The Princess and the Firedrake Read online

  Blintz saw his opening and jumped on it. “Why? Because Gdink has no attractions!”

  Schnecken said, “What’s an attraction?”

  “Something to make people spend lots of money. A jousting arena! A banqueting hall! Maybe…maybe some kind of park with, well, rides and stuff.”

  Dame Strudel shook her head. “A hotel, an arena, a banqueting hall, some kind of park thing with rides. How do we pay for all this?”

  Blintz beamed triumphantly. “With that ten million mark reward. Princess Alix’s all alone up there in Schloss Schlaffstein,” he wiped the spit off his chin, “so we go up there, collect her, and get the reward for her capture. Ten million marks for the good of Gdink!”

  This idea was not at all well received. Peter Quince scratched his thatch of red hair. “I couldn’t do that. I like Princess Alix!”

  Constable Dogberry also had doubts: “All alone up there; no wonder the poor girl comes downtown.”

  Schnecken folded his skinny arms. “I won’t do nothin’ to hurt our Alix!”

  Blintz saw his idea slipping away. “We don’t want to hurt her; we love her!”

  Dame Strudel snorted. “And this is how we show it?”

  “Wait,” said Blintz desperately, “the king can’t lock her up. He doesn’t have any dungeons. He’ll just... well, give her a good talking to, that’s all.”

  A tide of mutters ebbed and flowed across the crowd. At first everyone was against the idea, but they gradually thought, if it really wouldn’t hurt the princess…. Ten million marks was an awful lot of money…. Attractions seemed like a good idea….

  As always, Dame Strudel was practical: “Not even the king can get back in that palace. That’s why the reward for capturing her.”

  Somebody added, “A castle door like that’ll have a big fat bar on the inside.”

  Blintz gave them an I’ve-thought-of-everything smile. “The door will not be a problem,” he said, “boys!” At his call, a dozen men appeared from a side street and dragged a 30-foot tree log into the square. It was a giant battering ram.

  * * * *

  Healed again by the magic ring, Princess Alix reviewed her dismal failure at firedrake removal. “Everything I tried seemed like a good idea at the time,” she mused.

  “At the time is the operative phrase,” said the owl, “You invent everything on the spot; you don’t plan; you think brilliantly but not systematically.”

  Alix nodded ruefully. “I’m not too good at that - I guess I’ve never needed to practice.”

  The owl’s severe expression softened; perhaps it was finally getting through to her. “Why don’t you ask for some help - besides me, I mean?”

  Alix shrugged sadly, “Who would help Princess SmartAlix?”

  The owl sidled closer, as if shifting sideways on a tree branch. “What about that young man, Jack? He, well, admires you - I mean, so does his father, of course.”

  Alix thought about this. “And he’s a good planner; I’ve watched him do it.”

  “All right then….” the owl let the notion just hang there.

  After another thinking spell, Alix jumped up. “I’ll do it!” she said, then broke off as she looked around the dark, dusty store room, baking in the heat wave. “Not here though,” she turned to the owl, “Can you leave your mirror?”

  The owl looked disgusted. “I was at Mount Sulfur, remember?”

  “Oh, of course; how stupid of me - though I must say it’s a relief to be stupid for once. Hop on my shoulder, would you? Ow! Velvet claws, please!” She looked around once again and then touched the blue ring. “I wish Owl and myself and all these magic gifts in the palace apartments. Oh, and Max too!”

  The room was suddenly empty, except for the dust cloud settling to the floor because dust had not been included in the wish.

  * * * *

  An hour later, the royal family parlor was as pleasant as could be, even cool enough for a small cheerful fire in the grate. Alix fanned her face gratefully, “What do you call this, again?”

  “Magic, what else?” said the owl, “though one day they will invent something called ‘air conditioning.’” Owl noted the comfortable sofas and chairs, torches and good candelabra for lighting, an all-purpose table for dining or working. “Aren’t the walls a bit bare?”

  Alix muttered at the ring and rich hangings flanked the big windows, while flattering portraits of the King and Queen appeared in places of honor.

  Alix glanced at feeble old Max, who was sleeping more comfortably than usual in the cool shadows, then looked at the owl and pursed her lips. “Hmm, do you need some sort of sandbox or newspaper?”

