Fantastical Ramblings

by Irene Radford

  Jenks swung from one of my neck fronds as if it were a playground toy. “Hey!” he chortled. “It’s a girl.”

  I dipped my head to peer more closely at my invader. The shield was perfectly transparent to my vision. I also hoped to find a way around that shield. Flames were of no use against dragon scales.

  If I stalled long enough maybe she’d drop it. It must have weighed a ton and covered the entire length of her body.

  “Hand what over?” I boomed, hoping the noise and reverberation would cover the frightened quaver in my voice.

  “Your library books. They’re one hundred years overdue. The fines alone are worth a king’s ransom.”

  “Yeep!” I gulped. “Library books?”

  “You heard me. Hand them over.”

  “Look around, girlie, you find ’em, you can have ’em,” Jenks challenged her.

  She poked her pert nose around the edge of her shield. Her eyes went wide, causing a pair of thick spectacles to slide down her miniature snoz, stopping just short of dropping to the ground.

  “By Midas, the great god of hoarders!” She tried reaching for a pile of books, discovered both hands occupied by sword and shield.

  I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. How to choose between the treasure of books and defense of her body? While she thought, I tried to come up with a strategy to get rid of her. But if she left here alive she’d tell the world that not only did I not have a great treasure of diamonds and gold, but she’d broadcast to the world and my family what a lousy housekeeper I was, even with a pixie to help dust occasionally.

  The librarian/knight finally opted to sheath her rusty old sword and keep her shield between herself and the smoke dribbling out of my muzzle. Rapidly and precisely she straightened two piles, alphabetizing them as she went.

  “My name’s Miriam by the way, Miriam de Livres. Some of these books are true rarities. They should be in an atmosphere-controlled room on acid free shelves, not touching each other...” She rambled on about the best way to store and preserve the books. All the while, the square footage behind her shield took on a neatness the likes of which this cave hadn’t seen in centuries.

  “This cavern is precisely climate controlled. If you’d been less concerned with overdue fines than where you were you’d have noticed how deep you came into this hidey hole. The temperature and humidity do not vary more than ten percent no matter the weather outside,” I explained to her. “I bought those books new and they are still in pristine condition.”

  I puffed out my chest with pride, to disguise the fire building within me. If Miriam of the books lost just a tiny bit of her concentration, I might be able to work a line of flame over or around the shield and she’d be ash. What was one more dead body among the refuse. I just wanted to be done with her and get back to my reading.

  “These books are in good condition, despite the dust,” she said in a dazed sort of voice. She skootched closer to my chaise lounge, (recliners don’t fit my body nearly so well as old fainting couches) leaving order in her wake.

  I noticed an old favorite among the rows of books that I had forgotten about. I snatched at it with two delicate talons.

  Miriam slapped my paw with the flat of her sword. Where did that come from? “Don’t you dare make a mess of these books.”

  Chastened I withdrew to sulk on the other side of the chaise. She shifted the shield, still keeping it between us.

  Jenks hopped off my muzzle onto my favorite reading chair beneath the crack in the ceiling that allowed a little extra light in. A puff of dust rose around him when he landed.

  The librarian stifled a sneeze, still working away in search of “her” books. If possession was nine tenths of the law, then the books should be mine after a century or two had passed.

  “Maybe we can work a deal,” Jenks said in a stage whisper meant to induce a sense of privacy but loud enough so I could hear.

  I’d hear his quiet words anyway, dragon ears and cave acoustics made this a perfect whispering gallery.

  “We let you retrieve your books and take a couple of special rarities and you waive the fines. And you keep this cave a secret.”

  Little Miss Neatness tilted her head to listen. Her free hand kept working.

  “No! Not my books. You can’t take my books away from me,” I wailed, wringing my forepaws. When did I lose control of this battle?

  “Hush,” Jenks admonished me. “I’m saving your ass. You ever tried to match a librarian for stubbornness, determination, and greed for books?”

