The Dragon Queen

by J M Sanford

  Anger flared up in Amelia, but at any rate she was getting rather ahead of herself with all these thoughts of marrying the White Prince. Rose had the crown, Archalthus had the ring, and the Red Queen’s wedding marched closer hour by hour.

  26: RUNNING OUT OF TIME

  Deep beneath the palace, the unmistakeable sound of scales scraping rock rasped through narrow tunnels and small chambers. Ice water sweated down the walls under the heat of dragon’s breath.

  “Commander Breaker!” the dragon’s voice echoed through the subterranean chambers. “You have embarrassed me in front of my bride, my guests, my brother! I have been made a mockery of, and you are extremely close to having outlived your usefulness!” Prince Archalthus had been seething ever since the unexpected reappearance of the white dragon. Good manners restrained him in front of his guests, so that he’d spent the rest of the evening woodenly conversing with his bride-to-be and his guests in what appeared to be some sort of mathematically planned rota. The tighter the Red Prince’s fists clenched, the more banal the conversation. With a sense of impending doom, Commander Breaker had watched the last of the guests leave the hall, and he’d made a final decision to spend the night somewhere the prince wouldn’t deign to show his face.

  The storerooms beneath the palace were mostly unheated by the magic that made the grander parts of the palace liveable, and many of the rooms were knee-deep in ice-crusted water. Still, he hadn’t wanted to stay amongst the stocks of firewood and lamp oil. He hadn’t seen the dragon breathe fire for some years, but that wasn’t to say it was beyond him. He’d tried hiding amongst the frozen carcasses of deer and winter quail, but it hadn’t been enough.

  “I can smell you,” growled the dragon as he passed by the hiding place. “Come out and account for your behaviour.”

  The hiding place, on second thoughts, was not deep enough to stop a determined dragon from ferreting him out. Commander Breaker bolted from the chamber too soon: as Archalthus snarled and tried to turn – impossible in such a narrow passageway. Breaker dodged a lash of the red-gold tail. To draw his sword against his master would be certain death, but the Red Commander hadn’t got as far as he had in life by being slow. It would be a matter of evasion until the dragon exhausted that shape, easy enough here in the storage rooms under the palace. Or of distracting him…

  “I’ve just been checking supply levels, Master. We’re good for another four months at the worst, and –”

  “Do you take me for a fool?” growled the dragon.

  Something else, quick… “We’re going to need the iron dragon, Master!”

  “What?” the dragon, quite failing to back up, instead sat down where he was, huffing and growling to himself. He wouldn’t be able to keep his shape much longer.

  “Archmage Morel’s iron dragon.” Half-finished, still, but if Regeltheus was anything like his brother, it was only a matter of time before the white dragon either made a calculated attack or threw a tantrum over something or other.

  “What about it?” Archalthus growled.

  “We’re going to need it, and it’s not finished yet, according to Archmage Morel.” There. Morel was still under suspicion for the ‘accident’ that had led to the fall of Ilgrevnia.

  “Not finished? How close?”

  Nowhere near close enough, given that the project had begun months ago. The need for the iron dragon must be the first thing Breaker and Morel had ever agreed upon, but keeping the old fool’s mind on one project was next to impossible. “If you’d like to see for yourself, Master…”

  The Archmage was no artist. Mostly he liked to play around with clay like a child, building shapeless monstrosities like the Red Paladin, occasionally doing more macabre things with living material. Was Morel really the greatest mage who’d ever lived? He’d stolen all his best ideas from his peers. Even the ice palace had been cobbled together from rooms copied from other grand buildings. Several rooms came from Archalthus’ previous palace. The high gate that guarded the front face of the ice palace had been lifted coil for coil, thorn for thorn, from the entrance to the courtyard of Ilgrevnia’s House of Justice. The most elegant of Morel’s living creations were designs acquired from some now-dead Archmage who had specialised in magic by clockwork, and the iron dragon was one of those designs. Just as well, when Prince Archalthus fancied he had an eye for fine art.

