Chapter Thirty-Two
Three dusty figures slipped in through the city gate and paused, looking about in confusion.
The streets were deserted. This was not in accord with their expectations, nor with any of the plans they had discussed along the way.
This wasn't the first surprise; finding that a suburb or two had apparently been torched as part of the coronation celebrations had been a bit startling.
“I hadn't thought the Gorgorians did that anymore," the Purple Possum had remarked. "I'd been hearing that they were really quite restrained nowadays, more sensitive to the quieter tastes of the Hydrangeans."
"Oh, shut up," the Black Weasel had said. This had been a common reaction for him ever since awakening in the Widow Giligip's house; when the Possum commented that it might almost be considered rude, were the Black Weasel not deposed royalty, the Weasel had very nearly apologized, blaming his ill temper on a headache that simply wouldn't quit.
And now, as they stared at the city, his head hurt more than ever.
"Oh, look, there's the Street of Delights Not Spoken of in Polite Company," the Purple Possum said, pointing. "I feared I'd never see it again."
The Black Weasel mumbled something, but didn't tell the Possum to shut up. He, too, was enjoying the sight of the city he had fled so long before.
"What’s that banner up there for?" Dunwin asked, pointing back at the gate. "Is that always there?"
"What banner?" the Black Weasel asked.
"The one that says welcome dragon," Dunwin replied.
The Weasel and the Possum looked at one another.
"Did you see a banner?" the Weasel asked.
"No, my lord," the Possum admitted. "I was studying the suburban architecture. Did you notice how they've built houses that imitate the shape of the Gorgorian campaign tents?"
"I didn’t bloody well notice anything,” the Weasel snarled, "because my head was pounding like a smith with a royal deadline to meet, and I kept my eyes toward the ground, where the sun’s glare wouldn’t make it pound any worse."
"We could go back out and take a look," the Possum suggested.
"There arc more banners," Dunwin mentioned, pointing.
"So there are," the Possum agreed, startled. He looked over the hastily painted signs that were draped here and there along the main street up toward the palace. The Black Weasel, forgetting his headache for the moment, did the same.
"A feast," he said. "Maybe we didn't miss the coronation after all."
"Or maybe they left the banners up afterward," the Possum suggested. "The Gorgorians aren’t much on housecleaning, after all."
"If they’re for the coronation," Dunwin said, "why does the big one out there say welcome dragon?"
The Possum shrugged. "Maybe that’s a symbolical reference to the new king?"
"Maybe it's Bernice," Dunwin said.
"The Gorgorians use an ox," the Weasel said thoughtfully, "and the royal house has always been represented by the sallet, not a dragon. I think the boy's right—they mean it literally, and Bernice is here before us."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Dunwin shouted. He turned, and began to charge up the street in the direction indicated by the arrows helpfully provided on several of the banners.
As he started to pass, the Purple Possum thrust out a foot; Dunwin tripped and fell headlong, to lie dazed upon the cobbles.
The Weasel looked at the Possum; the Possum looked at the Weasel, and shrugged. "I didn't think we should be hasty," he said.
"Oh, I agree completely," the Weasel said. "But I suppose we'll have to go see what all these banners are about."
"Yes, my prince," the Possum replied. "I suppose we had better."
"You know, though," the Weasel said, glancing about at the empty streets, "it doesn’t look as if this is going to work."
"Oh?"
"I don't see any sign of my men, and those banners would seem to imply that the city's people have the dragon under control. And the coronation must be over by now, after we spent all that time spewing into buckets after that idiot Spurge poisoned us. I think the moment's passed."
The Possum considered that, stroking his narrow beard thoughtfully.
"Should we, perhaps, retreat to the forest once more, and await another opportunity?" he asked.
The Weasel shuddered. "Do you want to spend another fifteen years out in the bushes?"
"I think," the Possum said warily, keeping a careful eye on his master's expression, ' ‘that I’d rather trust to your nephew’s beneficence ..."