  “Actually, removing some of these books from this cave might damage them irreparably. But it’s a shame scholars don’t have access to them. We could learn so much about history, literature, lost sciences...”

  “Scholars?” I asked. A plan began to create a pattern in my brain. “Scholars with grant money to pay for access to research material?”

  “Scholars with grant money to pay for someone else to do the research?” Jenks looked pointedly at me.

  “Scholars with grant money to pay for solid shelves and a card catalogue,” the librarian confirmed, eyeing me speculatively. A glimmer shone in her eyes. Those brown orbs grew large with excitement.

  “Librarians to help with the dusting?” Jenks asked.

  Both the librarian and I stared at him in disgust.

  “Okay, I’ll dust, you catalogue and shelve.” Jenks pointed to Miriam. “And you do research.” He shifted that accusatory finger toward me.

  “Agreed.” Miriam finally dropped the shield and held out her hand.

  Jenks brushed against it, the closest thing to a handshake he could manage.

  Then they both turned to stare at me. I extended a talon the size of Miriam’s hand. She grasped it and gave it a yank. I guess that sufficed for shaking on the deal.

  “Can I get back to my reading now?” I asked plaintively. That was of course my primary objective.

  “No!” both Miriam and Jenks screamed.

  “If I haul out one armload of garbage, can I read a book?”

  “I don’t know. How fast do you read?” Miriam looked pointedly at the rotting magician against the far wall.

  “Too slow,” Jenks said.

  “Two piles of garbage per book, and you have to let us put the book back where it belongs when you are done,” Miriam insisted, hands on hips.

  “Which of course means I don’t have to put it back!” I chortled.

  “Would you anyway?” Miriam asked. A delightful smudge of dirt graced her pert little nose.

  “Well no. I get to pick which book I read next, though.”

  They both sighed and nodded.

  I grabbed a stack of anthropology texts ranging from the Mayan pyramids to Hindu polytheism.

  “One book at a time. Your checkout limit is cut until we get this place clean and we have money coming in.” Miriam gently removed four of the five books from my hands.

  “But...”

  “Think about it, Your Laziness Lea,” Jenks consoled me. “The sooner we get this place ready for company, the sooner you can indulge in reading anything and everything. Then you can write book reports, you can answer questions about what you just read. You’ll be acknowledged as the world’s greatest authority. People will actually pay you to read.”

  I grabbed the nearest pile of skeletons and rotting fabric and practically danced to the cave mouth. “Where do I put it?” I asked.

  “Sort it into recyclable categories and dump the non-biodegradable stuff on the plateau above the cliff. That will mislead stupid, uncouth, illiterate adventurers into searching for your treasure further up the mountain,” Miriam called through the entrance tunnel.

  Good idea. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I carefully picked through the stuff to make certain I didn’t accidentally discard any books.

  Oops! I found a book of alchemy diagrams amongst the dead magician’s bones. I peeked over my shoulder to make sure Jenks and Miriam weren’t watching. Then I tucked the book amongst my neck fri
lls for safe keeping. What would it hurt to just look through it to make certain it wasn’t damaged?

  In loving memory of

  My mother

  Miriam Bentley Radford

  School librarian.

  She taught many, including me

  That reading is the greatest gift

  you can give a child.

  ~THE END~

  Draconis ex Machina

  A perennial favorite that first appeared in the DAW Books 30th Anniversary anthology edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Elizabeth Wollheim, and Sheila E. Gilbert. Other anthologies have reprinted it. But to have it included in a collection with Andre Norton was the thrill of a lifetime.

  <<>>

  Before the Glass Dragon was turned into Glass:

  “We go on foot from here, Prince Darville” Lord Krej, my father’s cousin, announced to me. A placid smile creased his broad face but did not reach his deep blue eyes. He maintained the masked expression he wore at court.

  Gratefully I dismounted. After three days on steed back, hunting a rogue spotted saber cat, I needed to feel the Kardia beneath my feet for a time.

  Eliminating an animal that had developed a taste for human flesh did not necessarily fall to the Crown Prince and the First Lord of the Council of Provinces. But I had taken Krej up on the offer of adventure for many reasons.

