 
## The Princess and the Firedrake

# by

# Jim Stinson

The Princess and the Firedrake

Copyright 2012 by Jim Stinson

ISBN 9781476469560

### Published at Smashwords

### Text corrected and reformatted August, 2012

# Smashwords Edition, License Notes

# Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

# Prologue

When the great front door of the palace slammed shut, Princess Alix was locked in alone in the dark. Every noise in the sudden, total blackness seemed magnified: the rattle of the lock as its bolt shot home, the clank of the big brass key as it was withdrawn from the keyhole, the clop-clop sound of booted feet as they marched away on the outer side. When the footsteps had finally died away, the silence itself seemed oppressively loud.

Blind in the windowless chamber, the princess groped until her fingers found the wood of the door, then she turned and pressed her back to it. She took a deep breath and willed her heart to slow down again. It was only the great entrance hall, after all; she had crossed it numberless times. She considered her situation: the inner door was directly opposite and there were no longer furnishings to trip over. But how many steps were there to the other door? She didn't know; she'd never needed to remember. She set out slowly, carefully, with one hand lifting the hem of her gown and the other hand held palm-forward in front of her.

Ten steps, 20 steps, 30 steps, the light click-clicks of her own heels bounced back and forth in the stone-walled chamber. Then, abruptly, she struck a barrier. Her fingers discovered damp stones and crumbling mortar, but no door. She must have veered to one side, but which side? She was left-handed, so perhaps she was left-footed too. If her stronger left leg had a slightly longer stride, she would have angled a bit to the right - between two and four degrees, she reckoned, after some speedy mental geometry. If, therefore, she worked her way to the left, she should logically come to the door in the center.

That was how the Princess' mind worked.

Tracing the chilly wall with her fingers, she made her way slowly leftward until stones gave way to the wooden planks of a door. The handle would be on the right. Her fingers found and turned it and she pulled the door open. This next chamber had only one high, tiny window, but her eyes were adjusted now and she could see again.

But there was nothing to see, no people, no furniture, no carpeting, no hangings on the walls, no chandeliers, no torches. Even the shy tiny elves, who could sometimes be seen collecting dust bunnies in corners - for reasons that only the tiny elves knew - had departed. The room was as blank and bare as a dungeon, for that is what the palace had become: an empty prison for a princess sentenced to solitary confinement. She had done nothing to deserve this punishment - committed no crime, spoken no treason, disobeyed no command from her father the king. And yet he had condemned her to live in this gloomy stone lockup forever. But since he had not left her one crumb of food, "forever" would end when she died of starvation.

What had brought her to this sorry state had been magic - the ancient magic that was now in a fight for its life with its upstart new enemy, science. Science had been unknown for centuries as witches and wizards, pixies and sprites, and all the kingdom of faerie ruled the world. But in this new century science was awakening and magic was beginning its long slow slide into harmless myth.

### But not yet. In the princess' time, magic was still fearful, still wonderful. Magic had condemned her to this awful fate and only magic could rescue her from it. This is the story of how it all came about, beginning when Princess Alix was just three months old....

# Chapter 1

# An Ominous Christening Party

### The kingdom of Sulphronia lay in the middle of nowhere and its capital city, Gdink, lay in the middle of Sulphronia. In the middle of Gdink sat a high hill, upon which nobody built anything because it was far too steep for houses, except for the rambling royal palace on top. The palace was called "Schloss Schlaffstein," but people avoided saying the name because it made them drool on their doublets and gowns. The kingdom had few other notable features, with one exception, a resident firedrake named Griddle. This monstrous beast was a fearsome sight to behold, with a dragon head on a rhinoceros body, the legs of a bull, a reptilian tail, and the wings of an oversize bat. His hide was all plates like a rhino's, but the plates were solid iron, and fastened with rivets like a steam boiler. Griddle lived in a great lava lake in Sulphronia's one other notable feature, the volcano Mount Sulfur.

* * * *

Up at the royal palace, a christening party was underway - but just barely, because so far, no one had come. At one end of the long state dining table sat King Grogelbert IX, Duke of Gemeinschaft, Elector of Steenstein, and Monarch of Greater Sulphronia. (Since Sulphronia was in fact smaller than nearby Switzerland, "greater" was only a hopeful boast.) Grogelbert was a stout, red-faced, cheerful king who lived for sports and good food but distrusted science, which was new at the time. At the other end sat Queen Athena, who trusted science and nothing but science. With her silky brown hair and fine face, she was a beautiful queen, though somewhat lacking in social skills. On each side of the table, fifty more place settings separated the king from the queen by over 100 feet. The empty plates and goblets gleamed, the silver shone, and the linen was so crisp that the great banquet hall smelled of fresh laundry.

And all one hundred guest chairs were empty.

King Grogelbert beckoned the Palace Major Domo, who squeaked over in his Sunday shoes. "Your Majesty?"

The king clutched his arm. "You delivered the invitations?"

The Major Domo was offended. "Of course not; the Imperial Postman did that." He shrugged. "But everyone made excuses, Sire. The Bishop was sorting his sock drawer..."

The king looked thoughtful. "Well, that is reasonable."

"The lord mayor required a root canal," the Major Domo continued. "As for the Polish ambassador..."

"Do we _have_ a Polish ambassador?"

At the other end of the table - almost in the next kingdom over - Queen Athena shouted at her husband, "Groggy, do join the rest of us in the Renaissance." She waved at all the empty places. "I told you you couldn't invite faeries to our daughter's christening because faeries no longer exist! Science has disproved them conclusively." When the queen used that judgmental voice, whole topics would meekly shut up and sit down.

The king had, indeed, sent invitations to the world's most prominent magical creatures. Puzzled by their absence, Grogelbert whispered, "Yes, what did happen to the faeries?"

"Oh, they all seemed quite pleased..." The Major Domo was suddenly silenced by an uncanny noise like the whiz of a thousand dragonflies and the chatter of autumn leaves. Dozens of faeries, elves, pixies, gnomes, trolls, wizards, witches, and sprites were flying, creeping, or somehow just appearing until they filled nearly every one of the 100 seats.

The Major Domo was instantly suspicious. "Some of these must be gate crashers," he whispered. "After all, we sent a few invitations to humans."

But the king was so happy to see all his friends - faeries were more fun to talk to than humans anyway - that he paid no attention. Beaming, he scanned the crowd of spirits from Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, Africa, India, and Asia. Even Coyote and Raven had come from the new and intriguing Americas.

"There you are," he exclaimed, "wonderful! Find your place cards, will you?" The fey creatures bustled about, sitting down, tying on napkins, and choosing food and drink from the now-smiling servants.

### At the other end of the table, Queen Athena peered at her husband. Though too far away to see clearly, he seemed to be talking to himself, and right in front of the servants; what _was_ the man thinking? The queen hooked on a pair of spectacles - the new kind that hung on your ears - and looked closely. Of course, all that her scientific brain could see was a long empty table with the king at the end of it, smiling and waving like a madman. The queen was so embarrassed by her foolish husband that she pulled out a book titled _Opticks,_ by her hero, Signor Galileo Galilei and resumed her place in it. Just ignore him, she thought, just ignore him. Of course, Queen Athena did see the dishes and goblets afloat in thin air and the napkins tied around nothing at all, but she put that down to flaws in her spectacles. Signor Galileo had warned fellow scientists about lens aberrations.

* * * *

The king was happily dismantling a haunch of roast venison when he suddenly noticed something. The chair on his right was empty. "Where's Evil Krank the Warlock?" he said to no one in particular. "I hope he's not unwell."

As if on cue, an oily black glop of hot asphalt formed in the air and then stretched and inflated into Evil Warlock Krank. He was dressed in a moldy scholar's cap and his dreaded deathwatch robe, embroidered with horrible skulls.

Without so much as saying how-do, Krank grated, "I'm not unwell; I'm un-invited!" The twisted old warlock radiated pure rotten evil like heat from a stove, and the wood sprite beside him turned purple and vanished.

King Grogelbert feared the malignant old alchemist, but he summoned the courage to defend himself. "Not invited? No, no, look: here's your place card." He plucked a small parchment square off the tablecloth and held it up before Krank. "I lettered it myself," he said proudly.

Krank frowned and the card exploded in flames. Grogelbert shook his scorched fingers and stuck them in a water glass.

Krank thrust his hairy, knobby nose an inch from the king's frightened face. "I don't care if you tattooed it on your forehead!" he screamed, "I! Wasn't!! Invited!!!" With a _BANG_ and a smell like spent gunpowder, Krank vanished and reappeared seated on his chair at the table. His horrible face turned cheerful, which made him look even scarier. Krank spread a napkin over his moldy robe, speared a whole chicken with an index finger he'd turned into a carving fork, shook the chicken onto his plate, and turned the fork back to a finger. The chicken exploded, separating the meat from the carcass. The evil warlock stuffed a fistful of white meat into his toothless mouth, dumped the rest on the table, and licked the plate, and tossed it over his shoulder, where it shattered on the floor. King Grogelbert winced because the good china was now only a 999-piece set.

Pushing this thought away, he said to the eldritch spirits around him, "Well it looks like you all brought gifts for the princess. Would you like to give, um, see her now?"

### There was a general nodding and smiling and rattling of wrapped presents. Rising, he led a parade of 99 happy spirits trailed by one evil warlock out of the banquet hall toward the royal nursery. Disturbed by the sounds of 101 chairs scraping back, Queen Athena looked up from her book to see a long line of packages jiggling and bobbing through the air on their way out the banquet hall door. Absurd! Shaking her beautiful head in denial, Queen Athena returned to Galileo's discussion of bi-concave lenses.

* * * *

A while later, the nursery was overflowing with strange little gifts, and the baby's nurse, Hildegard, was groaning from the strain of curtseying to each of 92 magical gift givers. The last eight guests were now filing past the royal crib from which Princess Alix smiled and cooed and charmed everybody.

Puck gave her his Cap of Darkness, and showed her how it made him vanish when he put it on. The baby giggled happily. An anonymous gnome offered a ring that would grant the wearer's every wish, and an African spirit in a wonderful mask left a leather bag full of Limpopo River water that he claimed could return the dead from the underworld. The great wizard Merlin tottered by, donating Excalibur the magic sword; though what a well-behaved princess might do with a sword someday was known only to Merlin and he wasn't talking.

Then a trio of fairy godmothers gathered about the crib and bent their sweet round faces toward the baby princess.

"You shall be kind and generous," said the first.

"You shall be brave and honest," said the second.

"You shall be brilliant," the third concluded, "more brilliant even than the queen." The infant heir to the throne cooed and blew winsome bubbles and the dear old grannies' tiny wings buzzed with pleasure.

Evil Warlock Krank had waited to be last because he hadn't yet thought up a mean enough gift. Any old demon could give her bad breath or pimples; and if Krank's gift involved obvious harm, folks might call him a bad sport or worse. His present had to be fiendishly nasty but brilliantly sneaky - some Fate Worse than Death that only he knew about. But what?

Listening to the third fairy godmother, Krank thought sarcastically, brilliant; she shall be brilliant. More brilliant...

And suddenly he had it! The evil warlock glowered at Princess Alix, who was already smart enough to stop smiling and stare solemnly back, as if unafraid but paying close attention. She didn't blink when he thrust his warty, whiskery face into hers.

"You'll be brilliant all right," Krank whispered, "too brilliant for your dim-wit daddy. The king will hate you for your brains, little Princess. He calls you Princess Alix now, but soon he will call you smart Alix. Soon you will be Princess SmartAlix!"

Delighted with his evil idea, Krank began hopping around the crib like a great skinny crow. "You will lose his love completely. Your father will abandon you: leave you all alone - forever!" He paused and glared at the tiny baby. "You will try to win his love again, but you can no more win back his love than bring the dead to life." Krank cackled and started turning back into a glop of hot asphalt, while his harsh voice went on: "That is your curse, Princess Alix: _you are doomed to be much too smart!"_ With a vicious spark and a startling _BOOM_! the evil warlock vanished.

Suddenly, the princess looked far too serious for a tiny baby.

Nurse Hildegard lifted Princess Alix and rocked her soothingly as the door flew open and Queen Athena swept in. "Thank goodness that's over," she said, "a total waste of time and money. I told him no one would come if he invited faeries." She looked triumphantly at Nurse Hildegard. "And was I right?" The nurse was too honest to lie, but the queen didn't notice her silence. She looked around at the magical gifts piled everywhere and wrinkled her beautiful nose. "What is this old junk and how did it get here?"

"Them's gifts, Madam."

"What?"

"From the faeries."

"Yes, and I have a drawbridge to sell you. Hildegard, not you too!"

"Aah..." bleated honest Hildegard.

"Never mind," said the queen, "throw this trash out." She noticed Alix in the nurse's arms and smiled at her infant daughter. "We don't believe in faeries, do we, my brilliant girl?" Without waiting for the baby's response the queen turned away and swept out again.

Rocking the tiny girl, Hildegard crooned, "Don't worry none, pumpkin; them's just her little ways."

The baby looked up at her and said, with perfect clarity, "She's quite right, you know, Nurse; faeries are mythical creatures."

Nurse Hildegard was too upset to notice that her three-month old darling was speaking complete sentences. She put Princess Alix into her crib while thinking hard about the faerie gifts. No one dared offend the faeries, she thought, but she shouldn't disobey the queen either.

Finally, she stored them far away, hauling each one up six flights of steps to the highest room in the oldest tower in the unused wing of the palace. The queen would never look for them there - she barely noticed what was in her own closet.

The last and heaviest gift was a full-length floor-stand mirror. Its massive oak frame was heavily carved with garlands of fruit and flowers, and a fierce-looking wooden owl on top. Puffing and wheezing after six flights of steps times 90-plus gifts, Nurse Hildegard pulled the creaking door shut and left the old storeroom in darkness.

The owl's wooden eyes began glowing with intelligence. Twisting its oaken head to glare around the musty storeroom, the carving remarked, "That didn't go too well, did it?"

In the nursery, the tiny princess was intrigued by the idea of thinking, which she hadn't tried before. First, she wondered where she'd found the words to think with. She clearly recalled that formerly she had just sort of felt things: _hungry, sleepy, wet_ and _yucky_. Then she remembered that Nurse Hildegard talked to her constantly and her mother the queen dictated letters to fellow scientists while the baby listened in. The queen made her think of the king: Poppa was so nice. He laughed and made funny faces and even funnier noises. She loved Poppa most of all.

### Princess Alix was wondering what love meant and why she knew she felt it, when she drifted off to sleep. After all, from the neck on down, she was still a three-months-old baby.

# Chapter 2

# Princess Alix Grows Older and Smarter

After the christening party Sulphronia sank into its usual doze. Prince Hubert was born a year after Alix and his brother Prince Filbert arrived a year later. With her dynastic duties honorably discharged, Queen Athena lost herself ever more deeply in science.

Princess Alix, year by year, grew taller and smarter - especially smarter. At the age of eight, she reorganized the royal finances by inventing a grid on which to display them. At ten, she designed a new palace with hot running water and privies that flushed. The king was too cheap to build it, and his comments on indoor plumbing were loud and indelicate. At twelve she taught the palace chef - imported from Slobovia at _enormous_ expense \- how to make bouillabaisse; and then she taught her father how to spell it. This orthography lesson did not go down well. In short, with every passing year, the king watched his daughter blind people with brilliance while he felt ever more baffled and stupid. The king had dearly loved his baby girl; but as she grew, his love decayed to like, to grudging tolerance, and then to something quite close to dislike.

It didn't matter that Alix was kind and generous and brave and honest - as her godmothers had decreed - and cheerful and modest to boot. It didn't count that she never got into mischief except when one of her snakes escaped or her experiments exploded.

With all her many virtues, her fatal problem was that she always thought she knew better than other people; and what was worse, she always did. Despite all her genius, she could not master the skill of advising people without offending them - to her they remained a closed book. Down at the bottom of Palace Hill, the Gdinkers loved her anyway because they took her as she was, but inside the royal palace, the king's dislike infected the whole court and all the servants, except for loyal Hildegard. Of course, everything Alix did annoyed the king, and the more she tried to help the less he liked her.

After just a few years, things came to a head when Grogelbert learned that the princess was taking fencing lessons. Fencing lessons! What kind of nonsense was that for a 14 year-old girl? Fencing was not for ladylike females and the king's male sense of the proprieties was offended.

If he had ordered her to stop, Alix would have dutifully obeyed him, but the king thought he had a smarter plan. As it happened, he had been captain of the fencing team at dear old Heidelberg U, and he guessed he could still swish a foil with the best of them - certainly better than a mere _girl_. So instead of prohibiting fencing, he would trounce his smartAlix daughter so soundly that she would see the folly of attempting a man's sport. Pleased with his clever idea, the king joined the princess in the royal gym and proposed a friendly match.

Like most of the king's schemes, this one was ill-advised. The princess quickly bested her father six times in a row, and she didn't improve matters by cheerfully crying _"Touché!"_ after every hit. By the sixth _touché!_ the former Heidelberg champion looked helpless and foolish.

Hidden by his fencing mask, his furious look was invisible. "Again!" he, grunted, saluting. The fencing foils flashed and clashed, _CLICKETY-CLICKETY-CLACK-CLICKETY-THOCK!_ The button on the end of Alix's foil pressed into the king's chest pad.

" _Touché,_ Papa!

"I know; I know!" the king barked, "again!!"

Ten rounds of _CLICKETY-THOCK_ later, the king ripped off his mask and wiped the sweat from his face. He was puffing and blowing and his look was murderous. "How... how are you doing that?" he gasped.

Princess Alix removed her own mask, but she hadn't broken a sweat. "Simple, Poppa," she said cheerfully, "you keep lunging in _tierce_ when you're vulnerable to my attack." As the king's eyes started to bulge, the princess added, "I could help you improve your defense."

"You could... you could...!" The king was so infuriated that he slashed at his daughter with his sword, screaming "Improve this, you smartAlix!!"

Princess Alix was shocked by her father's eruption, but far too good a swordsperson to fear his clumsy hacking. This time, the CLICKETIES ended with a WISH-WISH-WISH-WISH-WIZZZT! as she spun her father's foil out of his grip. It sailed through the air and clattered onto the stone floor.

Shaking with rage, the king stripped off his protective mask and vest and turned on his first-born child. At first he was too mad to speak, and when he finally found his voice, his tone was murderous. "You know what?" he whispered, "I don't like you - don't like anything about you." He turned away, then swung back. "I especially don't like your knowitall attitude and your... and your..." Throwing his vest on the floor, the king jumped up and down on it several times and then stomped out of the gym.

Princess Alix had never cried, not even once, after being afflicted with brilliance. Now for the very first time in 14 years, tears leaked out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Poppa didn't like her. Alix could endure the cool looks and tolerant sighs of the palace staff, but she needed her poppa to love her and he didn't, just plain didn't!

Anyway, what was so wrong with "knowing it all," when knowing things and learning more was so useful and, and... fun? Alix had a vague, unsettling feeling that she was missing something here. But she could spin her mental wheels until smoke poured out of her ears, and still not discover the missing secret.

From that day on, she redoubled her efforts to please her father. She replenished the royal treasury through fiscally sound accounting; she wrote letters for him in elegant Latin to impress his fellow monarchs with his learning; she improved the administration of the kingdom so dramatically that within just a few years Grogelbert became the most loved and admired monarch in Sulphronia's history.

But the king knew that all this was her doing, not his, knew that all his achievements were lies; and Alix's brilliance gnawed at him - gnawed at his very soul, until Grogelbert no longer disliked his first-born child. He hated her!

There was no other word for it.

### _Hated_.

# Chapter 3

# A Badminton Game and a Heat Wave

Six whole years slogged by, and every year the king's dislike deepened. The princess never left off trying to please him, but she no longer expected approval.

On one unusually warm march day, the royal family was out in a big palace courtyard, covered with grass and bordered by flower beds lovingly tended by Nurse Hildegard. Princess Alix was lying on the grass, speed-reading an oversize book titled "Q" - which made sense when you noticed that the books piled around her were named A, B, C, and so-on. Nearby, the queen was looking for sunspots through a pane of smoked glass, and the rest of the clan were all playing badminton. The royal family was grown up now: Princess Alix was 20, Prince Hubert was 19 and Prince Filbert 18.

Two maidens were permanent guests at the palace: tall, fair Gwendolyn and short, dark Mandolyn - nice quiet girls who were more or less scheduled to marry Hubert and Filbert. Although Crown Princess Alexandra was now 20, the king had not bothered to find her a husband, which was perfectly fine with Alix.

King Grogelbert was playing his older son Hubert, who was short, thick, and strong like his father. It wasn't a real badminton court, so the net was held up on one side by a broomstick stuck in the lawn, and on the other side by the Major Domo, who was sweating in the broiling sun and whose arms were by now very tired. Father and son battled back and forth, back and forth, until the Major Domo decided he'd had enough of this nonsense. Catching Hubert's eye, he nodded meaningfully and the prince nodded back. Though the king's next serve sailed over the net in a piece-of-cake arc, Hubert purposely swung at it wildly and missed.

"Game, set, and match!" the king crowed. Ever the sportsman, he rushed at the net to jump over it, forgetting that it was twice as high as a tennis net. He blundered into it, tore it out of the Major Domo's hands, spun around desperately, cocooned himself in the mesh, and crashed to the ground.

Prince Hubert stood uncertainly over the messy sack full of king that was thrashing about on the grass. "You played a great game, Poppa!" he called.

