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‘Despite his own misgivings, Mu’shad Waseed accepted the task and threw himself into the project heartily. His first act was to ship many of his fellow wizards from Persia to act as a working committee, as it was a well-known fact that Dragons could do magic too, and that any spell woven by Mu’shad Waseed could just as easily be unwoven by Janus, Mr Beezley or even Dimwiddy. The best that Mu’shad Waseed could manage was the instigation of a class of warriors known as the Dragonslayers, men and women who were bold in heart and soft in the head, who would be sworn into the service after a five-year apprenticeship. Mu’shad Waseed created suits of armour with copper spikes, sharpened by the strongest magic to a point that could cut through anything. To each Dragonslayer he gave a horse blessed with intelligence and courage, and finally a sword and a lance, both of which were made of the finest steel, forged in the fires of the volcanoes of Tierra del Fuego, kept hot and then quenched in the lakes of Alaska – all fairly routine stuff.

‘These weapons were made sharper still by spells that looped and twirled and with loose ends not tied but joined, as any incantation can be undone if the spell has any loose ends, just as even the most difficult knot can be untied.

‘Mu’shad Waseed made one hundred each of these lances and swords, and trained one hundred Dragonslayers. To each of these one hundred Dragonslayers was given an apprentice to learn from his master. All seemed well, and after eight years, Mu’shad Waseed sent his Dragonslayers forth to slay the Dragons.

‘Initially, things seemed to go pretty well. Reports came flooding in of defeated Dragons; even “Bubbles” Beezley, the fabled pink comedic Dragon of Trollvania, fell to a Dragonslayer with the words:

‘“Is there anyone here from Newcastle?”

‘The number of jewels plucked from the foreheads of the Dragons rose quickly. Since the Dragon census of the day listed forty-seven active Dragons, the ambassadors of the Ununited Kingdoms wanted to see that many jewels as proof the Dragon Question had been solved. Mu’shad Waseed was not the only person eager to see the seven dray-weights of gold. Besieging the Persian wizard’s camp were representatives of hoteliers and restaurateurs, laundry companies and tailors, who had all given Mu’shad Waseed eight years of credit and now wanted their money. As reports of fallen Dragons came pouring in, parties were planned throughout the islands by the grateful inhabitants; a land without Dragons meant their harvest wouldn’t be burnt, their livestock wouldn’t be eaten, and they could walk around at night without wearing an uncomfortable copper helmet. So everyone, for the moment at least, was happy.

‘Everyone except the Dragonslayers themselves. The slaying of all those Dragons had not been undertaken without loss. By the end of the first month the one hundred Dragonslayers were down to seventy-six. By the next month there were thirty-eight, and by the end of the year, when Mu’shad Waseed had a pile of forty-seven forehead jewels in a glittering heap, only eight of the original Dragonslayers were left alive.

‘The seventy-eight ambassadors came to see Mu’shad Waseed when he announced that all the Dragons had been slain and, in return, they brought the gold to pay him in many stout carts drawn by oxen. There was a big banquet in honour of Mu’shad Waseed with twenty-nine courses and fifty-two different wines. There were dancing girls and acrobats and fire-eaters and Lobster knows what else. And at the head of the table, as pleased as a cat who had pinched all the cream, and sitting on the glittering heap of head-jewels, was Mu’shad Waseed himself. But then, after the speeches but before the liqueurs, just as the ambassadors were weighing out the seven dray-weights of gold, a fierce whooshing, beating of wings and growling came from the north. In the dying light of the day the party guests could see the sky darken with the approach of the Dragons. Small Dragons, large Dragons, grey ones, blue ones; keen on the wing and lively in claw and breathing fire from their throats and nostrils while howling an agonising war-cry. The party ceased, the musicians stopped playing. The milk turned sour and the wine turned to vinegar. There could be no doubt where the Dragons were heading: they were all converging on the feast of Mu’shad Waseed. The terrified ambassadors turned to the great and powerful wizard:

‘“Great Mu’shad Waseed; there were forty-seven Dragons in the country and you claimed to have killed them all; tell us now, who are these Dragons and where do they come from?”

‘“I think,” answered the wizard with a resigned sigh, “that reports of Dragon death have been greatly exaggerated.”

