“Good question, mouseling,” the dragon said thoughtfully as he perked up with interest, his barbed tail whipping overhead like a banner, and the massive teeth barred in a most dragon-like smile. “I think I have it! I really do! You see, we’ve already figured out that dragon’s don’t exist in this here world, right?”
“Rightoo, Your Largeness,” Dapple said in a jovial tone he hoped would lighten matters.
“Then that makes it all quite elementary; I must be from another world! Another world that apparently exists parallel to this one. Another world that you are going to help me get back to, my mouseling friend.”
Dapple gulped nervously, thinking rapidly, and he saw some value to what the dragon said now. After all, parallel worlds and trans-dimensional portals were something this little mouse dealt with every day—in the fiction stories he wrote of the various science fiction magazines. Like many other imaginative fiction authors he’d read and even written about similar problems—but this rather stark reality, in the form of a very mighty and potentially troublesome dragon, was quite another matter altogether than the mere ideas he played with intellectually in his fiction. However, Dapple decided to put a brave front to his misgivings and said simply, “I believe what we need is called a trans-dimensional portal of some type, Mr. Dragon. The problem being, just how do we find such a thing? And even if we do find such a thing, how can we be sure it will send you to the proper reality and not just to some other one—perhaps one even worse than this one?”
The dragon sighed deeply, looking most thoughtful as he sat there thinking, which is how dragons usually look when they exercise the old gray matter. He thought a long time, and Dapple kept in mind the potential fury of an angry dragon and realized that what he was now smelling was the actual burning of brimstone—a residue of the creature’s heated breath. This realization just made him shiver with that creepy feeling of impending danger and doom that he did not like at all.
“How do I get involved in these things,” Dapple whispered to himself as he squirmed in his seat upon the bulbous nose of this most humongous of beasts thinking through the problem as best he could. Where would a dragon come from, anyway? Perhaps a past age, a time long-ago and far-away? Surely another and alien reality altogether. And yet, how to get him back home? This was one monumental problem for such a miniscule creature but there was even more to this than ever realized and it would all come crashing in soon enough.
In about one minute, actually.
Part II
The guys from the OR—Other Reality—arrived in an instantaneous flash of otherworldly brilliance.
Dapple was blinded for a moment by the bright light and fell from the dragon’s huge nose to land upon the tip of his spongy-wet and rough reptilian tongue.
“Ouch! That smarts!” the tiny mouse shouted as his soft rump brushed against the rough barbs of the dragon’s tongue.
“There! I got you now!” the dragon said a bit unintelligibly, seeing as he couldn’t move his tongue that much or talk very clearly with the little mouse upon it. To his credit, the dragon was most delicate with the mouseling, and took great care not to mistakenly ingest the miniscule rodent by speaking, or through one of his massive inward breaths.
“Thank you, oh Great Dragon!” Dapple said with a nervous reply as the huge beast caught his fall. Then he noticed the intruders who were now coming towards them. “But look, we have strange company approaching!”
The dragon placed the tiny mouse back upon his huge nose—Dapple holding tightly to a long thick stalk of hair so as not to lose his balance again. Then the dragon turned his lumbering gaze to the three visitors.
Well, they certainly were strange and they didn’t look very friendly; sort of grumpy and angry, actually. And one of them, the old walrus in the middle—and I do mean old walrus, for in fact the visitor was an actual large fat male tusker blubbering forward upon perambulatory fins and uttering guttural growls like a hungry sea lion. Well, this worthy wore pinned to his chest what shone unmistakably as a five-pointed star that seemed to proclaim him as some type of law enforcement officer. A sheriff or perhaps, a marshal. Obviously by this scenario, the appearance of the companions of the old walrus—the large upright walking feline and the equally tall upright walking canine who stood on each side of the walrus, were his companions, perhaps even his deputies. Dapple noticed that they were deputies. They wore the badges to prove it.