  Fires still burned in the courtyard as the golems worked into the dark hours. Prince Archalthus, having reluctantly taken human form once more, strolled around the new construction like the devil in his fiery domain, his hands clasped behind his back as he inspected the workmanship. The newest golem had been built in the dragon’s own image, although that must have been more a matter of chance in which blueprints Morel had been able to scavenge or steal. Nevertheless it had a handsome draconic head, and the prince was pleased, muscles visibly relaxing as he examined the thousands of ceramic scales covering the coils of the body. It had been no more than an iron skeleton the last time the prince had visited the site. He tensed again when Morel appeared, a dragon’s heart held in both hands, the thing wet with blood and pulsing as if still alive. In a way, it was: forced into continued motion by magic.

  Prince Archalthus watched as Morel scribed runes of fire into the inside of the cage and ensconced the heart safely in place. It was only once the artificial scales had closed over the heart that the prince finally addressed Morel. “An impressive piece, Archmage,” he remarked. “I gather we have arrived in time to witness the ensouling.”

  The Archmage tutted. “You speak as if it were one simple act. No. No. Somebody has been snooping around my things… So I’ve placed the heart ahead of time. Better to have all the parts here together, where I can keep an eye on them. There’s much of the mechanical building to be done before I can breathe life into the work. That is the last thing to be done.”

  Again Prince Archalthus surveyed the full length of the mechanical dragon lying motionless in dead iron. The wings were absent, and on closer inspection the hind claws, half-hidden by a loop of tail, were obviously incomplete. Parts complete in their own right but not yet connected to the whole, awaiting the attention of the golems now engaged in the tediously repetitive task of adorning the tail with its scales, row by row, decreasing in size, increasing in the dexterity needed to fix them in place. “Some of your best work, Archmage,” said the prince. “Carry on.” But there was a twist of displeasure to his features as he continued to gaze at Morel’s creation, long after Morel had wandered off on whatever obscure and arcane task was next on his list. Aside from the wings and the hind legs, there was one other thing glaringly wrong with the dragon golem: its colouring. The iron specified in the original design was far too dark and drab for the grandest representation of the Red Prince’s power and majesty. The off-white of the ceramic scales, hastily added to the design to deflect a real dragon’s fire, hardly improved its appearance.

  “It must be painted red, of course,” said the prince.

  “Of course, Master,” Breaker agreed. “But perhaps it should be completed first?” With Morel, who knew if the work remaining was finicky finishing touches, or something vital? If nothing else, it would need real, working wings: they’d built it much too big for it to leave the courtyard by any of the four gates. They needed the iron dragon, they couldn’t risk having to rely on the Archmage in another fight, when he’d only panic and fail again –

  “Paint it red,” Prince Archalthus called out to the golems present, who immediately left off the tasks they had been engrossed in, venturing off in search of red paint.

  Breaker said nothing, not wanting to draw the prince’s attention back to himself. The iron dragon wasn’t going to be ready in time, but at least it would look the part.

  27: OF GOLD AND DRAGON’S FIRE

  Harold paced back and forth, refusing to sit still or to drink a drop as he waited for Meg and Amelia. When everyone had finally returned to the guest parlour, Meg summoned another miniature rainstorm against the bel
eaguered windows, then turned to Harold. “Go on then: spit it out,” she said wearily. “What happened out there, that you brought the dragon back all bashful and polite?”

  Harold glanced over at Percival. “We…” He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and began his tale in a strong clear voice. “We hunted the dragon to the top of a frozen waterfall. We fought him there, but it went bad when he started tearing the starlights out of every golem in sight, throwing them over the cliff. I thought I was a goner, too, when he grabbed me off my horse. Then…” he faltered in his story. “I don’t remember too much about going over the edge. I came to in a dark place, a cave behind the waterfall, and the dragon beside me. He was in a terrible state, and I drew my sword in hopes of finishing it, but at the sound he staggered to his feet. His wings were folded up tight, all tangled in the nets, and he was twisting and turning in knots as he tried to claw it off. Next thing I know: whoosh! Up he went in towering blue flames, trying to burn the nets off, and I was glad I hadn’t rushed in with my sword and no shield. I was near roasted just from being as close as I was, but still there were the nets, binding him up tight as ever. Off he went stumbling into the dark, knocking me down along the way like I was nothing.

