Or thought he had, added Princess Rose, her soft thoughts joining the conversation for the first time.
Indeed, said the dragon. And he searches for the king to this day, hoping to finally avenge the death of his one true love. I was, in effect, his eyes and ears within the Realm—and over the Realm. And let me assure you, Lord Mephisto is planning a great assault. The ultimate act of revenge.
Then why kill my father? I thought.
He was afraid of your father.
I don’t understand, I thought.
He thought your father was the Dragon King. He was mistaken.
But a woman was last seen with my father.
Do you not recall that Lord Mephisto is a master of disguises? I was with him when your father was poisoned. I regret my participation greatly.
You were coerced, I heard myself say, although the words mostly faded away. My father had been poisoned. I clenched my fists and took a very deep breath. There was going to be hell to pay.
Princess Rose touched my shoulder and I felt her great love and empathy. We had both lost much in our lives—the shocking news of which we’d only recently learned.
After a moment, as the clouds cleared and the castle came into view—and after I had collected myself—I asked the dragon: You are choosing to remain a dragon?
I can, of course, shape-change at will. There are some of us who have this natural talent. Lord Mephisto saw the possibilities within me, which is why he chose me to watch over the princess and the Realm.
But you were his prisoner, his slave, said Princess Rose, her thoughts filled with grief.
His familiar, as he chose to put it. But I am a prisoner no more.
We began our decent, heading toward the castle’s upper ramparts. Wind thundered over my ears and I held the princess closely. Perhaps a little too closely. Her warm body pushed back against my own. Uh oh. Below, the dragon’s massive shadow caused a fair bit of panic as villagers looked up—then scattered. I would have thought they would be used to seeing Fiera by this point, until I recalled she mostly stayed invisible—which undoubtedly served Lord Mephisto’s plans well.
As we glided down, we swept past the king’s wide balcony—only just a few dozen feet away, in fact. Surely close enough to have gotten a shot off for an expert huntsman such as Lord Mephisto, I figured, thinking back to his hunting portraits.
You were compelled to carry Lord Mephisto, I said to Fiera, when he killed the king—or thought he had killed the king.
The dragon didn’t say anything at first, and as Princess Rose and I scrambled off the creature’s back, Fiera turned and looked back, her round, golden eyes regarding me silently. Finally, she nodded. It was then that I made the decision to finally break the spell—it would be the last act the bastard compelled me to do. But first I needed help to break the spell.
From Dubi? I asked.
She shook her head. Dubi was unaware of my enchantment. Dragons can pair-bond with a human, especially royalty. And since I had no free will of my own, I could not speak in my defense. Indeed, I was a true prisoner in my own body, as the princess suggested.
Then where did you find help? I asked.
From another. One of my own, in fact. Once I made telepathic contact with him, I found the courage—and the strength.
A fellow dragon? I asked, confused
She nodded. It takes a dragon to know a dragon, although he is unaware of his great potential.
Then he is a shape-shifter, too?
Of the highest order.
Princess Rose gasped. You speak of the Dragon King!
Perhaps, said Fiera, although claiming his birthright will be up to him. Lord Mephisto thought he had killed the Dragon King on earth. But his information was wrong. His calculations were wrong. He wanted, in fact, the son.
Both dragon and princess turned and looked at me.
Chapter Twelve
“You can’t be implying—” I said aloud.
Both continued to gaze at me.
“But it’s impossible! I’m from the real world. I mean, Earth, where magic and dragons don’t exist. I was born there, lived there all my life.”
“Your father was born here,” Rose said. “He carried the royal blood. The Dragon King may have skipped his generation and manifested in his son, and now shown up there on Earth because, as you say, there is no magic there. It seemed like a safe refuge. But now you are here.”
“That doesn’t mean there’s a dragon in me!”
“Not in you,” she said patiently. “It would be you, transformed to human form. Hiding, waiting for the need to manifest. The need that we think now exists.”
