Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  Sam finally slept in my arms while I kept an ear cocked for danger.

  Chapter 20

  KINGSLEY FULCRUM

  The next morning when we awoke, Anthony had already taken off early in his father’s car to make the long drive to alchemy school.

  “Do you have court this morning? Or any appointments?” Sam asked.

  “Nope. I’m free. And you?”

  “Nothing on my calendar either. Just waiting for the last kid to go to school,” Sam said meaningfully and kissed me like she meant it.

  I smiled, wondering if we were going to be together all day or if some crisis would happen to part us for the day.

  I got my answer shortly.

  As we were having breakfast in Sam’s eat-in kitchen, fate brought an important visitor to Sam’s front door. Since Sam was making bacon and didn’t want to burn it, she had me answer the pounding on the door. Yeah, a werewolf is the perfect bouncer, when necessary.

  I swallowed the French toast she’d made me and headed to the living room. I looked through the peephole, then opened the door to a lost-looking man.

  “Yes?” I said in a deeper voice than usual. “Can I help you?”

  The visitor was a scruffy, wiry red-headed young man in tattered medieval clothing. He looked like a Viking and was wearing a sword that was nearly as long as he was tall. “Greetings. Am I at the manse of Lady Tam?”

  “You are. Tammy’s upstairs, getting ready for school,” I said. “Do you know her?”

  “Know her? Yes, very well. Please tell her that Thorn has arrived.”

  “You’re a classmate from drama class, perhaps?” I asked.

  “No, my schooling at my mother’s knee is long finished. Sir, I have come a long way and it has taken me all night to find this house. I did it by scent.”

  I scratched my itchy face. My 8 a.m. shadow of beard needed shaving. I knew he wasn’t a werewolf, but he had a familiar scent, one that I could not quite place. And he had a weird accent, too.

  Sam popped her head out of the kitchen and there was a plate of bacon in her hand that was enough to bring me to a drool. “Hello,” she said, curious. “I heard you were looking for Tammy.”

  “Aye, mistress of the house. Mayhap you’ll tell Lady Tam that Thorn is here to see her.”

  “Thorn? The dragon Thorn?” Sam said.

  He bowed his head. “I see my reputation precedes me.”

  “Tammy!” Sam called down the hall. “Guess who’s here to see you.”

  Tammy came out from the steamy bathroom in a pink bathrobe, a towel wound in a turban around her head. She walked into the living room and halted at the sight of the young man. “Hello, who are you?”

  “’Tis I, Thorn! Do you not know me, Lady Tam?” he asked with some hurt in his voice.

  “Thorn! But, but, you’re a dragon!”

  “At night, aye, milady, I am one fierce dragon. But during the day, I am a man much like any other.”

  “Oh!” Tammy said. “I didn’t know! How could I not know it was you?”

  “You tell me, milady,” Thorn said, laughing a bit now.

  She stood there dumbfounded. It was obvious she’d never guessed he was a shape-shifting dragon-man.

  “Tammy, close your mouth and put on some clothes,” Sam suggested.

  “I’ll be right back, Thorn,” she said. “Don’t go away.”

  “I would not know where else to go.”

  I let the dragon shifter in.

  “Have a seat in the kitchen, Thorn,” Sam said. “Are you hungry?”

  “Dragons are always ravenous,” he admitted. “But I have no coin for your delicious-smelling food.”

  “This isn’t an inn. It’s a private home. No money is required,” Sam said.

  “Thank you most kindly, mistress.”

  “You can call me Samantha. Samantha Moon.”

  “Thank you, Lady Samantha Moon.”

  “How is it that you speak English so well?” Sam asked.

  “Dragons I have known can speak all languages, if they have a good sampling to learn. You, too, I assume, speak a fair amount of languages.”

  “I don’t have that skill. That I know of. Hey, you know I’m a—”

  “Yes, that is how I found your home. You are the only dragon in the city that I know of. That I scented. And you are the only lady dragon I have ever seen, except my mother, aunts and grandmothers, who have passed into dust.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Sam said.

