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  “Oh, now,” the dragon lamented, “you mustn’t be afraid of me. I’m quite tired of people being afraid of me. There aren’t that many of us left, and when we’re gone, you’ll be sorry. We’re all that’s holding the other world at bay.”

  “What do you mean?” Joe asked.

  “Your world.” The dragon dropped his head on a boulder as if he were too tired to hold it up any longer. “In your world there are no dragons and no magic, only science, right?”

  Joe nodded.

  “So you see how it works? Our magic can hold back science. You humans can’t build those awful weapons I see in your mind.”

  Joe was stunned. Could the presence of dragons be the reason the laws of physics held no sway in this world?

  “But you won’t die,” Phillip said. “Dragons live forever.”

  The dragon gave her a scornful look. “Nonsense! Nothing lives forever. I’m several hundred years old, but I shan’t last another century.”

  “You don’t look that old,” Joe said.

  “Thank you. But I am old.”

  “Can you still fly?” Phillip asked.

  “Of course.” The dragon’s dignity was plainly wounded by this aspersion. “I can even do this.”

  He turned his head and gave a sort of belch. A five-foot flame shot out of his mouth and nearly singed Phillip’s hair. She jumped backwards in alarm.

  The dragon seemed pleased with her reaction. “You see?”

  “We see,” Joe said. “How do you do that? Is it purely magic?”

  “Oh, no.” The dragon shook his head, and faint puffs of smoke came from his nostrils. “I must be very lonely to tell you my secrets. To breath fire, I have to eat fire stones.”

  He nodded at the pile of black rocks near his nest, and Joe saw that they were chunks of coal. “You eat coal?”

  “Is that your word for it?” the dragon asked. “Yes, I eat it. It’s tasty when you’re in the mood for something crunchy to round out a meal.”

  “I can see where it would be.” For a moment Joe wondered if he could be dreaming.

  “This is all very interesting,” Phillip said, “but it’s getting us nowhere.”

  “Very true,” the dragon agreed. “You must have come here for something. What was it?”

  “We’re on a quest,” Joe said. “The Great Mage wants some dragon scales.”

  “The Great Mage?” The dragon pondered the name. “Oh, yes, I remember. His real name is Tolliver. Lord Tolliver they called him when he first came into his powers. Not a nice young man, but then few dark lords are.”

  The aspersion shocked Joe. “The Great Mage isn’t a dark lord.”

  “Not now,” the dragon agreed. “But when he was young, he could be as nasty as the rest of them.”

  “Yes, well, he’s older now,” Joe said. “And he needs six scales from a dragon.”

  The dragon opened his eyes wide. “Six! That old dog! He could make anyone fall in love with him with that much love potion.”

  “Love potion?” Phillip asked.

  “Why, yes. That’s about all our scales are good for. While they’re on the dragon, they’re hard as armor, but once they fall off, they crumble to powder in a week or so.”

  “What the Great Mage intends doesn’t matter,” Phillip said. “I made an oath to bring him dragon scales, and I will do so.”

  The dragon blinked and drew his head back. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, my dear. The nest is full of scales, and you’re welcome to take them away.” He moved, rolling his coils one after another until his entire body lay on the floor of the cave.

  Phillip advanced and peered into the nest. She and Joe rooted through the leaves and found five intact scales.

  “Only got five?” The dragon sighed, the first real sound he had made in a while. “Well, that’s easily mended.” He lifted a six foot length of his body and rubbed it against the wall of the cave. Two scales clanged as they hit the stone floor. “There you go. One to spare.”

  “Thank you,” Joe said. “You’ve been very kind.”

  “You’re welcome. It was nice to have company. So long as people don’t expect me to exert myself, I can be as polite as the next dragon.”

  Joe wrapped the dragon scales carefully in parchment and put them in his pack.

  “Goodbye.” Phillip moved toward the mouth of the cave as if she were eager to be gone.

  “Are you saying goodbye already?” The dragon seemed reluctant to let her go. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay, my dear? Your friend could take the scales back to the mage while you, um, rest here with me?”

  “No, thank you.” Phillip flushed fiercely.

  “Come along, Phil,” Joe said, hefting his pack.

  “Do come to see me again!” the dragon called as he settled back into his nest. “Drop in any time.”

  Six: A Conundrum

  The day after the dragon gave them his scales, Joe and Phillip reached the foothills without incident. The next night they camped on farmlands at the boundary of the Great Mage’s ward.

  Joe’s mood was cheerful as he built their fire. They had accomplished the task the Great Mage had set and hadn’t had to kill the dragon.

  “The Great Mage will let you go free now,” he said to Phillip over dinner.

  “Yes.” She didn’t seem interested.

  “What will you do?” Joe asked.

  “What?”

  “Where will you go? Back to Lord Marcellin’s ward?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have a family?”

  A crease formed in her forehead, as if answering his question cost her mental effort. “I was an orphan. A farm family took me in when I was eight.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said. He might never see his parents and his siblings again, but at least he had lost them as an adult and not a child of eight. “It must have been rough to grow up without a family.”

