The Princess and the Firedrake Page 10

  Meanwhile, it had taken Jack about ten magic boot steps to get to his assigned place - forth, back, forth, back - until a lucky step finally put him on an outcropping behind the iceworm and safely above her. Sighing with relief, he replaced the boots with a regular pair, and then held the magic strong box so that its lid and body resembled an open clam shell. Below him, the firedrake slashed with his tail at the iceworm’s endless body. Each time it touched the rubbery ribbon, the flesh turned to water and steam rose up.

  Opposite Jack and just out of range, Princess Alix hovered in midair, sweating in the fearsome heat despite the shield’s protection. She looked doubtfully at the glowing blue disk, which was now turning red around its border, and then gritted her teeth and flew toward the firedrake.

  The heat was unbearable and Griddle’s thick tail kept beating on the shield. The magic gift held steadfast though, while the princess squinted in the awful glare and waited for the right.…

  There! For a moment, the great beast dropped his tail to the ground. Alix swooped in and down, turned the shield aside, and hacked off the iron tail with one blow of magic Excalibur. She whipped the shield back to protect her again, but even so, her face was red, as if badly sunburned, and her hair was starting to smoke.

  With a roar of pain and outrage, the firedrake stopped goring the iceworm and turned to see what had happened to his rear end.

  When Jack saw Alix sever the tail, he squatted on his rock above the iceworm and held out the open strong box, as if to catch a pitched ball with it. On the opposite side of the battle, the princess surged forward, effortlessly flipped the tail into the air with the tip of the sword, and then batted it hard toward Jack.

  He caught and held it in the box. This should have been impossible: the huge tail was ten times as big as the box and it set fire to whatever it touched. But the strongbox was magic, so the tail somehow disappeared into it and Jack slammed the lid shut. He bore its weight easily and the box didn’t even feel warm. Jack pumped a fist in the air.

  The iceworm Slice took advantage of her opponent’s distraction. Rippling forward, she whipped several lengths of her wide flat body around the legs of the firedrake and held tightly, no matter how strongly he kicked and jerked. Higher and ever higher up his legs, the firedrake faded from red to black as his heat leached out of him. He howled and bellowed, but for the first time there was an almost plaintive tone to his trumpeting. Griddle was fast losing strength.

  The iceworm’s new attack had waved a great coil of her body sideways until it lay almost directly below Jack’s rock platform. A blast of arctic wind blew upward and set him shuddering. Panting and blowing frosty air puffs, he fought his way forward to the front of the ledge and wrenched open the strong box. He shook it and the firedrake tail fell out, magically back at its proper huge size and glowing like steel in a forge. It fell down and down, straight toward the horrid blue-white coil of flesh…

  And missed! The tail hit the ground to one side of the iceworm and lay there.

  Without hesitating, Jack leaped off the ledge to the ground beside the severed tail, which was pulsing with heat. Jack scooped it into the magic strongbox and jumped higher and farther than he had thought possible. He landed near the center of the white ribbon.

  Of course he froze solid instantly, becoming a perfect ice sculpture of a man holding an open casket. He was dead almost too fast to feel pain.

  But the magic strongbox would not freeze and the firedrake’s tail tumbled out and landed square in the center of the rubbery blue-white body. The iceworm screamed a scream so terrified, so agonized, that Princess Alix instinctively flew up and back to learn the reason for it.

  The fiery tail opened a fissure on the iceworm’s back, a deep fracture that spread from side to side, zigzagging across the full width of the white ribbon. In front of the wound was the iceworm’s head and several yards of her body; but behind the break lay all the rest of her in coils half a league long. Within seconds, the two parts severed completely. The twisting highway of body shuddered and jerked in great spasms, then lay still and slowly turned into a winding river of water.

  As the body dissolved, the ice sculpture that had once been Jack fell off and disappeared in the steam - the steam that had hidden his death from the Princess.

