Dragon Business, The (18 page)

A
FTER THE DISAPPOINTING
dragon quest, Cullin was tired but awash with dreams of possibilities. He was entitled to his small share of the reward honorarium, although he knew it wouldn’t last long.

After seeing Princess Affonyl, he thought more about finding a wife who was loving, beautiful, and interesting. He would even settle for two out of three. He had also heard stories, seen sketches, and imagined the wonders of the New Lands across the ocean. He wanted to go there, set up a homestead, make a new life.

But in order to do that, Cullin would have to give up everything and sail away, leave his friends behind, and never return. Or maybe Reeger and Dalbry would be willing to go with him. There must be opportunities for three resourceful, imaginative men on an entirely new, open continent.

Someday . . .

Cullin saw a vendor selling delicious-smelling, fresh-baked buns, accompanied by chunks of honeycomb from the famed town of Folly. Torn, he held the coins in his hand. He wanted to save his money, gather enough of a stake to buy a better life. If he squandered his coins on something that tasted sweet on his tongue and filled his belly, then he would never save enough.

But the smell of the hot buns was maddening, and the thought of real honey from Folly brought nostalgic drool to his mouth.

In the end, he spent his money on what he wanted most right at that moment, rather than what he wanted in the long run. The long run would always be there, and sooner or later he, Reeger, and Dalbry were bound to make a big score. Sooner or later . . .

He sat alone at the end of a vacant pier, watching the river empty into the sea. He also saw brown sludge come down from the gutters and canals in Sewermouth and dribble into the estuary. Nearby, a boy with a fishing pole caught fish after fish in the rich slurry of effluent, though Cullin doubted that any fish taken from such a location would taste good. Maybe that was where the lye-preserved fish came from.

Riverboats came down from the uplands of Norrimun’s kingdom, trading their cargo with larger oceangoing vessels. With a pang in his heart, Cullin watched a three-masted carrack raise its sails and head out of the harbor, striking out to the open water where the horizon beckoned and the sunset called. That ship would be loaded with pilgrims, colonists, and supplies for the New Lands. He sighed.

How he longed to be among those people following their dreams and hopes, voyaging to an untamed continent where there were abandoned cities of gold, strange animals, and exotic plants that one could smoke (though it was not clear why anyone would want to do so). He watched the ship dwindle in the distance until it was gone over the horizon. He could have been aboard it. . .  .

Cullin had also heard stories about a sheer precipice that awaited at the edge of the world, where the ocean drained like a waterfall into the universe. An unwary vessel could sail over the brink and plunge downward forever. But those were just stories. Cullin knew which ones to listen to, and which ones to ignore.

He left the dock, putting his dreams in his pocket for now. There would always be some other ship sailing for the New Lands, and the opportunity was always there if Cullin ever saved enough money. . .  .

Still daydreaming as he wandered through the port market, he collided with a young woman in drab-looking clothes, a peasant’s jerkin, breeches, and rough-cut blond hair. Since Dalbry had taught Cullin to be polite, regardless of whom he met (a lesson that was lost on Reeger), he bowed, excused himself, and looked up at the girl’s face.

“I’d recognize you anywhere!” he blurted out. “You’re Princess Affonyl.”

During the feast of Saint Bartimund, Cullin had devoted much attention to staring at her beautiful features. Since she so studiously ignored him, he’d been able to keep gawking at her without feeling self-conscious.

She extricated herself from him and lifted her chin. “It’s just Affonyl now. And you—oh, Sir Dalbry’s squire! I remember your features.”

“I thought you were ignoring me.”

“A girl can look out of the corner of her eye.”

He brightened. “Good news, I’m here to rescue you.”

She raised her eyebrows and answered with a sarcastic tone. “Rescue me? I’m dead—devoured by a dragon, remember? Haven’t you heard the stories?”

“I’m glad you recovered. That was a fine scheme, but Sir Dalbry and I figured it out right away.”

Affonyl frowned. “What gave me away?”

Cullin was not about to explain all the clues she had left. “A dragon slayer knows what evidence to look for. We have specialized skills.”

She turned to go, anxious to be away from a reminder of her past life. “Well, I’m doing just fine now, and I don’t want to go back home. I was relieved to hear that the real dragon ate Duke Kerrl, though. Miracles do happen.”

“So, you have nothing to worry about.” Cullin was sure King Norrimun would give a more sizeable honorarium if they brought his daughter back safe and sound. “We could come up with a good story, say that you struck your head when the dragon stole you away. Ah, and then you managed to escape from the monster’s foul, steaming lair and wandered through the forest for days, dazed. You lost your memory.” He snapped his fingers. “But I found you here in Rivermouth. I’ll bring you to your loving father, you’ll have your inheritance back, we’ll get a reward and . . .”

