Unidentified Funny Objects 2 (5 page)

It was just such wizards who had compelled Naphtheena and her peers to submit to the Basilisk Accords. She didn’t want to get into any needless confrontations with this chubby little itch, especially when the deck was not stacked in her favor. She hadn’t survived over three thousand years of stupid but tasty mortals by taking dumb chances.

“All right, Pumpkin-pants, I’m holding. But make it snappy. I have a date with the Grand Gateway and all of the legal documents covering my departure have been properly filed with 
your
imbecilic Council. That means if anyone detains me without just cause, I have the right to bring them before said Council and, unless he can provide hard evidence justifying his illicit actions, I get to eat him.” She cast a connoisseur’s eye over the wizard’s generous proportions and added, “On second thought, 
do
please make me miss my departure. You look delicious.”

The wizard lowered his arms slightly. “You can go as soon as you cough up M’sieu Bertrand,” he said.

“What for? He won’t be of any use to anyone in his present state.”

“Unholy lizard, know that my arcane studies included a full immersion course on the physiology of 
your
abominable race. And by ‘full immersion’ I mean that the first thing our professor did was have a dragon eat us, one by one. It was most illuminating. I mean that literally, for when it was my turn to be ingested, I saw a great light blazing before my eyes. It was the flare from the dragon’s fire pouch, and by its brilliance I saw that I was in a large, somewhat fusty sac, in damp but undigested condition. I had no sooner observed this than there came a rumbling, a great shifting, and a yo-heave-ho that propelled me out of my prison and back into the world.”

Naphtheena glowered at the wizard. “How dare you violate a dragon’s personal space in that obnoxious manner?”

“It was a required course.”

“I can 
not
believe that one of my kin consented to cooperate with larval wizardlings like that. How humiliating!” She lashed her tail so violently that the harpy on the tavern’s thatched roof took wing, settling in an oak tree across the road.

“Nonetheless, and by the grace of a somewhat illegal binding spell, he did. You will be pleased to hear that the professor in question was later dismissed and subsequently devoured for this breach of the Accords. In the meanwhile, he taught a surprising number of us that dragons, like cows, have more than one stomach 
and
give excellent milk, to the valiant and nimble-fingered. If you have a scheduled departure flight, that must mean you’ve still got M’sieu Bertrand in the vestibular paunch because dragons never eat within one hour of flying; it gives you cramps. Cough him up pronto. I know you can.”

Naphtheena sneered. “I
can
also share my treasure hoard with you. That doesn’t mean I will.”

The wizard sighed. “Do I
really
need to say ‘or else’? And for you to respond, ‘or else what’? And for me to remind you that, per the Accords, the rescue of unfairly endangered mortals supersedes all other considerations, including the enforced delay of a dragon from meeting any and all other commitments? Or, moreover, that such delay will result in your forfeiting the right to complete whatever hideous mission you have on your agenda, which in turn will put you into a snit, which will naturally raise your gorge pressure, which very well might cause you to—?” He stuck a forefinger into one cheek and flicked it out with a percussive 
pop
!

“Oh, shut 
up
, you worm-wick!” The azure dragon’s pique frightened the harpy, who dropped her equivalent of a pithy rebuke. The feathered monster was a garrulous sort, which in her case translated as letting loose much “commentary.” Even though her perch was well across the road from the tavern, the wizard’s robe was still splashed from waist to hem with her “remarks.”

This redolent spectacle restored Naphtheena’s good humor. She laughed so hard at the mucked-up mage that she hawked up the considerably rumpled and moist M’sieu Bertrand as a bonus.

“There!” she declared, wiping away tears of mirth. “You’ve got what you wanted, you miserable dab of magical mucus. The Accords are fulfilled on my side, so unless you’ve got another quibble up your knickers, I’ll be on my way. I’ve got an appointment with a doomed kingdom. Ta!” And she soared off without paying her bill or leaving a tip.

