“Sorry about that.” Mullgarra returned his attention to the supplicant. “What can I do for you?”
“Not for me, your Omnipotent Greenness. It’s a human who needs your help.”
Mullgarra blinked. “A human? Why should I do anything to help a human? Their children catch us and put us in jars and sometimes they dissect us. As if their own insides weren’t sufficiently interesting.”
“I don’t think he’s an ordinary human. He came crashing down into the forest in a big red boxy affair pulled by nine flying horned wallabies, only they’re not wallabies, and they’re not in any kind of shape to pull their own tails right now. That’s his problem. He promised that if I helped I’d have all the flies I could eat.” Weipo paused, thinking if there was anything else he could add. “I don’t think he’d ever put one of us in a jar,” he finished.
The king mulled this over. “First time I ever heard of a human showing a gourmet interest in flies. He sounds interesting, your acquaintance.” Mullgarra glanced skyward, rain running down his bulging golden eyes and green back. “Too nice a night to sit here and do nothing except bedevil crocs. This sounds like it might be interesting. Where is he to be found, your human?”
Weipo turned and gestured with his tongue. Mullgarra nodded. “You say there were nine of these pulling wallaby-be-likes?” It was Weipo’s turn to nod. “Very well. There’s me and thee already. Go and round up seven of the guys and meet me at the place.” Before Weipo could say anything more Mullgarra was on his way with a leap that carried him clear across the billabong and well into the trees beyond, the moonlight sending a pellucid shaft of light glinting off his crown.
He found Boomooloo, Nirra, and Tug in the next billabong, and Girrarree in the little stream that fed it. Ngamalgeah and Widbagar were sharing a fat grasshopper beneath a fallen fern tree, and they picked up sleepy Mauk on the way back.
They found King Mullgarra and the big round human engaged in earnest conversation by the side of the man’s open-topped vehicle. Mauk was reluctant to continue, having once had an uncle smushed by an errant four-wheel drive, but Weipo convinced him it was safe by pointing out that the vehicle had no wheels.
“Greetings,” said Weipo cheerfully as he hopped forward. “These are me mates.” The six behind him ribbetted in chorus. “I see that your situation isn’t much improved.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t,” the man admitted. “Donner is flat on his flank, Blitzen is downright hoarse, and Prancer is nearly as green as you are. The rest aren’t much better.” He glanced down at Mullgarra, who was sitting on his knee. “You really think you can help?”
“Well now, as I see it, and I see quite well out of these eyes, what we have here is a little problem of spacetime. If you are telling me true that you can handle the time, I believe we can assist you in doing something about the space.”
The man’s lips tightened. “Believe me, I would be grateful, as would a great many children. But I don’t see how you can do much.”
“There are nine of your horned pullers. There are nine of us.”
“There is some difference in size,” the man said politely.
“You underestimate us. People are always underestimating frogs.” Mullgarra turned to his subjects. “I am going to teach you the puffing trick. It’s a very old trick, a Dreamtime trick, and it hasn’t been used in quite a while. Now’s as good a time as any.
“What you must do is inhale and puff yourselves up, only instead of chirruping as you normally do, just keep holding and puffing, puffing and holding.”
“‘Scuse me,” said Boomooloo, “but there’s the little matter of breathing.”
“Vastly overrated,” sniffed Mullgarra. “Don’t worry about it and it won’t bother you. I’ll make certain of that.” He hopped off the man’s knee to confront the green semicircle of others. “Just watch me and do as I do. And don’t breathe until I tell you to or all will be for naught. Now then… inhale!”
The heavyset man had seen many impressive sights in his time and his travels, but he had to confess that what he witnessed that night there in the rain forest ranked right up near the top.
“Bless my jolly old soul,” he murmured in astonishment when Mullgarra and the rest turned to face him. Then he moved to set them in harness, placing Weipo in front in the position of honor.