"Thanks, Hubert," came the muffled reply, "you're always a grand sport, m'boy. Now get that smartAlix sister of yours to come play Filbert."

"Ah..." Truth to tell, Hubert was somewhat frightened of Alix. His big sister was, you know, so smart and all.

Alix had heard all this and came to her brother's rescue, calling out, "Just let me finish this article, Poppa. It's about an Aztec god named Quezalcoatl."

The Major Domo picked up one end of the net and jerked hard to unroll his sovereign. Grogelbert staggered up, already angry, and stomped over to his daughter. "Kesta... Coastal... what?? he shouted, "can't you ever be normal? I mean, look at your brothers: playing sports, chasing girls, looking for nice wars to fight. That's the right stuff; that's the manly way!"

Alix stood up, smiling. "So you want me to follow the manly way, Poppa?"

"Of course not! Who said I did?" Grogelbert glared at his daughter. "You always have to win, don't you; always have to know better."

"The problem is," she said with fatal innocence, "I _do_ know better."

For once the king didn't bellow and rant, and that was a very bad sign. When he started one of his quiet rages, people melted away and the Major Domo removed the best vases. He just stood there like a boiler with its metal pressure disk jiggling on top and releasing small spurts of steam. Finally, he barked, "Hubert! Filbert! Get those silly girls over here!" The young people approached him cautiously and stood in defensive pairs.

The king looked them over like a general inspecting troops, then nodded and turned back to Alix. "Well, I'll tell you one thing, Missy Knowitall. You'll never prove that you know better than us because you'll never reign over Sulphronia. As of this minute, I'm making Hubert my heir and Filbert next. An heir and a spare, right?"

Before she could answer, Grogelbert turned back to the others. "Boys, do you want to marry Gwendolyn and Mandolyn?"

"Sure," Hubert shouted.

"Well, just one apiece, Poppa," said tall skinny Filbert, who had somehow acquired a sense of humor.

The ladies chorused, _Yes your majesty; yes Sire; thank you Sire._

"Even better!" crowed Grogelbert, "an heir and a spare and a spare pair of heirs and... what was I saying?"

Alix murmured submissively, "That you were disinheriting me, Poppa."

"Right; you better believe it! Another thing, _Ex_ -princess SmartAlix, don't call me 'Poppa.'" As the king stomped away across the grass, he added over his shoulder, "I'm 'Father' to you!" The king reached a doorway and turned. "Or better yet, Your Majesty!!" Satisfied with this exit line, he stormed into the palace.

No one spoke for a long moment, and then Prince Hubert approached his big sister. "I don't think I want to be king," he said.

"Me either," said Filbert. Do you girls care?"

Gwendolyn and Mandolyn shook their heads. Brought up to play lutes and do needlepoint, they were just not equipped to be Royals.

"Thank you all; that was nice of you." Princess Alix smiled at them, then looked away toward the door where the king had left. However she felt about ruling the kingdom, her father's outburst had finally broken her heart.

### She watched her brothers walk off with their ladies. Hubert and Filbert were shoving each other playfully, while Gwendolyn and Mandolyn were pretending that this behavior wasn't juvenile. All four of them appeared happy. Alix desperately wanted to be like them - wanted friends to talk to and laugh with. Nurse Hildegard loved her, but couldn't understand Alix's interest in science and history and art. Her mother...? Who ever knew what the queen felt? The princess sat alone on the grass, hugging volume Q to her chest and wondering what was so wrong with her? It was the thousandth time she'd wondered that, but she still wasn't a finger-width closer to an answer.

* * * *

The ill-fated badminton game was the last they would play that spring. By April the weather was hotter than August and by June it was so scorching that the royal family never ventured out of the relatively cool stone palace and into the punishing heat.

This heat wave was caused by the firedrake Griddle, who by now was an endangered species. Europe was rapidly hounding these immense creatures to extinction, simply by refusing to believe in them any longer. Monsters were unscientific, and the Renaissance was having none of that! But, like the faeries, the horrible, dragon-like firedrake refused to abandon Sulphronia. Every day of the year, Griddle still swam laps in the boiling lava lake at the top of Mt. Sulfur, keeping in shape for the day when the next noble knight came to challenge him. The trouble was that no knight ever came - and none _had_ come in over two hundred years - and Griddle was losing his temper. He was normally cheerful, as firedrakes go, but after two centuries of being ignored, this fearsome beast, who gargled boiling lava and spat fireball loogies into the stratosphere, was becoming enraged; and as his anger increased, the temperature rose for many leagues around the volcano he lived in.

So began the Great Sulphronia Heat Wave of Ought-17 - Sulphronians were unclear on the concept of year naming \- as the angry firedrake launched ton after ton of hot lava skyward. Though no one had heard the term greenhouse gasses, they nonetheless covered the sky and kept in both the heat of the sun and the blast furnace air that belched out of Mount Sulfur. Nobody knew exactly how hot it was, for only the Queen possessed a thermometer - supplied by her mentor Galileo of course - so people just said it was plenty hot or used other, more impolite words. It didn't take a Galileo to note that the crops were blasted, the livestock were dying, and the citizens, stripped to their skivvies, were wheezing and fainting all over Sulphronia.

The people expected the king to do something \- anything - to end their misery; and when he didn't come through they were noisy about it. They discussed storming the palace or at least throwing rocks through the windows or something, but it was far too hot to storm up that hill or even collect rocks for throwing. So they loafed around the town square instead, complaining and hunting the shade as the brutal sun crossed the sky.

Up at the palace, the eminent Signor Galileo was explaining the heat wave to the queen and retired crown princess Alix. Queen Athena had invited her favorite scientist for a visit and the great man had promptly accepted. Suspecting that the Church might soon make things hot for him, Galileo had fled Florence, only to find Sulphronia much hotter already. The maestro was not in good humor.

Queen Athena cared only for the technical side of the problem, although Alix kept insisting that cattle were dying and folks keeling over with heat stroke. Athena admitted that those were unfortunate side effects of an otherwise fascinating phenomenon, but science was not always convenient, now was it?

### Princess Alix grew so frustrated by her mother's obtuseness that she finally walked out of the meeting. Without relief, the whole country would soon be broiled to cinders, but Alix couldn't think of a thing to do. Though she was full of facts about differential equations and the melting point of lead, all her facts, all her brains, all her reading, were quite useless. She had never felt this helpless before.

* * * *

The summer throne room was supposedly cool because it was on the north side of the palace, but in this punishing heat wave it was just as hot as the rest of the place. The king had a large wooden tubful of water in front of his throne and was paddling his bare feet in it. The queen and the rest of the court simply stood around, dripping sweat.

The center of the room was filled with a long table covered with maps, charts, diagrams, globes, parchment, quills, and other academic debris. Behind the table sat four frail graybeards, nearly blind, almost deaf, and impossibly old. These were the royal philosophers. They had been disgraced and banished after their inept examination of an elephant sent to the king by an African colleague; but Grogelbert now was so desperate that he'd called them back from their old folks' home in the suburbs.

They had mumbled and dithered and fumbled with papers until the king's meager patience was more than exhausted. "So," he said loudly, "you think this heat wave is caused by a firedrake."

"Indubitably, your majesty," said the first philosopher.

"What's a firedrake?" the second philosopher whispered aside to the third.

"Hot," said the third.

"What's 'indubitably'?" asked the fourth.

"And where is this firedrake monster?" the king pursued.

The first philosopher creaked to his feet. "The violent eructations of Mount Sulfur would suggest that the beast is in residence..." he dramatically pointed a skinny arm, "there!"

This puzzled the court because the old man's trembling finger was aimed square at the king. The Major Domo rotated the royal philosopher on his axis until he was pointing at an open window that framed the distant cone of Mount Sulfur. As if on cue, a mushroom cloud erupted above it with a FOOM! that could be heard all these 25 leagues away. The courtiers oohed and awwed listlessly.

"Well, finally we're getting someplace," said the king. He turned to the Major Domo, "Right: clear them out."

This took time because the venerable sages moved barely faster than a garden snail with a limp. As they glaciated out the throne room door, the fourth one whispered to the second one, "I still think an elephant's warm and squishy."

When the philosophers had tottered out the king said, "There it is then: someone will have to kill the blasted thing." He turned to his older son. "Hubert, my boy, suit up and get out on the field."

Alix was horrified. "Poppa!" she cried, "I mean, your majesty, there's no such thing as a firedrake." The king turned a cold eye on his daughter as she continued, "The firedrake is a mythical beast - you know, like a unicorn. It's simply Mount Sulfur erupting."

King Grogelbert sneered. "I suppose I should send you instead. You could lecture it to death." He smiled sourly at what was, for him, a major witticism. "And if that didn't work, you're expendable anyway. Hubert here's got a kingdom to run someday."

Alix winced at her father's sarcasm, but plowed on, "When the sub-surface magma is pressurized, the resulting force..."

"Oh, shut up!" the king roared.

Alix said bravely, "If you send Hubert up into that heat he will die!"

"I've had more than enough from you, missy." The king stomped his foot, splashing water on Hildegard, who was standing nearby. "Get out; get out now!"

Bowing her head obediently, Princess Alix walked sorrowfully out of the throne room. She wandered disconsolately along the endless palace corridors, wondering why she could not come up with a solution and mopping her neck with a hankie.

In the baking throne room, Queen Athena said, "She's right, you know."

The king rounded on the queen, splashing more water. "Oh, so you think there's no firedrake either."

The queen was at her best with hard logic. "Whether the heat is caused by a firedrake or a volcano, it will be equally fatal to Hubert."

"He'll have armor," the king answered.

"Oh, good; armor's good! Instead of being flame-broiled, he'll merely roast to death!"

The king stepped out of the water tub and started pacing the dais, leaving wet footprints all over it. "There must be some kind of protection." A rare idea occurred: "How about that Galileo fella?" The visiting scientist had boycotted this meeting of pre-scientific fuddy-duddies. "He's been freeloading here for weeks now. The man's some kind of big shot scientist. Have him invent something."

"Well..." said the queen.

But the king trampled her doubts. "Hubert, my son, are you up for this?"

Prince Hubert sucked in a deep breath. "Whatever you say, Poppa." Hubert's voice sounded fainter than normal.

Grogelbert didn't notice. "That's my boy; that's my true son; that's what I expect from the Crown Prince!"

Hubert said desperately, "I've been meaning to talk about that, Poppa..."

"Not now, son; time's a-wasting and you have a dragon to slay." He turned to the Major Domo and added triumphantly, "Just like the old days, hey?"

"Alas, yes."

"What did you say?" asked the king sharply.

### "I said, 'Ah yes, yes!'" the Major Domo said quickly **,** "it is indeed just like the old days."

# Chapter 4

# Prince Hubert Sallies Forth

If the kingdom was hot, the Royal Armory was brutal, with its great noxious forge belching gasses and flames. It was painfully noisy too, as armorers hammered on burgonets, barbutes, gorgets, cuirasses, spaulders, greaves and all the other fiddly bits that made up suits of armor. Prince Hubert resembled a boiled lobster, with his sunburned face and his body covered in overlapped plates. His squire Hans was fitting new gardbraces over his pauldrons as the king supervised. Princess Alix stayed off to one side, observing and keeping out of her father's sight.

" _Ecco!"_ cried a dramatic Italian voice.

"I didn't hear one," the King said absently.

"No, no, _Signore_ \- how you say? Ah: Behold!" And none other than the genius Galileo Galilei appeared, pushing a wooden wheeled cart with a tank on it. He was a short, energetic man with red hair and a long beard, wearing a robe and a close-fitting cap. He picked up a short leather hose, aimed the brass nozzle, and beckoned to Hans. The squire dutifully pumped a handle attached to the tank and a thin stream of water arced out of the nozzle and piddled feebly on the king's shoe. "Scusi," said Galileo.

"Is that thing your new secret weapon?" the king asked doubtfully, wiping the shoe on the calf of his opposite stocking. "That's pathetic."

"Ah no, _Maiestí;_ Firedrake's skin is red-hot iron, no? Spray joost-a one spot wid dis cold water and crrrack! Da whole ting shatters!" The great scientist shrugged at this obvious insight: "Temperature differential!"

The king looked confused, but Princess Alix knew exactly what Galileo meant. She said, "Assuming different coefficients of expansion among different plates."

Galileo lit up like a harvest moon. "Ah, _Principessa!_ he cried, turning toward Alix, "atsa, good; _molto bravo!"_

" _Grazie, Maestro; non è nulla_ ," Alix replied smoothly, and curtsied to the eminent scientist.

"Never mind her; just get on with it, man," the king shouted.

### Hubert and his squire were not big on technical analysis, but their expressions plainly said what they thought of this sorry squirter.

* * * *

The secret weapon project proceeded Code Red \- or something like that; the king never could keep his code colors straight - so it was just a few days until the court trooped down the hill and out to the City's north gate to send Hubert and Hans off on their mission. A few sweaty burghers saw them off, but the punishing heat reduced the overall turnout to an unhappy few.

The king made a speech that was as impressive as anyone could make in his undershirt, and the palace servants and six or eight citizens attempted a cheer; but it was just too hot, so they only waved a little, keeping their elbows down to conceal the sweat stains on their doublets. With this limp encouragement, Prince Hubert and squire Hans chk-chk'd at their horses and plodded off, with the secret weapon bumping forlornly behind them.

Up at the palace, Princess Alix and her mother shared a high north window in a handy tower, taking turns with Galileo's telescope. The queen watched the great scientist's water cannon joggle off toward Mount Sulfur. "It can't possibly protect Hubert," she said, "what _was_ the Maestro thinking?"

Princess Alix sighed. "He was thinking that Poppa pays a lot for his inventions. That's how defense contracting works."

"I have the horrible fear that I will never see Hubert again," the queen said sadly.

"I didn't know you were that fond of him, mother."

Athena was silent a while; then she said in a small funny voice, "I am, you know, very much; perhaps I don't show it though." Another pause, then, "I must think about that."

### As they carried the tripod and telescope back to the queen's study, the Princess thought about it too. Clearly, her mother was more comfortable with books than with people. Was she shy or was she just incapable of understanding them? Could Alix be like that too? No; no; there was no logical reason to believe that. She wasn't like her mother; not at all.

* * * *

Uncountable eons of lava flow had banked the sides of Mount Sulfur up to a gentle slope, but that was the only gentle thing about the scene. Prince Hubert and Squire Hans led their horses up a path blasted free of trees and grasses and strewn with tricky little rocks that made the horses stumble and forced the men to walk. In all the charred debris that lay around them, the frequent piles of ashes by the path did not stand out - that is, not until they passed one with the twisted remnant of a helmet on top. Five or six mounds uphill, a sword hilt protruded from a blackened pile.

"I wonder what that's all about," said Hans, as they struggled upward past half a shield with its paint scorched off.

"Seems a funny place to leave your trash," Hubert answered. "Maybe there's, like, some kind of incinerator."

Hans looked around fearfully in the harsh yellow twilight, but kept further thoughts to himself.

Another hundred paces closer to the volcano mouth they came to a much bigger boulder and brave Hubert motioned Hans to hold the horses in its shelter. Scared but determined, Hubert hauled the little water cart, single-handed, onward and upward, past one mound after another of ashes and melted armor scraps. Then, without warning, the sky turned blood red and a deafening sound like the roar of a giant furnace rolled down the slope. Startled into looking for what caused this blast, Hans peeped around the boulder in time to see a great fireball rumble toward Hubert and swallow him in flames. Though Hans jumped back instantly, his face looked parboiled and his eyebrows and front hair were burnt off. By the time his pain had subsided enough to let him think of anything but his own agony, the roar had subsided and the sky returned to its regular sickly yellow. Cautiously, he poked his head around the boulder. All he could make out up the hill was a new pile of still-smoking ashes beside the skeletons of four wheels with a burst water tank between them.

* * * *

Squire Hans brought the horses home to Gdink, with the sorrowful news of Hubert's fate. Nurse Hildegard spread salve on his burns, mixed with tears that fell as she worked on his poor crimson face. Mandolyn half-carried Gwendolyn to a far bed chamber where her sobs would not add to the general uproar. This left the rest of the royal family alone, except for the Major Domo and the scientist Galileo, who was looking distinctly uneasy.

This terrible business had shocked Queen Athena out of her scientific cocoon. She recalled that she _did_ love her children - loved all of them, dim Hubert and Filbert as much as her brilliant daughter. Now Hubert was dead because of her pigheaded husband, and the queen's grief was transformed into wrath at the king.

"You idiot," she said in a poisonous tone, "you sent your son to put out a volcano with a squirt gun!"

"Galileo said it would work," the king protested faintly. In fact, his grief was as deep as the queen's, but kings don't react well to evidence that they have been stupid.

"She was joost a prototype," Galileo protested, "we never even got to test 'er."

The king shook his head. "It wasn't your fault."

Galileo said anxiously, "Next time, I got a mooch better idea."

"Good," the king sighed; because Filbert's going to need all the help he can get."

" _What?!?"_ the queen shouted, "You're not sending Filbert out to die too!"

The king snarled, "The country's still burning up. People're still starving. They expect me to do something. I can't send Miss Smartypants here, she's a girl!"

Suddenly, Alix too was furious: there was that _mere girl_ thing again! Goaded past her weak command of tact, she shouted, "Re-using tactics that failed the first time is typical military thinking! _Male_ thinking, of course!"

King Grogelbert too turned his sorrow into rage, and he aimed it straight at his too-clever daughter. "That's it!" he screamed, "I can't take any more of you! I hereby banish you - yes, banish you forever from Schloss Schlaffschstein!!" The king ran to a nearby table, wiping the spit off his chin. "Permanently!" He picked up an ink pot and threw it. "Perpetually!!" He smashed a glass vase on the marble floor. "Endlessly!!!" He grabbed the table edge and heaved it onto its side, dumping its contents all over.

Everyone stood frozen a moment while black ink soaked the best unicorn tapestry, King Grogelbert panted with effort, and spilled candles lit little fires in the carpet.

The Major Domo stamped on the flames to extinguish them. "I'm afraid you can't banish her, Sire," he said. The king's eyes bugged out and his face turned purple, but before he could turn his sputter into speech the Major Domo continued quietly, "Because you never publicly proclaimed that the Princess was disinherited, she is technically still the Crown Princess - still heir to the throne of Sulphronia." He started rounding up glass shards with one careful foot.

"Well, that's easily fixed," said the King grimly, rummaging for a blank parchment in the mess on the floor. "Where's my ink?"

"You used it to improve the tapestry," said Athena coldly. _"Now, Groggy, you listen to me."_ The queen almost never spoke like that - perhaps because she had little to say in general - so when she uttered those words, he stared at her with his mouth hanging open. Queen Athena continued in slow, measured tones, "You will not, repeat, _not_ disinherit the Crown Princess." Without mercy, she stared back at her husband. "Will you?" Their eyes remained locked. "I said, will you?"

King Grogelbert blinked and squirmed helplessly. Finally he muttered defiantly, "All right, all right; but that doesn't mean I can't exile her." He turned to the Major Domo. "What's a good desert island?"

Athena said, "The people will never stand for that. The royal line has not been broken since the Romans gave up and left. They'll exile _you_ instead."

The king was practically fizzing with rage. Shaking, he looked again at the Major Domo, whose nod and raised eyebrows signaled, _she's right, you know._

Suddenly, the king's face showed that cunning look that dull people get when they think they've had an idea. "All right then," he said triumphantly, "I banish _me_ , I mean _us_ , I mean _everybody!!"_ He thrust the parchment into the Major Domo's hand. "Take a proclamation!"

Without missing a beat, the Major Domo pulled out a charcoal stick wrapped in a hanky. "Very good, Sire."

The king started pacing as he dictated. "To every single person in this palace - uh, wait, uh, except for _her_ \- you are ordered to leave Schloss Schlaffshtein," _slurp_ , "at once. Move all your junk down the hill to Gdink. Leave nothing behind! You got that?"

"...Nothing behind," read the Major Domo.

"Right! The court, the government, the... the... everything is moving to, ah, to..."

"City Hall is the only large building, Sire."

"Fine; everyone but that smart-Alix knowitall. She stays locked up here in Schloss Schlaffschstein..." _slurp_ , "forever!!" The king continued to pace the room, still gathering steam. "She may never go through the door of this palace again, on pain of..." he stopped as he caught the queen's eyes boring into his. "On pain of, well, something really, really bad!"

So it had come to this. Princess Alix watched her father with a dull, aching feeling, so distant from him now that even her sorrow seemed small and far away. She had thought the king had wounded her as badly he could, but she'd been wrong. However angry he became, however much he stormed and ranted, he had never quite abandoned her completely.

Until now. Now her Poppa was leaving her forever.

### The very next morning a long sullen line of courtiers, servants, and donkeys groaning under loads of household goods, slipped and scrabbled down the steep hill to Gdink. They had stripped the great palace bare and left the place echoing as a hundred doors slammed shut one by one. The last to depart was the Major Domo, who sorrowfully snuffed the last candles and locked the great door behind him, leaving Princess Alix alone in the dark.

# Chapter 5

# Abandoned

Schloss Schlaffschstein was called a palace because nowadays palaces were what up-to-date royalty built; but it was really your basic ancient castle: a disorderly jumble of drafty buildings, rickety towers, and endless crenellated walls that rambled all over the hilltop. It was a musty relic of dangerous times, though by now all the Vandals and Goths and suchlike had long-since given up and gone off to start countries of their own. The outer wall had only one door, the great front one, because the first King Grogelbert had wanted no cowards sneaking out the back way. Of course, Alix's father the king had been too cheap to replace this moldy old castle built by his distant ancestor.

