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    The Princess and the Firedrake
    The Princess and the Firedrake
    The Princess and the Firedrake
    Ebook139 pages2 hours

    The Princess and the Firedrake

    By Jim Stinson

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    (Newly proofed and reformatted) Despite all the beauty and virtues expected of faerie tale princesses, Alix labored under a terrible curse: she was too smart, too knowledgeable, too capable. To set herself free, she had to kill the monstrous firedrake; though afterword, they became great friends...

    Princess Alix's effortless intelligence so infuriates her father the king that he locks her up in a castle, utterly alone. To free herself, the ruthlessly logical princess must open her skeptical eyes to the magic all around her, beginning with the christening gifts that the faeries gave her as a baby. Only then, with their help and the help of Jack Brambel, an amiable duke-in-training, can Alix free herself, win her deadly battle with the monstrous firedrake, save her country, and revive the love of her father.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJim Stinson
    Release dateMar 24, 2012
    ISBN9781476469560
    The Princess and the Firedrake
    Author

    Jim Stinson

    Jim Stinson was taught writing at Harvard and media at UCLA, and has done both ever since. On the writing side he started early, publishing “Restorations of Elizabethan Public Playhouses,” but was soon downsized from Academe, which is probably just as well. After an interlude of earning a living, he wrote four Stoney Winston Hollywood mysteries, Double Exposure, Low Angles, Truck Shot, and TV Safe, which were published by Scribner. Today they are available from Smashwords, and from Lulu.com. His mainstream novel, Tassy Morgan's Bluff, was published in Summer, 2011 by The Plume Books imprint of Penguin. In 2012 he published his first Smashwords original, The Princess and the Firedrake. On the media side, he’s made everything from feature films to instructional gems like Electrical Hazards in the Coronary Care Unit. Today, he works constantly with media to keep abreast of ever-changing hard- and software. Combining writing and media, he was a columnist and contributing editor at Videomaker magazine for 12 years. In 2001, Goodheart-Willcox published his college and high school textbook, Video: Communication and Production. A revised second edition was rebranded Video: Digital Communication and Production, and a third, massively updated edition was released in 2012. Yet another major update is scheduled for late 2015. He has, over the years, returned to the classroom, teaching film production at Art Center College of Design, Media history and criticism at California State University Los Angeles, and video production at La Canada High School, La Canada, CA. Though born and bred in Pittsburgh, PA, he has spent all his adult life in California and Oregon, where he now lives with his wife, Sue. He dotes on his two children and is pleased to report that they remain at large.

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      Book preview

      The Princess and the Firedrake - Jim Stinson

      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

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