Whirligig

by John Broughton

  They travel in groups, here and there,

  Singing lots of loud songs.

  They live by wooded cliffs,

  Yet they sometimes come to men’s houses.

  “Hee, hee, hee, hee!” Lentor chuckled, lying down noisily again on his treasure hoard and closing his eyes. “Just taking a gentle before-dinner nap!” he mocked.

  Adam closed his eyes, too, and thought about the little creatures. There seemed to be several possibilities. They could be crows, no—too big—whining gnats? That was the idea he liked best and was about to announce this solution when something stopped him. Cari began to hum at his side. Adam glanced out of the corner of his eye at Lentor. But the dragon’s eyes were firmly closed. He didn’t seem to hear the orb humming. The hum grew louder. Still, Lentor didn’t move. It occurred to Adam that perhaps the dragon couldn’t hear the sound. The hum filled his ears and formed into two words: the answer to the riddle.

  Adam clutched the orb gratefully in his pocket. “Thanks, Cari,” he said out loud.

  Lentor opened one lazy eyelid. “Eh? Give in?”

  “Of course not. The answer is house martins.”

  Where Lentor had snorted before, this time he bellowed: “Harrumph!” Adam threw himself against the cave wall as a tongue of flame roared past him.

  Below at the foot of the mountain, Palustric and Lar heard the rumble and saw the flame blast out of the cave mouth. “Poor Adam,” the young dwarf mumbled and, sobbing, sat down on a boulder. Lar said nothing but put his arm around his friend’s shoulder.

  Inside the cave, Lentor hissed, “What sort of boy are you, a genius?”

  “No, an ordinary boy. It's just that dragons aren’t as clever as they think they are.”

  Lentor roared again, sending an even longer spurt of flame out of the cave. A wheeling falcon had to use all its aerial skills to avoid being a roast hawk.

  “Not clever enough…not clever enough!” Lentor couldn’t believe this impertinence. He spluttered smoke, which slowly spread like fog in the cave. Adam’s eyes began to sting.

  “No,” Adam coughed. “If you were clever, you wouldn’t be so afraid to let me set you a riddle.”

  “Afraid?” Lentor snorted more smoke. Adam could only just make out the dragon’s shape in the thickening smoke. “Dragons fear nothing. Go on then! Solving it will give me a better appetite.”

  “Won't you give me more tries, as you had?”

  “No.”

  “I'd better make it a hard one, then.”

  “Just a minute,” Lentor growled from behind his smokescreen. “No cheating. I don’t trust humans. It has to be something you’ve seen, right?”

  “Ri…cough…right.” Adam could hardly speak for the smoke. He was squatting on the floor where there was a little air. “Listen…cough…carefully, Lentor.” And using the same pompous tone that the dragon had used, recited:

  “I lived in water…cough…when I was young,

  But…cough…grew up to fly faster than others…

  Cough…I take my food on the wing…cough…

  And though my life is short,

  I bear on my back the long-lived one:

  Wings on wings…cough…

  And a crown to top it all. Cough, cough, cough.”

  Adam finished with a long coughing fit.

  “Say it again, say it again!” Lentor snapped. “And this time without coughing!”

  “How can I,” Adam choked, “with all this smoke?”

  Lentor took a deep breath and this time blew fiercely, without flame or smoke, and a black bank of smoke rolled out of the cave. Adam gulped in air gratefully; his head was spinning.

  “That’s better,” he said and repeated the riddle without interruptions.

  Lentor sat up suddenly on his treasure heap. Coins and jewels scattered here and there. From high above the boy’s head, the dragon’s voice hissed flatly: “I shall have to take my time, of course.”

  “Take all the time you need,” Adam replied. “I’ll just sit in the cave mouth, for a breath of fresh air.” His clothes reeked of smoke. “I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning, with the Key,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Unless you’ve been gobbled up and thoroughly digested. Now, what was that riddle? Fly faster than others? Mmm.”

