The Princess and the Firedrake Read online

  Lord Wilfred peered at them. “Seven leagues with each step; good gracious!”

  “That would be 21 English miles,” explained Alix, unnecessarily, as usual.

  “More like one league,” said Owl ignoring her, “official mileage figures are inflated.”

  “Even at one league, they can’t be very accurate,” said Jack, who was working the ropes and pulleys that unbarred the great door.

  Alix nodded. “That’s why I’m wearing my regular boots now - and I do have my flying feather - and my wishing ring too for good measure.”

  Jack inspected her critically. “If you’re meeting the iceworm, warm clothing would help.”

  “Good,” she nodded, and then muttered at her ring. Instantly, Alix was wearing a hat, a thick coat, and mittens. “That should do it,” she said.

  Lord Wilfred tried the great ring on the door. “I say, it’s still locked.” Nodding, Alix directed the ring to unlock the door. A rusty grinding noise ensued, and then finally a definite CLICK!

  Struggling together, Jack and Lord Wilfred twisted the ring and dragged the gigantic door open far enough to let Alix out. She strolled through the gap and then stopped in astonishment.

  In the level spot before the door, a giant contraption swayed and trembled dangerously. It was a 30-foot-high duck woven of wicker and perched, more or less, on wood wheels. Approaching it cautiously, Alix heard indistinct whispers from inside the primitive sculpture:

  Ow! I sat on a pitchfork. Watch it: your elbow’s in my eye. Stop poking that sword. I can’t see; can we light a torch? In this firetrap? etc.

  By now, Jack and Lord Wilfred had joined her. “Bless my soul!” said Lord Wilfred, “a Trojan duck!”

  Grinning, Princess Alix signaled for silence. She tiptoed around to the back of the wicker duck and pointed to the wheel chock holding the ramshackle structure in place. Catching on at once, Jack motioned to his father and the two of them placed themselves in front, clamping their lips to keep from laughing at the noises coming out of the interior.

  What do we do when we get inside? What if we don’t get inside? I’m baking to death in here. Did anyone think to knock?

  Alix recognized the voices of Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz.

  The princess called out, “At my signal, gentlemen!”

  Who was that? What’d she say? Will you shaddup?

  Alix kicked the chock from behind the wheel. “Duck clear for takeoff!” she called.

  “Roger!” Lord Wilfred called back, getting into the spirit of things.

  Father and son leaned against the front of the duck and pushed with all their might. Slowly, slowly, the structure trundled backward.

  Hey, we’re moving! Are we moving forward? Which way is forward?

  As the rear wheels passed the edge of the level spot, the duck started tilting downhill.

  I’m pretty sure that’s not forward!

  Lord Wilfred and Jack kept shoving the duck, faster now that gravity was starting to help. The front wheels joined the back ones on the steep grade and the whole enterprise took off like a rickety rocket. The babble of voices from inside the duck blurred into a single, continuous, Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! that grew fainter as the swaying contraption rumbled down the long hill, smashed to splinters on the fountain, smashed the fountain to pieces again, and ejected Gdinkers in all directions. Once again, the city square was a shambles and a dust cloud hung above it in the fierce morning heat.

  The princess shook her head and sighed. “Ring…” she broke off to pull the thick mitten off her ring hand and rub the blue stone, “ring clean up, please - same drill as before. Oh! But don’t stack the wicker behind the Inn.” Still shaking her head, she turned to the men. “Go inside and close up, will you? I should be back soon.”

  Owl, who had perched on her shoulder throughout, spoke up: “How do you plan to deal with the iceworm?”

  “Oh, I’ll play it by ear, as usual.”

  Owl sighed. “Now where have I heard that before?” When Alix just looked at it, Owl shrugged its wings and flew up to the parapet.

  Alix pulled on the seven league boots, took one step, and vanished. Looking down from a battlement, Owl said, “I suppose she will learn eventually - if she isn’t turned into an icicle first.” The bird flew off shaking its wooden head.

  * * * *

  After popping up two kingdoms away from Sulphronia, Alix learned to take one single step in her seven league boots and then get her bearings before taking the next one. Even with these pauses, and even at an honest measure of one league per step, her magic boots took her to the iceworm’s valley in seconds.

