by Bibby, James
A couple of hours after Bewel and his friends had left, Jeremy was waiting near the town gates. It was a favourite place of his on Saint Ufmir's Day, as it meant he was always the first one to spot strangers entering the town. For the past half-hour, he had been thoroughly entertained by the sight of the Sergeant of the Guard berating one of the sentries, who had for some reason fouled his trousers. This fascinated Jeremy. "What a neat trick," he thought, "if you could get someone to foul his or her pants!" He was just mulling over ways and means when he noticed that one of the other sentries was deep in conversation with a stranger. And, what was more, it was a young woman of about twenty or so! Perfect! Jeremy loved playing his little jokes on young women. Especially jokes that involved them getting soaked, so that their clothes clung to their slim young bodies... Eagerly, he watched as the stranger nodded her thanks to the sentry, and then began to walk up the hill into the town towards him. She was clad in brown leather leggings and jerkin, and had a sword at her side and a bow slung over her shoulder. She appeared to be talking to a scruffy brown donkey, which ambled along beside her. Happily, Jeremy picked up his brimming bucket and advanced to meet them.
“OK, OK,” said Tyson to the donkey. "You're right, Puss. They've set off already, so there's nothing we can do. So we'll grab a spot of lunch, and then follow the wizard's advice and head off downstream."
"Excuse me!" came a voice, and Tyson looked up. A man carrying a bucket was approaching them. He was bearded, a little portly, and had an annoying smirk on his face. "Am I right in thinking that you are a stranger in our city?" he continued.
Tyson nodded.
"Oh, good!" he grinned, and hefted his bucket.
"One drop of that stuff touches us and you're dead, pal!" said the donkey. Jeremy paused, and an incredulous look spread across his face.
"Hey, that's brilliant!" he gasped to Tyson. "How do you do that? Ventriloquism? Or is it a trick donkey? That's it, right? It's a costume, with someone inside it!" And he bent down delightedly and began poking at Puss's head and neck.
"Er... I wouldn't do that if I was you," said Tyson, a bit half-heartedly. Some unfailing instinct told her that this man deserved whatever he got.
"So it is a trick!" chortled Jeremy, delightedly. He carried on prying and poking for a few moments, but then suddenly he caught sight of the look in the donkey's eyes. For a brief instant his blood seemed to freeze in his veins, and then he leaped back, but too late! The donkey lashed out, its teeth sheared together, and Jeremy screamed and fell to his knees, hands clutching at his face, as blood flowed from the remnants of his nose. The donkey shook its head, and spat out the severed object.
"Ugh!" it said to Tyson. "Let's find a bar quickly. I'd better wash my mouth out, who nose where that's been!" And chuckling to itself it ambled off up the hill with Tyson following behind.
"Guards!" screamed Jeremy the Beadle. "Guards!"
One of the gate sentries came dashing up, sword in hand. "What is it?" he asked.
"Those strangers assaulted me," moaned the pain-stricken Beadle. "Look!" And he moved his hands away and showed the sentry the bloody mess where his nose had been.
"Serve you right, you bastard," grinned the sentry, and wandered happily back to his post.
It was difficult to see anything inside the dragon's cave after the bright sunlight outside. When he had groped his way forward for about fifty paces Ronan struck flame, lit a couple of the torches that they had brought with them, and handed them to Tarl and Bewel. By the flickering light they could see that they were in a wide passage with small guardrooms carved into the rock on either side. Slowly, the warrior led them forwards. After fifty more paces the walls suddenly fell away and they found themselves in a huge cavern. There was a mound of some kind in the centre. They walked forward, eyes straining to pierce the gloom that encroached around the rim of the torchlight. As they neared the mound their pace slowed, and as one they gasped with amazement.