And this was where the princess was locked up alone. Her chest felt thick with grief and her eyes were long past leaking tears. She had groped her way across the black antechamber and through the inner door. As daylight crept reluctantly through stingy windows, Alix surveyed her new prison. The throne room was utterly bare, with a great square of dust where the threadbare carpet had been and eight squares of lighter stone on the wall where portraits of Grogelberts I through VIII had hung behind the spot where the thrones had once stood.

The kitchen was equally naked. Every pot, pan, ladle, and bowl was gone and all the food stores had been taken. The fire was dead in the great kitchen hearth and the firewood pile by the door had gone missing. There was nothing whatever to eat.

The family rooms had been stripped bare as well. The furniture had departed and the space where the her majesty's work table stood was now empty. The brass telescope and its tripod were absent. Alix wandered into her own bed chamber to find that all her clothes and belongings had been carried off and even her bed had been stolen from her.

Her own room stripped; her personal things stolen! Somehow this empty, echoing chamber hit her as no other room had done. The high walls and locked door of the palace marooned her as thoroughly as any desert island. She was cut off from everyone, everywhere, everything; condemned to solitary confinement for life.

Alone. Alix stood very still and thought about that.

Over the years she had grown used to loneliness, as the court had withdrawn from her for reasons she never could fathom. Lost in her studies of Aristotle and Boethius, she had not realized that these dead companions were no substitute for live ones. Sinking to the dusty floor where her carpet had once lain, she sat without moving, unable to go on. Why had her father done this to her? Why had people rejected her? Why had the whole court excluded her? How was she different from everyone else? Her brilliant mind and astonishing memory offered no answers.

Alix was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice the limping clicks of paws with toenails across the flagstone floor. The sound approached with painful slowness, and was soon joined by painful wheezing, and then at last a muffled _whump!_ as a weight like a heavy sack landed on her foot.

The princess looked down. "Max!" she positively yelled with joy. Her ancient mutt tried to look up at her but the effort was too great. He uttered a martyr's groan instead and dropped his old head on the floor. His goofy ears, the only soft, flexible parts he still had, flopped out around his head. "Ohhh, Max, you stayed for me!"

In fact, Max had stayed because he was too tired to leave the coolness of the princess' antechamber and face the trek down to Gdinsk. He did love her though, because, not being human, he'd escaped the despicable warlock's curse. Nurse Hildegard had found him for the princess when she was only three, a cheerful puppy with bright eyes and huge feet and a tongue that would not stay in his mouth. Combining the unfortunate traits of six different dog breeds, Max had then been an ugly duckling, though he would eventually grow up to be an ugly swan. Seventeen years later he was just as homely and desperately old, but Alix still loved him and Max loved her back with the uncritical devotion that only dogs can bestow.

They might have sat there forever - or until their dust had mingled with the other dust - but after a long patient time, old Max made a faint, inquiring whimper. She turned and her vacant expression cleared as she looked at her ancient companion. Max had lasted far longer than most dogs; why? He didn't question things; he just endured.

### And so would she! Alix shook her head, took a deep breath, and stood up again. She would not be defeated. This huge palace must offer her something, somewhere, and she would find it, however long it took.

* * * *

By late afternoon she'd inspected storerooms and stables, chambers and parlors, hallways and turrets; all empty, abandoned, and echoing. She was now carrying Max. The poor ancient dog was too weak to walk the whole length and breadth of the endless castle. Alix was tired now too, so it was doubly hard work to haul her old friend up the last six flights of steps to the last, highest room in the last, farthest tower. Setting the dog down gently, she tried the door. The handle turned so it wasn't locked, but the ancient latch had rusted solid. Alix moved back as far as she could and then ran at the door and hit it with a mighty blow that she'd learned from her kick boxing self-study course. The old hinges snapped, the door fell in, and Alix rebounded and crashed to the hard stone floor.

Rubbing her backside, she picked herself up - after all, she'd only finished half the course - and brushed at the cobwebs and dirt on her gown. Then she entered the room beyond, too engrossed in trying to clean herself up to note that a wall torch was somehow burning, although there was no one to light it.

She had discovered a room that hadn't been opened in nearly 20 years.

The floor was littered with odd, dusty stuff that didn't look useful, but Alix noticed an old family trunk against the far wall. Thinking of her hopelessly dirty gown, she opened the lid. The good news was that the trunk was full of clothing; the bad news was that the clothes were for men.

Or was it bad news? The garments were clean at least, and not badly worn. Thoughtfully, she stripped off her own things and dressed in a shirt, a leather jerkin, and tights. She wiggled into a pair of low boots and checked the results in the mirror she'd found. She didn't look bad! Not bad at all, and much more practical than smothering gowns. She should have thought of this ages ago. Alix was too busy brushing the cobwebs away to see that the eyes of the wooden owl carved on the mirror frame were following her.

Glancing around, Alix noticed a rakish cap on the floor. She picked it up and put it on, turning away from the glass as she did so. "How do I look, Max?" she asked, grinning.

Max only whimpered and cowered, because the cap was the Cap of Darkness that Puck had given her, and it instantly turned her invisible. "That bad, eh?" said Alix's voice in the empty room; then she reappeared as she took the cap off.

"I wonder what else is in here." Rummaging about, she opened a small, strangely carved wooden box. The ring inside held a blue stone that glowed oddly in the torchlight. Trying to keep her own spirits up, she slipped it on and said lightly, "Accessories too. I'll be quite the young man about town. What's this tiny bag?" When she shook it, it clinked, so she dumped the contents into her hand. "Hey! Three gold coins. That's enough to buy dinner." She dropped them back in, not noticing that three more coins had appeared in their place, for this magic purse would never be empty.

Then her brief try at cheering herself collapsed and she sighed bitterly. There was nothing to eat in the palace. She couldn't even buy food with the money she'd found because she couldn't walk down to Gdink. She was forbidden to go out the palace door. Absentmindedly, she twisted the ring on her finger. "I wish I were down in Gdink," Alix sighed.

Without warning, _there she was,_ standing in the very center of the Gdink town square, surrounded by City Hall, the shops, and the Unicorn Inn. Still the only restaurant in town, the Unicorn had briefly been challenged by a ragged man outside it selling bratwurst and kraut from a cart. Dame Strudel, the Unicorn's owner and cook, had fought back by adding a sidewalk café with the usual undersized tables, butt-numbing chairs, and umbrellas supplied by a bottler of pear juice.

Ordinarily, Alix would have sized up the situation at once, but she was so tired that even her amazing brain had gone off duty. She thought vaguely that she must have walked down the hill in her sleep - or something. As for the locked door, she forgot it completely.

But when she saw the sign with the snowy-white unicorn swinging in the hot breeze and smelled the wonderful smells from Dame Strudel's kitchen, she began to revive at once. "Right!" Alix said out loud, and put her new cap on.

Of course she turned invisible, which was probably just as well because a Gdinker was walking by and Alix was standing right in the town fountain, which sat in the middle of the square. She had wished to be down in Gdink but she hadn't told the blue wishing ring _where_ in Gdink. The fountain was nearly dry in the horrible drought, fortunately for her, if not for Gdinkers. Still without truly thinking about all this, she stepped invisibly out of the fountain. A ghostly trail of damp footprints appeared and then instantly dried on the hot cobbles, and a moment later the tavern door opened, then closed by itself. The lone Gdinker departed and the empty square sat in the twilight, releasing the day's awful heat.

" _AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"_

The tavern door banged open and a thick clot of mixed Gdinkers tumbled outside in a heap. Still yelling, they sorted themselves into a motley crew of people. The burghers scrambled to their feet and backed farther away from the open door, through which floated a ghostly chicken leg with a bite out of it and a steaming stein of hot pear juice. The Gdinkers froze in pure terror. The rest of the chicken meat ripped itself off the drumstick and disappeared in thin air, then the bone floated tidily into a rubbish can.

Princess Alix took off the magic cap. "What's got into you people?" she asked conversationally as she flashed into being in front of them.

"There he is," screamed Master Blintz, "a terrible warlock!" Blintz was an overstuffed, balding burgher who owned a used wagon lot on the cheap side of town.

Master Schnecken squinted nearsightedly. "Looks like our own Princess Alix to me - only he's a prince, er..." he stopped in confusion. Schnecken was a skinny old geezer with no teeth.

Dame Strudel, a big, good-looking woman now flirting with middle age, crossed two long wooden spoons in front of her, yelling, "Evil! Evil!!"

"You sure that ain't Princess Alix - or maybe Prince?"

Dame Strudel rounded on Schnecken, "What are you, blind? That can't be our lovely princess. That's got to be Evil Krank in disguise!"

"Warlock Krank?" said Alix incredulously.

Schnecken nodded obediently. "Krank; right. Evil! Evil!!"

"Aroint thee, Krank!" Blintz intoned.

Alix looked stunned. _"Aroint thee?"_

Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz were the town's leading citizens, which didn't say much for Gdink. Now they and the others started gathering dried mud and worse things from the cobblestones. Alix was quite bright enough to know what they were thinking, so she took off running as fast as her men's tights and boots would now let her. The Gdinkers pursued, but they were slowed by the need to target their missiles, so the hail of garbage and stuff fell short. Alix ducked into a handy alley, then set down her stein and put her cap on. The burghers went thundering right past the alley, which looked quite empty to them, except for that stein sitting there on the pavement. As soon as the coast was clear, the princess carried on fleeing.

She was three streets away and still invisible when she paused for breath. As she stood puffing near a shuttered shop, the cobbled street suddenly rang with the clatter of horse shoes and ironbound wheels as a coach with four wagons behind it rumbled past her and stopped in a traffic jam at the steps of a large, well-lit building. A young man stood there, surrounded by servants.

The carriage door banged open and a middle-aged man bumbled out of it, nearly tripped on the coach step, and fetched up on the street. He was the size and shape of a very large barrel, with a round rosy face and a bushy moustache that turned up at the ends. He looked so hearty and cheerful that Alix had to smile at the sight of him.

The big man emitted a thunderous shout and embraced the younger man fiercely. "Splendid to see you, Jack, m' boy! Sorry we're late. Would have been here two hours ago, but we threw a wheel on that confounded hill and couldn't find a wheelwright to fix it. Never seen a town equipped with a mountain, I must say. How have you been keeping?"

Grinning with affection, the younger man hugged him back. "Splendidly, father. Now go along; your welcome reception has already started." He handed the big man off to a servant, who guided him up the steps. As he disappeared into the building, Alix heard him say, "So this is our embassy, is it? Jolly good!"

Surrounded by servants, coachmen, and carters, the young man gave rapid instructions, pointing to the luggage, the horses, the carts, and the alley next to the building. In what seemed like a minute or two, everything was unloaded and stowed and the horses and vehicles had disappeared. Alix watched him, smiling. There was something about him - she couldn't say what \- something, well, tingly.

Who were these strangers, anyway? As the young man disappeared into the large and brightly lit house, party sounds floated out of the open door, and snatches of dancing music. The big house was alive with people, and their music and laughter only sharpened her aloneness. Impulsively, she wanted more than anything to join them, meet them, talk to them.

Then Alix smiled sadly. She knew what she did to people, even if she didn't know why. She knew her engaging remarks about solid geometry and the Peloponnesian War made people smile politely and excuse themselves. Why all she had to do was walk into the Unicorn Inn and people ran out screaming!

That made her remember all the weird things that had happened: her sleepwalking down to the town and the strange response of the burghers. Why didn' they recognize her? Warlock? Aroint thee?? Absently, she took off her cap. As it happened, she was facing the shop window so she couldn't help notice her reflection pop into view in it. She studied herself with eyes narrowed, thinking; then she put the cap on. Her image vanished. Cap off: she appeared; cap on: disappeared; off, on, off, on.Off. Somehow this cap made her invisible! "I wish I knew what was going on," she muttered, nervously rubbing her hands.

### As she looked in the window, ghostly script began to form on the glass; and when it stopped, the glowing letters spelled out a message:

#### Ye helmet of darkenesse is magick, Princesse.

#### Ye ring of blue is a wishinge ring.

##### Rubbe it and wishe what ye liste.

Wishing ring, Alix thought sarcastically; Magic helmet! besides, it's only a cap. Still, strange things were happening. What did Galileo say? Always test every hypothesis. Right, then: rubbing the blue stone, she cleared her throat, "Wishing ring, take me back to the tower room!"

### And suddenly there she was, in the light of the flickering torch, with old Max asleep at her feet.

# Chapter 6

# The Princess Awakens

Princess Alix inspected the wishing ring, cocking her head on one side. There had to be a scientific explanation; the only trick was to find it. "Hmm," she said to old Max, who of course, hadn't moved, "let's see what else it can do. Ring, I wish to be bathed and clean!"

A flash of blue light and Alix stood there, squeaky clean to be sure, but quite bare and sopping wet too. "Oops," she murmured, "Ring: dry and dress me."

Another blue flash and she was dry all right, but dressed in a court jester's motley, complete with cap and bells.

"Ho ho that's rich; now dress me in my best party clothes."

Flash! The princess was wearing a silvery gown traced with gold, and the ring even threw in a bonus tiara. "I've got the concept," said Alix, "you have to be quite specific." She studied this wonderful tool. "Hmm, let's see: I wish... I wish for 200 gooseberry pies."

_POP POP POP POP!_ The room filled to overflowing with freshly baked pies, oven-warm in the already stifling heat. She had not wished for pie pans, so the bakery mountain was already slumping into a mess of limp crust and drooling gooseberries.

"Impressive!" She nodded, but wished all the pies away again. "Oh, and stains off my gown, if you please." The sticky red marks disappeared.

"All right, something really, really tough: ring, I wish for peace throughout the world."

Nothing happened, but then, how could she instantly tell if a wish like that worked or not?

As Alix frowned at the ring, a new voice was heard in the empty storeroom, the dry, brittle voice of an ancient professor: "The ring does have its limits, you know." Alix jumped and turned toward the sound.

The mirror behind her began to glow as the carved wooden owl on its frame came to life. Its yellow eyes shone with intelligence and it opened and shook its wood wings. "Glad to be up and about again," it remarked, stretching gratefully. "Now pay attention, young lady: the ring can only grant wishes to you or those near to you."

"Physically near or, um, relationship-wise?" Alix countered, to hide her surprise.

"Both," said the owl in a fussy, pedantic tone.

"And what tricks can _you_ do?" she went on, trying to regain the initiative.

"My glass can show you anything you ask for."

"It can, eh? Then show the young man from the coach!" Her own face in the mirror dissolved to a scene at a ball. As Alix watched, the young man revolved into the frame as he gracefully danced with a lady, then rotated out again. "He's the one!" Alix cried, "I wish to be back downtown!"

_ZZAPP!_ and the princess popped up in Gdink - right in the fountain again.

But this time, the square was well-populated. "Krank's back!" Blintz yelled.

"But he's a girl again," said Schnecken uncertainly.

Realizing her mistake, Princess Alix said the first destination she could think of. "I wish I were in... ah, ah, in the throne room!"

_ZZAPP!_ Alix stumbled slightly and looked about her. Instead of the old palace throne room, she found herself in the City Hall council chamber, now converted to a makeshift audience chamber by propping two thrones up on unstable piles of boxes and books. The queen perched on one throne with her feet dangling above the floor, squinting to read in the light of one smoky candle.

"Mother! What are you doing in City Hall?"

Queen Athena didn't look up from her book. "Attempting to read, my dear. What are you doing here, Alexandra?"

"The most amazing things, mother! I've found an old storeroom..."

"Well, don't let your father find you; he'll have six kinds of fit. You're supposed to be locked up, you know - not that I mind; I believe I'm happy to see you." She paused, looking thoughtfully at the candle, then said, "Yes, I am happy to see you." Queen Athena dropped her eyes back to her book.

Alix's feelings were not hurt. She knew that her mother loved her, from whatever planet it was that she lived on, and she was starting to see her own behavior in her mother. "Oh, right," Alix said, "well, nice to see you, mother. Ring, I wish to be back in the palace storeroom." She winked out of existence.

"Always pleasant to talk to you, dear," said the queen, "drop in any time." She turned another page.

Safe in the old storeroom again, Princess Alix paced the floor, thinking. "Specific; I have to be specific. Let's see: I wish to be where, uh, the men from the coach went." Once again, Alix winked out.

In the embassy downtown, the butler stood at the ballroom door and wondered how long his poor feet would hold up. Grunting with pain, he wiggled his toes in his too-tight shoes and returned his attention to duty. Not a moment too soon, either, because an amazing young woman was standing in front of him, waiting politely. He recognized her at once.

Too flustered to suck in a proper breath, the butler hastily bellowed, "HER MOST SERENE HIGHNESS, ALEXANDRA, FUTURE DUCHESS OF GEMEINSCHAFT, FUTURE ELECTRESS OF STEENSTEIN, AND CROWN PRINCESS OF SULPHRONIA!" Dangerously blue in the face, he sucked in a giant breath, as Alix floated gracefully into the hall, her tiara glinting in the light of massed candles and her silvery ball gown trailing behind her. Her rich auburn hair was piled in a chic coiffure and the blue ring had accessorized her ensemble with elbow-length gloves. She looked royal and gorgeous in equal measure.

The dancers divided like the Red Sea before Moses, murmuring comments like, _Look: it's our princess! Ooh, she looks beautiful! Yes she does clean up well. Wasn't she locked away? Maybe the king forgave her. I hope so; poor princess!_

The big man from the coach cut them short by bustling up to Alix as fast as his short legs and thick body let him. He bowed down until his stomach would not compress further and said warmly, "Alexandra, was it? Welcome, your highness!"

She nodded her head and smiled at this beaming giant. "I'm called Alix. And you, sir, would be...?"

"Wilfred, Lord Brambel, Your Highness, newly appointed ambassador from his Britannic Majesty." He added helpfully, "English, you know."

"You must be quite new; we haven't yet met," Alix said.

"Mm, only arrived an hour ago. Almost missed my own party." Lord Wilfred and Alix were walking the length of the hall together.

"Have you begun your official duties?" she asked.

"Bit of a muddle, that. Banged on the door up at Slosh Slopstein or whatever it's called - that _is_ a hill and a half, what?"

Alix nodded and smiled. "By the way, you should fit a new set of coach wheels. The right front one was out of round too." Lord Wilfred just stared at her. "And choose a size-larger diameter; the geometry's better matched to your suspension."

For some reason, as she explained this, she felt a faint hint of a strange new idea.

"I see," said Lord Wilfred, who plainly did not. "Ah, in any event, we hallooed and banged on the castle door; couldn't raise a blessed soul. Came back down here to hunt up the King."

"Try City Hall," Alix answered.

He looked even more confused. "No, not the mayor, the _king_ ..." Lord Wilfred broke off as he spied his son, who was advising a waiter on how to keep deviled eggs from sliding around on his tray. "Ah, Jack, my boy; come meet the princess. Your Highness, this is my son the Honorable Wilfred Brambel - well, of course it would be Brambel, wouldn't it? Invaluable chap, though I say it myself. Came here ahead of me; manages everything, don't you know."

"I guess I do know now," murmured Alix, who was not yet accustomed to British locutions. She turned to the young man. "I'm Alix," she said in flawless English, one of her 17 languages. She noticed that he looked quite presentable, though his clothing was simple in contrast to his father's exuberant costume.

His blue eyes sparkled when he smiled. "I'm officially Wilfred, Jr., but I prefer Jack." When she raised an eyebrow he explained, "The other options were Freddy, Eddie, Willy, or Junior. I'd offer to dance, but I'm no good at galliards."

Alix glanced briefly at the couples moving around them. "That dance is a _canario_ ," she explained, "a galliard...." She broke off in mid sentence and asked herself, why was it important to correct him? The strange new idea drifted closer.

### Jack looked at the dancers and smiled. "I do mix them up," he said amiably, "thanks for putting me right." He turned his smile on Alix and it was quite a smile indeed. "I'm always up for new things." Jack offered his arm. "Will you show me how?"

* * * *

Alix and Jack danced the _canario_ , the _bouree_ , the _gigue_ , the _courante_ , the _pavanne,_ and eventually even the galliard. Princess Alix, of course, had taught all these steps to the Royal Sulphronian Dancing Master, who of course, had then promptly resigned in a huff. Tonight she began improving Jack's performance in them, as usual, but before long her expert advice simply dried up and stopped and she contented herself with smiling up into his face..

When they'd had enough dancing Alix introduced Jack to hot pear juice - the Sulphronian national beverage - and they took their glasses out on the garden terrace. "Well," he said cheerfully, "in addition to dances, you've so far covered astronomy, mathematics, political economy, The Iliad of Homer, and bug collecting."

"Entomology," Alix corrected him automatically, "not to be confused with etymology, which is the study of word origins."

"Yes," Jack agreed, "I did know that one."

But now that strange new idea was suddenly clear to her, and it shocked her so badly that she had to steady herself on the balustrade. As if some kind of fog had been lifted, Alix's brain ticked off the advice she had given this evening, the lectures delivered to palace staff, the many times she'd corrected the king. For the very first time, Alix saw herself through the eyes of the palace, and the person she saw was a knowitall busybody. She looked at her whole past history, horrified.

"I..." she turned to Jack and her voice was shaking with shame, "Please, I... I am so very sorry; I can't seem to help myself."

"About what?" his surprise seemed quite genuine.

"Correcting everyone, improving everybody, criticizing, knowing better. It's almost like a curse or something. And I never knew; I never knew I did it!"

