The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (125 page)

“Really?” The dragon took a long moment to study the wizard, then slapped his tail in a crater of fire with a loud whack and sent the burning liquid flying everywhere. “Go on home, silly old wizard!” he snapped and started to turn away.

Questor brought his hands up in a broad sweep, fire gathering at his fingertips as he did so. With a lunge, he sent the fire hurtling at the dragon. It struck Strabo full along the length of his great body, lifted him from the earth, and
sent him flying over several of the bubbling craters to land in a tangled heap. Rock and flames scattered everywhere, and the dragon gave an audible grunt.

“Dear me!” Questor whispered, surprised that he could muster such magic.

Strabo picked himself up slowly, shook himself head to tail, coughed, spit, and turned slowly back to the wizard. “Where did you learn to do
that?”
he asked, a hint of admiration in his voice.

“I have learned much you do not yet know about,” Questor bluffed. “Best that you simply agree now to do as I have asked.”

Strabo replied with a sheet of flame that lanced at Questor and sent him cartwheeling head over heels into a patch of brush. A second rush of fire followed, but Questor was tumbling back down the hillside by that time, out of sight, and the fire merely fried the landscape until it was black.

“Bah, come back here, Questor Thews!” the dragon called after him from the other side of the rise. “This fight hasn’t even started yet and already you’re running for home!”

Questor picked himself up gingerly and started back up the slope. This was going to require a considerable effort on his part, he decided grimly.

For the next twenty minutes, wizard and dragon attacked each other with a ferocity that was terrifying. They twisted and dodged and skipped about, hurdling craters that spit smoke and steam and flame, turning the whole of the Fire Springs into a blackened battleground. Blow for blow they traded, Questor employing every conceivable form of magic against the dragon, conjuring up spells he didn’t even know he knew, Strabo answering back with bursts of flame. Back and forth they swung, pushing and shoving like fighters in a ring, and when the twenty minutes drew to a close, they were both gasping for breath and lurching like drunks.

“Wizard … you continually astonish me!” Strabo panted, slowly curling himself into a ball at the center of the Springs.

“Have you … given further consideration to … my request?” Questor demanded in reply.

“Most … certainly,” Strabo said and sent a fireball hurtling at the wizard.

They resumed their struggle wordlessly, and only their grunts and cries and the occasional booming coughs of the craters broke the evening stillness. The clouds dispersed, and a scattering of stars and several of Landover’s moons broke through the cover. The wind died, and the air warmed. Twilight passed away, and night descended.

Questor sent a swarm of gnats at the dragon, clogging his nose, eyes, and mouth. Strabo choked and gasped and breathed fire everywhere, thrashing as if chained. He began to swear, using words Questor had never heard before. Then he lifted free of the earth, launched himself at the wizard, and attempted to flatten him. Questor conjured a hole in the earth and dropped into it just
before the dragon landed with a
whump
where previously he had been standing. Strabo sat there, looking about for him, not seeing him, so angry at his apparent miss he didn’t realize what had happened. Then a six-foot bee stinger shoved at him from underneath and sent him lurching skyward again with a howl. Questor appeared from the hole, throwing fire; the dragon threw fire back; and both of them fell apart again, singed and smoking.

“Wizard, we are … too old for this!” Strabo gasped, licking away bits of ash that were crusted on his nose. “Give it up!”

“I will give it up … when you say ‘yes’—not before!” Questor answered.

Strabo shook his blackened head. “Whatever … it is you wish, it cannot possibly … be worth all this!”

Questor wondered. He was black from head to foot with ash and burns, his robes were tattered and soiled beyond repair, his hair was standing straight out from his head, and the muscles and joints of his body felt as if they would never be right again. He had tried every magic he knew and then some, and nothing had fazed the dragon. He was alive, he thought, only by a series of flukes unparalleled in the history of wizardry. Much of the magic he had tried had misfired—as usual—and much of what he might like to do was beyond him. The only thing that was keeping him on his feet was the knowledge that if he failed now, he might as well forget about ever calling himself a wizard again. This was his last chance, his one opportunity to prove to himself—even if to no one else—that he really was the wizard he had always claimed to be.

He took a deep breath. “Are you … ready to listen?” he asked.

Strabo opened his maw as far as it would open and showed Questor all of his considerable teeth. “Step … inside, why don’t you, Questor Thews … so you can better hear my answer!”

Questor sent a flurry of canker sores into the dragon’s mouth, but the hide was so tough they couldn’t even begin to settle before they were dispatched. Strabo responded with a blast that sent the wizard tumbling head over heels and burned off his boots. They traded fireballs for a moment, then Questor pin-wheeled his arms until it seemed they might fly off and sent a ferocious ice storm at the dragon. Sleet and frigid wind beat against the dragon as he sought refuge in the fire of one of the larger craters. But the storm was so fierce it suffocated the flames and turned the liquid in the crater to ice. Strabo was trapped in the resulting block, the ice hammering off his head as he howled in rage.

Finally, the magic gave out and the storm subsided. A foot of snow covered the dragon, but it was already melting from the heat of the other craters. Strabo poked his head out from beneath the covering and shook off the last of the flakes irritably. Then he heaved upward with a roar, and the ice shattered into cubes. The dragon was free once more, steam pouring from his nostrils as he swung about to face Questor Thews.

Questor stiffened. What would it take to overcome the beast, he wondered in frustration. What did he have to do?

He dodged another rush of flame, then another, and threw up a shield of magic against a third. Strabo was simply too strong. He wasn’t going to win a test of strength against the dragon. He had to find another way.

He waited for Strabo to pause for breath, then sent an itch.