  Owl snorted. “Must I remind you? I’m carved out of wood. I neither eat…”

  “Oh, right,” the princess said hastily, “sorry.” She looked around one more time. “I think we’re ready.” Alix nodded at Owl and then disappeared.

  The owl went back to its mirror and, so to speak, turned itself off. Another hour passed and then Alix suddenly reappeared, now accompanied by Jack and Lord Wilfred.

  The older man glanced about him, looking somewhat confused. “Splendid way to travel, I must say. Cool in here too; jolly good!” He planted his oversized self in the biggest armchair.

  Jack shook his head in admiration. “Sulphronia promised magic and you certainly have delivered it - or in this case, delivered us. We’re in the royal palace, I take it.”

  “Safe and sound,” the princess replied.

  But then a thunderous boom! rolled in from the great front door.

  “Better see what that noise is,” said Alix, “Ring, I wish…”

  “Er, perhaps we might walk, your highness?” Lord Wilfred heaved himself out of his armchair.

  Jack grinned affectionately at his father, then said to Alix “More conventional travel this time.”

  “I’ll meet you all up there,” the owl said and flew out a window.

  “I say,” said Lord Wilfred, “that bird’s carved out of wood. ’Straordin’ry!”

  The great front door was set in a wall over 40 feet-high that was topped by a row of stone blocks, alternating with gaps through which soldiers had once shot arrows or dropped stuff on enemies, depending on how close the enemies were to the wall.

  Princess Alix waved a hand at them. “Crenellations,” she explained automatically, and then blushed with embarrassment.

  But Jack only nodded amiably. “Good word,” he said, “also called battlements.”

  Lord Wilfred was peering through one of the gaps. “Bit of a siege, what?”

  Everybody looked down at the mob of Gdinkers milling around in front of the great palace door. Thirty men held the battering ram - 15 on a side - with Blintz standing on top of the log, giving orders. “Heave!” he ordered.

  The 30-foot log smashed into the door with another resounding boom, then obeyed what would someday be known as Newton’s law with an equal but opposite rebound, knocking its 30 carriers on their backsides and pitching Blintz to the ground in a corpulent pile.

  “Well-played!” Lord Wilfred called cheerfully.

  Alix spotted Dame Strudel, who was standing carefully aside and holding her gown above the dust. “Dame Strudel,” she shouted, “what’s going on here?”

  Dame Strudel waved and curtsied. “Listen, Princess,” she said, smiling, “how about a nice visit with your father?”

  Jack said, “They want that ten million mark reward.”

  Blintz picked himself up off the ground. “Open up and surrender, will you, and we won’t sack and burn everything and carry off your maidens and stuff.” He paused and then added, “Please, Princess Alix?”

  Alix chuckled. “Master Blintz, since I’m the only maiden in these parts, your request seems disingenuous.”

  Schnecken said, “What’s ‘this ingenious?’”

  Alix asked her companions, “Any suggestions?”

  “Boiling oil’s traditional,” Owl volunteered.

  “Mm, no,” said Lord Wilfred reflectively
, “they’re misguided, I grant you; but decent chaps at heart; deep-frying the lot of them seems a bit much.”

  Jack had been studying the crowd, the great ram, and the steep road down to the town square far below. He turned to Alix and spoke to her quietly. She nodded and then stepped up, rubbed the ring, and patted the parapet. “I wish for a siege vat of cod liver oil!”

  A giant bronze cauldron appeared between the stone blocks, pivoting from knobs on opposite sides, and equipped with a wide handle at its base. Alix and Jack grasped the handle and started rocking the heavy cauldron back and forth on its pins. Up and back: “One!” Up and back: “Two!” they chanted together.

  Far below, Blintz had remounted the ram and shouted “Hit it again, lads!” The 30 ramrodders charged at the door with it. Boom! The door resounded, the ram rebounded, the carriers grounded, and Blintz bounced on his backside again. Dame Strudel shook her head and kept her skirts clean.

  “Three! and Four!” said Alix and Jack. At each swing, the kettle rose higher until finally it reached the tipping point and started dumping its contents. A vast smelly flood of cold cod liver oil plummeted down from the top of the wall and soaked the besieging Gdinkers.

