Dragon Book, The

by Gardner Dozois

  Nitz smacked his lips.

  “No wonder you’re all such savages.”

  “I crafted such a weapon as to allow me my pick of any man in my village.”

  Her words were accompanied by a sigh, a wistful breath punctuating her thought. Nitz shifted his feet uncomfortably; he was unused to such a sound. Her morbid laughter, the sounds of her boots crunching on gravel laden with corpses, these were sounds that had grown familiar enough to be comfortable. When her voice dripped with nostalgia, he grew worried.

  “And you can have it back now,” he grunted. Reaching under his vest, he proceeded to undo the complicated buckles and straps securing the weapon to his back. “We’re far enough away that Father Scheitzen’s church won’t hear it fall.”

  He winced at those words. The weapon fell to the ground with a thunderous clatter, its steel ringing a mournful dirge as it struck the earth.

  “Stones don’t hear,” Maddy growled, reaching down to pluck the axe up in one powerful hand. “If they did, though, they’d hear you spilling yourself on your trousers when I gutted you for disrespecting my axe again.”

  “Oh, come now, Wolfreiz—”

  “Vulf,” she corrected hotly, “his name is Vulf. Wolfreiz is what you pious piss-drinkers call him.”

  “Vulf,” he repeated, “is a strong and sturdy weapon, perfectly capable of suffering the earth’s embrace for a few moments.” He shot her a cheerful wink. “After all, he was wrought by the finest hands in the north, was he not?”

  “Mm,” she grunted. She swept her good eye about, surveying the lack of flesh in their vicinity. “We’re far away now, are we?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “Why?” He cringed suddenly as her free hand went for her robe. “Oh, good lord, don’t do it in front of me. Can’t you wait until you find a bush or something?”

  “It itches,” she replied simply.

  Any further protest he had was squelched by the sound of fabric tearing and the murmur of cloth. In the blink of an eye, her habit was off and clenched in her hand. He attempted to turn away but was mesmerized, as he always was, by the sight of what lay beneath.

  The rough leather that sought to encase her had been soundly defeated long ago, leaving tight-fitting scraps that clung to her body with resigned determination. What considerable amount of skin was left bare was crisscrossed by scars, dotted by fresh bruises, and tattooed by blue and black designs that snaked down her biceps, wrists, and flanks. It was a masterpiece of muscle, a testament to how much blood, heathen or no, she had spilled.

  Against such a wall of strength, the evidence of his handiwork, the bandages that covered her at odd intervals and the jagged scars where his stitching had gone awry, seemed more like desecration than medicine.

  He had little time to think on it, for his vision was obscured by black as she tossed the robes over him.

  “You’ve got needlework to do,” she said.

  He found his way out of the tangle just in time to see her pull her cap off, shaking free a wild mane of brown that descended past her shoulders in a long, frayed ponytail. He caught that more deftly as she tossed it to him, thanking whatever saint watched over tailors that she hadn’t ripped the garment. It had taken him months to recreate the stiff-browed headgear faithfully.

  “You ever think of investing in a shirt or something?” he grumbled, folding the garments and tucking them under his arm. “It’d draw less attention.”

  “Why would I want to draw less attention?”

  “It would mean less fighting.”

  She blinked at that, staring blankly.

  “Fine, it would mean less fighting for me. Besides, here in the kingdoms, women dress with civility.”

  “Civilization is relative.”

  “To?”

  “To whoever has the biggest weapon to decide who gets to say what civilization is.”

  “Ah.”

  “Shirts catch fire, anyway,” she replied, hefting her axe. “If we’re going to kill a dragon, damp leather will burn less easily.”

  “What’s this ‘we’ business, anyway?”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “I’m coming, certainly, but I figured you’d do the fighting.” He coughed. “Like you always do.”

  “Hiding behind a woman,” she snickered. “Your father would be proud!”

  “Had he seen the ogre pretending to be a woman that I hid behind, he probably would be.”