"So would I, damn it. And there are always the secret passages, you know—I think I might do better at palace intrigue than this hiding-in-the-hills nonsense. It’s really more in my family line, you know."
“Then what should we do now?"
“We should, first of all, find out just what in the nineteen variegated hells of the forbidden gods of Dhum is going on around here."
“And how do we do that, Your Highness?”
The Black Weasel, brave and dashing leader of the Bold Bush-dwellers, sighed mightily. “We pick Dunwin up and go to the feast, I suppose,” he said.
The Purple Possum suddenly found something utterly fascinating on a nearby balcony, to judge by the intensity with which he stared at it as he said, “Need we bring Dun- win? While the lad certainly has his virtues, he has peculiarities, as well. For example, he's prone to fixations, such as his obsession with his lost Bernice. If this dragon truly is his Bernice, I fear his behavior might be completely uncontrollable, which might be inconvenient.”
The Black Weasel looked down at the prone figure before them. “You have a point,” he said. “Come on, then.”
Together, the two men marched up the street, following the banners, leaving Dunwin where he lay.
They were out of sight for less than a minute before Dunwin rose to his feet and shook his head to clear it. Discovering he was alone, he looked about in confusion, spotted the banners, and remembered.
“Bernice!” he said.
He didn't know where the Black Weasel and the Purple Possum had gone, and he didn’t much care; he wanted Bernice. He started up the street.
Meanwhile, in the great square, the crowd was becoming bored; although at first it had seemed as if most of the population of the city was standing along the side of the plaza in eager anticipation, many had drifted away during the long wait, and those who remained had settled to the cobbles. Some now sat on blankets or cushions brought from home, while others made do with bare pavement.
Bernice, for her part, was very irritable indeed. She had been sitting there for over an hour, listening to Arbol produce a truly astonishing string of vituperation. Voices from the audience were beginning to be heard, as well.
"Go ahead and eat her!"
"Get it over with, charcoal breath!"
Bernice paid little attention; she had become fascinated, despite her anger, with Arbol's ability to spew out insult after insult without repeating. Despite having lived most of her life as old Odo’s property, she had never heard anything remotely like it.
The Blue Badger sat unhappily by the dragon’s foreclaw, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
"He left before us," he said for the fifty-seventh time. "He must have reached the city before us. He must be in hiding somewhere close by. He must know what’s going on here!"
"Unless he got lost," the Puce Mongoose said, for the thirty-third time. "Or something else went wrong."
"Why don't we just let Bernice eat her?" Wennedel asked. "Then the Gorgorian royal family would be gone and they'd have to crown a Hydrangean!"
"But we want ’em to crown the Black Weasel," the Badger pointed out, "not some silly third cousin of old Fumitory or something." He hesitated, then added, "Besides, I don't really understand all this political stuff very well, and I don’t want to do anything serious until the Weasel gets here and says it’s okay."
"But what if he doesn't show up? If he doesn’t get here soon, Be
rnice is going to . . . well ..."
"I know that!" the Blue Badger shouted. "And he’ll be here! He left before us, he must have reached the city ..."
The argument rolled on.
Across the square, another argument was continuing, as well.
"I say we slay the dragon and free him ... I mean, her," Pentstemon said. '
"Why?" a Gorgorian soldier asked.
"Because she’s the rightful king!"
"She's a girl—saw it myself," the soldier retorted. "A girl can't be a king."
"Well, she can't help being female!" Pentstemon said, waving an arm about wildly. "I'm one of the Prince’s Companions, and that means I'm supposed to defend the prince, not stand here while they feed him to ... I mean, feed her to a dragon!"
"Not a prince, if it's a her," someone pointed out.
"But she used to be!" Pentstemon insisted.
"How'd we slay the dragon, always supposin' we wanted to, which I am not sure of?" a soldier asked.
"Hack its head off!" Pentstemon shouted.
