Three Tasks for a Dragon

Chapter One
 
The Disappointing Prince
Once there was a prince in the kingdom of Lagin who was such a disappointment to his royal stepmother that she sought to have him banished from the realm.
   “You cannot ride a horse, Prince Lir,” said Queen Nimh one evening after dinner in the great hall. “You can barely lift a sword. And you cannot summon the wolfhounds.”
   The last accusation was peculiar because until this very day, and for the past five hundred years, the act of summoning the wolfhounds had been little more than a story passed down by campfire bards.
   Summoning the wolfhounds involved standing on the balcony built into the Wolfhound’s Tooth, a towering spire of sand-stone and ivory, and hoping the large shaggy dogs gathered below.
   The legend had it that in times gone by, kings had been chosen because of their magical bond with the majestic wolfhounds of Lagin city and dominion, but no true wolfhound king had summoned the hounds in half a millennium—and for coronations and royal weddings the wolfhounds had to be played by schoolchildren in costume as the dogs themselves were reluctant to show up for state occasions. The last true king to be chosen in this way had been of Lir’s family, the Wulfsons, and the line of succession had not been challenged since that time; but now it seemed as though the prince’s poor dead father would be the last Wulfson king, as Lir had unsurprisingly failed the wolfhound test that very morning—for the third time in a week—and his father had had no more children with either of his wives.
   “Therefore,” continued Queen Nimh, “I decree that your birthright as successor to Good King Rufus is forfeit, and the crown shall pass to my own son, Prince Delbayne of the house of Malygnus. And as Delbayne is of age, he shall be crowned at the coming solstice.”
   Lir was not upset in the least. He had no wish to be king and had only taken the wolfhound tests at his stepmother’s insistence; and so he said, “My stepbrother will make a fine king, Your Majesty. And I will be happy to serve as an apprentice in the royal library. Science and learning are of more interest to me than the crown.”
   But the queen was not finished.
   “According to ancient Lagin law,” she continued, “if a man presents himself three times to summon the wolfhounds and fails three times, then that man must leave Lagin forever.”
   Prince Lir was surprised by the suggestion that he should leave his beloved home, but it was not in his nature to rage and stamp, and so he said respectfully, “I would never even have taken the tests had you not insisted, Your Majesty. And in any case that is, as you say, ancient law and has not been enforced in generations. Not since Prince Faebar the Fallen.”
   “Thus remembered because he was hurled from the walls into the ocean when he refused to leave the city,” Queen Nimh reminded the court. “I have no wish to see you dashed on the rocks, Lir, so you had better leave tonight.”
   The first to object to this command was Prince Delbayne himself, who had grown up in the same castle as Lir and had ever been his protective older stepbrother.
   “Mother,” he said, getting to his feet. “My brother has a great many talents that will serve our kingdom better than an ability to commune with wolfhounds.
   There is no one in the palace better read. Lir knows every plant in the province and their healing properties. He understands the workings of water, which is undeniably important to a coastal kingdom. Perhaps he cannot build a ship with his own hands, but he can instruct men how to do it. Surely talents such as these must be taken into account.”
   Many remarked to one another that Delbayne’s declaration was an admirable display of friendship and loyalty, but this was not in truth the case. Delbayne was an ambitious and ruthless prince, who had coveted the throne from an early age and had already gone to dark magical extremes to secure the wolf crown for himself. Now he was about to make certain that Lir never returned. Exile was not enough for Delbayne; he wanted his stepbrother dead.
   Fortunately he had his mother on his side.
   “My son,” said the queen now. “You yourself have summoned the hounds. Many of us here today saw from the battlements how they gathered below you, and therefore you shall be the rightful king. Prince Lir may not covet the throne now, but time may change his mind and there are many who would support his claim. The law may be old, but it is the law. In the name of unity, though it breaks my heart to command it, our beloved Prince Lir must leave Lagin forever.”
   It was true that after Lir’s failed attempt, Delbayne had succeeded in summoning the wolfhounds by the power of his will alone. It had been a strange summoning, as the eyes of the dogs had been as black as river pebbles, something that had never been mentioned in the stories. Stranger still was that when Queen Nimh leaned forward now, emerging from the throne shadow, it seemed as though her eyes had that same glistening quality, and Lir wondered whether she might have succumbed to the lure of dark magic and enchanted the wolfhounds.