The itch started inside the dragon’s left hind foot, but when he lifted the foot to scratch, the itch moved up to his thigh, then to his back, his neck, his ear, his nose, and back down to his right foot. Strabo twisted and grunted, flailing madly as the itch worked its way up one side and down the other, as elusive as buttered sausage, slipping and sliding away from him as he sought to relieve it. He howled and he roared, he writhed and he lurched, and nothing helped. He forgot about Questor Thews, working his serpentine body over the sharp edges of the craters, dousing himself in the liquid fire, trying desperately to scratch.

When at last Questor Thews made a quick motion with his hands and took back the itch, Strabo was a limp noodle. He lay gasping at the center of the Fire Springs, his strength momentarily spent, his tongue hanging out on the ground. His eyes rolled wearily until they settled at last on the wizard.

“All right, all right!” he said, panting like an old dog. “I have had enough! What is it that you want, Questor Thews? Just tell me and let’s get it over with!”

Questor Thews puffed up a bit and permitted himself a smile of satisfaction.

“Well, old dragon, it is really quite simple,” he began.

HALLOWEEN CRAZIES

C
hief Deputy Pick Wilson of the King County Sheriff’s Department leaned forward cautiously across his paper-laden work desk and said to Ben Holiday, “So you and your friends were just on your way to a Halloween party at … What hotel was that again?”

Ben looked thoughtful. “I think it was the Sheraton. I’m not sure. The invitation should be in the car somewhere.”

“Uh-huh. So you were on your way to this party, in a rental car, your suitcases packed in the trunk …”

“We were leaving right afterward for the airport,” Ben interjected. The room smelled of new paint and disinfectant and was suffocatingly hot.

“With no identification, not even your driver’s license?” Wilson paused, looking mildly baffled.

“I explained all that, Deputy.” Ben was having trouble concealing his irritation. “Mr. Bennett has identification. Mine was left behind by accident.”

“Along with that of Mr. Abernathy and the young lady,” Wilson finished. “Yes, so you explained.”

He eased himself back again in his chair, looking from the skeleton to the gorilla to the shaggy dog to the pale green lady and back again. None of them had taken off their costumes yet, although Ben had long ago removed his death’s mask and Miles had finally gotten rid of the troublesome gorilla head. They sat there in that sterile, functional, bare-walled office somewhere in the bowels of the King County Courts Building, where the Washington State Police had deposited them nearly an hour ago, looking for all the world like candidates for “Let’s Make A Deal.” Wilson continued to look at them, and Ben could tell exactly what he was thinking.

The deputy cleared his throat, glancing down at some papers before him. “And the shaggy dog costume we found in the back seat … ?”

“Was an extra. It didn’t fit right.” Ben leaned forward. “We’ve been over this ground before. If you have a charge to make, please make it. You’ve seen our card, deputy. Mr. Bennett and I are both lawyers, and we are prepared to defend ourselves and our friends, if that should prove necessary. But we are growing very tired of just sitting here. Are there any more questions?”

Wilson smiled faintly. “Just a few. Uh, wouldn’t Mr. Abernathy be more comfortable with his mask off?”

“No, he would not,” Ben snapped irritably. He glanced sideways at Abernathy. “It took considerable effort to get it on him in the first place, believe me. And we still hope to make that party, deputy. So another five minutes and that’s it. You’ll
have
to charge us.”

He was bluffing, but he had to do something to move matters along. He still didn’t know exactly what Wilson knew or what sort of trouble they were in. Just a mix-up of some sort, the deputy had assured them. Just a matter of straightening it all out. But when it came right down to doing any straightening, they just seemed to continue running about in circles.

Willow sat next to him in something that resembled a trance. Her eyes were half-closed, and her breathing extremely shallow. Wilson had watched her with growing suspicion. Ben had explained to the deputy that she was just a little under the weather, but he knew Wilson didn’t believe him. Wilson believed she was on drugs.

“Your lady friend doesn’t appear to be doing so well, Mr. Holiday,” the Chief Deputy said, as if reading Ben’s mind. “Would she like to lie down?”

“I don’t want to leave you, Ben,” Willow said quietly, eyes flickering open briefly before closing again.

Wilson hesitated, then shrugged. Ben moved his chair closer to Willow and put his arm around her, trying to make it look as much as possible as if he were simply comforting her rather than holding her upright. She sagged against him weakly.

“I’m going to call local counsel, Deputy Wilson,” announced Miles suddenly. He stood up. “Is there a phone I can use?”

Wilson nodded. “Next office. Dial 9 to get an outside line.”

Miles glanced meaningfully at Ben, then exited the room. As he went out, one of several clerks working in the reception area outside stuck her head through the door and told Wilson he was wanted on the phone. Wilson got up and walked over. Ben could hear a couple of the deputies lounging outside talking about how the whole city was overrun like this every Halloween. Witches, goblins, ghosts, and God-knew-what, one said. Zoo animals everywhere, the other said. It was hard enough keeping the peace on normal nights, the first said. Impossible on Halloween, the other said. Bunch of nuts, the first said. Bunch of crazies, the other said.

Wilson finished his conversation with the clerk. “Excuse me a moment, Mr. Holiday,” he said and went out. The door closed behind him.

Abernathy looked over worriedly. “What’s going to happen to us, High Lord?” he asked in a whisper. He hadn’t said a word since they got there because Ben had warned him not to. It was hard enough keeping up this charade about a Halloween party without trying to explain how the mouth in a dog mask could move so much like the real thing.

Ben smiled, trying to look reassuring. “Nothing’s going to happen. We’ll be out of here soon enough.”

“I don’t understand why they keep asking if I want to take off my mask, High Lord. Why don’t I just tell them the truth?”

“Because they can’t handle the truth, that’s why!” Ben sighed, irritated with himself. There was no point in snapping at the faithful scribe. “I’m sorry, Abernathy. I wish we could just tell the truth. I wish it were that simple.”