Dragon Book, The

by Gardner Dozois

  So I remained, alternatively seething and plotting, until a faint tapping on the lid of the box attracted my attention. I wasn’t able to speak—she had taken that, too—but I uttered a grunt, and it seemed that was enough. The lid opened, letting in a shaft of blinding sunlight. It made me blink, but I knew her all the same: Porthlois’s eldest daughter, Rose.

  As soon as she saw me, she gave a gasp of horror.

  “Lord Cygne!”

  “Indeed.” As if the sunlight had brought back my powers, I could speak again. Experimentally, I flexed small magical muscles. All seemed once more intact.

  “Whatever are you doing in that chest?”

  I hauled myself out of the box with what I felt to be a lamentable lack of dignity. “Where are we?”

  The chest was no longer in Lady Porthlois’s mirrored chamber. Instead, I looked out onto a cobwebbed cellar, near a rack on which reposed many bottles of wine. Rose was clutching one of them, like a club.

  “In the wine cellar. My father sent me to fetch a bottle of porter, for luncheon. We were wondering where you were.”

  “How did you know someone was in the box?”

  “I–” Rose seemed somewhat at a loss. “The chest should not be here. It belongs upstairs; my stepmother asked Parch to have it moved this morning. I confess, I did not think anyone might be inside it: I was merely curious. What on earth were you doing within it?”

  “I think,” I said grimly, “that it is time I spoke to your father.”

  The Duke of Direfell seemed utterly at a loss when I recounted recent events.

  “But what does this all mean? You sought a dragon, and found my wife?”

  “I will tell you what I believe to be the case,” I said. I poured us both another glass of the porter: I needed it after my ordeal, and Richard’s own was just beginning. “I went in search of the origin point of the dragon’s soul, to bring it fully back into what we call the Eldritch Realm, there to secure it. Once this is done, the body inhabited by the draconian spirit will simply dwindle, becoming perhaps no more than a newt, or a worm in truth. This is normally,” I remarked with some grandeur, “a simple enough procedure, both in its concept and its execution. As I instructed your steward, had anything attempted to return with me, it would have passed into the body of the black cockerel and slain it, rather than latching on to I myself. However, on this occasion, something went badly awry. Rather than dispatching the worm’s soul to its original home, I found my spirit returning out of the sanctuary of a protective circle and being hauled into the presence of your wife.”

  “My wife has been very ill,” Richard said, frowning. “She has a case of malignant dropsy, which the doctors seems unable to cure. She cannot even stir from her bed. We have tried everything. But she is a woman of the best heart and soul, despite her ailments. I cannot believe that she is some kind of—well, what?”

  “She wears a mage’s ring,” I told him.

  “That signet ring? That is a legacy of her poor father, who died in a pilgrimage to the Outer Isles.”

  It was my turn to frown. “Her father was a devotee of the island gods?”

  “Quite so. His ancestors came from the furthest north of Albion; sea priests of a cult of Manannan mac Lir.”

  “Odd, that a son of such a family should end up here in these midlands. We must be further from the coast than any other point of Albion.”

  “This is what my wife has told me, and I see no need to doubt her word.” The duke paused and looked mournful. “You see, she is the cousin of my first spouse.”

  “Indeed so?” I tried to look encouraging, and he continued. “My beautiful Sara … Alas, she died in a plague of the yellow flux, several years ago, leaving me with three small daughters. They needed a mother, and Ilyris—the current Lady Porthlois—was the nearest female relative.”

  “So you married her. A pragmatic solution.”

  “It was not simply for the sake of the girls,” the duke protested. “At that time, Ilyris may not have been the beauty that her cousin was, but she was a handsome woman all the same—of mature years, it is true, but nonetheless widely admired. It is only since the dropsy came upon her that she has become as she is now.”

  “And her character?”

  “Firm, unyielding on matters of principle, intelligent. We spoke little of the supernatural—I have an aversion to such matters—but I believe her understanding to be considerable, as a consequence of her ancestry.”