"I can always use a bit of improving," he murmured, smiling out at the night, which had cooled to what Herr Fahrenheit would someday label 85 degrees. Jack turned to her and those eyes of his sparkled again. "You know, I'm most keen to learn about faeries."

"About what?"

"Sulphronia's famous for faeries, of course, so I thought you must know all about them."

"I know that they don't..." she began, but then the second half of her thought trailed off into doubt, "faeries are... purely a myth. I mean, I _think_ they are." Her thoughts stumbled a bit. "I mean, well, aren't they?"

"Ah," he said mildly, pointing out at the garden. "Then how do you get those small statues to move?" Alix followed his look.

The garden was teeming with faeries, flitting over the flower beds, capering in the hedges, dancing on the lawn. There were pixies too, with small flutes, and two gnomes playing chess by a tiny door in a tree trunk.

Alix froze and her brain raced even faster than normal. Faeries and pixies and gnomes in the garden? Wishing rings? Vanishing caps? Wooden owls that could talk?

Perhaps her sudden knowledge of her own behavior - or maybe Jack's warm and accepting company - had altered her deepest feelings. Without her life-long certainty about absolutely everything, she was suddenly open to absolutely _anything_.

And the first new thing was this: magic existed! The faerie world was real!

As she watched the small creatures cavort on the embassy lawn, a wide, open smile spread across Alix's face. "Why, they're marvelous!" she cried, "I had no idea!" She giggled and clapped her hands like a child.

"You had no idea?" Jack quickly concealed his astonishment. "Ahem... well, perhaps they're unusually thick on the ground here."

"No, I just never..." Then a horrible thought punctured her joy like a dueling sword: if faeries were real, then so were firedrakes. The heat wave was caused by a firedrake; poor Hubert was killed by a firedrake!

Almost panicked, she stepped back from the terrace balustrade. "Wilf... uh, I mean Jack, I'm so sorry. Something terribly... I have to leave; I..." She stripped off her glove and touched the blue ring. "I wish to be back in the palace storeroom!"

Jack felt a wind as air rushed to fill the hole where the princess had stood. Surprised but not frightened, he thought, well, she must know _something_ of magic. She didn't just stroll out of here.

Lord Wilfred came bouncing through the French doors. "Ah, there you are, Jack! I, ah... where's your young lady - er, I mean of course, her royal highness?"

"Sudden business at the palace, I think."

### "I say, people here seem rather jumpy! Not like our last posting, what?" He looked slightly befuddled, as usual. "Not at all like the Flemish, are they?"

* * * *

Alix flashed into being in the storeroom, rushed over to the mirror, and shook its frame with both hands. "Owl, wake up! Owl!!"

The owl took its own sweet time getting up to speed: glowing, eyes opening, wings stretching, etc. When it felt it had made its point, it looked at her haughtily. "You rang?" said the owl in a tone the Major Domo might envy.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry."

"I'm made of wood; I don't sleep."

Alix huffed with frustration. "Then why...? Never mind; can you show me the firedrake?"

"Which one? There are three of them left."

"All in Mount Sulfur?"

"Ah, that would be Griddle," said the owl, and the mirror cleared to show just the foreleg and hoof of what looked like an iron bull. The hoof dipped into molten lava, as if testing a bath for temperature as the view widened to show the whole monster: a rhinoceros body between a dragon's head and tail, propped up on a bull's legs and hooves. The great body was made out of riveted plates and it glowed like coals in a grate. It's bat wings lay folded against its huge flanks.

"How big is that thing?" Alix breathed.

"From snout to tail spike about 20 meters - oh, but then, you wouldn't know meters."

"Tell me about them," said Alix, eagerly.

"Um, 21.87 cloth yards."

"Yes, but those 'meter' things."

"They won't be devised until 1791." The owl looked as doubtful as a wooden face could, then, "The thing is, I've already passed through 1791. I live moving backward through time."

"Backw...?"

"Um. I used to work with Merlin, that is I'm going to work with him, you see... ah, well, you don't see, of course. Merlin and I live our lives in the wrong direction, from future to past - it's in all the Arthurian legends, and... oh, never mind; it's too hard to explain."

"Please!"

"Well, I've already seen several later centuries - and a dismal lot they are, most of them - but they have made great progress in science."

"Science! Oh, tell me everything!"

"Mm," said the owl diplomatically, but aren't you forgetting the firedrake?"

"Oh, right! I must destroy it at once. It murdered poor Hubert and now it's baking the kingdom to death!"

"Very hard to kill the firedrake; trust me: it's been tried."

Alix thought swiftly, as always. "I have a magic ring. I can wish the beast dead."

The owl shook its wooden head. "The wishing ring can neither take a life nor give it back."

"Well, there must be something...." Alix looked around the cavernous storeroom. "Maybe some of these things are magic too." She began rummaging through the other faerie gifts that were strewn haphazardly everywhere.

### The owl watched a moment, then said, "You'd better know what you're doing. Some of those 'things' can be dangerous." Completely absorbed in her search, Alix paid no attention; and after a while, the owl shrugged, closed its eyes, and stopped glowing.

# Chapter 7

# Prince Filbert Sets Forth; Princess Alix Takes Flight

The next day King Grogelbert called everyone into the makeshift throne room at City Hall. The king and queen were trying in vain to look dignified while their thrones wobbled and swayed on their improvised columns of boxes and books. The four court philosophers were dozing in the chairs intended for city councilmen. Gwendolyn and Mandolyn stood flanking Prince Filbert. Gwendolyn was dressed all in black and Mandolyn clung to her fiancé Filbert, who clung just as desperately back.

Queen Athena looked furious; Grogelbert looked unhappy but stubborn.

Prince Filbert said in a trembly voice, "But Poppa, you know what that monster did to Hubert." The king nodded sadly. "And he was a warrior. I'm more of a, of a..."

"A poet," said Mandolyn quickly.

This caught the king by surprise. "A what? If you're a poet, recite something."

### Filbert unwound himself from Mandolyn and straightened up to his full beanpole height. He placed one hand on his heart and held the other out in approved oration posture. "Ahem!

#### Lo! the fickle-fingered dawn

##### Perambulates across the lawn..."

The fourth philosopher woke up. "What's 'perambulate'?"

The king waved all this away. "Poet or not, you've got to kill the Firedrake. I know, I know: you're not exactly Hercules; but I'm down to my last champion."

"Ch-champion?" Filbert and Mandolyn tangled up in each other again.

"Besides," the king added defensively, "Signor Galileo's got a new, improved weapon."

" _Grazie, Maiestí."_ The great scientist clapped twice and Filbert's squire Dieter dragged another low wagon into the council chamber. It carried a catapult with a big leather ball in the throwing cup that held missiles. "Dis is a _catapulta._ Instead of a big rock, it got a ball full a water, no? Pull da trigger; _catapulta_ shoots da ball; cold water hitsa hot firedrake. Powie!!"

With a dramatic flourish, Galileo yanked a lanyard. The catapult arm snapped forward and the leather ball flew through the air and smashed on the opposite wall. An explosion of water drenched the four old philosophers.

The first philosopher quavered excitedly, "A catapult is a rainstorm!" The other philosophers felt their sopping robes and nodded approvingly. They were actually glad for the cooling off.

Filbert said desperately, "Water didn't work for Hubert..."

"Atsa my genius," said Galileo, "Dat fire engine shoot only maybe ten feet, but dis baby trow half a league! You stay far away; not get cooked. _Molto bene, no?_

"Peachy," said Filbert politely. Nurse Hildegard and the Major Domo exchanged meaningful looks and the philosophers attended to wringing out beards.

The queen could contain herself no longer. The events of the past few days had brought her love for her children out from the shadows cast by her science. Rounding on the king, she said in a voice trembling with fury, "You are sending our last son out to die!"

The king knew she was right, which only made him angrier. "What choice have I got?" he shouted, "if he doesn't kill that firedrake, we'll _all_ die - of starvation or heat stroke!"

### Too furious to speak further, Filbert's mother leaped off her throne, which fell over backward, and without so much as a curtsey, turned her back on the king and stalked out.

* * * *

Through most of the day, Princess Alix had doggedly pawed through the grubby mountain of faerie gifts in the dusty, cobwebby storeroom. Dressed again in her practical jerkin and tights, she had shown the owl ivory beads, yak skulls, stuffed dolls, moldy boots, ragged feathers, putrid liquids in flasks, and so on and so forth, as the patient owl named each one and explained its purpose. Now she sat on the dusty stone floor, petting Max and feeling frustrated.

But she had solved one baffling problem. The obstacle was her particular _type_ of intelligence. Alix was brilliant at learning things and remembering them - like the names of the every Turkish ship at the battle of Lepanto - and she now had a perfect understanding of each and every gift in the room. But her brain was like an encyclopedia: it could store a million details but was somewhat less good at connecting them. After a dogged struggle to think of a plan, she finally selected the Cap of Darkness, the blue wishing ring, and Excalibur, the sword donated by Merlin.

She stood up and said to the owl, "How about this: the cap to make me invisible, the sword to kill the firedrake, and the wishing ring to get me to Mount Sulfur."

The owl shook its wooden head. "The problem is, you don't know the terrain. Without detailed and specific instructions, the ring could drop you right in the lava. Try the magic flying feather instead."

The princess looked doubtful. "I don't know how to fly. How do you do it?"

The owl shrugged. "Just spread my wings and flap... yes, I do see the problem in your case." It nodded at the large window set in the tower wall. "Perhaps a training flight?" Alix looked apprehensive. "If you find that you can't work the feather, just wish yourself back here." When she appeared even more doubtful, it added, "Preferably before you hit the ground."

Alix looked out of the window. The ground referred to was a very long way down. Then she thought of poor dead Hubert and took a deep breath. "Right!" she said, pinning the magic feather to her jerkin and clambering onto the window ledge. "Am I supposed to say something?"

The owl cocked its head, thinking. "'Geronimo' is customary, I believe..."

"Ger...?"

"...no, that would be parachuting. Just jump off the ledge and think _flying."_

"Easy for you to say." Alix looked up at the sky, took a deep breath, leaped out of the window,

...and dropped like a granite boulder. As the ground raced up to smash her in the face, Alix said desperately, "Flying! Flying!!" And lo, the vertical line she was tracing curved out in a great sweeping arc, looping all the way back to straight upward and then looping down again. "Straight, no, flat, no, _parallel to the ground!"_ Alix screamed and her path leveled off as the wind tore the words from her mouth and tangled her long hair over her back.

As she swooped and wheeled like a giant swallow, Alix saw that she didn't need words; she had only to think how she wanted to fly and her motion followed her thought. Giddy with joy, she zigzagged and looped and corkscrewed and zipped down to buzz the hedges dividing one yellow field from the next.

The sight of all this dead grass and the thin, hopeless cattle that stood on it reminded Alix that this was no pleasure jaunt. She was training to battle a monster that had killed her brother and brought her whole land to its knees. So she practiced attacks and evasions until she was satisfied and then swooped home to the tower. Landing would be the tricky bit, Alix realized. Slower, she thought; fly slower still, and the window ledge floated gracefully toward her. She lit, leaned forward, and dropped down into the storeroom.

She was shining with sun and wind and pure joy when she noticed the owl's expression. "What's wrong?" Alix asked.

"Look in my glass," said the owl.

Alix looked in the glass. It presented a number of different views in succession, beginning with an image of Prince Filbert, wearily hauling his catapult cart up the glowing slope of Mount Sulfur. Squire Dieter was well down the hillside.

Then the firedrake poked his great scaly head over the rim of the crater and studied Filbert with genial interest.

When he dared get no closer, Filbert chocked a cart wheel, then cranked the catapult throwing arm all the way back until it's cup was dead horizontal.

The firedrake looked intrigued by these preparations.

Almost overbalanced by its huge weight, Filbert managed to heave the great leather water-filled ball into the throwing cup.

Grasping the concept, the firedrake nodded approvingly.

Sighting carefully along the throwing arm, Filbert yanked the lanyard, the arm snapped upward...

...and the water ball arced backward to explode down-slope over Dieter, quite soaking him.

After a moment of disbelief, the firedrake let out a giant guffaw, shooting flames in the air from his nostrils and columns of smoke from his ears. His bellowing merriment thundered on, while Filbert stood there, frozen with dread.

After a long siege of helpless laughter, the beast simmered down to hiccuppy chuckles and snorts, while lava tears oozed down his cast iron cheeks. "Oh my, oh my," the firedrake wheezed, "Oh, I needed that." He grinned down at Filbert. "I thank you, Sir Knight; you have truly made my day." He wiped at his eyes. "Oh, I almost forgot: ruucckkk-TOOEY!!"

A great yellow fireball hurtled forward to fill the whole mirror. When it had passed, a small pile of ashes lay by the skeleton of a catapult.

Saved by his drenching, though blackened and steaming, Dieter ran for his life.

The mirror went dark.

For the longest time Alix sat in the twilight with Max at her feet, staring into the cloudy glass in the hope that it might retell the tale with a happier ending. It didn't, of course.

Finally, she shook her head violently, as if flinging a nightmare away. "Of course, you know this means war," Alix said. The owl raised an oak eyebrow. "This is not about my two brothers alone; that horrible beast is destroying our kingdom." She stepped over Max and paced the stone floor. "So the kingdom must rise and confront it. It's the duty of every citizen to defend our homeland."

The owl raised a second eyebrow. "You may run into trouble with that one."

"Oh, I'm on firm ground here," she said, "it's right there in Magruder's Sulphronian Government."

"That's all very well in theory..."

"Page four hundred and three. I'll rouse the citizens; go recruit them."

"Ah..."

"Ring, I wish to be downtown!"

### "Well, live and learn," sighed the owl.

* * * *

Princess Alix appeared in the fountain as usual, to find herself surrounded, for some reason, by a mob of irate Gdinkers brandishing pitchforks and torches. Her sudden arrival started them rushing in all directions and yelling incoherently: _Whoa! it's the warlock! Get the chains! Get the garlic! No, dummy, garlic's for vampires. Hey, watch where you're sticking that pitchfork!_

Alix had run out of patience. "BE QUIET!" she bellowed. The terrified crowd gasped and froze. "I'm not a warlock, neighbors; I'm Princess Alix, your Alix."

"Should I anoint him now?" Schnecken quavered.

Blintz approached fearfully and touched Alix's sleeve. "Are you really?"

"Yes, really, dear friends."

Blintz surveyed her tights and close-fitting jerkin. "You seem, ah, different somehow."

Dame Strudel shrugged. "On her they look good," she remarked. "So, darling, what's with the abracadabra?"

"I'll explain later." Alix climbed up on the base of the sculpture in the center of the fountain, which was a portrait of Griddle. Normally water gushed from his dragon mouth, but now he just drooled pathetically. "Dear friends, we must rise to defend our homeland!"

The mob behind Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz made appropriate noises, all at the same time, as usual: _Homeland. Right. Hearth and home. My country right or wrong. I only regret that I have but one life..._ and so-on.

Master Blintz was less sure. "Defend against what?" he inquired.

She pointed at the statue of Griddle. "There's a firedrake in Mount Sulfur."

"Oh, him," said Schnecken dismissively, "he's always been there."

Alix said, "But he's causing the heat, the drought, the dead crops, the dying cattle. Citizens! We must go kill that firedrake!"

Scattered voices muttered together, _Firedrake, right. That monster drinks lava for breakfast. Broils everyone who gets near it. No one ever comes back._

### Looking away toward Mount Sulfur, Alix declaimed,

#### But when the blast of war blows in your ears,

#### Then imitate the action of a tiger.

##### Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

(She had memorized Henry V from the 1600 quarto.)

But when she returned her look to the citizens, there weren't any. The great city square of Gdink had emptied as quickly as hundreds of terrified feet could manage.

Alix stared, disbelieving, then shook her head sadly and wished herself back in the storeroom. This time, nobody saw her vanish.

* * * *

In the City Hall on the other side of the square, the Major Domo approached the king cautiously. He knew what Grogelbert sometimes did to bearers of bad news. "Ah, Sire...?"

"What now?" said the king, distractedly. He and his throne had toppled backward off their flimsy supports and he was vainly attempting to restore the big chair to its place.

"My sources report that the princess has been seen in Gdink." As the king's eyes bugged out, the Major Domo hastened on, "Last night at the British embassy and several times in the town square."

### Fortunately, the king's anger this time was the slow-burning type. He looked at the Major Domo and almost whispered, "Summon my secret council!"

# Chapter 8

# The Princess and the Firedrake

It took time to round everything up, but eventually the City Hall chamber was filled with a long table improvised from sawhorses and planks. The secret council included the king, of course, plus the four old philosophers, Signor Galileo, and, for some reason, Nurse Hildegard. The Major Domo had done a fine job on short notice, and each place at the table was supplied with a pencil and yellow pad, a water carafe and clean glass, and a dish of hard candies, individually wrapped. A plate piled with Danish pastries sat in the center.

The king was saying, "She defied me; that knowitall Alix defied my decree and left the palace. I'll chain her up in a moldy dungeon; a moldy dungeon, I tell you; that's what I'll do!"

"If we can get to her," said one philosopher.

"We can't seem to open the door," said a second.

King Grogelbert turned to the Major Domo. "What did you do with the key?"

"Me, Sire? I gave that key to you!"

"Well, that's simply wonderful!" The king sounded disgusted.

The third philosopher quavered, "You could break down the door."

The king turned irate. "It's my own palace! I can't lay siege to my own palace. I'll look silly."

Nurse Hildegard spoke up. "If them townsfolk's all steamed up anyway, why not get them to do it?"

Now it was clear why the king had included her. "Hm," he said thoughtfully; "we could post a reward."

"Maybe ten million marks," croaked the second philosopher.

Alarmed at this giant amount, the Major Domo sucked in his breath; but before he could speak, all the other men scraped back their chairs and stood up, loudly congratulating one another. _Good idea! Atsa nice! That'll teach her. Ten million marks! Hey, grab some of those candies!_ Cheered up and flush with fresh purpose, they all left the room together.

"Moldy dungeon," said Hildegard with contempt.

### The Major Domo shrugged and pushed the plate toward her. "Might as well have a Danish," he said.

* * * *

The next morning the owl glass showed Alix the ten million mark reward for her capture. Though saddened, as always, by her father's hostility, she refused to take this new affront seriously. "Ten million marks?" she said, shaking her head, "the whole royal treasury doesn't hold half that much money. Thank you, Owl." The mirror went dark. "No one will believe it, anyway. People aren't stupid."

The owl replied, "Some of the people are stupid some of the time and all of the people are stupid _all_ of the time. Full disclosure: I cribbed that from a famous quotation." It shrugged wooden wings. "Any fish will bite if the bait's good enough."

Reviewing the people she knew in the kingdom, Alix had to admit that the owl might be right. The burghers were all on her side and she hated to call them stupid, but they didn't seem to think very clearly - some of them not at all.

But her new friends... "Jack and Lord Wilfred won't take this seriously." She looked at the owl. "Will they?" The owl shrugged again. "Maybe they will!" Jumping up, Alix said impulsively, "Ring, I wish to be where Jack Brambel is."

Poof!

"About that reward..." Alix said as she flashed into being in a work room at the British embassy.

Jack Brambel looked up from a list he was reviewing with Lord Wilfred. "Hul-lo!" said Jack, "Well, that clears up one question!"

"My father... uh, what question?" Alix for once was confused.

"Tights look better on women than men." Jack was grinning happily at her.

"Rather more fetching," his father added, with half a twinkle in his eye.

Jack nodded. "Definitely more aesthetic. Good of you to drop in, Princess - and I do mean drop in."

"Tights? What's all that about...?" Alix realized she was not in her usual floor-length gown. "Oh, sorry!"

"I'm not offended; are you, father?"

Lord Wilfred ramped up to full twinkle. "Quite the contrary. You may set a new fashion, your highness," his voice dropped to a mumble, "probably too much to hope, though; pity."

Jack rescued Alix by recalling her opening words. "Yes, I read the king's proclamation." Before she could continue, he added, "Including the fine print. It says _you may not go through the palace door._ Now what makes me think that you are _not,_ in fact, using the palace door at all?"

"It's magic, of course; I just wish myself here."

"Mm-hmh, so you've never defied the king's order, have you? Not technically, anyway - never gone through the palace door."

"Well, come to think of it..." Alix began.

"There it is, then," said Lord Wilfred hastily. "Now how about a good English breakfast, what? Do you fancy kippers?"

Alix recited from memory, "Kippers um: 'smoked North Atlantic herring, mostly bones, inedible except by the British.'"

### "Ah, quite so; well, perhaps toast and jam then."

* * * *

Princess Alix didn't need breakfast - she'd wished for her own an hour ago - but she felt nourished by Jack's easy acceptance and Lord Wilfred's unquenchable cheer. By the time she had wished herself home again she felt charged up and ready to take on the firedrake.

After rummaging through the faerie gifts, she looked at herself in the mirror, which was just a mirror when it wasn't wanted for viewing. "Cap," she said, "check. Excalibur, check. Ring, got it. Dragon feather, ditto." She puffed out a breath. "Right: the sooner I do it, the sooner it's done."

The owl's expression was disapproving. "Take care, bold warrior. The firedrake has slaughtered countless knights."

Alix settled the sword in its scabbard. "But they didn't have magic weapons."

"Weapons won't help without a plan to deploy them."

Alix waved this away. "I'll think one up on the spot; I always do, you know." Running to the tower window she leapt into the air and flew through it.