Dapple wasn’t all that confident about the appearance of these three strange beings but he watched them carefully as he held on tightly to the dragon’s nose hair—ever watchful that a sudden and disastrous sneeze by the large beast might be in the process of arriving any moment and dislodge him with calamitous circumstances.
The dragon also watched these newcomers with great interest, his bright orange eyes narrowed down to curious blood-red slits. Just in case there would be trouble the enormous reptile stoked his fire and brimstone apparatus. Should the occasion warrant, he’d be ready to do battle, or at least to seriously scorch a few butts.
“Step no closer upon pain of roasting!” the dragon demanded when the trio of newcomers was some hundred feet distant. “State your business or be away from here in a heartbeat!”
The dragon then shot a spurt of fiery brimstone into the air to emphasize his words.
The gesture was not lost on the newcomers as they quickly jumped back a few steps in evident alarm. They got the message but quickly regained their equilibrium.
The feline finally just laughed and said, “Well, look at that, it looks like the old sourpuss finally has got his fire-breathing facilities working again.”
“About time too, they’ll come in handy, for sure,” the old walrus muttered as he gathered his composure and walked closer towards the dragon. He finally stopped a dozen yards from the reptilian monstrosity, looking into the large scaly face, which was staring down at him in obvious curiosity and some concern. The walrus also now noticed that the dragon had—of all the most incredible things—a tiny rodent of some kind perched upon it’s nose—however he thought better of mentioning that for the moment. He had more important things on his mind. He gathered his thoughts.
“Now look, Charlie,” the walrus told the dragon with obvious familiarity, while his feline and canine deputies nodded meaningfully and walked forward to take up positions on either side of him. The three intruders all wore weapons—side arms in waist holsters, but as yet had not drawn them. “You gotta come back with us. Right now. We need you.”
“Charlie?” Dapple asked looking from the walrus, then back at the creature upon whose nose he now stood and finally back to the walrus. “You mean the dragon’s name is Charlie?”
“Yep, Charlie is his name,” the walrus offered having to squint a bit to see the miniscule rodent who stood upon the dragon’s ponderous nose. “Ah, Sir Mouse, well you see…”
“Dapple, sir, if you please.”
“Quite right. Well then,. Mr. Dapple, you see, Charlie, better known to us all at the constabulary as Charlie Richfield, just happens to be a very important and unique creature. He’s an interbred or hybrid of man and dragon. Mostly dragon, as you can plainly see, though he is capable of speech and rather obtuse thought…”
“Hey, I think I resemble that remark!” the dragon, now identified as Charlie said in a bit of a huff.
The walrus and his two companions took a careful step backwards in concern and conferred quickly. Good judgment dictated never angering a dragon. The walrus continued, “No offense intended, Charlie. It’s just the facts, only the facts. You have these human characteristics to a limited degree.”
Dapple looked at the walrus carefully asking, “And what of you and the two beings with you?”
“Ah, good question, Sir Mouse. Myself and my companions are also interbreeds, commingled biological species artificially constructed for various specified functions. In the case of myself and my two companions, law enforcement happens to be our forte—in the case of Charlie, well, he’s our t
ransportation. And a darn good transport he is—usually. Truth is, we just couldn’t work as well without him. You see, dragons have the power and ability to travel not only through space and time, but within the full spectrum of trans-dimensional realities. I think its got something to do with those big floppy wings of their’s and that kooky fire-breathing ability. Or maybe it’s just that long barbed tail? Whatever the case, they are highly prized as valuable transportation mediums where we come from.”
“I see,” Dapple replied, not really seeing at all but interested nevertheless. “And just where do you come from?”
“Oh, a place far away and very different from here, I can assure you,” the walrus said with an indulgent smile.
Dapple nodded. It certainly seemed likely.
“The problem we have is…” the walrus added giving a quick nod of his head towards Charlie, “is that they aren’t very bright in the gray matter department…”
“Hey, I heard that!” Charlie growled, snorting in annoyance.
