A Dragon and Her Girl

by Max Florschutz

  The look on the boy’s face when she got to those final few words was almost enough to make her break out laughing. His eyes bulged, and his mouth dropped open, giving him an uncanny resemblance to a startled frog. The green surcoat he wore only heightened the resemblance.

  “I—ah—” His mouth moved, but nothing more came out of it.

  Tarma took advantage of his mental state to advance on him. He barely got his blade up in time to deflect her first move; he never saw the second. Her blow to the side of his head laid him out flat.

  “Now what?” Kethry asked.

  Tarma shrugged. “Go free the girl and explain the situation to her. She’s the injured party. Let her decide what she wants to do with him. Personally, all I want is out of here.”

  :He is a very good musician,: Warrl put in wistfully. :Truly a marvelous minstrel. I don’t suppose—:

  “NO!” snapped Tarma, Kethry, and the dragon, all together.

  From her position in the cave, Rowena had been able to hear clearly everything that was going on, but it didn’t make much sense to her. First that incredibly odd looking animal had crept in and scared off the horse. She had seen it quite clearly, although she hadn’t recognized it. It was like nothing she had ever seen before.

  Warning the prince about what was happening to his horse was not something she was going to do; she didn’t owe him any favors. She was prepared to watch the horse gnawed to bare bones before she opened her mouth, but she was just as happy when it was merely chased away—after all, none of this was the horse’s fault.

  But her mouth dropped open in astonishment when she heard the challenge. Who is Tarma shena Tale’sedrin? she wondered. And what does she mean “my lady and my love”—I’ve never even met her!

  Then a very pretty young woman with amber hair came into the cave, cut her loose, helped her to her feet and held her up until the numbness wore off and Rowena could walk again. “It’s all right, Rowena,” she said soothingly. “My name is Kethry, my partner is Tarma, and I think you may have seen Warrl earlier. Your foster-mother hired us to rescue you.”

  Rowena had several questions about this ‘rescue party’ but she didn’t know if it was safe to talk yet. So she remained silent as she followed Kethry out of the cave into the sunlight. The prince lay on the ground, but Rowena didn’t spare enough attention to determine whether he was dead or merely unconscious. Kethry had obviously been telling the truth about who hired them; the dragon was perched on the trail just beyond the cave. Rowena ran to her and flung both arms around as much dragon as she could reach, which was most of one foreleg.

  A scaly chin dropped down to pat the top of her head and then pulled back. “My poor child,” the dragon said. “Have you managed to keep your mouth shut all this time?” Rowena nodded, her head still pressed firmly against the dragon’s leg. “I’m impressed,” the dragon chuckled. “I know it wasn’t easy for you. But you can talk now. He’s unconscious—”

  “Not dead?” Rowena asked in mock disappointment, carefully palming two jewels.

  “Rowena!” the dragon reproved her. “And Tarma and Kethry and Warrl know about your peculiar talent.”

  Rowena turned to look at them. Kethry smiled sympathetically. “It must be awkward sometimes,” she said.

  Rowena nodded. “But it’s not so bad since the Lady Dragon modified the spell to get rid of the flowers,” she said, carefully catching the jewels and coins in her cupped hands. “The rose thorns in the original spell really hurt!” She looked at Tarma. “Why did you call me your lady and your love? I don’t understand that part—we’ve never met before, have we?”

  Tarma chuckled. “That was to discourage further royal attempts at ‘rescuing’ you,” she explained. “If you are thought to be a lover of women, most princes won’t want you.”

  “What’s a lover of woman?” Rowena asked, still puzzled.

  Tarma sighed, and Kethry giggled. “Oh,” Rowena said, realizing the class of information involved. “That’s one of those ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’ things, isn’t it?”

  “Something like that,” Kethry replied. “The idea is that when the prince tells this story, people won’t bother you anymore.”

  “There’s just one problem with that,” Rowena said. “He’s a minstrel—he’s not going to tell anything accurately—or even close to it!”

  “Damn,” Tarma said. “She’s right. We know how strange a story can become when a minstrel gets hold of it.”

  The prince stirred and groaned. “What happened?” He looked around, saw the dragon, and promptly fainted.

  Rowena sighed. “He’s a frog,” she said firmly.

  Pop! Everyone blinked at the sound, then looked at the figure on the ground. The prince was gone, replaced by a frog.

  “How did you do that?” the dragon asked in surprise.

  Rowena shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “He just seemed like a frog to me.”

  The dragon sighed. “I guess I’ll have to start giving you lessons in magic. Wild talents are dangerous.”

  “So are some tame ones,” Rowena retorted. “Look at my Aunt Frideswide.”

  “Can you change him back?” Kethry asked.

  Rowena shrugged again. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t particularly want to change him back, either—not after the way he treated me!”

  “Well, you have to do something with him,” Tarma said, “or he’ll be outside your cave every time you look.”

  Rowena looked up at the dragon. “Can you do something with him?”

  The dragon thought for a minute. “I’ll set up a transport circle, and send him to wherever he’s wanted or needed.”

