The Redundant Dragons Read online

  He inserted the shell into his left ear and heard Ephemera’s response, “I’ll send messages to my sisters, your other aunts on your father’s side. There’s Epiphany in the west on the border with Ablemarle and Eulalia in the east, at the Mermaid’s Atoll.”

  “Not very specific,” the captain said, trying to hand back the shell, “and I can’t really help you with the one on the border.”

  “Fine. Keep listening.”

  Captain Lewis put the shell back in his ear and Ephemera’s voice continued, “Neither one is much for drop-in visitors, but they might make an exception in your case. And I suppose you also should visit Erotica, further down on the southern coast. She’s the closest and the least reclusive, but your dad didn’t think she was a suitable influence for an impressionable girl. And it’s a bit tricky getting there.”

  Captain Lewis did a double-take. “She’s your auntie? Erotica Amora of the Sailor’s Spa and Bawdy House?” The captain sounded impressed.

  “You know her, then?”

  “Everyone knows her, even though her—establishment—is rather isolated,” Captain Lewis said. “Which is strange considering she’s known to be a very—gregarious—lady.”

  “Very well, then. I’ll start with her. Can you take me? I thought she might know some wizards or at least their families.”

  “I’m sure she will. She knows everybody—many of them quite well. The Belle’s Shell, the crew and I are at your service. For a price, of course, and with one or two detours to deliver and take on cargo. Plus the passenger fare. That’ll be two hundred twenty pounds.”

  “Are you giving me a discount because I swam part of the way?” Verity asked, patting her pockets again. “I think the men who got me the job on that other ship relieved me of my coin.”

  “You could work your passage. A strapping lass like yourself could have the sails aloft, furled and unfurled and all that sort of thing, with less bother than many a seaman, and I confess, we’re short handed at the moment. A steamship doesn’t require as large a crew as a sailing vessel, but now, what with the dragon quitting—not because we treated her badly, mind you, but in solidarity with the other dragons—it’s back to sails for us. What say you?”

  “I say just tell me what to do!”

  “We must brave the trip round the Horn first of all. Are you ready for that?”

  “It can’t possibly be worse than queening.”

  Chapter 4: Meanwhile Back at the Castle

  Dear Uncle Marq,

  We have a big dragon problem here. The silly twit who has been put in charge of the whole country created the problem. Turns out she has some royal ancestors or something that supposedly qualify her, even though she has no interest in running things properly. She seems to have disappeared, no doubt with her tail between her legs, and left the country to me to mind. If she stays away any longer, I am a shoo-in for queen in her place.

  Everything is in a dreadful uproar. As you may have heard, the lazy reptiles have stopped working and half the businesses are trying to persuade them to come back while the other half are looking for work-arounds using methods like the sensible ones you use in Frostingdung. The wretched beasts have destroyed the perfectly good food we used to feed them even though most of them have never had anything else until apparently some bright soul told them dragons only eat meat so—really, it’s all too-too complicated. Now they are insisting on fresh meat and are eating up all of the other animals. They are pooing all over Queenston and turning it into a dragon privy.

  Truly, Uncle Marq, it’s all very irritating. This dragon business is seriously interfering with my social life. One of the beasts has even wrapped itself around the tower and peeks into my bedchamber. I haven’t slept a wink in weeks!

  As if that wasn’t a big enough mess, it seems the treasury has gone missing, a little fact nobody mentioned before now, and I need to buy at least one new ballgown and some jewels suitable to my elevation in rank. I also need some ladies in waiting. All the best queens have them and even though it’s not official yet, if I look the part and am well prepared ahead of time, perhaps nobody will even notice Verity’s absence.

  Your loving niece,

  Mali

  Dearest Mali,

  While I am so sorry to learn of your predicament, I am overjoyed to learn of the opportunities offered by your current position.

