Fantastical Ramblings (12 page)

“Actually, removing some of these books from this cave might
damage them irreparably. But it’s a shame scholars don’t have access to them. We
could learn so much about history, literature, lost sciences...”

“Scholars?” I asked. A plan began to create a pattern in my
brain. “Scholars with grant money to pay for access to research material?”

“Scholars with grant money to pay for someone else to do the
research?” Jenks looked pointedly at me.

“Scholars with grant money to pay for solid shelves and a
card catalogue,” the librarian confirmed
,
eyeing me speculatively. A glimmer shone in her eyes. Those brown orbs grew
large with excitement.

“Librarians to help with the dusting?” Jenks asked.

Both the librarian and I stared at him in disgust.

“Okay, I’ll dust, you catalogue and shelve.” Jenks pointed
to Miriam. “And you do research.” He shifted that accusatory finger toward me.

“Agreed.” Miriam finally dropped the shield and held out her
hand.

Jenks brushed against it, the closest thing to a handshake
he could manage.

Then they both turned to stare at me. I extended a talon the
size of Miriam’s hand. She grasped it and gave it a yank. I guess that sufficed
for shaking on the deal.

“Can I get back to my reading now?” I asked plaintively. That
was of course my primary objective.

“No!” both Miriam and Jenks screamed.

“If I haul out one armload of garbage, can I read a book?”

“I don’t know. How fast do you read?” Miriam looked
pointedly at the rotting magician against the far wall.

“Too slow,” Jenks said.

“Two piles of garbage per book, and you have to let us put
the book back where it belongs when you are done,” Miriam insisted, hands on
hips.

“Which of course means I don’t have to put it back!” I
chortled.

“Would you anyway?” Miriam asked. A delightful smudge of
dirt graced her pert little nose.

“Well no. I get to pick which book I read next, though.”

They both sighed and nodded.

I grabbed a stack of anthropology texts ranging from the
Mayan pyramids to Hindu polytheism.

“One book at a time. Your checkout limit is cut until we get
this place clean and we have money coming in.” Miriam gently removed four of
the five books from my hands.

“But...”

“Think about it, Your Laziness Lea,” Jenks consoled me. “The
sooner we get this place ready for company, the sooner you can indulge in
reading anything and everything. Then you can write book reports, you can
answer questions about what you just read. You’ll be acknowledged as the world’s
greatest authority. People will actually pay you to read.”

I grabbed the nearest pile of skeletons and rotting fabric
and practically danced to the cave mouth. “Where do I put it?” I asked.

“Sort it into recyclable categories and dump the
non-biodegradable stuff on the plateau above the cliff. That will mislead stupid,
uncouth,
illiterate
adventurers into
searching for your treasure further up the mountain,” Miriam called through the
entrance tunnel.

Good idea. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I carefully picked
through the stuff to make certain I didn’t accidentally discard any books.

Oops! I found a book of alchemy diagrams amongst the dead
magician’s bones. I peeked over my shoulder to make sure Jenks and Miriam weren’t
watching. Then I tucked the book amongst my neck frills for safe keeping. What
would it hurt to just look through it to make certain it wasn’t damaged?

In loving memory of
My mother
Miriam Bentley Radford
School librarian.
She taught many, including me
That reading is the greatest gift
you can give a child.

~THE END~

A perennial favorite that first appeared in the DAW Books
30th Anniversary anthology edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Elizabeth Wollheim,
and Sheila E. Gilbert. Other anthologies have reprinted it. But to have it included
in a collection with Andre Norton was the thrill of a lifetime.

<<>>

Before the Glass Dragon was turned into Glass:

“We go on foot from here, Prince Darville” Lord Krej, my
father’s cousin, announced to me. A placid smile creased his broad face but did
not reach his deep blue eyes. He maintained the masked expression he wore at
court.

Gratefully I dismounted. After three days on steed back,
hunting a rogue spotted saber cat, I needed to feel the Kardia beneath my feet
for a time.

