by Rick Cook
Malkin led him deeper into the twisty maze of lanes and alleys, between houses that sagged out over the street to support each other like staggering drunks, down alleys over piles of garbage and through open spaces where buildings had collapsed into heaps of broken brick and rotted timbers. Once they passed a long row of substantial brick buildings, sturdy and windowless but stained with time and marred by graffiti and abuse.
"Almost there," Malkin said as she turned into an alley even narrower and more noisome than the last. Wiz was utterly lost, but from the overtone of mud and long-dead fish permeating the general stench, he thought they had doubled back toward the river.
The alley suddenly opened out into a square facing the river and Wiz blinked as he stepped from the gloom into the mellow light of the setting sun. Not that the view was much of an improvement. The open space was small and piled more than head-high with rubble and garbage. The buildings on either side leaned alarmingly and one of them had already slumped down into a pile of brick spilling out into the square. The opposite side was formed by the burned-out shell of another of the windowless brick buildings. Looking at the blackened brick and fire-damaged mortar Wiz wondered how much longer it would stay standing.
Halfway down the square, Malkin turned suddenly and ducked into a low doorway. Hanging out over the door was a carved wooden sign depicting a rampant and wildly concupiscent pig, its head turned sideways and its tongue thrust out. The hooves, tongue and other parts were picked out in gold leaf, now faded to a mellow brown. Whether through lack of skill or excess of it, the sign carver had turned the conventional heraldic pose into a gesture of pornographic defiance.
Wiz ducked through the doorway and nearly fell headfirst down the short flight of uneven stone stairs that led into the room.
The place was long, narrow and mostly dark. The reek of old beer and stale urine told Wiz it was a tavern even before his eyes adjusted well enough to see the barrels stacked along one wall. A few mutton-tallow lamps added more stench than light to the scene, and here and there the fading rays of the sun peeked through cracks in the bricks. The three or four patrons scattered around at the rough tables and benches all possessed a mien that did not encourage casual acquaintance and a manner that made Wiz want to stay as far away from them as possible. The only one who paid any attention to the newcomers was the barkeep, a big man in a dirty white smock who looked them up and down and then went back to picking his teeth with a double-edged dagger.
It was definitely not the kind of drinking establishment Wiz was used to. There wasn’t a fern in sight, although Wiz thought he detected a smear of moss growing out of a seep of moisture on one wall.
Malkin put her hands on her hips, looked around and breathed a deep, contented sigh. She plopped herself down on the nearest bench and bellowed for the barkeep.
"Hi, Cully! Jacks of your best for me and the wizard here." The big man grunted acknowledgement and turned to his barrels. It seemed Malkin was known, if not welcomed, in this place.
"Come here often?" Wiz asked casually.
"Often enough. The Prancing Pig’s the place to be if you want to meet folks in the Bog Side."
Glancing around, Wiz couldn’t imagine going up to anyone in this place and asking him his sign.
Cully slapped down two leather mugs before them. From the stuff that slopped on the table Wiz could see the contents were beer. He picked his up and took a sip. It was thick, potent and flavored with some kind of bitter herb besides hops. The pine pitch used to seal the leather gave it a resiny aftertaste. Wiz was no judge of beer, but the stuff wasn’t bad.
"This is the real city," Malkin said. "The folks down here don’t put on airs and there’s none of that social scramble and bicker, bicker, bicker you get on the other side of the bridge. Folks in the Bog Side stick together."
"When they’re not slitting each others’ throats you mean."
Malkin shrugged. "That’s in the way of business." She took a long pull on her mug and slapped it down with a lusty sigh.
Wiz followed with a smaller pull on his tankard. "That reminds me. Those big buildings on this side of the river. Are those warehouses?"
Malkin shrugged. "Some were. A long time ago. Farmers’d bring in wool. Some of it would be spun and woven here and more would be traded downriver as it was."
"What happened?"