“I just can’t believe—”
“Do I need to kiss you?”
That stopped me. There was hardly anything that would have pleased me more than her kiss, but this was not the time for it. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “Give me time.”
She exchanged a glance with Fiera. “One night and day. We do have an assassin to deal with.”
“Okay.” At the moment I just wanted to get them both off my case.
Fiera faded out, and Princess Rose guided me into the castle. My mind was whirling, so that I was barely aware of where we went. It was as if I blinked, then found myself in a very nice room. “This will be yours. You will want to refresh yourself,” Rose said. “I will fetch you for the evening banquet in one hour.” She walked away, her hips swaying gracefully.
Damn! They had hit me with an impossible concept. I had one day to come to terms with it, so that I could focus on my business here: to locate the king’s assassin. Assuming the king was dead. No, wait—the assassin was Lord Mephisto! Or was it? I had only Fiera’s word on that, and at this point I wasn’t sure how far I could trust her. Her change of sides was a bit too facile for my taste. At least I had the wit to keep a tight clamp on my mind so that she could not read this doubt.
I stripped away my clothing and stepped into the shower, deliberately leaving the water cold. The shock of that clarified my mind acutely. One thought came to the fore: this whole thing was too pat. The way I had been fetched from Earth, introduced to the alluring princess, then the telepathic dragon, thrown into battle with the ambushing bandits, where Rose demonstrated her ability to kiss a man into love slavery, and Matron told me I had the Love Stare, meaning I was of royal descent, and meanwhile Boffo the love slave recognized a stalker as a minion of Lord Mephisto, who then turned out to be Rose’s father, and the dragon was a transformed sorceress who claimed I was the Dragon King. All this was entirely too convenient, and it rang false. My training and inclination as a private eye readily saw the error of it, once shocked into action. It was more likely a complicated play performed for my dubious benefit. Was I a patsy, being set up to do something phenomenally foolish? Like claiming to be the Dragon King?
But what would be the point? Why would they waste time and put themselves at risk to journey to Earth to collect an ignorant private dick? Especially if the king wasn’t really dead? That implied that I really was the Dragon King, or at least royal. Only they hadn’t known that; the princess’s surprise when the dragon said that was manifest.
I needed an objective opinion. And I knew where to get it.
I stepped out of the shower, dried on the plush towel provided, quickly got into the fresh clothing I found laid out for me, and sent out a limited thought. Fiera!
Yes, Roan, her answer came immediately.
I need to talk with Boffo Bandit. Privately. Where is he?
She did not question this. Follow the red line.
I looked. There before me was a red line on the floor. It went to the door. I followed out into the hall, down three flights of stone steps, and along a dusky back passage, where it ended. I stopped, not sure what to make of this. Then a castle servant walked across the hall, following an intersecting passage, without seeing me. After she passed, the line extended through that intersection. You did say privately, Fiera reminded me. So she had kept me out of sight.
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Thanks, I thought, and resumed motion, my thoughts shielded again. The route led down two more flights into a network of cellars. I never would have found my way through this labyrinth on my own.
The line stopped outside a barred chamber. The gate was not locked. I pushed it open and entered. There was Boffo, sitting on a plank-board bench. “What in hades do you want, jerkoff?” he asked politely.
“You don’t care whether I live or die,” I said. “With a slight preference for die, right?”
“Right,” he agreed. “And the princess isn’t here to cough, so I don’t have to cater to you at all. So smirk at my lodgings and move on, turd brain.”
“So you can be completely objective about my situation,” I said. “Because you don’t care.”
“What is your moronic point?”
“She kissed me too. I need your advice.”
He burst into laughter. “And you thought you were special. Now you know.”
“Now I am in deep doubt,” I said. Then I launched into a summary of my situation, concluding “So it’s too pat. I fear I’m a fool. What do you recommend?” I had the distinct impression that he had already been familiar with my situation, which tended to confirm my suspicion that all this was an act.
