“Maybe it would be a good idea to take them over to the woods,” Danny said. “Let them run off some of this energy.”
“Well . . .”
“Please Shauna,” Caitlin wheedled.
“Peese,” Ian chimed in.
“Whuf,” added the dragon.
Shauna considered and then relented. “Well, all right, My Lord. But just to get them out of your hair.” She turned and glared fiercely at the children. “And this time that beast-“ She jerked her head at the dragon. “That beast has to swim the river. Near to upset the boat last time, he did, and the boatmen won’t take him any more.”
“Come on,” Caitlin whooped and dashed for the door. Ian jumped out of Danny’s lap and pounded after her and the dragon followed, nearly knocking Shauna down as he charged past.
“Here now!” she yelled. “Just slow down, the lot of you.” With an apologetic glance over her shoulder, she followed her charges out the door, calling to them to come back.
The racket died down as dragon, children and nursemaid vanished down the corridor.
At that point Wiz’s wife Moira came into the room, a wide-brimmed straw hat thrown back over her shoulders, setting off her freckled, slightly flushed skin and cascade of red hair. She was wearing a peasant blouse, a brightly colored skirt and she had a basket of fresh flowers in her hand. To Wiz she looked like a vision out of a Monet painting.
“Was that LRD?” Moira asked as she came over to kiss her husband hello.
“No, that was Fluffy.”
Moira arched her coppery eyebrows over great green eyes. “Love, even for you that is incomprehensible.”
“Wasn’t my idea.” Wiz shrugged. “Caitlin and Ian insist LRD’s name is Fluffy.”
“Where did they get that, I wonder?”
Wiz shrugged again. “Maybe the dragon told them.”
Moira just sighed and shook her head.
“Normalcy,” Wiz sighed. “It’s wonderful.”
Jerry snorted with laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“Two kids go tearing out of here chased by a dragon, and you say it’s normal.”
“The dragon doesn’t bother me, I just think of it as an overgrown St.
Bernard.”
A discreet cough reminded him of the waiting seneschal.
“I’m sorry Wulfram. Now, you were saying?”
“There is a dragon to see you, My Lord.”
“A dragon?”
“A large dragon,” the seneschal amended with gloomy glee. “He is sitting on the East curtain wall and-ah-urgently desires an audience.”
For a minute no one said anything.
“Oh boy,” Wiz said at last.
“So much for normalcy,” Moira said.
“Just think of it as an executive vice-president from the home office,” Jerry suggested.
Two: Enter the Dragon
First, know who you’re working for.
The Consultants’ Handbook
Their guest was perched precariously on the east curtain wall of the castle. The walkway on top of the wall was wide enough for eight men to pass abreast, but the dragon gripped it with his talons the way a parakeet grips its perch. Its enormous scaled head stretched well above the watchtowers. Wiz couldn’t see its tail, but judging by what he could see the dragon was a monster, two hundred feet long if it was an inch.
Although the courtyard and walls were deserted, the dragon had an audience. Wizards and others crowded the windows and doorways looking out into the East Court. There was another group at the double gate that led into the courtyard.
Even in silhouette Wiz recognized the bulk of Bal-Simba, the leader of the Council of the North, in the front. The large black wizard nodded to him over the heads of the others as he came up.
Next to him was the one-armed Master of Dragons who commanded the council’s dragon cavalry and Arianne, the tall blond woman who was Bal-Simba’s assistant.
The crowd parted as Wiz approached and he saw that the courtyard was not completely deserted. Out in its center sat Fluffy, n’e LRD. He was gazing up at the visitor and his tail switched back and forth like a fascinated cat’s. Caitlin and Ian were back in the shadows at a side door, huddled up against Shauna’s skirts like frightened chicks with a mother hen.
Wiz ducked back from the doorway.
“Quick,” he said to Bal-Simba, “tell me everything you know about dragons.”