  Lentor closed his eyes and looked as if he were asleep. Now and then a smoky sigh and hiss or the odd word slipped out: “food on the wing, mmm…” … “the long-lived one…”

  Time passed slowly for Adam. He sat cross-legged in the cave mouth and watched the shadows lengthen over the dreary landscape. Below, he fancied he could see the tiny figures of Palustric and Lar moving about. He wasn’t sure until he saw a wisp of smoke from their evening fire. How he wished he was safe with his friends now. Adam looked back at the dragon in the evening gloom of his cave. “For such a clever creature, you’re taking your time, Lentor.”

  The old dragon’s eyes seemed to set even closer together. The strain of trying to solve this riddle was beginning to get to him. “You’re not cheating me, are you? I’ll find out,” he hissed, “then you'll be done to a turn. Is it really something you’ve seen? What has wings and carries something else with wings on its back? Nothing! That's what! Admit it, eh? Admit it!”

  “I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. I swear, I give you my word. So has my sister. Dragons aren’t too bright at riddling, are they?”

  Lentor sat up suddenly again with his scales clanking. He tried, rather unsuccessfully, to turn the anger in his voice into a polite wheedling hiss: “Give me a clue. Go on, just one, be a nice boy…!”

  “A clue? To help you gobble me up, you must be joking!”

  “Go on! Just one. And I promise to keep my word about the Key. I wasn’t going to. I’ll make an exception this time and be trustworthy. Go on, just one clue!”

  Lentor was desperate. Dragons pride themselves on their riddling prowess. They boast that they can solve any riddle in the end. Dragons can become ill. It’s rare because they are almost immortal. However, one of the few things that can make a dragon ill is struggling with a difficult riddle. Lentor already had an awful headache and was beginning to feel listless and depressed.

  “All right, I’ll make you a deal,” Adam said, staring at one of Lentor’s front claws. “I get to hold the Key of Ingenuity, and you get a clue; only a little clue, though, because I don’t want to end up as your main course.”

  Lentor struggled inwardly, wrestling with his natural greed in his misery at being baffled by this riddle. At last, his desperation got the upper hand. “Oh, all right,” he snapped, curling a talon beneath the bulk of his body. His claw rummaged about among the glittering, priceless objects he brooded over until it grasped the Key.

  “Here,” Lentor growled, his claw slowly held out the beautiful object. His eyes sought Adam’s, hoping to trick the boy into meeting his gaze. Adam’s eyes stayed fixed to the floor. “Don’t try to run away with it, either. I can fly faster than any bird…once I get going, that is. Not to mention the fact that I can launch a flame sixteen oak-tree-lengths without trying.” The claw slowly released its grip on the Key, which dropped into the boy’s outstretched hand. Adam turned it over several times, and it flashed and shimmered even in the fading light of the gloomy cave. He gasped at its beauty. The old dwarves had put all the pride of their craft into its creation. The wrought gold was studded with sapphire and ruby, giving a violet sparkle to the whole. Lentor eyed the Key with sorrow similar to a mother giving away her child.

  “Now, what about the clue?” he hissed spitefully.

  “All right.” Adam wrenched his eyes away from the Key. “For the first part of the riddle, think about yourself, Lentor.”

  Lentor waited for more, but it didn’t come. “Call that a clue? I already know that!” he hissed savagely, sending two curls of smoke towards the cave roof. “It’s a dragonfly. I know that! But what kind of dragonfly? It’s the second part that’s got me puzzled. Dragonflies live in water
when they’re young, and they become the fastest insect. I’ve got that! That’s no help at all! Give me another clue.” The dragon’s voice betrayed his desperation.

  Adam grew bolder: “No, a deal’s a deal. That’s your lot!”

  Adam settled down against the wall, near the cave-mouth and waited. He was too afraid to sleep or even to doze. Night drew on. Lentor was lost in thought and feeling dizzy. Time passed. Adam thought of his friends below, and then he thought of Emily. Was she still with Bella? Was she in danger? He stared out at the starry sky and thought of nothing in particular.

