Paul Collins - Trouble Wizard

WIZARD TROUBLE

by Paul Collins

Copyright © Paul Collins, September 2001

Cover art by Jenny Dixon

ISBN 1-58608-219-1

Gemstar Edition ISBN 1-58608-347-3

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, Georgia 31636

http://www.newconceptspublishing.com

Other NCP books available by Paul Collins:

Wizard Trouble

Gilbon the dragon was the last of his kind. His black and grey mottled hide testified to a great age; his once sharp teeth were now blunted instruments with which he ground his greens; his silvery wings were now somewhat tarnished since he hadn't used them much for eons; his once taut body had run to fat. He had two broken and blackened horns that vaguely resembled the spinal mounds that ran the length of his back. Tall as a stone hut and twice as long, he might at first glance seem a formidable foe.

He stretched languorously beneath a towering singsong tree. Its funnel fronds whistled myriad tunes as a gentle breeze combed their hair-thin antennae.

The dragon heaved a sigh of contentment. Retirement wasn't all that bad, he mused. Water gurgled from an underground stream to his left, and the heat from the rising sun warmed his thick hide that, in old age, sometimes seized on him in bouts of cold weather.

Brightly colored birds cavorted in the branches above his head and at that moment he truly believed himself to be in dragon heaven.

Gilbon allowed his heavy lidded eyes to close. While he snoozed he fantasised of better times - when, in his youth, he had traipsed about the world challenging knights, kidnapping maidens in distress, and acquiring himself the title of King Dragon.

Of course, he admitted as his sleepy head began to droop, he was too old for all that gallivanting hero stuff now. He'd been forced to assault the Dark Lord Perdurabo's Tower a short while ago, to rescue a kidnapped youth who had slept for two hundred years. Never, but never, again did he expect to put himself under such duress.

Then something nudged him.

With a start, the aged dragon opened his rheumy eyes. In a flurry of movement, he sat up onto his hind legs.

"I say," he grumbled, "watch what you're doing with that toothpick!" He ducked another jab from a lance.

Beneath Gilbon stood a young knight. Whoever she was, her assortment of armor was rusty and ill-fitting. "What on earth do you think you're playing at!" demanded Gilbon. A faint waft of vapour spat from his nostrils.

"I'm a knight and I've been sent forth to slay you!" the knight cried through a face grill.

"A girl knight?" Gilbon scoffed. "Sorriest excuse for a knight I've ever seen! The couters on your arms are over large, and your pauldron's too small for your shoulders. In fact, your entire assemblage seems to be made up from bits and pieces," he said. "Even your steed's accoutered the same: his chamfrain's too

wide for his head, and the crinet's too long for his neck; the petrel's hanging slackly around his chest, the flanchard's too tight around his - NOW STOP THAT!" he roared as the knight lunged forward. Gilbon swayed to one side to avoid the battered tip.

Having missed her target, the young knight staggered to remain upright. Then, with a crash of metal, she fell in a heap. Her armored visor rolled across the ground like a kicked bucket.

Gilbon lifted one ponderous foot and smashed the knight's lance to kindling. "You're making a thorough nuisance of yourself, girl, and dragons must have their peace, you know." Defenseless, the knight scrambled for the nearest boulder and hid behind it.

Gilbon sighed heavily. "Come out from there," he called irritably.

"I'd die first!" the knight said defiantly.

"That can be arranged!" Gilbon threatened. He took several deep breaths and heaved out from the pit of his stomach. A black, scorching flame leapt forth and charred the boulder black.

"Your position is untenable!" Gilbon challenged her. "Your horse has fled, you're unarmed and you face a superior foe. Prepare to die!" he bluffed.

"I surrender!" the knight wailed.

Looking despondent, the young girl came out from behind the boulder. She held her hands high in the air.

"What's your name?" Gilbon demanded.

"Jackie," she said.

"Gilbon," said Gilbon. "Now what's all this about? I can't have my snooze being interrupted every time a foolish knight needs to prove her womanhood!"

"You wouldn't understand," Jackie said.

"Try me," Gilbon goaded cunningly.

Jackie swallowed hard. "You won't like it."

"I've still got both barrels loaded," Gilbon threatened. To emphasize his threat, he pushed two tendrils of flame from his seared nostrils.

"Voices have told me that only the brain of a dragon can save my father from his ailment."

Gilbon opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Leave my brain out of it!" he ordered.

Jackie felt as good as cooked already. She raised her hands higher.

"I've never heard such poppycock in all my born natural!" Gilbon said. "A dragon's brain you say?"

"That's what the Voice told me," Jackie admitted despondently.

"Well I never," Gilbon said, stunned. "Let me tell you something, Jackie my girl. Your Voice is out of touch with reality. It - "

Suddenly silence swept the glade. Gilbon craned his bullneck and looked about. The birds had taken flight; the cascading water that usually gurgled its way south did so quietly; the singsong tree only whispered maudlin tunes. It was as though a death sentence had been placed upon them.

It made Gilbon feel chilled somehow. And whenever dragons feel chilled, they move on. Which is just what Gilbon suggested they do.

"I'll take you to see a wizard friend of mine. Perhaps he'll be of friendly disposition to assist you."

Gilbon shook his head with mirth. "A dragon brain!" he chuckled. "Whatever next?"

***

Deep within a limestone mountain the wizard Shantele clenched his teeth with anger. The obese magician took a deep breath to calm his taut nerves, but it helped not. "Can't you do anything right?" he growled at his apprentice. He watched dust motes crawl lazily through the air. "I gave you the simplest of jobs and you even botched that!"

Winston croaked in bewilderment. "I did wash the floor, Master. Look, the floor's still wet!"

"Then what's all this dust?" Shantele flapped his hand in frustration.

"It's clean dust!" Winston countered.

Shantele sneezed heavily. "I give in!"

"You mustn't work yourself up," Winston said earnestly.

"It's useless!" the aged wizard grumbled. "I'm tired of the constant struggle! Tired of all things magical.

"When I retire," Shantele continued, "you shall become it. Master of the Manor, local doctor to ailing creatures such as trolls, ghouls, peasants and all manner of unthinkable things."

"Oh," Winston said, then lapsed into abrupt silence, his eyes wide and solemn. He fingered the metallic talisman that hung from his neck.

"Is that all you can say?" Shantele blurted. "Oh?"

"W-e-l-l," Winston said slowly.

"Hmph! Let me tell you, it's a passion akin to being a god, I shouldn't wonder - give or take a little responsibility."

Winston swallowed hard. "A god?"

"Indeed!" the wizard told him. "But before you attain this heady height, you must prove your mettle. The time is nigh, Winston. The time is nigh!"

The aged wizard fossicked around his gloomy cavern. "I need an army and I need it now! I told you to find me a knight, and you turn up a girl not yet weaned from her mother's -"

A faint voice from near the mouth of the cave interrupted the wizard's tirade.

"Visitors!" Shantele made the word sound like bad weather.

"I'll see who it is," Winston said, relieved.

"I'm out," Shantele snapped. "Hunting dragons or something like that - anything to make them go away whilst I try to remedy this mess you've gotten us into."