When all was in readiness he climbed back into his vehicle and surveyed his remarkable new team. No need presently for a lambent red nose at the front because those great golden eyes shone like searchlights in the glow of the full moon. He sat down heavily and chucked the reins. “Ready whenever you are. We’ve a lot of stops to make.” He spared a glance for the sickly quadrupeds off to his left. “And while we’re gone, the lot of you might try eating some grass.”
Mullgarra glanced around and because he was king, managed the difficult task of speaking without breathing. “She’ll be right, mate. Ready then? On three, mates. One, two, three… breathe!”
The people who lived in the rain forest were used to thunder. Besides, it was late and most of them slept through it anyway. But in Ayton and Wujal Wujal a few were still awake and they heard, and where more than one sat or lay together they discussed the noise. Very peculiar sounding thunder it was, they allowed. Not a crrraash, or a brrrooommm, or even a sharp crack. Most decidedly, yes, more like an enormous, reverberant, echoing Buuurrr-aaaarrrrppp!
After deciding that, they went about their tasks or back to sleep and forgot all about it.
Down the coast the sleigh shot, making haste along a time-line stretched out like an infinite rubber band. Over the tablelands, disturbing the flying foxes. Into the small towns of the Outback and back over the larger towns of the Inback. Criss-crossing New South Wales and the big cities, thence west to Adelaide and beyond.
Skimming low over the Spencer Gulf, a patrolling Great White Shark lifted its pointy snout out of the water long enough to latch onto the sleigh’s left rear runner. It hung on grimly, slowing it down, as the driver dumped whatever lay on top of his bottomless bag onto the persistent fish. Eventually it became tangled up in a knot of flashing, blinking Christmas lights and let go, allowing the sleigh to regain some altitude.
Being waterproof and self-powered, the lights remained lit. Frustrated, the Great White cruised the surface, blinking and winking cheerily as it made its way across the Gulf, the laughing-stock of every Great White for two hundred miles around until the integral batteries in the light strand finally ran down.
On up through Andamooka and Coober Pedy, swinging sharply through Alice Springs and south once more, over the Nullarbor toward Perth. Then north all the way to the Kimberlys and the Bungle Bungles, turning east through Arnhem Land, the great golden-eyed frogs pulling the sleigh and its load in leaps large and bounds bitty.
It was when the Down Under circuit was nearly complete that the sleigh’s driver grew, just for an instant, the slightest bit careless. It was over Burketown, still very late indeed, when Mr. Paddy Wheaton and his friend Theos happened to look up at precisely the propitiate moment. They had been spending the night engaged in a serious debate over the merits of Foster’s Lager versus Four EX and while their perceptive abilities were qualitatively reducio, the absurdium manifested itself only when Paddy happened to glance skyward.
His mouth dropped and his eyes bulged, though not as much as those of the creatures he saw.
“Gawd help us! There be frogs in the moon!”
Whereupon he set to running madly, and it was two days before Theos and the rest of his friends found him cowering in a bog beneath a giant lily pad, giggling at nothing in particular and stone cold sober.
Over the Top End then, descending rapidly, even at that critical moment not forgetting the children at isolated stations like Strathgordon and Merapa and Sundgrave. Back to the rain forest with its luxurious warm drizzle and night sounds, where nine anxious and extremely embarrassed reindeer waited in the unfamiliar woods.
Touch-down was, as it had been on rooftops a
nd in farmyards, abrupt but tolerable. At a word from Mullgarra the frogs in harness exhaled relievedly, and rapidly shrunk down to their familiar, palm-sized dimensions.
“You did well,” declared Mullgarra.
“Because of you a great many good children will not wake up tomorrow disappointed,” the man told him. “If there’s anything I can do for you, anything you need…”
“Bwarp. Don’t need a thing. I’m a tree-frog, and a tree-frog’s life isn’t such a bad one, fair dinkum.” Whereupon Mullgarra turned and vanished into the surrounding leaves.
“I’m hungry,” Murk announced, and promptly hopped off into the forest. He was followed by the rest of his mates, all bounding off in different directions. All except one.