Malkin looked at him as if he was a touch slow. "Dragons is what happened. You can’t grow much wool when there’s dragons using your flocks as a lunch counter, not to mention snapping up the crew of a riverboat or two. The farmers still graze sheep, but there’s not so much wool as there used to be. Not so many come to buy, either."
It made sense, Wiz thought as he took another pull on the oddly flavored beer. Dragons matured slowly and few survived to adulthood. But in a place with little natural magic there was nothing to threaten an adult dragon and they lived a very long time. Over the centuries there would be a slow, steady increase in population and that would mean more dragons to bedevil their human neighbors.
"It couldn’t have all been one-sided, though. Otherwise people would never have gotten established in the valley. You had to have ways of fighting back."
Malkin snorted into her mug. "Buying peace, more like. Used to be the council would make a deal with dragons. So many sheep, or cattle, or maidens a year and the dragons would leave the rest alone-mostly."
"But that doesn’t work any more?"
"Seems like there’s a different dragon every year."
Population pressure again, Wiz thought. Somehow Malthusian economics looked different when you were part of the consumable resource instead of the expanding population. Pretty clearly buying off the dragons wasn’t the answer. All that got you was more dragons exploiting the resource.
"You must have had other ways of fighting back."
Malkin thumped down her now-empty mug and considered. "There’s children’s tales of heroes who could kill dragons. I suppose they’re true because there used to be statues to them in half the squares in town."
"Used to be?"
"Dragons didn’t like it. They’d swoop down and melt the statues where they stood. Burn down a lot of the town in the process." Again the shrug. "That was a long time ago, too."
It didn’t feel like a solution to Wiz, but he persisted. "Still, you could kill dragons."
"A hero could. Had to be a hero who would face a dragon in single combat. Sometimes the dragon’d win and burn the town. Sometimes the human would win and we’d be free of dragons for a bit. But heroing ain’t what it used to be. Not so many of them any more and there’s more dragons, seems like."
"I understand why you have more dragons, but why aren’t there more heroes?"
" ’Cause win or lose most of them are only good for one fight." She jerked her head back toward the bar. "Cully here. He’s the only one around now."
"Cully fought a dragon?"
Malkin nodded. "He’s the one I want you to meet. Hey, Cully," she called over her shoulder. "The wizard here wants to meet you. And bring us a couple more while you’re at it."
As the bartender made his way over with a pitcher of beer Wiz looked at him closely. He was a big man, run to fat now in late middle age and his skin blotchy from sampling too much of his wares. He moved with a pronounced limp with his withered left arm pressed close to his side. For all that he must have been formidable in his youth.
"So you’re the wizard, eh?" Cully said as he plopped the pitcher of beer down on the table. Wiz saw he had brought a jack for himself.
"More a consultant just now," Wiz said. "I’m working with the council on their dragon problem."
"Scared a dragon right out of the Baggot Place," Malkin put in. "Frightened him so bad he flew away without harming anyone."
Cully looked Wiz up and down. "So I heard," he said in a tone that wasn’t quite a challenge.
"It’s a skill," Wiz shrugged. "But you actually fought a dragon and won."
Cully filled his own jack an
d passed the pitcher to Malkin. "Aye. It’s a dragon’s treasure that got me this place. And as for winning-" He shrugged his good arm. "Well, I’m here and the dragon ain’t."
Wiz leaned forward. "Did you have some kind of special weapon?"
"What’s the matter, Wizard? Your own methods not good enough?"
"Oh, my methodology for dragon abatement is perfectly adequate. But like any practitioner I seek to add to my knowledge base."
The big man digested that while he drained most of his tankard.
"Oh, aye, there’s all kinds of lore on killing dragons." Cully grinned. Since half his face was a mass of burn scars the result was not only lopsided, it was something to terrify small children. "Thing is, most of it don’t work." He twitched his bad arm and Wiz saw the skin was mostly scar tissue. "That’s how I got like this, following some of that advice."
Wiz wondered if the dragons exchanged tips on fighting humans.
"Still, you beat a dragon in a single combat."
