Dragons Deal

by Robert Asprin

  Dry-cleaning a suit ran a minimum of twenty dollars. Griffen multiplied that times three tuxedos, which probably cost more to clean, and added the red ink to the mental deficit he was compiling. But there was no arguing with someone who knew the future and had probably seen him renting the suits. He tossed off a mock salute.

  "Aye, aye, Captain."

  "See, that's good," Etienne said, with his sunny, patient smile. "It'll all work out okay. Here." He gave Griffen a sheet of paper that looked as if it had been copied and recopied many times. "Here's some local tailors who rent tuxes. You probably won' be able to get any in town unless you lucky, but no sense in not tryin'. Metairie is gonna be out, too. They've got dozens of deir own krewes now. Try Baton Rouge, maybe. I tink that's where you gonna luck out."

  Griffen resolved to save time and go to the Baton Rouge addresses first. No sense in reinventing the wheel. Langford poked him in the other elbow with his clipboard.

  "While you're out looking for tuxes," he said, "I need you to go in for a fitting on your robes for the parade. We had general measurements for you already."

  "How?" Griffen demanded. They looked at him patiently. "Never mind, I know."

  "And you need to get your ladies together. They have to go in for their fittings, too."

  "Sooner's better'n later, Mr. Griffen," Etienne said.

  "Hey, Griffen!"

  Phil Grover, in charge of charity, looked up from the enormous fountain pen that he was painting, and came over. "I want to thank you for your donation. I didn't expect anything so soon. A lot of money flows through your operation, doesn't it?"

  Griffen pulled back just a little, and not from the red paint smeared on Phil's coveralls. He didn't like outsiders asking about the finances of the operation. "Proportionately, I suppose so."

  "Well, it's welcome," Phil said. "I can't tell you what it's going to mean to a lot of families here in the city. We have thirty-four families who have been left homeless or partly homeless because of fire in the last eighteen months. Ladybug gives them grants proportional to their situation and income."

  Griffen listened until his ears rang. It was unbelievable how much detail each and every one of the lieutenants kept in his head. He interrupted Phil in midspate.

  "How'd you get interested in helping Ladybug?"

  "Oh, pretty much every krewe has a charity or three that they donate to. Like your business, money comes in large amounts. Contrary to you, we are officially not-for-profit, so when there is surplus cash not allocated against next year's expenses, we donate it. There are always good causes to support."

  "There have never been 'next year's expenses' in Fafnir, not since the forties," Griffen said suspiciously. Had he had uncovered the secret Stoner was talking about? Was this a money-laundering operation?

  Phil held up his hands and laughed. "You caught me! No, I have been doing the same thing for various krewes here and in Metairie since I was twenty. Not too much younger than you. Now I work for a nonprofit as the vice president, coordinating fund-raising. He named the charity. I started working for the company because I had learned how to fill out the paperwork and shake the can for a krewe, and I keep getting asked to do the same job on krewes because I work in the industry. I suppose you could say that Mardi Gras and my career are entwined. Makes you believe in Fate, doesn't it?"

  Griffen was impressed. And puzzled all over again. The krewe seemed to be just what he thought it was. For the life of him, Griffen could not find any sinister meaning in their operation. They were all much, much too busy organizing for Mardi Gras season and doing genuine good works. He didn't understand what Stoner was concerned about.

  "Hey, there, Griffen! You listen to this. I know I am right, and this tight-ass is wrong." It was Mitchell, the parade marshal. He came bustling up with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He brandished them at Griffen. "Callum here says I am wasting money, but I am investing for the future of the noble Krewe of Fafnir."

  "I am not. I am saying that he is jumping the gun. We have a dozen other places that those funds could go that are more vital."

  "What could be more vital than preventing future outlay?" Mitchell asked.

  "Preventing a shortfall today! What do you think, Griffen? We would really value your opinion."

  "Uh," Griffen said, looking from one to the other. "Isn't this something that Etienne here should solve? I'm only king this year. He's the captain."