  As they set down the hill, Nitz didn’t quite believe that. His father, undoubtedly, would have criticized him for stumbling in the footprints of the northern woman’s stride. Criticism no longer bothered Nitz; he had developed skin thick enough to resist the taunts and jabs thrown his way from the road, well out of Maddy’s hearing. And reach.

  His father had never criticized with words, however …

  “Where is it this dragon was seen last, anyway?”

  “West,” Nitz replied, “if the map’s to be believed.”

  “So we go.”

  “So say we all.”

  Before them, the road stretched out endlessly, over the hills and forests that marked the land forsaken by God. Behind them, Father Scheitzen’s temple cast its stalwart shadow, hiding the peaceful shame of the countryside from the heavens. And above Nitz, his father watched with unblinking stone eyes.

  “LISTEN, I know it seems like I erred, but it was an error of virtue.”

  Armecia was not listening.

  “You can hardly fault me for that.”

  Armecia faulted him for that.

  “For the love of the lord,” Leonard grunted. “At least let me put down the damn boulder.”

  She turned a scowl, one part icy, one part pitch, upon him and surveyed him bent and crooked under the jagged rock. With a contemptuous snort, she turned her back on him and made a fleeting gesture.

  “Fine,” she replied, “but only until I can find something bigger.” She pointed a finger toward the earth. “Lenny, put it down.”

  It landed with a heavy crashing sound, followed by a loud popping sound as the knight knuckled his back. She frowned, more at herself than at him; there was no logical reason why he continued doing that, she reasoned. He should be well beyond pain at this point.

  You can bring a man back from the dead, but you can’t cure a bad back, she scolded herself, you deserved to be burned. She rubbed her arm. Or at least bashed over the head a few times.

  “Frankly, I’m not sure what you’re so upset about.” He cricked his neck with a much louder popping sound. “I was only following your commands.” He held up a finger in emphasis. “First law: protect the half-breed.”

  “And the second law?”

  “Is superseded by the first.”

  “The second law,” she fumed, “is protect the book. As it turns out, the half-breed is rather partial to that one. Who knows what they’re doing to it?”

  She shuddered at the thought of greasy hands running through its dry, delicate pages, beady, ratlike eyes going over its masterfully penned script with blasphemous disregard for its content.

  That is, she admitted, if they haven’t already burned it.

  “Well,” Leonard responded, “I suppose you should have had better foresight.”

  “Oh, don’t you turn this back on me.”

  “I wouldn’t … but, I mean, it is your fault.”

  “My fault.” She pursed her lips. “For being burned at the stake?”

  “First of all, you weren’t burned at the stake, were you?” He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.” He held up a pair of fingers. “And second, did you or did you not do what they say you did to that child?”

  “She was either going to end up dead or as a Scarred Sister, locked away in a nunnery.” She tilted her nose up snootily. “Forgive me for being considerate of a child’s future, Lenny.”

  “Okay, I forgive you.”

  “No,” she rubbed her eyes, “that was sarcasm, not a command.”

  “You ought to work on that.”


  “Amongst other things, apparently”—her stalk was heralded by a sigh—“such as my choice in thralls. You weren’t my first choice, you know.”

  “It is difficult to forget, what with you only reminding me every half hour.” He slid a hand into his pocket, producing a piece of dried parchment and a small, leather pouch. “Fortunately, I have ways of forgetting.”

  “Again, huh?” She glanced as he emptied a green herb in a neat little line upon the paper. “You can’t even stop for just a few moments?”

  “Apparently not.” He licked the paper’s edge, rolling it into a small, twisted cigarillo. “Though, of course, if you were halfway competent at what you did to me, we probably wouldn’t have this problem.” He placed it between his lips and leaned over her shoulder. “Help me out here.”

  “Help you with your addiction?”

  “You’re the one that chose it.”