He stopped himself as an even better idea occurred to him. After performing such a worthy deed, maybe he could once again request the princess’s hand in marriage, especially now that Duke Kerrl was no longer around. If only he had the nerve . . .

Affonyl looked as if she had just taken a gulp of sea-serpent venom. “Why would I want to go back there? A princess is a princess, but I’m a
person
now, an independent woman. I like being away from court intrigues. It’s refreshing, and I’ve made a good living in the past few days.”

Cullin was surprised. “At what?”

“I sell seashells by the seashore. It’s one of the oldest professions.”

Reeger came up to them with his cockeyed gait and his cockeyed gaze. “There you are, lad! There’s work to do—I found a stable that offers a special Tuesday discount for boarding our animals, provided one of us sleeps there with them and mucks out the stable afterward. Dalbry and I chose you for the honor.”

“Fine, I’ll do it for the team.” More concerned with his unexpected encounter, he turned to his friend with a gallant flourish. “Reeger, allow me to introduce Princess Affonyl.”

“Just Affonyl,” she repeated. “And I have to be on my way. It’ll be low tide soon, and I need to collect seashells. A girl has to earn a living.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Cullin’s eyes glinted as the idea sprang into his mind. “We’re leaving your father’s kingdom, off to find adventures and great riches. You’ll see the world, have excitement every day.”

Reeger scowled and spat. “Crotchrust, lad! Why would we want to take a girl with us—and a princess, no less?”

In the same breath, Affonyl said, “Why would I want to wander from land to land with a group of unwashed lowborn men?”

Cullin answered both questions at the same time. “Because we’ve got a lot in common . . . and it’ll be fun.”

Reeger remained unconvinced, and Affonyl appeared uninterested. Then, however, she reconsidered. “I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go far from here, just in case somebody recognizes me. If I got dragged back to the castle, my father would start to make arrangements again ten minutes after he told me how happy he was to see me. I’m sure he could find somebody worse than Duke Kerrl if he looked hard enough.” She nodded again, as if to convince herself. “I’ve always wanted to explore, see different landscapes.”

Cullin turned to his skeptical friend. “She’s a natural at it. You should’ve seen how she faked the dragon attack in her chambers. It was imaginative and masterful.”

“Don’t forget the explosion,” Affonyl said. “That was the most impressive part of all.” The former princess made up her mind that the option of adventuring was better than the option of remaining in Rivermouth, where the bottom was sure to fall out of the seashell market, sooner or later.

They hadn’t expanded their small group since Cullin joined them years earlier. Reeger and Dalbry had worked well together, just the two of them wandering the countryside, but adding Cullin had broadened their horizons. Now he was certain Affonyl would do the same.

He continued to press. “We can increase our repertoire if we have a pretty girl on the team. Think of the opportunities.”

Reeger chewed on the words. “She’s pretty enough, I suppose.”

“I’m not just pretty—I have a background in alchemy and the natural sciences. I’ve studied hard to get where I am now.”

“Selling rustin’ seashells? All right, maybe we could use a pretty girl at that—and explosions.” Maintaining his surly tone, he held up one grimy finger. “But, even though we’ve been raised in a backward medieval feudal society, our group is still a democracy. Dalbry has to agree.”

O
N HIS HONOR,
Sir Dalbry was required to save any princess in distress—no matter what that distress might be—and the exact details of the “saving” were not well defined in the Knight’s Manual. Without too much difficulty, Cullin convinced the old knight that having Affonyl run off with them was an unorthodox way of rescuing her.

She gathered her sack of necessary items and met them at the stables, where Reeger haggled to get their money back since they would be moving on after all. With the mule, Drizzle, and Pony, they made their way out of Rivermouth and headed toward the next kingdom.

Their time in King Norrimun’s land had been sunny and warm, with soft salty breezes blowing in from the sea, but as soon as the group headed out of town and away from convenient shelter, gray clouds closed in like a strangler’s grip, wringing moisture out of the sky in a constant cold rain.

Sir Dalbry pulled his dragonskin cape over his shoulders and a hood over his head, and simply endured the meteorological misery, since he was a true knight. Cullin tried to keep himself warm with a woolen camp blanket, but once soaked, it only managed to keep the cold and the wet even closer to him.

Attempting to be gallant, he suggested that Affonyl ride Pony while he trudged alongside. The former princess refused to be pampered, though, and insisted that she was as tough as any of them. “If you won’t ride, then neither will I.”

