Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  DRAGONET

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1985 by Esther Friesner.

  Originally published in Amazing Stories, January 1986.

  Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

  wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

  DRAGONET

  by ESTHER FRIESNER

  This is the castle—Righteous Garde. Here over eight hundred knights, ladies, lackeys, squires, toadies, and the odd monarch live and work together in peace and harmony. Only sometimes harmony’s too much to ask. That’s where I come in. My name’s Britomart. I’m a damsel. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

  839 A.D. The Dark Ages were well under way, and most of the ladies were counting the months until the Norsemen showed up to carry them off. I was catching up on my tapestry work. Just then, Helios came in. He’s my partner. He’s a unicorn.

  “How’s your latest maiden, Helios?” I asked.

  “Eaten. Dragon”

  “Sorry.”

  “Those are the breaks:’

  Helios is a good unicorn. You don’t get many like him these days. I could see something was on his mind. “Spill it”

  “We’ve got a 403.”

  I couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t had a 403 in years. Rogue mage. “You sure, Helios?”

  “I’d stake my horn on it. Got it from a wood elf.”

  “Wood elves lie.”

  “Not this one. Mage changed him into a squirrel from the waist down. Hard to argue with that.”

  I put down the tapestry frame. “Let’s investigate. We’ll use the black-and­white.”

  I was proud of the black-and-white. Not many castles had one. Not many would. It was a bear. Not your ordinary bear, but a foreign model, imported all the way from the mountains of Cathay. “You have to move with the times, Britomart,” the king had told me. “It doesn’t pay to keep local bears any more. They put away too much food, then they’re out of service for most of the winter.”

  We found the black-and-white in his stall, eating bamboo. He got up when he saw me and bowed. “Does Lady Britomart have use for this unworthy bear?” Can’t beat these imports when it comes to style.

  “We’ve got a 403.”

  “Rogue mage,” Helios said for the bear’s benefit. By the way, his name’s Ch’a. It’s a weird name, but someone’s got to have it.

  We hitched up Ch’a to the panda-wagon and headed for the Forest Perilous. Hard to believe that Righteous Garde, with all its beauty and intrigue, is less than a basilisk’s spit from the Forest Perilous. It’s a tough place. You’ve got your elves. You’ve got your moss-wives. You’ve got your wyverns and your sometime-trolls. When they can’t make it in the big epics, they head for the woods. They’re young, they’re failed, and they’re bitter. It doesn’t pay to go there unless you’re looking for distress. But distress is my business. Like I said, I’m a damsel.

  Helios took us straight to the elf. If he’d been changed into a squirrel from the waist down, he’d also been changed into a squirrel from the neck up, years ago. Inside, I mean. That’s the trouble with these wood elves. Wood alcohol. His tiny little eyes were so bloodshot, they looked like a pair of juniper berries.

  “Lee’ me ‘lone;’ be mumbled. He wiped his slobbering mouth with the tip of his furry grey tail.

  “Sober up, point-ear.” Helios is tough. Tough, but fair. “We’re here to help you!”

  “Huh! Castle folk! When you ever help us elves, huh? Ge’ one look at one of us inside your damn castle and call the ‘sterminators!’ He belched loudly and sang something quaint. Quaint, but obscene.

  “You get in the castle, you spend your time looking up the ladies’ skirts, short stuff;’ said Helios. ”You don’t want this horn somewhere vital, you’ll cooperate. This is the damsel Britomart. Tell her what you told me!’

  “Damsel?” The elf gave me a canny look.

  “That’s what it says on my card.”

  “If you’re a damsel, I’m a—”

  “Watch it!” Helios threatened the elf with one sharp hoof.

  “Yah! Real brave, ain’tcha? When it’s the little people you’re stepping on. But wait until you hit that wizard, horn head! He’ll turn you into unicorn on the cob and have you for lunch.”

  “What wizard?” I asked.

  “t‘What wizard?’ she asks! Sure, I always run around this cockamamie forest with a craving for acorns! ‘What wizard?’” The elf was ticked. Ticked elves aren’t a pretty sight.

  “Just the facts, elf!”

  “Oh, a tough honey. O.K., you think you’re tough, you go down this path, turn left at the well of lost souls, double around the swamp of the hanging men, two grave-mounds on your right, and when a dragon eats you, you’re there!’

  A real class neighborhood. “This wizard have a name?”

  “Mildred.” Like I said, ticked elves aren’t your Mr. Nice Guy.