M’sieu Bertrand did not seem to be at all concerned by this, which was strange, for a waiter. Rather than pouring forth a stream of denunciation against his deadbeat customer, he instead turned to the harpy in the oak and said, “You might as well get down now, Ma’m’selle Trissa; it didn’t work.” The harpy spread her wings and floated to the ground so gently that one might almost suspect the wings were just for show. With an artless shrug, she proved this to be true, for the gesture caused those drab pinions to drop to the ground and vanish, along with the rest of her disguise. A tall, freckle-faced blonde in a gown of midnight blue now stood in the harpy’s place. She looked disgruntled.

“I suppose
I’m
going to be blamed for the mission failure,” she said petulantly, giving both M’sieu Bertrand and the wizard some very hard looks indeed.

“Well, you were a bit… 
emphatic
in your use of props,” said the wizard, indicating the stains on his robes. “You and Bertrand were supposed to do aggravation groundwork on the beast, besetting her with a thousand tiny provocations so that when I finally made my grand entrance as the snotty wizard, it wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge of mindless, heedless fury and then—” He made that 
pop!
sound with his cheek again.

“I was 
setting the mood
by 
acting in character
,” Trissa shot back. “It’s not enough merely to put on the semblance of a harpy; you must 
be
the harpy,
live
the harpy,
embrace
the—”

“Pooh,” said M’sieu Bertrand, which garnered him a glower from the lady until he specified: “Pooh-pooh, you cavil, Ma’m’selle. We were hired to satisfy our patron, not the critics. I am certain that Prince Gomitino agrees.” He nodded to the plump young man in the spattered robe.

“At this point I’m willing to agree to anything that gets me out of these smelly clothes,” he said.

Trissa rolled her eyes and with one flip of her right hand transformed the dropping-afflicted garments into a tasteful silk ensemble in shades of green and gold. “Happy now, Your Highness?” she asked in a tone that conveyed the sentiment:
if you’re not, tough
.

“I’d be happier if our plan had succeeded,” the erstwhile ersatz wizard replied. “And so would both of you. I won’t pay for failure.”

This declaration did not sit well with the enchantress. “My spells made you look like a wizard, complete with a zappy wand that convinced a dragon that you were too dangerous to attack, even if it didn’t have the 
real
power to neuter a firefly. I also gave you the temporary brain-boost that let you talk the thaumaturgical talk just as if you were one of my esteemed and arcane order. Such spells don’t come cheap, and yet you would dare to shortchange 
me
?” She conjured up a lovely backdrop of tame lightning to make herself look more menacing.

“It’s no threat but a fact. As we speak, that blasted dragon is en route to the Grand Gateway, the clearinghouse for all winged creatures governed by the Basilisk Accords. Once she passes through, her destination is Yvitelli,
my
kingdom, and once she reaches it, she’ll burn it to the ground, slaughter thousands, and take over the royal treasury. You know, treasury? As in: the place where I keep my gold? As in: the gold I was going to pay you if you’d succeeded in annoying the beast to the point of
ka-PLOWIE
?”

“You mean—?” Trissa began.

“No 
ka-PLOWIE
, no gold, Ma’m’selle,” M’sieu Bertrand provided with equanimity.

“Well, 
you’re
taking this well, I must say,” Prince Gomitino remarked, pettishly.

“Ah, what would you?” the cavalier Sesinaypazoonpeepian replied, spreading his hands. “My part in this little play was minor, to be rewarded with a comparable pittance when placed beside the enchantress’ fee. I have not lost much by the plot’s failure, and the one moment of malaise I suffered was undone promptly—which is to say, I was 
in
gested but not 
di
gested. I have had worse Mondays. Now if Your Highness will but provide reimbursement for the damage done to this table, as well as covering the cost of one spider blood tisane and two orders of biscotti, plus a suitable token of appreciation for the person who conveyed said items to said table, we can call it a—”

“No 
ka-PLOWIE
, no gold,” said Prince Gomitino. “No gold, no tip.”