  How inconsiderate of the dragons to stage their rebellion just as you try to gather together the reins of your potential reign. But this too is an opportunity to modernize the city’s industrial technology, so you need not rely on dangerous beasts. Several industries here in Frostingdung have installed clockwork devices in order to save on labor costs. That would put the dragons in their place, or rather, remove them from the places that have heretofore provided their livelihoods.

  Had you written to me earlier regarding the upcoming ball, I would have been happy to provide you with a suitable wardrobe and a few baubles from the family jewels. As it is, I cannot possibly find a suitable courier in time to meet your needs.

  Your affectionate Uncle Marq

  Dear Uncle Marq,

  Couldn’t you just bring my things yourself? It would be so wonderful if you could come to attend the ball that will be given in my honor—or else. I know you are a very busy man, but you are my very favorite uncle and wisest advisor—the relatives on the council are useless.

  If you could find a few more gowns, not quite as lovely as the one you bring for me, of course (cloth of gold looks fabulous with my golden curls), but pretty, bring them, too. I have several well-born former classmates who are princesses in their own insignificant lands and have asked them to attend me as my ladies in waiting. Verity was far too selfish to consider attendants. I know you understand how important appearances are and I would so love to see you. So do come. Please?

  Your favorite niece, Mali

  Devent the Dragon Bard

  The young dragon known as 3336 spent the first day of the dragon liberation deepening the mineshaft where he had spent his entire life. When still a hatchling, his job had been to push ore cars from the depths of the mine to the open place above, where the ore was processed. The open place was brighter and had no walls. It was cooler and often the air moved, tickling the undersides of his scales. Still it was murky with dust and always looked blurred to the shaft worm, as 3336 was sometimes called. His eyes were weak from spending most of his life in darkness lit only by his own fire, the headlamps of miners, and smoky lanterns. But if his eyes were weak, his back, his neck and legs were strong and his flame steady and bright.

  During recent years, his work consisted of loading ore into the cars, widening and deepening mineshafts, and sometimes opening a new vein, which he could do with less danger than explosives. The miners respected him, he was sure. If he had not felt loved in the time since his mother returned to the earth, he felt valued.

  They’d like me if they knew me, he told himself. But they have to pay attention to work and they’re shy.

  Usually, he didn’t surface until he emerged to feed at the trough of dragon kibble the miners filled every evening, when they took their own evening meal.

  The other dragons, who seemed to know each other, tried to crowd him out of the trough as they’d done to that feeble little female dragon who came looking for work. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of Auld Smelt, who pushed in between him and the others, he’d have gone hungry.

  But now! To be free! He’d worked from the time he cracked the egg. His nursery rhymes were the dust-choked work songs of the miners set to the rhythms of pick and shovel, the clunk of the ore, the patter of gravel as it hit the ground.

  He had never seen the sun or felt its warmth, because for most of the year it had gone to bed before he trudged aboveground behind the miners, pushing the day’s last ore car with his head. He’d eat, then return to the shaft to sleep and await the arrival of the miners as they returned to work in the morning, which he recognized only because morning was when t
hey came.

  The routine never changed and from what most of the other mine dragons said, it never had changed for them in their long lives. Auld Smelt, who was born free and had been unemployed during his youth, said that his life fueling the steel furnace was easy compared to the Great War.

  All the dragons looked up to Smelt. Even the humans respected his intense and steady flame, its necessity to their work and its carefully controlled application. They allowed as how Auld Smelt was something of an artist among dragons.

  When 3336’s mother died, Smelt had sent him stories to comfort him, for his mother had always told him stories too about the life she had known before the mines, and the lives of her grandparents and great grandparents. Dragons had very long memories, even though it took a lot of effort for her to recall what she’d heard. She wasn’t sure she got the details right, the names of places or dragons or people, but the indistinct images she sent him told of a time before the darkness and the ore, a time when dragons flew.