“She thinks you’re the Dragon King?” he asked, managing to suppress his mirth at the very notion. “First you better find out if it’s true.”
Which was actually a fair answer. “How?” Would he help, or evade?
“Well, maybe go see Mave.”
“Who?”
“She’s the scullery maid who sneaks me decent food from the kitchen. I’d screw her if I wasn’t besotted with the princess at the moment; she’s pretty enough. I’ll be sorry as hades once the spell wears off and I’m out of here, knowing I could’ve had Mave. She’s got the magic you need.”
“The magic?” I asked blankly.
“She evokes dragons, dullard. That’s her magic.”
She evoked dragons! That was exactly what I needed. If she could not evoke mine, then that was false, and at least I’d know. He had, after all, given me good advice. “Thanks,” I said. “What can I do for you in return?”
“You already saved my life, knot-head. What more do you want?”
So the bandit did have some minimal gratitude. “Maybe I can speak to the princess and get you better lodging.”
“Don’t bother. This is my style.” Then he looked at me cannily. “But keep in mind that Mave will have her price, which you can’t pay.”
Her price? I decided not to follow up on that, as he obviously wanted to bait me further. He was enjoying this for some obscure reason. “We’ll see.” I departed.
The red line reappeared. Fiera knew where I was going next. Sure enough, it led to the kitchen. There in an alcove was a pretty girl touching up pastries on a table. She looked up, surprised, as I joined her. “Mave?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling. She had a cute face, flowing red hair and perfect teeth. Boffo was right: I would have liked to get to know her better, too, were I not already smitten by the princess.
“I am told I may be a dragon,” I told her pointedly. “Can you evoke it? I promise not to toast or eat you if you do.”
“Let me see, Sir Roan,” she said. So she knew who I was. Word certainly got around within a castle. She stood, came to me, and put her hands on my head. The position put her nicely-filled decolletage under my nose so that I could see pretty near down through to Australia. “Oh, my!”
“There is something?” I asked, bemused.
“Oh, yes!” She took a truly impressive deep breath. “You are a dragon, all right, Sir Roan. But the spell is the most powerful I have encountered. I am normally a small dragon girl. This...this—”
“Is the Dragon King?” I prompted.
“It could be,” she agreed, plainly awed. “It would exhaust me to evoke it, but I would do my utmost, if...”
Boffo had mentioned her price. “If what?”
“If you married me.”
“What?”
“I am just a poor ignoble scullery girl,” she said. “But I’d love to be a princess or a queen. The only way I’ll ever be that is if I marry a prince or king. Then my peon lineage wouldn’t matter. And if I got a child, it would be royal. That would be my dream realized.”
I gazed at her, uncertain how to handle this.
“I promise I would not be a jealous wife,” she continued. “You could have any other women you wanted, once you got me pregnant. I would stay out of your way so as not to embarrass you by my lowly origin. It would be no trouble at all for you. And if you liked me, I would do anything in bed that you wanted, no matter how bizarre. I would just be so grateful.”
I sighed inwardly. Two days ago this would have been a fabulous offer. “I’m sorry, Mave,” I said. “I can’t marry you. The princess kissed me.”
“Oh, darn!” she swore, tears of frustration flowing.
“But anything else you might want, in exchange for invoking my dragon—”
“Nothing else,” she said sadly.
“So you won’t do it?”
“I won’t,” she agreed. “I named my price.”
One I could not pay, as Boffo had foreseen, enjoying my coming frustration.
I left her weeping in the kitchen, feeling like a heel. At least now I knew.
Or did I? This sequence, too, was suspiciously convenient. Was it also part of the play?
Fiera’s red line led me back to my suite just in time for Princess Rose to collect me. She was resplendent in a bejeweled evening gown, the loveliest woman I had ever seen. “You shouldn’t have teased Mave like that,” she reproved me. “She’s a good girl.”
