Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  Carasta, suddenly at the elbow of one of the keepers, called “Dragon apples! Only a penny! Daryk’an himself might have served them!” One of the keepers sniffed, but a few people wandered over to Polijn, pennies in hand.

  They had come to enjoy themselves and spend money in honor of the reawakening of ancient grandeur. The old Dragon Hall of Daryk’an had turned up in the new mine workings of Lord Thoringhold, and he had at once seen the value of restoring it (since obviously there wouldn’t be anything to mine under the old stronghold.) The age of the dragon slayers was gone, but the memory lingered in old stories. Thoringhold had spared no expense to make the hall worthy of the stories. His personal bodyguard was here, dressed in what was probably Lady Thoringhold’s concept of dragon slayer armor: brocade-covered mail, with silver dragons at the shoulders and hips. The men were big enough to pass for dragon slayers, though they had no genuine dragon credentials, and their stern eyes were an echo of the mighty dragon slayers as well as a dare to any of their neighbors to laugh at their outfits.

  Polijn hoped mere apple sellers would get a chance to go in and look around where once the dragon slayers gathered. Much of the decoration inside was said to be fifteen hundred years old, and in good condition. Local rumor claimed Thoringhold had found valuable secret manuscripts and treasure maps within, in addition to a hundred battered beer steins.

  “Apples!” It was Carasta’s voice again; he was pointing her out to the firesprite keepers. One of them pointed at the blonde with the tray. “Ah, the little ones have more flavor.”

  Polijn drew a long breath, hoping he was still selling apples. Sometimes he sold apples, and sometimes just tokens, to be redeemed later. That fellow who had just given her six pennies for six apples didn’t look like he baked many pies. Her eyes scanned the field for a good hiding place, if worse came to worst. Maybe there was a dark corner in the Dragon Hall? She shook her head. Thoringhold looked like a man who wouldn’t skimp on torches to show off every inch of his new plaything.

  Someone shrieked. A mighty shadow passed across Polijn’s spot in the crowd. Two men jumped into the air, but the firesprite had been too quick.

  “The rope broke!” shouted Carasta. “Look! The rope broke!”

  Polijn wouldn’t have looked, but he said it twice more. Anyone could see that rope wasn’t broken. Carasta was always a master of badly planned misdirection.

  Shrieks gave way to laughter and more applause as the firesprite executed a sort of somersault in the air and shot off to the east. It was, after all, not dangerous. The ascent had been startling, but it was amazing to watch, and quite appropriate to the day. The band struck up a skirling song suggestive of dragon flight. Polijn tipped her head to listen, wondering if it could be duplicated on a flute.

  She found a hand wrapped in her hair. “Listen!” said Carasta, meaning himself and not the tune. “Let’s go see where it went. There’ll be a reward if we can bring it back.”

  Polijn nodded, letting her eyes slide to the rope burn in his palms before turning to the east. He could be correct, for a novelty, about the reward. Or she could just put a mile or so between herself and the men with apples.

  The road from the Dragon Hall led into rocky hills; this was, after all, Thoringhold mining territory. After only a few minutes, Polijn was ready for the next part of the conversation, and twisted to keep her hair out of reach when Carasta’s hand came out.

  He nodded. “Listen,” he said again, “no sense both of us hunting in the same direction. It probably went downhill ... with the prevailing winds. You keep checking this way, just in case, and I’ll check downwind. At midday, if nothing else happens, we’ll meet up back by the Dragon Hall. At the beer wagon.”

  “Apples,” said Polijn, without a trace of bitterness in her tone. He nodded again, and set off by the straightest route toward the beer wagon.

  Well, it was a nice day for a walk, and it would be easier to see the Dragon Hall later in the day, when the crowd thinned out, or at least joined the minstrel at the beer wagon. Polijn moved off the road and uphill, toward a grove of trees. She came across a brook, and followed that into the shade.

