The early morning sun shone down on the ancient walls of Giant`s Pass castle. It fell on
patches of green moss clinging to the weathered stone blocks of the Outer and Inner Wards.
Shards of light sparkled uselessly against the only window in the castle, the stained
glass panes now covered in dirt and hiding the long disused Royal Chapel from view. But
the glittering day made a brave showing of the banner of King Argud the Defiler flying
high above the keep and reflected brightly from the string of wind polished skulls hanging
below the flag. A few rays of shimmering sunlight even penetrated the arrow slits of the
prison tower, to be instantly snuffed out amidst the dark stench of despair and corrupting
flesh within. More glittering rays were wasted in falling on the steaming surface of the
castle moat and its covering of rotting turds.
King Argud and his Master-At-Arms were no fools. Any attacking soldier who fell into that
reeking gray-blue semi-liquid with even the smallest of wounds on his body would soon be
dying a most painful and poisonous death. True, the smell on a warm day like this was
truly awful but since everybody in the royal household stank like a dead goat anyway it
was of no great consequence.
The King should have been in his counting house, counting out his money. Unfortunately,
there was hardly any to count, since there was nobody in marching distance who had
anything left worth stealing. So instead, the monarch had taken a newly arrived serving
wench into the buttery, bent her over a table and applied double handfuls of butter to her
bared hindquarters. The girl was mystified by his actions but in a few seconds time she
was destined to find out two things: why he was called Argud the Defiler, and also the
real reason why the buttery was called the buttery.
The Master-At-Arms, on the other hand, was dealing with more delicate business. A matter
of negotiations which called for diplomacy and cordiality. Not easy qualities to summon up
in a proud old soldier covered in scars and past glory: in his time the Master-At-Arms had
killed and raped more victims than a boatload of Ice Land Warriors. He resented having to
be unduly deferential to any other official of the royal household. But even he had to
respect the authority of Sir Tarquin as royal tax collector and keeper of the castle
torture chamber.
"A fine day, Sir Tarquin."
"A fine day, Master."
Sir Tarquin reluctantly laid aside a series of woodcuts left behind by a visiting trader
of tormenting equipment. He often gazed at them wistfully, especially the ones showing the
young lady with the long legs stretched out on a rack, the legs getting longer and longer
in each succeeding picture. What he wouldn`t give to have a bit of glamour like that
spread eagled in his own tormenting implements instead of the dreary peasants that were
all that ever came his way in this backward apology of a backwoods Kingdom. Not that he`d
ever dare to let such words pass his lips, not if he didn`t want them sewn together with a
hornet in his mouth. On matters patriotic King Argud was so right wing he was almost a
Tiberian Republican.
"How can I help you, Master?
"I`d like to book a session in the torture chamber, Sir Tarquin."
"Certainly -- a personal one, Master? Ha, ha, the old ones are always the best,
hey?"
The Master smiled dutifully with a twitch of his lips as the head torturer reached for
his appointments diary, a movement which paused halfway as an earsplitting scream came
from the direction of the buttery. Sir Tarquin cocked his head to one side and listened
with professional judgment.
"She`ll be able to carry around the mead tonight, but I hope it`s not at my table.
Her hands won`t stop shaking for a week. Now, Master, was it a group booking?"
"No. Just the one, thank`ee, my lord."
"Fine. Any particular torments in mind? Male or female?"
The Master-At-Arms grinned, displaying his ill colored teeth like a wolf finding a sheep
caught in a briar patch: "Definitely male, Sir Tarquin. It`s the castrating vice I
want to use. Could I have a couple of hours, if that`s agreeable to you?"
"A couple of hours? That`s a long time for such a simple little job. Is this
business or pleasure, Master?"
"Oh, both, Sir Tarquin -- both."
The old soldier looked as if he`d seen a divine vision of a thousand virgins, each one
more beautiful than the next, and all driving carts heavily laden with wine barrels.
Sir Tarquin felt a touch of unease. As a normal thing, letting enthusiastic amateurs
loose in the torture chamber was a mistake. Blood everywhere afterwards, and all the tools
bent out of shape with overmuch heating. But as an officer of the Royal Household there
was no way the Master-At-Arms could be decently refused access to the in-castle tormenting
facilities.
"The day after tomorrow? From the third emptying of the water clock until the fifth
emptying?"
"Thank you, Sir Tarquin. Your co-operation is appreciated."
