by Jack Heckel
There was a confused and halfhearted cheer from the men in the stockade.
“I am the King!” shouted Will. “This is rebellion.”
“And unnatural besides!” Charming added. “You’re telling me that everyone gets the same say, regardless of their status?”
The Dracolyte nodded.
“Title?”
He nodded again.
“Poetic talent or general eloquence?”
He nodded yet again.
“Fashion sense, how he sits on a horse, how well turned his calf is?”
The Dracolyte nodded and nodded until the tongue on his dragon hat was swinging wildly about like a pendulum.
Charming put his arm around the naked man. “You are telling me that this man”—the cross-eyed man tried to look at him, but his eyes wouldn’t cooperate—“would have the same say as me?”
The Dracolyte spread his arms to the gathered men. “All men are equal in the Dracomancer’s eyes, except the Dracomancer, of course, who is exalted above all others.”
All the Dracolytes shouted, almost in unison, “HAIL THE DRACOMANCER!”
“Madness!” Charming hissed, wiping the hand he’d been touching the naked man with off on Will’s underclothes. “This isn’t a dracomocracy, it’s a dracomockery. We’ve got to put a stop to this. If peasants start making decisions . . .”
Will glared at him. “Until recently, I was a peasant, Charming.”
Charming cleared his throat. “Of course, I didn’t mean you, Will, you are both King and my brother-in-law. I mean . . .”
“Never mind,” Will whispered. “I agree we have to put a stop to this, and I think I have a plan.”
“Is it violent and dangerous, and will it allow me to thrash those pompous Dracolytes?”
“No.”
“Oh well,” Charming said. “It may work anyway. What do I do?”
“For now, be quiet and let me do the talking,” Will said emphatically.
“Not the best start to a plan I’ve ever heard . . .”
Will hushed him. The Dracolytes were calling men forward to be sworn into the service of the Dracomancer. The first man was holding his left hand on top of his head as though smoothing down his hair.
“Repeat after me,” the Dracolyte was saying. “I, state your name, do solemnly and on pain of my soul being ripped from this mortal coil by the Spirits of the Dragons of Nether, do . . .”
“STOP!” Will shouted, stepping in front of the man.
The man behind him repeated the partial oath adding at the end, “STOP!”
The Dracolyte looked at him with disgust. “Now, I’m going to have to start all over. What do you want this time?”
“I demand a judgment by the Dracomancer,” Will cried.
There was a shocked hush at this, but the head Dracolyte smirked down at him. “Too bad! The Dracomancer and all his Dracoviziers are gone.”
“Where?” Will asked, honestly interested in the answer.
“None of your business,” said the Dracolyte, but the fellow on his left said, “He’s gone down to Prosper to fight the dragon, of course.”
The head Dracolyte fixed an angry gaze at his companion.
“What? Everyone knows that.”
Will pursed his lips for a moment in thought, then his mouth turned up with a cunning smile. “Very well, then I want to take a vote on whether or not to release the prisoners,” Will demanded.
“But you’re a prisoner.”
“So?”
“You have no right to call a vote,” the Dracolyte said, shaking his hat emphatically.
“But you just said that, by the Dracomancer’s own decree, ‘everyone gets a say in the course of their own destiny,’ ” Will pointed out, and turned to the other prisoners. “Were you lying to these good people, or do you question the commandments of the Dracomancer himself?”
There was a ripple of murmured protest both from the prisoners and from the other Dracolytes.
The capped Dracolyte licked his lips nervously. “That isn’t the way it works. You have to be a Dracolyte before you can vote. None of you are Dracolytes yet.”
Will clasped Charming by the shoulder. “You told my friend here that everyone had the same say, no matter what . . .”
“Which is sheer madness—” Charming started to say, but Will covered Charming’s mouth with his hand to silence him.
Will cleared his throat. “Do you deny your own words? Do you take us for fools?” He wrapped his other arm around the naked man, whose crossed eyes were either staring at Will or at a goat tied up on the other side of the square.
“Prisoners don’t get a vote, and that’s final!” the Dracolyte said in exasperation.
Will turned about to take in the prisoners. “Is this a dracomocracy or is it a dractatorship?”
The head Dracolyte looked lost for how to respond. He readjusted his hat a few times and flipped through the list in his hands.
“Down with the Dractator!” Will shouted, raising a fist to the sky.
“Yeah,” said one of the other Dracolytes. “What gives you the right to tell me what I can or can’t vote on?”
“We want a vote! We want a vote!” Will started chanting.
Soon, everyone was chanting along with him, prisoners and guards alike.
“Fine!” shouted the head Dracolyte, who had begun sweating profusely, and whose dragon cap had slipped partially over his eyes. “You can have your vote.”
“All in favor of keeping the prisoners as prisoners,” the Dracolyte said in a monotone.
Five of the six Dracolytes on the platform raised their hands. The head Dracolyte stared hard at the sixth, and he slowly joined them.
“All in favor of releasing the prisoners?” Will shouted. All the prisoners except the naked man raised their hands. Will stared at the naked man, who either returned his stare or was intently watching a washerwoman carrying a bucket of water from the well.
