The Princess and the Firedrake

The Princess and the Firedrake

  by

  Jim Stinson

  The Princess and the Firedrake

  Copyright 2012 by Jim Stinson

  ISBN 9781476469560

  Text corrected and reformatted August, 2012

  Prologue

  When the great front door of the palace slammed shut, Princess Alix was locked in alone in the dark. Every noise in the sudden, total blackness seemed magnified: the rattle of the lock as its bolt shot home, the clank of the big brass key as it was withdrawn from the keyhole, the clop-clop sound of booted feet as they marched away on the outer side. When the footsteps had finally died away, the silence itself seemed oppressively loud.

  Blind in the windowless chamber, the princess groped until her fingers found the wood of the door, then she turned and pressed her back to it. She took a deep breath and willed her heart to slow down again. It was only the great entrance hall, after all; she had crossed it numberless times. She considered her situation: the inner door was directly opposite and there were no longer furnishings to trip over. But how many steps were there to the other door? She didn’t know; she’d never needed to remember. She set out slowly, carefully, with one hand lifting the hem of her gown and the other hand held palm-forward in front of her.

  Ten steps, 20 steps, 30 steps, the light click-clicks of her own heels bounced back and forth in the stone-walled chamber. Then, abruptly, she struck a barrier. Her fingers discovered damp stones and crumbling mortar, but no door. She must have veered to one side, but which side? She was left-handed, so perhaps she was left-footed too. If her stronger left leg had a slightly longer stride, she would have angled a bit to the right - between two and four degrees, she reckoned, after some speedy mental geometry. If, therefore, she worked her way to the left, she should logically come to the door in the center.

  That was how the Princess’ mind worked.

  Tracing the chilly wall with her fingers, she made her way slowly leftward until stones gave way to the wooden planks of a door. The handle would be on the right. Her fingers found and turned it and she pulled the door open. This next chamber had only one high, tiny window, but her eyes were adjusted now and she could see again.

  But there was nothing to see, no people, no furniture, no carpeting, no hangings on the walls, no chandeliers, no torches. Even the shy tiny elves, who could sometimes be seen collecting dust bunnies in corners - for reasons that only the tiny elves knew - had departed. The room was as blank and bare as a dungeon, for that is what the palace had become: an empty prison for a princess sentenced to solitary confinement. She had done nothing to deserve this punishment - committed no crime, spoken no treason, disobeyed no command from her father the king. And yet he had condemned her to live in this gloomy stone lockup forever. But since he had not left her one crumb of food, “forever” would end when she died of starvation.

  What had brought her to this sorry state had been magic - the ancient magic that was now in a fight for its life with its upstart new enemy, science. Science had been unknown for centuries as witches and wizards, pixies and sprites, and all the kingdom of faerie ruled the world. But in this new century science was awakening and magic was beginning its long slow slide into harmless myth.

  But not yet. In the princess’ time, magic was still fearful, still wonderful. Magic had condemned her to this awful fate and only magic could rescue her from it. This is the story of how it all came about, beginning when Princess Alix was just three months old….

  Chapter 1

  An Ominous Christening Party

  The kingdom of Sulphronia lay in the middle of nowhere and its capital city, Gdink, lay in the middle of Sulphronia. In the middle of Gdink sat a high hill, upon which nobody built anything because it was far too steep for houses, except for the rambling royal palace on top. The palace was called "Schloss Schlaffstein," but people avoided saying the name because it made them drool on their doublets and gowns. The kingdom had few other notable features, with one exception, a resident firedrake named Griddle. This monstrous beast was a fearsome sight to behold, with a dragon head on a rhinoceros body, the legs of a bull, a reptilian tail, and the wings of an oversize bat. His hide was all plates like a rhino’s, but the plates were solid iron, and fastened with rivets like a steam boiler. Griddle lived in a great lava lake in Sulphronia’s one other notable feature, the volcano Mount Sulfur.

