The Dragon’s Cook
by Erik Bundy
A dragon named Fume lived in the mountainous dukedom of Etbourg. He was over three hundred years old, the size of an overweight pony, often bit his front claws – nerves — and had leathery wings that squeaked when he flew. His price for not raiding the countryside was that a virgin live with him. Her term of residence was one year, and she assisted him with his alchemical studies. To show his sociability, Fume also volunteered when necessary at the local crematorium.
One spring morning as Fume creaked around inside his lair, he heard a shrill whistle. He found a young woman in a lilac business suit – knee-length skirt – at the main entrance of his cavern, four fingers in her mouth as she was about to whistle again. From a linen pocket, she whipped out an electronic notepad with her photo identification on the screen. Fume peered at it with rheumy eyes and pretended he could read.
“Lady Adir, Department of Safety and Health,” she said. “My father is the Duke.” She glanced back at the sloping, stony path. “It’s a long climb up here.”
If Fume hadn’t burnt off his eyebrows long ago, he would have raised one now. “I do live on a mountain.”
Her lips tightened, and he knew sarcasm had made him yet another enemy.
“You will need to repair those stone stairs,” she said. “I stumbled twice. And a handrail must be installed immediately.”
Fume blew out a smoke ring and watched it waver upwards and disappear in the soft morning light.
“Until the repairs are completed, I am sorry to say, I will have to close the footpath to all pedestrian traffic,” Lady Adir added, not at all sorry.
“Really,” answered Fume. “Maintaining roads and public paths, I believe, are dukedom responsibilities. Your father won’t thank you for reminding him of this.”
“The Duke is exempt from public safety rules.”
“How nice for him,” Fume said.
“I have come to inspect your lair,” she announced.
Fume hissed vapor through soot-lined nostrils. “Do you have a warrant?”
“You are not a suspect in a crime.” Lady Adir’s expression became uncertain. “Are you?”
Fume chuckled smoke. “No, no. It’s just that you seem, uh, what is the word? Predisposed! Yes, predisposed to finding a crime in my home. I cannot allow this inspection, Lady Adir. It will set an irritating precedent.”
“Well now, let’s see.” She brought up a document on her electronic notebook. “My father is sending another young maiden next week. Her name is Belena. No inspection, no Belena.”
Fume scratched his limestone threshold with three yellow claws. He grimaced as a twinge of arthritis passed up his green leg. “I don’t wish to seem discourteous, but–”
“Good.” She darted past him into the twilit cavern.
Fume growled, but having not yet basked in the sun, he felt too cold and decrepit to chase her around his lair.
She waved a delicate hand in front of her nose. “What is that smell? Oh-h, sorry,” she said, looking with repugnance at Fume’s moldering body. “You might try incense. The last maiden did complain.”
“She complained. If Gussalin was a virgin, then I’m a duck.” Fume ticked a claw on the stone floor in rhythm with his words. “The Duke must send me a virgin this time.”
“That,” she huffed, “is no longer a job requirement.”
“It’s part of our contract.”
“Anyway, that’s not my department. You can contact Human Services. Recruitment Division.”
“I turn . . . what is the word? Salvaged? Yes, salvaged iron into gold. A female virgin is required to perform the rite correctly. Otherwise, I end up with scrap iron, which is what Gussalin left me with.”
Lady Adir sniffed. “Her job description calls for her to polish your gold, not make it.”
“Other duties as assigned,” Fume argued.
Fume didn’t mention, because he didn’t want to give Lady Adir more power over him, that he must perform the rite of rejuvenation soon. He was rotting away like a mushroom browning at the edges because Gussalin had lied about her purity. He needed a virgin before senility made him forget the youth-renewing rite all together.
Lady Adir’s expression became officious. “You have only one window. Facing north, I see. You’ll need to add another for ventilation. Facing south, I think. Yes, south. Oh, you do have a lot of treasure lying around, don’t you? You sleep on it, I guess. Ah-ha, we were wondering where our monogrammed silver plate had gone to. In fact, one of the servants was executed for losing it. Father will want it all back.”
Fume inserted his putrid bulk between his treasure and Lady Adir. “Perhaps we could split the plate between us.”
“Are you trying to bribe me?”
