A Worry with Warlocks – Episode 6
If you ever find yourself face to face with a dragon, there are two things you should remember. First: be afraid. Especially if it smiles. Second: you have as much chance of outrunning its fiery breath as your landlord letting you off your unpaid rent.
I feel I have some experience in the matter, what with having been locked in a dungeon along with a dragon whose spine brushed the ceiling.
“Get back!” I shouted shuffling to the rear and waggled the knife which, I was uncomfortably aware, would be as much use as a toothpick against the dragon’s armoured scales.
The dragon’s eyes narrowed, but it didn’t stop stalking inch-by-inch towards me.
“Do you know where I was before your spell so rudely brought me here?” it said, its eye ridges arching. Without waiting for me to reply, it continued, “I was sunning myself on a mountaintop, pondering what my next meal would be.” Its lips pulled back in a less-than-reassuring smile. “And, guess what?” Again, impolitely not waiting for me to answer, it said, “Its going to be you.”
“Ha! Think again! You’ll not find me easy prey,” I shrieked in what even I felt was an unconvincing tone.
“Oh, really?” The dragon shook its head sadly. “What can you possibly do to stop me?”
“Magic! I can do magic!”
The dragon chuckled. “Is that all? It’s not like I didn’t know that already. Your magic brought me here, remember?” It sighed. “In any case, I’m a creature of magic so your pathetic spells can’t hurt me.”
“I’ll wipe that smug expression off your face! Spells may not harm you directly, but just watch! I am going to turn this knife into a sword and thrust it through your evil heart!”
I spoke with confidence for an image of a page from my book of spells had popped into my mind. Waving my free hand in a weaving pattern, I raised my fist holding the knife above my head and gabbled the words of the spell I saw in my mind’s eye.
There was a flash of thaumaturgic energy. The knife changed. In triumph, I brandished what I now held.
But the weight was all wrong. And the grip didn’t feel right.
With a sinking heart, my gaze crept up my arm.
Instead of a sword with a long blade of brave steel, my hand was clutching a limp stick of celery topped by a jaunty cluster of leaves.
My eyes grew large. “Oh,” I said, giving the bendy stalk a shake in the hope I was mistaken, and that what I gripped in my paw really was a sword.
But, no. The celery leaves waved merrily and hope fled.
I rolled down my eyes and looked at the dragon.
To my surprise, it had stopped in its tracks, a look of distaste on its face.
“Would you be a good chap and throw that away?” it said, staring at the celery.
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because if I roast you while you hold that execrable vegetable, it will impart an unpleasant taste to your flesh. Contaminate your flavour.”
The creature shuddered delicately. A thread of steam rose from one nostril.
“You don’t like celery?” I said.
“Nobody in their right mind does.”
“Well then.” I straightened my shoulders. “I don’t believe I will do as you ask.”
“Please. For the sake of decency and my palate, be reasonable!”
“No!” I gave the celery a flourish, and treaded backwards. “Stay where you are! Don’t move or I’ll rub this celery all over my body!”
The dragon gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me!”
I took another step to the rear. My heel caught on something and I fell flat on the floor.
Grimmon’s leg, I realised as I groggily raised my head. He was still sitting with his back to the wall, legs straight out along the floor, gnawing on a rat and watching the dragon with interest.
“Ah,” said the dragon, peering out my outstretched arm. “That’s better.”
I looked at my hand. It was empty. A chill shot through me. The celery must have flown from it when I fell.
Turning my head side to side, my heart thumping, I cast my gaze around and spotted the vegetable lying on the floor on the opposite side of the cell. Too far away to reach before the dragon roasted me.
“Oh, I am going to enjoy this,” said the dragon. It nodded at Grimmon. “And a what a delectable addition to the menu. I hadn’t noticed you sitting there until now. Two tasty morsels instead of one.”
Its chest swelled as it drew a great breath. Stretching its neck towards the pair of us, it opened its jaws. I watched in horrified fascination as a fierce glow formed in the fire glands at the back of its tongue, and its throat began to narrow.
There was a grunt from next to me, and Grimmon’s arm whipped out. A rat sailed out of his hand, into the dragon’s mouth and stopped when it lodged in the beast’s narrowing throat.
The dragon coughed. Its eyes crossed and it coughed again. The rat stayed where it was, firmly holding the creature’s throat open.
The glow in its fire glands grew brighter. It sat up on its haunches, snapped its mouth shut, and clamped its taloned front feet across its lips.
A loud pop issued from its nostrils, followed by flickers of flame.
Its eyes widened.
With a sharp crack, every scale on its body became outlined in fire. An instant later, the tower’s foundation shook as the entire creature erupted in a fireball.
Blackness descended on me.
When dragons are about to blow fire from their mouths, Grimmon told me later, they close their throats to prevent the flames igniting the flammable gastric juices of their digestive systems. His accurately thrown rat, he informed me, had wedged the creature’s throat open and therefore been the cause of the its demise.
I didn’t know about that back then, and when I recovered my senses, I could only look around in wonder as I sat up. My ears were ringing, and I was gagging at an awful stench like someone was burning the contents of a drain.
The dungeon’s walls were spattered with blood and lumps of meat. The torch had gone out, and all that lifted the darkness was the light coming from burning dragon scales scattered across the floor. In one corner, Grimmon was pulling himself to his feet, one hand on the wall to support himself, the other waggling a finger in his ear.
Shaking like a leaf, I put my legs under me and stood.
It was then I noticed the grille was missing from the doorway. It lay crumpled in the passageway under a large slab of dragon flesh and bone.
The silence was broken by a clanking sound coming from the passage. I shuffled to the doorway and stared into the shadows, my mouth dry. Somebody was coming down the passage towards us, their every step punctuated by a hollow banging of metal objects knocking together.
When they got closer, the faint light behind me revealed an odd figure wearing a large floppy hat which hid their face, and a long coat which was hung all over with pots and pans.
It seemed an unlikely outfit for a warlock, but even so I reckoned it must be Akalemmo coming down to gloat.
“Go on! Clear off!” I yelled.
“Is that any way to greet someone coming to save your ungrateful hide?” said the cookware-laden person lifting the brim of their hat.
My mouth dropped open.
It was Trewla.
“Well?” she said. “Don’t stand there gawping. Do you want to get out of here or not?”
*** Continued in Episode 7 ***
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