The Torturer fastened his weak blue eyes on the Master`s vicious brown ones.
"You`ll appreciate that you`ll still have to raise an inter-departmental invoice for
the hire of the chamber. Two florins an hour, four florins in all. You`ll need to make six
copies of the invoice, all signed by yourself or your deputy and counter-signed by myself
or my deputy. One copy for your files, one for mine, one for the routine-of-the day clerk,
one to the Royal Accounts Office, one for the Royal Archives, and one for the Bureau of
Births, Deaths, Marriages and Castrations. And, naturally, it`s your department`s
responsibility to ensure the removal of all bodies and bodily parts from the chamber at
the end of the hire period. All equipment used is also to be cleaned and lightly oiled
afterwards."
"You know me, my lord. I always leave the torture chamber the way I would wish to
find it."
Sir Tarquin suddenly realized that the Master-At-Arms wasn`t looking at him, but over his
head and through an arrow slit in the wall. He turned in his chair and glanced out of the
narrow gap himself. On the other side of the moat were the straggly lines of filthy wooden
shacks where those of King Argud`s subjects unfortunate enough to be still alive eked out
their wretched existences. But one building at least was well built, the size of a barn,
close to the protection of the castle walls, with a patch of scorched grass outside it.
Playing happily together on the bare ground was a young boy and a young female. The female
was much younger than the boy, but a great deal bigger. About thirty paces longer, in
fact, bright pink in color -- at the moment, anyway -- and gently weaving her snout and
her sinuous body like a giant ferret as the boy tickled her underneath her left wing
joint.
"By the Gods, Master, I still can`t believe it -- not even after seeing it every day
for nigh on five years. A living, breathing dragon. And when I was a boy we all thought
they`d never existed. Even the witches and warlocks said the old carvings were only make
believe. Just dreams and mind pictures from nearly forgotten stories. And then a dirty
little sniveling son of a night soil spreader comes out of the forest with an great egg he
says he found in the roots of a fallen tree."
The Master nodded absent-mindedly. Everybody from far and wide knew the story, and how
young Hal O`The Shitbuckets had not told anybody about the egg but hidden it inside a pile
of warm dung near to his family`s hut. How the boy had come out a few weeks later and
found a newly hatched dragonet frolicking around on top of the pile of shite. And by the
time anybody of importance had found out about any of this, it was too late. The dragonet
and Hal had instantly developed the same kind of affection as between a man and his dog,
and any attempts to part them had sent the young dragon into such a state of fretful
decline that the companionship had to be restored immediately. But otherwise the hatchling
seemed perfectly healthy and had grown at an astonishing speed. And of all its mysteries,
three had continually dominated King Argud`s thoughts.
The first: was there was any truth in the old legends about dragons breathing fire?
The dragonet had never shown any sign of being able to do so but there had been a
lingering hope in King Argud`s breast that the facility might develop as the creature
reached adulthood. A hope which had found triumphant resolution one night when a pack of
starving wolves had slipped into the dragon hut and attacked the dragon and Hal. The
resulting flames had not only burnt down the hut but also a dozen others belonging to
peasants unfortunate enough to be living nearby. As the suddenly dispossessed poor fled
for their lives the King had capered wildly in delight in his night shirt, calling for his
pipe to light it from the burning fragments of the huts, and then for his trio of fiddlers
to provide music for his pyromaniacal prancing. At dawn he`d demanded that Hal demonstrate
the dragon`s incendive skills again by burning down more huts, clapping his hands like a
delighted child as the dragon had coughed out tiny spitballs which flew for hundreds of
paces and then ignited into raging fireballs whenever they hit anything.
"By Odin, I love the smell of dragon spit in the morning!" King Argud had
roared in ecstasy at the sight of so much destruction inflicted so quickly.
The second mystery was whether the promise of the pup`s nascent wings would eventually be
proven. Could a dragon fly?
The answer had been yes, a fact finally determined in the last few weeks. Although, in
truth, the dragon only flapped her wings barely long enough to be airborne before locking
them into outstretched sails and seemingly riding the currents of the air upward and ever
higher, then gliding across great distances before turning and turning like a falling leaf
in the sky. Yet instead of drifting down she would drift upwards again. Nobody could
explain how this could happen, except through magic. Apart from Hal O`The Shitbuckets, who
thought that the air rose in bubbles from pieces of hot ground, like the bubbles in water
coming to the boil, and that somehow the dragon could see or sense where these air bubbles
were rising.