  Now she was staring around at a landscape of absolute death. No blade of grass grew, no bird crossed the sky, no insect droned, and the only two visible trees offered naked weary branches as if they were frozen in place. Though the sun above looked as bright as ever, the valley was far, far colder than ice - it was colder than cold itself.

  Shivering despite her thick coat, Alix stood on one foot to exchange a magic boot for a normal one. When she teetered slightly, she hopped on the other foot and, of course, disappeared, leaving a faint “Oh drat!” in the air behind her. A moment later she was back, with the plain boot on. Standing on this safe foot, she replaced the other seven league boot, then hooked the magic footwear on her belt for safekeeping.

  Most of the path was blocked by huge boulders, all bleak and bearded with frost. Climbing around them, Alix found herself in the iceworm’s home valley. The sight of it took her freezing breath away. Filling the valley before her were hundreds of dead warriors, all flash-frozen in place on their rigid horses or in frozen ranks of infantry.

  Approaching the cave mouth in the distance was like moving backward in time, past English archers with their longbows raised and pulled and fitted with icicled cloth-yard arrows; then medieval knights in steel armor on great chargers, with visors and long lances lowered; Vikings in horned helmets with round shields and big axes; Mongols in fur-ringed hats on tough ponies; Germanic tribal warriors, and near them, Roman legionnaires in leather armor.

  Approaching the front of the frozen horde, she passed Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian charioteers with their horses stopped in mid-gallop and their rigid whips locked in the air above them. There was even a crowd of Neanderthal cave men in mangy furs, hefting stone axes and clubs. Alix turned and looked at the frigid valley, stunned by this army of ghostly warriors.

  The voice behind her was ghostlier yet, a whistle of freezing mist that was still somehow female: “A ssizzable asssembly, yess?” The whisper rode an arctic wind that frosted the back of Alix’s head and clothing, half-freezing her in her tracks. She clutched desperately at her seven league boots, but her arm was already too stiff to work well. She could see a dark shadow on the ground as a huge something slid toward her. Her magic ring was trapped inside her glove but the flying feather was pinned to her coat. Slowly, in agony, she inched a hand toward it. Her coat frosted over, her arm grew too cold to move; and yet somehow, finally, the tip of one finger touched the feather.

  “Mntslfr!” Alix grated through cold-locked jaws, and without warning, she leaped into the air and soared out of the deadly valley.

  The princess drifted over Mount Sulfur’s great lava lake, basking, for a change, in the heat that rose from it. As soon as she was warm enough to move, she pulled off her glove, rubbed the blue ring, and said, “Heal me, ring; warm me up.”

  The firedrake chose this moment to erupt from the surface in a great fountain of fire. “You’ve come back, sir knight!” Griddle roared, “I call that sporting!”

  “Good day, Master Griddle. I stopped by to thaw out; got too close to the iceworm.”

  The firedrake nodded sympathetically. “A really weird one, she is: half a league long and a foot thick. What kind of a freak is that?” Griddle snorted and two 50-foot flame jets shot out of his nostrils.

  Alix smiled at the sight. “She’s unique, I’ll say that for her. Well, thanks for the quick defrost.�
�

  “What about a return match?”

  “I’ll have a fight for you, Griddle, take my pledge!”

  The firedrake watched Princess Alix fly off. Before submerging in lava again he said reflectively, “You know, I like that young man! He’s as bold as a lion.” A pause, then, “Though he does have a funny high voice.”

  The princess flew back to the iceworm’s valley and hovered above the cave’s strange slit of an opening. “Hi! Iceworm,” she called, “Are you in there?”

  Without warning, 100 feet of ribbon body shot out of the cave mouth. The iceworm stopped when she failed to spot her prey.

  Behind her, Alix shouted, “Good day to you, Slice!”

  The wide, flat head rose into the air as the horrible body flexed and bent back on itself until the iceworm was staring at Princess Alix. “That would be Misstress Sslicce,” the creature hissed in a nasty whisper. She stared at Alix disdainfully. “You grow tiressome.”

  Alix shrugged. “I have my own resssourccces.”

  “Wass that ssupossed to be sssmart? It wassn’t.”

  Unlike the firedrake, who was equally deadly but cheerful at least, this vast, flat creature radiated cold evil. She surveyed the mere human who had invaded her privacy. “You jussst dissturbed my ssolitude. No one who dissturbs me livess to sspeak of Misstress Sslicce.”