“Sorry, I must have been thinking with the reptilian part of my brain. I hope this new maiden . . . did you say her name was Belena? I can’t seem to remember names anymore. Well, I hope she doesn’t have an ardent young man, someone who wishes to be a hero and rescue her. These petal-cheeked maidens you send me begrudge the attitude of winner dines after their bothersome boyfriends attack.”
Lady Adir tapped information into her notepad. “Gussalin said you didn’t feed her. She lost over ten kilograms in the year she lived with you.”
“Yes-s. Improved her figure no end. I should call it the Dragon’s Heavenly Body Diet.”
“This is not a hardship tour. Starvation is not allowed.”
Fume aimed his red eyes at her. “I provided Gussalin with fire and healthy food. She wouldn’t crack open an egg shell.”
“Then you need a cook.”
“She claimed to have allergies. Could eat only what appealed to her, mainly sweets. She considered sugar a food group. She thought warming food was cooking it. She only had to ask, and I would have charbroiled anything she wanted. You young women must–”
Lady Adir held up a hand. “Cooking is beyond the scope of her position description. Now show me what chemicals Belena will use to polish your gold and silver?”
“We use dragon urine. Do you require a fresh sample?”
Lady Adir’s nostrils dilated. “Be sure you provide gloves. Now regarding your metallurgy, it is my understanding you do not have a permit.”
Fume snorted smoke ringlets. “Alchemy is not illegal. And I think you are too smart to tell your father you intend to cut off his percentage of the gold I make.”
Lady Adir considered this a moment, then said brusquely, “So in conclusion, before Belena comes, you will need to show proof that you added a south-facing window and hired a servant.” She tapped on her note pad. “I will send you a copy of my findings.” Lady Adir then strode out of the cavern.
Fume lay hissing on his threshold. Lady Adair expected him to hire a servant to serve a servant? Only a dukedom official could think up such nonsense. She also demanded a second window. That meant calling in the mercenary dwarfs. They would dig a hole in his treasure hoard as payment for chiseling a hole through his cavern wall. Perhaps . . . yes, he would pay them with the monogrammed silver plate. Let the Lady Adir try to reclaim it from them while they were eating off it.
Fume scratched his side and two scales fell off. An unblemished maiden must come to him without delay. Lady Adir, though, would insist on her findings being resolved before allowing Belena to enter his lair.
Must he rouse the countryside again? That always stirred up a swarm of muscular heroes. Had he even the strength to fly now? His might pull a wing muscle.
Ah-h well, tomorrow he would crawl down to the nearest ripe wheat field and sneeze. Accidents happen. The duplicitous Duke would not blame him for the resulting fire, not officially anyway, but he would understand the threat. This was all so tiresome and–
Fume flicked out his tongue to test the air . . . furtive movement, a hero or thief no doubt, and something else, something deliciously gamy. The intruder had sneaked up the mountain while Lady Adir distracted him. So much excitement in one day might bring on his liver fluctuations.
He slithered as fast as his aging body allowed to a back entrance covered by spider webs. Hidden, he watched a stout, curly haired youth crawl unheroically through a pink rhododendron. The second-rate armor was buffed to a dull shine but dinged . . . probably inherited from a grandfather who had fought as a common foot soldier in some ducal war.
Uncoiling, Fume crept down-slope behind the would-be hero. The young man became alert, sniffing the air. He glanced over his shoulder, jumped to his feet, and pulled a notched sword from a scabbard someone had used to stoke a hearth fire. The hero lifted his left leg, knee bent, and stood on his right foot with his rusty sword held point up in front of him.
Fume gurgled a chesty, smoker’s laugh. “I’m so glad to see you studied the manual.”
“Manual? You know about the secret fighting stances?”
“I have seen the pose before.” Fume didn’t mention that he had authored the manual to prevent heroes from becoming overly creative or that he received ten percent of the profits on all copies sold. Telling the young the truth, depriving them of their illusions, always depressed them so.
“If I might offer a constructive criticism,” Fume said, “I believe your raised knee is an inch or three too high. Balance, you know.”
The would-be hero’s eyes flared a second before he screamed a pagan war cry and charged.