  It was difficult to argue with that point, she admitted—but not to him. With a sigh, she held a hand up and snapped her finger. There was a brief spark, a puff of smoke, and, when both cleared, the tip of her longest digit was alight with a flickering flame. He leaned closer and took a few puffs, followed by a long draw of breath.

  “There we are.” His sigh was an acrid cloud of smoke. “I don’t really disagree with your choice of anchors, mind you, but you could at least give me permission to carry around some matches.”

  The thought was tempting, and she had considered it many times before. Matches, of course, would be far less conspicuous than conjuring fire out of flesh, not to mention it would cut down significantly on all manner of whining and complaining.

  The problem, of course, was that all that reminded him of his previous life also gave him free will. Free will was admirable … in people who could use it responsibly, of course.

  The man that had once been Sir Leonard was not a man of such capabilities.

  That thought gave her the will to deny him his request for matches, as did the comfort that such denials prevented a recreation of what his previous lords had called previous glories in a previous life.

  For all that, however, he was growing more difficult to control. The fact that he had drawn his sword without being commanded to had proven that. The idea of the townspeople being slaughtered, she admitted without remorse, was not such an appalling thought. After all, if they couldn’t be grateful for the life of a child, she saw little reason to be grateful for their lives.

  It wasn’t as if their god was the right one, anyway.

  And yet, if he fought the townspeople, someone would eventually fight him back. Someone would rush to their kitchen or their barn, someone would seize a pitchfork, a butcher knife, or a sword of their own. Someone would stick it in his neck, thigh, shoulder, or arm.

  Then everyone would notice when he didn’t bleed.

  “So, anyway,” Leonard continued, completely unappreciative of any internal struggle, “I think there’s another town a few miles out yonder.” He waved a hand in no particular direction. “You know … I mean … whatever yonder is. We can probably make it by sundown, find a place to bed down, then be off before anyone can think to burn you alive.”

  “We’re not going to any town.”

  “Oh, really?” He grimaced. “I hate sleeping outside … you know, I did hate it. I still would if I slept.”

  “Good for you. We’re not going to be sleeping outside, either.”

  “Then …” His grimace became a wrinkled, stubble-laden crag. “Oh, dear.”

  “If I have my way, we won’t be sleeping at all.”

  “You can’t be—”

  “I’ve already come up with something. It’s a good plan.” She paused, tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “Well, it’s the only plan, so it’s as good as any. You just throw yourself at the stupid thing until you manage to stab it … wherever it’s supposed to be weak.” She glanced over her shoulder. “We should find that out. At any rate, you’ll kill it eventually. It can’t hurt you … I assume.”

  “Armecia …”

  “If you’ve got a better way to kill a dragon, I’d love to hear it.”

  “All this over a book …”

  No sooner had the words passed his lips than she froze, in spirit and body. Standing stock-still, so rigid as to render her breath barely detectable, her shadow seemed to grow long and cold, reaching out to engulf the knight behind her.

  Leonard noted, not without a grimace and not for the first time, that when a breeze whistled across the road, kicking up dust and dead leaves, her hair hung black and unmoved.

  “It’s not just ‘a book’…” her voice echoed off of nothing, reverberating through the branches and birds and killing their songs in flight.

  Leonard knew that. Things that were just books usually didn’t warrant laws being made about them. Of course, he thought, this could have been avoided if he had just killed all the townsfolk to begin with. A pile of corpses was easier to deal with than a dragon; corpses, at least, didn’t move … or breathe fire.

  Truly, she had only herself to blame for stopping him. However, given the rigidity of her spine and the particularly fierce clench of her rear cheeks, it struck him as a less than sound idea to say so.

  “Besides”—she sighed, going slack on her bones—“dragons have hoards.”

  “Amongst other things.”

  “Right, they have fiery breath and hoards.”

  “Actually, I heard that the breathing-fire thing was just a myth.”

  “Well, they’re supposed to be creatures of myth, so we should be fine. Regardless”—she held up a finger to silence further discourse—“hoards mean gold.”