For the first time, the owl separated itself completely from the mirror frame, flexing its wings and rattling their feathers. "This should be a hoot," it said sardonically as it too flew out the window.

At the Mount Sulfur crater, Alix found the firedrake lolling on a shelf just below the surface of the lava, leaning back on his iron elbows, one bull's leg crossed over the other. All around him small lava jets bubbled soothingly. As the princess circled above like an eagle patrolling, the beast dipped its great head, scooped a mouthful of boiling liquid, and gargled noisily. It swallowed the lava with evident pleasure, then produced a resonant belch full of cinders and smoke.

"That was a juicy one!" Alix called down.

"What? Oh, beg your pardon; I didn't see you up there."

Alix now hovered in place, high enough to withstand the heat of the crater. "You would be Griddle, correct? A pleasure to meet you."

The firedrake sat upright. "You too," he roared cheerfully, "come for some one-on-one action?"

" _Mano a mano,"_ yelled Alix. She thought, I'll be using more than a hand, but I'm not telling him that.

At the same time the monster was thinking, three challengers in a week! "Excellent!" he bellowed, "let's get right to it. Ruucck-TOOEY!" The beast's fireball loogie sailed upward toward Alix, but reached the top of its arc and fell harmlessly into the crater.

Griddle sized up his opponent, eyes narrowed. "Got any spears, bombs, cannon - that sort of thing?"

"Only my sword," she called back.

"Then you'll have to fight up close and personal; long-range artillery's no fun. Ruucck-TOOEY!" Again, the projectile fell short.

As she floated downward toward the monster, Alix said, "Oh. I get your drift."

"And now I've got yours, Rucck..." Alix jammed her cap on and instantly vanished. "...TOOEY!"

At the top of the fireball's arc, Alix's disembodied voice yelled, "Whoa!" The beast swiveled his head to the right and let go again, Ruucck-TOOEY! The invisible Alix shouted "HEY!" and for several moments, the firedrake shifted his aim repeatedly, spitting one missile after another, while Alix's voice seemed to be all over the place: "Hoo!... Ha!... Ow!... Ee!.... Whoa!"

When the princess pulled off her magic cap, she was again hovering at a safe altitude, breathing heavily. "How are you following me?"

"Infrared vision," confided the firedrake. "I only use it for dueling. It's too hard to keep up all the time."

"Never heard of it; how did you get it?" Alix let herself drift downward a bit.

"A survival adaptation; pure natural selection."

"Natural what?" Still lower.

"Evolution," said Griddle airily, "but you wouldn't know about that."

Still sinking gently, Alix called, "Tell me; I'm fascinated."

The firedrake grinned at her. "That was the plan, Ruucck-TOOEY!"

Alix shot upward but not fast enough. The fireball grazed her on its way by, setting fire to her jerkin and burning her back.

Circling high above her, the wooden owl winced. "Ooh, that had to hurt," it remarked.

Losing control, Alix wobbled and started to fall toward the crater. Gasping in agony, she groped for the ring on her finger. "Wish... wish to be healed!" Just in time, she recovered and swooped out of range. Her burns were healed though her blackened jerkin and shirt were still smoking.

Hovering again, she thought, through her angry confusion, I'll just get it over. "Ring," Alix said, "I wish the firedrake dead!"

Nothing happened.

"I said, I wish..."

By now the owl had flown over to join her. "Would you listen? No, you would not."

Alix nodded frantically. "I'll listen; now I'll listen."

"I've already told you: the ring can neither take a life nor give one."

"Fine, then I'll invent something else." And before the owl could reply, the princess had flown away.

The owl called, "you didn't wait..." but Alix was out of shouting range. The wooden bird shrugged, a tricky move in mid air, and resumed its grandstand view of the game.

Circling at a safe height, Alix recalled the words of Signor Galileo: Spray joost-a one spot wid cold water and crrrack! Da whole ting shatters! Her face lit up at one of her brilliant ideas. "Ring," she commanded, "I wish for a bucket that is always full of ice water!" Without warning, she was gripping the rope handle of a large, heavy pail. Abruptly dragged downward by its load of water, Alix fought to regain altitude, then leveled off as she adjusted to her burden. She pocketed her cap, since the beast could see her anyway, took a deep breath, and started a bombing run.

Dodging nonstop lava flak, Alix sped downward in a zigzag path, the bucket ready to pour. When she was as close as the heat would allow, she upended the pail and gallons of water splashed the beast's iron hide, turning to steam and leaving rotten black spots on its skin. The firedrake howled in surprise and pain as Alix swooped up out of range. Another attack and another and then still another. On each bombing run, the princess scored ice water hits while the firedrake screamed with outrage and thrashed in its lava lake. More and more of its red iron hide was now black, and it moved sluggishly, as if wounded.

When Alix finally paused for breath at a safe altitude, the owl flew over to join her. It noted her charred, smoking clothes and singed eyebrows. "Are you all right?"

Alix nodded, gasping. "Just a couple more runs and he's done for," she said grimly.

"Listen..." the owl began as Alix swooped away again, "whatever you do, don't let him submerge!"

Too late! Griddle was disappearing into the bubbling lava.

Alix flew back up out of range. "Is he dying?" she asked.

"Quite the opposite," the owl pointed grimly toward the lake below them.

Sure enough, Griddle had risen to the surface again, black spots healed, iron hide red as ever, vigor restored. Now he was carefully unfolding first one bat wing, then the other. He shook their kinks and wrinkles out and tried a test flap or two. The wings resembled a classical dragon's, but seemed to work like an insect's, becoming a blur as they reached takeoff speed. The enormous beast rose majestically into the air and hovered like a bumblebee.

He dipped his huge head in acknowledgment. "You're a fine opponent, Sir Knight. No mortal has forced me to fly in centuries." Then, with a thunderous roar, the firedrake buzzed into shooting range and fired.

But now Alix had the advantage. The great cumbersome beast was a clumsy flier, and she had no trouble avoiding his lava spitballs. Like a hummingbird deviling a lumbering crow that has wandered into its airspace, she whizzed over, under, around the firedrake, drenching its hide with ice water. Again and again, the water turned to steam and the red iron hide turned black, as the firedrake's roars and bellows changed to screams of agony.

But then the princess screamed as well, when a lucky hit set her clothes and hair aflame. Ready with the ring, she croaked, "Heal me; give me clothes," and by the time she was out of range she was whole again. Looking down on her foe, she saw the firedrake was still whole too, still flying, despite its wounded hide.

Hovering above the battle with her, the owl began, "You might want..." But Alix flew off again. The owl threw up its wings in frustration, then dropped 30 feet before recalling that it needed wings for flying.

"What are we up to now, Plan D?" Alix muttered as she traced a giant arc through the air to the firedrake's rear. Turning, she flew straight at her quarry. When she came so close that her clothes again were smoking, Alix propped the bucket on her shoulder and turned it on its side so that an endless torrent doused her own head and body. Now water-cooled, she drew Excalibur from its scabbard, flew right up to the beast, and hacked its wing off with a single slashing blow. The firedrake tumbled out of control and crashed to earth on the slope of the mountain.

Though desperately wounded, the powerful creature began crawling upward toward the crater rim, while Alix poured a constant waterfall on its steaming hide. Inches at a time, the beast dragged itself unstoppably upward. Finally, Alix upended the bucket on herself again, plunged downward toward the firedrake, and slashed its neck half through with Excalibur. Boiling lava spurted out of this mortal wound and the firedrake finally fell.

But he was close enough to the crater edge to topple into the lake. Instantly, the firedrake was whole and strong again. Shooting up his iron head, he sent a blast of fire after Alix, setting her hair and clothes ablaze once more. She jerked violently, then fought the pain enough to touch the ring.

"Home," Alix whispered, defeated.

Instantly, she appeared in the tower store room and crashed to the floor, too agonized to speak.

### Puffing and wheezing, Owl flew through the window and landed beside her. "Firedrake one, home team nothing," it gasped, and then hopped on to Alix's charred fingers. "Ring, heal the princess," said the bird.

# Chapter 9

# Master Blintz Seeks Civic Improvements

Unaware of the duel on Mount Sulfur, the good Burghers of Gdink were gathered in the town square. Like the princess before him, Master Blintz was addressing the crowd, clinging to the fountain statue of the firedrake, in this case because Dame Strudel had yelled at him when he'd tried to stand on one of her patio chairs.

"Masters," he boomed, "The king left the palace to escape Princess Alix. Fair enough, but why is the court camping out in City Hall?" Blintz waited while a thick clot of indistinct mutters floated up. "BECAUSE!" Blintz fought to regain their attention, "Because we don't have a hotel."

Schnecken called out, "What's a hotel?"

"A place for strangers to stay when they come here."

Flute the bellows mender piped up, "Nobody ever comes here."

Blintz saw his opening and jumped on it. "Why? Because Gdink has no attractions!"

Schnecken said, "What's an attraction?"

"Something to make people spend lots of money. A jousting arena! A banqueting hall! Maybe...maybe some kind of park with, well, rides and stuff."

Dame Strudel shook her head. "A hotel, an arena, a banqueting hall, some kind of park thing with rides. How do we pay for all this?"

Blintz beamed triumphantly. "With that ten million mark reward. Princess Alix's all alone up there in Schloss Schlaffstein," he wiped the spit off his chin, "so we go up there, collect her, and get the reward for her capture. Ten million marks for the good of Gdink!"

This idea was not at all well received. Peter Quince scratched his thatch of red hair. "I couldn't do that. I like Princess Alix!"

Constable Dogberry also had doubts: "All alone up there; no wonder the poor girl comes downtown."

Schnecken folded his skinny arms. "I won't do nothin' to hurt our Alix!"

Blintz saw his idea slipping away. "We don't want to hurt her; we love her!"

Dame Strudel snorted. "And this is how we show it?"

"Wait," said Blintz desperately, "the king can't lock her up. He doesn't _have_ any dungeons. He'll just... well, give her a good talking to, that's all."

A tide of mutters ebbed and flowed across the crowd. At first everyone was against the idea, but they gradually thought, _if it really wouldn't hurt the princess.... Ten million marks was an awful lot of money.... Attractions seemed like a good idea...._

As always, Dame Strudel was practical: "Not even the king can get back in that palace. That's why the reward for capturing her."

Somebody added, "A castle door like that'll have a big fat bar on the inside."

### Blintz gave them an I've-thought-of-everything smile. "The door will not be a problem," he said, "boys!" At his call, a dozen men appeared from a side street and dragged a 30-foot tree log into the square. It was a giant battering ram.

* * * *

Healed again by the magic ring, Princess Alix reviewed her dismal failure at firedrake removal. "Everything I tried seemed like a good idea at the time," she mused.

" _At the time_ is the operative phrase," said the owl, "You invent everything on the spot; you don't plan; you think brilliantly but not systematically."

Alix nodded ruefully. "I'm not too good at that - I guess I've never needed to practice."

The owl's severe expression softened; perhaps it was finally getting through to her. "Why don't you ask for some help - besides me, I mean?"

Alix shrugged sadly, "Who would help Princess SmartAlix?"

The owl sidled closer, as if shifting sideways on a tree branch. "What about that young man, Jack? He, well, admires you - I mean, so does his father, of course."

Alix thought about this. "And he's a good planner; I've watched him do it."

"All right then...." the owl let the notion just hang there.

After another thinking spell, Alix jumped up. "I'll do it!" she said, then broke off as she looked around the dark, dusty store room, baking in the heat wave. "Not here though," she turned to the owl, "Can you leave your mirror?"

The owl looked disgusted. "I was at Mount Sulfur, remember?"

"Oh, of course; how stupid of me - though I must say it's a relief to be stupid for once. Hop on my shoulder, would you? Ow! Velvet claws, please!" She looked around once again and then touched the blue ring. "I wish Owl and myself and all these magic gifts in the palace apartments. Oh, and Max too!"

### The room was suddenly empty, except for the dust cloud settling to the floor because dust had not been included in the wish.

* * * *

An hour later, the royal family parlor was as pleasant as could be, even cool enough for a small cheerful fire in the grate. Alix fanned her face gratefully, "What do you call this, again?"

"Magic, what else?" said the owl, "though one day they will invent something called 'air conditioning.'" Owl noted the comfortable sofas and chairs, torches and good candelabra for lighting, an all-purpose table for dining or working. "Aren't the walls a bit bare?"

Alix muttered at the ring and rich hangings flanked the big windows, while flattering portraits of the King and Queen appeared in places of honor.

Alix glanced at feeble old Max, who was sleeping more comfortably than usual in the cool shadows, then looked at the owl and pursed her lips. "Hmm, do you need some sort of sandbox or newspaper?"

Owl snorted. "Must I remind you? I'm carved out of wood. I neither eat..."

"Oh, right," the princess said hastily, "sorry." She looked around one more time. "I think we're ready." Alix nodded at Owl and then disappeared.

The owl went back to its mirror and, so to speak, turned itself off. Another hour passed and then Alix suddenly reappeared, now accompanied by Jack and Lord Wilfred.

The older man glanced about him, looking somewhat confused. "Splendid way to travel, I must say. Cool in here too; jolly good!" He planted his oversized self in the biggest armchair.

Jack shook his head in admiration. "Sulphronia promised magic and you certainly have delivered it - or in this case, delivered us. We're in the royal palace, I take it."

"Safe and sound," the princess replied.

But then a thunderous boom! rolled in from the great front door.

"Better see what that noise is," said Alix, "Ring, I wish..."

"Er, perhaps we might walk, your highness?" Lord Wilfred heaved himself out of his armchair.

Jack grinned affectionately at his father, then said to Alix "More conventional travel this time."

"I'll meet you all up there," the owl said and flew out a window.

"I say," said Lord Wilfred, "that bird's carved out of wood. 'Straordin'ry!"

The great front door was set in a wall over 40 feet-high that was topped by a row of stone blocks, alternating with gaps through which soldiers had once shot arrows or dropped stuff on enemies, depending on how close the enemies were to the wall.

Princess Alix waved a hand at them. "Crenellations," she explained automatically, and then blushed with embarrassment.

But Jack only nodded amiably. "Good word," he said, "also called battlements."

Lord Wilfred was peering through one of the gaps. "Bit of a siege, what?"

Everybody looked down at the mob of Gdinkers milling around in front of the great palace door. Thirty men held the battering ram - 15 on a side - with Blintz standing on top of the log, giving orders. "Heave!" he ordered.

The 30-foot log smashed into the door with another resounding boom, then obeyed what would someday be known as Newton's law with an equal but opposite rebound, knocking its 30 carriers on their backsides and pitching Blintz to the ground in a corpulent pile.

"Well-played!" Lord Wilfred called cheerfully.

Alix spotted Dame Strudel, who was standing carefully aside and holding her gown above the dust. "Dame Strudel," she shouted, "what's going on here?"

Dame Strudel waved and curtsied. "Listen, Princess," she said, smiling, "how about a nice visit with your father?"

Jack said, "They want that ten million mark reward."

Blintz picked himself up off the ground. "Open up and surrender, will you, and we won't sack and burn everything and carry off your maidens and stuff." He paused and then added, "Please, Princess Alix?"

Alix chuckled. "Master Blintz, since I'm the only maiden in these parts, your request seems disingenuous."

Schnecken said, "What's 'this ingenious?'"

Alix asked her companions, "Any suggestions?"

"Boiling oil's traditional," Owl volunteered.

"Mm, no," said Lord Wilfred reflectively, "they're misguided, I grant you; but decent chaps at heart; deep-frying the lot of them seems a bit much."

Jack had been studying the crowd, the great ram, and the steep road down to the town square far below. He turned to Alix and spoke to her quietly. She nodded and then stepped up, rubbed the ring, and patted the parapet. "I wish for a siege vat of cod liver oil!"

A giant bronze cauldron appeared between the stone blocks, pivoting from knobs on opposite sides, and equipped with a wide handle at its base. Alix and Jack grasped the handle and started rocking the heavy cauldron back and forth on its pins. Up and back: "One!" Up and back: "Two!" they chanted together.

Far below, Blintz had remounted the ram and shouted "Hit it again, lads!" The 30 ramrodders charged at the door with it. Boom! The door resounded, the ram rebounded, the carriers grounded, and Blintz bounced on his backside again. Dame Strudel shook her head and kept her skirts clean.

"Three! and Four!" said Alix and Jack. At each swing, the kettle rose higher until finally it reached the tipping point and started dumping its contents. A vast smelly flood of cold cod liver oil plummeted down from the top of the wall and soaked the besieging Gdinkers.

Despite her precautions, Dame Strudel was first to go. Her feet slipped out from under her and she plopped down heavily in the stinking oil. The ram team lost their grips on the log and dropped it on their own feet, then yelled OW! and other things, hopped on one foot, and fell down. Blintz flailed around in the sloppy mess, bleating, "Eee-yu, gross, You didn't hafta..." and so-on. Schnecken just stood there, gleaming with fish slime from his bald pate to his cracked leather shoes.

Like Alix's magic water bucket, the cod liver oil tub refilled itself endlessly. Jack and the princess kept it swinging like a great church bell, dousing the besiegers with vat after great viscous vat of smelly goop. A slippery tide of oil rolled down the long hill toward the Gdink city square, leaving the road coated with slime like the track of a giant garden slug.

The Gdinkers were not far behind it. Stumbling, falling, flailing tumbling, they grabbed one another for support, which only pulled them into the muck and sent them skidding down the hill like children on toboggans. Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz swooped into the square at the bottom and piled up against the empty town fountain. Before they could sort themselves out, 30 ramrodders and 100 odd citizens came slipping, slithering, sliding into them. Every one stank of fish oil. Every skirt, shirt, and doublet, every pair of trunks, hose, boots, and shoes was soaked and disgusting through and through.

As the slimy crowd picked themselves up, Schnecken looked up the hill. "What's that?" he said faintly.

"What's what?" Blintz was trying to wring out his shirt without falling down again.

"That!"

"Not good," said Dame Strudel, leaping out of the way with remarkable speed for a woman of her size and dignity.

_That_ was the huge log ram which, left untended by its retreating ramrodders had started a slow retreat of its own, sliding down hill, first one heavy inch at a time, and then faster and faster and...

"Run!" screamed Blintz, and the townspeople cleared the square just as the giant tree trunk reached 10 leagues per hour on the downhill straightaway. Smashing into the fountain, it shattered the bowl, powdered the firedrake sculpture on top, and swept the debris right up to the door of the Unicorn Inn, trashing most of the patio tables on its way through them.

On top of the palace wall, Alix, Jack, and Lord Wilfred watched the disaster unfold. "I hope no one's hurt," Alix said.

Jack said, "Doesn't look like it."

Lord Wilfred chuckled richly. "Banner day for laundries, what?"

The princess looked concerned. "I hadn't thought of that. We've put them to a deal of inconvenience."

"Jack said, "But they were the ones who..."

"I know, but I could have hurt them." Alix paused a moment, looking off down the hill. "And they are good neighbors. They've accepted me all these years when nobody up here did." She rubbed the ring. "I wish the oil removed and the town square restored. Oh: and turn the tree trunk into stacked firewood behind the inn."

Lord Wilfred looked at her fondly. "You're a dear, thoughtful girl, Alix..."

"Father!" Jack gave him a look.

" _Princess,_ I mean, um, highness, etcetera - all that."

Alix beamed at the big man. "You're most kind to say so, Lord Wilfred; and please call me Alix whenever you like. How'd the ring do?" she asked, to change the subject.

It had done very well. The tree was gone, the town fountain sat in its usual spot, and no trace remained of the fish oil, except for a faint lingering stink. Even Dame Strudel's patio furniture sat in its regular place with its paint flaking off in the heat.

The owl spoke up, "The oil was a good idea of yours, Jack."

Princess Alix looked at Jack thoughtfully. She still couldn't explain the tingling he caused her. Maybe it was some British magic of his.

# Chapter 10

# Blintz Strikes Back and Alix Meets Iceworm

In the palace that evening, Princess Alix, Lord Wilfred and Jack enjoyed a magnificent dinner - courtesy of the wishing ring - and lingered gratefully in the magically chilled air. The father and son were reluctant to return to the British embassy, which was as intolerably hot as the rest of Sulphronia. The firedrake remained a life-and-death threat to the kingdom.

"Fight fire with fire," Lord Wilfred mused, "heard that somewhere, I believe."

Alix shook her head. That monster lives on fire."

"Quite so; wasn't thinking."

"The obvious answer is water," she replied, "perhaps the ring could divert a river - or make one."

Jack stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. "The firedrake lives on a mountain top," he muttered, "and water won't flow uphill."

The three of them sat thinking gloomy thoughts while ancient Max lay at the princess' feet, just grateful to be cool and fed.

After a long silence, Jack said, "Fire is hot and water is cold. What else have we got that's cold?"

"In Sulphronia, nothing, these days," Alix grumbled.

"I don't know," said the owl; "take a look in my glass."

The three humans huddled in front of the mirror, which unclouded to show a solid rock wall with the opening of a cave - not a normal cave opening, but a horizontal slot that looked many yards wide. The image then changed to a view of a leaden sky with a lone vulture circling patiently. Slowly, the cave mouth filled with a dark shadow and a great head slithered into view - the head of a giant snake with cold eyes and cobra fangs, but flattened and spread so the head was just three feet high but over 20 feet wide.

"What on earth...?" whispered Jack.

"That,' said the owl, "is an iceworm. Her name is Slice."

