No help for it, really, he told himself. Then he stood up, straightened his tunic, brushed the grass out of his blond hair and squared his shoulders. It never hurt to make an impressive entrance.
In fact, he realized, he had a spell of his master’s to make the entrance even more impressive. All the trumpets might even make the dragon think he had an army behind him.
fanfare exe! he whispered. Then he took a deep breath and opened his mouth to go forth and do battle with the dragon.
The dragon, meanwhile, was mostly interested in getting a nice nap. He had fed that morning on a dozen or so sheep at an outlying farmstead and taken light exercise by flying a few dozen leagues. Now he was ready to settle down and digest his meal. The rocks were nicely warm from the sun and the scenery suited his dragonish nature.
He was just relaxing into gentle slumber when the blare of trumpets yanked him awake.
The dragon’s head jerked up and he roared in surprise and anger. A lance of flame shot from his jaws directed at nothing in particular but passing over the rock behind which Llewllyn waited. The bard was unharmed but the blast of superheated air cost him what little courage he had remaining.
Unfortunately, when Llewllyn became frightened he stuttered uncontrollably. Every time he tried to get a syllable out it touched off another peal of trumpets. The rocks rang and resounded with the noise of a trumpet fanfare played as a twenty-part round and the dragon’s head darted this way and that seeking the source of his torment.
Finally it was too much. With a roar of frustration the dragon leapt into the sky to try to find a quieter place for his nap.
Llewllyn was still watching the dragon go when Anna came running down the trail and into his arms.
“You’re all right! I saw the fire and the dragon, and I was afraid.” She stopped with her eyes even wider as the significance sank in. “You did it,” Anna breathed. “You defeated a dragon.”
Llewllyn opened his mouth to say something modest but the trumpet fanfare cut him off.
Anna’s eyes grew even wider. “Oh, you are a mighty wizard! And my hero.” Llewllyn just smiled and held Anna tighter. Occasionally, given enough hints, he did know when to shut up.
Winging away from the rocks the dragon came to a somewhat different conclusion. A pretty pass indeed when you can’t even take a nap without being disturbed by these pesky humans and their stupid magical jokes, he thought. I’m going to have to do something about them. And this new wizard of theirs.
Twenty-two: Dragon Trouble
The Consultant’s Three Rules of Crisis Management:
1) When Life Hands You A Lemon, Make Lemonade.
2) When Life Hands You A Hemlock, Don’t Make Hemlock-ade.
2a) Always Know The Difference Between A Lemon and A Hemlock.
The Consultants’ Handbook
“ . . . and then the dragon flew away,” Anna told Wiz and Malkin, her blue eyes round as saucers. “And we were saved!”
“Oh, it was nothing really,” Llewllyn said modestly from where he stood at her side, his hand resting on her shoulder. Anna reached up and placed her hand over his. Then she beamed up at her savior.
Wiz and Malkin exchanged glances and then stared down at their plates and the remains of dinner. Obviously both of them thought that for once Llewllyn’s description of events was more accurate than Anna’s.
The pair had been through the incident three times and Wiz still wasn’t completely sure what had happened. For one thing, the story had grown with each retelling. For another he trusted neither Llewllyn’s veracity nor Anna’s powers of observation. He was reasonably certain there had been a dragon involved and that the dragon had flown away, perhaps in response to something Llewllyn had done. He suspected from Anna’s description of the sound of trumpets that his fanfare spell had been involved as well. Beyond that, he wasn’t willing to speculate-except about the reason for the grass stains on the blanket and the dried grass in Anna’s hair and the flush on the girl’s cheeks.