The Princess and the Firedrake Page 11

  At the sight of her, the firedrake roared with delight. “You’ve come back as you promised, good lad!”

  The princess shook her hair loose. “That would be lass,” she corrected.

  The firedrake goggled, then covered his eyes with a hoof. “I’ve been battling a female? That’s humiliating!”

  “It’s the coming thing,” said the princess impatiently, “deal with it. Now, Griddle, what’s the last thing you remember?”

  The beast looked as thoughtful as his facial plates allowed. “The iceworm… she was wrapping… I was goring…” He finally got the idea. “Did I kill her?”

  Alix shook her head. “By the end, you were dead - both of you.”

  A long silence while the monster’s small brain chugged away, and then he said in a small voice (for him, at least), “I was killed? I was dead? Then how…?”

  “I brought your hoof here and threw it into the lava. I recalled that revived you the last time.”

  Griddle said, “Whew!” with a breath that shot flames fifty feet. “I owe you.”

  She nodded. “And I’m here to collect. I have a new job for you.” Griddle was instantly wary, so Alix said hurriedly, “How would you like to be famous?”

  “I’m already famous - been famous forever.”

  She shook her head. “Aside from my brothers and me, how many duels have you fought lately?”

  Another long processing pause, and then: “None, come to think of it - not for maybe two centuries, anyway.”

  “How famous is that?”

  Seeing the great beast wince, Alix followed up quickly, “How would you like to be famous again - the center of all attention, the most widely admired mons… ah, person on the whole continent?”

  “I’m listening,” Griddle replied.

  * * * *

  When she returned to the embassy later, Alix reported that Griddle could hock lava loogies - smelly ones too - and fire them into a five-foot target 20 leagues away. With heat from the Firedrake and water from the river, the spa idea might just work.

  “Now: what about all those warriors?” Lord Wilfred asked.

  “Pay them to build the resort,” said Jack, “They’ll all need cash to get home on.”

  Alix sighed. “So that leaves the ten million mark price on my head and the fact that the king has banished me.”

  “What about that magic purse of yours?” Lord Wilfred enquired. “You could ransom yourself.”

  Alix shook her head. “At three coins per shake, I’d spend a whole lifetime raising the money.”

  Jack said, “While you were off recruiting the firedrake, I had some thoughts about both those problems. Father, you’ll play a big part in this.”

  Lord Wilfred grinned at his son. “Always glad to oblige, dear boy!”

  * * * *

  The next morning the Lord Wilfred appeared at Gdink city hall, and since King Grogelbert was bored cross-eyed with nothing to do, he was instantly granted an audience. His cordial reception chilled when the king learned that the ambassador would present Princess Alix in two days’ time.

  “Oh, all right, the king grumbled, “but why the delay?”

  Lord Wilfred put on his best diplomat’s smile. “You’ll need time to move back up the hill, I fancy.” The Major Domo nodded strenuously. “And even for a national bank,” Lord Wilfred added without missing a beat, “ten million marks cash will take time to round up.”

  “Ten mih… ten mih… the king gasped and started hyperventilating. Nurse Hildegard pushed his head down and made him breathe into a bag.

  “But no doubt we can work something out,” Lord Wilfred said smoothly, “when you’ve got your proper court around you.” The Englishman bowed himself out.

  “Ten million marks,” the king whimpered. The Major Domo clamped his lips in a thin grim line. Queen Athena did not look up from her book.

  * * * *

  By the next morning Gdinkers had noticed that the heat wave was over. Not only that, but the fountain was now gushing with ample fresh water. Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz looked at one another and nodded wisely. It was clear that their brilliant princess was somehow back on the job.

  On the other side of the square, King Grogelbert fretted and groaned on his rickety throne. Ten million marks! They were ruined! He would end up begging in the street!!

  He was briefly distracted when the Major Domo appeared with the news that the palace door was wide open.

  “Sire, the princess is not in the palace. I checked every room.”

  “So there’s nobody there at all?” the king asked.

  “Only a dog, Sire.” He leaned casually against the philosophers’ table. “You know, it’s the strangest thing: the dog looked exactly like Max - only Max as he was 15 years ago.”

  “Yes, yes, never mind that,” said Grogelbert brusquely, “just get us back up the hill.”

  “One more matter, your majesty: the British ambassador requests an audience with you, tomorrow.”

  The king resumed fretting and groaning.

  * * * *

  By the following Noon the warrior horde was camped outside the city and the court was camped inside the palace throne room, waiting. After an hour of thickening silence, Lady Gwendolyn ventured timidly that it seemed cooler today.

  “Much cooler,” agreed Lady Mandolyn.

  A quavering chorus of much; yes indeedy; quite so; oh, was it hot? Did you bring any dental floss? floated up from the table where the court philosophers had been parked. Nurse Hildegard and the Major Domo stood against a wall and tried to look inconspicuous. The king took his crown off and twirled it nervously around an index finger. Queen Athena sat on her throne with the glazed, desperate look that book addicts get when they’ve run out of reading.