  Both dragons looked at Etienne and back to Griffen. "But you've got the pure blood, Griffen," Mitchell said, as if it should be self-evident. "You're the senior dragon here. By a long chalk."

  Griffen looked at Etienne, worried that he would feel usurped, but Etienne had that serene look on his face that said he had seen what was happening and had learned to accept it or really didn't mind. Griffen still felt guilty, but he asked. "What is it you're trying to work out?"

  He listened as closely as he could to Mitchell's explanation of the outright purchase of fifteen small float bodies on a rent-to-own basis, citing the future amortization of assets and depreciation versus rental. Griffen did his best to drag concepts from his Introduction to Business Administration class, but finally held his hands up. "You guys know what kind of money this krewe is bringing in. I don't."

  "I can show you, young man," Callum said, thrusting forth his BlackBerry and showing Griffen a complex chart on a screen that was eye-strainingly small. "It isn't nearly enough to cover what Mitchell thinks we need."

  Griffen held up his hands. "No, I mean, this is something that the two of you would be better working out on your own. If it takes more discussion than you've given it, then maybe you need to sit down and talk until you've got a real understanding of both positions. I know that if you really ask my opinion . . ."

  "Yes," both men said, leaning forward.

  ". . . All you'll get is a guess, and not an educated one at that."

  They looked at one another. Mitchell glowered. "I don't want to hammer all this stuff into this fool's head."

  "I'm not sure you could understand what you would need to know," Callum retorted.

  Griffen threw up his hands. "Since you asked, my judgment is it's not my problem. Sorry, guys." He turned away. He found that his heart was racing.

  "That was a nice, pretty little solution, Mr. Griffen," Etienne said, staying by his side. He smiled. "They each been hopin' you be their own ally, so they haven't bothered to work it out between them. Woulda taken five minutes if they tried."

  "That's really why I'm down here today, isn't it?" Griffen asked.

  "They had a little lesson to learn, Mr. Griffen, but there's one there for you, too."

  "A humility lesson?" Griffen said bitterly. "Thanks a lot."

  Etienne looked at him seriously. "In the long run, none of the petty stuff 's important. Just gettin' this parade off exactly right is what matters. You keep that in mind." He patted Griffen on the back. "You just what this krewe needs. Just you walk around a little and talk to people. Enjoy youself for a minute."

  He went back to a group of dragons in the corner, leaving Griffen by himself in the middle of the vast room.

  Griffen took his advice and went on a small tour of the facility. Everyone seemed to have his or her assigned tasks and was executing them confidently. With no experience, he was at a loss. He felt small and young and completely out of place walking past the partially finished floats, the knots of people talking, and the tables pushed against the walls. He had probably better leave.

  He weaved his way between the committees and machine tools, smiling at everyone who met his eyes.

  A voice rose above the screeching din. "It's got to be the flagon with the dragon."

  Griffen spun on his heel.

  "What?" he asked, not sure if he had heard correctly. "Who said that?"

  "I did!" One of the younger men, Jacob, grinned at him from a card table behind the green dragon float. "Hey, Griffen, come on over."

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "W
e're ordering throws for the parade. You ought to be in on this, young dragon, since you're the king. Bobbie, did you say four thousand?" A tiny woman with pale skin and long black eyelashes nodded. Jacob nodded and noted tiny numbers next to an entry on the inevitable clipboard. Griffen sat down on a stool at the edge of the table. The surface was covered with hundreds of strings of beads. Shiny smooth beads, faceted beads, braided beads, twisted beads in metallic or plain white, some strings with large, ornamental beads, some with multiple strands or a pendant, such as a bottle opener or a flashlight. Griffen let the strings of beads flow through his hands like shining waterfalls. He couldn't stop playing with them. Neither could the others.

  "And what about the specials?" asked a fat woman with brilliant green eyes in a tawny face surrounded by ochre hair.

  "I have some numbers," said a slender man with hollow cheekbones. "The float captains want a few hanks each, but not too many. They're just too expensive."