  Rowena nodded. “Let’s hope there’s somebody who wants him then.” She turned to Kethry. “You said that you were hired to rescue me. Did you,” she looked from them to the dragon, “agree on a price?”

  “We’re actually getting paid?” Tarma said incredulously.

  Rowena handed Tarma the jewels that had fallen into her hands with every word she had spoken since they had rescued her. “Would you prefer coins for the rest?” Tarma nodded, apparently unable to speak. Rowena cupped her hands in front of her face and chanted softly. When she lowered her hands, they were full of gold coins. She handed them to Kethry, who put them into her belt pouch. Tarma, still staring at the jewels, followed her example.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Kethry asked the dragon anxiously, as she, Tarma, Warrl and their horses took their places in the carefully scribed magic circle.

  The dragon could only shrug. “I can only hope. I am not entirely certain how I brought you here in the first place.”

  “Just get on with it,” Tarma said, addressing a private and fervent prayer to the Star-eyed. The dragon closed her eyes, and inscribed a complicated figure in the air with one talon.

  Then the world went black.

  But instead of reappearing in the clearing in the Pelagirs, Tarma found herself standing alone, in a place of softly glowing mist, on a path of light. The Moonpaths! she thought, startled, But why—

  “So,” said a familiar voice, a hollow tenor, pleasant enough, but echoing as if the speaker stood in the bottom of a well. “Finally, we find you. Your spirits have been wandering, Younger Sister—wandering quite out of our world.”

  “What?” she asked, startled.

  “You have traveled in spirit to a very distant place,” her leshy’a Kalendral teacher told her. “Oh, do not mistake me, your venture was quite real, and as you know, you affected the world in which you walked quite decisively—but your true body was lying in your camp, where you were overcome by the dust of gade’shata. You, and your she’enedra both, your horses and your kyree.” He tilted his head to one side. “We bent a rule for you, we, your teachers, and guarded you while you walked.”

  Tarma blanched. Gade’shata mushrooms produced a cloud of spores which were incredibly potent. Shamans sometimes used them to walk through other worlds and times, though a
t their peril. If she and Kethry had survived an encounter with those potent fungi, they were fortunate indeed!

  “I shall not ask where you walked,” the spirit-Kal’enedral continued. “You could only have been drawn to one who needed you profoundly. I will only say that you have been fortunate to have escaped this with a whole soul, and if I were you, I should be very careful to watch where I stepped in the future.”

  And before she could reply, the world vanished again. Only this time, she found herself lying cramped and cold on wet grass, soaked from head to toe by a sudden rainfall. She dragged herself to her feet with the help of a nearby sapling, scraping her wet hair out of her eyes as she looked around.

  The mares were tethered nearby, shaking their heads as if dazed, the imprint of their bodies still marking the grass beside them. Kethry was blinking and sitting up; Warrl scrubbing at his eyes with his paws. It looked as if they had just made camp, for the remains of a fire smoldered in the light rain—and just beyond the fire, Tarma spotted the flattened shapes of decomposing fungi, their spores depleted. The mushrooms, she thought dazedly. We camped next to the mushrooms, and the heat of the fire set their spores loose. Oh, the gods watch over fools and the mad!

  “What—was it a dream?” Kethry asked, dazedly.

  “Yes—and no,” Tarma croaked. “Let’s get out of here while we can. I’ll explain it to you on the road.”

  Kethry sighed. “It figures. Any job involving Need where we get paid would have to be a dream.”

  Contributor Biographies

  Christopher Baxter got in trouble for reading books in class from kindergarten through high school. To stop his teachers from getting upset, he began writing stories instead (it looked like he was taking notes).

  He works as an editor and writer. His short stories have appeared in the October 2016 and Spring 2018 volumes of Deep Magic e-zine, the Best of Deep Magic and Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel anthologies, and Immortal Works’ Flash Fiction Friday podcast. You can hear his opinions about the Star Wars franchise on A More Civilized Podcast. He is blessed with the best wife and two adorable little boys. Find out more at writerinthehat.com.

  Josh Brown has dedicated his life to sporadic rants and ramblings about comic book continuity, superhero superiority, and Han shooting first. He also writes poetry, science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction. Find out more at his website, ninjamindcontrol.wordpress.com.

  Jaleta Clegg was born some time ago and has filled the years since with plenty of make-believe. She writes science fiction adventure, fantasy of all flavors, and silly horror. When not writing, she enjoys playing with yarn, cooking weird vegetables, designing costumes and quilts, and generally messing around. You can find more about her at jaletac.com

  Max Florschutz was born in the distant islands of Wrangell, Alaska, a fertile ground for adventure and imagination in equal parts. In 2013, he published his first book, and since then he has continued to delight audiences with works of science fiction and fantasy such as Colony and Shadow of an Empire. He is also known for the weekly series Being a Better Writer, aimed at examining all aspects of writing and how to best put them into practice.

  You can find a full list of his books at his website, maxonwriting.com, as well as a titanic archive of writing articles on hundreds of topics, and even some free sampler stories. If you’re looking for futuristic space battles, soccer-mom werewolves, or horseback chases through fantastical, magical, and foreboding deserts, there’s a book for you on there!