  * * * *

  Up at the royal palace, a christening party was underway - but just barely, because so far, no one had come. At one end of the long state dining table sat King Grogelbert IX, Duke of Gemeinschaft, Elector of Steenstein, and Monarch of Greater Sulphronia. (Since Sulphronia was in fact smaller than nearby Switzerland, "greater" was only a hopeful boast.) Grogelbert was a stout, red-faced, cheerful king who lived for sports and good food but distrusted science, which was new at the time. At the other end sat Queen Athena, who trusted science and nothing but science. With her silky brown hair and fine face, she was a beautiful queen, though somewhat lacking in social skills. On each side of the table, fifty more place settings separated the king from the queen by over 100 feet. The empty plates and goblets gleamed, the silver shone, and the linen was so crisp that the great banquet hall smelled of fresh laundry.

  And all one hundred guest chairs were empty.

  King Grogelbert beckoned the Palace Major Domo, who squeaked over in his Sunday shoes. “Your Majesty?”

  The king clutched his arm. “You delivered the invitations?”

  The Major Domo was offended. “Of course not; the Imperial Postman did that.” He shrugged. “But everyone made excuses, Sire. The Bishop was sorting his sock drawer…”

  The king looked thoughtful. “Well, that is reasonable.”

  “The lord mayor required a root canal,” the Major Domo continued. “As for the Polish ambassador...”

  “Do we have a Polish ambassador?”

  At the other end of the table - almost in the next kingdom over - Queen Athena shouted at her husband, "Groggy, do join the rest of us in the Renaissance." She waved at all the empty places. "I told you you couldn't invite faeries to our daughter’s christening because faeries no longer exist! Science has disproved them conclusively.” When the queen used that judgmental voice, whole topics would meekly shut up and sit down.

  The king had, indeed, sent invitations to the world's most prominent magical creatures. Puzzled by their absence, Grogelbert whispered, "Yes, what did happen to the faeries?”

  “Oh, they all seemed quite pleased…” The Major Domo was suddenly silenced by an uncanny noise like the whiz of a thousand dragonflies and the chatter of autumn leaves. Dozens of faeries, elves, pixies, gnomes, trolls, wizards, witches, and sprites were flying, creeping, or somehow just appearing until they filled nearly every one of the 100 seats.

  The Major Domo was instantly suspicious. “Some of these must be gate crashers,” he whispered. “After all, we sent a few invitations to humans.”

  But the king was so happy to see all his friends - faeries were more fun to talk to than humans anyway - that he paid no attention. Beaming, he scanned the crowd of spirits from Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, Africa, India, and Asia. Even Coyote and Raven had come from the new and intriguing Americas.

  “There you are,” he exclaimed, “wonderful! Find your place cards, will you?” The fey creatures bustled about, sitting down, tying on napkins, and choosing food and drink from the now-smiling servants.

  At the other end of the table, Queen Athena peered at her husband. Though too far away to see clearly, he seemed to be talking to himself, and right in front of the servants; what was the man thinking? The queen hooked on a pair of spectacles - the new kind that hung on your ears - and looked c
losely. Of course, all that her scientific brain could see was a long empty table with the king at the end of it, smiling and waving like a madman. The queen was so embarrassed by her foolish husband that she pulled out a book titled Opticks, by her hero, Signor Galileo Galilei and resumed her place in it. Just ignore him, she thought, just ignore him. Of course, Queen Athena did see the dishes and goblets afloat in thin air and the napkins tied around nothing at all, but she put that down to flaws in her spectacles. Signor Galileo had warned fellow scientists about lens aberrations.

  * * * *

  The king was happily dismantling a haunch of roast venison when he suddenly noticed something. The chair on his right was empty. “Where’s Evil Krank the Warlock?" he said to no one in particular. “I hope he’s not unwell.”

  As if on cue, an oily black glop of hot asphalt formed in the air and then stretched and inflated into Evil Warlock Krank. He was dressed in a moldy scholar’s cap and his dreaded deathwatch robe, embroidered with horrible skulls.

  Without so much as saying how-do, Krank grated, “I’m not unwell; I’m un-invited!” The twisted old warlock radiated pure rotten evil like heat from a stove, and the wood sprite beside him turned purple and vanished.