  Without warning, the iceworm blew a great puff of air at Alix. Automatically, she shielded her face with the mittened hand that held her magic flying feather. The feather turned at once to ice and Alix crashed to the ground ten feet below.

  Groaning, she rolled to one side, and then yelped: the fall had sprained her arm - the arm and hand that now lay locked by frost against her side. The mitten, which held the frozen, useless flying feather, also covered up the wishing ring. Only the magic boots were usable.

  She was protected by a boulder now, but the eerie scratching sounds beyond it warned her that the iceworm’s flat ribbon body was moving. Working desperately, Alix used her toes to push her low boots off, then flexed her one good arm enough to reach the seven league boots hooked on her belt. Getting them off was quick, but putting boots on one-handed took ages; and all the while, the scratching, grating sounds grew closer, like sled runners dragged over stone.

  With one boot mostly on, Alix struggled to her feet to step into the other. Suddenly, the terrifying head, a yard high and seven yards wide, with fangs the length of dueling swords, rose slowly, almost gently above the protecting boulder.

  “Ssssurprizze!” the iceworm hissed, and sucked a breath of air to blow at Alix. She instinctively hopped back on one foot. Of course, she disappeared, leaving the frigid snake to gape at the hole where the princess had stood.

  Chapter 11

  The Best Magic of All

  Safe at a distance of two hops (and two leagues) away from the iceworm, Alix was able to discard her hat, coat, and mittens and rub the blue ring. She wished her arm healed, her flying feather repaired, and her magic boots hung from her belt for safety. Not trusting the seven league boots anymore, she then flew home to the palace.

  Later, after a simple supper of deviled eggs and hot pear juice - which by now were Jack’s Sulphronian favorites - he and Lord Wilfred and Alix relaxed in the royal parlor. Despite the magic coolness, a cozy wood fire still burned in the grate, and the three friends glowed with contentment.

  “Good of you to have all this laid on,” said Lord Wilfred.

  “Though we really must get home,” Jack added dutifully.

  The ambassador sighed. “I suppose so; quite. Well then, wish us to the embassy, will you? There’s a dear girl.”

  “Father!”

  “Oh! Sorry, your royal High… um, Princess; it’s just that you seem like one of the family.”

  Alix smiled, but before she could answer Jack said, “Don’t get ahead of me, father; I was going to ask her myself.”

  His father’s face had a sly look on it. With exaggerated innocence he asked, “We can’t adopt a princess, can we?”

  “I can think of at least one other way.” Jack smiled at the princess.

  Alix looked puzzled, then stunned, as a bright flower of recognition bloomed within her. Her tingle had grown strong enough to put a name to.

  Princess Alix had never known anything remotely like love. First boys and then young men were withered by her unstoppable flood of well-meant knowledge and advice. Again and again, she’d watched in clueless disappointment has they had backed away and faded from her view. Her father had not pestered her with royal suitors, but even their purely dynastic attentions might have been good for her self-esteem.

  She thought about loving Jack Brambel. The king couldn’t really object because Jack would be Duke of Puddleby one day, and even the smallest British dukedom was bigger than all of Sulphronia. But what did she want to do about it? That would take serious thought.

  But she couldn’t help smiling and smiling.

  * * * *

  That afternoon, the town square at the bottom of the hill was again back to normal but the Gdinkers in it remained unrepaired: bruises, scratches, dirt, contusions - the wicker duck crew were a sorry lot of disabled Sulphronian veterans.

  Schnecken slumped despondently in his regular café chair. “Why a duck?” he asked no one in particular.

  Groaning with effort, Blintz pulled his wrinkled hose up and rubbed at the stains on his filthy doublet. His groans increased as he hobbled over to the fountain, climbed into the dry bowl, and grabbed the firedrake sculpture for support. “Masters,” he croaked, "achh-ahack-ahem, masters, are we giving up on those ten million marks?”

  Dame Strudel’s face showed that enough is enough look that mothers assume sometimes. “Blintz!” she barked, “down! Get down from there now!” She addressed her assembled neighbors, “It was a terrible idea to begin with, using our darling princess like that and we all ought to be ashamed. Now go home, all of you.”

  Sheepishly, they all went.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Alix dressed for the day in her usual shirt, tights, jerkin, and short boots, all laid out crisp and clean by magic. When she had put herself together, she wished for Jack and Lord Wilfred, and then treated them all to breakfast. The ring even had kippers laid on for Lord Wilfred.