Fume knocked the sword from the young man’s grasp with a claw swipe not found in the manual. He reminded himself to include a heroic stance for becoming barbecue in the next edition.
The lean young face inside the helmet, visor up, twisted with fear. The hero licked his lips and shucked a belly knife out of its raveling leather sheath.
“A novel idea, tickling a dragon to death with a knife.” Fume sighed a sulfurous breath. “Your timing is off, young man. The perfumed virgin in need of rescuing won’t be here for at least a week. What is your name?”
“Rulf,” the hero answered, his voice quavering.
Flapping to stop itself in mid-glide, an anticipatory raven settled on a limb of a nearby oak. Fume snorted. The fastidious Lady Adir would, no doubt, approve of ravens tidying up after he breakfasted.
Rulf swallowed and asked, “You have a shovel, right? The Duke says all bodies must be given proper burial.”
Fume did enjoy these pre-prandial discussions. “Ah-h, I think instant cremation is the exception. Heroes are the only humans the Duke allows me to eat. Tradition, you know.”
“Do I g-get a last meal?” Rulf choked out.
What was this dukedom coming to? Servants required a servant to cook for them and meals required a last meal. “Sorry, but I don’t have a cook in residence at the moment.”
“I-I-I can make my own meal.”
Fume’s tail twitched, a sign of sudden interest. “Heroes normally skewer monsters, not kabobs. You cook?”
“I’ve watched my mum do it for years.”
Fume sniffed. A real hero would have lied and said yes. “Why take up this quest of saving maidens who aren’t in need of rescuing?”
Rulf stared down at square toenails outlined with farm dirt. “I thought maybe the Duke would let me marry his daughter or something.”
Fume shuddered. “I take it you have not yet met Lady Adir. Is your life worth a year of cooking?”
“My . . . my life? Cook for a dragon? You mean barbecue people for–”
Fume silenced him with a raised yellow claw. “I do my own roasting. Which reminds me, what did you ride here?”
“Our mule.”
Fume’s hollow stomach rumbled. He had known it was not a horse. “Mule à la francaise will show appropriate gratitude for my sparing your life. You will cook for the new girl, Belena, if she ever arrives. Agreed?”
Rulf blushed with relief. “It’s a deal.” He put out his right hand, looked embarrassed, and pulled it back. “Do you have tarragon and savory? My mum uses them a lot.”
Fume chuckled. “This does sound promising. I doubt Belena will lose weight this year. Remember now, no stealing from me and no trying to assassinate an old dragon.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. What are my duties?”
“Oh, nothing right now except to acquaint me with your delicious mule. Then you will carry a message to the dwarfs. I have work for them.” Fume looked up at the sun, smirking, anticipating a good year. “After Belena arrives, she will no doubt supervise you. They always do. I’m certain the first chore assigned you will be to hang linen curtains over a new window I’m having put in. Oh yes, you will also need to buy a chef’s hat. Lady Adir, no doubt, will require one. Health regulations, you know.”
Fume chuckled, thinking of his coming skirmishes with Lady Adair. Enemies were so much more amusing than friends.
###
Erik Bundy is a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop and grand prize winner of the Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition. His fantasy novel, Magic and Murder Among the Dwarves, will be published by Untold Press in the spring of 2014.
had served brief sentences in such dungeons, for the petty crimes of his young adulthood. His present accommodations, however, were of a wholly different order. This cell was aired, roomy enough for nearly eight extensive strides along its length; he had charcoal and walls to draw on; the water was clean and the food tolerable. Perhaps most lavishly, he had a sweeping view through the barred window of the city of Lakya-ris, Ghremoin’s capital.
Originally he had buried the murder weapon in the sandy plains, after he’d stolen a pedaled biwheel–his first theft–in the town proper of Miinrolah and raced frantically northward, jouncing on the contraption’s seat and barely keeping his balance.