  Max currently lives in Utah, hard at work on more books to come.

  Melva L. Gifford has been writing since her youth. She has fiction and non-fiction shorts published in various publications and websites. She won first place for her middle-grade book, Operation: Middle School Madness, at the 2016 Utah Arts Council. She’s won two semi-finalist awards from the international Writers of the Future contest. Her fiction touches upon many realms, including childrens’ mainstream, science fiction, and fantasy, as well as science fiction, fantasy, romance, non-fiction, and mainstream fiction for adults. Learn more on her website: melvagifford.com.

  M. K. Hutchins regularly draws on her background in archaeology when writing fiction. Her YA fantasy novel, Drift, was both a Junior Library Guild Selection and a VOYA Top Shelf Honoree. Her short fiction appears in Podcastle, Strange Horizons, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and elsewhere. A long-time Idahoan, she now lives in Utah with her husband and four children. Find her online at mkhutchins.com.

  A Colorado native, Sam Knight spent ten years in California’s wine country before returning to the Rockies. When asked if he misses California, he gets a wistful look in his eyes and replies he misses the green mountains in the winter, but he is glad to be back home.

  As well as having been Distribution Manager for WordFire Press and Senior Editor for Villainous Press, Knight is the author of six children’s books, four short story collections, three novels, and nearly three dozen short stories, including two media tie-ins co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson.

  A stay-at-home father, he attempts to be a full-time writer, but there are only so many hours left in a day after kids. Once upon a time, Knight was known to quote books the way some people quote movies, but now he claims having a family has made him forgetful, as a survival adaptation. His website is found at samknight.com.

  Mercedes Lackey entered this world in 1950 in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972. During the late ’70s, she worked as an artist’s model and then went into computer programming, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music.

  She has written over 70 novels, sometimes with one or more co-authors, and has created many different beloved fantasy and science fiction worlds. She has also written at least 50 short works, set in her existing worlds, and in others. Her husband (and sometimes co-author), Larry Dixon, is an accomplished artist and writer, as well. Find out more online at mercedeslackey.com.

  Gerri Leen lives in Northern Virginia and originally hails from Seattle. In addition to being an avid reader, she’s passionate about horse racing, tea, and whiskey, and her latest obsession is ASMR vids. She has work appearing in Nature, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, Grimdark, and others. She’s edited several anthologies for independent presses, is finishing some longer projects, and is a member of SFWA and HWA. Visit her online at gerrileen.com.

  Hannah Marie’s first written story spilled onto the page at the age of 5 after watching too much Sesame Street. After graduating with a degree in theatre and collecting experiences and freckles in South Korea, she has since expanded her repertoire with more personal, unique work. Her first published work can be found in the anthology Threads: A Neoverse Anthology Vol 1, and her second can be found in A Dragon and Her Girl. She can be found on Twitter @ReadHannahMarie.

  Jodi L. Milner is the author of the YA noble dark fantasy Stone­bearer’s Betrayal and has been published in several anthologies. When not writing, she can be found folding children and feeding the laundry, occasionally in that order. Visit her website at jodilmilner.com.

  Joe Monson has worked as a paperboy, hot dog vendor, soda jerk, ice cream maker, volunteer missionary, teller, notary public, web monkey and designer, content writer and developer, collections manager, convention chair, guest liaison, art show director, newsletter editor, technical support analyst, customer service supervisor, network technician, satellite installer, and credit analyst. He currently translates and edits Engineer into English by day and expands the accessible knowledge of the world by night.

  He edits the LTUE Benefit Anthologies series with Jaleta Clegg. The first, Trace the Stars, contained seventeen space opera and hard science fiction tales. This volume, A Dragon and Her Girl, contains twenty adventure fantasy stories featuring just wha
t the title states. The next volume, Twilight Tales, will feature light horror stories. He has a number of other anthologies in various stages of completion.

  Joe’s one published short story, “Napoleon’s Tallest Teamster”, is found in All Made of Hinges from Immortal Works. He has three novels in a space opera adventure series in the works. He collects science fiction and fantasy art, but not as much as Paul (as if that was even possible). He lives in the top of the mountains with his wife, three children, and their pet library. Learn more about him at joemonson.com.

  Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she’s left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Analog, Nature: Futures, Podcastle, and elsewhere. Her time travel novella series, beginning with The Continuum, is available from World Weaver Press. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.

  S.E. Page writes stories about fairies, unicorns, dragons, and strange humans. She has an M.S. and certification in Secondary English and is co-editor of Young Ravens Literary Review. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems have been published in journals including Connecticut River Review, Fresh Ink, Star*Line, Noctua Review, Bacopa Literary Review, Oakwood, and included in the anthologies Fire in the Pasture and Dove Song.

  As a child she dearly wished her first initial stood for something adventurous and dashing like Seraphina or Sapphira, but she has grown comfortable with being a Sarah. Two of her three favorite words rhyme: splendiferous and stelliferous; the third word is a secret. She writes about her novels at iffymagic.com.