  “An ancestry which was shared by the first lady Porthlois?” I remarked. A series of possibilities was beginning to creep through my mind, which was busy sorting, sifting, sieving hypotheses …

  “No—the sea priest was Ilyris’s father, whereas Sara was on the maternal side. A very old family. They have been in this area for generations—far longer than even my own family. Cygne, what must we do?” He sounded quite pathetic. I could not entirely blame him. “My wife is a monster, my daughters are in danger—what can be done?”

  I stood up and drained the glass of porter. “We must act,” I said. “I have a dragon to slay.”

  Returning the dragon to its point of origin had proved such a significant failure that I decided to resort to cruder measures. I informed the duke of my plans, and he paled.

  “But—that would be using her as bait!”

  “Quite so. But you must understand that these are desperate times. Your wife has absorbed into herself a draconian spirit. Despite any protestations she might have made to the contrary when in possession of her right senses, the brunt of her anger will shortly fall upon her stepchildren. Dragons,” I said glibly, “are territorial creatures, and greatly jealous. Your wife’s reasoning is that of a beast—a cunning beast, it is true, but a beast nonetheless. To her mind, once the children are removed, she can begin to breed.”

  “A hideous prospect!”

  “Quite so. However, we cannot at present tackle her in her own chamber. Your comment that she has not left her bed since the illness convinces me that this is the seat of her power. She is too entrenched there—and so we must lure her out. A combination of your eldest daughter and myself might prove sufficient, if I can convince Ilyris that I have changed sides, as it were, and have her own best interests at heart.”

  “You intend to tell her that you will aid her? Will she believe that?”

  “Magicians are renowned for their desire for power. I shall put it to her that with you and your heirs out of the way, she and I can assume the authority of Direfell Hall. Once she has crept forth from her chamber—her seat of power—she will be vulnerable to attack.”

  The duke gave a reluctant nod. “It is risky—but as you say, this is a desperate situation. However, you will understand that I need to be nearby, in order to protect Rose.”

  “I should expect nothing less.”

  ROSE eagerly agreed, and her indignation was considerable. “I always knew it,” she told me. “Her jealousy of my beloved mother knew no bounds. No doubt she inserted herself into this household in order to usurp my mother’s position.” She lowered her voice, even more bitterly. “I should not be surprised if she had contributed to my mother’s death by the use of her filthy powers.”

  “Nothing would surprise me at this juncture.”

  Due to my own incarceration, it was now close to three in the afternoon, and even granted the long summer evenings, there was no time to be lost. With care, I bound Rose’s hands and led her upstairs, followed by her father, and, at a safe distance, the quavering Parch. Then I knocked on the door of Lady Porthlois’s chamber.

  There was no reply. “Madam? Are you within?” I asked sharply. “I know you to be there, in whatever form you have assumed. I have a proposition for you!”

  Still no answer, so I continued with my proposal. At its end, I stole a glance at Rose. Her eyes were closed, and she was whispering. A prayer, no doubt. There was a moment of silence from within the chamber, then a sudden flurry of rustling motion behind the door. A minute later the door was flung ope
n, and Lady Porthlois came across the threshold in a rush. Despite her bulk, which I could now see included a bulbous, scaly tail, she moved with appalling speed. Beneath the incongruous mob-cap, the indigo light of the Eldritch Realm still streamed from her eyes like lamps, and she was hissing.

  “Now!” I cried, and leaped forward to thrust Rose into her stepmother’s path. The duke shouted out a protest, and I spun, knocking his sword aside. Parch, demonstrating a lamentable lack of loyalty to his employer, bolted down the stairs as I stuck out a foot and tripped Richard so that he sprawled at my feet.

  Rose screamed, a thin, whistling sound. Ilyris turned, opened her mouth, and emanated a beam of blue light. As a trained mage, I could hear the incantation behind it, but I doubt that Richard did. It struck Rose in the middle of her breast and clung like watery fire. I watched as it spread across the shrieking girl, encompassing her limbs and, at last, her head. Ilyris shut her mouth with an audible snap. As the light faded, so Rose withered, the golden girl shrivelling into a gaunt thing, all bones and claws, with a cluster of sharp teeth. Only the mass of hair remained. Richard made an inarticulate sound. Ripping aside its bonds, the corn-leck sprang at me, snarling. It bowled me over and we both fell down the stairs, struggling. When we reached the bottom, I hit the landing with a force that jarred my spine and left me momentarily stunned. I had a sudden glimpse of the gaping jaws and tiny yellow eyes, and then it was gone in a gush of green blood as the Duke of Direfell struck off his eldest daughter’s head.