  “Ah, yes.” Leonard sucked thoughtfully upon his cigarillo. “The transcendental lubricant.”

  “Right, the—” She turned and stared at him for a moment, aghast. “What?”

  “Well, it seems like everyone loves gold, doesn’t it?” He exhaled a ring of smoke, his grimace seeming to suggest that he wished he could have done it earlier. “Illicit dealers being no exception.”

  “If even a bit about dragons is true, we’d only need a handful of its treasure to keep you in green for years.” She smiled proudly. “The rest, we use to get back home.”

  “Well, isn’t that just brilliant.” He sneered. “Go and fight a dragon, and, if we somehow do manage to survive, go back to a place rife with Crusaders, murderers, and rapists.”

  “That’s hardly a valid criticism coming from your lips,” she replied snarkily. “You used to be all three!”

  “And I would still be resting nicely on those laurels if you hadn’t come along.”

  “Third law,” she replied simply.

  “Of course”—he sighed—“Sir Leonard of Savhael shall be returned to whence he came when he is no longer needed.”

  “Precisely. And this is one step closer to your no longer being needed.” She rolled her shoulders. “My father had a lot of debts when he died. This dragon business will satisfy the ones that can be paid in gold.”

  “And the rest?”

  Her face twisted into a frown. Her shadow grew a foot longer.

  “Those we shall pay by other means.”

  “WELL … that’s a …” Nitz scratched his chin, painfully aware of the fact that it was difficult to look contemplative without a beard, “that’s …”

  “A lair,” Maddy finished for him.

  He nodded; it was, indeed, a lair.

  To call it a cave would seem to label it as something naturally occurring in the earth. To call it a den would imply more coziness than such a thing deserved. To call it a nest was outright ridiculous. Certainly, he hadn’t expected it to be a pretty thing of twigs and feathers, but nor had he quite expected so much …

  What’s the word? he pondered. “Spectacle”? “Display”?

  “Filth,” Maddy grunted, as if in answer to his thoughts.

  “That’s it! This cave …” It hadn’t occurred to him that he ought not to be making such a grand and
proud gesture, given the locale. “This lair… is utterly filthy!”

  “Brilliant.”

  Its opening rather resembled a mouth, he thought: vast and gaping. In lieu of a tongue, however, a long trail of charnel in various states of decay and burnt beyond immediate recognition extended from the inky depths. In lieu of teeth, various skulls of various creatures that had walked on four legs or on two dangled, caught in the vines hanging over its rocky lip.

  To Zeigfreid’s credit, Nitz had to admit, the skulls, at least, were polished to a spotless white sheen.

  “So, how do you want to do this?” Maddy grunted, apparently less impressed.

  “Yeah,” Nitz hummed thoughtfully, “we do need a strategy, don’t we?”

  “We do?” She hefted Vulf over a shoulder. “I was thinking we’d do things the usual way.”

  “That being?”

  “I go in, hack its head off, and come out in time to search for a rag for you to clean yourself off with after you soil yourself.”

  “That might be well and good for heathens and brigands,” he replied, supposing he ought to be more offended, “but this is a dragon in a dark cave. In the time it took you to fumble about and get your face chewed off, I could knit myself a pair of new trousers.” He added a coy smile. “Unless you’re hoping he dies of embarrassment when you accidentally grope him, I’d think of something else.”

  “Huh?” She scratched her chin, surveying the long black furrow of flesh upon the ground. “Unless this is his mother’s heap of rotting charnel, he seems to like meat well enough. We can just round up a cow, tie a rope to it, and send it in.”

  “Fishing … for dragons.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  He blinked.

  “No … really, they haven’t.” He turned back to the cave. “It’s a beast, right? It has to make water. We can wait until it comes out to do that and then—”

  “Who says it has to make water?” she interrupted. “It’s an agent of your supposed Devil, isn’t it? Maybe it pisses oil and sets it alight.” She clapped her hands in a sudden fit of realization. “That’s how they spew fire.”