  ‘Prince Regeltheus!’ I shouted, jumping up and following him, and calling his name once more, but by then I could see something up ahead. Down, deeper into the dark, I followed the dragon into a cave of gold, mountains of it burning like the sunrise. The dragon had his snout buried in the hoard, searching for something, I could tell. ‘Prince Regeltheus!’ I called again, and this time he turned to stare at me.

  ‘Sheath your sword, Paladin,’ he said, loud as thunder. ‘The enemy has been driven back. You are the White Paladin, are you not?’ Which was when I remembered my armour with the white lamb on it, though it was more red than white by then. ‘Do you not know your future King?’

  I sheathed my sword and bowed. I drew my knife instead. ‘Your Highness? May I?’

  It was the work of a good hour to cut him free, and while I worked I told him how his White Queen was held prisoner here. Neither one of us was in a fit state to rescue her, though, by then: the dragon must have taken a hundred cuts from the golems swords before he even left this palace, and I could hardly breathe for hurting, with the way he’d trampled me. He went back to the hoard of gold. You should’ve seen it: landslides of gold and jewels clattering down from the piles as the dragon waded in, crumpling goblets and crowns under his great claws; rings and diamonds crunching underfoot like pebbles on a beach; every slope slithering with knots of chains and pendants. I’ll never see so much gold again in my life. And then: ‘Paladin!’ the dragon shouts to me, ‘Take whatever you like from my brother’s hoard. A finer sword, perhaps.’

  Well, Ma didn’t raise her son to be a thief. ‘Thank you very much, Your Highness, but I couldn’t,’ I said.”

  He glanced again at Percival, who said “Good lad,” and Harold beamed with pride. He had his own sword now (a gift from Percival) which he liked just fine, and wouldn’t trade it for any other, not even a magical one.

  “He asked me then about the Red Prince’s plans, and I told him what I could. The dragon looked worried, so much as I could tell. ‘So my brother has his Queen, the Crown, the throne room… But the wedding can’t go ahead without this,’ and he pulled something out from the mountains of treasure, a gold ring set with a great big stone, yellow like we’ve seen before.”

  “The Dragon Queen’s wedding ring,” said Bessie. Like the tiara, the ring awaited the right girl’s hand. Amelia’s touch would transform its stone into a flawless white diamond; Bessie’s into a jewel so black no light could escape it.

  “I offered to keep it safe,” said Harold. “Him having no pockets, and all. But instead he put the ring under his tongue, and I thought fair enough – no pickpocket’s ever going to take it from there, are they? Then he started asking questions about Amelia: if she…” he paused, and with the air of someone reciting something from rote, “had eyes that spite the loveliness of the stars, hair like spun gold, a voice to charm the birds from the trees,” he ticked them off on his fingers one by one, more as if he was trying to recall a list of groceries than the dragon’s poetic words, “what great deeds her family done, and what wealth they had, and if her gentleness made wild animals lie down at her feet?”

  Amelia recalled the business at the jade temple, where she’d speared another dragon in the side, and a more recent occasion where she’d stamped on Harold’s foot, rather hard. She hoped he hadn’t mentioned either of those things to the White Prince. “So what did you tell him?” she asked.

  Harold blushed. “Said it weren’t my place to say on most of it.” He glanced again at Sir Percival for reassurance, but the knight had fallen silent, head bowed in thought.

  “And then?” said Meg. “Come on, get to the plan. We haven’t got all night.”

  Harold took a deep breath. “He said he could destroy the crown and the ring,” he said, but it was plain to see he was holding something back. “If Amelia turned him down,” he added reluctantly. “And he’d never force her. And, and the contest would be over. Nobody would have to die for it.” He turned to Amelia, looking her in the eye even as his face flamed red. “Nobody would have to get married to anybody… not if they didn’t want.”

  Amelia kept silent, the right words eluding her.