It was a huge pile of treasure nearly ten foot high, a hoard of gold and silver, of jewels and gemstones. Carvings and statues of jade and amber nestled next to swords whose hilts were bound about with a filigree of silver and platinum, and whose pommels and blades were studded and inlaid with rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Crowns, orbs and sceptres of long-dead kings and queens nestled in deep beds of gold coinage from every land in the world. Brooches, bracelets and tiaras studded with a thousand diamonds flashed and glittered in the light of the torches. It was a vast accumulation of wealth... more than a king's ransom, it was a world's. Even that legendary shopper Kahen the Spoilt, the Elven Princess of Behan, would have needed a few weeks to spend her way through this lot.
For what seemed like an age they stared in fascination at the wondrous sight, and then Tarl let out a slow sigh, leaned forward, and plucked a small statuette of the god Flak from the pile. It was of solid gold, with diamond eyes and sapphire warts, and by itself would have kept Tarl in Elf's Peckers for the rest of his life. He was just examining this and wondering if dragons played cards, when from the darkness to one side came the sound of someone elegantly clearing their throat. Tarl jumped guiltily and dropped the statuette, and all three turned and stared into the darkness beyond the light of the torches.
"Visitors! How absolutely charming!" said a deep and very cultured voice, then a sudden thirty-foot gout of flame shot across the cave first in one direction, and then in another, and two wall torches burst into flickering life. As their flames grew, they bathed in light the section of cave that was obviously the dragon's living quarters, and Ronan and Tarl had their first sight of the dragon Philekazan.
He was elegantly sprawled on a very long leather settee, with a giant economy size martini in one claw and a book by Jeffrey the Archer in another. There was a beautiful rug on the floor, and beside one wall was a bar that seemed to be liberally stocked with bottles of every description. Several man-sized chairs were carefully arranged in an arc opposite the settee.
"Do make yourselves at home," drawled Philekazan, waving a languid claw at the chairs. "Pour yourselves a drink if you wish. And then do feel free to tell me what brings you to my humble residence." He flashed a charming gap-toothed smile at them and began to inspect one carefully-manicured talon. Ronan was left with the feeling that here was a dragon who, could he have found them in a size to fit, would have been totally at home in silk dressing-gown and cravat, and who, had he been able to wear a disreputable pencil-line moustache, would have done so with positive glee.
Ronan strode forward boldly, but Bewel followed rather more hesitantly and stood staring with his mouth agape. Ronan nudged him, and he pulled himself together with an effort.
"Good Philekazan," he began, but the dragon interrupted him.
"Please," he said, "call me Phil."
"Good Phil, then," continued Bewel, "we come on a matter which I have broached to you before. For some years you have been coming to our town, returning to your lair each time with one of our most beautiful young women. But now, we of Carn Betw are concerned for their safety. We feel that this cannot continue!"
The dragon looked at him and raised one golden eyebrow. "My dear... Bewel, is it not? Let me assure you that all of these young women have accompanied me of their own free will."
"Yes, yes! That much is well known," admitted the young elf. "But what is not so well known is what happens to them. Do they stay with you? If that is the case, where are they? Do they leave, and if so, where do they go?"
"Stay with me? My dear chap, I'm afraid I'm not the marrying kind!" smiled the dragon. He raised his glass and took a massive swallow of the martini. Ronan noticed that his claw was shaking slightly, and suddenly realised that the dragon was rather drunk. "It's true," Philekazan continued, "that on occasion a young lady may accompany me back here for a night-cap, but they always leave by the next morning."
"Why then do they not return to Carn Betw?"
"Who knows?" mused the dragon. "Perhaps after a night with me they find such a small to
wn of little interest any more. Perhaps they want to venture out into the wide world, to seek excitement, riches, and romance. Perhaps they feel a need to live life to the full..."
"Perhaps they're not capable of returning," came a flat, unhappy voice from over by the treasure hoard. "Perhaps life is something they've run out of..."
Ronan and Bewel looked round to where Tarl was standing with bowed head and slumped shoulders. While they had been questioning the dragon, he had been prowling round the perimeters of the treasure. Now, he rather wished he hadn't. Wearily he raised his torch, and the light fell on something beyond the massive mound. A small, sad heap of grey-white fragments that were charred with black. Human bones, broken and burned.
