Complete short fiction, p.90
Complete Short Fiction, page 90
Dear Diary
Princess Lillian has decided to come out into the main part of the cave in the evenings, because she says the light is better for drawing. At her request, I even lit a fire. Now we shall need a chimney. Women are certainly a botheration! It is more than ever clear to me why I am so happy in my bachelorhood.
Still, it is not entirely unpleasant to have some company.
Dear Diary
Hah! I knew it was a mistake to become so sentimental and forgiving. That princess-thing has taken a completely unacceptable liberty. I am furious! If I had not already rashly promised her that I would not devour or otherwise harm her, and were a dragon’s word not his solemn bond, I would toast her on the spot.
She has sent her brainless suitor off on a quest to locate a female dragon, and worse than that, he has found one! This morning he came clumping up and left this letter on my doorstep.
Dear Mr. Vermistorix,
(that baggage Lillian has learned my name from my journals! So much for privacy!)
I read your letter with interest.
(What letter?)
Yes, I too have often thought that it was a shame that we dragons must establish our territories so far apart. Although I am happy here in my high mountain home, with my books and my puma, Browniekin, for company . . .
(Browniekin! It is worse than I could have imagined! No wonder I have remained a bachelor.)
. . . there are moments when I too have wondered what it would be like to spend my time in the company of a kindred soul.
(Reading this, I cannot bear to think what nonsense about me the princess-thing has put in her forged letter.)
Should you care to correspond, this kind little human says he will be pleased to act as courier for any missive you might wish to send.
Respectfully yours,
Ms. Ophidia Montedraco
The most shocking thing is, the princess was not even ashamed. In fact, she pretended not to understand why I am angry. “You’re lonely,” she said. “And I can’t hang around forever.”
Words failed me. I pushed the rock in front of the doorway again—at the very least, it will prevent her hatching any more schemes with her wooden-headed paramour—and went out to swoop some steadings. I burned a barn and a deserted church, then felt very foolish. All that waste of flame and flying, and not a single sheep snaffled, knight sizzled, or presumptuous princess scorched.
Dear Diary
Somehow I have been talked into sending a letter back to Ms. Montedraco—Ms.? Have even the dragons of today fallen into modernistic nonsense? What is a Ms., anyway? It sounds like an insect buzzing. Here is a copy of what I wrote.
Dear etc.
Very pleasant to hear from you. I of course am a confirmed bachelor, and quite content with my lot in life, but would be willing from time to time to indulge in a civil correspondence.
Yours respectfully, and so on.
The princess, not content to have ruined my peaceful life, also insists on sending along a portrait of me, although what purpose that can serve I have no idea. Does she think Ms. Montedraco has never seen another dragon before?
I have not worn any of these things since the graduation revels at Reptilicus University, absolutely centuries ago. They do fit surprisingly well, though, don’t they?
Dear Diary
Sir Greg has come thumping and bumping back with another letter. I find myself oddly eager to read it, so I have put it off until after tea. I suppose it is not entirely a bad thing to have some conversation with another of my kind after all these years.
Dear Flammiferus (if I may call you by your first name),
(and who told her my first name? I signed my missive with a dignified “F. Vermistorix, esq.”)
Your bold words intrigue me. Although I had thought myself reconciled to spinsterhood, I feel a certain fire now burning in my womanly heart where after many cold years, the last embers had almost been extinguished.
(Bold words? Was it my cautious use of the verb “indulge” ? I agonized over that.)
I have thought long and hard about your invitation, and think that I can indeed find some time in my schedule to come and visit you near the end of the month. Maidenly modesty forbids me to suggest how much I am looking forward to a personal meeting.
WHAT?!
Smolderingly,
Ophidia
Dear Diary
I have recovered a bit from my upset of yesterday, and most of the smoke in the cave has now cleared.
Princess Lillian had the unbelievable gall to chide me for my outburst. “You singed the hem of my dress,” she said. I told her she was lucky I had not broiled her like a mutton sausage.