  “My thanks for your kind words.” He bowed his head for a moment. “I am happy to find another of my kind. May I ask you, sincerely, Lady Samantha Moon, dragon-shifter, to help me?”

  “If I can, I will, but how?” Sam said.

  “Help me to find the Cup of Forgiveness before the evil mongers find it.”

  “Oh, boy, the Holy Grail,” I said. “Sounds like trouble.”

  “Trouble indeed, if I don’t find it.” Thorn looked at me. “Be ye a werewolf, sir?”

  “Yes, I suppose you sniffed me out, too.”

  “I did, sir. I haven’t had many pleasant words with werewolves, but you seem civil enough.”

  I cleared my throat and slid over a plate of bacon to him. “I’m an attorney. Quite civilized, I assure you.”

  “Except when the full moon takes you to the wild side of your nature?” Thorn asked.

  “Yes,” I admitted. He didn’t need to know I locked myself away every full moon, so I wouldn’t do things that I’d regret.

  Sam sat at the table with us and sipped coffee. She poured Thorn a mug. “Careful, it’s hot,” she said.

  Thorn chuckled. “Not as hot as dragon’s breath.” He took a sip. “Interesting. What is this brewed drink?”

  “It’s called coffee. It’s how we modern creatures begin our days.”

  He nodded. “Is there honey?”

  “Sugar,” Sam said and plunked a cube in his coffee. He stirred the steaming coffee with a finger and tasted it again. “Perfect.”

  I asked, “So, every night at sunset, you transform to a dragon, and every dawn, you become a man again?”

  “Just so,” he replied.

  I noticed Tammy in the doorway, dressed in better-than-school clothing and her wet hair French-braided in a hairstyle I’d never seen her wear. In fact, she was wearing a dress! I noted that I had seen Sam wear that very dress and knew immediately that Tammy had raided Sam’s closet for that long-sleeved, navy-blue dress with a modest neckline and hemline. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were dewy and anxious. She might have been wearing lip gloss and a bit of mascara. Oh, and she had it bad for Thorn. Really bad.

  “Well, what a nice dress, Tammy,” Sam said with a bit of eye roll. “You look like you’re going to court to testify.”

  Tammy shot her mom an apologetic look. “I borrowed your court dress from your closet. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s fine,” Sam said. “I want it back, though, before next week. I’ve got something on the court calendar on Tuesday.”

  “Okay, thanks, Mom.” Tammy sat next to Thorn, not touching her plate of food. “Thorn, I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize you were a man, too. A dragon-man.”

  “’Tis all right. You never asked, nor pried. I just assumed you knew since you have been inside my mind.”

  “But this is great. I mean, we got along so well when you were in your dragon form, but now, we can speak aloud, too.”

  He looked at her appreciatively. “Oh, but the mind-speak is so much more eloquent, so much more emotional, and so very, very lovely.”

  Tammy gave him the side eye and was just radiant.

  Shit. What should I do about this? If anything, since I’m not Tammy’s father. I looked at Sam and she looked at Thorn.

  “How did you two meet again?” Sam asked.

  “In a dream,” Thorn replied.

  Tammy blushed a very deep pink. “Yes, we did. I told you that, Mother.”

  Sam and I looked at each other. Sam
’s eyebrows went up a shade higher. Sam cleared her throat. “Thorn, let me cut to the chase. I have something to tell you, regarding the Grail.”

  “You have news of the Cup of Forgiveness?” he said excitedly. “That’s what dragon shifters call it.”

  “Not exactly news, per se. But when you came through to this world, someone else came, too.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  Tammy said, “Beowulf.”

  “That usurper king! But he knows where the Cup is! In fact, he and his thane stole it from me when I was its young keeper.”

  “It might still be in the world you came from,” Tammy said.

  Thorn shook his head. “Nay. I know him. He usually carries it with him. Sleeps with it, too, along with his invincible sword of evil magic. He probably had it with him when you saw him.” He paused. “When did you see him?”

  “Last night. After you left me, so I could…” Tammy hesitated. “So I could think about what you asked me to think about.”