Eliminating an animal that had developed a taste for human
flesh did not necessarily fall to the Crown Prince and the First Lord of the
Council of Provinces. But I had taken Krej up on the offer of adventure for
many reasons.

Our six guards dismounted with me. We’d left the pack of
nobles and retainers behind a day and a half ago. Knowing Krej’s need to preen
before an audience made that decision suspect.

I left the heavily jeweled, ceremonial sword my father
insisted I carry as suitable to a man of my station in the saddle sheath. For
this adventure I wanted something sturdier, heavier, and keener. Krej had too
many secrets to trust him with only a useless weapon in my hand.

Instead I belted on a serviceable blade I’d purloined from
the palace armory.

“You three, remain with the steeds,” Krej ordered the
guards. “Make camp.”

They set about their business with unquestioning efficiency.

I needed to know what my cousin plotted. He’d not reveal
himself in front of men sworn to my father. For that reason alone I did not
question why the horses needed more than one guard, two at the most.

“You other three.” Krej pointed to the remaining guards. “Rest
your steeds an hour then return to the rest of the party. Send them home or
bring them here. Whatever they choose.” He shrugged as if disgusted with the
lack of stamina among his cronies.

I suspected the nobles who had ridden out with us from the
capitol felt more loyalty to him than to me and my father. Possibly more
loyalty to my cousin than the kingdom of Coronnan.

Why else had they feasted on Krej’s bounty the last night we
were all together. Krej had wounded the deer then run it nearly to death. While
it lay panting in terror he had cut the living heart out of it. His mad
laughter as he performed the hideous deed still haunted me.

I’d caught a whiff of something strange in those terrible
moments. Something worse than the smell of fear and sweat and blood and offal.

What?

I had not eaten any of the deer that night. But the nobles
had. Nearly all of them had been sluggish and sick the next day. We left them
behind.

Only Krej and I remained to hunt the elusive spotted saber
cat. Reputedly the beast had savaged one of Krej’s villages, killing a child. I
added a stout dagger to my sword belt.

Out of fear of the cat or of Krej I could not tell at that
moment.

While my steed stood between me and Krej, I checked my boot
knives and the blades in the wrist sheaths.

The gang of city boys I had run with as an adolescent had
taught me to fight for survival. I needed to wade into this fray with intent
rather than honor. Rumors in the capitol claimed that Krej knew nothing of
honor in any of his dealings.

I slung a pack of provisions over my shoulder and stepped
toward the path Krej indicated.

“We won’t be gone long enough to need those,” Krej said,
pointing to my pack. He smiled again. His teeth gleamed in the winter sunlight
like the predatory animal we hunted.

“The cat is that close?” I asked. The tracks we’d been
following for days did not look fresh to me. I bent and placed my dominant left
hand atop a clear print. Nearly as broad as my palm. Stray leaves and twigs as
well as dust had blown across them. It was not fresh. Still I needed to keep up
the pretense of ignorance and wits dulled by cold, if Krej were ever to reveal
his plans to me. He loved to boast, but did not take unreasonable chances with
men equal to him in strength and intelligence.

In a fight I had the advantage of longer reach and greater
agility, as well as youth. My left handed dominance often proved awkward to
right handed men. Krej had brute strength in his broad shoulders and sturdy
legs.

He flung a cloak made from the pelt of a spotted saber cat
around his shoulders. A new cloak I had not seen before. A cloak that would
earn admiration and gasps of awe from the court. A man as vain as Krej could
not resist wearing the garment before the audience he craved.

The sun and fog colors gleamed in the weak sunlight. Nearly
rippling with life and menace.

Every portion of my being froze. Krej did not need to hunt a
cat that preyed upon his villages. He had already killed the beast.

Surreptitiously I fished a talisman from my pack and stuffed
it into my pocket. I remembered clearly my friend’s warning that the magic in
the amulet would not activate until I kissed it and placed it in a pouch around
my neck. I had kept the thing only to please him. At the time I had scoffed. I
did not need magical protection. I was a prince and a trained warrior.

Now I was not so certain.

Krej’s cloak covered most of his magician red hair.