The soldier shrugged. "You’ve got a sword," he said. "Go right ahead."
Pentstemon glared, and did not draw his blade. A thought struck him.
"Arrows!" he said. "We could put its eyes out with arrows, then ..."
"Then it'd thrash about and mash half the city to kindling," a grizzled old Gorgorian pointed out. "My great- grandda tried something like that with a swamp dragon, or at least that's what he claimed, but he had a cliff nearby for it to fall over, which we don't happen to have here in the middle of the city, so far as I can make out."
Pentstemon glared about, and had to admit that there was no cliff in the middle of the square. He also noticed that the dragon's wings looked quite functional, and suspected a cliff wouldn't be very effective in any case.
And at that moment, the Black Weasel and the Purple Possum emerged from the street into the square, a few yards behind the dragon, where the Puce Mongoose immediately spotted them.
"Look!" he shouted. "It's the Black Weasel!"
Arbol shrieked an obscenity involving vegetables and female ancestors; Bernice cocked her head thoughtfully, repeating Arbol's phrase to herself. Then she nodded.
"Got one," she said. "About twenty minutes ago. I knew she couldn't keep it up forever!"
Then the Mongoose's shout registered, and she swung her head around to look at the two rather bedraggled new arrivals.
“Is that him?" she asked.
“Well, yes," the Blue Badger admitted. “That's the Black Weasel. Now, just wait a minute, and I'm sure he'll tell us what we should do . . ."
“Wait?" Bernice snorted, and the Blue Badger felt his hair singe. “Wait? I've been waiting for an hour, listening to that filthy little bitch insult me, and now she’s finally started repeating herself, so there’s nothing more to learn, and your Black Weasel's here, and you said, you said that when the Weasel got here I could eat her.”
Bernice got to her feet.
“You said wait for the Weasel; well, there he is, so now I'm going to eat that nasty little thing.”
In no particular hurry, she started across the square.
Dunwin was almost running by the time he reached the square; he charged past the Black Weasel and the Purple Possum without even noticing them, past the other Bold Bush-dwellers as they called uselessly after Bernice.
He had eyes only for her. At last, at long last, he had found her.
“Bernice!” he called.
No one heard him over the racket the Bold Bush-dwellers were making. He charged on into the square, which had begun to fill with Gorgorian soldiers and other citizens, all rushing about trying to do something useful with no idea at all what that might be.
A bowstring twanged; Pentstemon had finally convinced someone. An arrow tore through the air mere inches from Bernice's face, and she stopped, startled, in her advance on the platform in the center of the square.
Arbol spat at her, and Bernice growled. She took another step, and three more arrows flew; one missed cleanly, the other two ricocheted off hard green scales.
“No!” Dunwin screamed, running forward and almost stumbling as he struggled to draw his sword without slowing. “No, don't hurt her! Wait, I'll save you!''
A sudden hush fell, as everyone—soldiers, civilians, and Bush-dwellers—watched Dunwin charging madly toward the dragon, sword waving.
“He's going to save the princess!'' someone shouted.
“He’ll slay the dragon!’’ someone else called back.
“Make way! Make way for the dragonslayer!'' The cry went up from several throats.
Bernice paid no attention; alone of everyone present, she had not yet noticed Dunwin. She was concerned only with-her potential dinner and the annoying little arrows that whizzed about her. She reared up before the platform and looked down at Arbol.
The princess continued to shout invective, and Bernice smiled at the thought of silencing that foul mouth once and for all.
And just then, another figure leaped up on the platform, sword in hand. Uncomfortably aware of the traditions of dragonslaying, thanks to the Blue Badger's warnings, Bernice turned her attention from Arbol to this intruder. She lowered her head for a better look, and to get within flaming range, ready to yank her head back the instant that sword came too close.
“Bernice!'' Dunwin shrieked. “It’s me!”
Bernice blinked; her jaw dropped in astonishment, and she ducked down for a closer look.