   The prince was right about the dark magic but wrong about its source. It was Delbayne who had put a spell on both his mother and the hounds so that they would smooth his path to the throne. That very morning, the gathering of half a dozen confused dogs below the Wolfhound’s Tooth had effectively crowned the treacherous prince.
   Whether there was trickery afoot or not, Lir could see no way to avoid exile without disobeying the queen.
   “I will leave as you command, Your Majesty,” he said now, bowing low. Though he spoke calmly, Lir was already heartsore at the thought of leaving his beloved Lagin, most especially his friends in the small scientific community who were building a giant spyglass that would enable the watcher to clearly observe the face of the moon.
  I will never see the moon clearly, he thought.
   “No!” exclaimed Delbayne, and it was here that he played his masterstroke. “There is a way that my dear brother Lir may return.”
   “And what way might that be, my son?” asked the queen.
   “Lagin law says a questor knight shall always be granted the shelter of our kingdom and a pension. This law supersedes all.”
   Again, it seemed to the court that Delbayne was genuinely concerned for the younger prince. If a simple quest could be found for the boy, perhaps one that suited his talents, then he could claim shelter in the kingdom. The questor knights had been an ancient order whose abbey had been inside the city of Lagin itself and who lived by the very strict code of conduct laid down by the questor charter. Their entire purpose had been to undertake quests for those in need. In these less charitable times, however, the questors had all but disappeared. Good King Rufus, Lir’s own father, had been the last questor of note, and Lir still kept one of his father’s many golden questor’s sashes hanging on his bedpost.
   “There haven’t been questors in Lagin for many years,” snapped Queen Nimh. “I feel certain that there are no quests on the post.”
   The questing post was a simple totem in the city’s main square on which traditionally those in need would nail their requests for help. If a questor knight chose to accept a challenge, he simply claimed the note and tucked it into his questor’s sash. In latter times the quests found on the pole were mostly humorous in nature, such as My dog Bran has been chasing his tail for a year or more without success. If it would please a questor knight to help Bran to catch his tail.
   However, the queen was wrong to assume there were no quests pending. One of the queen’s guard, Sir Mug, passed her a note that he had just that moment hastily retrieved from the post. Nimh was irritated by the interruption, but her mood changed as she read the words on the scrap of vellum.
   “There is a quest, apparently,” she said. “It reads as follows: My daughter Cethlenn was taken by the great dragon Lasvarg to his island. I would have her home safely.”
   A swell of concerned murmurings spread through the hall. Prince Lir was an amiable and useful boy who had repaired many cupboard hinges and sundials throughout the city, and almost no one wanted him devoured by the notoriously heartless Lasvarg.
   Queen Nimh clearly liked this quest very much, as it seemed certain that the dragon would make short work of a boy like Lir.
   “There we have it, then. Will you save Cethlenn, Prince Lir?”
   Delbayne had himself posted the note one moonless night not a week ago, but now, as part of his pretense, he made a great show of changing his mind. “Perhaps I misspoke. After all, Lir is a prince, which is a higher rank than knight, so legally speaking he cannot be a questor.”
   Nimh cut him off. “All princes are by their rank considered questor knights.”
   Delbayne frowned as though it had not been he who had planted this argument in his mother’s mind. “As you say, Mother.”
   “Exactly,” said Queen Nimh. “As I say. Now, Prince Lir, will you leave this place forever or will you seek the shelter of our kingdom by embarking on a quest to save the maiden Cethlenn?”
Lir considered this choice between two horrors. He knew what his father, the questor king, would have chosen, and he would do the same.
   “I will accept the quest,” he said.
   “Very well,” said the queen. “Dust off one of your father’s old questor’s sashes—heaven knows he has no need of them at the bottom of the ocean. Have yourself blessed and then claim this note. You will leave with the tide.”
   Delbayne hid his face in his hands as a worried and dismayed brother might, but behind those intertwined fingers his smile was broad and triumphant.
   It seemed almost inevitable that Lasvarg would eat Prince Lir alive, but to be sure, the dragon had already been paid handsomely for the service.