Cully’s grin grew even more lopsided. "I never said it was a straight-up fight. That’s not in the rules, you see."
"There are rules?"
"Of a sort. If you don’t follow them the dragon won’t fight you. It’s his choice, you know, seeing as how he can fly and you can’t."
"What are the rules?"
"Only show up at the appointed place at the appointed time, all by yourself. After that anything goes."
"How’d you do it?"
"How do you do it, Wizard?" Cully shot back.
"I do what any good consultant does. Mostly I talk them to death."
Cully considered. "That’s a new one anyway. I wish you the luck of it." He paused. "As for me, I started by hiding in some rocks and braining him with a boulder. Then?" The big man shrugged. "Then it was just one hell of a fight." He looked over Wiz’s shoulder as if seeing something miles away. "One hell of a fight."
The mood held for a long minute as Wiz considered the implications.
"And no one’s done it since you?"
Cully’s eyes focused back on Wiz. "Not for more than forty years. There’s some as have tried. But none with any luck, you see."
"Are the dragons getting smarter?"
"There’s them as says that," Cully admitted. "Or maybe those would-be dragon slayers is getting dumber. Or softer." He let out a gusty sigh and drained the last of his beer. "I’ll tell you one thing, Wizard. Dragon slaying ain’t what it used to be." Then he grinned again. "But then neither’s much else."
Again silence as both men sat lost in thought, Cully in his memories and Wiz in the implications of what he had learned. He needed to absorb all this and the heavy beer was going to his head.
"Well," he said, pushing his end of the bench back from the table, "thanks a lot Cully. You’ve given me a lot to think about."
The big man grinned his terrifying grin. "Any time you need advice on killing dragons, come and see me."
"Thanks, Cully." Wiz turned to go but the tavern keeper cleared his throat.
"You forgot to pay for the beer."
In a sinking instant Wiz realized he didn’t have any money with him. But Malkin reached into her belt pouch and flipped a silver coin down on the table.
Cully scooped up the coin, bit it, and nodded. "He’s got you paying for him, eh?"
"Wizards don’t use money," Malkin said carelessly.
"Yeah?" the big man said skeptically. "What do they use then?"
"Plastic," Wiz blurted. "Ah, little cards, like so," he opened his fingers. "When you want something you just show them your plastic."
Cully looked at him with eyes narrowed and Wiz felt foolish.
"And they take this plastic stuff? Just like that?"
"Well," said Wiz, remembering the times he had gone over his limit, "mostly."
For the first time the big man’s face showed respect. "You must be a mighty wizard indeed."
"Where’d you get that silver?" Wiz asked as he and Malkin emerged into the cool evening air.
"One of those pickpockets back at the bridge wasn’t as good as he thought he was," Malkin said with a radiant smile. "He had money in his pouch too."
"You picked a pickpocket’s pocket while he was trying to pick your pocket?"
"It was a challenge."
Wiz just sighed and followed his guide back down the alley, his head full of beer fumes and his mind full of dragons.
So the dragons were getting harder to kill, eh? That made sense too, in a way. The older, more powerful dragons staked out their territories in the center of the Dragon Lands and forced the younger ones to the periphery. That meant that the dragons the humans faced were less powerful and less experienced-less intelligent too, if Griswold was any example. But as population pressure increased bigger, smarter and more dangerous dragons were trying to grab territory on the edge. They’d be harder for human warriors to beat.
He nearly stumbled into a sewage pit and he had to rush to keep up with Malkin.
"Cully is the last of the dragon slayers, huh?"
Malkin nodded. "Far as anyone knows." Her tone changed slightly. "He may be my father too. Big enough anyway."
"You didn’t know your father?"
"Nah," Malkin said. "Left or died or something before I was born."
"Didn’t your mother tell you anything about him?"
A snort of laughter in the dark. "Barely knew my mother. I was too young to ask questions like that."
"I’m sorry."
"For what? She ’prenticed me to Mother Massiter when I was bare old enough to walk. I was a slavey there for a few years. Then I came into some growth, discovered my talent and I’ve been on my own ever since."