Another rumor I needed to verify. Krej reputedly used magic
to insure the cooperation of the twelve lords on the Council of Provinces, and
to coerce wealthy merchants to guarantee his debts. Debts he rarely, if ever
repaid.

Kings and their families were not allowed to possess magic
in Coronnan.

In his youth Krej had studied at the University of
Magicians. He’d inherited his talent from his outland mother. Neither of his
two older half-brothers showed signs of magic.

Five strong men had stood between Krej and the throne—my
father, myself, Krej’s father, and his two older brothers. He’d been allowed
his magic.

But then, quite unexpectedly, all within the space of a few
months, Krej’s father and two older brothers had died of disease or accident.

Only two lives, myself and my father, now stood between Krej
and the throne.

Krej had renounced his magic and assumed his new
responsibilities as lord of Faciar, cousin to the king, and leader of the
Council of Provinces.

My magician friends questioned the accidents and suggested
poison and murder instead of disease and accident in the death of Krej’s
relatives. I had not the courage to question until I saw what Krej did to the
deer. And heard what he’d done to one of his peasants.

Had he really forsaken the practice of magic? I knew he
could not get rid of his talent—even if bedding his new bride before he
achieved master magician status was supposed to rob him of his powers.

I left my own cloak of wolf fur and oiled wool open across
my left shoulder, keeping my sword arm free.

We stepped off the caravan road onto a steep trail leading
up the mountain. The lucky charm bounced reassuringly in my pocket.

Not once did Krej pause to inspect the tracks I discerned
occasionally along the trail. He did not bend to sniff the spoor. I knew he no
longer hunted.

I worried that he no longer
pretended
to hunt.

But I had to know what he was up to. For my father’s safety
and that of our kingdom.

Two days before we began the hunt, word had reached me that
one of Krej’s villagers had tried to run away. Krej had run the man to death—never
even trying to capture him, just kept him running and running until he could
run no further. When the man finally lay on the ground gasping for air, too
spent to move ought but his lungs, and those painfully, Krej had dismounted and
kicked the man in the groin and the chest and the head until he died.

The man had fared little better than the deer.

And Krej had laughed as he murdered the man.

I could only wonder what cruelty on Krej’s part had driven
the commoner to run away.

Now I paced warily behind the most powerful lord in the
land.

The higher we climbed the colder the air became. I smelled
snow. The tree canopy obscured the sun. By the time we cleared the upland
forest and moved onto the open slope of the mountain, clouds blocked the noon
light and a fierce wind howled. I wanted to draw my cloak closer about me. But
I needed my sword arm free.

Finally I stopped. A broad ledge, about ten paces deep, cut
across an open curve of mountain. Above us, the mountain soared to uncounted
heights now lost in clouds. Below us, an old landslide dropped sharply to a
stony valley. I did not want to be caught out in the open on that ledge.

“Why have you lured me here, Lord Krej?” I drawled the title
with contempt. All pretense gone.

I fought the urge to pace. My habits demanded movement. I
thought better while moving. Now as I looked around I realized we had been
following the cliff edge for sometime. My sense of space had been tricked by a
gentler, rolling slope to my right. Now that it climbed thousands of feet in a
single glance, I felt the danger of the drop to my left much more keenly. I
glanced nervously toward the valley below. A long, long way below me.

I held my breath. I often dreamed of flying with dragons. The
reality of the danger made me sidle closer to the solid security of the
mountain. My safety lay in staying away from the edge.

“The time has come, dear cousin,” Krej replied with a sneer—all
trace of mild condescension vanished—”to end the charade of your father’s reign
over Coronnan. To end the de Draconis line and the myth of your dragon
protectors.”

“So soon?” My thoughts whirled. I lifted one eyebrow in an
attempt to stall for time. “You have no son or grandson to succeed you. Only
five daughters. I would think you would marry off at least one to get a male
heir before attempting to displace the de Draconis line, a line of kings born
of legend and worshipped along with the dragons.” I kept my tone emotionless. “You
should have put your wife aside years ago. You’d suffer a lot less frustration
with a younger woman capable of producing a son.”