  “You’re being naive,” said Bessie. “Why would the White Prince destroy the crown? He wants to win, he wants to be King. If Amelia’s not going to –”

  “I didn’t believe him myself, ‘til he started telling me there’s no Dragon Lands left to rule. Nothing but dead rock and some old bones.” They’d seen it themselves: the Stacks and the lost lands beyond, barren of life. Abandoned temples, picked clean centuries ago by lonely scavengers…

  “Poppycock,” said Greyfell. “The Dragon Lands historically covered everything from the Siren Islands to the Forests of Long Night, ocean to ocean. The Dragon King, once crowned, could rightfully seize an unimaginable wealth of resources. Thriving cities, countless acres of fertile farmland, mines of gold and jewels beyond imagining.”

  “Not everybody wants to rule the world,” said Meg, wearily. “But even if he doesn’t want to be King, why wouldn’t he just let his brother take the contest? If he’s not fussed about it himself.”

  Harold shrugged. “I dunno. Spite?” He had a brother of his own, after all, so he knew how that sort of thing worked, albeit on a smaller scale. “He talked a lot about revenge, putting his brother in his place. Gave me the shivers.”

  “Revenge?” said Meg. “That sounds more like the truth.” Revenge for the months or years of his imprisonment; for the death of their black brother; for who knew what, back down the centuries.

  “He said only a dragon’s fire could destroy the ring and the crown. And he gave me this:” said Harold, unwrapping from his cloak a gold platter, marked with a whirl that looked like an enormous fingerprint. Which, as it turned out, is exactly what it was. The White Prince’s seal, a draconic fingerprint seared into the gold.

  “Hmm,” said Meg. “Perce? Therreston? Any prescience on this? Predecence. Precedence, is what I mean.”

  “Much knowledge of dragons has been lost to us,” Master Greyfell admitted. “I could consult the rulebook.”

  Meg caught Amelia’s eye. “Well, dear. Out of all of us, you’re the one who spoke the most to the White Prince tonight. What do you make of him?”

  Amelia didn’t know what to make of any of this. She felt heavy as a bear, fragile as a snail, and she wanted to curl up in a hole in the ground and sleep the winter away… But all eyes were on her. “The White Prince? I don’t think I’d trust him to destroy the crown and give up his chance to be King. Sorry, Harold.”

  “He’s not all bad,” said Harold. “He made sure I had food and water while we both got our strength back for the return journey. Hunted for meat and made a fire when I didn’t have matches. He says there’ll be no end t
o this Queen’s Contest, not if they fight another thousand years. But if the ring and the crown are destroyed, that’ll be an end to all of it.” He wanted to believe the white dragon’s promises, that much was plain to see all over his face. “’Sides, it’s not like Amelia’s stupid enough to go and marry him, is she?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Meg, with a sidelong glance at her daughter. “What I mean to say is: she might not be given a choice. Not if the White Prince gets his claws on the wedding ring and the crown.”

  “And there was something going on at the throne room,” added Bessie. “Golems clearing the ground, building something.”

  “Red Prince has got the wedding ring now,” Harold reminded them. “I didn’t like it, but the White Prince said his brother would be too ashamed to turn away visitors bringing him such a gift.”

  “And he’s got the crown too,” said Bessie. “What do we have?” She looked at Amelia. “The White Queen. Anything else we can use?”

  “Those dragons hate each other more than any two brothers I’ve ever seen,” said Harold.

  Amelia thought of the black dragon beneath the ice. “Three,” she said, sitting down, feeling unbearably weary. “There was a third, but they killed him.” She had no siblings of her own, although she’d heard that rivalry between them could be irrationally fierce. “And by the way, I don’t think it would be stupid of me to marry the White Prince,” she added, not meeting the eyes of her companions.

  Percival was the one to break the silence. “Ah. So you intend to take on the mantle of a thousand noblewomen before you, who married to save their people. The burden you’re asking for is a heavy one, Amelia.”

  “I know that.” But if she married Prince Regeltheus then she’d win the contest and, as Harold had said, nobody would need to die for it. She glanced at the young man who had ridden off to fight a dragon for her, now returned miraculously safe and sound. Her own happiness was such a small sacrifice.