  Phillip didn’t answer.

  “Is anything wrong?” Joe asked.

  Phillip tossed a twig into the fire. “I never said thank you.”

  “What?” Joe said.

  “You saved my life when those scum were going to rape me. I never said thank you.”

  Joe felt compelled to point out the obvious. “Mostly you saved yourself.”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t have done anything if you hadn’t come back. Thank you.”

  Joe stared at her for a moment, and then blurted out the question he had wanted to ask for days. “Why do you want to be a man so badly? I mean,” he went on in a rush, trying to explain before she exploded in anger, “I can see why you might pretend to be a man. If you wanted to be a soldier, you’d have to pretend to be a man. But you seem to really want to be a man.”

  When she didn’t say anything right away, he spoke hesitantly. “It’s not a matter of—of sexuality, is it?”

  She gave him a hard stare. “What do you mean?”

  He held up a hand. “Don’t get so hostile. In my world, there are plenty of people who feel attracted to their own gender. A few of them even feel they were born in the wrong body—the wrong sex.”

  Her eyes lit with eagerness. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Sure. There are men who want to be women and women who want to be men.” He waved a hand. “With the right surgery, they can get it straightened out. Sometimes they even fall in love, get married, and adopt some kids.”

  She blinked. “You mean that a woman could become a man and then marry another woman?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  She grimaced. “I have no interest in women.”

  The comment left Joe at a loss. “Well, if you don’t want to truly be a man, then why do insist on acting like one?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, despair in her voice.

  “Maybe the dragon is right, and it’s the necklace?” Joe said. “The Great Mage could help you take it off.”

  “No!” Despair had morphed into anger. “Don’t you dare suggest
that to him, or I’ll kill you!”

  Joe stared at her in surprise. “Sheesh! You’re really something.”

  Phillip looked abashed. “I’m sorry, okay?” she said, enunciating the word carefully.

  Joe was surprised into a laugh. “Hey, that was pretty good.”

  She smiled at him, and Joe thought she had never looked more appealing. After they had cleaned up from their meal he watched the way the flickering firelight made her face look almost delicate. After a while, he let his mind drift onto other thoughts as he stared into the fire.

  “What are you thinking?” Phillip said.

  “I don’t think I should say,” Joe said.

  “Why not?” she said, curious. “Is it something bad?”

  “I don’t think so. You might not agree.”

  “What is it? Tell me!”

  “Well,” Joe said, “I was remembering that blue gown the Great Mage had—the one he threatened to make you wear.”

  “Why would you think about that?” she asked, amusement in her voice.

  “I was wondering how you’d look in it. I had decided you’d look pretty damn spectacular.”

  She sat up. “I don’t wear dresses.”

  “I know.”

  “You think because you saved my life a couple of times you can make me do things I don’t want to do?”

  “No.”

  “Because I won’t! I won’t be a woman for you!”

  Joe sat up beside her. “I know that. Unfortunately, I can’t stop thinking of you as a woman. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”

  “So what do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Nothing. It’s not your problem. You don’t need to worry about it.”

  She turned her back to him. “I thought you were someone I could trust.”

  The pain in her voice alarmed him. “You can trust me.”

  “No, you’re like Lord Marcellin’s soldiers. All men are interested in is forcing women to rut with them.”

  Having his feelings lumped in with the impersonal lust of nameless mercenaries made Joe mad as hell. “Just because the men in Lord Marcellin’s guard have no respect for women doesn’t mean every man is that way. I never a touched a woman unless she wanted me to touch her. And people don’t rut, they make love—if they care about each other.”

  Phillip spoke with her back to him, her voice muffled. “So you’ve—you’ve made love to lots of women?”

  “I wouldn’t say lots.”

  “How many?” she asked, still with her back to him.

  “I don’t know,” he said, mystified. “Does it matter?”

  “I was just—just wondering if there’s been anyone since you came to the Great Mage’s palace.”

  Still confused, Joe hedged. “Three years is a long time.”

  “So there is someone?”

  “What’s going on here?” Joe knit his brows in a tight frown. “I told you I can’t stop thinking of you as a woman, and you jumped on me for that. Somehow we’re now tallying up my sex life. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous. Why are you acting this way?”

  Finally she turned around to face him. “I’m not acting any differently.”

  “Like crap.” Joe frowned. Her eyes had welled up, and her face looked red and splotchy. “You look as if you’re about to cry.”

  “I never cry.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re damn close to it now.”

  She turned her head away, and Joe put one hand gently on her shoulder. “What’s wrong, Phil?”

  As soon as he touched her, he felt her body stiffen. She gasped, and all at once she seemed to have difficulty in catching her breath.

  “Are you okay?” Joe asked in alarm.

  “Oh yes! It’s so different now!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t let go,” she said throwing her arms around him as she twisted to face him. “Whatever happens, don’t let go of me!”

  “I won’t.” Joe folded her into an embrace to offer comfort and was surprised when she lifted her face and kissed him. “Damn,” he said when the kiss ended. “I never saw that coming. What are you up to, Phil?”