  Despite her precautions, Dame Strudel was first to go. Her feet slipped out from under her and she plopped down heavily in the stinking oil. The ram team lost their grips on the log and dropped it on their own feet, then yelled OW! and other things, hopped on one foot, and fell down. Blintz flailed around in the sloppy mess, bleating, “Eee-yu, gross, You didn’t hafta…” and so-on. Schnecken just stood there, gleaming with fish slime from his bald pate to his cracked leather shoes.

  Like Alix’s magic water bucket, the cod liver oil tub refilled itself endlessly. Jack and the princess kept it swinging like a great church bell, dousing the besiegers with vat after great viscous vat of smelly goop. A slippery tide of oil rolled down the long hill toward the Gdink city square, leaving the road coated with slime like the track of a giant garden slug.

  The Gdinkers were not far behind it. Stumbling, falling, flailing tumbling, they grabbed one another for support, which only pulled them into the muck and sent them skidding down the hill like children on toboggans. Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz swooped into the square at the bottom and piled up against the empty town fountain. Before they could sort themselves out, 30 ramrodders and 100 odd citizens came slipping, slithering, sliding into them. Every one stank of fish oil. Every skirt, shirt, and doublet, every pair of trunks, hose, boots, and shoes was soaked and disgusting through and through.

  As the slimy crowd picked themselves up, Schnecken looked up the hill. “What’s that?” he said faintly.

  “What’s what?” Blintz was trying to wring out his shirt without falling down again.

  “That!”

  “Not good,” said Dame Strudel, leaping out of the way with remarkable speed for a woman of her size and dignity.

  That was the huge log ram which, left untended by its retreating ramrodders had started a slow retreat of its own, sliding down hill, first one heavy inch at a time, and then faster and faster and…

  “Run!” screamed Blintz, and the townspeople cleared the square just as the giant tree trunk reached 10 leagues per hour on the downhill straightaway. Smashing into the fountain, it shattered the bowl, powdered the firedrake sculpture on top, and swept the debris right up to the door of the Unicorn Inn, trashing most of the patio tables on its way through them.

  On top of the palace wall, Alix, Jack, and Lord Wilfred watched the disaster unfold. “I hope no one’s hurt,” Alix said.

  Jack said, “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Lord Wilfred chuckled richly. “Banner day for laundries, what?”

  The princess looked concerned. “I hadn’t thought of that. We’ve put them to a deal of inconvenience.”

  “Jack said, “But they were the ones who…”

  “I know, but I could have hurt them.” Alix paused a moment, looking off down the hill. “And they are good neighbors. They’ve accepted me all these years when nobody up here did.” She rubbed the ring. “I wish the oil removed and the town square restored. Oh: and turn the tree trunk into stacked firewood behind the inn.”

  Lord Wilfred looked at her fondly. “You’re a dear, thoughtful girl, Alix…”

  “Father!” Jack gave him a look.

  “Princess, I mean, um, highness, etcetera - all that.”

  Alix beamed at the big man. “You’re most kind to say so, Lord Wilfred; and please call me Alix whenever you like. How’d the ring do?” she asked, to change the subject.

  It had done very well. The tree was gone, the town fountain sat in its usual spot, and no trace remained of the fish oil, except for a faint lingering stink. Even Dame Strudel’s patio furniture sat in its regular place with its paint flaking off in the heat.

  The owl spoke up, “The oil was a good idea of yours, Jack.”

  Princess Alix looked at Jack thoughtfully. She still couldn’t explain the tingling he caused her. Maybe it was some British magic of his.

  Chapter 10

  Blintz Strikes Back and Alix Meets Iceworm

  In the palace that evening, Princess Alix, Lord Wilfred and Jack enjoyed a magnificent dinner - courtesy of the wishing ring - and lingered gratefully in the magically chilled air. The father and son were reluctant to return to the British embassy, which was as intolerably hot as the rest of Sulphronia. The firedrake remained a life-and-death threat to the kingdom.

  “Fight fire with fire,” Lord Wilfred mused, “heard that somewhere, I believe.”

  Alix shook her head. That monster lives on fire.”

  “Quite so; wasn’t thinking.”

  “The obvious answer is water,” she replied, “perhaps the ring could divert a river - or make one.”