They watched in horror as yard after endless blue-white yard of ribbon-flat body undulated out of the cave mouth. The beast looked up at the gliding vulture, then pursed her colorless lips and blew a great puff of air. The vulture promptly turned solid and dropped from the sky like a frozen turkey. Fifty yards of frosted body shot out and up from the cave mouth and the iceworm caught the dead bird in its mouth. Slowly now, and with satisfaction, she swallowed her prey and rippled back into darkness.

"Iceworm," the Owl repeated, "half a league long; a living glacier that coils like a snake and freezes everything that comes near her."

"I've read of them," said Alix, "but I don't quite see..."

"Fire and ice!" said Jack triumphantly. If we could get her to fight the firedrake...."

Owl nodded. "They are indeed ancient enemies, but now they stay very carefully separate: he in his lava cauldron, she in her ice valley."

Jack nodded. "If we could bring them together somehow, would they fight?"

"Oh, certainly - to the death," said the owl. "It's expected of them."

Princess Alix said reflectively, "The question is how to do it." She stood up. "If we're going to lure this monster out, we need to know more about her. I must have a look at this iceworm."

Lord Wilfred, who had been watching his son and the princess together, now bade them good night and disappeared toward his guest room. After all, he wasn't a career diplomat for nothing.

Jack and Alix remained by the fire, together.

The princess gazed thoughtfully into the flames. "It feels so good to have friends," she said finally. "I mean, the townspeople like me, I guess, but they're not what you'd call _friends."_

"The price of royalty, I suppose. They're your subjects - or will be. Father and I are not. What about your family; can't they be your friends?" The princess looked at him sadly, then nodded at the deserted palace around them. "Ah, right," Jack corrected himself.

They sat close together, staring into the little fire. Max snored on the rug beside his mistress.

"It's odd, though," Alix murmured, almost to herself. "I feel Lord Wilfred's my friend, but with you I feel something different - something more - but I don't know what it might be."

"Aha," said Jack cautiously, "and, um, is this a good feeling?"

Alix smiled at him warmly and put her hand on top of his. "Oh, yes! A sort of, well, tingling."

Jack cleared his throat. "Well, I certainly feel the same way."

Alix looked at him with big, honest eyes. "What is this feeling, Jack?"

A long, long pause, and then Jack said slowly, "I think I could hazard a guess, but I also think that when you feel it strongly enough, you'll know what it is without asking." Jack looked at the shining face turned to him and slowly began leaning toward it. Then he stopped, looked into her eyes with even more warmth, and stood up quickly. "My room's next door to father's, I think." He picked up her hand and kissed it. "Sleep well, your highness."

### When he had left, Alix petted Max's old head. "Well, Max," she said, "if the tingling keeps growing like this, I should know what it is very soon."

* * * *

The next morning Jack and Lord Wilfred joined Princess Alix and Owl in the courtyard, just inside the great palace door.

"Bit of a risk, going out that door," said Lord Wilfred."

Alix nodded, then shrugged. "But I need to try out these seven league boots," she explained, holding out a pair of musty old riding boots, "and I don't want to just step off the parapet."

Lord Wilfred peered at them. "Seven leagues with each step; good gracious!"

"That would be 21 English miles," explained Alix, unnecessarily, as usual.

"More like one league," said Owl ignoring her, "official mileage figures are inflated."

"Even at one league, they can't be very accurate," said Jack, who was working the ropes and pulleys that unbarred the great door.

Alix nodded. "That's why I'm wearing my regular boots now - and I do have my flying feather - and my wishing ring too for good measure."

Jack inspected her critically. "If you're meeting the iceworm, warm clothing would help."

"Good," she nodded, and then muttered at her ring. Instantly, Alix was wearing a hat, a thick coat, and mittens. "That should do it," she said.

Lord Wilfred tried the great ring on the door. "I say, it's still locked." Nodding, Alix directed the ring to unlock the door. A rusty grinding noise ensued, and then finally a definite _CLICK!_

Struggling together, Jack and Lord Wilfred twisted the ring and dragged the gigantic door open far enough to let Alix out. She strolled through the gap and then stopped in astonishment.

In the level spot before the door, a giant contraption swayed and trembled dangerously. It was a 30-foot-high duck woven of wicker and perched, more or less, on wood wheels. Approaching it cautiously, Alix heard indistinct whispers from inside the primitive sculpture:

###### Ow! I sat on a pitchfork. Watch it: your elbow's in my eye. Stop poking that sword. I can't see; can we light a torch? In this firetrap? etc.

By now, Jack and Lord Wilfred had joined her. "Bless my soul!" said Lord Wilfred, "a Trojan duck!"

Grinning, Princess Alix signaled for silence. She tiptoed around to the back of the wicker duck and pointed to the wheel chock holding the ramshackle structure in place. Catching on at once, Jack motioned to his father and the two of them placed themselves in front, clamping their lips to keep from laughing at the noises coming out of the interior.

###### What do we do when we get inside? What if we don't get inside? I'm baking to death in here. Did anyone think to knock?

Alix recognized the voices of Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz.

The princess called out, "At my signal, gentlemen!"

###### Who was that? What'd she say? Will you shaddup?

Alix kicked the chock from behind the wheel. "Duck clear for takeoff!" she called.

"Roger!" Lord Wilfred called back, getting into the spirit of things.

Father and son leaned against the front of the duck and pushed with all their might. Slowly, slowly, the structure trundled backward.

###### Hey, we're moving! Are we moving forward? Which way is forward?

As the rear wheels passed the edge of the level spot, the duck started tilting downhill.

###### I'm pretty sure that's not forward!

Lord Wilfred and Jack kept shoving the duck, faster now that gravity was starting to help. The front wheels joined the back ones on the steep grade and the whole enterprise took off like a rickety rocket. The babble of voices from inside the duck blurred into a single, continuous, _Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!_ that grew fainter as the swaying contraption rumbled down the long hill, smashed to splinters on the fountain, smashed the fountain to pieces again, and ejected Gdinkers in all directions. Once again, the city square was a shambles and a dust cloud hung above it in the fierce morning heat.

The princess shook her head and sighed. "Ring..." she broke off to pull the thick mitten off her ring hand and rub the blue stone, "ring clean up, please - same drill as before. Oh! But don't stack the wicker behind the Inn." Still shaking her head, she turned to the men. "Go inside and close up, will you? I should be back soon."

Owl, who had perched on her shoulder throughout, spoke up: "How do you plan to deal with the iceworm?"

"Oh, I'll play it by ear, as usual."

Owl sighed. "Now where have I heard that before?" When Alix just looked at it, Owl shrugged its wings and flew up to the parapet.

### Alix pulled on the seven league boots, took one step, and vanished. Looking down from a battlement, Owl said, "I suppose she will learn eventually - if she isn't turned into an icicle first." The bird flew off shaking its wooden head.

* * * *

After popping up two kingdoms away from Sulphronia, Alix learned to take one single step in her seven league boots and then get her bearings before taking the next one. Even with these pauses, and even at an honest measure of one league per step, her magic boots took her to the iceworm's valley in seconds.

Now she was staring around at a landscape of absolute death. No blade of grass grew, no bird crossed the sky, no insect droned, and the only two visible trees offered naked weary branches as if they were frozen in place. Though the sun above looked as bright as ever, the valley was far, far colder than ice - it was colder than cold itself.

Shivering despite her thick coat, Alix stood on one foot to exchange a magic boot for a normal one. When she teetered slightly, she hopped on the other foot and, of course, disappeared, leaving a faint "Oh drat!" in the air behind her. A moment later she was back, with the plain boot on. Standing on this safe foot, she replaced the other seven league boot, then hooked the magic footwear on her belt for safekeeping.

Most of the path was blocked by huge boulders, all bleak and bearded with frost. Climbing around them, Alix found herself in the iceworm's home valley. The sight of it took her freezing breath away. Filling the valley before her were hundreds of dead warriors, all flash-frozen in place on their rigid horses or in frozen ranks of infantry.

Approaching the cave mouth in the distance was like moving backward in time, past English archers with their longbows raised and pulled and fitted with icicled cloth-yard arrows; then medieval knights in steel armor on great chargers, with visors and long lances lowered; Vikings in horned helmets with round shields and big axes; Mongols in fur-ringed hats on tough ponies; Germanic tribal warriors, and near them, Roman legionnaires in leather armor.

Approaching the front of the frozen horde, she passed Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian charioteers with their horses stopped in mid-gallop and their rigid whips locked in the air above them. There was even a crowd of Neanderthal cave men in mangy furs, hefting stone axes and clubs. Alix turned and looked at the frigid valley, stunned by this army of ghostly warriors.

The voice behind her was ghostlier yet, a whistle of freezing mist that was still somehow female: "A ssizzable asssembly, yess?" The whisper rode an arctic wind that frosted the back of Alix's head and clothing, half-freezing her in her tracks. She clutched desperately at her seven league boots, but her arm was already too stiff to work well. She could see a dark shadow on the ground as a huge something slid toward her. Her magic ring was trapped inside her glove but the flying feather was pinned to her coat. Slowly, in agony, she inched a hand toward it. Her coat frosted over, her arm grew too cold to move; and yet somehow, finally, the tip of one finger touched the feather.

"Mntslfr!" Alix grated through cold-locked jaws, and without warning, she leaped into the air and soared out of the deadly valley.

The princess drifted over Mount Sulfur's great lava lake, basking, for a change, in the heat that rose from it. As soon as she was warm enough to move, she pulled off her glove, rubbed the blue ring, and said, "Heal me, ring; warm me up."

The firedrake chose this moment to erupt from the surface in a great fountain of fire. "You've come back, sir knight!" Griddle roared, "I call that sporting!"

"Good day, Master Griddle. I stopped by to thaw out; got too close to the iceworm."

The firedrake nodded sympathetically. "A really weird one, she is: half a league long and a foot thick. What kind of a freak is that?" Griddle snorted and two 50-foot flame jets shot out of his nostrils.

Alix smiled at the sight. "She's unique, I'll say that for her. Well, thanks for the quick defrost."

"What about a return match?"

"I'll have a fight for you, Griddle, take my pledge!"

The firedrake watched Princess Alix fly off. Before submerging in lava again he said reflectively, "You know, I like that young man! He's as bold as a lion." A pause, then, "Though he _does_ have a funny high voice."

The princess flew back to the iceworm's valley and hovered above the cave's strange slit of an opening. "Hi! Iceworm," she called, "Are you in there?"

Without warning, 100 feet of ribbon body shot out of the cave mouth. The iceworm stopped when she failed to spot her prey.

Behind her, Alix shouted, "Good day to you, Slice!"

The wide, flat head rose into the air as the horrible body flexed and bent back on itself until the iceworm was staring at Princess Alix. "That would be Misstress Sslicce," the creature hissed in a nasty whisper. She stared at Alix disdainfully. "You grow tiressome."

Alix shrugged. "I have my own resssourccces."

"Wass that ssupossed to be sssmart? It wassn't."

Unlike the firedrake, who was equally deadly but cheerful at least, this vast, flat creature radiated cold evil. She surveyed the mere human who had invaded her privacy. "You jussst dissturbed my ssolitude. No one who dissturbs me livess to sspeak of Misstress Sslicce."

Without warning, the iceworm blew a great puff of air at Alix. Automatically, she shielded her face with the mittened hand that held her magic flying feather. The feather turned at once to ice and Alix crashed to the ground ten feet below.

Groaning, she rolled to one side, and then yelped: the fall had sprained her arm - the arm and hand that now lay locked by frost against her side. The mitten, which held the frozen, useless flying feather, also covered up the wishing ring. Only the magic boots were usable.

She was protected by a boulder now, but the eerie scratching sounds beyond it warned her that the iceworm's flat ribbon body was moving. Working desperately, Alix used her toes to push her low boots off, then flexed her one good arm enough to reach the seven league boots hooked on her belt. Getting them off was quick, but putting boots on one-handed took ages; and all the while, the scratching, grating sounds grew closer, like sled runners dragged over stone.

With one boot mostly on, Alix struggled to her feet to step into the other. Suddenly, the terrifying head, a yard high and seven yards wide, with fangs the length of dueling swords, rose slowly, almost gently above the protecting boulder.

### "Ssssurprizze!" the iceworm hissed, and sucked a breath of air to blow at Alix. She instinctively hopped back on one foot. Of course, she disappeared, leaving the frigid snake to gape at the hole where the princess had stood.

# Chapter 11

# The Best Magic of All

Safe at a distance of two hops (and two leagues) away from the iceworm, Alix was able to discard her hat, coat, and mittens and rub the blue ring. She wished her arm healed, her flying feather repaired, and her magic boots hung from her belt for safety. Not trusting the seven league boots anymore, she then flew home to the palace.

Later, after a simple supper of deviled eggs and hot pear juice - which by now were Jack's Sulphronian favorites \- he and Lord Wilfred and Alix relaxed in the royal parlor. Despite the magic coolness, a cozy wood fire still burned in the grate, and the three friends glowed with contentment.

"Good of you to have all this laid on," said Lord Wilfred.

"Though we really must get home," Jack added dutifully.

The ambassador sighed. "I suppose so; quite. Well then, wish us to the embassy, will you? There's a dear girl."

"Father!"

"Oh! Sorry, your royal High... um, Princess; it's just that you seem like one of the family."

Alix smiled, but before she could answer Jack said, "Don't get ahead of me, father; I was going to ask her myself."

His father's face had a sly look on it. With exaggerated innocence he asked, "We can't adopt a princess, can we?"

"I can think of at least one other way." Jack smiled at the princess.

Alix looked puzzled, then stunned, as a bright flower of recognition bloomed within her. Her tingle had grown strong enough to put a name to.

Princess Alix had never known anything remotely like love. First boys and then young men were withered by her unstoppable flood of well-meant knowledge and advice. Again and again, she'd watched in clueless disappointment has they had backed away and faded from her view. Her father had not pestered her with royal suitors, but even their purely dynastic attentions might have been good for her self-esteem.

She thought about loving Jack Brambel. The king couldn't really object because Jack would be Duke of Puddleby one day, and even the smallest British dukedom was bigger than all of Sulphronia. But what did she want to do about it? That would take serious thought.

### But she couldn't help smiling and smiling.

* * * *

That afternoon, the town square at the bottom of the hill was again back to normal but the Gdinkers in it remained unrepaired: bruises, scratches, dirt, contusions - the wicker duck crew were a sorry lot of disabled Sulphronian veterans.

Schnecken slumped despondently in his regular café chair. "Why a duck?" he asked no one in particular.

Groaning with effort, Blintz pulled his wrinkled hose up and rubbed at the stains on his filthy doublet. His groans increased as he hobbled over to the fountain, climbed into the dry bowl, and grabbed the firedrake sculpture for support. "Masters," he croaked, " _achh-ahack-ahem_ , masters, are we giving up on those ten million marks?"

Dame Strudel's face showed that _enough is enough_ look that mothers assume sometimes. "Blintz!" she barked, "down! Get down from there now!" She addressed her assembled neighbors, "It was a terrible idea to begin with, using our darling princess like that and we all ought to be ashamed. Now go home, all of you."

### Sheepishly, they all went.

* * * *

The next morning, Alix dressed for the day in her usual shirt, tights, jerkin, and short boots, all laid out crisp and clean by magic. When she had put herself together, she wished for Jack and Lord Wilfred, and then treated them all to breakfast. The ring even had kippers laid on for Lord Wilfred.

After they'd finished, she put all the scraps on a plate and set it down by the now-cold fireplace. "Want some breakfast, Max?" No answer. "Max?"

Feeble as he was, the dog had still been able to raise his head a bit and tap his tail tip - his thumping days were long over - but not this morning. He lay there in a sunbeam, quiet, gone forever. The ancient dog had died in the night.

"Oh, Max." The princess remembered her dog from their babyhoods. Recalled his happy temper and funny antics, remembered most of all his uncanny ability to somehow know when she needed comforting. Who would comfort her now? Alix stroked his limp, silky ear and wept, while Jack and Wilfred traded those looks that people give each other when they don't know what to say or do. "If only I could bring him back," she whispered and fingered her blue wishing ring.

In a more sympathetic tone than usual, Owl said, "Remember: that ring can neither take a life nor give it."

Then Jack's eyes narrowed. "Alix," he said thoughtfully, "you said there were other faerie gifts?"

Alix shrugged without much interest. "Almost a hundred."

"Could you wish us to them?"

She shrugged again and nodded "They're in the next room; we can walk."

Lord Wilfred said, "I'll just stand vigil over the, um, over Max, if that's all right. The thing to do, what?"

An hour later, Jack and Alix sat surrounded by faerie presents. Jack had systematically listed all of them in a pocket notebook, and was now reviewing his inventory. "Look at this," he pointed to an entry in his notebook, "What's Limpopo River water?"

"Limpopo...? Hmm." She rummaged in the pile until she found a fat leather water bag with a label attached. It said, Limpopo River Water. Brings the dead to life.

"Max!" she yelled suddenly, and ran with it back to the breakfast table.

Alix bent over the still form of Max. "How does it work?" she asked anxiously, "what should we do with it?"

"Steady on; that's the ticket," offered Lord Wilfred. "Just sort of christen the poor little chap."

Kneeling, Alix poured a few drops into her palm from the leather bag and then sprinkled them on the dead dog. Nothing happened at first, but then a sharp popping sound, a blinding flash....

And a bark! The joyous bark of a rowdy young dog. Alix and her friends blinked their eyes, and when their vision cleared again there stood Max as he had been so long ago - a young adult dog, bright-eyed, glossy-coated, spring-muscled, set to play. With another joyous bark, he rushed at Princess Alix and knocked her flat on the floor. Laughing and crying at once, Alix hugged Max and tried to avoid his pink sloppy tongue.

"Rather well done, that," Lord Wilfred opined, turning to Jack.

But his son was not paying attention. Jack said urgently "Alix! Your brothers: Prince Hubert, Prince Filbert!" When she turned wide eyes on him Jack pointed to the Limpopo water of life. "The magic water works; it brings the dead to life!"

The moment she realized the power of the water, Alix reached a hand to rub her wishing ring, but Jack quickly covered the ring with his own palm. "I think we need some serious planning first," he said.

Alix was about to protest, but wooden feathers rattled as the owl flew down from a chandelier to perch on Jack's shoulder. "At last! A sensible voice in this place," he crowed (the words didn't lend themselves to hooting). "You have 96 powerful faerie gifts, but you've never planned how to use them - or even remembered what half of them do."

The princess nodded thoughtfully. "Both of you are right, of course. What we need is a council of war."

### Lord Wilfred beamed at them. "Council of war? That's rather in _my_ line, I think!"

* * * *

Within an hour the cozy parlor had been turned into a war room with parchment charts spread over the dining table and, on one wall, a huge map of Sulphronia with professional looking flag pins marking the iceworm's valley and the firedrake's volcano. On a shred of parchment pinned to the slope of Mount Sulfur, someone had printed, probable locations of Hubert and Filbert. A third flag, sticking up from the palace, was labeled You Are Here. Princess Alix had given the wishing ring quite a workout in conjuring all this up; and now she sat cuddling Max - when he wasn't racing all over his beloved palace - and watching Lord Wilfred and Jack plan a campaign to save Sulphronia from baking to death. They were good at this planning business, and Alix pulled her own weight by answering endless questions and supplying technical input from her encyclopedic memory.

Lord Wilfred was striding about, swinging a skinny piece of kindling that he used as an officer's swagger stick. "Pity you visited both those beasts. Now they know you're up to no good, so to speak."

Jack had been sitting quietly, staring into the fire. Now he spoke up, "Have they ever seen Hubert or Filbert?"

Alix turned to him. "The firedrake has - but in armor they'd be unrecognizable."

### Jack said, "That's it, then. We'll get your brothers back and make them heroes at the same time! He jumped up and strode to the wall map. "Suppose we sent you out first...."

* * * *

When the battle plans were complete, Lord Wilfred and Jack outfitted Alix with appropriate magical weapons. Moments later the princess appeared in the blaring heat and orange light on the lower slope of Mount Sulfur.

To know she was there, you would need to notice the ghostly footprints that appeared in the volcanic ash, because she was wearing the cap of darkness. (She'd recalled that the firedrake used infra-red only for dueling.) The footprints walked uphill past mound after sorrowful mound of ashes and bits of old armor, all that was left of the warriors who had taken up arms against Griddle.

"So many of them," her bodiless voice observed sadly.

Twenty more yards up the slope, the footprints stopped beside the melted wreck of a little hand-pumped fire engine. "Aha!" said the princess' voice, and a few great drops of gray, green, greasy Limpopo river water splashed on the ash mound. A bright _flash_ of light and Hubert was standing there, good as new.

"For Gwendolyn and mmmffph!" he shouted as Alix clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Hubert!" she whispered, "quiet!!"

He wrenched away and spun around, struggling to draw his sword. "Who? Wha? Mmffph!"

Princess Alix appeared by lifting the cap off her head. "Hubert, it's me - I mean _I,_ of course. It's Alix, Hubert." She took her hand off his mouth and whispered, "The firedrake is sleeping."

"Sleeping?" said Hubert loudly, then winced at his own voice and whispered, "Sleeping; right! Hey, did I sleep too? All afternoon?"

Alix mouthed I'll tell you later, wrapped an arm around her brother and replaced the magic cap. They vanished.

Hubert's voice shouted, "Hey!"

"Shhh, Hubert!"

"Shhh, right, I forgot; hey, why are we hugging?"

"It makes you invisible."

"What does?"

A desperate whisper: "Please, Hubert! Walk this way."

