The Redundant Dragons

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  This would all have been so much easier if her candle had lasted longer. As it was, she was forced to feel along the walls for a telltale crack or gap in the stones. Her tender fingertips were as sore and bruised as they were after an afternoon of needlework by the time she finally located one. Too bad she couldn’t trust a maid to keep her mouth shut after she’d cleaned up back here. But Malady vowed to always have a more reliable light source at least.

  She found her own chambers at last and entered through the wall mirror she’d intended to replace because it was unflattering. Now she rather thought she might hang a tapestry over it.

  She dumped her jewels on the bed and pulled the coverlet up over them, then inspected the portraits to see which ones might have spying eyes. These she covered with cloaks. No one but her had been in that passage for years, maybe decades, and she was certain that it was her secret, but in case it wasn’t, she wanted her other secrets to remain secrets as well.

  The Malady Mystery

  Having failed to deliver the promised fripperies and foolishness to his fashionable niece, Marquette was unsurprised when she ceased to seek his company. She was a Hyde, after all, and although he was a wealthy man in his own land, he had arrived without his ship, cargo, or even a change of underwear. In the past, she had given him her undivided attention when they met during her breaks from school. Now, just when she had begun to be interesting, as soon as she learned he had not brought the gifts she requested, she cooled like an autumn evening. She wasn’t exactly indifferent to his wishes, or an impediment, but neither was she an eager helpmate. The wench seemed distracted.

  Malachy was much more receptive to Marquette’s proposal for a solution to the surplus dragon dilemma.

  His relatives on the council were willing to do just about anything to save the city’s infrastructure, crumbling beneath the weight of the lazy beasts, and even the boy Toby, the liaison between the government and the monsters, had been amenable to Marquette’s persuasions.

  Of course, Marquette was very good at persuasion. He always sought to make his way seem like the most profitable, the most reasonable, and the most fun. He had obtained his present wealth and status by being Frostingdung’s royal fixer.

  He encountered no opposition from anyone in the city except the occasional aberrant dragon-loving former employer.

  Marquette promised the council that he could solve the perplexing problem to everyone’s benefit—even that of the dragons, in case their welfare concerned anyone.

  After surveying the situation, talking to a few people, taking the lay of the land, Marquette addressed the council, all of them his dullard distant relatives. Malady was not present, though she should have been. He was disappointed in her to say the least. He had been determined to marry her, not only because it was convenient and advantageous to his advancement, but because he had always believed from the way she nodded and looked at him and came to him with her cute little problems that he had molded her mind into a lesser version of his own. Never mind, her absence was a minor issue.

  “Cousins,” he said, leaning confidentially across one end of the council table, “We whose families were the architects of the program to rehabilitate dragons following the war, who invented the kibble that allowed men and dragons to work together safely, are at another crux in the history of this client nation. Its people, in their backward way, have clung to these beasts as remnants of their glory days, now long past. But the time has come to break them of their dragon dependency. Dragons not subject to our control are far too dangerous for us to allow to exist. For a time, their flames provided cheap steam, but that time is now past.

  “Because of the unnatural sentimental attachment some people still harbor for these beasts, the solution to this problem must take place far from the city and must address all aspects of this situation. People must be made to see the beasts not as the heroic protectors they were once considered, nor even as a means of inexpensive energy, since they are no longer inexpensive to use, but as the monsters they are.”

  “Can you not rebuild our kibble supply?” Cuthbert asked.

  “Not fast enough to solve this problem. Besides, we may as well solve it rather than smooth over it with a temporary fix. The dragons have to go, and a new fuel source for the engines of industry must be created.”

  “Created from what?”

  “From other monsters, dead ones,” he said. “Their long-buried remains will provide a source of fuel far superior to any in use today, to provide the fire to drive the engines of all contemporary contraptions. Deposits exist in Frostingdung and according to our scientists, in Argonia as well. But to persuade people of the need to extract it, we must first exterminate the dragons in a graphic, dramatic fashion that the populace will never forget. Are you with me? All in favor say ‘aye.’”

  The ‘ayes’ were unanimous. Malachy Hyde had already found the perfect location for the fair he had in mind, quite near the former site of Malachy’s Hide-in Valley Ranch. He already had a map. Transport was arranged. Word went out, proclamations were issued, the painting of enticing signs and banners occupied every artist in Queenston, broadsides were composed and issued, food obtained to lure the dragons, and more and more of them entered the enclosed area where they were rewarded with enticing bloody treats obtained from herdsmen and farmers throughout the land.

  Between his organizational skills (which included a great deal of delegating the more onerous tasks to others, leaving him free to sell, sell, sell the project to all and sundry) and the council’s thorough knowledge of the land, it came together rapidly.

  Marquette did not concern himself with the details. He was the idea man, and the showman. And he planned to put on quite a show. There was only really one major obstacle, and that was the cost.