What kind of communications did this castle have? Did everybody know everything the instant it happened? “I didn’t realize I was teasing her,” I said. “I just wanted to know about the dragon.”
“I’m sure a little persuasion would change her mind about evoking it only in exchange for marriage. You don’t need to be concerned about that.”
“Persuasion?”
“Our local torture chamber is small but well equipped. I suspect that just the threat of having her nipples ripped out would be effective. No actual messy disfiguring torture would be required.”
I stared at her, horrified. “You’re not joking,” I breathed.
“I never joke about serious matters. That dragon needs to be evoked.”
This was the woman I loved? I couldn’t tolerate it. “Don’t. Even. Threaten,” I said grimly.
She glanced at me, surprised. “Oh, I keep forgetting that you’re not from the Realm. You have different sensitivities.”
“True. Leave her alone.”
She shrugged, leaving me my foibles. I was still learning things about the Realm, and not all of them were comfortable. If this was Rose’s notion of dark humor, I was not amused.
We arrived at the banquet hall, where soft music played. It was well named; the banquet was sumptuous, with every kind of meat, vegetable, bread, and beverage. Mave herself served the pastries. “Thank you, sir,” she murmured as she passed me. She knew!
Lovely scant-skirted dancing girls entertained us as we concluded the meal. “If you would like one of those for the night,” Rose said, “Just point her out. She will be glad to oblige.”
“Thanks, no,” I demurred, suppressing another surge of cultural shock. Was she testing me for interest in any woman other than her?
“Or Mave. She would be happy to demonstrate what she could offer you in the marriage bed.”
This was getting downright uncomfortable. “I’d rather have you.”
“You would find me frustrating, as I must retain my virginity until marriage. Fortunately none of these are virgins.”
I concluded that she was serious. “Thanks, I’ll pass,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you yet. But you did insist on staring at me.”
“My fault,” I agreed. She might love me, as I
loved her, but evidently had no problem with a man’s incidental entertainments, quite apart from the callous requirements of royal union. Then I thought of something else. “You expect to have an arranged marriage.”
Rose grimaced prettily. “Yes. I can get out of it only by marrying a man with better prospects.” She glanced at me sidelong.
“Who is he?”
“Prince Obelisk, of a far kingdom, whose member is said to resemble his name. He is a warrior, quite skilled.” Her mouth twitched. “And no, he is no more eager to do it than I am. He has his own girlfriend, apart from his harem. But it was arranged long ago by our families, and it would be perilous to go against it.”
“Sorry to hear it,” I said.
“It is the way. We do not rail against the inevitable.”
It was late by the time it all finished. Rose escorted me to my room, but did not offer to join me there. Instead she kissed me chastely and departed. She was being true to her virginity.
I lay awake for some time, pondering imponderables, as I had before, with no better resolution. I loved Princess Rose, but was suspicious of her facility with my gun, considering that theoretically she had never seen such a weapon before. She was one tough-minded woman, as her threat about Mave showed. I had thought her to be shy, but that was evidently out of context; she was worldly in ways I was not, and in some aspects she was definitely not my type. Talk of arranged marriages—what about arranged love? I should have avoided it if humanly possible. So did we really love each other, or was she faking susceptibility to my stare? Was I psychologically overwhelmed by the presumed impact of her kiss? Would that impact fade in three days? My rational self advised me to give this time to sort itself out. I still didn’t like the seeming coincidence of the ambushing bandit in the tree along a path no one should have known we would take, leading to Lord Mephisto’s castle. Had Rose known he would be there?
And the dragon theme. Fiera was challenge enough, but that was hardly the half of it. They claimed I was a transformed dragon, but the confirmation of this had been way too easy. A dragon-evoker right here in the castle? My PI instinct railed against such coincidence. Certainly they wanted me to believe I was the Dragon King, but was that really the case? Until this adventure I had never even believed in dragons.