The others stared in horror, and Bewel turned on the dragon with flashing eyes. "What means this?" he spat. But as they watched, the dragon slumped down in his seat. His golden scales seemed to lose their lustre, his wings drooped like tattered old curtains of lace and the muscles of his face sagged, making it seem lined and swollen. Suddenly, he looked tired and old, and very, very dissolute. A tear welled from the corner of his eye and splashed into his drink.
"I can't explain it," he moaned desperately. "It just started one evening, some years ago. This lovely young girl had come home with me. We'd had quite a lot to drink, and we both felt rather peckish, as you do. You know how it is. She suggested flying out for a pizza, but I looked at her, so young and beautiful, and I thought, my goodness, I could just eat you all up. And I did. Every last bit.
"Of course, I was horrified when I woke up next morning and remembered what I had done! I didn't go near the town for months. But then one day I felt I had to have some company. So, I flew down, had a few drinks, and ended up coming home with another wonderful young lady. And the same thing happened again...
"And now I'm hooked! I want to stop, but I can't! I really do feel like the most absolute bounder..." The dragon paused, and took another gulp at his drink. More tears were welling out now, and his mighty chest was heaving convulsively. Suddenly a look of horror crossed his face and he slapped one claw across his mouth.
"Oh, no!" he gasped. "Hiccups! Look out!" But never having seen a singultous dragon before his visitors failed to take any evasive action and just stared at him, puzzled. For a moment he sat there, seemingly frozen, and then he gave a loud hiccup and a jet of flame shot out of his mouth, just missing Bewel.
The dragon looked mortified. "I'm so sorry," he muttered. "I can't help it! I say, look out!"
Ronan and Bewel, forewarned, leapt for cover as Philekazan hiccuped again. This time, however, the dragon tilted his head back and the gout of flame shot thirty feet into the air and incinerated a small colony of bats which had been hanging from the roof, bitching ultrasonically to each other about all the noise below.
Ronan glanced quickly round the room and then, as the dragon's chest contracted a third time, he leapt past him and grabbed the large soda-siphon that was standing on the bar. As the dragon turned to him with a look of mute apology in his eyes and opened his mouth for another hiccup, Ronan fired a jet of soda water straight into his jaws. The hiccup was stifled by a paroxysm of choking coughs.
Eventually, the spluttering dragon managed to draw breath. "Thank you," he said gratefully and rather damply. "You've put my fire out. That's the only thing that helps when I get an attack like that." Then he turned to Bewel. "I really am most terribly sorry. I honestly couldn't help it. It's because of just this sort of thing that we dragons always live in stone caves miles from anywhere. I mean, you can't very well live in a nice house in the centre of town if every time you burp, you incinerate your next-door neighbour and burn down half the city!"
He gave his three visitors a sad, rather watery smile, but Ronan for one was not to be placated. The dragon had obviously killed several innocent young girls, and although he was rather more well-spoken and chatty than the average bad guy, in Ronan's book this put him firmly on the evil side of things. Ronan drew the sword that Bewel's father had leant him and advanced on the creature.
"Dragon," he thundered, "this can't go on! How many more deaths will you cause?"
The dragon slid off the sofa and backed away, his great paws outstretched in supplication. "Look, I'm most awfully sorry... I really couldn't help it, you know... I probably won't do it again, I reckon I can kick the habit, given a bit of support... No, please..."
But Ronan advanced inexorably until he had Philekazan backed up against the wall. He hefted the sword in his hand and stared fiercely up at him, and then realised the major problem inherent in being a six-foot human who wants to decapitate a twenty-foot dragon. He desperately needed a stepladder.
"Listen, guy, I'm going to have to cut off your head."
"I realise that."
"But I can't reach it."
"Shame."
"You wouldn't care to bend down?"
"Do I look stupid?"
There was a pause while Ronan tried to think what to do.
"Look, I can quite easily slice open your stomach, you know. The end effect is the same."
"Oh, tut!" The dragon looked disappointed. "And what would the tabloids make of that? Savage warrior disembowels innocent dragon... fire-breathing lizard dies in agony with his guts all over the floor... How heroic. Not going to look too good at the next warrior-school reunion, is it?"