  “HOW long have you known?” I asked Ilyris, much later. The body of the corn-leck had been removed to the stables. I had taken a much-needed bath. Richard’s remaining children had been placed under close confinement, and the duke himself had retired to his chamber, to consider and to mourn.

  Without the bulk of her borrowed spirit, Ilyris proved to be a large but firm-bodied woman, with assured movements. She now sat, twisting her father’s ring between her long fingers. Her face was pinched with exhaustion. “Ever since I was a girl. My father married into the family, you understand, and his clan were sea people. He knew little of the earth spirits, the corn-lecks and harvest wights. His own wife, my mother, had none of the family secret—she was human through and through. But her sister—Sara’s mother—was even more of a leck than the thing you have just seen. We rarely saw her, except for glimpses. She lived in the fields. Sara herself was lovely, but, as I told you, she had a wearisome personality. She died of natural causes, in case you’re wondering.” Ilyris passed a hand across her broad brow. “I wasn’t lying when I told you that I was fond of the children. They are my family, after all. I was happy to marry Richard, to look after them, and they were sweet little girls. But when Rose turned thirteen, her heritage began to make itself felt. She started spending more and more time outside. I caught her coming in at dawn; she wore wildness like a cloak. The crops began to fail, because there was no one to teach Rose how to regulate her powers, and she took too much from the land. Then one of the calves was found dead, with bite marks in its throat. I tried talking to her, but she would have none of it—she spat that I had stolen her father and would pay. When I attempted to raise the subject with Richard, he simply would not listen. It was too late, and I knew that I had to act. But Rose had her mother’s magic—the warding powers that lecks use to keep the territory of their fields. She shut me in this chamber, and I could not get out—you understand that I have some magic, but not enough. I am human, after all, and she was not. I tried to reflect Rose’s magic back to her with the use of the mirrors, but it did not work. Yet my father was a priest, and I still possessed his grimoire. So I called upon a dragonspell that allowed me to bring through a spirit: I held part of its soul within myself, while the dragon grew from a worm on the hill. I governed its movements, made sure that it preyed upon the lecks, and the occasional sheep. Never humans. But I was aiming it at Rose—when the dragon should be fully grown, I planned to bring it here.”

  “A bold but dangerous plan!”

  Ilyris gave a weary nod. “And so it proved. My body was not strong enough to contain the dragon’s spirit, even in part. I told Richard that I had dropsy. If you had not acted when you did, I would probably have become a monster. I am sorry, by the way, that I trapped you in the box. I thought you were acting against me.”

  “I was. But there were too many anomalies. Eventually, I configured the truth.”

  “And I am grateful. You have probably saved my life and that of my husband.”

  “What will happen to the remaining girls?”

  “Richard has said that he will contact the Court, and they will send a mage to bring the children into captivity. It is too soon to tell if they will take the same path as their sister, but we cannot risk simply releasing them into the fields.”

  “I wish you well,” I said, and meant it.

  RIDING home, the summer sun lay upon the fields in sheaves of gold, as heavy as corn. I did not see anything dodging behind the stooks, nor hiding in the green hedges, but I had no doubt that they were there. I had gained both friends and enemies, not unusual for a mage. At the crest of a hill, I reined in my mare and looked back. Direfell sat in a pool of sun, its harsh edges softened by light. Across the vale, the dragon’s hill was still slightly ridged. Somewhere upon it was a tiny, bewildered worm, dreaming of greater things. A metaphor for the human condition? Perhaps, but such philosophical speculations rarely lead to a positive outcome. I turned the mare’s head around and rode for home, under the sun.