‘The revenge of the Dragons was quick, terrible and absolute. Mu’shad Waseed, his magic weakened by the eight years of toil, could do nothing, and the terrible screams of the lizards and their victims were heard twenty miles away.’

I wanted to ask a question, but with the threat of Sister Assumpta looming, I thought better not to.

‘Only one person was spared to relate the story,’ said Mother Zenobia. ‘It was said that Mu’shad Waseed himself was left until the last when Maltcassion himself enveloped him with a thunderous blast of fire so intense that the Persian wizard was turned to charcoal where he stood. The Dragons stayed until dawn, razing Mu’shad Waseed’s headquarters to the ground, scouring the earth with their hot breath until all that was left of the carts, horses, ambassadors, musicians and guests was a fine grey ash. Then the Dragons vanished back to where they had come from, leaving behind a blackened patch of earth and a lot of disgruntled hotel owners and restaurateurs who, as far as we know, never got paid.

‘Mu’shad Waseed had failed. The Dragons carried on as before. Unsurprisingly, they reacted badly to the attempted extermination, and caused much trouble on the islands; the Dragonslayers could do little. By the time the year was out and snow once more blanketed the land, only three Dragons had been slain to seven lost Dragonslayers. It was a disaster, and the seventy-eight kings, emperors, queens, presidents, dictators, dukes and elected representatives who paid Mu’shad Waseed for not very much fiercely regretted not spending the extra eleven dray-weights of gold and employing the Mighty Shandar instead.’

‘That’s quite a story,’ I said as Mother Zenobia stopped for breath, ‘but if there were still dozens of dragons, where did all the forehead-jewels come from?’

‘No one knows,’ replied Mother Zenobia. ‘Perhaps the Dragon census was inaccurate, or Waseed decided to claim his reward by making false jewels. How am I meant to know? But that’s not the best bit.’

She paused for a moment, produced a pair of pliers from the air and plunged them into the Quarkbeast’s open mouth.

‘Sister Angeline had a Quarkbeast,’ she mentioned in explanation and, panting slightly with exertion, added, ‘A pair of pliers, a corkscrew and an angle-grinder should be included in the grooming kit. Ah – got it!’

She withdrew the pliers as the Quarkbeast shut his jaws with a snap. In the pliers was a piece of twisted metal.

‘Piece of a tin can. Just behind the fifth canific molarcisor. Common problem. Where was I?’

‘You were about to tell me the best bit.’

Mother Zenobia smiled.

‘This: the Mighty Shandar did not return that winter. He did not return that spring. Summer turned to autumn, turned back to summer and then to spring again. And then one day, the following summer after that, Shandar reappeared.

‘“Sorry I’m late,” he said once all the ambassadors had gathered before him, “I had one or two things to attend to.”

‘“You must help us,” begged the ambassadors, all hastily replaced but one, “Mu’shad Waseed tried to create Dragonslayers, but now the Dragon Question is worse than ever—”

‘“I know, I know,” said the Mighty Shandar, interrupting them, “I read all about it in the papers. Frightful business. My price for peace with the Dragons is now twenty dray-weights of gold. Do you accept?”

‘After a brief conversation, the seventy-eight ambassadors accepted unconditionally, and Shandar got to work.

‘In the first year he learned to speak Dragon. In the second year he learned where the Dragons held their annual general meeting. In the third and fourth year he attended the meetings, and in the fifth, he spoke.

‘“Oh, Dragons wise and bountiful,” he said, although we have only his word for what happened, as no one accompanied him. “The humans seek my help in destroying you, and I could do precisely that . . .”

‘Here he turned the Dragon next to him to stone to demonstrate what he could do.

‘“Paltry human!” scoffed Earthwise, the elected head of the Dragon Council. “Watch this!”

‘But try as he might, not even the finest magic of the strongest Dragon could turn their comrade back from stone again. Nor could they even attack Shandar, as he had woven a force of electricity between himself and the Dragons, and anyone who came close got their claws zapped. When they had calmed down, Shandar changed the stone Dragon back to flesh again and said:

‘“You have seen my word of death. With it you know that my word of life will be true also. Men will not be puny mortals for ever. I can see a time when the cannonballs they annoy you with now will be even more powerful; great land creatures made of iron will crawl up to your lairs and blast you with cannons more powerful than you can possibly imagine. After that I see winged creatures of steel flying faster than sound itself. I can see all this in the future and I say to you now that peace needs to be made with the humans.”