  Just before the tension finally drove the court mad, Lord Wilfred entered the audience chamber, peered around, saw there was no one to announce him, and took a deep breath to do it himself: “Wilfred, Lord Brambel, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty!” Seeing all the glum faces, he attempted to lighten the tone, “And accomplished man about town.” He winked at the court, but since the court could think of nothing but the ten million marks, the tone remained stubbornly dark.

  As he moved into the hall Jack followed him, still in full armor.

  “Who’s that and why’s he here in battle dress?” the king asked suspiciously.

  “Brought my son Jack along, Sire. My brother’s childless, so Jack’s the family heir if I pack it in before my brother, don’t you know? He’s learning the ropes in the duke business.”

  The king still looked suspicious but conceded, “I suppose that’s all right then.”

  Lord Wilfred folded his bulk in a bow to the king and queen, “Then let us get down to it. You have offered a reward for the Princess, I think.”

  Seeing that the ambassador had not brought her, the king dared briefly to hope. “The reward was for bringing her to me,” he said slyly, “and you haven’t done that.” The old philosophers nodded appreciatively and emitted a small cloud of noise: he didn’t, you know; she’s not here; well I think she’s not here; is she here? And so-on.

  Like a master of ceremonies presenting a magic act, Lord Wilfred made a sweeping gesture toward a high window in the throne room. Exactly on cue, Princess Alix - who had been hovering outside listening - swooped through the window, flew the length of the audience chamber, touched down at the base of the royal thrones, and knelt before her father. Her golden armor was almost blinding. Rising, she pulled off her helmet and shook loose her mane of thick hair.

  The queen wagged her head back and forth, as if saying, I did not see that; I did not see that! and fumbled for her spectacles.

  The king ignored his daughter’s spectacular arrival and costume. “You! Give me one reason not to lock you up in a moldy dungeon!”

  So he still hated her. Alix sorrowed at that, but Poppa’s approval was no longer the most important thing in her world. The princess smiled sadly. “For one th
ing, I just saved you ten million marks.”

  King Grogelbert’s eyes popped and Lord Wilfred said smoothly, “It turns out that nobody captured her, your majesty; she came along quite voluntarily.” When the king was slow to process this, the ambassador added, “No capture, no reward.”

  The Major Domo puffed his cheeks in a sigh of relief and the whole court applauded.

  Alix stepped forward. “And I ended the heat wave and with it, the drought. Oh, I almost forgot: I took care of the firedrake too.” The princess pulled the remaining hooves of the dead beast from her strongbox and laid them on the philosophers’ table. The table, which was already supporting four feeble geezers, sagged dangerously.

  “I told you it was cooler” said Gwendolyn.

  “The firedrake is a three-legged beast,” the first philosopher quavered.

  “Not to mention the iceworm.” Alix extracted a pair of yard-long fangs and added them to the pile on the table, which sagged even farther.

  Inside, the king was rubber-kneed with relief at saving the ten million marks, but he wasn’t about to reveal that. Instead of thanking his daughter, he said sarcastically, “Any other cute tricks?”

  “Yes, this one!” Alix rubbed the blue ring and murmured to it.

  BANG! Princes Hubert and Filbert materialized in a cloud of blue smoke - which Alix had laid on for dramatic effect - and rattled toward their parents in gleaming battle armor. They were obviously cheerful, tanned and fit, and above all, alive.

  The Major Domo’s tray of canapés crashed to the floor. Nurse Hildegard burst into tears and bawled into her apron. Gwendolyn and Mandolyn swooned gracefully to the floor, and the queen too fainted, her scientific brain finally overwhelmed by magic.

  Caught between terror and joy, the king, walked haltingly, step by slow step, toward his sons. He touched Hubert’s face, pulled off Filbert’s steel glove to feel his warm hand, and then wrapped his arms around both of them, ignoring the clanks of their armor. “My boys,” he whispered, “my dearest boys!” The tears spilled down his red face. “How can this be? How can you be alive?”

  Prince Hubert was clouding up too. “Alix did it, Poppa,” he said in a wobbly voice, “she revived us.”

  Filbert added, “We were both dead, Poppa. Alix brought us back to life!”

  The king froze; the rest of the court froze with him.

  But Nurse Hildegard did not freeze. She had brought her sobbing under control and now she looked at her darling girl with eyes that grew bigger and bigger. Aside from baby Alix, Hildegard had been the only person to hear Evil Warlock Krank’s awful curse and it burned in her memory word-for-word:

  You can no more win back his love than bring the dead to life.

  But here were the two dead princes, brought back to life indeed.

  As Hildegard turned to watch the king’s face, he slowly turned toward Princess Alix. “My dearest daughter,” he choked. Grogelbert stumbled toward the princess. “How could I have forgot how much I love you? My dearest child, how can I repay you?” He wrapped her in a bear hug, armor and all.

  No, her Poppa’s love was still as important as ever! Now Alix too was weeping. “Your joy’s enough, your majesty.”

  Alix clanked as the king shook her for emphasis. “Poppa!” he shouted, “call me Poppa!”