  Oakland Dragon Blues

  PETER S. BEAGLE

  A policeman is sworn to protect and serve. But that “protect” part can get a little complicated when mythological creatures are involved …

  Peter S. Beagle was born in New York City in 1939. Although not prolific by genre standards, he has published a number of well-received fantasy novels, at least two of which, A Fine and Private Place and The Last Unicorn, are now considered to be classics of the genre. In fact, Beagle may be the most successful writer of lyrical and evocative modern fantasy since Bradbury. He has won the Locus Award and two Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, as well as having often been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Beagle’s other books include the novels The Folk of the Air; The Innkeeper’s Song; Tamsin; and a popular autobiographical travel book, I See by My Outfit. His short fiction has appeared in places as varied as the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Atlantic Monthly, and Seventeen, and has been collected in Giant Bones, The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances, The Line Between, Strange Roads, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Mirror Kingdoms. He won the Hugo Award in 2006 and the Nebula Award in 2007 for his story “Two Hearts.” His produced screenplays include the animated versions of The Lord of the Rings and The Last Unicorn, and he has two new novels—Summerlong and I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons—plus several new story collections and nonfiction books scheduled for release in 2009 and 2010.

  “I am happy to report,” Officer Levinsky said to Officer Guerra, pointing to the dragon sprawled across the Telegraph and 51st Street intersection, “that this one is all yours. I’ve been off shift for exactly seven minutes, waiting for your ass to get here. Have a nice day.”

  Guerra stared, paling visibly under his brown skin. Traffic was backed up in all four directions: horns were honking as madly as car alarms, drivers were screaming hysterically—though none, he noticed, were getting out of their cars—and a five-man road crew, their drills, hoses, sawhorses and warning signs scattered by a single swing of the dragon’s tail, were adding their bellows to the din. The dragon paid no attention to any of it, but regarded the two policemen out of half-closed eyes, resting its head on its long-clawed front feet, and every now and then burping feeble, dingy flames. It didn’t look well.

  “How long’s it been here?” Guerra asked weakly.

  Levinsky consulted his watch again. “Thirty-one minutes. Just plopped out of the sky—damn miracle it didn’t crush somebody’s car, flatten a pedestrian.
Been lying there ever since, just like that.”

  “Well, you called it in, right?” Guerra wondered what the police code for a dragon in the intersection would be.

  Levinsky looked at him as though he had suggested a fast game of one-on-one with an open manhole. “You are out of your mind—I always thought so. No, I didn’t call it in, and if you have the sense of a chinch bug, you won’t either. Just get rid of it, I’m out of here. Enjoy, Guerra.”

  Levinsky’s patrol car was parked on the far side of the intersection. He skirted the dragon’s tail cautiously, got in the car, slapped on his siren—for pure emotional relief, Guerra thought—and was gone, leaving Guerra scratching his buzz-cut head, facing both a growing traffic jam and a creature out of fairy tales, whose red eyes, streaked with pale yellow, like the eyes of very old men, were watching him almost sleepily, totally uninterested in whatever he chose to do. But watching, all the same.

  The furious chaos of the horns being harder on Guerra’s normally placid nerves than the existence of dragons, he walked over to the beast, and said, from a respectful distance, “Sir, you’re blocking traffic, and I’m going to have to ask you to move along. Otherwise you’re looking at a major citation here.”

  When the dragon did not respond, he said it again in Spanish; then drew a deep breath and started over in Russian, having taken a course that winter in order to cope with a new influx of immigrants. The dragon interrupted him with a brief hiccup of oily, sulphurous flame halfway through. In a rusty, raspy voice with a faint accent that was none of the ones Guerra knew, it said, “Don’t start.”

  Guerra rested his hand lightly on the butt of the pistol that he was immensely proud of never having fired during his eight years on the Oakland police force, except for his regular practice sessions and annual recertifications at the Davis Street Range. He said, “Sir, I am not trying to start anything with you—I’m having enough trouble just believing in you. But I’ve got to get you out of this intersection before somebody gets hurt. I mean, look at all those people, listen to those damn horns.” The racket was already giving him a headache behind his eyes. “You think you could maybe step over here to the curb, we’ll talk about it? That’d work out much better for both of us, don’t you think?”