Two sets of tangled footprints stumbled down the slope. As they moved off, Hubert's voice floated back, "Kind of like dancing."

Wrapped around Hubert, Princess Alix lurched a slow hundred yards down the rough slope until they could take shelter behind a wall of boulders. She pulled off her cap, sat down with her brother, and explained what had happened to him.

Hubert looked at her goggle-eyed. "I was really dead?" She nodded. "Wow!"

Alix smiled. "Just rest here while I go look for Filbert."

"Is he lost?" The princess put her cap on and vanished. "Wow!" Hubert repeated.

When she finally found Filbert's ashes beside the skeleton of his catapult, Alix was so far up the slope that the heat was almost unbearable and the snores of the sleeping firedrake rattled her teeth. To avoid startling Filbert as she had Hubert, Alix took off her cap before sprinkling his ash pile.

She startled him anyway. Her reconstituted brother jumped up, spun around, saw her, and screamed.

The thunderous snoring stopped.

She quickly covered his mouth with one hand while pointing up hill with her other one, then signed _shhh_ with a finger on her lips. Filbert understood - in body and brain he was not as quite thick as his brother. He looked terrified, nodded, mimed _shh_ in return.

The firedrake carried on snoring. Alix embraced Filbert, put her cap on, and did the disappearing trick.

"Whoa! Where'd I go?"

Desperately, "Shhh, Filbert!"

"Sorry!"

When she had reunited her brothers, Alix whisked them all to safety in the next valley over, and now they were sitting on a fallen tree trunk in the relative coolness of evening, with a fire to warm up a supper of meat pies and pear juice.

"Oh, that hits the spot," Filbert mumbled through a mouthful of steak and kidney, "pass the pear juice, will you?"

Hubert did. "And Filbert was dead too?"

Filbert swallowed. "So quick I never felt it."

Hubert looked at his big sister. "Why'd you bring us back? You never liked us."

Alix looked as if she'd been punched. "What..." she began faintly, "whatever made you think that?"

"Well, you said nothing we did was ever good enough."

Filbert nodded. "You were always criticizing."

She shook her head, "I only wanted to help." But the new Alix realized how hollow that sounded.

Seeing her distress, Filbert said, "Maybe you were just a lot smarter."

Sitting between her brothers, Alix wrapped an arm around each of them and stared into the fire. "I know lots of stuff," she said reflectively, "and I can do more things than average; but you know what? There's a lot more to smart than that - a lot more ways to _be_ smart; I found that out. Without friends to help, I wouldn't have known how to find you both."

### Hubert and Filbert didn't answer because they couldn't quite admit that having their big sister's arms around them felt good.

# Chapter 12

# Fire and Ice

The following morning, Princess Alix patiently coached Prince Hubert in using the seven league boots. At first he disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, reappeared, until Alix yelled at him. "Stop shifting from foot to foot, Hubert; take one step and then another."

Then she wished she had explained that more fully because Hubert vanished for 20 minutes. He reappeared covered with snowflakes, which turned to steam on the spot.

"Hubert, where were you?"

"I dunno, but you should have seen that big white bear!" His red face shone with pleasure.

"Right," said the princess, sighing, "but Mount Sulfur is only..." Her attention was diverted by Prince Filbert, who flew past her upside down, while emitting a sort of yodeling scream. "He can't get the hang of that flying feather," said Alix. Then Filbert suddenly did seem to gain control of the feather. He turned right side up, at least, and started to fly in one direction at a time.

A few minutes later he managed to land without breaking any bones, and the princess drew her brothers together for final instructions. Then Filbert flew off with a showy last swoop around the valley, and Hubert prepared to walk to Mount Sulfur, ten steps away.

"Get the firedrake talking," the princess counseled her brother, "when he's speaking, he doesn't spit lava or shoot flames from his nostrils."

Hubert was as brave as Filbert was, well, not; so he grinned happily. "Be back soon, Sis," he said, took a step, and vanished.

"Sis?" Alix said to herself, "well, I'll take that as progress." She wished herself to the top of one of the hills that ringed the valley and settled down to wait.

### Hubert reached the slopes of Mount Sulfur in exactly ten strides. The volcano was quiet today, and cool enough to allow him close to the rim. He looked down into the lava lake, to find Griddle the firedrake swimming the backstroke and singing a morning song:

#### I gargle with boiling hot lava,

#### And spit fiery loogies of death.

#### If the sight of my mug doesn't kill you,

#### You'll drop dead at the blast of my breath.

#### (chorus)

##### Youuuull... drop dead at the blast of my breath, my breath...

Hubert stopped him with a shrill whistle, then, "Hi! Firedrake," he shouted, "your singing smells as bad as that breath of yours!"

"Well, what have we here?" asked Griddle, delighted to find another opponent. Business was picking up a treat lately.

"The blast of your breath, huh?" Hubert shouted.

"Yes," said the firedrake, "And I will give you a sample. Ruuuuucccckkk-TOOEY!" But the fiery spitball merely struck the dead tree where Hubert had been. He was now on the other side of the crater, a league off. "Impressive," Griddle admitted, "Ruuuuucccckkk..."

"Wait! I bring a message from your old friend, the iceworm."

The firedrake's re-aimed his great iron head and a molten loogie shot straight up in the air and exploded into a fireball with a painful BOOM! that shook the ground and sent lava rocks rattling downhill.

"All right," Hubert conceded, " _not_ your friend. She says you're zero without that lava lake for fuel."

"Oh, please!" Griddle answered, "I can melt her to a puddle and boil it to steam!"

Hubert nodded. "Sure, because you're swimming in all that fire. Iceworm says you're too big a coward to meet her on neutral ground."

The firedrake sighed and a firestorm boiled out of his nostrils. "Oh, all right, then." The great iron monster rose out of the lake on his bumblebee wings and started flying toward Hubert. "Lead the way, kid; I'll use you for warm-up practice."

### Griddle shot fire and Hubert stepped away from him; and so they set out for the little valley, with Hubert skipping a league at a step and the firedrake flying behind him, exploding lava loogies where the prince had just been.

* * * *

Prince Filbert, meanwhile, was 20 leagues in the opposite direction, flying cautiously into the iceworm's dead valley. Filbert was not burdened by excess courage, so he trembled as he floated slowly toward the mouth of the great worm's cave.

"Hey," he quavered, then cleared his throat and repeated "Hey!" more loudly. "In there! Is anybody home? No? Well, I guess I can always come back..."

"I'm alwayss in ressidencce; Who ssummonss me?"

The voice was so cold and so evil that Filbert's trembling threatened to get out of control, and the sudden temperature drop made things worse. He shook so badly that he could hardly think, let alone speak. "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah," he began, "ah, how do you do?" he managed in a squeaky voice, "My name's Filbert."

The blue-white ribbon, over 20 feet wide but just one foot thick uncoiled from the cave mouth and the flat, fanged head rose to peer at him. "Mine iss Sslicce."

"I... I dropped by to do you a favor - well, I mean, bring you some news."

The iceworm shrugged dismissively. "What newss could a creature like you dissclosse?"

"Breaking news, you might call it; Firedrake's out of his volcano."

The frosty head shot a quick 20 feet in the air. "He'ss forssaken the ssafety of hiss firess?"

"He's flying into the next valley over."

"Sshow where that iss!"

Distracted by fear, Filbert had drifted downward. He pointed. "That way."

The wide slit mouth curled in a ghastly smile. "I ssupposse I musst ssay thanksssssssss," and the iceworm blew an air puff that formed frost all over Filbert's hair.

### Like rabbits and other natural prey, Prince Filbert had very fast reflexes, so he was able to swoop up out of range. Hovering high in the searing air that blasted the whole kingdom except for the iceworm's valley, he quickly defrosted, then watched in horrid fascination as yard after yard after blue-white yard of the worm's ribbon body surged out of the cave and coiled its way toward the battle site. He followed discreetly as the monster rippled into the next valley. The leaves dropped from trees at her passing, the grass frosted over, and frozen birds fell dead from the sky. The iceworm slithered onward, killing every living thing in her path.

* * * *

While her brothers were goading the monsters out of their lairs and leading them toward the battlefield, Princess Alix stayed at her choice observation point on a high hill and waited.

She did not wait long. The small valley was ringed on all sides by mountains. Behind them, to the west, the clouds overhead burned fiery orange as the firedrake flew nearer. Opposite, to the east, the sky darkened to leaden gray to mark the passage of the deadly iceworm.

Then each monster appeared over a mountain rim and started down toward the center of the valley. The western part burned to black ash as the firedrake flew over it, with trees bursting into flame and bushes simply exploding. The eastern half froze, foot-by-foot, as the broad flat head of the iceworm crossed it, dragging her endless body behind. The two climates met in a ragged line across the center of the valley - a line that hissed and bubbled steam a hundred yards into the air.

On the western side of the battle line, the firedrake buzzed down, landed, and folded his dragon wings. "Geez, I hate flying," Griddle wheezed.

On the opposite side, the iceworm slithered down the mountain slope, as unstoppable as a glacier but as fast as an avalanche. She rippled forward until she faced her historic foe. "What ssendss you down, old nemessiss?"

The firedrake reared his iron head and roared, "To teach you your place, you disgusting tapeworm!"

"My placce, ssilly upsstart? Let uss ssee!"

Rising to his full 50-foot height, the firedrake pounded forward on his powerful legs, like a giant bull stalking a matador.

A shiver rippled the half-league length of the iceworm as she surged to meet her foe. They collided at the battle line with a deafening noise and a cloud of steam that nearly hid them from Alix's view. She could spy shapes coming and going in the steam bath, just white ribbon wrapping red iron. The firedrake made a sound like a lion's roar plus an elephant's trumpet, plus a factory whistle at noon. The iceworm emitted a horrible shriek, like the world's biggest finger nail scraping the world's biggest chalkboard.

Yards of blue-white ribbon coiled around a glowing hoof and the firedrake howled with pain as his leg turned black. Heaving himself into the air, he flipped head downward and gored the iceworm with his horns, punching again and again through the freezing skin. The iceworm's shriek became a scream of agony and the flesh around each horn gash turned sodden pink and melted like rotten ice. Wrenching her endless body into accordion folds, she flung a great length of herself over the firedrake's back. The steam doubled and the firedrake bellowed in agony.

On and on they fought, the firedrake goring and melting the iceworm, the iceworm sucking the vital heat from the firedrake into the coils of her frozen body. As more and more of her dissolved into water, the battlefield turned into steaming mud.

By this time Princes Hubert and Filbert had joined their sister on the hilltop and, of course, had chosen sides to root for.

Hubert hit Filbert a brotherly whack on the back. "Your poor old worm is toast, Filbie; my firedrake'll kill her, sure."

Filbert wheezed from his brother's affectionate pat and then said, "That clanking boiler? Hah! My iceworm's going to put him out like a match in a water bucket!"

"Wanna bet?"

"You're on!"

They were too engrossed in the combat to notice that Princess Alix had vanished. But scoreless tie matches are not exciting indefinitely. After an hour of inconclusive roaring, shrieking, steaming, flailing, wrapping, and goring, the battlefield was a sodden swamp and the two horrid monsters - from what little could be seen through the steam and mud - were still flogging each other with unflagging energy. So the brothers were bored and restless by the time their sister reappeared on the hilltop - this time with a strange man beside her.

"Hubert, Filbert, meet Jack Brambel."

The men made introductory noises and then Filbert said, "You're not from around here, are you?"

Jack smiled amiably. "I'm from England."

Hubert creased heavy brows in thought. "England: that's someplace west of us."

Jack kept smiling, "Close enough."

Alix said, "Jack and I will take a turn now."

Hubert's face clouded up but Jack said quickly, "We'll just do some cleanup since you knights have done all the hard part." The princes nodded, satisfied, and Alix shot Jack an admiring glance. He seemed to notice other people's feelings and then make those feelings good.

Princess Alix and Jack wore regular clothing because even magic couldn't make heat-proof, cold-proof, waterproof armor that anybody could move in. They divided up the magical gifts they had brought, those that had been designated weapons, per section Four-D of Operation Fire and Ice. Alix took the flying feather, the magic sword Excalibur, and the Shield of Diamond. Jack took up the magic strongbox, which could safely contain anything, no matter how dangerous, and the seven league boots.

The princess handed the leather pouch of Limpopo water to Hubert. "Don't drink it or spill it," she cautioned.

"What does it do?" Hubert asked.

"It brings the dead to life; don't you remember?"

"We were dead at the time," Filbert answered quite reasonably.

"Oh, right." Alix buckled on the magic sword, grasped the shield in her left hand, and flew off toward the battle.

"Gentlemen," Jack said, saluting. He took a step and vanished.

### "He seems all right," said Filbert. Hubert shrugged and nodded and settled back to watch the show.

# Chapter 13

# The Battle Ends and an Army Begins

Princess Alix had not tested the shield of diamond, a ten-inch leather plate with a handle in back and an admittedly big diamond in front. But a shield only ten inches across? Hovering at a safe height above the battle, she looked at the monsters flailing away at each other and hoped for the best. Touching the diamond, she ordered, "Shield, protect me!"

With a hum like a swarm of honeybees, a disc of blue light spread out from the gem to form a shallow, shimmering half-dome in front of her. To test it, Alix held up the shield and flew hard behind it, straight into a giant boulder. Despite the high speed collision, she was not hurt or shaken. She didn't even rebound because the shield somehow absorbed the force completely, glowing brighter blue as it did so. Nodding her satisfaction, Alix turned her attention back to the battle.

Meanwhile, it had taken Jack about ten magic boot steps to get to his assigned place - forth, back, forth, back \- until a lucky step finally put him on an outcropping behind the iceworm and safely above her. Sighing with relief, he replaced the boots with a regular pair, and then held the magic strong box so that its lid and body resembled an open clam shell. Below him, the firedrake slashed with his tail at the iceworm's endless body. Each time it touched the rubbery ribbon, the flesh turned to water and steam rose up.

Opposite Jack and just out of range, Princess Alix hovered in midair, sweating in the fearsome heat despite the shield's protection. She looked doubtfully at the glowing blue disk, which was now turning red around its border, and then gritted her teeth and flew toward the firedrake.

The heat was unbearable and Griddle's thick tail kept beating on the shield. The magic gift held steadfast though, while the princess squinted in the awful glare and waited for the right....

There! For a moment, the great beast dropped his tail to the ground. Alix swooped in and down, turned the shield aside, and hacked off the iron tail with one blow of magic Excalibur. She whipped the shield back to protect her again, but even so, her face was red, as if badly sunburned, and her hair was starting to smoke.

With a roar of pain and outrage, the firedrake stopped goring the iceworm and turned to see what had happened to his rear end.

When Jack saw Alix sever the tail, he squatted on his rock above the iceworm and held out the open strong box, as if to catch a pitched ball with it. On the opposite side of the battle, the princess surged forward, effortlessly flipped the tail into the air with the tip of the sword, and then batted it hard toward Jack.

He caught and held it in the box. This should have been impossible: the huge tail was ten times as big as the box and it set fire to whatever it touched. But the strongbox was magic, so the tail somehow disappeared into it and Jack slammed the lid shut. He bore its weight easily and the box didn't even feel warm. Jack pumped a fist in the air.

The iceworm Slice took advantage of her opponent's distraction. Rippling forward, she whipped several lengths of her wide flat body around the legs of the firedrake and held tightly, no matter how strongly he kicked and jerked. Higher and ever higher up his legs, the firedrake faded from red to black as his heat leached out of him. He howled and bellowed, but for the first time there was an almost plaintive tone to his trumpeting. Griddle was fast losing strength.

The iceworm's new attack had waved a great coil of her body sideways until it lay almost directly below Jack's rock platform. A blast of arctic wind blew upward and set him shuddering. Panting and blowing frosty air puffs, he fought his way forward to the front of the ledge and wrenched open the strong box. He shook it and the firedrake tail fell out, magically back at its proper huge size and glowing like steel in a forge. It fell down and down, straight toward the horrid blue-white coil of flesh...

And missed! The tail hit the ground to one side of the iceworm and lay there.

Without hesitating, Jack leaped off the ledge to the ground beside the severed tail, which was pulsing with heat. Jack scooped it into the magic strongbox and jumped higher and farther than he had thought possible. He landed near the center of the white ribbon.

Of course he froze solid instantly, becoming a perfect ice sculpture of a man holding an open casket. He was dead almost too fast to feel pain.

But the magic strongbox would not freeze and the firedrake's tail tumbled out and landed square in the center of the rubbery blue-white body. The iceworm screamed a scream so terrified, so agonized, that Princess Alix instinctively flew up and back to learn the reason for it.

The fiery tail opened a fissure on the iceworm's back, a deep fracture that spread from side to side, zigzagging across the full width of the white ribbon. In front of the wound was the iceworm's head and several yards of her body; but behind the break lay all the rest of her in coils half a league long. Within seconds, the two parts severed completely. The twisting highway of body shuddered and jerked in great spasms, then lay still and slowly turned into a winding river of water.

As the body dissolved, the ice sculpture that had once been Jack fell off and disappeared in the steam - the steam that had hidden his death from the Princess.

The iceworm was now just a head attached to a ribbon of body barely long enough to coil around the firedrake. Most of its power was gone. Sensing this, the panting firedrake roused himself for one last effort, lunging and goring until the iceworm was a mass of wounds. Despite her death agony, the iceworm held fast, her last few yards of body wrapped around her foe. As Slice died, the firedrake turned black all over and Griddle died too, with a groan that could be heard as far away as Gdink.

### In faraway Gdink, the king and queen and all the people heard that groan. (Some later claimed they felt the earth move too.) But they did not know its meaning, and by now everyone was so baked, so starved, so beaten down in general that they shrugged it off and resumed their full-time work: surviving.

* * * *

The princess stood with her clothes stained by smoke and sweat, her boots filthy with mud and foul water, her unbound hair in tight tangles. She leaned on the sword Excalibur and looked at the dead monsters. Nothing remained of the iceworm but her skull; all the rest had melted away. But strangely, a great flood of sparkling water poured out of the skull and wound its way over the valley floor. Alix recalled that from there it was all downhill to Gdink, but she put aside the thought for the present. She cut off the iceworm's fangs as proof of her destruction. Then, almost sadly, she walked to the firedrake's body and, with single strokes of Excalibur, cut off each of his hooves.

When she looked around for the magic strongbox to hold them, she finally saw Jack's dead body. He lay like a knocked-over chess piece, so cold-frozen dead that the steaming mud was not even thawing his edges. His open eyes were glass marbles and their lashes were separately frozen, thin wires so delicate they would break at a touch.

She sheathed Excalibur, picked up the strongbox - it was unharmed of course - and thought about Jack: thought about his cheerfulness and the easy way he had seen past her irritating habits and accepted her as she was, thought about what good friends they'd become, and how they were growing beyond simple friendship. She thought about his willingness to do battle in a war that was not his, to face the iceworm and the firedrake, if need be, to die. She still didn't know what that tingle called love was, exactly, and suspected that nobody else did either. But now her heart overruled her brain for a change. Somehow, she knew love when she felt it, and this was it.

But a sculpture in ice would be cold love indeed. Alix rubbed the wishing ring and muttered, and the Limpopo River water bag appeared in her hand. Just a single drop and a flash of light and Jack stood before her, restored. Alix threw her arms around him and wept, while Jack looked as if he could do without the weeping but the hugging part was more than agreeable. He let it go on until he feared he was being obvious about it, and then kissed her quiet. This technique proved so effective that he made a note to remember it.

When they had reluctantly separated, Alix wished them both back to camp, where Hubert and Filbert marveled at the iceworm fangs and firedrake hooves and rejoiced in the victory over the two mighty monsters. Princess Alix was careful to give her brothers more credit than they really deserved for their parts in the campaign. Jack smiled at her approvingly and winked.

When they had all cleaned up and eaten something, Jack reminded Alix that it was time for Phase Three of Operation Fire and Ice.

"What were one and two?" Filbert asked.

Jack said, "One: lure the monsters out to fight each other; two: make sure they killed each other.

"I won't miss Iceworm," said Alix reflectively, "she was ghastly; but Griddle was fun in his bluff, hearty way."

"When he wasn't murdering folks like us," said Hubert.

"True, I was forgetting." But she looked sadly at the four iron hooves.

"Phase Three," Jack reminded them.

Alix said, "Right! Phase Three is reviving a thousand warriors."

### When the princes stared at her, Alix held up the bag of Limpopo River water.

* * * *

The preparations took time. First Alix wished for four teapots with spouts so narrow that they would dispense but one drop at a time. She wanted ceramic bowls with cheerful floral patterns, but all the men loudly demanded plain pewter and their votes prevailed. With slow care, she filled the special teapots from the Limpopo water bag. Then she changed her own pot back to floral.

Alix had no thought of raising a fighting force, but Jack pointed out that the only thing shared by this mixed bag of warriors was the habit of obeying commanders. They could make them an army now just to organize them; then decide what to do with them later.

To provide leaders, she clothed her brothers in fresh armor with the royal crest on each shield, before turning to study Jack. Alix murmured, "Hm: the commander's armor should be different - somehow spiffier."

"Don't look at me," said Jack, "I'll gladly join Hubert and Filbert, but it is _your_ army."

The princess scoffed at this. "They won't obey a female; you know what men are like, especially military."

"Just outfit me like your brothers; then we'll see." With a doubtful look, she wished him into new armor, with the Puddleby ducal crest on the shield.