Under normal circumstances nobody would have paid any attention to young Shitbuckets
ideas. The one thing which did get them something of a hearing was that Hal was the only
person in the whole kingdom who had ever flown with the dragon. At least that was what
most people thought, but four people knew differently. Hal, the Master-At-Arms, and two of
the Master-At-Arm`s daughters. Unfortunately for all of them, the Master had accidentally
overheard Chelinde telling her young sister how she had twice been aloft with Hal and how
he had rewarded her with what he called a frequent flyer point.
It was Chelinde`s candid description of where young Hal had inserted his point whilst
they were together in the dragon`s riding net which had resulted in Hal`s recently
arranged appointment with the castration vice. The next item on the Master-At-Arm`s daily
schedule was arresting the still unwitting boy and explaining in great detail about what
was soon going to happen to him. Hal might have spent most of his life emptying latrines
but if he`d thought before he was in the shit, he was soon going to know better -- or
worse.
Sir Tarquin shook his head in sorrow as he watched the boy and the dragon at play:
"Such a shame. Worse yet, a tragedy. Is there anything sadder than the sight of a
promising life destined never to know true fulfillment? The King comes near to weeping
every time he thinks of it. What say you, Master, are you still of the same opinion?"
The Master-At-Arm`s expression was one of bewildered surprise, until he realized what Sir
Tarquin was talking about. It was the third great mystery about the dragon, the impasse
which had King Argud groaning with despair during sleepless nights for a solution.
"Absolutely the same opinion, my Lord. As things stand our tiny army had no chance
at all of defeating the Imperial Legions. One dragon on its own might win us a battle but
never a war. We`d need a whole flock of them to be assured of destroying the Emperor`s
forces and capturing the great cities of the plains."
"A rise, Master. The collective noun for group of dragons is apparently a rise of
dragons. So the Chief Warlock tells us of the High Council from his reading of the ancient
writings. And no wonder the King weeps when he looks down from these hills onto an empire
he could easily conquer -- if only we could find a single male dragon to mate our female
with. Nature can be so cruel."
Sir Tarquin sighed heavily in quiet despair.
"How many peasants have we worked to death digging up the forest floor seeking
another egg -- a male egg, in all love? How many spells has the castle warlock cast,
seeking a trace of other dragons in the great wide world? How many spies have we sent out
seeking news of such beastlings? And not one trace, not one rumor, not even one tavern
tale about such creatures existing. No, what you see innocently playing there, Master, are
two virgins, and destined I think to stay that way for a long time."
The Master`s face was pale, only two red spots on his cheekbones revealing the pure fires
of anger burning within him. "My Lord, I intend to make sure one of them will
certainly never have need of a mate."
He tapped the cover of the torturer`s diary with heavy significance and Sir Tarquin`s
eyebrows rose in sudden concern. "Hal? It`s our young dragon handler you`ve a mind to
geld? Nay, I think the King must know of this first. Why do you want to do such a
thing?"
The Master-At-Arms had no intention of shaming his family by telling the truth on that
subject. Nor did he think that he needed to.
"My Lord, my duty is to the security of the King and the Kingdom, and that dragon is
a menace to both. It cannot defeat our enemies but should Hal ever decide to turn on his
true lords and masters that beastling would be a formidable threat to us. Many of us would
perish and much damage would ensue before he and that confounded dragon were killed. Since
we cannot breed from it, better to destroy the monster and its handler`s spirit now before
they acquire a taste for more than they can ever be given."
Sir Tarquin shook his head: "A sound argument, Master, but not sufficient to achieve
your purpose. Leave our dragon handler alone for a while yet."
"Dragon handler? That`s not his substantive rank on the household rolls. He`s a
privy purveyor, he empties the shit pans into the moat and he was only allowed to work in
the castle at all because he tends the beastling a few hours each day. The dragon is of no
use to us, only danger, and the sooner we get rid of it and debollock that young upstart,
the better."
The Royal Torturer waved his hand at the chair the Master had recently vacated: "Sit
you down again, Master, and breathe no word of what I am about to tell you. For you have
unwittingly touched upon decisions recently made by the High Council and it were better
for you to know something of them and thus keep discreetly silent."
Sir Tarquin leaned forward across his desk and spoke in lowered terms.