‘Earthwise looked at him, a wisp of smoke escaping out of his nostrils and floating to the roof of the cave. Earthwise could see parts of the future too, and he knew that Shandar spoke the truth. They talked long into the night and then, the following morning, Earthwise bore Shandar to the seventy-eight ambassadors, who, much fearful of such close proximity to the Dragon, listened eagerly to the plan that had been drawn up. It was very simple. The Dragons were to have lands given over to them and they would be kept stocked with sheep and cows for the Dragons to eat. Each Dragonland would be surrounded by boundary stones protected by a strong magic that would vaporise a human if he or she tried to pass. For their part the Dragons agreed to give up eating people, stop torching villages and to leave townsfolk’s cattle and sheep well alone. The sole remaining Dragonslayer would be retained to keep an eye on things to ensure fairness, and if a Dragon transgressed the laws, the Dragonslayer would mete out any punishment.

‘And so it was agreed. The Dragonlands were established, stocked with livestock and marked with boundary stones. The last Dragonslayer was re-educated in her new role as peacemaker, Shandar took his twenty dray-weights of gold, and vanished. And that,’ concluded Mother Zenobia, ‘was the story of the Dragonpact.’

‘And what about the Mighty Shandar?’ I asked, never having believed that any story really had an end.

‘That was four hundred years ago. The Mighty Shandar retired to Crete with twenty dray-weights of gold, and spent the rest of his days conducting research. The Dragons’ numbers have been diminishing ever since. In the intervening years all but one of the Dragons have died of old age. As soon as they did, the marker stones that surrounded the Dragons’ territory lost their power, allowing men to reclaim the lands for themselves. Since Dragon M’foszki died eleven years ago, Maltcassion, who still resides in the Dragonlands not twenty miles from here, is the last of his breed. When he goes, the Dragon will be no more.’

‘What about—?’

But Mother Zenobia had vanished into a grey mist; abrupt teleportation was just one of her many skills. I looked behind me and could see her rematerialise inside the dining room. It must have been sausages, her favourite.

‘Did you log that as a B1-7G, Bernice?’ I asked her novice, who had been sitting close by. ‘We wouldn’t want to have an incident.’

She smiled.

‘I keep a close eye on the old sorceress, Jenny, don’t you worry.’

With my mind full of Dragons and pacts and Shandars and slayers and marker stones and lunch, which I had forgotten to eat, I drove up to the Dragonlands near a picnic spot I knew at Dorstone. I parked up and walked across the turf to the humming marker stones that encircled the lands at twenty-foot intervals and looked about. Tents and caravans had sprung up everywhere as word had got about that Maltcassion was about to go belly-up. Small groups of people talked to each other while seated on folding chairs, sipping tea from thermos flasks. Everyone seemed to have a good supply of tent pegs and string with which to make their claim, and with the Dragonlands covering an area of almost 350 square miles, a lot was at stake. Several enterprising souls had even parked their Land Rovers pointing in towards the lands, ready to bounce into the interior and claim as large an area as they could before anyone else.

As Mother Zenobia had said, the last Dragon to die had been M’foszki, the Great Serpent of Bedwyn, whose lair was on what was then the Marlborough Downs. Quite suddenly the marker stones stopped humming and a daring lad named Bors stepped across into the Dragonlands, walked the empty hills until he entered the Dragon’s lair, a deep underground cave worn smooth by M’foszki’s hard skin. There he found a lot of cattle and sheep bones, some jewels and gold and a very large and dead Dragon. Bors took the Dragon’s head-jewel and swapped it for a handsome townhouse. As for the Marlborough Dragonlands, every square inch was claimed within twenty-four hours; a rare pair of Lesser-spotted Bworks were shot and stuffed by a passing hunter, and the land is now used for farming.

I stared into the empty Dragonlands, then at the people who were still arriving, following the call of cash as if in some deep-rooted herding instinct. The milk of human kindness was turning sour.