An hour later, she had wished them all to the valley of the frozen knights, where they spread out among the ice sculptures and started thawing warriors. On Jack's advice, Alix now wore a suit of armor plated with glittering gold, Excalibur sheathed at her side, and a four-foot plume of gauzy white that streamed outward from her helmet crest (in a magical breeze of its own). The royal arms of Gemeinschaft, Steenstein, and Sulphronia flashed on her shield. Jack had suggested the final touch: she was mounted on a pure white stallion - a powerful charger 18 hands high.

The effect was overwhelming.

Haloed by the sun behind her, she splashed a single drop of magic water and an icy corpse flashed and became a live warrior. He took one look at the figure before him and dropped to his knees. "My lord!" he whispered.

"Close enough," said the princess, "fall in at the base of the hill, will you?"

"Yes, my lo..." the knight goggled up at her, then kneeled again. "Yes, my lady." He started briskly down the slope.

Alix stroked her mount's enormous neck and said, "He took that rather well, I thought," and trotted over to the next dead knight.

Elsewhere in the valley, Prince Hubert found the squad of English archers, still with arrows notched and longbows drawn and aimed. They were so tightly packed together that a single magic water drop unfroze them all. A great swarm of arrows launched at once with a terrifying WHOOSH! that made Hubert drop flat on the ground. The shafts were so well aimed that half of them vanished into the mouth of the iceworm's empty cave.

A bit later, Prince Filbert climbed the slopes of Mount Sulfur, re-animating ash piles as he went. "Amazing," he said to himself as he dripped a drop on a mound of powder, "all you do is add water."

And so it went until Alix, Jack, Hubert, and Filbert had revived well over a thousand warriors and rounded them up for inspection. (The Neanderthals took some convincing, since modern humans were unknown to them and looked exceedingly ugly.) Like Max, the soldiers and knights had all been revived as young men in their prime, and they were a formidable lot.

The princess found organizers for this temporary army by calling for volunteers in as many languages as she knew: French, Mandarin, Icelandic, Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Mongolian, Xhosa, Aleut, and so-on. Whoever answered became chief of his language group. A Japanese warrior in splendid armor sent her a pleading look, so she designated him with a gesture. "I really _must_ learn Japanese," she muttered. "I'll take care of that next week."

With Jack's meticulous planning and a lot of ring-rubbing, full field supplies had been summoned, so by sundown, the colorful assortment had wagons, horses, fires, tents, and food for man and beast. Princess Alix moved among the throng, and everyone swore loyalty to her. It was a sight to see scarred and seasoned warriors weeping unaffectedly as they kissed her hand.

As she walked around, leading her charger, whom she'd named Lancelot, Alix reviewed this astonishing day. Her brothers revived, two monsters killed, the heat wave broken, a thousand men returned to the land of the living - and now they were hers to command. For the first time in her life Alix felt useful, felt _powerful_. She realized that this was the strength monarchs felt. Power felt so good that you wanted to use it, and, like the wishing ring, power could tempt you to make greater and ever greater demands.

### Alix sighed. The ring could be shut in its strange little box and stored away in the tower. Power, however, could not. She was, after all, the crown princess. All she could do was control her power - use it sparingly and always for good. But then she shook her head sadly. That was all very well in theory, and Alix had always depended on theories; but the real world didn't work theoretically. Of all the things she had recently learned, that was the most important by far.

# Chapter 14

# Princess Alix Confronts Her Father

In the late afternoon Alix flew to Gdink while Jack put on the seven league boots and got close enough to the embassy to walk the rest of the way in regular shoes. Hubert and Filbert remained in the field with the warrior horde.

Before joining Jack at the embassy, Alix flew over the town and spotted Schnecken, Dame Strudel, and Blintz in the square at their usual sidewalk table. She swooped in and landed beside them.

"Look who dropped in!" cried Dame Strudel.

"You - you wouldn't be surrendering would you?" Blintz asked, hoping against hope.

Alix took the fourth chair. "Let's get all this sorted out," she said, "you want to turn me in for the reward, correct?" The three embarrassed burghers wouldn't look her in the eye. "Are you that desperate for money?"

A chorus of _No! Not at all! Wouldn't think of it!_

Dame Strudel put a motherly hand on the Alix's arm. "It's not for _us_ , Princess darling; it's for Gdink."

Blintz spoke up, "To build city attractions like a hotel and a jousting stadium."

Schnecken added, "And some kinda place with rides."

Working out the reasoning, Alix said slowly, "You want strangers to visit Gdink."

"Lots of strangers," said Schnecken.

"Who spend lots of money," Blintz added.

"Hm; that will take thought."

Dame Strudel said, "No one can think like you can, darling."

Alix stood up. "Well, neighbors, there's no chance for the ten million marks." When they all nodded glumly, she added, "But I will help Gdink. As I said, let me think on it." With that, she abruptly rose in the air and flew off toward the British embassy.

Dame Strudel, Schnecken, and Blintz sat there with their mouths open, staring at the roof of city hall, over which Alix had just disappeared.

### In the air above Gdink she noticed a sizable river that was now flowing straight toward the city. The iceworm's skull was still pumping, it seemed.

* * * *

At the British embassy the princess, Lord Wilfred, and Jack sat down for a strategy session. Owl was there too, wished down from the palace, mirror and all.

Lord Wilfred was more than filling the biggest chair. "Well done," he said cheerfully, "Firedrake conquered, heat wave broken. Good show!"

Owl shook its wooden head. "You still have a ten million mark price on your head."

"Mm," said Lord Wilfred, "and the king's still not frightfully keen on you."

Jack put in, "And a thousand-plus warriors are heading for Gdink with nothing to do when they get here. That's a bad situation for soldiers."

Alix sighed. "And, there's a new river flowing too close to the city walls, and the good burghers of Gdink look at me and all they can see is ten million marks."

"Are they really that greedy?" Jack asked.

Alix reported the Gdinkers' hopes to bring strangers into the city.

Owl nodded, "They're called tourists," he said.

"What are?" Jack asked.

Owl said, "Tourists are people who travel somewhere just to travel somewhere, and then turn around and go home."

Lord Wilfred snorted. "Good lord!"

"Well, they _do_ do things while they're there," Owl admitted, "like eat and gamble and bathe in spas."

Lord Wilfred brightened. "That's all right then; know all about spas. They're reviving an old Roman one in Bath; supposed to be the next big thing."

"What do they do at a spa?" the princess inquired.

Lord Wilfred wrinkled his oversized nose. "Paddle about in hot water. Smelly too, like rotten eggs. Supposedly good for what ails you. Some people even drink the stuff. Ugh!" Lord Wilfred consulted his hot pear juice.

"Describe these spa places," the princess said.

As the owl explained what a "resort" was, Jack scribbled notes on a parchment. At length, he said, "We could do that - build a spa, I mean, to attract visitors. That new river has plenty of water."

"And it needs to be channeled away from the walls," the owl added.

Lord Wilfred shook his head. "Not on, I'm afraid; spa water has to be hot and smelly."

### Princess Alix picked up a firedrake hoof and looked thoughtful.

* * * *

The next morning, Alix carried the hoof to Mount Sulfur, along with the shield of diamond for heat insulation. "I hope this works," she said as she threw the hoof into the fiery crater. Instantly, Griddle surged to the surface, alive and well and looking for action, as always. Quickly, Alix rubbed the diamond to activate the shield's protection.

At the sight of her, the firedrake roared with delight. "You've come back as you promised, good lad!"

The princess shook her hair loose. "That would be lass," she corrected.

The firedrake goggled, then covered his eyes with a hoof. "I've been battling a female? That's _humiliating!"_

"It's the coming thing," said the princess impatiently, "deal with it. Now, Griddle, what's the last thing you remember?"

The beast looked as thoughtful as his facial plates allowed. "The iceworm... she was wrapping... I was goring..." He finally got the idea. "Did I kill her?"

Alix shook her head. "By the end, you were dead - both of you."

A long silence while the monster's small brain chugged away, and then he said in a small voice (for him, at least), "I was killed? I was _dead?_ Then how...?"

"I brought your hoof here and threw it into the lava. I recalled that revived you the last time."

Griddle said, "Whew!" with a breath that shot flames fifty feet. "I owe you."

She nodded. "And I'm here to collect. I have a new job for you." Griddle was instantly wary, so Alix said hurriedly, "How would you like to be famous?"

"I'm already famous - been famous forever."

She shook her head. "Aside from my brothers and me, how many duels have you fought lately?"

Another long processing pause, and then: "None, come to think of it - not for maybe two centuries, anyway."

"How famous is that?"

Seeing the great beast wince, Alix followed up quickly, "How would you like to be famous again - the center of all attention, the most widely admired mons... ah, _person_ on the whole continent?"

### "I'm listening," Griddle replied.

* * * *

When she returned to the embassy later, Alix reported that Griddle could hock lava loogies - smelly ones too - and fire them into a five-foot target 20 leagues away. With heat from the Firedrake and water from the river, the spa idea might just work.

"Now: what about all those warriors?" Lord Wilfred asked.

"Pay them to build the resort," said Jack, "They'll all need cash to get home on."

Alix sighed. "So that leaves the ten million mark price on my head and the fact that the king has banished me."

"What about that magic purse of yours?" Lord Wilfred enquired. "You could ransom yourself."

Alix shook her head. "At three coins per shake, I'd spend a whole lifetime raising the money."

Jack said, "While you were off recruiting the firedrake, I had some thoughts about both those problems. Father, you'll play a big part in this."

### Lord Wilfred grinned at his son. "Always glad to oblige, dear boy!"

* * * *

The next morning the Lord Wilfred appeared at Gdink city hall, and since King Grogelbert was bored cross-eyed with nothing to do, he was instantly granted an audience. His cordial reception chilled when the king learned that the ambassador would present Princess Alix in two days' time.

"Oh, all right, the king grumbled, "but why the delay?"

Lord Wilfred put on his best diplomat's smile. "You'll need time to move back up the hill, I fancy." The Major Domo nodded strenuously. "And even for a national bank," Lord Wilfred added without missing a beat, "ten million marks cash will take time to round up."

"Ten mih... ten mih... the king gasped and started hyperventilating. Nurse Hildegard pushed his head down and made him breathe into a bag.

"But no doubt we can work something out," Lord Wilfred said smoothly, "when you've got your proper court around you." The Englishman bowed himself out.

### "Ten million marks," the king whimpered. The Major Domo clamped his lips in a thin grim line. Queen Athena did not look up from her book.

* * * *

By the next morning Gdinkers had noticed that the heat wave was over. Not only that, but the fountain was now gushing with ample fresh water. Schnecken, Strudel, and Blintz looked at one another and nodded wisely. It was clear that their brilliant princess was somehow back on the job.

On the other side of the square, King Grogelbert fretted and groaned on his rickety throne. Ten million marks! They were ruined! He would end up begging in the street!!

He was briefly distracted when the Major Domo appeared with the news that the palace door was wide open.

"Sire, the princess is not in the palace. I checked every room."

"So there's nobody there at all?" the king asked.

"Only a dog, Sire." He leaned casually against the philosophers' table. "You know, it's the strangest thing: the dog looked exactly like Max - only Max as he was 15 years ago."

"Yes, yes, never mind that," said Grogelbert brusquely, "just get us back up the hill."

"One more matter, your majesty: the British ambassador requests an audience with you, tomorrow."

### The king resumed fretting and groaning.

* * * *

By the following Noon the warrior horde was camped outside the city and the court was camped inside the palace throne room, waiting. After an hour of thickening silence, Lady Gwendolyn ventured timidly that it seemed cooler today.

"Much cooler," agreed Lady Mandolyn.

A quavering chorus of _much; yes indeedy; quite so; oh, was it hot? Did you bring any dental floss?_ floated up from the table where the court philosophers had been parked. Nurse Hildegard and the Major Domo stood against a wall and tried to look inconspicuous. The king took his crown off and twirled it nervously around an index finger. Queen Athena sat on her throne with the glazed, desperate look that book addicts get when they've run out of reading.

Just before the tension finally drove the court mad, Lord Wilfred entered the audience chamber, peered around, saw there was no one to announce him, and took a deep breath to do it himself: "Wilfred, Lord Brambel, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty!" Seeing all the glum faces, he attempted to lighten the tone, "And accomplished man about town." He winked at the court, but since the court could think of nothing but the ten million marks, the tone remained stubbornly dark.

As he moved into the hall Jack followed him, still in full armor.

"Who's that and why's he here in battle dress?" the king asked suspiciously.

"Brought my son Jack along, Sire. My brother's childless, so Jack's the family heir if I pack it in before my brother, don't you know? He's learning the ropes in the duke business."

The king still looked suspicious but conceded, "I suppose that's all right then."

Lord Wilfred folded his bulk in a bow to the king and queen, "Then let us get down to it. You have offered a reward for the Princess, I think."

Seeing that the ambassador had not brought her, the king dared briefly to hope. "The reward was for bringing her to me," he said slyly, "and you haven't done that." The old philosophers nodded appreciatively and emitted a small cloud of noise: _he didn't, you know; she's not here; well I think she's not here; is she here?_ And so-on.

Like a master of ceremonies presenting a magic act, Lord Wilfred made a sweeping gesture toward a high window in the throne room. Exactly on cue, Princess Alix - who had been hovering outside listening - swooped through the window, flew the length of the audience chamber, touched down at the base of the royal thrones, and knelt before her father. Her golden armor was almost blinding. Rising, she pulled off her helmet and shook loose her mane of thick hair.

The queen wagged her head back and forth, as if saying, _I did not see that; I did not see that!_ and fumbled for her spectacles.

The king ignored his daughter's spectacular arrival and costume. "You! Give me one reason not to lock you up in a moldy dungeon!"

So he still hated her. Alix sorrowed at that, but Poppa's approval was no longer the most important thing in her world. The princess smiled sadly. "For one thing, I just saved you ten million marks."

King Grogelbert's eyes popped and Lord Wilfred said smoothly, "It turns out that nobody captured her, your majesty; she came along quite voluntarily." When the king was slow to process this, the ambassador added, "No capture, no reward."

The Major Domo puffed his cheeks in a sigh of relief and the whole court applauded.

Alix stepped forward. "And I ended the heat wave and with it, the drought. Oh, I almost forgot: I took care of the firedrake too." The princess pulled the remaining hooves of the dead beast from her strongbox and laid them on the philosophers' table. The table, which was already supporting four feeble geezers, sagged dangerously.

"I told you it was cooler" said Gwendolyn.

"The firedrake is a three-legged beast," the first philosopher quavered.

"Not to mention the iceworm." Alix extracted a pair of yard-long fangs and added them to the pile on the table, which sagged even farther.

Inside, the king was rubber-kneed with relief at saving the ten million marks, but he wasn't about to reveal that. Instead of thanking his daughter, he said sarcastically, "Any other cute tricks?"

"Yes, this one!" Alix rubbed the blue ring and murmured to it.

BANG! Princes Hubert and Filbert materialized in a cloud of blue smoke - which Alix had laid on for dramatic effect - and rattled toward their parents in gleaming battle armor. They were obviously cheerful, tanned and fit, and above all, _alive_.

The Major Domo's tray of canapés crashed to the floor. Nurse Hildegard burst into tears and bawled into her apron. Gwendolyn and Mandolyn swooned gracefully to the floor, and the queen too fainted, her scientific brain finally overwhelmed by magic.

Caught between terror and joy, the king, walked haltingly, step by slow step, toward his sons. He touched Hubert's face, pulled off Filbert's steel glove to feel his warm hand, and then wrapped his arms around both of them, ignoring the clanks of their armor. "My boys," he whispered, "my dearest boys!" The tears spilled down his red face. "How can this be? How can you be alive?"

Prince Hubert was clouding up too. "Alix did it, Poppa," he said in a wobbly voice, "she revived us."

Filbert added, "We were both dead, Poppa. Alix brought us back to life!"

The king froze; the rest of the court froze with him.

But Nurse Hildegard did not freeze. She had brought her sobbing under control and now she looked at her darling girl with eyes that grew bigger and bigger. Aside from baby Alix, Hildegard had been the only person to hear Evil Warlock Krank's awful curse and it burned in her memory word-for-word:

###### You can no more win back his love than bring the dead to life.

But here were the two dead princes, brought back to life indeed.

As Hildegard turned to watch the king's face, he slowly turned toward Princess Alix. "My dearest daughter," he choked. Grogelbert stumbled toward the princess. "How could I have forgot how much I love you? My dearest child, how can I repay you?" He wrapped her in a bear hug, armor and all.

No, her Poppa's love was still as important as ever! Now Alix too was weeping. "Your joy's enough, your majesty."

Alix clanked as the king shook her for emphasis. "Poppa!" he shouted, "call me Poppa!"

"Dear Poppa, then," she smiled through her tears.

"Bit _damp_ around here, I must say," Lord Wilfred observed.

An ancient voice fluted from the philosophers' table: "An iceworm is a pair of swords!" But no one noticed.

Everyone was embracing: Hubert and Gwendolyn, Filbert and Mandolyn, the Major Domo and nurse Hildegard. Grogelbert retrieved his queen from the carpet and awakened her with a hug. She stared at him a moment, then, amazingly, smiled and hugged back. The four philosophers were too feeble for hugging, so they sort of tilted together.

When Jack and the princess attempted a hug, they just clanged and scraped on each other's armor. The princess laughed, whispered to her ring, and transformed their steel suits into court attire. Their second attempt at embracing proved so promising that they spent quite a long while perfecting it.

Seeing the king in such a good mood, Hubert ventured, "Poppa, can I marry Gwendolyn?"

Filbert chimed in, "Me too - I mean Mandolyn."

King Grogelbert beamed at his sons and their ladies. "Why do you think they've been hanging around here? It can't be for the badminton."

The whole court looked blank until the Major Domo made the classic two-handed _come on, come_ on gesture; then everyone dutifully went ha-ha, ha-ha, except the philosophers, who were napping now. Tilting them together had been a mistake.

Gratified, the king turned to Alix and Jack. "What about you two? You look pretty cozy." Jack was, after all, in line for a British dukedom and the King wasn't entirely dim. He grinned as Alix and Jack smiled foolishly.

But then Princess Alix turned serious. "Thank you, Poppa; but right now the kingdom is starving and penniless. It will take all our help to recover. As for us," she smiled at Jack and linked arms with him, "we'll just see what develops."

Jack's smile had a rueful cast to it. "I'd say yes in a moment, your majesty; but I'm not the crown princess here."

### Waking up with a snort and a start, the first philosopher said to his colleagues, "Come on over after; I'll make espresso."

# Chapter 15

# And So They All Lived

Princes Hubert and Filbert were wed to their ladies in a ceremony that seemed endless because the doddering bishop who married them was so hard to understand.

Princess Alix, who had long shown a genius for architecture, designed a magnificent spa resort. Signor Galileo and Queen Athena happily engineered all the pipes, pits, pools, tubs, valves, fireboxes, and aqueducts, plus cauldrons for holding hot smelly lava. As the only professional in the Gdink hospitality industry, Dame Strudel was put in charge of the whole enterprise. Blintz was so resentful of this that they consoled him by making him mayor, where he couldn't do any real harm.

The unfrozen army did most of the actual building, and they were grateful for the work. When the project was finished, Alix added generous pensions to their pay from her magic gold purse, so that they could pay their ways back to their native lands. (Unclear on the concept of money, the small band of Neanderthals shuffled off to the mountains to start Bigfoot legends.) The warriors were happy to tell the world about the miraculous health benefits of the spa, which was christened _Bad Gdink._ (Lord Wilfred protested that in English, "bad" meant _not good_ ; but few people spoke English anyway, and that faraway language was judged to have little future.)

Each morning, reliably, Griddle refilled the fuel tanks with fiery loogies, but his pride and joy was the evening fireworks. Every night as twilight shaded to darkness, the sky over Sulphronia blazed with a breathtaking aerial display. By changing his lips, tongue, and teeth positions, Griddle could spit fireballs, aerial showers, and even delayed explosions that went off in mid air with tremendous bangs. He hadn't quite mastered colors as yet, but he and Galileo were working with mineral salts.

On special occasions the firedrake would stage spectacular volcanic eruptions, and it wasn't long before the pyrotechnics became as big a draw as the hot, stinky spa waters. Dame Strudel sold excursions (at _very_ profitable add-on fees) and wagon loads of "tourists" rattled up Mount Sulfur to gape at the only real Firedrake not yet extinct. (Owl kept quiet about other two, in the Andes and Tibet.) The great beast was delighted by all the attention and praise.

Princess Alix and Jack worked and played together, and managed their mutually powerful feelings in ways that were nobody's business. And when Lord Wilfred was called home to London to assume the Puddleby dukedom from his late brother, Jack elected to stay in Sulphronia.

As for the magical faerie gifts, all except Owl and his mirror were lovingly locked in the old tower room and dusted from time to time.

### After all, they might just be needed again.

# Afterward; Full Disclosure/Where Credit Is Due,

# ... and so-forth

In 1889, the Scottish folklorist and fairytale anthologist Andrew Lang published a story called _Prince Prigio_. It included a royal heir (male) who was cursed and banished for being "too clever," a firedrake who fought an immense frigid snake (called a "Remora") and an English ambassador with a grown child (a daughter). _The Princess and the Firedrake_ cheerfully borrows these story ideas, but is otherwise original. Andrew Lang would probably have approved, since his own story appropriated elements from Greek myths, _The Arabian Nights_ , and Cyrano deBergerac, who provided the death struggle between the cold "remora" (iceworm) and the hot "salamander" (firedrake).