  She pulled his shirt open and ran one hand over his torso. “Don’t let go of me, and everything will be fine.”

  Stunned, Joe grabbed her hand. “You want to make love? Right here?”

  “What’s wrong with right here?”

  “Nothing,” Joe said, throwing his scruples to the winds. “So long as you’re okay with this, right here is just fine.”

  “You talk too much,” she said, and she pulled his head down to kiss him again.

  Joe woke to find himself lying on his back with Phillip sleeping on her side, her head cradled on his chest. Joe looked down at her and wondered how he could ever have thought she was a man. Her slenderness gave her a kind of angular beauty that the dawn’s soft light made very feminine. Phillip stirred and opened her eyes.

  Joe smiled at her. “Good morning.”

  She seemed confused and pulled away from him as she sat up, naked except for her necklace.

  “Anything wrong?” Joe asked.

  Phillip jerked once, as if she had received an electric shock, then started to shake. She hunched over.

  Joe sat up next to her. “Are you okay, Phil?”

  “Get away from me!”

  It was said with her old fierceness. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  “Just get away!”

  Joe blinked, flabbergasted. The night before, Phil had been as tender a lover as he had ever had. “After last night you want to go back to ‘don’t come near me or I’ll kill you’?”

  She jumped up and stumbled away from him. “Last night—nothing happened last night.”

  “Nothing happened? That’s right up there with you’re not really a woman.”

  She sat down on a fallen log and began to rock back and forth. “I can’t be a woman! I just can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Joe gave up. He sat down on the blankets, picked up his trousers, and began to pull them on. “I’ve had it. We take the damn dragon scales to the Great Mage, and after that, it’s fine with me if I never see you again.”

  Phillip retrieved her clothes and dressed without saying a word.

  They walked in silence for most of the morning. Joe tried to talk, but Phillip wouldn’t respond.

  Finally, Joe decided it would be better to clear the air. “Look, Phil,” he said as they trudged along, “I know it was your first time, and I apologize if I said or did anything that made it difficult for you.”

  She didn’t answer. Joe had despaired of a response when she gave him a hard stare and asked a question.

  “Did you mean it?”

  “Did I mean what?” Joe said.

  “Did you mean it when you said it would be fine with you if you never saw me again?”

  Would he care if he never saw her again? She might be incredibly difficult to deal with, but she had somehow gotten under his skin—more under his skin than anyone ever had, here or in the real world. “No, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know why, but I’ll miss you when you go.”

  This seemed to be enough of an answer. Phillip began to comment on the sights they passed—a river that meandered southward, interesting rock formations in the now distant peaks, the decreasing frequency of trees in the landscape, and such concrete signs of civilization as cart tracks.

  She seemed so relaxed that Joe was taken aback when she stopped suddenly and uttered a curse word.

  “What’s wrong now?” he said.

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes scanned the countryside as if she were convinced there was something there she wasn’t seeing. “But something—something is watching us.”

  Joe didn’t discount her fears. The dragon had said she could work magic. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think it’s an it,” she said. “I think it’s a ‘them.’ ”

  “Then who are they?”r />
  She shook her head, then shivered. “I don’t know, but they’re not good.”

  Joe glanced around but saw nothing. “I’m perfectly willing to run like hell on your say so. But which way?”

  Phillip pointed. “To the river!”

  She started running, and he followed. The two of them ran flat out, leaping into the air like a pair of startled hares as they jumped a small creek.

  Just as Joe wondered if Phil could be wrong, he heard the thunder of many hooves pounding the ground. A quick glance over his shoulder made his heart freeze. The riders wore Lord Elsen’s livery.

  “Faster!” He let his pack fall from his shoulders.

  Phillip let her pack drop and the two of them ran full tilt toward the river.

  All at once something seemed to drag down Joe’s limbs. He could barely lift his feet. “Keep running!” he shouted as he fell to the ground. “Run, Phil, run!”

  She gave him a quick, anxious look, and then glanced back at their pursuers.

  “Run!” Joe managed to gasp, as even speaking became too difficult. He lay on the tall grass and watched her sprint madly away, heading south toward the river. He lay with his head on the ground, and the noise of horses’ hooves became a pounding roar.

  Just before the dust rose and obscured his view, he saw Phillip pause on the river bank. She drew her sword and held it up, then jumped feet first into the river.

  Suddenly milling horses surrounded Joe, their hooves so close he feared being trampled. The horses calmed as their riders dismounted. Booted feet approached.

  A familiar voice spoke over Joe’s head. “The other one may prove more interesting, but this one has value.”

  Joe still couldn’t move, not even when Lord Elsen leaned over him.

  “You remember me, eh? That’s good. You’ll know that I don’t make idle threats.”

  Joe didn’t even try to speak.

  Lord Elsen frowned. “Surely you have something to say for yourself? Or has the cat got your tongue?”

  A sudden pain stabbed Joe’s tongue. He screamed as blood ran from his mouth.

  “Ah!” Lord Elsen said. “You, at least, have no innate magic. This will be easy enough.”