“It’s getting ready to breathe fire!’’ someone shrieked from the crowd.
Dunwin, seeing Bernice's scaly green face approaching, dropped his sword and flung both his arms around her neck in an eager bear hug.
“Oh, Bernice,’’ he said into her ear, “it's so good to see you!”
“By all the gods!’’ someone called. “He’s trying to strangle it with his bare hands!"
“Who is that?’’ asked another voice.
“What a hero!’’
“What an idiot”
“What's the difference?"
And as all the city watched, Bernice the dragon raised her head upward, Dunwin still clinging to her neck, his feet waving about in empty air.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Wulfrith didn't like to be disrespectful or anything, and he knew that he should treat his master with all possible courtesy and deference, but really, he thought it was a little inconsiderate of Clootie to have passed out before he was even out the door of his cell.
The old wizard had let out a tremendous gasp of relief when his gag was removed, had moaned as his bonds were cut away and discarded, and had then fainted dead away, and Wulfrith had been utterly unable to rouse him.
At last, the lad had hoisted Clootie up onto his shoulders, and had carried him out of the cell and through the dungeon corridors, heading for the exit.
At least, he thought he was heading for the exit. After awhile, he began to realize that he didn't really know where he was going. He had not bothered to ask the screamer for directions for leaving the dungeons, nor had he noticed just where he entered in the first place.
What's more, after he had wandered through the tunnels for awhile, Wulfrith began to tire. Disgraceful as it was to concern himself with anything so mundane, he wished Clootie had lost those few pounds he always said he wanted to lose.
Still, he staggered on. What choice did he have? There was no one around he could ask for directions; he hadn't even seen a guard since he freed Clootie, but only endless gloomy gray corridors, lit here by a flickering torch, there by a trace of sunlight filtering in from somewhere overhead, and over there by nothing at all. Cobwebs adorned the walls and ceilings, and in time, they adorned Wulfrith’s hair and hands as well, and covered Clootie in a thin gray lacework. Dust lay thick on the floor. Water and other liquids dripped and oozed here and there, keeping the flooring treacherously slippery.
It seemed as if he wandered for hours; after a time, he no longer seemed to see any cells, but jus
t endless blank-walled corridors. If the passages had not remained so uniformly dank and unpleasant, Wulfrith might have thought he had left the dungeons behind.
And in truth, he thought maybe he had left the dungeons behind, but he still had no idea where he was. He forged on.
Eventually, he came up against a large, locked door that barred the corridor he was in. He stared at it for a moment. A few times, he had found himself in dead ends where he had had to turn around and retrace his steps. He really hoped that this was not another—but those had ended in walls, not doors.
And although he couldn’t be sure, since a reasonable amount of daylight seeped into this particular corridor through a small overhead grille, he thought he could see light coming under the door.
That was not something he had seen before. He thought that just perhaps he had, at last, found a way out.
The door was locked, of course, but that wouldn't stop him. His magic could deal with most locks.
The lock-opening spell was so simple he didn't even need to put Clootie down to work it. He made the requisite gesture one-handed, and managed to speak the incantation without grunting.
The door creaked open, and blindingly bright sunlight poured in; adjusting his master's weight, Wulfrith stepped forward, blinking.
He had assumed that he would emerge from the passages into the palace cellars, or perhaps a corridor or guard-room somewhere; it appeared that that wasn't the case at all. He was in a narrow little courtyard somewhere, walled on all sides but open to the sky, and with a narrow door at the far end. He could hear voices and noises, not so very far away—the sounds of the city, he thought.
He looked around, and realized that he couldn't see the palace over any of the walls; he guessed that just like in the old stories, he had found a secret escape tunnel from the palace, one that came up somewhere else in the city.
For a moment he wondered why none of the Old Hydrangean nobility had used the tunnel on that day fifteen years before when the Gorgorians came into the city, raping and pillaging and slaying. Why hadn’t old King Fumitory fled into exile through it?
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