the mountains, whose snowcapped peaks rose majestically in the east.
It wasn’t long before he saw dragon prints and got an unmistakable whiff of brimstone. On he went, undaunted, holding his weapon in readiness and keeping a constant eye on the needle of his dragon counter. It stayed at zero for a spell, then began to give nervous little twitches, until, as if struggling with itself, it slowly crawled towards the number one. There was no doubt now: the Echidnosaur was close at hand. Which amazed Klapaucius, for he couldn’t understand how his trusty friend and renowned theoretician, Trurl, could have gotten so fouled up in his calculations as to fail to wipe the dragon out for good. Nor could he imagine Trurl returning to the royal palace and demanding payment for what he had not accomplished.
Klapaucius then came upon a group of natives. They were plainly terrified, the way they kept looking around and trying to stay together. Bent beneath heavy burdens balanced on their backs and heads, they were stepping single-file up the mountainside. Klapaucius accosted the procession and asked the first native what they were about.
“Sire!” replied the native, a lower court official in a tattered tog and cummerbund. “’Tis the tribute we carry to the dragon.”
“Tribute? Ah yes, the tribute! And what is the tribute?”
“Nothin’ more ’r less, Sire, than what the dragon would have us bring it: gold coins, precious stones, imported perfumes, an’ a passel o’ other valuables.”
This was truly incredible, for dragons never required such tributes, certainly not perfume—no perfume could ever mask their own natural fetor—and certainly not currency, which was useless to them.
“And does it ask for young virgins, my good man?” asked Klapaucius.
“Virgins? Nay, Sire, tho’ there war a time… we had to cart ’em in by the bevy, we did… Only that war before the stranger came, the furrin gentleman, Sire, a-walkin’ around the rocks with ’is boxes an’ contraptions, all by ’is- self…” Here the worthy native broke off and stared at the instruments and weapons Klapaucius was carrying, particularly the large dragon counter that was ticking softly all the while, its red pointer jumping back and forth across the white dial.
“Why, if he dinna have one… jus’ like yer Lordship’s,” he said in a hushed voice. “Aye, jus’ like… the same wee stiggermajigger and a’ the rest…”
“There was a sale on them,” said Klapaucius, to allay the native’s suspicions. “But tell me, good people, do you happen to know what became of this stranger?”
“What became o’ him, ye ask? That we know not, Sire, to be sure. ’Twas, if I not mistake me, but a fortnight past —’twas, ’twas not, Master Gyles, a fortnight withal an’ nae more?”
“’Twas, ’twas, ’tis the truth ye speak, the truth aye, a fortnight sure, or maybe two.”
“Aye! So he comes to us, yer Grace, partakes of our ’umble fare, polite as ye please an’ I’ll not gainsay it, nay, a parfit gentleman true, pays hondsomely, inquires after the missus don’t y’know, aye an’ then he sits ’isself down, spreads out a’ them contraptions an’ thin’s with clocks in ’em, y’see, an’ scribbles furious-like, numbers they are, one after’t’other, in this wee book he keep in ’is breast pocket, then takes out a—whad’yacallit—therbobbiter thingamabob…”
“Thermometer?”
“Aye, that’s it! A thermometer… an’ he says it be for dragons, an’ pokes it here an’ there, Sire, an’ scribbles in ’is book again, then he takes a’ them contraptions an’ things an’ packs ’em up an’ puts ’em on ’is back an’ says farewell an’ goes ’is merry way. We never saw ’im more, yer Honor. That very night we hear a thunder an’ a clatter, oh, a good ways off, ’bout as far as Mount Murdigras—’tis the one, Sire, hard by yon peak, aye, that one thar, looks like a hawk, she do, we call ’er Pfftius Peak after our beluved King, an’ that one thar on’t’uther side, bent over like’t’would spread ’er arse, that be the Dollymog, which, accordin’ to legend—”
“Enough of the mountains, worthy native,” said Klaupaucius. “You were saying there was thunder in the night. What happened then?”
“Then, Sire? Why nothin’, to be sure. The hut she give a jump an’ I falls outta bed, to which I’m well accustomed, mind ye, seein’ as how the wicked beast allus come a-bumpin’ gainst the house with ’er tail an’ send a feller flyin’—like when Master Gyles’ ayn brother londed in the privy ’cause the creatur’ gets a hankerin’ to scratch ’isself on the corner o’ the roof…”
“To the point, man, get to the point!” cried Klapaucius. “There was thunder, you fell down, and then what?”