  “What would that be, Tammy?” I asked.

  She didn’t reply. Typical.

  “Mom?” Tammy said. “I need you to call me in to the school.”

  “Tammy, you have school on Fridays.”

  “Mom, Thorn needs to find the Holy Grail or there won’t be a school left to go to, if you know who gets to it first.”

  Sam nodded. I watched Sam call in her daughter’s excused absence and realized it was the first time I ever heard Sam tell a fib.

  Sam hung up from the school’s automated attendance line and said, “Let’s call Anthony to come home from alchemy school. We might need him.”

  “Who is this Anthony?” Thorn asked.

  “My brother,” Tammy replied without a hint of rancor or sarcasm in her face or voice. “He can make fire from his body, too. But he can’t fly.”

  “So you say. Summon him, please,” Thorn said.

  Well, things were definitely changing in the Moon household in that regard. And in another regard, I was scared because a dragon-man had a thing for Tammy and it was definitely looking mutual.

  Sam called Anthony and asked him to come home.

  He said he would.

  After they hung up, Thorn asked, “Where is Beowulf? Do you have him in chains in your dungeon?”

  “I don’t have a dungeon. He’s in a psych ward under lock and key.” Sam explained what it was.

  Thorn said, “I need to speak with him.”

  “You can’t just go in there and kill him,” I said, ever the attorney.

  Sam said, “And they won’t let you in with your sword, or in those clothes.”

  “What’s wrong with my clothes?” Thorn said. “My mother made these clothes with her own hands.”

  Tammy said, “You’ll need a disguise, to look like one of us, so that we can get in to see Beowulf in the psych ward.”

  “How shall we gain entrance without me using my sword?” Thorn asked.

  “I can imprint a suggestion for the people with the keys to let us in to see him.”

  “Tammy,” I said. “That’s not nice.”

  “Nice girls don’t save the world,” she said.

  Sam nodded and said, “She has a point.”

  Chapter 21

  BEOWULF

  I woke up dressed in a thin shift that was loosely tied around the back of my neck and open at the back, too. It didn’t cover my hairy arse at all. Otherwise, I was comfortable in my cell. I supposed that open back on my sleeping garment assured that I would mostly stay a-bed to keep my backside warm. That lack of coverage was my only complaint this morning. I assumed it was morning because I smelled the delectable fragrance of break-the-fast victuals being prepared outside my cell.

  Obviously, I was still a prisoner, but rather than being thrown into a pit of flea-bitten rats with naught to eat nor drink nor a rag to cover my body, I was in a well-lit chamber that was clean and whitewashed. There was a narrow bed with clean coverlets that were soft to the touch, and they had no lice or vermin that I could discern. No rat droppings. No scent of unwashed previous visitors. No dripped candle wax nor damp fouled straw on the floor.

  And instead of a bowl under the bed, there was a garderobe mounted upon the far wall. Instead of a pit for droppings, there was flowing water that whisked away my leavings as soon as I shook myself dry and stepped away. And when I placed my hands above the sparkling white basin, an unseen hand poured warm water over my palms. What manner of sorcery was this?

  Was I dead?

  At first, I loathed it here. They had bound me and drugged me with something jabbed into my arm at the point of the thinnest blade I’d ever seen with a glass tube upon it. When I awoke, I was dizzy and weak, but no longer tied.

  But as comfortable as this cell was, my duty as a prisoner was to escape. I discovered the door was barred from the outside, and I could not budge it, even when I gave it a good kicking with my bare feet. Where my fine deerskin boots were now was unknown. If I was able to flee from here, I would have to do it barefoot.

  My stomach rumbled with hunger, and I drank copious amounts of clear water from my cupped hands as it poured from the all-seeing water basin on the wall. I washed myself the best I could in that small basin and pulled the leaves out of my hair. There was a looking glass on the wall, and it showed my frighteningly unkempt countenance.

  I searched the room for something to use as a weapon and found none. Everything that could be useful was firmly bolted to the floor or the wall.