“I don’t believe in voting,” the man said. “It never really changes anything anyway.”
Will groaned in disgust, but then said triumphantly, “It doesn’t matter. Releasing the prisoners carries the day twelve to six! Huzzah for dracomocracy!”
“Huzzah!” cried the prisoners.
“Release them,” the head Dracolyte said, taking off his cap and throwing his list to the ground.
After getting dressed in their old clothes, all except Charming’s underclothes, which the woman had taken with her when she left, Charming and Will reclaimed their horses and led them back out of the town gate. From atop the wall, the head Dracolyte guard with the bizarre dragon cap shouted down, “You’re fools to leave the protection of the Dracomancer. It’s a harsh world, and only the strong will survive. All of our values are gone. Soon, people will be looting homes for food. We won’t all make it. It’s safer in a community than trying to make it alone on the road.”
Will stopped and turned to the Dracolytes lining the wall. “I’ve traveled nearly the length and breadth of Royaume . . .”
“Except for the north,” Charming said under his breath.
Will glared at him, then, turning his gaze back to the Dracolytes assembled on the wall, he continued. “It isn’t that bad out there. Royaume is still the same kingdom it was. Its people are still a good people. For the love of light, it’s only been a week or so.”
The Dracolyte was silent a moment, then blurted, “Of . . . of course you’d say that, you’re the King.”
Will threw up his hands in disgust. “Let’s get out of this place, Charming. It looks like I not only have a dragon to slay but a kingdom to save as well. It’s time to get to Prosper and have it out with this Dracomancer once and for all.”
“I’m with you,” Charming said grimly. “I mean, the idea of everyone’s getting a
say.” He shivered. “Dracomockery! It sounds like the dracopocalypse.”
Behind them, the man shouted from the top of the wall, “Those who are prepared will survive. Those who are not will be devoured like pigs. So says the Dracomancer!”
They made no response but, spurring their horses to a gallop, made their way out of the hills toward the River Running and the bridge to Prosper.
CHAPTER 11
SHADOWS OF THE PAST
The Pickett farm, as it was still known by the townsfolk of Prosper, lay a few miles outside the village down a country lane on a gently sloping piece of land between the River Running and the edge of the Dark Wood. It was a beautiful spot, but it was also widely known to be cursed. In the Pickett barn, Lord Pickett had begun his doomed attempt to breed golden-egg-laying geese. In the Pickett field, the dread Wyrm of the South had died, and her body was buried. And, in the Pickett home the outcast witch, Gwendolyn Mostfair, lived with her fiancé and former amphibian, Montague, or Monty to his friends. It wasn’t that people weren’t thrilled that such a famous couple lived right in their midst, and it wasn’t that Gwendolyn didn’t draw a crowd, mostly admiring men, every time she went into market; rather, it was that people were happier having them living “out there” and not “right here.”
One person who was particularly pleased that Gwendolyn lived just outside of Prosper, in fact one person who had marched an entire army south to Prosper at least partially so he could see Gwendolyn, was the Dracomancer. He had been a young man of twenty when Gwendolyn Mostfair had stolen his heart. From the moment he saw her, he had been lost, and almost everything he’d done from then to now was directly or indirectly aimed at making himself worthy of her. Now was his time. He was the Dracomancer, more powerful than a king, more beloved and respected than Prince Charming had ever been, and more dreadful even than the dragon. She would love him. It was his destiny.
He had been repeating this mantra to himself for about a couple of weeks now, ever since he learned that the new dragon was none other than Volthraxus. He knew all about Volthraxus. He had even spoken to Volthraxus many years ago when he’d been in the north. He knew that if he played his cards right, he could get the beast to leave without risking a hair of his own head. Then he could claim the mantle that should have been his years ago: “hero and savior.”
“And, if things go as I plan, I’ll also be King,” he said to himself as he rode into the muddy yard of the Pickett farm, scattering chickens.
“I am sorry, what was that, Dracomancer?” one of his Dracoviziers asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” he said as he dismounted. “Wait here and make sure we are not interrupted.”
They all saluted, one by pounding his fist across his chest, one by slapping his palm facedown across his forehead, and the last by making a strange, fluttering motion, almost like a bird, with his outstretched hands. The Dracomancer grimaced and reminded himself AGAIN that he needed to deal with the whole salute issue.
“If they would just settle on one,” he grumbled as he stalked to the little green door of the farmhouse. He adjusted the hood of his cloak, ran a hand through his thin, graying hair and a finger across his thick, bushy eyebrows. He knocked, and seeing the budding roses in the trellises surrounding him, he plucked one, pricking his finger in the process.
He was still cursing and sucking on his thumb when Gwendolyn opened the door.
“Gwendolyn,” he said in hushed awe.
“Who . . . Delbert?” Her face went white. “I . . . I mean, DRACOMANCER!”
“It is a pleasure to see you, Gwendolyn.” He thrust the rose toward her with a shaking hand.