Reeger handed Cullin the mule’s halter rope and swung into Pony’s saddle. “I’ll ride the rustin’ pony, then—if only to prevent an argument.”

The group traveled the coast road, which had become a river of sloppy mud, but at least traffic was light due to the storm. During a normal rush hour, oxcarts and horse-drawn wagons were bumper to bumper, slowing to a standstill for a mile outside of town. A second lane of the coast road had been under construction for years to alleviate the traffic jams, but there had been no noticeable progress in Princess Affonyl’s lifetime.

Now she walked alongside Cullin, wet and bedraggled, shivering in the damp. He would have offered her his soaked blanket, but that would not have made matters better. Even in her wet and disheveled state, he still found her attractive, and now she seemed to be more in his league.

Hoping to strike up a conversation, he said, “So, what’s your story, Princess?” He didn’t really know how to talk to a girl, especially not one that he liked.

“
Former
princess,” she corrected.

“But to me you still look like a princess, even without your braid and the fine clothes.”

She gave him a sidelong look and rolled her eyes. “You’re not very good at flirting, are you?”

“Why, it’s the best I’ve ever done!”

“Prince Indico could give you some lessons . . . but, then, he was a liar. I’d rather be with an inept young man than a deceitful one.”

He placed a hand on his heart. “I give you my word, Princess Affonyl, I will always be inept.”

That drew a small laugh from her. “All right, I’ll tell you my story. It’s not the usual tale of princesses and castles. I lost my mother when I was very young.”

Cullin remembered his own tragic circumstances, being orphaned when a bee swarm chased his father out the window of a mill. “How did she die?”

Affonyl bit her lip. “I’m not really sure. At first I was told that she died of a broken heart, because she had hoped for a baby boy. She didn’t want to raise a girl.”

“But girls make the best princesses,” Cullin pointed out.

“Then I was told she died of a coughing fever, but I’ve since heard plenty of whispers around the court. I think the real explanation might be that she ran off with a circus, and the rest of the stories are just a cover-up because my father is embarrassed.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Cullin said, “but I suppose having your mother run off with a circus is better than dying from a coughing fever or from a broken heart.”

The trees opened up on the coastal road, exposing them to wind gusts from the sea. The rain came down harder.

Affonyl continued, “I turned out to be more of a tomboy and scholar than a giggly lady at court. Our kingdom has engaged in a long-standing program to breed for vapidity. My father is disappointed that I’m a throwback.”

“I prefer you this way.” Cullin thought he might be getting better at flirting, but he couldn’t tell if his compliment scored any points with her.

“When he heard that two neighboring kingdoms had court wizards, my father decided he needed one as well. So, he had the monks transcribe a classified ad to be distributed throughout the kingdom. Edgar, the candidate who answered the ad, was more of a natural scientist and alchemist than a wizard, but he did a good interview, and his résumé was impressive. He agreed to a starting salary lower than that of a fully licensed wizard, so my father hired him.”

Wearing a wistful smile, she flung raindrops out of her eyes. “Edgar and I hit it off immediately. He had books and chemicals, charts of the elements, horoscopes, bottled animal entrails, toadstools and wolfsbane, sparkling smoke and explosive powder. Everything a curious girl could want. He taught me so much. He let me read his books, even when he wasn’t there.

“One time, he said he was going to practice an invisibility potion and then disappeared from the castle for two weeks. I searched everywhere for him, even studied in his library to find an antidote to the spell. I was sure he had turned himself transparent and was unable to make a sound. When Wizard Edgar returned, though—coming to the front gates of the castle rather than through the dissipation of any kind of potion or spell—I learned that he had tricked me.

“Edgar hadn’t wanted to hurt my feelings while he went off to a job interview with an evil wizard conglomerate. They hired him away, offered a higher salary and a better benefits package . . . and our kingdom lost a great wizard.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Cullin wanted to reach out and pat her on the shoulder, but decided he didn’t dare.

“Edgar did give me all his books, his charts, his chemical library, his precious tomes, since the evil wizard conglomerate had their own extensive library that was made available to all employees. He had a soft spot for me, saw my potential.

“When Edgar left, I begged my father to hire a replacement so I could continue my studies, but by then personal wizards had fallen out of vogue. He spent his money on courtyard lily ponds instead.” Affonyl sighed. “I kept reading anyway, and learning, and studying. Duke Kerrl thought literacy in a woman was overrated, and that’s how I knew he would have made a reprehensible husband.”