"The King and council in secret session have decided that now the dragon has reached
true maidenhood there is one last turn of the cards we can yet play. If we can`t find a
male dragon, perhaps the young female dragon may. She can fly, and she can seek, if we let
her go hence to try her fortune."
The Master tried to absorb the implications of Sir Tarquin`s statement: "Go? Go
where?"
"Out into the wide world, wherever the winds may blow her. Into the northern
mountains perhaps, or southwards over the provinces of Lyonesse to that great city itself
and beyond. Or the east, to the forests of Prydein, or westwards, into the sea mists of
Tintagel. Wherever it be that the beast may feel drawn to go. Like calls to like, Master,
and if there be a scaly and horny mate for her anywhere, surely that female dragon will be
drawn to him like a homing pigeon to its nest."
"But what use will that to be to us? We shall never see the dragon here again."
"Our young duke Hal will go with her to bring back a clutch of fertile eggs. Let the
dragon go hang, if only he can find dragon hatchlings enough for us to breed a rise
from."
"But . . . but . . . what young duke is it that you speak of, my Lord?"
"Why but think, man! The dragon obeys only Hal O`The Shitbuckets, so he must go with
her. But if a dragon or dragons be anywhere in the world, surely they will be owned by the
King of those parts. Can we send a mere shit-carrier`s offspring to negotiate on behalf of
the Kingdom of Argud with another royal court? No, of course not. Know you, Master, that
in the next issue of the castle gazette there will be a notice raising young Hal O`The
Shitbuckets to the aristocracy. A lifetime peerage." The Royal Torturer`s lips
tightened in sardonic amusement. "However brief that lifetime may be."
The Master-At-Arms looked as if he`d taken a crossbow bolt in the stomach: "That
ugly little piece of trash is to be ennobled!"
"Aye. A strange world we live in, hey? But you know yourself that the boy is the
only human in the Kingdom who has the dragon`s obedience and love, so he must go with her.
The King sought our advice on a suitable title for him and I suggested Duke Skyrider as
being apt to his station, yet the Chief Warlock would have none of it. He said it sounded
too foolish to be believed. So we have had to seek further afield. The Chamberlain said we
should simply use the boy`s family name, but the Warlock laughed at that."
"I never even knew he had a family name. Why, he wasn`t even born into his family.
The stinking brat was found newly born wrapped in a shawl and abandoned at the forest`s
edge."
"True, but he was bought up by the Shitbucket emptying clan. Apparently they were
given a Tiberian family name by those interfering monks before the King finally drove them
out. One of the holy men must have had a sense of humor though because the family name is
Merdinus. The Warlock thought the notion of a Duke Merdinus a great jest because the word
in the Tiberian language for dung is merdus. So it was proposed the boy be dubbed Duke
Merlinus instead. And in a few day`s time Duke Hal and his dragon will leave on his quest.
What think you, Master?"
The Master-At-Arms snorted in anger mixed with disbelief at what he was hearing.
"What do I think? To speak truth, my lord, I think the whole council must have been
sniffing that white powder the traders bring from the Happy Isles. I think the young
tosspot will sell that dragon as soon as he is safely out of the Kingdom and spend the
gold on bribing serving wenches to let him fuck them."
Sir Tarquin snorted with brief laughter: "So think we all, Master, so think we all.
It was also said that a duke who spoke not a word of Tiberian, knew nothing of magic or
ceremony and who stinks of the privy would have much trouble playing the part of a
nobleman. Someone must go with him, someone able to educate Hal to courtly ways as they
travel together, someone who will be respected in any land by any ruler. We have now
decided on a suitable escort and consort for our aspiring Duke Merlinus."
The Royal Torturer leaned forward, even closer to the Master-At-Arms and spoke even more
confidentially: "Tell me, Master, have you any lingering desires to see more of the
wide world?"
The Master, the victor in a score of killing fights, whimpered like a beaten dog:
"Me, my lord! Go up on one of those things? I beg you, no, no, a thousand times no!
I`m a man, not a bird!"
"Ho-ho-ho! Your face, Master, your face!" The Royal Torturer slapped his thigh
in glee. He was a man whom dearly loved a joke above all things, well accustomed at taking
full advantage of a captive audience.