  Malady’s Fourth Appointment

  Malady met Dr. Hexenbraun, as usual, in the castle’s second drawing room. The first was for gentlemen to withdraw with their cigars, the second was for ladies to withdraw to get away from the gentlemen and their cigars. Malady debated about whether to show some of her new jewelry off, but then decided it was no good having it if she didn’t and anyway, nobody knew what all she owned one way or the other. Dr. Hexenbraun was a stranger and none of the uncles—and apparently that included Marquette—had the vaguest idea what young ladies of fashion might have acquired. So she slipped on the blue tiara and a few little trinkets from the hoard she thought would look nice with it. It was very dressy for a doctor’s appointment, but it wasn’t as if anyone was letting her have any parties.

  Dr. Hexenbraun was already seated in the drawing room, her back to the large bay windows looking out on the now-destroyed castle gardens. As Malady swept grandly into the room, her posture perfect—the better to display the tiara—the good doctor’s left eyebrow raised.

  “Good morning, Dr. H.,” Malady said. While she had been reluctant to begin the appointments, she soon began to look forward to them. As no one had done anything about acceding to her request for ladies in waiting and her maid was of an inferior class, the alienist was the closest thing in the castle she had to a human friend. At school she had always been the head of a squad of the most attractive girls in her class, who made it their business to critique other less attractive students—for the sake of their own improvement, of course.

  “Your Highness,” the doctor said, bowing her head slightly in acknowledgment. “You are looking uncommonly shiny this afternoon.”

  Malady fluffed her curls around the tiara and patted the pearl-and-sapphire collar around her neck with a hand full of rings, including a stunning signet ring of carved lapis lazuli, flanked by star sapphires and bezeled with crystal-clear stones of a brighter hue. Earrings matching the collar cascaded to her shoulders. She didn’t want her other arm to look naked, so she piled the matching bracelets on the slender wrist of that appendage. Fortunately she owned a powder blue taffeta day dress, but to it she was able to add a white-fox lined blue velvet cloak—strictly for warmth.

/>   “These old things?” she asked nonchalantly. “I had them lying around and thought I might as well put them to use.”

  “Striking,” Dr. H. said. “And regal looking. In fact, your jewels are remarkably similar to the ones Queen Amberwine is wearing in the portrait on the wall above the buffet.”

  “What—what a coincidence!” Malady said, twisting to see. No wonder these things had looked a bit familiar. The beauty of the original Faerie queen of Argonia, whose hair, eyes and complexion resembled Malady’s own, was so enhanced by the jewels they were no doubt made for her.

  “Yes,” the doctor said dryly, “Isn’t it? Those jewels have a bit of history behind them. Before her ascension to the throne, according to reports from the popular press of the day, the queen wore only green, but King Roari liked her so much in blue he presented her with the jewels. I don’t suppose you have had any more dreams about the dragon lately?”

  “Not dreams, no,” she replied at the same moment that Durance’s scaly face appeared in the window behind the settee on which the doctor was seated. He winked at her and she made the teeniest gesture of greeting by wiggling the first two fingers of her right hand, the one with all the rings.

  Dr. Hexenbraun twisted to look behind her and Durance slunk down so his face disappeared beneath the windowsill, but not before the door to the room opened. Malady supposed the maid had brought tea, although naturally she was not supposed to interrupt during the consultations.

  “Just bring that little occasional table over here and set the tea things on it,” Malady instructed, thinking the maid was behind her.

  Dr. Hexenbraun turned back from the window. “How do you do, Lord Marquette. Do you require assistance?”

  Cuthbert and Eustus were right behind him. “You’re quite right, Marq. The girl is wearing part of the royal treasury,” Eustus said. “I’ve seen the inventory.”

  “What I want to know, young lady, is where you got it,” Cuthbert said.

  “My jewels were a gift,” she said.

  “From whom?” Marquette asked.

  “I’d rather not say,” she replied. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Durance slither across the windows, leaving a muddy streak across the expensive glass.

  “I’m afraid we must insist, my dear,” Marquette told her. “The country has projects that require funding, and the jewels will be a big help. Clever of you to find them.”

  “It wasn’t me,” she said. “I tell you, they were a gift.”

  “From…?” Marquette prompted.

  “From the castle dragon, if you must know.”

  “I see,” Marquette said. He plainly didn’t.

  “Just as I thought,” said Eustus. “The child is delusional. Dragons that give crown jewels, of all things! Doctor, it’s high time you signed that commitment order.”

  “And yet,” the doctor said, “the jewels are real. And there are quite a few dragons in the vicinity, yah?”

  “So does that mean you’re not going to sign the papers to lock her up?” Eustus demanded.

  “Yah, it means ‘no, I will not.’”

  “Maybe we ought to lock you up too, then,” Cuthbert said.

  Marquette said soothingly, “Now, now, gentlemen. No need for threats or for incarcerating our niece in a sanitarium. According to the doctor here, she is not crazy, but,” he gave Malady a look that said clearly he was more saddened and disappointed than angry, “it seems she is a thief. When I spied her in her bejeweled splendor in the corridors earlier, I asked her maid to check her bedchamber.”

  “And?”

  “Unfortunately, the entire treasury was not there. However, enough precious gems and crown jewels of great antiquity were in her possession to pay for our entire enterprise and a good portion of Argonia’s national debt besides.”