She ignored the rose. “What . . . what are you doing here?” And then, seeming to remember who he was, shouted, “DRACOMANCER!”
“Please, Gwendolyn, there is no need for titles between us.”
“R . . . right, Delbert. I’m just, I’m just surprised to see you . . . HERE.”
“May I come in?” He once again thrust the thorny rose at her.
“In?” She carefully took the rose from him. “YOU WANT TO COME IN?” she repeated in a passion of disbelief.
“Yes, dear Gwendolyn, I have much I want to discuss with you, and my time may be rather limited.”
He tried to affect a tragic air, but it might not have been entirely effective, as she asked, “Are you ill? Do you have a stomachache? Do you need the privy?”
“No, no, but it would be better not to discuss it here in the open,” he said, trying his mysterious mystic face.
There was a noise from within the house, like a door’s closing.
“Are you alone?” he asked, trying to peer around her, but she had taken a stance directly in the doorway so that he couldn’t see past her.
“I am quite alone. It . . . it must be the cat.”
“What about your . . . fiancé?” he asked, unable to keep the disdain from his voice.
“Oh, him?” she said, and sounded surprised that she even had a fiancé, which the Dracomancer took as a very good sign. “He is, um, in town?”
She twirled the rose between her fingers. He shuffled his feet at the doorstep and coughed. Neither one seemed to know what to say.
“So, can I come in?” he asked again.
“Oh, yes, sorry,” she said, and added in that loud voice she seemed to adopt now and then, “COME IN, DRACOMANCER.”
She led him through the door into a long hallway of cracked plaster painted in a pleasant, if weather-beaten, yellow. Doors opened at irregular intervals on the left and right, and a twisting, somewhat lopsided, wooden stair led to a second floor. Gwendolyn ushered him through the first door they came to, and he found himself in a worn little sitting room that had walls the color of faded roses. Tea for two had been set between two ancient and threadbare love seats, which sat before a grate in which a cheerful fire crackled and popped.
The Dracomancer stared down at the tea service, and said, “I thought you were alone.”
“OH!” she said in surprise, a little color coming into her cheeks, “I am. I . . . I mean I thought Monty . . . er . . . Montague might be home by now, but he seems to be running late.”
He found the mention of her fiancé’s name irritating, and so grunted, “How very inconsiderate of him.”
“He is very busy running the farm,” she said, and gestured to a seat. “Please sit down, and . . . and I’ll pour you some tea.”
He looked dubiously at the worn settee and settled himself on the edge of the seat. As she served the tea, the firelight caressed her body, turning the golden locks of her hair into living flame and bathing her profile in a dancing radiance. He traced the light as it flickered along the nape of her neck and down the elegant curve of her arms to her delicate hands, which were shaking as she poured the tea from a much-abused tin pot into a mismatched set of old china cups.
“Would you like sugar and cream?” she asked.
“Yes, four spoons of each.”
She opened the little sugar jar and peered inside. “I’m sorry. I have only a couple of spoons of sugar left.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take whatever you have.”
She sighed and tipped the contents of the sugar bowl into his cup and added four spoons of a thick cream.
“I make the cream myself,” she said proudly. “It turns out it isn’t that hard. It only takes a bit of effort.”
Something about this comment irked him. His memory of her was of a refined, courtly princess, and while she still had some of the grace that had made her such a famous and desirable courtesan, living on this farm had clearly taken its toll. Her cheeks were no longer as pale as china but were sun-kissed, and here and there a freckle showed. Her hands, while still delicately boned, were rough around the edges, and she had been forced to trim her nails quite short. As for her dress, in her youth, Gwendolyn would not have allo
wed even one of her servants to wear something so plain. It made him angry to see her humbled so, and it made him feel even more certain that she would swoon when he offered to save her from this hell. Now was his chance.
In a sudden movement, he grasped her hand. The clay pitcher she’d been using to pour the cream slipped and tumbled to the plank floor with a clatter.
“Oh!” she cried, and moved to pick it up.
He held her firmly in his grasp. “Leave it.”
“But the cream,” she said, as the thick white liquid continued to spill out onto the floor.
“It doesn’t matter, Gwendolyn. None of this matters.” He gestured with disgust at the little room and the broken-down furniture and the ragged tea set.
“It matters to me, Delbert,” she said, and, prying her hand from his, picked up the pitcher and placed it very deliberately back on the tray. She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.
Reminding her of her low condition was clearly upsetting her. It was harsh, but he had to make her understand that her beauty and desirability were being squandered here.
He adopted a lecturing tone. “Of course it matters, but it matters only because you have been brought low by that wretch of a king, William, and his equally devious sister. They have stolen your title and convinced you that this is what you deserve. Don’t you see? They have debased you and humiliated you, but that is over now. I have come to place you, once and for all, where you belong, on the throne as queen.”
“What are you talking about, Delbert?” she said. “King William has already announced that he will take Lady Rapunzel as his wife and queen.”
“But you forget about the dragon, Gwendolyn.”
“The dragon changes nothing for me,” Gwendolyn replied, perhaps with a hint of bitterness.