  By and by, a covered tray slid in to me through a narrow sliding panel in the door that was immediately closed and locked. I lifted the thin metal cover and steam rose from the hot food. I folded up the leaf of silvery metal and hid it under my mattress, wondering if later, I could fold it and mold it into a lethal shaft of some sort.

  On that sectioned tray, I was offered a variety of foods and drink, some that I had never before tasted. And they were delicious, especially some sort of juicy fruit that was both piquant and sweet and was a bright color I had never seen in nature. I ate the tart peeling as well. If they planned to poison me, there was no evidence of that sort of malice, for I was not ill from eating any of the feast, just very, very sluggish from, dare I admit it to myself, gluttony.

  I ate of the toasted, buttered breads and jams that were wrapped in packages that I bit open. I peeled off a fluted parchment from a little round cake that tasted of whole grains and honey, with the happy surprise of dried currants within. There were shirred eggs covered with a sauce made from a mild cheese and seasoned with a generous amount of sea salt. I had several drinks, one of the clearest water in a transparent bottle, though I again had to bite off the closure to open the top. And some fruit nectar that had a painting of a berry on the box and a hollow reed already inserted for sucking the liquid. And then, there was a pouch of what proved to be, I think, cow’s milk, but thinner, without cream. The milk was barely recognizable, but it was cool and sweet.

  Besides the fact that I was a prisoner, somehow, they must have realized I was a king and had spared no effort or expense to provide the finest victuals and prisoner accommodations for me, as well they should.

  The night before, as they were manhandling me while I was shackled and I’d realized that they were going to strip me naked and take away my clothes, I’d hidden the Cup in the most inconspicuous place I could when I had a moment of privacy to withdraw it from my jerkin and put it into my long, thick, snarled-up beard, within a tangle that had not seen a comb for a fortnight, for my comb had disappeared and I had been waiting ages for the comb-maker to carve me a new one from rosewood.

  As I ate and belched, I wondered if these foodstuffs were meant to last a week. As the thought occurred to me, it was too late to ration them, for I had been ravenous and had consumed all and even licked the tray of crumbs. It had been a long time since I had eaten so well, due to the drought-caused famine in my world. Would I be sent to eternal damnation for briefly enjoying this welcome aspect of my captivity? It remained to be
seen how long this sumptuous food offering would last.

  After I ate and briefly napped, as was my kingly custom, I knew I had work to do to escape this place of sorcery and stagnant existence. I had places to go, and a dragon to kill!

  Without being able to speak the language, I was at a disadvantage. I discerned that the only way to communicate with my captors would be to tell them who I was, and what had happened to me, by drawing them a picture.

  I had neither charcoal nor parchment, so I took a small packet of seasoning that I had opened and did not eat, for it smelled of the red nightshade fruit that I quite disliked. And with that wet sauce within, on that clean whitewashed wall, I drew them a large picture that showed me in my crown on my throne, and a diagram of how I had been pulled through a hole in the sky into their world by holding onto the tail of that scoundrel dragon-shifter, Thorn. I drew a picture of him as a dragon and as a man with arrows pointing to both, showing he was a shifter. And I also added a picture of the sun over his man form and the crescent moon over his dragon form, so they would know he transformed at night into his horrible, cursed creature.

  If that truth-telling didn’t convince them to let me go, then I would have to kill the next person to come into this room in order to escape this comfortable prison where I would grow fat and complacent if I stayed. Mayhap, it was not a terrible end, to die of gluttony, but not an auspicious demise either.

  And I wanted to die auspiciously as befitted my station, in the far future, of course, so that people would speak my name for a thousand years and be terrified of my power, yet impressed by my bravery. A dragon’s head on a pike should do it. I knew my subjects were impressed by my bravado over the ogre, Grendel, and his horrible teeth-gnashing mother. But that was a half-century ago. I needed to do something in my old age to prove I was still worthy of being the king.

  At least I still had the Cup. Any time in the last fifty years, I could have drunk from the Cup I’d stolen from Thorn, but I had admitted to myself and my advisors that I could die from that for not being worthy enough.