  "But they are amazing," said the second man. He held up a handful of strands for Griffen's inspection. Spaced between the gleaming metallic beads were five or seven large, shaped beads two inches across. "You'll probably want some for your float, too. We have dragon's-head necklaces, purple with green eyes, green with gold eyes, and gold with purple eyes. A few of the really fancy ones have LEDs inside, and the really, really fancy ones blink." He touched an invisible switch near the clasp of the necklace, and the dragons' eyes flashed on and off.

  "I sure do," Griffen said, delighted. "I want some to keep, too."

  "What do you say, then? Twenty hanks, forty?" Jacob asked. Griffen shrugged. Jacob eyed the other numbers on his page and made a notation. "Hey, you'll want to see these. We've also got doubloons, and those will have the king's head on one side, the theme on the other. Here's the proof copy." From his shirt pocket, he produced a plastic coin with a hollow-eyed man in profile. With surprise, Griffen recognized the image.

  "That's me."

  "Yep. We took it from a photo of you Etienne had." From the same pocket, Jacob brought out a photograph. Griffen recognized the room around him as the interior of the Irish bar. It could have been taken anytime within the last few months. "What do you think?" Griffen studied the plastic coin.

  "I think . . . I look surprisingly dignified," Griffen said. Bobbie laughed. "You could really feed a guy's ego like that. But what about what I heard?" Griffen asked.

  Jacob smiled. " 'The flagon with the dragon' . . ."

  ". . . 'Has the brew that is true,' " Griffen finished.

  "Yes, indeed. You look plenty young to be a Danny Kaye fan, but we already knew you were something different. Isn't that just the perfect quote? We are the dragon krewe. We're ordering cups to throw as well as beads and doubloons. The cups'll have an imprint that goes around them, with our dragon on them, and it'll say, 'The brew that is true.' We'll tell people that to drink out of one of these is to give them health and long life." Griffen grinned. "We got you, I can just tell."

  "You do," Griffen said. "Give me a bunch of those. However many you think is right for the duration of the parade."

  By the time he was finished with the committee, he had put his name down for thousands of necklaces, doubloons, and cups. They would all have to be paid for by February, but Jacob agreed that since Griffen had just joined, he would be allowed to pay over time.

  "The treasury can support it," Jacob said in an undertone, though it was unlikely that Callum could hear them over the noise. "Most of the people on the krewe are rich."

  Griffen glanced at Etienne, whose pants hems were frayed at the heels. Jacob followed his glance.

  "Yeah," he said. "Even the captain. He dresses like a lobsterman, but he inherited natural-gas contracts from his granddad. Didn't have much when he grew up, but he and his mom have a big place out on Lake Ponchartrain, as befits a proper lady dragon. Dragons tend to attract wealth. Even ones with less than a teaspoon of dragon blood."

  "He's still a dragon," Griffen said, moved again to defend Etienne. "You guys wouldn't have a krewe to build floats for if not for him."

  "Yeah, yeah," Jacob said hastily. "I'm not disregarding all he's done. But I can feel levels of power. I know where he falls in the pecking order, and that's way below everyone else."

  "Power's not everything."

  "Said the man with the biggest stash in the room," Jacob said. "You don't get it."

  "Don't treat me like a kid," Griffen said.

  "You are a kid. You're the youngest one here except for the children, and you're the most powerful. It's a defense mechanism. You ought to understand that."

  That left a question unanswered in Griffen's mind. Mose and Jerome had always told him that dragons sought to conquer one another or sign on with one they perceived as more powerful. These all acted together, as human beings would do. It was unnatural, as he understood it. As the most powerful dragon in the room, he felt as if he needed to watch his back all the time.

  "Hello, Griffen," Lucinda said, coming around the open mouth of the dragon. "Come on down and help construct or paint. It'll be a good example for these other youngsters that people still know how to work hard. Do you know how to apply papier-mache?"

  "I haven't done any since I was in art class in grade school. We made Easter eggs out of balloons."

  She smiled. "Then you know enough. Come and get your hands dirty."

  Griffen held back. He glanced at the neatly dressed lieutenants talking to one another.