  “I can’t help it if I have good taste,” Malady interjected in her own defense. “I had to carry those things a long way, so of course I only wanted the best pieces—and the most becoming, of course.”

  “We need not resort to sanitariums,” Marquette continued, “When by all accounts there are perfectly good dungeons right here in Queenston Castle.”

  Malady opened her mouth. Dr. Hexenbraun stood. “No, no, you must not to that. Shame upon you for thinking to lock a girl of such tender years—and your orphaned relative at that—in a place so cold, so dirty and horrible.”

  “You’ve been there, Doctor?” Marquette asked.

  “No, but such places are always cold, dirty and horrible…”

  “What do you think, gentlemen? Shall we help the good doctor, who has not accomplished the task for which she was hired, expand her first-hand experience of what happens to thieves and liars—”

  “The ones not in charge,” Cuthbert put in.

  “Oh, no, please do not! It is bad enough you would send a young girl to such a place, but I am older than you may realize. My arthritis! Oh no, you mustn’t.”

  Malady wanted to say, “It’s all right, Doctor. Durance will find us,” but the doctor kept protesting loudly until the uncles’ backs were turned and then she smiled brightly at Malady and wiggled her eyebrows as if to say, ‘What fun, yah?’

  “The dungeon it is, then,” Eustus said, and called the guards.

  The Dungeon

  Midnight at Queenston Castle. The moon was irrelevant since it was invisible throughout most of the castle, especially the lower reaches. Nevertheless, the cold flagstones glowed with poison green light.

  The job at hand was the sort Marquette would have preferred to leave to others, but this time he did not dare. He must capture the castle’s beastie. His quarry was a slippery, stealthy sort, for centuries slinking through the subterranean circulatory system of the castle.

  By necessity, the dungeon area was abysmally dank, furnished with objects sharp, slicing, squeezing or searing—why were so many words that sounded like hisses coming to mind in this place?

  Marquette shifted his sitting position on the table portion of the rack, careful not to make a noise that would alert the women to his presence, in case Malady might somehow be able to warn the dragon of his presence. A selection of the most valiant guards was on the other side of the partially opened door, iron studded and heavy blackened oak, at the foot of the stone staircase descending from the castle’s ground floor.

  Tonight the castle was ringed with guards, equipped with weapons and parasols to deflect the dragon crap periodically plopping from the battlements. Marquette found it baffling that the city had not been completely buried in the sulfurous excrement decades ago. For creatures that famously had little to eat, the beasts certainly shat a lot.

  He took a sip from his flask, feeling like some sort of romantic highwayman under such primitive circumstances, although if he really were a highwayman, he’d be behind the dungeon doors instead of on the outside of them, as he was, watching.

  The guards outside would ensure that no creature could crash through the dungeon wall and pull out Malady as if she were a plum in a pie. Or, if it did come that way, at least there would be a lot of noise to serve as a warning. The ringing of steel, the crackle of flame, the screaming and whatnot, would give the rest of the guards ample notice for pursuit.

  Not that he thought the dragon would come that way. From what little he had tricked out of Malady, despite its recent habit of curling around the towers to peer into windows, the beast was an ancient denizen of the depths below the castle. That was where it was likely to emerge.

  The enforced quiet, coupled with the effects of the whiskey in his flask, combined to make Marquette drowsy. Twice he jerked awake after nodding off, but he was not the slightest bit tempted to lie down on the rack for a snooze.

  When the crunching began, he took it at first for noise made by the guards at the dungeon’s entrance, but it kept on and on, followed by clanging and crashing, smashing and splintering, all underlain by the susurration of scales on stone.

  By the time the great head smashed against the door behind the
rack, Marquette lurked (not cowered) behind the door, watching with the others as the serpentine dragon smashed in the cellblock wall. Malady, followed cautiously by Dr. Hexenbraun, climbed over the rubble as the dragon withdrew, and followed its massive head as it retreated the way it had come.

  “Do we give chase, milord?” the captain of the guard asked.

  “No, we do not give chase. We follow from a distance, all the way to the dragon’s lair. Discreetly, you behind me. We do not want the dragon to know we are following it. You are all, I take it, armed with pikes, nets and the like?”

  “Milord, we are.”

  “Then follow. We are giving them a good head start and will pursue them momentarily.”

  “Yes, milord. Do you not fear losing them?”

  “I do not. They will be leaving a trail. Headlamps, men,” Marquette said, speaking softly, pulling down the one he’d mounted on his own head when their vigil began.

  He followed the glowing green path left by the dragon through the wreckage of the storerooms beyond the dungeon.

  The storage area ended in an empty corridor with downward sloping flagstone floor and a vaulted ceiling. A wavy streak of the phosphorescent material was smeared down the length of the corridor.

  Marquette smiled, waving the guard forward to follow the green glow through first a left bend in the tunnel, then into a spur on the right hand. Upon entering the second branch, they began to hear the rush of water, as from a small stream. Following the green trail, they heard the water more and more distinctly, and the atmosphere in the underground passages grew fresher.

  With several more twists and quite a steep descent, they arrived at the stream. The banks and bed glowed, stained with the green phosphorous paint. There was no sign of the dragon, nor of Malady and the doctor.

  Escape!