  He stared up at the twinkling stars and yawned. He jerked himself awake; it was no use nodding off because he didn’t trust the dragon one bit. He held Cari in one hand and the Key of Ingenuity in the other. It was a long night. The longest Adam had ever experienced. Lentor began to feel poorly. His flame died down to a spark and just before dawn, died out altogether: a clear sign this, of an ailing dragon. His short legs felt heavy and numb; there wasn’t any spare energy for take-off—not even for grasping with his talons. His massive brain had used up all its energy: a bad case of Dragon Riddling-Sickness. There was only one cure, and Adam possessed that—the answer to the riddle. Without it, Lentor was doomed. He would simply fade away and die. Apart from a blade in the soft skin under the armpit, it was the only way a dragon could be killed. Not many people had the chance to drive a blade into that unarmoured part of a dragon. But absolutely no-one (apart from another dragon) had ever managed to make a dragon ill from Riddling-Sickness. Dragons were always doing it to each other, which is why the world isn’t overrun by elderly dragons. Lentor, for instance, was now as weak as an eagle-chick. But the boy didn’t know that.

  Dawn broke at last. With the first light, Adam stood up.

  “Well, Lentor,” he said, and his heart was pounding, fit to burst, “I’ll have to be going. You’ve lost! You haven't solved my riddle, have you?”

  Lentor shook his head weakly. There wasn’t a trace of smoke.

  “I expect I’ll have to tell you the answer, then.”

  “Oh yes, please,” Lentor croaked weakly, knowing that his life depended on it.

  “Well, it's the Fairy Queen mounted on her dragonfly.”

  Had Lentor had the strength to roar, he would have. He would also have roasted Adam on the spot. Instead, he could only hiss faintly, his feeble hiss loaded with hatred: “We agreed it should be something you have seen. You are more treacherous than a dragon!”

  “That’s not true!” Adam protested. “I’ve been quite honest. I did see her” He explained just how he and his sister had come to the Land of Poverty. “The trouble is, we don’t know how to get back home,” he ended lamely.

  The dragon’s voice was weak and low and full of self-pity. “I couldn’t be expected to solve the riddle,” he moaned. “Who’d believe that a human boy had seen Aeshna, the Fairy Queen? But I do know how you can get back home,” he hissed craftily. “You see, dragons are pretty clever, after all.”

  “Tell me, Lentor.”

  “I will if you give me back my Key.”

  “It’s not your Key, nor mine, and I can’t give it back.”

  “You'd better go then before I change my mind and roast you.” The dragon regretted his words at once. He knew he was weak, but the boy didn’t. He changed to a coaxing tone. “Excuse me,” he wheedled, “I’m forgetting my manners. I’d like to get to know you better. It’s not often that a dragon gets to meet a human—a genius at that. Why don’t you stay for…” Lentor calculated quickly, he needed a week to get his strength back, “for a week’s holiday before you set off. During your stay, I’d be pleased to tell you how to get back to your world.”

  Adam didn’t look in the dragon’s eye. He didn’t know why the scaly creature was feigning friendliness, and he didn’t care. He had no idea why betrayal and death hadn’t come his way. For some reason, the dragon seemed unable to kill him. Was it the orb? In any case, he had to fulfil his mission.

  “I’m sorry, I must go.”

  “Curse you!” Lentor hissed. “When I feel well again, I’ll come for the Key. I’ll have my treasure back, and I’ll roast you ever so slowly and your tasty sister!”

  “I don’t think so, Lentor,” Adam said. “With the Key, the dwarves will be able to make armour to resist any dragon. You’d only be wasting your time. So long!”

  As he made his way down the mountainside, Adam couldn’t believe his luck. With help from Cari and, above all, with his wits and courage, he had triumphed and succeeded in his quest. Once only, he looked back at Lentor’s cave. The dragon had dragged himself weakly to the mouth and was peering gloomily after the boy who was taking his Key away. Luckily, Adam was far enough away, and it didn’t matter that he had gazed at the dragon’s face. What he saw there was a mixture of hatred and sorrow. Adam laughed out loud and held up the key for Lentor to see better.

  “He’ll never get the key past the elves. Then I’ll get it from them!” Lentor hissed spitefully before dragging his listless bulk back onto his comforting treasure pile.

  At the foot of the mountain, the three friends were joyously reunited. Adam’s triumph was told and retold, while the pixy’s admiring squinting eyes never moved from the boy’s face and the dwarf’s eyes never moved from his people’s magnificent, legendary Key. It was at the foot of Mount Ember that Adam learned of Dragon Riddling-Sickness for the first time from his pixy friend.