“Then nothin’, like I says before an’ thought I made it clear. Nothin’, an’ if’n there war somethin’, there’d be some-thin’, only there war nothin’ sure an’ that be the long an’ the short of it! D’ye agree, Master Gyles?”
“Aye, sure ’tis the truth ye speak, ’tis.”
Klapaucius bowed and stepped back, and the whole procession continued up the mountain, the natives straining beneath the dragon’s tribute. He supposed they would place it in some cave designated by the beast, but didn’t care to ask for details; his head was already spinning from listening to the local official and his Master Gyles. And anyway, he had heard one of the natives say to another that the dragon had chosen “a spot as near us an’ as near ’isself as could be found.”
Klapaucius hurried on, picking his way according to the readings of the dragonometer he kept on a chain around his neck. As for the counter, its pointer had come to rest on exactly eight-tenths of a dragon.
“What in the devil is it, an indeterminant dragon?” he thought as he marched, stopping to rest every now and then, for the sun beat fiercely and the air was so hot that everything shimmered. There was no vegetation anywhere, not a scrap, only baked mud, rocks and boulders as far as the eye could see.
An hour passed, the sun hung lower in the heavens, and Klapaucius still walked through fields of gravel and scree, through craggy passes, till he found himself in a place of narrow canyons and ravines full of chill and darkness. The red pointer crept to nine-tenths, gave a shudder, and froze.
Klapaucius put his knapsack on a rock and had just taken off his antidragon belt when the indicator began to go wild, so he grabbed his probability extinguisher and looked all around. Situated on a high bluff, he was able to see into the gorge below, where something moved.
“That must be her!” he thought, since Echidnosaurs are invariably female.
Could that be why it didn’t demand young virgins? But no, the native said it had before. Odd, most odd. But the main thing now, Klapaucius told himself, was to shoot straight and everything would be all right. Just in case, however, he reached for his knapsack again and pulled out a can of dragon repellent and an atomizer. Then he peered over the edge of the rock. At the bottom of the gorge, along the bed of a dried-up stream walked a grayish brown dragoness of enormous proportions, though with sunken sides as if it had been starved. All sorts of thoughts ran through Klapaucius’ head. Annihilate the thing by reversing the sign of its pentapendragonal coefficient from positive to negative, thereby raising the statistical probability of its nonexistence over that of its existence? Ah, but how very risky that was, when the least deviation could prove disastrous: more than one poor soul, seeking to produce the lack of a dragon, had ended up instead with the back of the dragon—resulting in a beast with two backs—and nearly died of embarrassment! Besides, total deprobabilization would rule out the possibility of studying the Echidnosaur’s behavior. Klapaucius wavered; he could see a splendid dragonskin tacked on the wall of his den, right above the fireplace. But this wasn’t the time to indulge in daydreams—though a dracozoologist would certainly be delighted to receive an animal with such unusual tastes. Finally, as Klapaucius got into position, it occurred to him what a nice little article might be written up on the strength of a well-preserved specimen, so he put down the extinguisher, lifted the gun that fired negative heads, took careful aim and pulled the trigger.
The roar was deafening. A cloud of white smoke engulfed Klapaucius and he lost sight of the beast for a moment. Then the smoke cleared.
There are a great many old wives’ tales about dragons. It is said, for example, that dragons can sometimes have seven heads. This is sheer nonsense. A dragon can have only one head, for the simple reason that having two leads to disagreements and violent quarrels; the polyhydroids, as the scholars call them, died out as a result of internal feuds. Stubborn and headstrong by nature, dragons cannot tolerate opposition, therefore two heads in one body will always bring about a swift death: each head, purely to spite the other, refuses to eat, then maliciously holds its breath—with the usual consequences. It was this phenomenon which Euphorius Cloy exploited when he invented the anticapita cannon. A small auxiliary electron head is discharged into the dragon’s body. This immediately gives rise to unreconcilable differences of opinion and the dragon is immobilized by the ensuing deadlock. Often it will stand there, stiff as a board, for a day, a week, even a month; sometimes a year goes by before the beast will collapse, exhausted. Then you can do with it what you will.