  The iceworm was now just a head attached to a ribbon of body barely long enough to coil around the firedrake. Most of its power was gone. Sensing this, the panting firedrake roused himself for one last effort, lunging and goring until the iceworm was a mass of wounds. Despite her death agony, the iceworm held fast, her last few yards of body wrapped around her foe. As Slice died, the firedrake turned black all over and Griddle died too, with a groan that could be heard as far away as Gdink.

  In faraway Gdink, the king and queen and all the people heard that groan. (Some later claimed they felt the earth move too.) But they did not know its meaning, and by now everyone was so baked, so starved, so beaten down in general that they shrugged it off and resumed their full-time work: surviving.

  * * * *

  The princess stood with her clothes stained by smoke and sweat, her boots filthy with mud and foul water, her unbound hair in tight tangles. She leaned on the sword Excalibur and looked at the dead monsters. Nothing remained of the iceworm but her skull; all the rest had melted away. But strangely, a great flood of sparkling water poured out of the skull and wound its way over the valley floor. Alix recalled that from there it was all downhill to Gdink, but she put aside the thought for the present. She cut off the iceworm’s fangs as proof of her destruction. Then, almost sadly, she walked to the firedrake’s body and, with single strokes of Excalibur, cut off each of his hooves.

  When she looked around for the magic strongbox to hold them, she finally saw Jack’s dead body. He lay like a knocked-over chess piece, so cold-frozen dead that the steaming mud was not even thawing his edges. His open eyes were glass marbles and their lashes were separately frozen, thin wires so delicate they would break at a touch.

  She sheathed Excalibur, picked up the strongbox - it was unharmed of course - and thought about Jack: thought about his cheerfulness and the easy way he had seen past her irritating habits and accepted her as she was, thought about what good friends they’d become, and how they were growing beyond simple friendship. She thought about his willingness to do battle in a war that was not his, to face the iceworm and the firedrake, if need be, to die. She still didn’t know what that tingle called love was, exactly, and suspected that nobody else did either. But now her heart overruled her brain for a change. Somehow, she knew love when she felt it, and this was it.

  But a sculpture in ice would be cold love indeed. Alix rubbed the wishing ring and muttered, and the Limpopo River water bag appeared in her hand. Just a single drop and a flash of light and Jack stood before her, restored. Alix threw her arms around him and wept, while Jack looked as if he could do without the weeping but the hugging part was more than agreeable. He let it go on until he feared he was being obvious about it, and then kissed her quiet. This technique proved so effective that he made a note to remember it.

  When they had reluctantly separated, Alix wished them both back to camp, where Hubert and Filbert marveled at the iceworm fangs and firedrake hooves and rejoiced in the victory over the two mighty monsters. Princess Alix was careful to give her brothers more credit than they really deserved for their parts in the campaign. Jack smiled at her approvingly and winked.

  When they had all cleaned up and eaten something, Jack reminded Alix that it was time for Phase Three of Operation Fire and Ice.

  “What were one and two?” Filbert asked.

  Jack said, “One: lure the monsters out to fight each other; two: make sure they killed each other.

  “I won’t miss Iceworm,” said Alix reflectively, “she was ghastly; but Griddle was fun in his bluff, hearty way.”

  “When he wasn’t murdering folks like us,” said Hubert.

  “True, I was forgetting.” But she looked sadly at the four
iron hooves.

  “Phase Three,” Jack reminded them.

  Alix said, “Right! Phase Three is reviving a thousand warriors.”

  When the princes stared at her, Alix held up the bag of Limpopo River water.

  * * * *

  The preparations took time. First Alix wished for four teapots with spouts so narrow that they would dispense but one drop at a time. She wanted ceramic bowls with cheerful floral patterns, but all the men loudly demanded plain pewter and their votes prevailed. With slow care, she filled the special teapots from the Limpopo water bag. Then she changed her own pot back to floral.

  Alix had no thought of raising a fighting force, but Jack pointed out that the only thing shared by this mixed bag of warriors was the habit of obeying commanders. They could make them an army now just to organize them; then decide what to do with them later.