  Our six guards dismounted with me. We’d left the pack of nobles and retainers behind a day and a half ago. Knowing Krej’s need to preen before an audience made that decision suspect.

  I left the heavily jeweled, ceremonial sword my father insisted I carry as suitable to a man of my station in the saddle sheath. For this adventure I wanted something sturdier, heavier, and keener. Krej had too many secrets to trust him with only a useless weapon in my hand.

  Instead I belted on a serviceable blade I’d purloined from the palace armory.

  “You three, remain with the steeds,” Krej ordered the guards. “Make camp.”

  They set about their business with unquestioning efficiency.

  I needed to know what my cousin plotted. He’d not reveal himself in front of men sworn to my father. For that reason alone I did not question why the horses needed more than one guard, two at the most.

  “You other three.” Krej pointed to the remaining guards. “Rest your steeds an hour then return to the rest of the party. Send them home or bring them here. Whatever they choose.” He shrugged as if disgusted with the lack of stamina among his cronies.

  I suspected the nobles who had ridden out with us from the capitol felt more loyalty to him than to me and my father. Possibly more loyalty to my cousin than the kingdom of Coronnan.

  Why else had they feasted on Krej’s bounty the last night we were all together. Krej had wounded the deer then run it nearly to death. While it lay panting in terror he had cut the living heart out of it. His mad laughter as he performed the hideous deed still haunted me.

  I’d caught a whiff of something strange in those terrible moments. Something worse than the smell of fear and sweat and blood and offal.

  What?

  I had not eaten any of the deer that night. But the nobles had. Nearly all of them had been sluggish and sick the next day. We left them behind.

  Only Krej and I remained to hunt the elusive spotted saber cat. Reputedly the beast had savaged one of Krej’s villages, killing a child. I added a stout dagger to my sword belt.

  Out of fear of the cat or of Krej I could not tell at that moment.

  While my steed stood between me and Krej, I checked my boot knives and the blades in the wrist sheaths.

  The gang of city boys I had run with as an adolescent had taught me to fight for survival. I needed to wade into this fray with intent rather than honor. Rumors in the capitol claimed that Krej knew nothing of honor in any of his dealings.

  I slung a pack of provisions over my shoulder and stepped toward the path Krej indicated.

  “We won’t be gone long enough to need those,” Krej said, pointing to my pack. He smiled again. His teeth gleamed in the winter sunlight like the predatory animal we hunted.

  “The cat is that close?” I asked. The tracks we’d been following for days did not look fresh to me. I bent and placed my dominant left hand atop a clear print. Nearly as broad as my palm. Stray leaves and twigs as well as dust had blown across them. It was not fresh. Still I needed to keep up the pretense of ignorance and wits dulled by cold, if Krej were ever to reveal his plans to me. He loved to boast, but did not take unreasonable chances with men equal to him in strength and intelligence.

  In a fight I had the advantage of longer reach and greater agility, as well as youth. My left handed dominance often proved awkward to right handed men. Krej had brute strength in his broad shoulders and sturdy legs.

  He flung a cloak made from the pelt of a spotted saber cat around his shoulders. A new cloak I had not seen before. A cloak that would earn admiration and gasps of awe from the court. A man as vain as Krej could not resist wearing the garment before the audience he craved.

  The sun and fog colors gleamed in the weak sunlight. Nearly rippling with life and menace.

  Every portion of my being froze. Krej did not need to hunt a cat that preyed upon his villages. He had already killed the beast.

  Surreptitiously I fished a talisman from my pack and stuffed it into my pocket. I remembered clearly my friend’s warning that the magic in the amulet would not activate until I kissed it and placed it in a pouch around my neck. I had kept the thing only to please him. At the time I had scoffed. I did not need magical protection. I was a prince and a trained warrior.

  Now I was not so certain.

  Krej’s cloak covered most of his magician red hair.