  12

  Bella the Goldsmith had become a wealthy dwarf. She could afford to buy expensive food and clothes. She had given up her gold-smithing and had become a shopkeeper: a jeweller. Like most jewellers, Bella was rich. The reason for Bella’s change of fortune was the beauty of Emily’s work. The girl was turning out three masterpieces a day. Whenever Bella worried that her good luck, in the form of Emily’s work, would run out, she had only to mention Adam, and the girl would immerse herself in her task. It seemed that working was the only way for her to blot out her worries. Now the only real concern was when Success would decide to arrive.

  Pixies, goblins, brownies and even different types of elves came to Bella’s workshop to buy dragonfly brooches of exquisitely haunting beauty. Elves: the dwarves hadn’t seen them in living memory, but beauty drew those ethereal creatures. They are beautiful themselves, and Emily’s brooches attracted them as butterflies are attracted to a nectar-laden flower.

  Bella feared that one elf, in particular, would come—her fears proved correct. When she came, she wore a blue gown woven with stars that shone like those in the night sky: matching her golden hair. Her turquoise eyes were more beautiful than any Emily had ever seen. When those eyes looked into hers, the girl felt as if she wanted to be the elfin maiden’s slave. Indeed, only those whom her eyes beckoned dared to approach this awesome elf.

  These seductive eyes fixed on Emily at her workbench. Bella hurried over to a hatch in the wall, which gave from the shop into the workshop. From there, in dismay, she watched the beguiling stranger smile sweetly at the girl. Up to now, nothing and nobody had succeeded in interrupting the girl at her work. But this elf with her alluring eyes and mischievous smile was taking Emily by the hand.

  “No!” Bella wailed. Between her fingers in front of her eyes, she watched the elfin maiden lead the girl out of the little beamed workshop and off down the high road. As if to herself, Bella muttered: “It had to happen, sooner or later, I knew Success would take Emily away from me.”

  13

  Adam and his companions camped in the grasslands that night. Until now, none of them had shown any real ability for building a stockade. This time, whatever they attempted to create was a brilliant success. Simple ideas like making a fence from woven stems went so well that the fence ended up surprisingly well-designed and strong, in no time. When they had finished, they admired their work. Palustric insisted that with the Key of Ingenuity dwarves, more skilful than he, would be able to work miracles. There was no doubt that the Key was responsible for their new-found skill
, he explained. He went on for hours, long after Adam had fallen asleep, describing what life with the Key would be like for the dwarves. Lar, whose hearing was so much more sensitive than Adam’s, couldn’t get to sleep until Palustric’s enthusiasm had run its course.

  Palustric told how Fate had punished the dwarves in the Old Days because instead of working hard to learn the secrets of their skills, they had only relied on the inspiration given by the Key. Once the key was stolen, the dwarves’ ignorance of their traditional crafts was laid bare. Now, with the precious Key safely returned, the dwarves could re-learn their skills, but never again would they make the mistake of relying on inspiration without the necessary solid base of learning and labour.

  Lar had used at least fifty Ay-s and a dozen wise sayings before the eager dwarf finally closed his eyes.

  The three friends made good progress the next day until they came to the place of tall grass once more. Lar caught Palustric by the jerkin. “Listen!” Lar whispered, “We are not alone.” Adam and Palustric strained to catch any sound other than the rustling of the tall grass or the buzz of a bee.

  “I can’t hear anything.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “And yet, we are not alone! Let us hope that no-one means us harm.”

  They continued forcing their way through grass which was slightly taller than the top of Adam’s head. Occasionally a small yellow snake would slither away; otherwise, there was no sign of movement. At last, they came to a clearing in the grass, where the ground was rockier.

  “Let’s have lunch here,” Adam suggested and, sitting on one of the flat rocks, unslung the pack from his back. He reached into the pack, his fingers passing over the jewelled surface of the Key of Ingenuity to the bread and jars of honey lying under it. There were six jars of honey left. Just as well, it was the best honey he had ever eaten. At least when you got it in your mouth, the taste took away the thought that it was honey again. He spooned out another dollop of honey onto a wedge of bread and began eating. Lar and Palustric did the same.