  To provide leaders, she clothed her brothers in fresh armor with the royal crest on each shield, before turning to study Jack. Alix murmured, “Hm: the commander’s armor should be different - somehow spiffier.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Jack, “I’ll gladly join Hubert and Filbert, but it is your army.”

  The princess scoffed at this. “They won’t obey a female; you know what men are like, especially military.”

  “Just outfit me like your brothers; then we’ll see.” With a doubtful look, she wished him into new armor, with the Puddleby ducal crest on the shield.

  An hour later, she had wished them all to the valley of the frozen knights, where they spread out among the ice sculptures and started thawing warriors. On Jack’s advice, Alix now wore a suit of armor plated with glittering gold, Excalibur sheathed at her side, and a four-foot plume of gauzy white that streamed outward from her helmet crest (in a magical breeze of its own). The royal arms of Gemeinschaft, Steenstein, and Sulphronia flashed on her shield. Jack had suggested the final touch: she was mounted on a pure white stallion - a powerful charger 18 hands high.

  The effect was overwhelming.

  Haloed by the sun behind her, she splashed a single drop of magic water and an icy corpse flashed and became a live warrior. He took one look at the figure before him and dropped to his knees. “My lord!” he whispered.

  “Close enough,” said the princess, “fall in at the base of the hill, will you?”

  “Yes, my lo…” the knight goggled up at her, then kneeled again. “Yes, my lady.” He started briskly down the slope.

  Alix stroked her mount’s enormous neck and said, “He took that rather well, I thought,” and trotted over to the next dead knight.

  Elsewhere in the valley, Prince Hubert found the squad of English archers, still with arrows notched and longbows drawn and aimed. They were so tightly packed together that a single magic water drop unfroze them all. A great swarm of arrows launched at once with a terrifying WHOOSH! that made Hubert drop flat on the ground. The shafts were so well aimed that half of them vanished into the mouth of the iceworm’s empty cave.

  A bit later, Prince Filbert climbed the slopes of Mount Sulfur, re-animating ash piles as he went. “Amazing,” he said to himself as he dripped a drop on a mound of powder, “all you do is add water.”

  And so it went until Alix, Jack, Hubert, and Filbert had revived well over a thousand warriors and rounded them up for inspection. (The Neanderthals took some convincing, since modern humans were unknown to them and looked exceedingly ugly.) Like Max, the soldiers and knights had all been revived as young men in their prime, and they were a formidable lot.

  The princess found organizers for this temporary army by calling for volunteers in as many languages as she knew: French, Mandarin, Icelandic, Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Mongolian, Xhosa, Aleut, and so-on. Whoever answered became chief of his language group. A Japanese warrior in splendid armor sent her a pleading look, so she designated him with a gesture. “I really must learn Japanese,” she muttered. “I’ll take care of that next week.”

  With Jack’s meticulous planning and a lot of ring-rubbing, full field supplies had been summoned, so by sundown, the colorful assortment had wagons, horses, fires, tents, and food for man and beast. Princess Alix moved among the throng, and everyone swore loyalty to her. It was a sight to see scarred and seasoned warriors weeping unaffectedly as they kissed her hand.

  As she walked around, leading her charger, whom she’d named Lancelot, Alix reviewed this astonishing day. Her brothers revived, two monsters killed, the heat wave broken, a thousand men returned to the land of the living - and now they were hers to command. For the first time in her life Alix felt useful, felt powerful. She realized that this was the strength monarchs felt. Power felt so good that you wanted to use it, and, like the wishing ring, power could tempt you to make greater and ever greater demands.

  Alix sighed. The ring could be shut in its strange little box and stored away in the tower. Power, however, could not. She was, after all, the crown princess. All she could do was control her power - use it sparingly and always for good. But then she shook her head sadly. That was all very well in theory, and Alix had always depended on theories; but the real world didn’t work theoretically. Of all the things she had recently learned, that was the most important by far.

  Chapter 14

  Princess Alix Confronts Her Father

  In the late afternoon Alix flew to Gdink while Jack put on the seven league boots and got close enough to the embassy to walk the rest of the way in regular shoes. Hubert and Filbert remained in the field with the warrior horde.