He stood on a shadowy side street in Nurm. The day had long since waned. There was mud underfoot. In the North one often found oneself standing in mud. Nurm’s structures were hut-like, made of native materials. Srahund wore rough anonymous clothing. He drew little attention. Bartenders ignored him; women rarely gave him a second glance. He used this lack of visibility to his advantage, of course, snatching up any loose unguarded thing of worth he chanced upon. But he always felt that exclusion, like a personal affront.
intrigued. He had seen other magicmakers since his school days, since gaunt Dorbalo. Westerners were fairly common by now. They dwelled in the North, just as they did elsewhere in Ghremoin, so he’d heard. Srahund wasn’t the only person to harbor apprehensions about the practitioners. Others shared his views, though this was never a source of bonding for him with anyone else. The magicmakers encountered their share of intolerance and difficulties. Served them right. They were bringing their deceitful practices to places that had never seen such skills before.
hat old magicmaking woman, there was nothing to compare with actually being outside again. Or so he told himself. Really, secretly, it seemed no more or less real to him than those journeys he had made into his past. Still, what a joy to free! To walk the capital’s streets, to take a meal when he wanted, to ogle women–these were great treats for him. He relished what he’d earned for himself.
After upwards of an hour, D’Ahid came to a passage that curved to the left; and at that curve shadows danced on the wall. He tip-toed forward. Someone had anchored a sconce to the rock, and set a lit torch within it.
Lord Tragh holstered his weapon, and regarded Katral’s body. He’d come a long way to see Kestor’s corpse, only to find that an uncomfortable journey had wasted his time. Then that coward had unleashed a litany of blubbering excuses for his failures. Worse, Katral had let the outlaws escape with Kestor’s body. The fool should have executed him in public.
Governor Garn leaned back in the plush velvet seat of the gold-plated, horse-drawn carriage and frowned. How could civilized people travel in this manner?
into the beginnings of a nation-state,” Garn had told him. “That nation-state fell apart after his death, leaving the scattered city-states of today, but he remains their greatest leader. One legend claims he never did die.”
owned out the carefree tones of families gathered in the school yard to sing the Songs of Remembrance. From out of the shadows four masked riders bore down on parents, children and teachers.
impersonated Kestor and did that. He also murdered several children.”
rder by sundown. Even so, he’d pause in his labors to witness the execution in an hour’s time.
Yeah right. Their medallion burned against my chest. I tried not to wrinkle my nose. Who knew how many of those foul creatures had caressed the ruby with their hands. Its heat soothed me, and my muscles relaxed. The swish of satin brought me out of the trance.
A pale white form materialized in front of my eyes in a cyclone of wind. Her sharp teeth glistened in the moonlight, their sharpness punctuated by beady black eyes that stood out against white skin and hair. She traced my face with a long finger, her skin hard as marble. I tried not to wince as her nails scratched against my cheek, hot blood blooming from the scrapes.
reached the umpteenth level of bad timing. The dust sparkled. I let my mind delve into my magic reserves, but they were empty. I had used it all up on that stupid rock. The glittering specks settled on Aaron and enveloped him in black mist. Moments later, they disappeared just as the ashes from headquarters had blown away in the wind.
is thumbnail. He was a head taller than me and probably twenty years older. Thin, short scars decorated his face.
could feel my body freezing, my feet rooted to the floor. Don’t panic, I said to myself. A male Specter floated inches away from me. I watched warily as his twisted lips curved into a grotesque smile.
around his shoulders, his soulless eyes the same pale color of his skin.
“Melody, stop,” Aaron whispered next to me. I shook him off and stared straight into Erik’s silver eyes.
“Melody!” Aaron screeched.
“I told you not to lose it. To bring it to them,” he panted. He opened a gritty palm. The ruby floated a few inches above his hand. “Take it,” he gasped. “I cannot be here. They cannot see me.” His skin was charred beneath the garnet. I snatched the gem from him and his eyes closed.
The doors to the chamber opened and my breath caught in my chest. Erik stood in iron chains, his face still bloodied, his clothes torn. I made to rise from my seat but a hand pressed me back into the cushion. Two guards led him to the center of the room. His shoulders hunched forward, his eyes refused to meet mine. A hush fell over the Circle and Sergion stepped forward.
“So how, exactly, am I supposed to get in there?” I looked down at the gaping black hole. “Jumping into abysses isn’t quite my thing.” Sergion stood above where Erik and I sat at the edge. I intended on making the Head Mage’s last few moments with me his least desirable.