  King Grogelbert feared the malignant old alchemist, but he summoned the courage to defend himself. “Not invited? No, no, look: here’s your place card.” He plucked a small parchment square off the tablecloth and held it up before Krank. “I lettered it myself,” he said proudly.

  Krank frowned and the card exploded in flames. Grogelbert shook his scorched fingers and stuck them in a water glass.

  Krank thrust his hairy, knobby nose an inch from the king’s frightened face. “I don’t care if you tattooed it on your forehead!” he screamed, “I! Wasn’t!! Invited!!!” With a BANG and a smell like spent gunpowder, Krank vanished and reappeared seated on his chair at the table. His horrible face turned cheerful, which made him look even scarier. Krank spread a napkin over his moldy robe, speared a whole chicken with an index finger he’d turned into a carving fork, shook the chicken onto his plate, and turned the fork back to a finger. The chicken exploded, separating the meat from the carcass. The evil warlock stuffed a fistful of white meat into his toothless mouth, dumped the rest on the table, and licked the plate, and tossed it over his shoulder, where it shattered on the floor. King Grogelbert winced because the good china was now only a 999-piece set.

  Pushing this thought away, he said to the eldritch spirits around him, “Well it looks like you all brought gifts for the princess. Would you like to give, um, see her now?”

  There was a general nodding and smiling and rattling of wrapped presents. Rising, he led a parade of 99 happy spirits trailed by one evil warlock out of the banquet hall toward the royal nursery. Disturbed by the sounds of 101 chairs scraping back, Queen Athena looked up from her book to see a long line of packages jiggling and bobbing through the air on their way out the banquet hall door. Absurd! Shaking her beautiful head in denial, Queen Athena returned to Galileo’s discussion of bi-concave lenses.

  * * * *

  A while later, the nursery was overflowing with strange little gifts, and the baby’s nurse, Hildegard, was groaning from the strain of curtseying to each of 92 magical gift givers. The last eight guests were now filing past the royal crib from which Princess Alix smiled and cooed and charmed everybody.

  Puck gave her his Cap of Darkness, and showed her how it made him vanish when he put it on. The baby giggled happily. An anonymous gnome offered a ring that would grant the wearer’s every wish, and an African spirit in a wonderful mask left a leather bag full of Limpopo River water that he claimed could return the dead from the underworld. The great wizard Merlin tottered by, donating Excalibur the magic sword; though what a well-behaved princess might do with a sword someday was known only to Merlin and he wasn’t talking.

  Then a trio of fairy godmothers gathered about the crib and bent their sweet round faces toward the baby princess.

  “You shall be kind and generous,” said the first.

  “You shall be brave and honest,” said the second.

  “You shall be brilliant,” the third concluded, “more brilliant even than the queen.” The infant heir to the throne cooed and blew winsome bubbles and the dear old grannies’ tiny wings buzzed with pleasure.

  Evil Warlock Krank had waited to be last because he hadn’t yet thought up a mean enough gift. Any old demon could give her bad breath or pimples; and if Krank’s gift involved obvious harm, folks might call him a bad sport or worse. His present had to be fiendishly nasty but brilliantly sneaky - some Fate Worse than Death that only he knew about. But what?

  Listening to the third fairy godmother, Krank thought sarcastically, brilliant; she shall be brilliant. More brilliant…

  And suddenly he had it! The evil warlock glowered at Princess Alix, who was already smart enough to stop smiling and stare solemnly back, as if unafraid but paying close attention. She didn’t blink when he thrust his warty, whiskery face into hers.

  “You’ll be brilliant all right,” Krank whispered, “too brilliant for your dim-wit daddy. The king will hate you for your brains, little Princess. He calls you Princess Alix now, but soon he will call you smart Alix. Soon you will be Princess SmartAlix!”

  Delighted with his evil idea, Krank began hopping around the crib like a great skinny crow. “You will lose his love completely. Your father will abandon you: leave you all alone - forever!” He paused and glared at the tiny baby. “You will try to win his love again, but you can no more win back his love than bring the dead to life.” Krank cackled and started turning back into a glop of hot asphalt, while his harsh voice went on: “That is your curse, Princess Alix: you are doomed to be much too smart!” With a vicious spark and a startling BOOM! the evil warlock vanished.