  Another rumor I needed to verify. Krej reputedly used magic to insure the cooperation of the twelve lords on the Council of Provinces, and to coerce wealthy merchants to guarantee his debts. Debts he rarely, if ever repaid.

  Kings and their families were not allowed to possess magic in Coronnan.

  In his youth Krej had studied at the University of Magicians. He’d inherited his talent from his outland mother. Neither of his two older half-brothers showed signs of magic.

  Five strong men had stood between Krej and the throne—my father, myself, Krej’s father, and his two older brothers. He’d been allowed his magic.

  But then, quite unexpectedly, all within the space of a few months, Krej’s father and two older brothers had died of disease or accident.

  Only two lives, myself and my father, now stood between Krej and the throne.

  Krej had renounced his magic and assumed his new responsibilities as lord of Faciar, cousin to the king, and leader of the Council of Provinces.

  My magician friends questioned the accidents and suggested poison and murder instead of disease and accident in the death of Krej’s relatives. I had not the courage to question until I saw what Krej did to the deer. And heard what he’d done to one of his peasants.

  Had he really forsaken the practice of magic? I knew he could not get rid of his talent—even if bedding his new bride before he achieved master magician status was supposed to rob him of his powers.

  I left my own cloak of wolf fur and oiled wool open across my left shoulder, keeping my sword arm free.

  We stepped off the caravan road onto a steep trail leading up the mountain. The lucky charm bounced reassuringly in my pocket.

  Not once did Krej pause to inspect the tracks I discerned occasionally along the trail. He did not bend to sniff the spoor. I knew he no longer hunted.

  I worried that he no longer pretended to hunt.

  But I had to know what he was up to. For my father’s safety and that of our kingdom.

  Two days before we began the hunt, word had reached me that one of Krej’s villagers had tried to run away. Krej had run the man to death—never even trying to capture him, just kept him running and running until he could run no further. When the man finally lay on the ground gasping for air, too spent to mov
e ought but his lungs, and those painfully, Krej had dismounted and kicked the man in the groin and the chest and the head until he died.

  The man had fared little better than the deer.

  And Krej had laughed as he murdered the man.

  I could only wonder what cruelty on Krej’s part had driven the commoner to run away.

  Now I paced warily behind the most powerful lord in the land.

  The higher we climbed the colder the air became. I smelled snow. The tree canopy obscured the sun. By the time we cleared the upland forest and moved onto the open slope of the mountain, clouds blocked the noon light and a fierce wind howled. I wanted to draw my cloak closer about me. But I needed my sword arm free.

  Finally I stopped. A broad ledge, about ten paces deep, cut across an open curve of mountain. Above us, the mountain soared to uncounted heights now lost in clouds. Below us, an old landslide dropped sharply to a stony valley. I did not want to be caught out in the open on that ledge.

  “Why have you lured me here, Lord Krej?” I drawled the title with contempt. All pretense gone.

  I fought the urge to pace. My habits demanded movement. I thought better while moving. Now as I looked around I realized we had been following the cliff edge for sometime. My sense of space had been tricked by a gentler, rolling slope to my right. Now that it climbed thousands of feet in a single glance, I felt the danger of the drop to my left much more keenly. I glanced nervously toward the valley below. A long, long way below me.

  I held my breath. I often dreamed of flying with dragons. The reality of the danger made me sidle closer to the solid security of the mountain. My safety lay in staying away from the edge.

  “The time has come, dear cousin,” Krej replied with a sneer—all trace of mild condescension vanished—”to end the charade of your father’s reign over Coronnan. To end the de Draconis line and the myth of your dragon protectors.”

  “So soon?” My thoughts whirled. I lifted one eyebrow in an attempt to stall for time. “You have no son or grandson to succeed you. Only five daughters. I would think you would marry off at least one to get a male heir before attempting to displace the de Draconis line, a line of kings born of legend and worshipped along with the dragons.” I kept my tone emotionless. “You should have put your wife aside years ago. You’d suffer a lot less frustration with a younger woman capable of producing a son.”