"But don’t you ever wonder…"
Malkin’s voice roughened. "The world’s full of wondering, Wizard. Now let it be and we’ll be home soon enough."
They walked along in silence, each wrapped in thought, until they emerged at the foot of the bridge that led out of the Bog Side. There was but a sliver of moon and the bridge was dark. Wiz listened to the water rushing along beneath them and considered what he’d learned. No wonder these people need help, he thought. They’re losing to the dragons and they don’t even know it yet.
He never even saw the shadow that detached itself from the gloom and brought the raised club down on his head with skull-smashing force.
Wiz never saw the blow coming, nor the four cloaked figures that came charging out of the dark. He didn’t have to. The protective spell in his ring sensed the danger and wrapped him in a stasis field, leaving him frozen in the center of the band of attackers.
The first man’s club bounced out of his numbed fingers. Before he could bend to retrieve it, a second, smaller figure twisted in and struck with the speed of a cobra. His dagger flashed down, struck the magic field, skittered off and buried itself in the wielder’s thigh. The man screamed and fell back. The other two stopped their headlong charge and stared at the motionless figure of the wizard, considering their next move.
"I’m struck down," wailed the little one with the knife. "Laid low by a cowardly wizard’s blow."
"Ah, it’s nothing but a scratch," growled the man with the club.
"A scratch?" the wounded man yelped. "A scratch?" His voice went higher and quavered. "It’s a Fortuna great wound in me leg, it is. Nigh mortal, I tell you."
"Well, stand away and we’ll finish him," said a third man. "All of us striking together." He hefted his cudgel and fitted his actions to his words.
The fourth and last assassin had a sword. The three remaining men struck Wiz simultaneously and in turns. They hit him high. They hit him low. They pounded and hammered and thrust and sliced and hacked and hewed. Wiz just stood there, frozen in time and oblivious to their efforts.
"Doesn’t seem to matter what we do," the shortest one gasped at last. "It hurts us worse than it does him." He rubbed his shoulder. "Got me bursitis going again, it has."
"We could set him on fire," the tall one with the swo
rd said speculatively.
"Not likely he’d burn," said the third. "He’s an expert on dragons after all."
"Let’s throw him in the river then."
"Don’t look at me," the aggrieved voice came out of the shadows. "I’m wounded out of commission."
"Three of us can handle him all right. Come on boys."
The men clustered around Wiz and tried to jerk him aloft. But the stasis spell worked in proportion to the applied acceleration and Wiz would not move.
"He’s heavy as lead," one of them grunted.
"Let’s tip him, then," said the man with the sword. "Maybe we can move him that way."
By slowly tilting the frozen Wiz back on his heels and working him forward inch by painful inch the thugs got Wiz to the stone rail.
"Now," the tall one panted, "how we going to get him over the railing?"
"Maybe we could hoist him up and tip him like?" the one with the sword said dubiously.
"Won’t do any good if he lands in the mud bank," the third said, having regained his breath.
The two looked at each other and then leaned over the rail to peer down to the river.
A strong hand grasped each man by the belt and boosted both assassins up and over the rail before they knew what had happened. The third man rushed to the aid of his friends only to be seized and propelled over the stone railing after them. Three splashes from below confirmed that they had indeed been over the river and not the mud bank.
"Now," said Malkin, turning to face the fourth thug.
"No need." The man hobbled to his feet and held out a hand to ward her off. "No need. I’m going." With that he hoisted himself over the stone rail and disappeared into the darkness below.
With the threat vanished, the spell relaxed its grip and time speeded up to normal for Wiz. He blinked as his eyes refocused, realized he was facing in a different direction and then saw Malkin looking over the bridge railing.
"Something happened didn’t it?"
Malkin looked at him oddly. "Four Bog Side bullies just tried to kill you is all. I guess that qualifies as ’something’-at least for normal folk."
She strode ahead briskly. "Come on," she said over her shoulder. "Let’s get off this bridge before something else happens."