“Lots of people get nervous in this situation,” she told me. “I’m sure she’ll like you—she liked your picture, after all.”
Somehow I have lost all ability to argue with this mad young girl. The only course open to me now is to move, to fly away. Somewhere in the deserts to the south there must a cave where an old hermit can live out his last days, undisturbed by princesses or predatory dragon-maidens. I shall pack tonight.
Dear Diary
The thing of it is, dear Diary, that if I go far enough away to hide from this frightening Montedraco creature, I will not be able to take all my possessions, including all the previous volumes of you, my beloved journal. If I settle close enough that multiple trips are feasible, that ghastly galloping Greg will track me down. He has a nose for dragons like a bloodhound, curse him.
I cannot leave today, I suppose. But as soon as I solve this one problem, I will be gone.
Dear Diary
Not gone yet, but I soon will be. The terrible, terrible princess seems to be in a very good mood today. Perhaps ruining my life has been her goal all along. If so, she has succeeded brilliantly.
I demanded to know why she was smiling. “Old Greggie isn’t quite such an idiot as I took him for,” she replied. “In fact, he’s rather nice . . . in a kind of boyishly overeager way.”
I should have eaten her when I had the chance. I should have. But now she would only taste of bitter ashes in my mouth. Bitter ashes and oil paint.
Dear Diary
The Montedraco creature is arriving tomorrow, and I still have not decided what to do. Princess Lillian, with the help of the always-annoying Sir Greg, has taken it upon herself to disrupt my life even further by cleaning the cave, top to bottom. “You’ll want it to be nice for your guest,” she explained, one of the most senseless pronouncements I have ever heard.
But she can’t stay here in my cave, I said. It is completely impossible!
“I’ll be here as a chaperone,” the princess told me. “So it will be all right.”
I am positive that I once had a life that made sense. But I find I cannot remember it any more.
Dear Diary
I will say this for Ophidia—I mean, Ms. Montedraco. She is not a pushy person. She is very polite and well-spoken, as befits one of our superior species. And she brought me a Crusader helmet for my collection—a Maltese Grand Master, one of the few I did not have! She said its wearer was suprisingly fatty and toothsome, and she suspects that he did not do much actual fighting.
Here is the picture of Ophidia that Princess Lillian made. I am not certain that it entirely does her justice—the shapeliness of her haunch and the really charming iridescence of her scales somehow do not translate to stretched sheepskin.
I told her firmly, of course, that while I was pleased to make her acquaintance, as long as she was my guest, she must respect my long-established bachelor traditions.
Dear Diary
Someone has put new up new curtains. They are a truly disturbing sunshine-yellow.
I told Ophidia that I understood that she and Princess Lillian might wish to make some alterations in things around the place, but that under no circumstances could I allow my life to be disrupted. After all, this domestic botheration was in danger of distracting me from my high and noble purpose.
Dear Diary
Apparently, dear Diary, I am getting married tomorrow. I am not exactly certain how it happened. Princess Lillian tells me I am deliriously happy about it. I am not exactly certain about that either, but I must admit that the prospect of Ophidia ending her visit and going back to her distant mountain made me sad.
Still, might there not have been some less drastic method of solving that problem?
You are cordially invited to the Nuptial Feast
of
Flammiferus Vermistorix, Esq., and Ms. Ophidia Montedraco
On the First Wednesday of April
in a Large Field Outside the Gates of Castle Respectable
In Deference to the Finer Feelings (and Stomachs) of some of the Guests (some of Whom are Humans), no Animals More Learned than Sheep will be Consumed.
Dear Diary
We decided to make it a double wedding. Princess Lillian even sang a song. Sir Greg and the guests took it very bravely, I thought.