  The black-and-white got us there fast. I had to unhitch him from the wagon when we hit the swamp, though. Too boggy for wheels. No one said this was going to be an easy job. The dragon was waiting. He guarded the wizard’s lair. He was big, but you learn fast that size isn’t everything in this kingdom. He let out a roar when he saw us. It didn’t faze Helios.

  “Go ahead, worm,” he said. “Make my day!’ The dragon charged. Helios slew him. He made a minor earth tremor when he hit the ground. The wizard came out of his den to see what was up.

  “What have you done to Mildred?” He was one angry mage.

  “Dragon gets out of line, dragon takes what’s coming. Those are the breaks,” I said. “We’re here to investigate a complaint. You turn an elf into a squirrel?”

  “Half a squirrel.”

  “You admit it. Why’d you do it?”

  The wizard stroked his beard. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. “Who wants to know?”

  “If he doesn’t like the report I bring back, maybe the king wants to know. Turning elves into squirrels is a felony. Turn him back, and maybe we can settle out of the royal court. Don’t make it tough on yourself.”

  “Half a felony.”

  “A wise guy.” Helios has a good sneer, for a ‘corn. He lowered his horn at the wizard’s chest. “O.K., smart man. This is a forty-four spell unicorn’s horn, the most powerful piece of mana known to sorcery. Now I can’t exactly remember whether I’ve used forty-four of the annihilation spells in it, or only forty-three, so if you don’t answer the damsel Britomart’s questions real polite, maybe you can ask yourself, ‘Am I feeling lucky today?’ ”

  “You don’t scare me,” said the mage. He disappeared.

  “Where’d he go?” Helios was baffled.

  “Respectfully beg to point out presence of second large dragon,” said Ch’a. This time, it was a fire-breather. This time, Helios was the one whose luck ran out.

  The dragon grabbed me. Ch’a hid. Helios smoldered. He’d been a good unicorn. I was sorry to see him go. But right now I had other problems.

  “That elf was small potatoes, sugar;” the dragon said. “I’m taking over this kingdom?’

  “It’s a fool’s game and you know it, mage. Give yourself up. The king’ll be lenient.”

  “The king will be dead! The whole kingdom will die, unless it submits to me!”

  “Big talk. You two-bit thaumaturges think that just because you can take the hicks on market day with the old shell game, you can take the kingdom. I’ve seen your kind come and go. Mostly they go. And it’s not a pretty sight when they do.”

  The dragon laughed. He was big, all right; big and golden, but he still had the mage’s eyes. I didn’t like them. “It won’t be a pretty sight, my dear? Then you should be happy you won’t be around to see it! Say your prayers, damsel, for you shall be the first to perish!”

  “No prayers. Just let me say goodbye to the bear?”

  “Bear? What bear?”

  Ch’a emerged timorously from the underbrush. “If the august and majestic dragon-king would not find it too great an inconvenience, this unworthy bear would be most grateful for the opportunity to bid his beloved Lady Britomart farewell.”

  “A touching last request. Granted.” The dragon-mage set me down, but kept one paw on the hem of my dress.

  “So long, Ch’a,” I said. “Sometimes this business gets away from you. But you have to take the good with the bad.”

  “This humble bear is distressed beyond words,” said Ch’a. He was crying.

  “Don’t cry,” I said. “You’ll serve other damsels. You’ve been a good partner. Go back to the castle.” He turned to go. “Hey!” He stopped. I gave him a kiss for luck. “You be careful out there.”

  The black-and-white skin slipped off in my hands. A big man in strictly non-reg armor—black-and-white lacquerwork—stood in front of me. He pulled a sword and leaped at the dragon-mage. The dragon-mage laughed. Then his head fell off. Those are the breaks.

  I made my report to the king. Things were back to normal in the forest. The squirrel-elf was disenchanted. Who isn’t, these days? We’d need a new unicorn and maybe a new bear to pull the wagon. Ch’a introduced himself. He was a warrior from an island beyond Cathay, turned into a bear by one of those hotshot Eastern wizards. I’d broken the spell with my kiss.

  “Good work, Britomart.”

  “Just doing my job, Sire.”

  I married Ch’a. You can’t stay a damsel forever. You can try, but it’s a fool’s game.

  There are eight million stories in the Forest Perilous. This has been one of them.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nebula Award winner Esther Friesner, Ph.D., is the author of over 40 novels and more than 200 short stories. She is a poet, a playwright, and the editor of several anthologies. Best known is the Chicks in Chainmail series she created for Baen Books. Besides sf, fantasy, and horror, she is the author of the Princesses of Myth series of Young Adult novels from Random House.

 

 

  Esther Friesner, Dragonet

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