“No offense intended, Charlie. Anyway, Sir Mouse, if dragons are left alone they often mistakenly go off on their own—somewhere—and not only forget where they are, but where they have come from as well. They have to be rounded up and shown the way home. I tell you, it has caused me and my companions quite a lot of trouble at times, as I am sure you can understand.”
Dapple didn’t really understand, but the walrus continued regardless. “You see, Charlie has this dreamwalking problem…”
“Dreamwalking?” Dapple scratched his head in thought. This was all moving a bit too fast for him.
“When dragons dream they allow their subconscious mind to roam far afield, and sometimes their thoughts can become trapped in a loop of conflicting resonances—dreamwalking—which can cause them to accidentally flit into another dimensional reality. Hence Charlie is now here—in your reality, err, your world. Once in that new world without a rider for guidance, dragons forget all about who they are and where they come from. It’s a bit awkward at times as my companions, Gump and Tump, and I have to go out searching for Charlie when he’s in that dreamwalking state and bring him back home. But old Charlie is worth it, so that’s why we’re here.”
“To bring him home?” Dapple asked.
“Correct.” the walrus smiled at the mouse
“Well, I sure don’t unnerstand much of this, guys,” the dragon named Charlie told the three strangers. “I don’t unnerstand it at all, but it seems to sound right, somehow. I mean, I know I came from somewhere else than here, I don’t belong here in this little mouse world, and I wanna get back to wherever I came from.”
“Right you are, Charlie,” the large feline creature called Tump responded, “and we’re here to take you back.”
“Ah, yeah, well…then there‘s a question I have in mind to ask you,” Charlie interjected with a sly wink. “Are there other dragons back where you come from? I mean…girl dragons?”
“Oh, Charlie, don’t tell me you already forgot about your paramour, the lovely seductress Classiddia MaRoo?” the canine creature named Gump barked in gravelly words and toothy grimaces. “She’ll be mightily disappointed to hear that news.”
“Classiddia MaRoo?” Charlie said thoughtfully, then smiled, it was obvious he had lodged lose a bit of frozen memory. “Ah, yeah, right you are! I remember now. Alright fellas, I remember my sweetie, and what you say sounds good to me. So when do we go back? And where exactly is ‘back’?”
“‘Back’ is home, Charlie,” the walrus replied as he brought forth a tiny clocklike device from out of his vest pocket. “You’ve forgotten all about it for now, but you’ll remember it all soon enough once we’ve arrived back where we belong.”
Then the old walrus, with Tump and Gump, approached the lumbering form of the dragon called Charlie Richfield. With utmost care, they removed the tiny mouse from the creature’s nose to a nearby rock where he watched with amazement as the walrus manipulated buttons on his tiny time device.
Soon Charlie and all his fifteen heavy tons of scaly reptilian dragoness instantly disappeared in a blinding bright light as completely as if he’d never existed at all. The walrus and his two companions were gone as well. Only a faint echo of Charlie’s voice remained for a moment as it said, “Farewell, Sir Mouse, it was nice meeting ya, kid!”
Dapple was left alone and happily noted that now in his own reality dragons were once more merely mythological creatures, just the stuff of fiction and dream making. As they should be. They were much too large and dangerous to be allowed lumbering around in his tiny mouse world. It was a good feeling to have things set right once again in his rodent-centered universe and he set out once more to continue his walk to his downtown office, where he was planning to get busy working on his latest book. It would be a science fiction novel about an imaginary race called homosapiens that were descendent from apes of all things—who evolved on a planet called Earth and ended up conquering the Universe. Dapple knew most of his colleagues thought such a book just wouldn’t sell. After all, who’d believe an intelligent race springing up from monkeys and apes of all things! But Dapple was determined to continue with it more than ever now, and even figured on adding a few new characters to spice it up a bit. Maybe a trans-dimensional, star-traveling walrus law enforcement officer? Maybe even give him canine and feline deputies? Finally he’d add a lost fire-breathing dragon by the name of Charlie Richfield who was looking for his home.
