‘Well,’ said the king, ‘enough small talk. Now to business. Have you brought me my dragons?’
‘I have,’ said Alfric, and opened the carven box which had originally held pink mice, chunks of cheese, dead fleas and seven dragons. The mice were meant to keep the dragons warm, the cheese to feed the mice and the fleas to feed the dragons. A cunning arrangement, which had worked up to a point. Two of the dragons had survived the journey, and King Dimple-Dumpling was delighted.
The dragons were tiny, for they belonged to a breed which grew no longer than a fingerlength. Nevertheless, they were true dragons which could fly and breathe fire. Or, more exactly, spark fire; for the incendiary output from these untunchilamons was scarcely sufficient to threaten the life of a bedbug.
Untunchilamons they were called because they hailed from an oceanic island of that name. (Here let it be recorded that the untunchilamons were referred to by a small group of linguistic dissidents as the injiltaprajuras. However, the correct name is untunchilamon, for Galsh Ebrek’s School of Heraldry so entered this new breed of dragon into the Registry of Pageantry.)
It was said by some that Justina Thrug had discovered the species on the abovementioned island; by others, that she had proved her powers as a witch by creating the genus ex nihilo. Here the term ‘genus’ is controversial, with many categorizers preferring to conglomerate the untunchilamons with more conventional dragons.
Yet surely the untunchilamons are not just a distinct species but a unique genus with claims, indeed, to being a separate one-species family. To mention no other matter, their method of reproduction strongly supports their pretensions to unique generic status; for, unlike other dragons, they eschew copulation in favour of parthenogenesis. All untunchilamons are female, and their opalescent eggs require no fertilization from any agency outside their own bodies.
Such a method of propagation has many advantages. However, sexual congress is a sovereign method for securing genetic diversity; and hence is most marvellously effective in allowing populations of both plants and animals to adapt to abruptions, dislocations and disease. In contrast, diversification among the untunchilamons was necessarily very slow, consisting as it did of occasional accidents in the parthenogenetic process.
As the island of their origin was tropical, the untunchilamons were woefully ill equipped to withstand the inclemency of the winters of Galsh Ebrek. Lacking the ability to diversify and adapt, their populations were constrained to dwell in or around fireplaces, chimneys and kitchen stoves, where constant combustion afforded them a climate somewhat like that of their ancestral homeland.
Alfric explained the environmental limitations of the beasts with great care.
‘But they fly forth from their chimneys, do they not?’ said King Dimple-Dumpling.
‘Oh indeed, my liege. To a range of fifty paces or more, sometimes even a hundred.’
‘And they ravage their enemies, do they not? Fleas, lice and bedbugs?’
‘As advertised, my liege.’
‘What about crab-lice?’ said King Dimple-Dumpling.
Alfric did not even blink.
‘That I do not know,’ said he. ‘I suggest that any experiment in that direction be made with care. In our experience, these dragons do not bite without extreme provocation. Nevertheless, they do on occasion assail their prey with fire, a potential problem should such prey be in, ah, a sensitive location.’
‘Thank you,’ said the king. ‘We will meet again in eight days. Then the ransom will be delivered into your care.’
‘My liege is gracious,’ said Alfric, and bowed, and withdrew.
Alfric Danbrog made good use of the eight days thus granted to him, using the time to see his ogre oculist, to do some private research in King Dimple-Dumpling’s library, and to indulge in some casual tourism. Of these activities, the ocular consultation was the most important. Alfric suffered from pronounced myopia combined with a degree of astigmatism; his handicap being such that his ogre proclaimed him to be deficient by a full ten diopters. A cruel fate, this; for it meant his chances of attaining supremacy with the sword were not of the best.
However, such genetic disadvantage is often accompanied by a collateral benefit; inasmuch as the type of ocular defect which Alfric suffered is positively correlated with high intelligence. In Alfric’s case, an inexactitude of vision was accompanied by mental acuity of the highest order; his acumen and cleverness had allowed him to qualify as a Certified Genius, and thus to join the Bank.
And it was Bank business, rather than any concern for his organs of vision, which had ultimately impelled Alfric to dare the dangers of the journey to the Qinjoks. The delivery of a kindle of dragons to King Dimple-Dumpling had been but a minor courtesy. Alfric’s true duty was to check the Annual Tribute of jade which the ogre king consigned to Obooloo; to uplift that Tribute; to convey it safely to Galsh Ebrek; and there in the presence of witnesses to deliver it unto a certain ambassador.
The eight days went swiftly, Alfric receiving his new spectacles on the last of them. Shortly after accepting delivery of these precision instruments, Alfric was summoned into the presence of King Dimple-Dumpling at midnight. The ogre king sat in state, drinking of blood-red wine. (Or was it actual blood? Alfric was diplomat enough not to ask.)
‘We have the treasure,’ said the king, indicating the six small barrels of jade balanced upon the stumbling blocks. ‘You have my permission to check the contents.’
Alfric then laboriously checked each item against the standard inventory.
‘It is here, my liege,’ said he.
‘Good,’ said the king. Then, generously: ‘Choose something for yourself.’
Alfric blinked, momentarily disconcerted.
‘My liege, ^ 5 said Alfric, ‘this belongs hot to me, nor can it. This trove entire is pledged to Aldarch the Third, Mutilator of Yestron.’
Thus spoke Alfric Danbrog.
But the king insisted.
So, unwillingly, Alfric selected a single saladin ring for himself. He slipped it on to one of his fingers, held it to the torchlight, and smiled in mimickry of pleasure. Later he would take the thing from his finger and cram it into his pocket, not wanting to display such evidence of criminal activity in public. But one does not thus treat a king’s gift in that king’s presence.
The casks of jade were then closed and sealed in Alfric’s presence. Then ogres took them away. He would not see them again until he left, which would be shortly. By then, the casks would have been loaded on to his pack horses.
Of course the ogres had no absolute need to yield up such a ransom. Ogres have such a slow replacement rate that it is seldom wise for them to engage quick-breeding humans in outright war; however, the monsters of the Qinjoks did have the option of retiring to redoubts which could never have been stormed by human agency. But the ogres nevertheless thought it best to comply with human demands — up to a point. For the ogres were scientists; and, while the greater part of their number would have survived a war with Wen Endex, such a conflict might have had disastrous consequences for such unprotectable assets as their masterwork telescopes and their great tree breeding program (now already five thousand years old).
Besides which, the orks would have suffered greatly in any war. Ogres, like trolls, are by nature a troglodytical breed, and could have survived in the underground fastness of the Qinjok Sko for many months, if not for years. Orks, on the other hand, would swiftly have perished in such conditions. For, since they are unable to live away from water for any great length of time (they need not just enough to drink, but a sufficiency in which to immerse themselves on a regular basis) orks soon perish in cavebound confinement.
The ogres of the Qinjoks suffer from a surpassing sense of responsibility; an affliction which, as a rule, cannot be said to overly oppress the human race. Generations earlier, the ogres had placed the orks under their protection; and this protection they had since maintained, though at times it might have been politic for them to do otherwise.
Therefore let it not be said that the ogres paid their Annual Tribute out of fear. Rather, they did so out of love for that Science of which they had such great hopes; and out of duty to the orks which dwelt in their care.
Once the six barrels of jade were out of sight, the king addressed Alfric anew, saying:
‘You leave by night.’
‘As my liege knows,’ said Alfric carefully.
‘Because She walks,’ said the king.
‘So it is said.’
