and a pair of lizzie females hurried to take charge of the iguanodon.

  “Hurry up,” Senta called up to her daughter.

  The girl slid down and landed beside her. Felicity the troodon was held tightly in her grasp.

  “We’ll be staying for a while,” said Senta, turning back to the lizzie. “I assume my old room will be available?”

  He hissed to the affirmative, and then turned to look at the girl.

  “I am Khastla,” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” said the sorceress. “This is my daughter Senta.”

  “She looks very much like you.”

  “Yes, she does.” She looked at the girl. “Tell him ‘thank you’.”

  “I don’t consider that much of a compliment,” said Sen, turning to watch Stinky being led away.

  Senta looked back at the lizzie. “She hasn’t been completely tamed yet.”

  “Why do you have that animal?” asked Khastla, pointing at Felicity. “Are you going to eat it?”

  “Of course not,” said Sen. “It’s a pet.”

  “Oh, yes. I understand—a domesticated creature. You will eat its eggs.”

  “Well… maybe,” Sen allowed. “That’s not the main reason we have it though.”

  “It’s for protection,” said Senta.

  “I can’t imagine that you needing its protection,” said the lizzie.

  “She doesn’t,” said Sen. “She just has it because everyone else has one.”

  With a nod that seemed to serve as a shrug, the lizzie turned and led them through the gate into Dragon Fortress. Inside the walls were numerous tall buildings, constructed with smooth façades, but featuring many window boxes filled with flowers. Between the buildings were flowerbeds, walkways inlaid with colorful pebbles, and shaded with fruit trees covered in blossoms. There were fountains that sprayed out water that was collected into little gutters that wound in and out to feed the plants. Hundreds of lizzies were working, cleaning, polishing, and gardening.

  “This is all quite lovely,” said Sen.

  Senta gave a dismissive wave.

  Khastla led them to a large three-story structure with a double door of heavily polished wood.

  “I will leave you here,” he said. “I am sure that you know your way around inside. I will send servants to assist you.”

  As soon as he left, Senta opened the door and stepped inside, her daughter following her. The interior was slightly different than the sorceress remembered. Here was a spacious room decorated with mosaics on all four walls, featuring images of Bessemer flying in a night sky filled with stars. A large stone hearth sat in the center of the room, with a funnel-shaped device reaching down from the ceiling over it, obvious
ly designed to vent the smoke from the fire. That much was the same. The furniture was different however. A new sofa and several plush chairs sat around the hearth. They were obviously human-manufactured, and probably had come from Port Dechantagne.

  “You see?” said Senta, dropping into one of the chairs. “Just like home.”

  The girl looked around, carefully taking in her surroundings.

  “Mm-hmm. Sure.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three: The Moat of Spikes

  Prince Clitus had been having a wonderful dream. He had been lying in the shade beneath the branches of a great tree, his head in Terra’s lap as she stroked his hair. Her large brown eyes had stared down into his, filling him with a deep comforting warmth. He sighed and opened his eyes, as the hand passed through his hair again. It wasn’t large brown eyes that greeted him however, but sultry green ones. It wasn’t his petite fiancé in his bed with him, but rather his voluptuous sister-in-law.

  “Sweet Kafira!” he said, jumping out of the bed.

  Henrietta looked up at him. She was wearing a wool nightgown that covered her to her ankles. But it was a nightgown. And she was in his bed. Her long blonde hair was down, casually slung over her left shoulder.

  “Henrietta, what are you doing here?” he asked, sidestepping over to get the robe that was hung on the back of the chair. “How did you get in here?”

  “I come in through secret entrance—just there,” she said pointing.

  “And how did you know about that?”

  “Mädchen tell me.”

  “A little girl? What little girl?”

  “Ach, nein. My waiting woman. Mädchen is her name—Mädchen Thomas.”

  “Oh, yes, Mädchen, lovely girl... um, but she must have told you that I am no longer… um, accepting visitors… um through there… at night.”

  “But I need to speak to you, Clitus.”

  “Okay, okay. Maybe you can come by my office in the morning.”

  “Es ist sehr privat. It is personal. I need help.”

  “Well, okay.”

  Clitus slipped the robe over his shoulders and fastened the belt around his waist. He sat on the bottom corner of the bed, as far from Henrietta as possible, while still being on the same piece of furniture.

  “What is the matter?”

  “I am not having a baby yet.”

  “Well, of course not. You’ve only been married a few months… Oh, I see what you’re saying. You’re not with child. I understand. Sometimes it takes a bit of trying, or so I’m led to believe. Tybalt has been trying, hasn’t he?”

  “Ja. I am no longer virgin.”

  Clitus cleared his throat.

  “Well, just give it time. I’m sure it will all… um, everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”

  “I am thinking I want you to put baby in me.”

  “Wha… wha… I… I think you’ve um, translated that sentence wrongly. I’m sure that’s not what you meant to say.”

  “Ja. It is. I want to be having your baby.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said, hopping back off the bed.

  “Ja, es ist möglich,” said Henrietta, reaching down and pulling her nightgown hem up toward her knee. “Es ist how you say… possible.”

  “It’s not… It’s not… It’s not…” Clitus turned and looked longingly at the bedroom door, before taking a breath and turning back around. “Henrietta, I can’t.”

  “You’re not liking me.”

  “Oh, I like you very much and you are a very attractive woman. But I can’t. I couldn’t do that to Terra… or to the Kingdom for that matter.”