  That morning, he awoke as usual, and waited and waited, but the miners did not arrive. He worried, lonely and trying to imagine why they didn’t come, and then he grew afraid. Bad things happened in the mines sometimes. As he climbed out of the shaft, he saw a brilliant light at the opening. The air was somewhat clearer than usual, and warmth wrapped his nose as he poked it out of the shaft. Through the haze, he spotted a yellow-orange ball in the sky. The camp was quiet. He heard a strange noise—a melodious trill—and realized with wonder that this must be the birdsong he’d heard the men speak of. He tried to answer it with a call of his own, and it stopped abruptly.

  The men were gone now, and the other dragons were nowhere to be seen, all except Smelt, who lay on his belly beside the smelter he had fired for so many years. The young dragon stopped beside his friend, and Smelt opened one eye.

  “Go. Go now before the men get over their fear and come back to kill the fearsome beasts.”

  “What fearsome beasts? What happened? Where is everyone?”

  “They’ve all gone. That young female dragon that came here before, Taz, the one with the boy? She returned and burned up the kibble. The boy told the bosses it was making us sick and keeping us slaves. He said he and Taz were freeing all dragons by order of the new queen.”

  “So where did they go?”

  “Wherever they wanted, I suppose.” Smelt huffed an ashy sigh. “The men were scared though. They talked about what we would do to them once we knew we didn’t have to do what they said anymore. They said we’d smoke them. So they left us.”

  “We should leave then?”

  “I can’t make it. Too old to walk, too earthbound to fly.” He slowly turned his head and raised his back foot, the one chained to a thick iron stake.

  “I’ll free you! We’ll see the world together. Go to those places in the stories you told me.”

  “It’s not that easy, laddie. Leave me.”

  But 3336 was already busy trying to free his old friend. How could they have just left him? Wouldn’t they miss him? He was the only one in the mine who remembered a life outside of it.

  Smelt’s stories and dreams told even more vivid tales to his friend down in the darkness of the mine, and surrounded him with a world of drama, death and fire, but also courage and camaraderie and something Smelt thought of as “honor.” Those qualities were seen in men only when tunnels caved in and they had to free each other. Even then, it was inevitably the flame and tail of a dragon that cleared the way for the rescue of the trapped miners.

  Smelt’s knowledge was deeper than the mineshaft, deep as the core of the earth, and he still had much to teach. The dragon formerly known as 3336 wanted to know what it was, as if Smelt’s previous life were one of his stories that needed an end. But now was not the time for the end. Now they would both leave the mine and see what lay beyond.

  3336 reached down with his talons and easily broke the chain that confined his friend. Smelt’s strength was all in his fire. The chains had chafed the scales off where they bound Smelt’s leg. Very carefully, 3336 licked the wound, as he seemed to remember his mother doing with his injuries.

  “Get up now, old friend. I want you to show me that battlefield you dream of, and where the ancient caverns were where your family once slept on treasure. Do you suppose we’ll find treasure for hoards of our own?”

  “Your belly just grumbled. Food first, treasure later,” Smelt said. Slowly, creaking like a rusty gear, he hauled himself to his feet. A long stretch sent a ripple down his spinal ridges.

  “How will we find food if it’s all burned up?”

  “We’ll hunt.”

  3336 knew what hunting was—he’d seen it in Smelt’s dreams, but he didn’t know how to do it. The dragons in the dreams had wings and swooped down on their prey. 3336’s wings were stumpy and most of the time hung at his sides since they were useless in the close confines of a mineshaft.

  “Let’s go!”

  “I can’t,” the old dragon said, limping along beside his young friend. “They clipped my wings when I took this job.”

  “My wings don’t work, either. So, what, we starve?”

  “You have other things going for you—you’re young and strong and fast, at least compared to me. I told you, leave me.”

  “I will not,” 3336 said.

  The older dragon grunted and limped forward with 3336 gently but sturdily supporting him. Step by cautious step, the two walked down the feeder track, toward the main railway and the outside world.