“What can I do for you?” the man asked as he worked busily to re-harness his recovered (but still slightly bilious) team. “I did promise you all the flies you could eat, didn’t I?”
“And if I recall correctly, I declined,” said Weipo. “There is one thing, though.”
The man paused and bent over, smiling the most wonderful wide smile at the bright green amphibian. “Name it.”
Weipo looked slightly embarrassed, a difficult thing for a tree frog to bring off. “It’s just that I’ve watched men and some of the things they can do, and while a tree frog can’t hope to match them… no hands, for example… I thought maybe there might be a way I could do this.” He beckoned and the man bent way, way over to put his ear close to the frog’s mouth.
The beetle was big, fat, and bright yellow with black spots. It sat on its branch and rubbed its antennae together, confident it was safe despite the presence of the frog in the bush nearby.
Weipo gauged the distance, tensed his tongue, and flicked. The thin, sticky-tipped organ shot out, bent ninety degrees around one branch, ducked beneath another, described a french curve through a hole in a palm leaf, and in defiance of every known rule of amphibian physiology, whacked the startled beetle smack on the head. It retreated, following the same quite impossible path, to conclude coiled back up in the tree frog’s mouth.
That was interesting, Weipo mused as he munched on his snack. Later I’ll have to see if I can manage a Mobius strip.
He turned on his branch, securing a new grip with his oversized feet as he settled down to regard the moon. Around him the creatures of the tropical night scuttled and crawled and sang. Taking a quick breath he added his own bwarp to the chorus, smiling with satisfaction.
Hot and sticky and steamy the rainforest might be, but it was still alive with the music of Christmas.
TODD MCCAFFREY is the youngest son of legendary author Anne McCaffrey and is best known for his collaborations with his mother for the Dragonriders of Pern series. Todd has written or co-written multiple novels in the Pern series and continues his late mother’s timeless legacy to this day. He has written many short stories and even a Choose Your Own Adventure type novel.
In addition to his novel writing, Todd is a mechanical engineer, a pilot, a screenwriter and an artist.
For more about Todd, please visit his site: pernhome.com/tjm
Golden
Todd McCaffrey
“How does this sound? ‘It can never be stressed sufficiently: to anger a dragon is to die. To steal a dragon’s gold is to die, to covet a dragon’s mate is to die. Death by dragon is swift but not painless, usually involving flames which can melt steel.’”
“I think you could have stopped with the first sentence, Daddy,” Golden said. “The rest are merely illustrations of how to anger a dragon.”
“And you forgot to mention challenging a dragon to a joust,” Elveth said.
“If I mention that then you’ll get fewer jousts and less gold,” Simon replied. “I thought the idea was to create more challenges.”
“The idea is to get more gold,” Elveth corrected testily. She smiled at her daughter, adding, “Golden isn’t getting younger and she’ll need a horde of her own.” Her smile faded as she added pointedly, “You’re certainly not getting any of mine.”
“Of course, mother,” Golden said demurely. When Elveth wasn’t looking, she shot a look toward her father who shrugged sympathetically.
“Your mother left you quite a nice pile, if I remember,” Simon said.
“That’s because I killed her,” Elveth reminded him waspishly. She flicked a finger at her daughter. “You’re not to get any ideas, little miss gold scales.”
“Yes mother,” Golden replied, dipping her head and avoiding eye contact. Elveth was the sort of mother who would literally rip your head off if she got too angry: Golden had seen it once and needed no reminders—in this she was like her mortal and human father.
In most other things she was the exact replica of her mother. Only where Elveth was a mottled copper color when a dragon, Golden was pure gold—hence her name. Even when born, she had a beautiful head of fine golden hair and there was no contention over her name.
“She is Golden because she is my gold child,” Elveth had said and Simon had wisely kept silent, particularly as, according to his studies, he was the first human dragon-mate to survive through the rigors of childbirth with a head still upon his shoulders.