  “We don’t tell anyone. We keep es ein geheimnis… secret. You are good man. Your son would be next King. Only we would know.”

  “I would have to hate a man a lot more than I hate Tybalt before I would do such a thing to him,” said the Prince.

  “So you do hate him.”

  “I didn’t say that. I did not say that.”

  “Tybalt does not love me,” said the Princess, her eyes filling with tears.

  Clitus walked around the bed and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Arranged marriages are always hard, but eventually, things will get better. The two of you will develop affection for one another over time.”

  Suddenly the bedroom door opened and Bob stuck his head into the room.

  “Your Highness?”

  “Oh, for Kafira’s sake!” hissed Clitus.

  “I can come back in twenty minutes, Your Highness.”

  “Twenty minutes earlier would have been better,” growled the Prince. “Can you see Princess Henrietta safely back to her suite. She came in through the…”

  “Secret passage. Yes, sir. I know where it is.” He hurried around the bed and bowed. “Come along, Princess. We’ll have you back in your own bed in two shakes.”

  Clitus took a deep breath. Just then the clock chimed quarter past the hour and he looked to see that the hour in question was four. Assuming that Bob wouldn’t have barged in on him at that hour without cause, he decided to get dressed. He would have been unlikely to get any more sleep anyway. By the time that Bob got back, he had his socks and shoes, trousers, and shirt on.

  “Let me get your coat for you, Your Highness,” said Bob, opening the wardrobe and pulling out the white uniform tunic of the Royal Navy.

  “Kafira Kristos, Bob! He has a dozen or more bastards running around Brech City! You’d think Tybalt could take the time to plant an heir in his wife!”

  “He clearly needs more time in the saddle, Your Highness.”

  “Clearly. What can we do about it?”

  “Let me think on it, Sir.”

  “So what was it that had you waking me up at four in the morning?”

  “The assaults on Die Freiheitgruppe went off as planned. Word is that seven of their cells have been completely broken up and sixteen of their leaders have been killed.”

  “How about our losses?” asked Clitus.

  “I know that there were some,” replied Bob, “but that’s all I know.”

  “All right. Let’s go to my office. Meanie is on his way, I assume?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. And don’t forget you have breakfast with Lady Terra at nine.”

  “Right. Um, Bob? I don’t have to remind you to be discreet about, um, things here in this room.”

  “You wound me, Your Highness,” Bob replied, placing a hand over his heart, but grinning.

  “Fine, fine,” said Clitus. “Let’s go. And wipe that stupid grin off your face.”

  “Whatever you say, Your Highness.”

  * * * * *

  “I’m glad you didn’t mind coming to the palace, brownie,” said Clitus, taking Terra’s hand. “Right now is a difficult time for me to get out into the city.”

  “It’s no hardship on my part,” she replied. “I certainly can’t have my fiancé getting murdered.”

  “That information is on a need-to-know basis,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not really certain that I should have told you about it.”

  “You will always tell me everything.”

  “Well, there will be certain matters of state…”

  “Everything,” she said, taking his arm. “We will be a team. I will be your right arm. One can’t function if his right arm doesn’t know everything.”

  Clitus smiled weakly and guided her down the great corridor to the white room, which had been outfitted for their breakfast. The room, typical of those in the palace, had three walls filled from high ceiling to floor with framed pictures, in this case mostly portraits of royalty and aristocracy who excelled in the Royal Navy. There were also a few seascapes and paintings of ships. The fourth wall was filled with windows, covered with gauzy white curtains that let in plenty of light. When they arrived, they were surprised to find the King in the room.

  “Good morning, you two.”

  “Good morning, Father.”

  “Your Majesty,” said Terra, executing a perfect curtsy with
out letting go of her fiancé’s arm.

  “I just wanted to pop in and see my newest daughter.”

  The King crossed the room to them. He was three inches taller than his son. Terra barely reached his shoulder.

  “A bit premature, Your Majesty,” she said.

  “All formality,” he smiled. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re already a part of the family.”

  “That’s very kind, Your Majesty.”

  “I had wanted to attend church for your baptism,” he said. “How do you find The Great Church of the Holy Savior? Did the service seem very strange to you?”

  “The church is lovely and of course, historic, though it is actually smaller than The Church of the Apostles in Birmisia, which I attended regularly as a child, in addition to the Zaeri shrine. My family has been and continues to be an important patron of the church. So, no, I found the service quite familiar.”

  “Even so,” said the King, with a thin smile. He glanced at Clitus, before nodding and heading for the exit. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

  Clitus kept a straight face until his father had left the room, though he was sure his insides were rippling with laughter.

  “I’m glad the King isn’t dining with us, brownie,” he said, guiding her to the table. “I don’t think he could take any more straight talk like yours.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Terra. “I was simply answering his question. Besides, it’s too late to change his mind about me now. The announcement has already been in the paper.”

  Once they were seated, four young men brought in their food—orange juice, sparkling wine, basted eggs, bacon, black pudding, potato farls, sausages, white pudding, stuffed mushrooms, and crumpets with butter and jam.

  “You have a mix of southern and northern Brech here,” Terra pointed out. “Seems odd with no beans though.”

  “You know what they say in the north—breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper. If you miss the beans, I can have some brought out. When I toured the continent, I found a great many foods that I liked and some I didn’t, but I noted that in every other country I visited, beans were not considered breakfast food. I just kind of got used to not having them in the morning. So when I was asked about the menu, I didn’t think to mention them.”