M’sieu Bertrand pursed his lips. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure this will work?” Trissa whispered, as she peered around the corner of the barracks. Within those daub and wattle walls slumbered the off-shift of the Wand Patrol, wizards whose job it was to enforce the Basilisk Accords at this, the key nexus governing the inter-kingdom flight of dragons, the Grand Gateway.

“We shall see soon enough, Ma’m’selle,” the waiter replied through clenched teeth. “You have followed my instructions to the letter?”

“Yes, such as they were. You didn’t exactly give me a
specific
item to conjure.”

“Specificity is not our friend, in this case. You are certain you have the magical power to turn my instructions into reality?”

“Your ridiculously
vague
instructions, yes.” It was the enchantress’ turn to grind her molars. “And the power to turn you into a toad if this doesn’t work.”

“Oho, but I assure you, it will, for it follows the same inexorable logic that Prince Gomitino himself posited in his simple but elegant
ka-PLOWIE
chain of reasoning.”

At the mention of his name, Prince Gomitino pushed his way around the waiter to stare at the Grand Gateway. As usual, the space before that carved obsidian archway was thronged with all manner of wyverns, fire-drakes, and good old down-home dragons, each one patiently waiting its turn to be allowed access. As part of the Accords, the wyrms vowed never to shift their spheres of devastation without obtaining the correct permits, which had to be vetted at the Grand Gateway. In exchange, all wizardkind swore never to provide any heroes, knights, barbarian freebooters, or freelance third-sons-of-poor-but-honest peasant families with enchanted weapons that might give them an unfair whoops-there-goes-your-severed-head advantage over the dragons.

The prince was not pleased by the view.

“
What’s
going to work?” he demanded. “All I see is the Gateway. Where’s this foolproof solution you promised me to stop that blue dragon from destroying Yvitelli? Look, there she is, just one away from her turn through that abominable arch!”

“Ah, then it is time.” The waiter closed his eyes in contemplation and steepled his fingers.

Some distance away, Naphtheena watched the drake ahead of her give his name and destination. The wizard on duty behind the Grand Gateway podium checked a scroll, nodded, and waved him through. Then it was her turn.

“I am Naphtheena the Maleficent,” she said calmly, for it was true matter of life and death for dragons to remain as calm as possible at all times, since the Accords. “I am also called Mother of the Thousand Sorrows, Wreaker of Havoc, Devourer of Nations, Despoiler of—”

Somewhere—and yet from no discernable direction—a trumpet blast sounded.

“Lunch!” cried the wizard on Gateway duty, leaving Naphtheena to draw a number of those centering breaths while he skedaddled and his replacement arrived.

The replacement did not arrive alone. He came attended by a squad of identically clad wizards, all heavily laden with some of the strangest items the blue dragon had ever seen. While he spread out a fresh pile of scrolls on the podium, his colleagues arranged weirdly humming wands, piles of shallow bowls, and a smaller archway made of metal which they erected between Naphtheena and the Grand Gateway.

“And you are?” said the wizard.

“I am Naphtheena the—”

“I’m going to need to see some identification.”

“I told you, I am Naphtheena the Maleficent, also called Mother of the Thousand—”

“Sorry, but you have to show me some proof that you are who you say you are. Would you have a picture of yourself with your name on—?”

A few wisps of steam began to rise from Naphtheena’s snout. “Cast a spell to fetch an image of Moorbeevil’s 
The Accords Are Ratified
. I’m the blue dragon on the skulls, all right?”

“Well, that’s highly irregular, but it is our first day. While I’m summoning that image, please get ready for your screening.”

“My what?”

“Oh, it’s very simple, really. First you’re going to have to nip the points off your hind claws—”

“Off my
what
?” The white wisps became gray puffs shot through with glittering sparks.

“It’s for your own safety. No more sharp objects allowed on interkingdom flights. If you’ve got a permit to devastate Kingdom A and you accidentally land in Kingdom B and scratch someone, you’ve violated the Accords and we’d have to kill you, so you see, it’s all for the best.”