"Oh, come on, guy! After what you did to those innocent girls? Have you no shame? Just look at that sad pile of bones over there! What are their poor parents going to say?"
There was another pause. The dragon's lower lip quivered, and great tears welled up once more in its eyes and splashed to the floor, soaking Ronan's shoes.
"You're right," he whispered. "I know you're right. I deserve to die. Oh, God, how did it come to this? How did I sink so low?"
The dragon began to rock backwards and forwards, thumping his head against the rock wall behind him. And then he swallowed, and leaned his great head forward until the tip of his jaw was just touching the ground in front of Ronan's feet.
"Come on, then," he said. "Let's get it over with."
Ronan swung his sword back over his head and picked a spot just behind the dragon's ears. His great muscles bunched at he tensed himself. And then he paused. And paused some more.
"Look, maybe you really couldn't help it," he heard himself saying.
"What!" came an outraged roar from Bewel, who was quivering with indignation. "After all that he's done, you want to let him off?"
Ronan held out his sword. "If you want him dead, you kill him."
The elf looked from the sword to the dragon, and then back to the sword again. He shook his head tiredly. The dragon looked up at them with moist, heavy-lidded eyes.
"You'd be doing me a favour, you know." Somehow neither Ronan nor Bewel could meet his gaze. "Oh well, I suppose there's only one way out for a dragon of honour. And that's what I used to be, not so very long ago..." He paused for a moment in thought, and then stood up and tiredly unfurled his wings. "I am going to go for a little fly out over the Western Ocean. I may be gone some time."
Ronan looked at the dragon with a new respect. One of the many stories he had read as a child told of the great dragon Atropos who, heart-broken at the death of his life-long companion, flew out across the ocean towards the west until his mighty wings tired and he could fly no more, and he plummeted to his death. He watched sadly as Philekazan looked round his home for one last time with an expression of utter wretchedness on his face. Then the dragon began to trudge towards the exit of the cave. Ronan went to move forward, but Bewel laid a restraining hand on his arm.
"It is for the best," he whispered.
The dragon looked back over his shoulder. "Do please divide my hoard between you," he said, "and give some of it to the families of the girls I... well... you know." Ronan raised a hand in acknowledgement.
At the rear of the cave, Tarl was in a bit of a moral dilemma. He thought he might have a solution that would satisfy everyone, but i
f he kept his mouth closed the dragon would fly off to his death and he would suddenly be the part-owner of a massive hoard of treasure, which would give him enough money to buy the whole of Welbug if he wished. The Tarl of ten days ago would only have opened his mouth to say "Goodbye," and would have been happily shovelling jewels into his backpack. But this was a newer, finer Tarl.
"Hold on," he heard himself saying, "don't you think you're over-reacting a bit?"
The dragon paused and looked at him hopelessly and Bewel threw him an extremely dirty look. Tarl stumbled on regardless.
"Look, wanting to bite a pretty girl is no sin. I mean, we've all done that." He looked at the shocked expressions on his companions' faces and hastily re-assessed. "Well, some of us have... But when you've got a four-foot mouth lined with needle-sharp teeth, accidents can happen. One thing leads to another, and before you know it... What I'm saying is, this has happened before." He shrugged, trying to assume a man-of-the-world air, and then added hurriedly "Not to me! But I've lived amongst orcs and trolls. I mean, you know what they eat! But they're not all happy about it. Some of them want to settle down in normal human towns, or decide that eating people is morally wrong. I came across a few self-help groups in Orcville. Why don't you join one of them?"
"Self-help groups?" snuffled Philekazan.
"Yeah. They've worked wonders for all sorts of creatures who were used to a diet of man-flesh. There's GAME - Goblins Against Man-Eating - although they're a bit extreme. And there's SOD'EM - Sentient Organisms Don't Eat Men. Apparently they're really supportive."
The dragon looked hopefully across to Bewel, who thought for a moment, then sat down in one of the chairs.
"Tell us a bit more about them," said the elf.