  Before joining Jack at the embassy, Alix flew over the town and spotted Schnecken, Dame Strudel, and Blintz in the square at their usual sidewalk table. She swooped in and landed beside them.

  “Look who dropped in!” cried Dame Strudel.

  “You - you wouldn’t be surrendering would you?” Blintz asked, hoping against hope.

  Alix took the fourth chair. “Let’s get all this sorted out,” she said, “you want to turn me in for the reward, correct?” The three embarrassed burghers wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Are you that desperate for money?”

  A chorus of No! Not at all! Wouldn’t think of it!

  Dame Strudel put a motherly hand on the Alix’s arm. “It’s not for us, Princess darling; it’s for Gdink.”

  Blintz spoke up, “To build city attractions like a hotel and a jousting stadium.”

  Schnecken added, “And some kinda place with rides.”

  Working out the reasoning, Alix said slowly, “You want strangers to visit Gdink.”

  “Lots of strangers,” said Schnecken.

  “Who spend lots of money,” Blintz added.

  “Hm; that will take thought.”

  Dame Strudel said, “No one can think like you can, darling.”

  Alix stood up. “Well, neighbors, there’s no chance for the ten million marks.” When they all nodded glumly, she added, “But I will help Gdink. As I said, let me think on it.” With that, she abruptly rose in the air and flew off toward the British embassy.

  Dame Strudel, Schnecken, and Blintz sat there with their mouths open, staring at the roof of city hall, over which Alix had just disappeared.

  In the air above Gdink she noticed a sizable river that was now flowing straight toward the city. The iceworm’s skull was still pumping, it seemed.

  * * * *

  At the British embassy the princess, Lord Wilfred, and Jack sat down for a strategy session. Owl was there too, wished down from the palace, mirror and all.

  Lord Wilfred was more than filling the biggest chair. “Well done,” he said cheerfully, “Firedrake conquered, heat wave broken. Good show!”

  Owl shook its wooden head. “You still have a ten million mark price on your head.”

  “Mm,” said Lord Wilfred, “and the king’s still not frightfully keen on you.”

  Jack put in, “And a thousand-plus warriors are heading for Gdink with nothing to do when they get here. That’s a bad situation for soldiers.”

  Alix sighed. “And, there’s a
new river flowing too close to the city walls, and the good burghers of Gdink look at me and all they can see is ten million marks.”

  “Are they really that greedy?” Jack asked.

  Alix reported the Gdinkers’ hopes to bring strangers into the city.

  Owl nodded, “They’re called tourists,” he said.

  “What are?” Jack asked.

  Owl said, “Tourists are people who travel somewhere just to travel somewhere, and then turn around and go home.”

  Lord Wilfred snorted. “Good lord!”

  “Well, they do do things while they’re there,” Owl admitted, “like eat and gamble and bathe in spas.”

  Lord Wilfred brightened. “That’s all right then; know all about spas. They’re reviving an old Roman one in Bath; supposed to be the next big thing.”

  “What do they do at a spa?” the princess inquired.

  Lord Wilfred wrinkled his oversized nose. “Paddle about in hot water. Smelly too, like rotten eggs. Supposedly good for what ails you. Some people even drink the stuff. Ugh!” Lord Wilfred consulted his hot pear juice.

  “Describe these spa places,” the princess said.

  As the owl explained what a “resort” was, Jack scribbled notes on a parchment. At length, he said, “We could do that - build a spa, I mean, to attract visitors. That new river has plenty of water.”

  “And it needs to be channeled away from the walls,” the owl added.

  Lord Wilfred shook his head. “Not on, I’m afraid; spa water has to be hot and smelly.”

  Princess Alix picked up a firedrake hoof and looked thoughtful.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Alix carried the hoof to Mount Sulfur, along with the shield of diamond for heat insulation. “I hope this works,” she said as she threw the hoof into the fiery crater. Instantly, Griddle surged to the surface, alive and well and looking for action, as always. Quickly, Alix rubbed the diamond to activate the shield’s protection.