Dapple smiled at the though that these added elements would surely help to make his new science fiction novel more interesting and his first big bestseller.
THE DRAGON OF THE NORTH, by Andrew Lang
Very long ago, as old people have told me, there lived a terrible monster, who came out of the North, and laid waste whole tracts of country, devouring both men and beasts; and this monster was so destructive that it was feared that unless help came no living creature would be left on the face of the earth. It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, two short fore-legs, and two long ones behind, and besides that it had a tail like a serpent, ten fathoms in length. When it moved it jumped like a frog, and with every spring it covered half a mile of ground. Fortunately its habit, was to remain for several years in the same place, and not to move on till the whole neighbourhood was eaten up. Nothing could hunt it, because its whole body was covered with scales, which were harder than stone or metal; its two great eyes shone by night, and even by day, like the brightest lamps, and anyone who had the ill luck to look into those eyes became as it were bewitched, and was obliged to rush of his own accord into the monster’s jaws. In this way the Dragon was able to feed upon both men and beasts without the least trouble to itself, as it needed not to move from the spot where it was lying. All the neighbouring kings had offered rich rewards to anyone who should be able to destroy the monster, either by force or enchantment, and many had tried their luck, but all had miserably failed. Once a great forest in which the Dragon lay had been set on fire; the forest was burnt down, but the fire did not do the monster the least harm. However, there was a tradition amongst the wise men of the country that the Dragon might be overcome by one who possessed King Solomon’s signet-ring, upon which a secret writing was engraved. This inscription would enable anyone who was wise enough to interpret it to find out how the Dragon could be destroyed. Only no one knew where the ring was hidden, nor was there any sorcerer or learned man to be found who would be able to explain the inscription.
At last a young man, with a good heart and plenty of courage, set out to search for the ring. He took his way towards the sunrising, because he knew that all the wisdom of old time comes from the East. After some years he met with a famous Eastern magician, and asked for his advice in the matter. The magician answered:
“Mortal men have but little wisdom, and can give you no help, but the birds of the air would be better guides to you if you could learn their language. I can help you to understand it if you will stay with me a few days.”
The youth thankfully
accepted the magician’s offer, and said, “I cannot now offer you any reward for your kindness, but should my undertaking succeed your trouble shall be richly repaid.”
Then the magician brewed a powerful potion out of nine sorts of herbs which he had gathered himself all alone by moonlight, and he gave the youth nine spoonfuls of it daily for three days, which made him able to understand the language of birds.
At parting the magician said to him. “If you ever find Solomon’s ring and get possession of it, then come back to me, that I may explain the inscription on the ring to you, for there is no one else in the world who can do this.”
From that time the youth never felt lonely as he walked along; he always had company, because he understood the language of birds; and in this way he learned many things which mere human knowledge could never have taught him. But time went on, and he heard nothing about the ring. It happened one evening, when he was hot and tired with walking, and had sat down under a tree in a forest to eat his supper, that he saw two gaily-plumaged birds, that were strange to him, sitting at the top of the tree talking to one another about him. The first bird said:
“I know that wandering fool under the tree there, who has come so far without finding what he seeks. He is trying to find King Solomon’s lost ring.”
The other bird answered, “He will have to seek help from the Witch-maiden, who will doubtless be able to put him on the right track. If she has not got the ring herself, she knows well enough who has it.”
“But where is he to find the Witch-maiden?” said the first bird. “She has no settled dwelling, but is here to-day and gone to-morrow. He might as well try to catch the wind.”
The other replied, “I do not know, certainly, where she is at present, but in three nights from now she will come to the spring to wash her face, as she does every month when the moon is full, in order that she may never grow old nor wrinkled, but may always keep the bloom of youth.”
The Dragon Megapack Page 5