Ophidia and I plan to honeymoon in the South Seas, where there are apparently some hot lava pools that Ophidia says will “make old bones feel like new again.” We shall see. It’s a long way to fly, but I am actually looking forward to it. Perhaps I have indeed been a bit too much of a stay-at-home the last few centuries, as some have suggested. Not that I will lose all dignity and start behaving like a two-hundred-year-old youngster. I am a mature dragon, after all, with a certain gravity and a high and noble purpose.
Princess Lillian left us a copy of this to remember her by. She is moving back to the castle with Sir Greg. I regret to say that she has not reformed at all, and still says the most startling things without even a blush. She told us she looks forward to hearing “the pitter-patter of scaly little feet” before too long, and demanded to be allowed to paint the official portraits of “the dear sweet things”. I can hardly even bear to guess what she is talking about.
Pre-Nuptial Agreement between Princess Lillian of Castle Respectable and Sir Greg of Le Chateau du Beau Ideal.
1. No One or No Thing Shall Order the Princess Around or Seek to Make her Stop Drawing.
2. Sir Greg May Continue Questing Around and Fighting Dragons as Long as He Obtains Permission from Same (and No Dragons Are Injured During Combat.)
3. See Item number (1) One.
signed: (princess, and Greg’s “X”.)
2013
The Boy Detective of Oz: An Otherland Story
It was hard to imagine anything was actually wrong here.
It was the nicest Kansas spring anyone could imagine, the broad prairie sky patched with cottony white clouds. Redbuds cheeky as schoolchildren waved their pink blooms in a momentary breeze, and a huge white oak spread an umbrella of shade over the road and for quite a distance on each side.
As he crossed a little wooden bridge, Orlando Gardiner saw the birches rustling along the edge of the stream, exchanging secrets with the murmuring water. The stream itself was bright and clear, flowing over large, smooth rocks of many colors and festooned with long tendrils of moss that undulated in the current. Fish swam below him and birds flew above him and it seemed like it would be May in this spot forever.
But if everything was as nice as it looked, why was he here?
To: HK [Hideki Kunohara]
From: OG [Orlando Gardiner, System Ranger!]
RE: field dispatch, kansas simworld
i’m sub-vocalizing this while i’m actually onsite investigating, so sorry for any confusion. i know you think the kansas world was hopelessly corrupted from the first, and if it really has gone bad you’ll utterly have my vote to de-rez it, but first impressions are that everything looks pretty good here, so let me finish checking it out before we make any moves. Like you said, I’m “the one who’ll have to deal with the bullshit if it goes wrong,” and that’s what I’m doing.
He could see the modest roofs and central spire of Emerald in the distance, everything as neat and well kept as a town in a model railroad. The first time he had seen this place, it had looked like something out of a medieval painting of hell: dry, blasted, cratered as if it had been bombed, and populated with creatures so wretched and freakish they might have been the suffering damned. But it was the only Oz simulation in the Otherland network, and Orlando had fought hard to keep it running; it was good to see it thriving. Oz had meant a lot to him when he was a kid confined to a sickbed. When he had been alive.
But that still didn’t answer the main question: If everything was good in Kansas, why had he been summoned?
Whatever the reason, someone seemed to be waiting for him. She would have sparkled if the sun had been on her, but since the Glass Cat was sitting in the shade grooming, Orlando didn’t see her until he was almost on top of her. She looked up at Orlando but didn’t stop until she had finished licking her glass paw and smoothing down the fur on her glass face. The Glass Cat might be a sim of a cat—and a see-through cat at that—but she was every inch a feline. The only things that kept her from looking like a cheap glass paperweight were her beautiful ruby heart, her emerald eyes, and the pink, pearl-like spheres that were her brains (and also her own favorite attribute).
“I expected you to show up,” said the Glass Cat. “But not this quickly.”
“I was in the area.” Which was both true and nonsensical, since there really was no distance for Orlando to travel. He existed only as information on the massive network and could visit any world he wanted whenever he chose. But as far as the Glass Cat and the others were concerned, there was only one world—this one. The sims didn’t even realize they were no longer connected to the Oz part of the simulation, although they remembered it as if they were. “I hear there’s a problem,” he said. “Do you know what it is?”