Trying to score points, Cullin said, “We’ve got a lot in common. I can read, too.” He had never before realized what an advantage literacy might be in picking up girls.

They kept moving forward into the rain, hoping for the skies to clear and the drizzle to stop, but the clouds matched their pace exactly, drenching them all day long. Cullin managed to secure three fat squirrels for their lunch, though Reeger had a hard time building even a smoky, smoldering fire to cook them. Cullin shared his roast rodent with Affonyl, who decided she was more hungry than skeptical.

“Slayer of squirrels,” she said to him. “You haven’t quite made it to slayer of dragons yet.”

“I’m working my way up. My part is just to play a squire.”

“Squire? Squirrel, more like. I think I’ll call you Squirrel.”

“You can’t just call me Cullin?”

Her brow furrowed. “What kind of endearment would that be?”

“Are you trying to find an endearing name for me?” He couldn’t stop grinning.

The former princess just shook her head. “You really aren’t very good at flirting, are you?”

As they moved on, Sir Dalbry seemed impervious to the rain, though his sword and chain mail would get rusty if he didn’t take care of them. A brave yet rusty knight would never command a high price as a dragon slayer.

On their way along the headlands, they saw no prospect for shelter, not even a dragon cave. Cullin was so chilled to the bone that he would have loved to sit in the hot and steamy cave of Old Snort. The road crossed high cliffs with the sea below, though the gray drizzle leached the scenery out of the landscape.

Ahead, they heard a sudden rumbling roar—not a simulated dragon attack. It sounded more like a landslide. Reeger urged Pony forward, and Dalbry pushed Drizzle into a trot, leaving Cullin and Affonyl to pull the mule along. By the time they caught up, Dalbry and Reeger had both dismounted to stand at the edge of a sandstone bluff. Part of the sheer cliff looked fresh and white, where a section had dropped into the churning sea.

“These crumbly cliffs are sedimentary rock with line fractures,” Affonyl said. “Given the rain, moisture probably seeped into the cracks, overloaded the porous structure, and allowed a segment to break away.”

“So, it got wet and fell down.” Dalbry glanced at her. “I agree with your analysis.”

Cullin stepped to the edge, where the sea spray and the drop-off made his heart flutter, and was astonished to see what the landslide had revealed.

Embedded in the sandstone cliff was a huge reptilian skeleton, bones akimbo, and a fossilized skull as big as a wagon with yawning jaws full of teeth, powerful three-clawed back legs, and a long tail. The fossilized bones had been cemented inside the cliff for what might have been decades, even centuries! Cullin couldn’t imagine a timespan longer than that. Now they were freshly exposed to the air.

“Those are some valuable bones!” Reeger said. “We better retrieve them.”

Cullin was amazed. “It’s a dragon—a dragon skeleton.” He blinked. “That means dragons are real.”

“
Were
real, lad,” Reeger said. “Obviously, this one’s been dead for some time.”

Affonyl couldn’t stop staring. “I’ve never seen anything like that in Wizard Edgar’s books, and natural scientists have identified every single living creature on Earth—over four hundred of them! I’d like to have a closer look.”

“Oh, you will, girl,” Reeger said. “You’re going to help us retrieve the bones. Get some rope. We’ll lower you—it’ll be just like when you climbed down from your castle tower.”

“I’ll bring a shovel,” Cullin said.

The rope was slippery in the rain, but they tied it to a tree set back from the cliff edge. Dangling along the sheer bluff face, Cullin and Affonyl moved to the giant reptilian fossil and chopped away with their shovels. Thankfully, the rain had softened the sandstone, so they were able to wrench free some of the ancient bones and teeth. They tied the bones in a loose sack that Reeger and Dalbry could haul up.

Cullin and Affonyl dangled there, slipping on the wet rock face but trusting the not-very-trustworthy ropes. The princess lost her grip on one of the fossilized fangs she had chiseled away. She wobbled and spun as the fang tumbled down into the crashing surf. Cullin caught her as enthusiastically as possible, helping her keep her balance. The monstrous skull was much too huge to consider removing; besides, it would make their stuffed crocodile heads look laughably small.

“At least get some of the teeth,” Reeger yelled down. “With those fangs and Dalbry’s dragonskin cape, we can double our prices.”

When they had harvested two sack loads of prize pieces, as much as Pony could bear, the two climbed back up, slipping and sliding on their ropes and the slick cliff.

“That was exciting,” Affonyl said. She smiled at Cullin, and he found the smear of mud on her face to be charming. “Thanks for not letting me fall down that cliff, Squirrel.”

“It was my chivalrous duty.” He considered it a good start to their adventures.