  Beyond the mining compound, the air was clearer and brighter. Hills with sparse patches of grass surrounded the track. The further they walked, the thicker and greener the grass became. 3336 felt an exaltation surpassed only by the rumbling in his belly.

  He gazed up the hillsides. He could see where wings would come in handy trying to find food.

  Maybe if he took a flying leap? He released his hold on Auld Smelt, carefully gathered himself and sprang.

  To his astonishment, the leap almost was a flying one. He had never had room to jump before, but his leg muscles were far more powerful than he realized from loading ore and pushing mining cars up the track. He sprang high into the air and landed atop the hill. The slopes beyond the track were stubbled with stumps that had once been a forest. Mining used up a lot of trees, apparently. That was too bad. He’d only seen trees in Smelt’s dreams. He wanted to see them in real life. Snow sprinkled the ground and crowned the stumps. New growth burgeoned among them.

  With each step further from the tracks, he could see more clearly. Standing atop a stump, he could see for a great distance. Here and there were small ponds of pooled water. Standing in the water in the farthest pond, facing away from him, was a large antlered animal that looked delicious. 3336 bounded over the stumps in five long jumps and with the last one, took down his prey as if he’d been doing it his entire life.

  The return trip was a bit more problematic. The prey was larger than it looked from a distance and with it in his mouth, his most powerful leap only brought him and it out of the pool. That would never do. With a little cough, he produced a flame that somewhat over-cooked the beast, leaving the antlers. He ate half of it and carried the rest easily back to where Old Smelt lay dozing on the track.

  Smelt awoke, accepting his share with a pleased hum. “I knew you had it in you, young’un,” he said, expressing gas at both ends as he chomped and chewed. He had a funny way of eating, twisting his head to the side to finish his bite. Catching 3336’s questioning look, he said. “Teeth. In the old days, we never thought much about teeth, but in the old days, you only fired up when hunting, cooking, maybe for warmth—for some purpose. I’ve been firing hour after hour, day after day, year after year. The sulfur in the fumes takes a toll on the old dental stalactites and stalagmites, if you know what I mean.”

  3336 said nothing because he did not exactly understand, but that was all right. Everything felt better now that they had eaten.

  They reached the flat plains between t
he hills and the distant mountains. The shining tracks stretched into the distance in both directions. “They put people in the big ore cars like the ones that come into the yard on the mine’s rail,” Auld Smelt told him. “Except the cars carrying the people have tops on them.”

  “Why?” 3336 asked. “It is not uphill all the way.” The only time the miners rode in the cars was when they were weary at the end of a long shift.

  “Yes, but your average human tires quickly, and on the train they can go places, see more of the country—they don’t have wings and they’re not very fast movers, humans, as you may have noticed with the miners. They need something to move them around or there’d be too many all in one place, and that would make them fight over whose hoard was whose. You can see where that would be a problem.”

  “Was that why there was a Great War?”

  “Partly, and partly I think it was just for fun because they hadn’t killed each other off in awhile. Humans like to do that to thin the herds. Also, they make these tools to kill with. See, without fire of their own, or serious teeth and claws or tails to knock prey dead, they needed something to help them hunt better and then, just so they didn’t get out of practice, they started hunting each other and using the tools to kill. Poor things got frustrated because they had tools and their prey had tools, so it was like dragons hunting dragons, if you take my meaning? So they had to build better tools that would let them totally destroy the prey, but then the prey got even better tools, and on and on. They could all have used a good hibernation to sleep things off but that is not the way of their kind.”

  “The miners slept sometimes.”

  “Not long enough, laddie. Not long enough.”

  Beyond the plain, white mountain tops blushed pink briefly before the sky faded and darkened. “Ah, speaking of hibernation, the Sky Dragon is firing one last flame before she takes her rest. It’s she the men follow when they rest. They don’t seem to realize that as a celestial being, she doesn’t need as much sleep as mere mortals. They’re very fidgety, men.”