  Suddenly, the princess looked far too serious for a tiny baby.

  Nurse Hildegard lifted Princess Alix and rocked her soothingly as the door flew open and Queen Athena swept in. “Thank goodness that’s over,” she said, “a total waste of time and money. I told him no one would come if he invited faeries.” She looked triumphantly at Nurse Hildegard. “And was I right?” The nurse was too honest to lie, but the queen didn’t notice her silence. She looked around at the magical gifts piled everywhere and wrinkled her beautiful nose. “What is this old junk and how did it get here?”

  “Them’s gifts, Madam.”

  “What?”

  “From the faeries.”

  “Yes, and I have a drawbridge to sell you. Hildegard, not you too!”

  “Aah…” bleated honest Hildegard.

  “Never mind,” said the queen, “throw this trash out.” She noticed Alix in the nurse’s arms and smiled at her infant daughter. “We don’t believe in faeries, do we, my brilliant girl?” Without waiting for the baby’s response the queen turned away and swept out again.

  Rocking the tiny girl, Hildegard crooned, “Don’t worry none, pumpkin; them’s just her little ways.”

  The baby looked up at her and said, with perfect clarity, “She’s quite right, you know, Nurse; faeries are mythical creatures.”

  Nurse Hildegard was too upset to notice that her three-month old darling was speaking complete sentences. She put Princess Alix into her crib while thinking hard about the faerie gifts. No one dared offend the faeries, she thought, but she shouldn’t disobey the queen either.

  Finally, she stored them far away, hauling each one up six flights of steps to the highest room in the oldest tower in the unused wing of the palace. The queen would never look for them there - she barely noticed what was in her own closet.

  The last and heaviest gift was a full-length floor-stand mirror. Its massive oak frame was heavily carved with garlands of fruit and flowers, and a fierce-looking wooden owl on top. Puffing and wheezing after six flights of steps times 90-plus gifts, Nurse Hildegard pulled the creaking door shut and left the old storeroom in darkness.

  The owl’s wooden eyes began glowing with
intelligence. Twisting its oaken head to glare around the musty storeroom, the carving remarked, “That didn’t go too well, did it?”

  In the nursery, the tiny princess was intrigued by the idea of thinking, which she hadn’t tried before. First, she wondered where she’d found the words to think with. She clearly recalled that formerly she had just sort of felt things: hungry, sleepy, wet and yucky. Then she remembered that Nurse Hildegard talked to her constantly and her mother the queen dictated letters to fellow scientists while the baby listened in. The queen made her think of the king: Poppa was so nice. He laughed and made funny faces and even funnier noises. She loved Poppa most of all.

  Princess Alix was wondering what love meant and why she knew she felt it, when she drifted off to sleep. After all, from the neck on down, she was still a three-months-old baby.

  Chapter 2

  Princess Alix Grows Older and Smarter

  After the christening party Sulphronia sank into its usual doze. Prince Hubert was born a year after Alix and his brother Prince Filbert arrived a year later. With her dynastic duties honorably discharged, Queen Athena lost herself ever more deeply in science.

  Princess Alix, year by year, grew taller and smarter - especially smarter. At the age of eight, she reorganized the royal finances by inventing a grid on which to display them. At ten, she designed a new palace with hot running water and privies that flushed. The king was too cheap to build it, and his comments on indoor plumbing were loud and indelicate. At twelve she taught the palace chef - imported from Slobovia at enormous expense - how to make bouillabaisse; and then she taught her father how to spell it. This orthography lesson did not go down well. In short, with every passing year, the king watched his daughter blind people with brilliance while he felt ever more baffled and stupid. The king had dearly loved his baby girl; but as she grew, his love decayed to like, to grudging tolerance, and then to something quite close to dislike.

  It didn’t matter that Alix was kind and generous and brave and honest - as her godmothers had decreed - and cheerful and modest to boot. It didn’t count that she never got into mischief except when one of her snakes escaped or her experiments exploded.