  After they’d finished, she put all the scraps on a plate and set it down by the now-cold fireplace. “Want some breakfast, Max?” No answer. “Max?”

  Feeble as he was, the dog had still been able to raise his head a bit and tap his tail tip - his thumping days were long over - but not this morning. He lay there in a sunbeam, quiet, gone forever. The ancient dog had died in the night.

  “Oh, Max.” The princess remembered her dog from their babyhoods. Recalled his happy temper and funny antics, remembered most of all his uncanny ability to somehow know when she needed comforting. Who would comfort her now? Alix stroked his limp, silky ear and wept, while Jack and Wilfred traded those looks that people give each other when they don’t know what to say or do. “If only I could bring him back,” she whispered and fingered her blue wishing ring.

  In a more sympathetic tone than usual, Owl said, “Remember: that ring can neither take a life nor give it.”

  Then Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Alix,” he said thoughtfully, “you said there were other faerie gifts?”

  Alix shrugged without much interest. “Almost a hundred.”

  “Could you wish us to them?”

  She shrugged again and nodded “They’re in the next room; we can walk.”

  Lord Wilfred said, “I’ll just stand vigil over the, um, over Max, if that’s all right. The thing to do, what?”

  An hour later, Jack and Alix sat surrounded by faerie presents. Jack had systematically listed all of them in a pocket notebook, and was now reviewing his inventory. “Look at this,” he pointed to an entry in his notebook, “What’s Limpopo River water?”

  “Limpopo…? Hmm.” She rummaged in the pile until she found a fat leather water bag with a
label attached. It said, Limpopo River Water. Brings the dead to life.

  “Max!” she yelled suddenly, and ran with it back to the breakfast table.

  Alix bent over the still form of Max. “How does it work?” she asked anxiously, “what should we do with it?”

  “Steady on; that’s the ticket,” offered Lord Wilfred. “Just sort of christen the poor little chap.”

  Kneeling, Alix poured a few drops into her palm from the leather bag and then sprinkled them on the dead dog. Nothing happened at first, but then a sharp popping sound, a blinding flash….

  And a bark! The joyous bark of a rowdy young dog. Alix and her friends blinked their eyes, and when their vision cleared again there stood Max as he had been so long ago - a young adult dog, bright-eyed, glossy-coated, spring-muscled, set to play. With another joyous bark, he rushed at Princess Alix and knocked her flat on the floor. Laughing and crying at once, Alix hugged Max and tried to avoid his pink sloppy tongue.

  “Rather well done, that,” Lord Wilfred opined, turning to Jack.

  But his son was not paying attention. Jack said urgently “Alix! Your brothers: Prince Hubert, Prince Filbert!” When she turned wide eyes on him Jack pointed to the Limpopo water of life. “The magic water works; it brings the dead to life!”

  The moment she realized the power of the water, Alix reached a hand to rub her wishing ring, but Jack quickly covered the ring with his own palm. “I think we need some serious planning first,” he said.

  Alix was about to protest, but wooden feathers rattled as the owl flew down from a chandelier to perch on Jack’s shoulder. “At last! A sensible voice in this place,” he crowed (the words didn’t lend themselves to hooting). “You have 96 powerful faerie gifts, but you’ve never planned how to use them - or even remembered what half of them do.”

  The princess nodded thoughtfully. “Both of you are right, of course. What we need is a council of war.”

  Lord Wilfred beamed at them. “Council of war? That’s rather in my line, I think!”

  * * * *

  Within an hour the cozy parlor had been turned into a war room with parchment charts spread over the dining table and, on one wall, a huge map of Sulphronia with professional looking flag pins marking the iceworm’s valley and the firedrake’s volcano. On a shred of parchment pinned to the slope of Mount Sulfur, someone had printed, probable locations of Hubert and Filbert. A third flag, sticking up from the palace, was labeled You Are Here. Princess Alix had given the wishing ring quite a workout in conjuring all this up; and now she sat cuddling Max - when he wasn’t racing all over his beloved palace - and watching Lord Wilfred and Jack plan a campaign to save Sulphronia from baking to death. They were good at this planning business, and Alix pulled her own weight by answering endless questions and supplying technical input from her encyclopedic memory.