“Melody. We’ve been waiting for you for so long,” the man said. He had wrinkles that made some of the three hundred year-old dwarves I’d seen look like youngsters. He glanced at Erik. “Welcome back, our child. We knew you would return eventually.”
She flipped over and pushed herself up, brandishing her sword with her right hand and flinging the extra pillow with her left. A dark figure leaping at her from out of the shadows collided with the pillow.
Saulius shrugged and shoved the last bite of his pastry into his mouth, licking black currant preserves off his fingers.
“Ahem. ‘Let it be known that as the twentieth year of his most glorious reign approaches, the Divine Emperor Valtseharu Tahevas the Fifteenth, Incarnate Avatar of the Lord of Heaven, High Priest and Intercessor, Savior and Defender of Mankind–‘” Lida glanced over to see whether Saulius’s recitation of the Emperor’s titles and attributes was having any effect on Merolliay, whose people rejected all divinity including the Emperor’s. But if Merolliay was aggravated he was not letting it show. “–et cetera, et cetera . . . ‘let it be known that the Divine Emperor, may he live forever, has chosen to swell the ranks of those permitted to serve him in the Imperial Guard, to bask in his holy radiance and the light of his countenance.’ Et cetera. ‘Therefore, anyone who wishes to serve in this way shall wait without the East watch Gate of the Imperial Compound before sunrise on the last day of the tenth month of this, the nineteenth year in the reign of the Emperor Valtseharu Tahevas.'” The tenth month in the Imperial Calendar ended three days after the fall equinox; today was the thirteenth day of the tenth month.
Outside, men in identical rough gray tunics and leggings were lifting the assassin’s body into an ox-drawn wagon of unplaned wooden boards. The sides of the wagon were high enough that Lida could not see the contents as she passed by, but the rising stench suggested that the assassin’s was not the only corpse. One of the men in gray watched Lida and the others as they started off down the street coming out of a house from which a body had been thrown, but he didn’t say anything. None of the corpse gatherers were armed, and Lida had never seen City Watchmen in this district.
Some sentiments didn’t require words. At one point the woman turned to Lida, looked her up and down as if she were a goat at the market, and sniffed disapprovingly before speaking again. Lida crossed her arms and scowled. Men were condescending enough about her choice to live the life of a swordsman, but the contempt she earned from other women was in a different realm entirely.
Another rapid series of bangs, each punctuated by a shout from the crowd and a cloud of smoke, made further discussion impossible. Lida caught a glimpse of the two men at the head of the procession turning the corner onto their street pulling a small cart. One of the men marching alongside the cart reached in for some object that he handed off to another. People were in the way, all pushing to see, and even though Lida was unusually tall for a woman, she could only see a bit of what was going on here and there past the heads and shoulders of everyone between her and the middle of the road.
There was no lamp on their table, only a couple of squat smoky tallow candles. Lida watched Merolliay in the dim light, watched it reflect off the angular planes of his face and short neatly-trimmed beard. She watched him lick the juice from the cabbage parcels off his fingers. She had drunk too much to worry that he would notice her staring at him. He was like Andraikos sometimes, quiet and thoughtful, as if considering some great mystery that he believed only he could understand. But I might understand, if you only told me, Lida used to think then and thought now.
It was painful, which she had heard it would be, and awkward, which she hadn’t. She wasn’t afraid of pain, though, and few things in her life had ever not been awkward. In the moments after they finished she thought she had never been more content lying close enough to Merolliay to feel the heart beating in his chest, feeling the whisper of his breath against her cheek.
Merolliay brooded all the way back to the house, sick with longing for all that had been left behind in Liban. He wasn’t sure his countrymen even realized all the ways they had been corrupted by the Imperial City. He knew all the men at that meeting employed paid servants for menial work in their houses, instead of hiring the near-adult children of friends and neighbors to teach them the value of hard work. Even worse, despite Filipe’s complaint about the exclusion of women from Guilds, Merolliay had yet to see a female face at one of these meetings. The real meetings, not the university rallies or the lectures in cafes. Even at those, the women and girls attended primarily to meet young men, rather than taking an active role in planning and organizing.
“Because I’m not a member of the Guild!” Lida said, the rawness in her voice betraying her emotion. And no wonder; Andraikos Dareshna had given Lida that sword.