  "I can't see them getting paste on their pin-striped suits," he said. Lucinda followed his eyes and smiled.

  "You can't? Well, then, it'll be a revelation to you when you see them up to their elbows in buckets of flour and water," Lucinda said. "Let's you and I go and recruit some helpers."

  Lucinda was more than persuasive. Very shortly, Griffen found himself squatting on the floor plastering tacky strips of newspaper around a chicken-wire armature representing an enormous snapdragon. As Lucinda had promised, the haughty executives abandoned their dignity and buckled down to help, just like the students, clerks, and homemakers all around them. It would have been normal but for the skyrockets of fire and streamers of light going on behind Griffen's eyes. The others couldn't have missed it. He all but blurted out the question.

  "What is this feeling of power here? It's not just the people. It's like it's in the air."

  Callum wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of gray glue just under his hairline. "Have you ever made anything, young man? Anything physical?"

  "Nothing except love or an inside straight," Griffen admitted. He pasted down a strip of newspaper and wiped it with his sponge."

  "You ever heard how lions and tomcats go in and kill kittens that aren't theirs?"

  "Yes."

  "How do they know?"

  "Well, I assume the male's scent is on them . . ." The others grinned at him, so Griffen thought about it harder. The males would not have had any contact with the kits since sperm met egg. "I guess not. I don't know."

  Langford cleared his throat. "It's part of a dragon's power. When we make something, we transfer a touch of power to it. More. That's how we can tell it was ours. Usually, the residue is very subtle. Most dragons can't really feel it, and humans can almost never detect it. You're different. Your blood is stronger than ours. You seem to be able to sense very minor amounts of our power. If we had any doubts after your little demonstration, this would convince us you were either a sensitive human, a supernatural, or a very powerful dragon."

  Griffen raised an eyebrow. "This was a phenomenon I hadn't come across yet."

  "You will," Langford said.

  "When we really enjoy making something, it is stronger yet," Callum told him. "When we deliberately imbue something with power, anyone can feel it, but it would knock you over. Even puny humans, nonsensitive humans, can feel it a little. It's one of the reasons that dragon-made items of power have been objects of desire by humankind for millennia. They want to possess them, whether or
not they can wield them. Many can. Not as effectively as if they were dragons, of course. Whether or not they know what it does, they know there is something special about it. Objects made by dragons have been revered throughout all of human history."

  "A lot of the so-called relics of the saints actually belonged to dragons," Mitchell said dryly. "That residual power that bestows blessings, like miracle cures, comes from the dragon power in the object."

  Terence grinned at Griffen. "That means, when we make something like a float for Mardi Gras, which we love doing, the floats naturally take on a little of the power that is in our blood."

  "Aren't you worried about other sensitives finding their way in here and discovering us? Taking things that have power?"

  Lucinda let out a trill of laughter. "Are you kidding? We're dragons, honey darling. If anything, the power signature ought to tell them to stay away. If they don't, then they don't belong in the gene pool. You don't read a lot of fairy stories about the people who enter the dragon's den and get out again."

  Griffen cleared his throat. "Well, there's the St. George story. And Perseus. And . . ."

  "A few in all of history? It's the ones you don't hear, and there are probably millions of them. So, don't worry. Besides, you think that this is the only den with natural magic in it? In New Orleans?"

  Griffen grinned. "I guess not. I'm being a dragon snob."

  Lucinda twinkled at him. "Aren't we all?"

  Working according to Lucinda's exacting standards, Griffen helped finish up the enormous blossoms. Lucinda ordered him to help her wash out the buckets in a janitor's sink in the corner near the restrooms. He had become used to the power in the room. It was benign, even benevolent when put to the purpose as it had been here. Griffen still had no clue as to the subversive element that Stoner said was there. Not even a hint of ill feeling or intent to control was present that he could detect. He suspected, not for the first time, that Stoner was paranoid, or trying to scare him for his own purposes.

  When the last of the plastic pails was upside down over a drain in the floor, Griffen wiped his hands on a paper towel.