  It was not until she had sat down under one of the trees that she bothered to look up among the branches. She was not the least bit surprised, however, to see a long, reptilian form stretched along a branch, foreclaws under its head, a rope dangling from its neck. The firesprite, having sat out in the sun most of the morning, had also hunted up a cool spot.

  Polijn wrapped her arms around her legs, and set her chin on her knees, considering the rope. It was well within reach. Then what? Suppose the firesprite decided it had seen enough of the Dragon Hall of Daryk’an. Who’d pick the apples if both she and Carasta wound up with rope-burnt hands?

  She hadn’t come far, of course. It would be easy enough run back to the festival to fetch Carasta. She shrugged and stretched her legs on the grass. A lot of work just to break up the party even more, taking more attention from Lord Thoringhold. How much would he reward them for that, especially if he, too, had spotted Carasta’s rope burn in the first place? And, anyhow, the firesprite hadn’t seemed to be enjoying its command performance much. Let it sleep.

  Who needed a reward anyhow, especially one Carasta wasn’t likely to share, as long as she had provisions? She reached down to the pouch and took out an apple.

  At the second bite, she looked into the trees to find the firesprite gone. Something soft nudged her elbow.

  Multi-faceted eyes looked into her own, and then went to the apple. “Ah,” said Polijn.

  She reached into her pouch for another, and held it out in her free hand. The firesprite took it between long teeth, tossed it into the air, and caught it with a crunch.

  The thing must move very quietly, Polijn thought, unless she had for the first time in her life fallen asleep while biting into an apple. To be sure, she had heard no flap of wings when it took off at the festival, but the crowd had been squealing and shrieking. She held out another apple from the pouch.

  While it crunched that one away, she rose, and took three steps toward the road. The firesprite, which had crouched to bring its head to her level, came up too. The big, hungry eyes went to the pouch.

  “Fool thing,” she said, taking out more fruit. “Are you going to follow me to be tied up again, just for apples?” The firesprite took one apple in its teeth, balanced a second on its nose and, with a flip, tossed both into the air and crunched them.

  This was all very well, but if Carasta saw things like this, he’d get ideas about a traveling firesprite show. He wouldn’t hesitate to steal the animal from Lord Thoringhold again, without the slightest thought for how hard it might be to smuggle a stolen minidragon out of the territory.

  She checked her pouch. Anyway, what happened when she ran out of apples? There were plenty right now, but how many apples per mile did a firesprite consume? She set four of the apples on the ground and, when the firesprite’s head was down, grabbed for a branch. She’d show this apple moocher who could be fast and silent. If it found her in the trees, she’d just have to abandon the whole pouch and sprint for the Dragon Hall while it ate. Carasta would expect her to buy a new pouch, of course.

  She had one leg over the branch when she discovered why it had been hanging so handy to her grasp. The branch fell to the right and she swung left. “Ai!” she said, landing astride a long, rocky outcropping.

  Huge red-tinged eyes came around at her, green eyeridges lifted a bit. These weren’t rocks. They were part of a backbone.

  “My mistake,” she told it. “I’ll just—”

  Her hair was streaming behind her in the sudden wind. Polijn very carefully eased one hand to feel her neck and make sure her head wasn’t in danger of flying back there as well.

  The trees swirled beneath her as they rose in spirals toward the clouds. So, she thought, in spite of herself, she’d caught the firesprite. Of course, catching it was one thing; steering it, another. She bounced forward, sliding along t
he spine, as the end of the rope caught in one of the taller trees. The firesprite shook loose and went on, though not quite shaking its rider loose at the same time. Polijn set her head down at the base of the firesprite’s skull until all her internal organs settled back where they were meant to be.

  The head swung round and the big eyes sparkled at her again. The firesprite’s mouth hung open, a barbed tongue flapping. It looked for all the world like a dog enjoying a run.

  “Good boy,” she said. “Down!”

  It shot straight up, the head forward again to make the long neck as arrowlike as possible. Now what? Could she hang on until it got tired and came back to the trees? And would it be these trees or some trees a hundred miles from Lord Thoringhold and his archaeological treasures? There must be some way to let the firesprite know that, as much as she was enjoying the ride, she’d like to get off just long enough to throw up.