"Be calm, Master, be calm. Did we need a bulldog for an honest fight you would be
our choice, but the Chief Warlock has found us something much better for our needs. A
cunning serpent able to fly as well as that dragon, a serpent of fascinating wickedness
and as full of venom as a lawyers` tavern. A serpent well versed in all kinds of magic and
courtly behavior, a speaker of many tongues and a convincing liar in all of them. Best of
all, a serpent whom both enchants and terrifies every man she meets. And I say enchants in
the full meaning of the word."
"Enchants?" The Master-At-Arms stared at Sir Tarquin. "A witch? You are
sending a witch with Shitbucket? Which witch -- I mean what witch?"
"Look at my finger, Master."
The torturer traced the outline of three letters on the desk in front of him. The
Master-At-Arms blinked, blinked again, and then smiled a little. So did Sir Tarquin. Both
of them looked at each other and smiled even more widely.
"So, Master, have we not found you a better ball-breaker than anything I could
provide in my torture chamber?"
The Master-At-Arms laughed aloud, clapping his hands together as though applauding a play
or an execution: "The bitch-witch! The bitch-witch herself!"
Sir Tarquin stood up again, his belly heaving at the same joke as he looked down at the
antics of the boy and his pet, both of them completely unaware of the terrible fate
speeding towards them.
"But what could bring her to this small kingdom, my lord? What does a lady of her
powers care about our dragon?"
"The lady has the King`s sworn promise. Bring back the eggs which will create an
army of warrior dragons for him and she will be rewarded, even unto half of the Empire
once he has seized it. But if ever that should come to pass, Master-At-Arms, be assured
I`ll make sure that I`m living in the other half of the Empire."
Had Hal been able to overhear this conversation he would have been a thoroughly
frightened eavesdropper. Though one part of it would have given him at least a moment`s
satisfaction. For, if a member of the High Council should talk so lightly of his selling
the dragon, it meant that none of the great men of the kingdom knew about the most
profound of her mysteries, one of far more value to a growing boy than mere tricks like
flying or flame throwing. A mystery he had been taking advantage of under any watching
eyes from the castle walls in his pretence of playfully tickling the dragoness. What he
had actually been doing was soaking a piece of rag near glands underneath her wing joints
where a colorless liquid sometimes seeped out -- a liquid which drove all those who
touched it into a flaming desire to couple as madly as any March hare.
Hal had only noticed the liquid appearing in the last few weeks, as the dragoness reached
her maidenhood. He supposed that it was intended for male dragons to lick and thus
encourage them to mount the female. Certainly he had never suspected such a thing at
first. He`d believed the liquid to be sweat, the first sign that the dragon was as other
creatures.
Before then, in all the years since he`d first found it, the dragon had seemed to live on
a higher level than other life forms, including men. It never ate, but spread its wings
out under the sun whenever it could, as though it drew life from the great fire like a
growing flower. Thus, it never dropped dung either, a great relief to Hal. All the
beastling seemed to need was a daily drink of water and lots of affection. And now it
seemed able to create affection itself, uncontrollable affection in all who were touched
of the dragon`s sweat.
By great fortune the first trickles were of a weaker potency than flowed later. But such
as they were, the dampness on his fingers had driven Hal into a corner of the dragon hut
with his breeches around his ankles and his hand continually jerking at his lance, a lance
which refused to droop in tiredness after the first, second, third, and even fourth
eruption. It had felt as if the fires of hell itself were burning in his loins and would
never be doused.
The boy had almost killed himself before collapsing onto the straw and suffered so much
soreness afterwards that every movement for days had been torment. He had quickly learned
from his experience though, and took great care now never to touch the liquid directly and
to mix it with plenty of water before use. A power intended for dragons was far too strong
for humans without it being much weakened first. But what wonders even a trace of the
sweat produced!
Carefully holding the rag by a still dry corner he led the beast back into the hut which
housed it. Blotches of yellow appeared on the dragon`s neck from its head to its front
legs like daisies appearing after rain. Hal quickly answered the unspoken question.
"Be content, Josephine, I see all the colors of your coat. We shall fly this
morning. But first I must prepare."
As soon as the dragon was inside Hal pulled the doors shut and put a bar across them. The
thousands of cracks in the planked roof and walls let in enough light for the shed`s
interior to become as twilight, a million straw motes floating through the intruding rays
and then disappearing from sight in the darker areas. The dragon ambled over to the
largest pile of straw at the far end of the hut and sniffed at it. Girlish laughter and
cries of mock fear came from the depths of the straw.
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