She rose, swirling her tail in the air as gracefully as if it had not been solid glass, and sauntered off the path, heading down toward the stream. “Am I supposed to follow you?” he asked.
She tossed him an emerald glance of reproach. “You’re so very clever, man from Oz. What do you think?”
Following a snippy, transparent cat, he thought: Just another day in my new and unfailingly weird life. Orlando’s body had died from a wasting disease as he and others had struggled against the Grail Brotherhood, the network’s creators, a cartel of rich monsters and other greedy bastards all looking for eternal life in worlds they made for themselves. But now they were all gone, and this was Orlando’s forever instead.
“I hope this is important, Cat,” he said as he followed her down the embankment, into the rustle of the birch trees. “I’ve got plenty of other things to do.” And he did. Major glitches had looped Dodge City—the simulated outlaws had been robbing the same simulated train for days—and the gravity had unexpectedly reverted to Earth-normal in one of the flying worlds, leaving bodies all over the ground. He planned to fob at least one of the problems off on Kunohara, who, like most scientists, loved fiddling with that sort of programming problem.
“There,” the Cat said, stopping so suddenly he nearly tripped over her. “What do you think of that?”
Orlando was so irritated by her tone that for a moment he didn’t see what she was talking about, but then he noticed a leg and the long, curled toe of a boot lying half-hidden in the tall wheatgrass. “Ho Dzang,” he said softly. “Who is it? Do you know?”
“I think it’s Omby Amby.”
“The Soldier with the Green Whiskers? The Royal Army of Oz?”
“If you mean the Royal Policeman of Kansas, then yes,” the Cat said. “You know we don’t use those titles and such from the Old Country.” She yawned. “I found him this morning.”
“What were you doing way out here?” Orlando bent down. The top half of the body was still hidden by grasses, but he could see enough of the man’s slender torso and green uniform to be sadly certain the Cat was right.
“I get around.” She rose and writhed herself in and out of Orlando’s legs. “I travel, you know. I see things. I learn things. I’m curious by nature—isn’t that why you chose me to help you?”
“I suppose.” As far as he was concerned, she was merely an informant, but of course the Glass Cat would see herself as more important than that. He bent lower to pull back the grasses. “But if you really want to help me, you’d stop bumping m—”
He never finished his sentence. As he exposed the rest of the green-clad figure, Orlando Gardiner was arrested by the sudden realization that while this might indeed be the body of Omby Amby, Royal Policeman of Kansas, that was all it was; his neck ended in a cut as neat and bloodless as if someone had chopped a potato in half with a surgical knife. His head and famous long whiskers were nowhere to be seen.
okay, it’s a little worse than I first thought, mr. k—there’s a body. but it’s a minor character, and it might just be an ordinary glitch. My cover story (about being sent by ozma from oz) still holds up though, so give me a little time with this one. i promise I’ll get to the other fenfen soon. Maybe you should check out dodge city in the meantime—i think that one has some major programming screwups, because the bridge there fell down and then put itself back up a few months ago, and the native americans are kind of blue-colored. looks hopeless to me, but you might notice something in the numbers I missed.
“Most disturbing!” declared Scarecrow. The Mayor of Emerald shifted in his chair, but his legs wouldn’t stay where he left them and kept getting in his way. His friend the Patchwork Girl leaped forward and helped push them into place. “And where is the body of poor Omby Amby now?”
“Being examined by Professor Wogglebug,” said Orlando. “Well, all of it that we have, since the head’s missing. Amby worked for you, didn’t he?”
“Of course!” Scarecrow said. “I’m the mayor, aren’t I?” But although he sounded indignant, Scarecrow seemed to lack the spirit to back it up, slumping in his chair like a bag of old washing. His lethargy worried Orlando, reminding him unpleasantly of the bloated, monstrous version of the Scarecrow that had ruled Emerald in the bad old simulation. “And his head’s gone, you say?”