  She tapped on the back of the big head, but got no response. The firesprite rolled to the left, and she dug her fingers into its skin. Life or death to her, but the firesprite didn’t seem to feel it. The animal straightened out at the tops of the trees and skimmed along them.

  There were some hard apples in the pouch. Polijn reached back, selected a solid one, and threw it right between the creature’s ears. It ducked at the same moment, though. The apple shot beyond it.

  The firesprite lunged and caught the apple in midair. Polijn, utterly without appetite now, reached back for another apple. She hurled it as far as she could to the left of the big head.

  Tossing apples to the left sent the creature soaring left. She swallowed. That was steering mastered. Now, how did one go about landing?

  “Whoa! Whoa! Down here!”

  Carasta was running along the road below, waving his hands. He was closer than Polijn had expected, and it was thus no difficulty to send an apple square between his eyes. He toppled over backward.

  Polijn slid forward on the bony ridge again, and this time, since both her hands were on the pouch, flipped up over the firesprite’s ears and found herself seated in the dust of the road. Carasta, tumbled by the apple, had still had enough presence of mind to get his hands on the rope as it swept past him and the firesprite, concentrating on the apple, had come to a halt at just the right time ... for Carasta, at least.

  Polijn rose, rubbing one hip.

  “Excellent! Excellent! We’ve done it!” her partner crowed. “Um, how did we do it?”

  “Apples,” said Polijn, taking one out and tossing it to the firesprite.

  Carasta’s eye widened as the creature gulped it down. “Ah! Got it! You threw the apples and it followed, huh? Lemme try?” His free hand yanked the shoulder strap of the apple pouch.

  He threw himself astride the long neck and hurled an apple into the air. The firesprite followed. Carasta laughed. This was nothing new to an experienced horse thief.

  “Meet me back at the Dragon Hall!” he shouted. “The reward will be huge after a dramatic entrance!”

  They were not far from the festival now. In fact, some of the spectators had come to see what the firesprite was doing. Polijn trotted along under the shadow of the beast, wondering if the reward would be big enough to rent a pillow for her to sit on come dinnertime.

  The crowd roared and applauded. Lord and Lady Thoringhold, standing before their orchestra, shouted encouragement as the minstrel passed over them.

  “Not all the dragon masters are dead!” Carasta shouted, zooming low above the crowd. “Behold the ... whoa! Whoa there! Hold up!”

  Polijn stopped. The firesprite had spotted the old apple tree. Foreclaws went out to take apples and hindclaws went for a grip on the trunk. Polijn, remembering how the tree had creaked under her own weight, closed her eyes.

  A creak shut her eyes tighter, but a crack made her open them. One third of the tree did not move. “Oh, fooze!” cried Carasta, sounding less heroic as he rode his steed, and the rest of the apple tree, down onto the dome of Lord Thoringhold’s gazebo.

  Shards of quartz and silver sent the crowd scampering for shelter. Polijn ducked behind a barrel, but peered around the side. A green streak full of apples tore into the air and disappeared among thin clouds.

  The crowd, largely unharmed by the expensive but delicately carved shrapnel, regrouped to watch other victims scramble out of the debris: the band members first, then Lady Thoringhold, trying to hold her gown together in all the places it had burst, and then Lord Thoringhold, pulling Carasta behind him.

  The wings of the mine owner’s helmet flapped in his face. The scales of his expensively tooled dragon armor dripped clattering to the ground. The ancient dragonsword he bought from a dealer in artifacts was now just an ancient handle in a broken ancient scabbard.

  But his face was authentically dragon-slayer grim as he shook Carasta’s collar. Gusty laughter from the crowd drowned out what the mine owner was saying, but Polijn decided she’d best abandon the barrel and take to the road.

  The firesprite was correct. It was time to fly.

  Copyright © 2010 Dan Crawford

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