Simon and Elveth had often conversed on their daughter’s coloring: Simon was convinced that it was protective in nature while Elveth held to the old dragon lore that color predicted flame.
“A pure gold like that will mark the hottest of fires,” Elveth had declared with much warranted maternal pride.
At the time, Golden had yet to have her first molt and was still clinging to the forlorn hope that she was not a dragon but, rather, a normal human child. She loved her father as fiercely as all girls—perhaps a bit more so because of her dragonish heritage. Simon, because he loved his daughter, hoped that her wish would come true but deep down he was convinced—and secretly relieved—that she would molt and turn into a dragon when she was of age.
There were tears all around when that day finally came and Golden found herself molted into the slim body of a young dragon princess.
“Oh, my dear, you are so beautiful!” Elveth had cried with tears of joy.
“I’m a dragon!” Golden had cried with tears of despair.
“You shall live forever,” Simon had said with tears of relief.
“As a dragon!” Golden had wailed. “I don’t want to be a dragon!”
“Well, you are,” Elveth had snapped, her copper color eyes warming dangerously.
“Ixnay on the agon-dray,” Simon had muttered warningly to his daughter.
“But it’s true!” Golden cried, flouncing out of their small house and accidentally destroying the staircase, the good dining table, and three large iron pots.
When they had found her later, she was lying on her mother’s horde in the deep cavern that was hidden behind their house.
Elveth growled and looked ready to change but Simon put an arm on hers. “She must have a terrible headache.”
“Golden, how do you feel?” Elveth asked, primed by her mate.
“My head feels like it’s going to explode!” Golden had cried.
“Oh, dear! It’s all the magic going around,” Elveth had said sympathetically. She turned to Simon. “I should go out and kill more mages to ease the pain of my poor little girl.”
“Now, dear, we’ve had this conversation before,” Simon told her soothingly. “The evidence is that magic flows from the sun. The mages merely tame and use it. Ridding yourself of them leaves more magic to pain you.”
“At least I’ve got my gold,” Elveth said, moving to join her dragon daughter in the huge pile that spilled from its mound in the center of the cavern. She turned back to smile at her mate. “And I’ve got you to thank for it.”
Simon blushed but said nothing.
“How’s that, mother?” Golden asked, her talons digging deep into the pile and spilling it over her like a torrent of pebbles—although these pebbles were mostly gold doubloons mixed with the occasional broken crown or necklace.
“Well, it was your father who realized that knights and princes would wager much to fight against a dragon,” Elveth said, glancing slyly at her mate. “And so he arranged it and I’ve been successfully ridding the countryside of useless knights and worthless princes.”
“But I thought Daddy was –”
“Your father, a knight?” Elveth asked with a laugh. She eyed Simon thoughtfully. “Well, he is of the nobility or he would not be a suitable consort for one such as myself but he was a squire when we met and much more scholarly than most.” She smiled at him. “The bashful boy was completely taken with me after I’d scorched that useless knight of his into mere ash.”
“Sir Girwhed was noble and brave,” Simon said in defense of his long lost knight, “but he would not listen to my counsel.”
“And that was?” Golden prompted, lifting her snout through a pile of treasure and letting it spill to either side.
“I told him if he fought the dragon, she’d burn him to a crisp,” Simon said with a shrug.
“See!” Elveth cried, giving her mate a look of adoration. “He’s one of the smartest humans I’d ever met.”
“Of course it took a while for our courtship to mature,” Simon reminded her.
Elveth laughed long and brassily. “Yes, I recall telling you every night that while I enjoyed our conversations, I was never going to be foolish to transform into a woman just so you could kill me.”
“Actually,” Simon said, “I seem to recall endless nights of your telling me how quick and painful my demise would be.”
“Only after you beat me at chess!” Elveth said, her expression slipping.
“And then she changed into human form,” Simon said with a smile that bordered on a leer. To Elveth, he added, “I always knew that you’d be the most beautiful of women.”
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