  “Dear Poppa, then,” she smiled through her tears.

  “Bit damp around here, I must say,” Lord Wilfred observed.

  An ancient voice fluted from the philosophers’ table: “An iceworm is a pair of swords!” But no one noticed.

  Everyone was embracing: Hubert and Gwendolyn, Filbert and Mandolyn, the Major Domo and nurse Hildegard. Grogelbert retrieved his queen from the carpet and awakened her with a hug. She stared at him a moment, then, amazingly, smiled and hugged back. The four philosophers were too feeble for hugging, so they sort of tilted together.

  When Jack and the princess attempted a hug, they just clanged and scraped on each other’s armor. The princess laughed, whispered to her ring, and transformed their steel suits into court attire. Their second attempt at embracing proved so promising that they spent quite a long while perfecting it.

  Seeing the king in such a good mood, Hubert ventured, “Poppa, can I marry Gwendolyn?”

  Filbert chimed in, “Me too - I mean Mandolyn.”

  King Grogelbert beamed at his sons and their ladies. “Why do you think they’ve been hanging around here? It can’t be for the badminton.”

  The whole court looked blank until the Major Domo made the classic two-handed come on, come on gesture; then everyone dutifully went ha-ha, ha-ha, except the philosophers, who were napping now. Tilting them together had been a mistake.

  Gratified, the king turned to Alix and Jack. “What about you two? You look pretty cozy.” Jack was, after all, in line for a British dukedom and the King wasn’t entirely dim. He grinned as Alix and Jack smiled foolishly.

  But then Princess Alix turned serious. “Thank you, Poppa; but right now the kingdom is starving and penniless. It will take all our help to recover. As for us,” she smiled at Jack and linked arms with him, “we’ll just see what develops.”

  Jack’s smile had a rueful cast to it. “I’d say yes in a moment, your majesty; but I’m not the crown princess here.”

  Waking up with a snort and a start, the first philosopher said to his colleagues, “Come on over after; I’ll make espresso.”

  Chapter 15

  And So They All Lived

  Princes Hubert and Filbert were wed to their ladies in a ceremony that seemed endless because the doddering bishop who married them was so hard to understand.

  Princess Alix, who had long shown a genius for architecture, designed a magnificent spa resort. Signor Galileo and Queen Athena happily engineered all the pipes, pits, pools, tubs, valves, fireboxes, and aqueducts, plus cauldrons for holding hot smelly lava. As the only professional in the Gdink hospitality industry, Dame Strudel was put in charge of the whole enterprise. Blintz was so resentful of this that they consoled him by making him mayor, where he couldn’t do any real harm.

  The unfrozen army did most of the actual building, and they were grateful for the work. When the project was finished, Alix added generous pensions to their pay from her magic gold purse, so that they could pay their ways back to their native lands. (Unclear on the concept of money, the small band of Neanderthals shuffled off to the mountains to start Bigfoot legends.) The warriors were happy to tell the world about the miraculous health benefits of the spa, which was christened Bad Gdink. (Lord Wilfred protested that in English, “bad” meant not good; but few people spoke English anyway, and that faraway language was judged to have little future.)

  Each morning, reliably, Griddle refilled the fuel tanks with fiery loogies, but his pride and joy was the evening fireworks. Every night as twilight shaded to darkness, the sky over Sulphronia blazed with a breathtaking aerial display. By changing his lips, tongue, and teeth positions, Griddle could spit fireballs, aerial showers, and even delayed explosions that went off in mid air with tremendous bangs. He hadn’t quite mastered colors as yet, but he and Galileo were working with mineral salts.

  On special occasions the firedrake would stage spectacular volcanic eruptions, and it wasn’t long before the pyrotechnics became as big a draw as the hot, stinky spa waters. Dame Strudel sold excursions (at very profitable add-on fees) and wagon loads of “tourists” rattled up Mount Sulfur to gape at the only real Firedrake not yet extinct. (Owl kept quiet about other two, in the Andes and Tibet.) The great beast was delighted by all the attention and praise.

  Princess Alix and Jack worked and played together, and managed their mutually powerful feelings in ways that were nobody’s business. And when Lord Wilfred was called home to London to assume the Puddleby dukedom from his late brother, Jack elected to stay in Sulphronia.

  As for the magical faerie gifts, all except Owl and his mirror were lovingly locked in the old tower room and dusted from time to time.

  After all,
they might just be needed again.

  Afterward; Full Disclosure/Where Credit Is Due,

  ... and so-forth

  In 1889, the Scottish folklorist and fairytale anthologist Andrew Lang published a story called Prince Prigio. It included a royal heir (male) who was cursed and banished for being "too clever," a firedrake who fought an immense frigid snake (called a "Remora") and an English ambassador with a grown child (a daughter). The Princess and the Firedrake cheerfully borrows these story ideas, but is otherwise original. Andrew Lang would probably have approved, since his own story appropriated elements from Greek myths, The Arabian Nights, and Cyrano deBergerac, who provided the death struggle between the cold “remora” (iceworm) and the hot “salamander” (firedrake).