  Jack stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. “The firedrake lives on a mountain top,” he muttered, “and water won’t flow uphill.”

  The three of them sat thinking gloomy thoughts while ancient Max lay at the princess’ feet, just grateful to be cool and fed.

  After a long silence, Jack said, “Fire is hot and water is cold. What else have we got that’s cold?”

  “In Sulphronia, nothing, these days,” Alix grumbled.

  “I don’t know,” said the owl; “take a look in my glass.”

  The three humans huddled in front of the mirror, which unclouded to show a solid rock wall with the opening of a cave - not a normal cave opening, but a horizontal slot that looked many yards wide. The image then changed to a view of a leaden sky with a lone vulture circling patiently. Slowly, the cave mouth filled with a dark shadow and a great head slithered into view - the head of a giant snake with cold eyes and cobra fangs, but flattened and spread so the head was just three feet high but over 20 feet wide.

  “What on earth…?” whispered Jack.

  “That,’ said the owl, “is an iceworm. Her name is Slice.”

  They watched in horror as yard after endless blue-white yard of ribbon-flat body undulated out of the cave mouth. The beast looked up at the gliding vulture, then pursed her colorless lips and blew a great puff of air. The vulture promptly turned solid and dropped from the sky like a frozen turkey. Fifty yards of frosted body shot out and up from the cave mouth and the iceworm caught the dead bird in its mouth. Slowly now, and with satisfaction, she swallowed her prey and rippled back into darkness.

  “Iceworm,” the Owl repeated, “half a league long; a living glacier that coils like a snake and freezes everything that comes near her.”

  “I’ve read of them,” said Alix, “but I don’t quite see…”

  “Fire and ice!” said Jack triumphantly. If we could get her to fight the firedrake….”

  Owl nodded. “They are indeed ancient enemies, but now they stay very carefully separate: he in his lava cauldron, she in her ice valley.”

  Jack nodded. “If we could bring them together somehow, would they fight?”

  “Oh, certainly - to the death,” said the owl. “It�
��s expected of them.”

  Princess Alix said reflectively, “The question is how to do it.” She stood up. “If we’re going to lure this monster out, we need to know more about her. I must have a look at this iceworm.”

  Lord Wilfred, who had been watching his son and the princess together, now bade them good night and disappeared toward his guest room. After all, he wasn’t a career diplomat for nothing.

  Jack and Alix remained by the fire, together.

  The princess gazed thoughtfully into the flames. “It feels so good to have friends,” she said finally. “I mean, the townspeople like me, I guess, but they’re not what you’d call friends.”

  “The price of royalty, I suppose. They’re your subjects - or will be. Father and I are not. What about your family; can’t they be your friends?” The princess looked at him sadly, then nodded at the deserted palace around them. “Ah, right,” Jack corrected himself.

  They sat close together, staring into the little fire. Max snored on the rug beside his mistress.

  “It’s odd, though,” Alix murmured, almost to herself. “I feel Lord Wilfred’s my friend, but with you I feel something different - something more - but I don’t know what it might be.”

  “Aha,” said Jack cautiously, “and, um, is this a good feeling?”

  Alix smiled at him warmly and put her hand on top of his. “Oh, yes! A sort of, well, tingling.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Well, I certainly feel the same way.”

  Alix looked at him with big, honest eyes. “What is this feeling, Jack?”

  A long, long pause, and then Jack said slowly, “I think I could hazard a guess, but I also think that when you feel it strongly enough, you’ll know what it is without asking.” Jack looked at the shining face turned to him and slowly began leaning toward it. Then he stopped, looked into her eyes with even more warmth, and stood up quickly. “My room’s next door to father’s, I think.” He picked up her hand and kissed it. “Sleep well, your highness.”

  When he had left, Alix petted Max’s old head. “Well, Max,” she said, “if the tingling keeps growing like this, I should know what it is very soon.”

  * * * *

  The next morning Jack and Lord Wilfred joined Princess Alix and Owl in the courtyard, just inside the great palace door.

  “Bit of a risk, going out that door,” said Lord Wilfred.”

  Alix nodded, then shrugged. “But I need to try out these seven league boots,” she explained, holding out a pair of musty old riding boots, “and I don’t want to just step off the parapet.”