The Ballad of the Pipe Player Read online

  Chapter Two: A Quest is a Quest

   

   

  “Aaaah! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!” Coju screamed, batting frantically at his hair. Moon also batted at his flaming hair, while Emrys laughed and the wizard looked disapproving. Finally after a few moments the fire was out, leaving Moon with burnt hands and Coju with a shiny bald spot. Emrys was still laughing.

  “Emrys, you should have not set fire to his head!” Moon scolded. Emrys stopped laughing.

  “Say you did not mean to do so!” Moon demanded. Coju noted her choppy, distorted speech and wondered what language, if any, was spoken on her island. Emrys just glared.

  “No,” Emrys grumbled. Moon gave him a rather intimidating look. Shockingly enough, it worked, despite the vast difference in height between Moon, who was very petite, and Emrys, who was taller than Coju.

  “I’m so very sorry I burnt off your greasy mane,” Emrys said to Coju. Coju just glared. Moon seemed to realize that this was the best she would get out of Emrys.

  In a spurt of I-don’t-wanna-be-here syndrome, Coju irritatedly asked the wizard,

  “What’s she even doing here? She isn’t a witch or a wizard in training.”

  Now this was a seriously rude thing to do, considering the ‘she’ in question was standing there and had just helped him put a head fire out rather recently.

  “Care to demonstrate, your Highness?” the wizard kindly asked. Moon answered with a glare. Then she stepped over to Coju and placed a hand on his bald spot.

  “Hey! Get your hands off me!” Coju started to say. But before he could get it out she was standing back by Emrys, who was examining the very same butterfly that had bitten Coju. The biter seemed to like Emrys, who was interestedly prodding its feathery looking wings. “Well? What was that for?” Coju inquired, voice dripping with annoyance.

  “Clearly you’re neither kind nor very bright,” Emrys announced. Coju shot him a withering glare, which was promptly ignored. Then he felt a slight tingling on his bald spot, and put a hand to it. There was no more bald spot, just normal black hair.

  Despite his amazement, Coju just frowned and turned towards the wizard. “Well, what’s our quest then? I’d like to get it over with, if you don’t mind.”

  The wizard smiled. “Ah, the quest! You have heard of the dragon Athkore?”

  Both Emrys and Coju curtly nodded, while Moon just looked confused.

  “For Princess Moon’s sake, Athkore is a grey dragon, most known for breathing clouds of smoke that bring life and waves of fire that bring death.”

  Coju looked momentarily confused.“I didn’t know the smoke part. I just thought she was a crazy fire breathing lizard.”

  The wizard looked shocked to say the least.

  “No! She’s very clever and she has a mate. If her eggs are threatened, the threat is fried. That’s the way of life for animals and the like.”

  Emrys snickered, “Only utter imbeciles think dragons are crazy fire breathing lizards.”

  Moon promptly elbowed him. He winced, and this caused Coju to smile.

  “What’s so funny, my foolish friend?” Emrys asked him. Coju’s smile vanished.

  “Your ugly face.”

  Emrys put on a mock insulted face. “Ooh, that REALLY hurt. I’ve gotten worse insults from my four year old sister.”

             

  “You are a jerk!” Coju yelled. Emrys said nothing.

  After a few minutes of silence, with Coju scowling, Emrys smirking, and Moon looking confused, Emrys spoke. “Would you like me to retaliate? I’m sorry, I don’t attack somebody who’s unarmed.”

  That was it for Coju. He charged at Emrys, his intent to break those stupid glasses and maybe his nose. But he was stopped short by Moon jumping in-between them. “No attacking today! We must be all healthy for the long walk to dragons’ nest!”

  Both Coju and Emrys looked confused.

  “We’re not going to steal an egg, are we? Because I think myself and Moon at least have more potential than to be roasted and fed to dragonlings!” Emrys announced.

  Coju scowled at him, which seemed to have minimum effect.

  “If you had been listening like the princess instead of insulting each other, you would already be off!” The wizard said sternly. “But since you don’t know, I shall repeat myself.

  “Athkore has had eggs. She has left the country already in search of a habitable environment for herself, disliking Naessa for its dragon-hunting ways. Thus, her previous mate is extremely paranoid and will kill all in a twenty mile radius.”

  Coju insisted, “Aaaand…?” Emrys, however, looked slightly nervous.

  “Do you not know who that is?” Emrys asked in a hushed whisper. Coju shook his head. Moon looked confused.

  “Chazor the Flame-Starter.”

  Now Coju knew. That was the name of the most feared dragon in the world. He was rumored to set the entire world on fire, thousands of years before people. The land stayed uninhabitable until Athkore came to him, and brought the land back to life. Athkore breathed smoke that formed the first people, and then Naessa the country was born.

  “And you expect us to fight THAT?” Coju exclaimed. The wizard solemnly nodded.

  Moon had a furious expression on that simply radiated with anger. Coju thought it was beautiful. Then he felt a surge of pain in his mind. It felt like a slap. Then he thought of Emrys, who was a witch and probably very trained in mind intrusion. He flushed.

  “You want me and these two boys to anger the great she-dragon and doom the citizens of Naessa and Island to certain under-ground?” Moon shrieked. The wizard stared into the distance, and then started. He started muttering to himself.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Coju stated. For once, Emrys seemed to agree. The wizard looked at him.

  “I apologize for whatever it was that I just said. The blue wizards are gaining power over the Roverdio Wizards. They want a war.” He shook himself out. “But that is not important to you, at least not now. What you have to do is try to talk to Athkore, persuade her to hide her eggs until they are hatched. Athkore and Chazor live in a mountain range. This mountain range is home to hundreds of people, and usually the dragons keep away from the people, but since the eggs Chazor has roasted all accidental venturers and the like. The eggs, and with them, Chazor need to go somewhere less inhabited, or the population of Naessa will grow steadily lower.”

  Moon’s face paled considerably from the tomato red it had been before. “Oh. So when do we set off to speak with the she-dragon?” she inquired.

  The wizard smiled. “After I give you Jamaku.”

  “Jamaku?” Coju asked nervously. He hoped it wasn’t a biting butterfly, or some weak human he had to drag along. The wizard disappeared for a moment and poofed back into existence with a small, squirming sack. Coju’s thoughts were replaced with primal fear. It couldn’t be…that wizard knew everything! Surely the wizard wouldn’t doom him to this!

  The wizard opened the sack. Coju’s worst fears were confirmed.

  “Eh, scrawny little bunch you got here, Wiz?”

  It was a funny remark coming from a talking spider monkey.