Her Majesty's Wizard #1 by Christopher Stasheff Read Free Book Online Page A

crossed his fingers in the dark and added, "I'm a doctor." Well, not yet, and the wrong kind-but it's not too much of a lie.
       "Doctor?" The dragon fairly leaped at the idea, and Matt sighed with relief. "Mmm ... indeed?" Now the beast was trying to sound casual. "And what conshern izh that of mine?"
       "Well, I know pain when I see it and I hate seeing it. What's bothering you? Maybe I can do something about it."
       The dragon rumbled deep in his belly, and his voice was surly. "I have a tooth in my jaw that cauzheth me pain, if thou musht know; but it will not keep me from roashting vile hunterzh who prey upon hatchlingzh!"
       "Toothache, huh?" Matt commiserated. "Yeah, that can really get you down. But, if you don't mind my saying so, you seem a bit young to be having trouble with your teeth." Wild guess; all he'd seen so far was flashes of a huge, scaly head.
       But Stegoman bought it. "A dragon is young for a century or two, ignorant mortal! The first hundred years are, I assure thee, quite long enough for teeth to begin to rot and to pain us."
       "Really?" Matt frowned. "I should think you'd grow new ones every few decades."
       "Thou art indeed ignorant of our ways," the dragon snorted. He seemed to be sobering up already, Matt noted. Strange, very strange. "We are born with the teeth we must keep all our lives; they are in our mouths when we hatch; they grow as we grow,,. like our skins."
       "Your skins grow? I mean, you don't have to shed them once a year?"
       The dragon gave a metallic rattle that might have been its equivalent of a superior chuckle. "Nay, certainly not! We are not snakes or lizards, man, though related to them, I doubt not, as thou are related to the kobolds and snow-apes. But dost thou scurry about in tunnels beneath the earth, or swing by long arms from a mountain peak?"
       "Well, no-at least, not in most cases. Although I've heard of... Well, never mind. As you see, I don't know much about dragons."
       "Thou art indeed a strange mortal," the dragon huffed. "What manner of man art thou, to be so ignorant of our race? Or dost thou not know our importance to thee?"
       "Not really," Matt confessed. "A dragon's a pretty rare sight, where I come from."
       "Scandalous!" The dragon snorted. "Are all men of thy land so unlearned?"
       "You might say so. In fact, there are a lot of us who don't even believe in magic."
       The dragon was silent, dumfounded; and Matt had that sinking feeling that, as usual, he'd said the wrong thing. "What manner of man art thou?" the dragon exploded.
       Matt shrank back against the wall, but he managed to shrug his shoulders. "Well, the usual kind. You've seen me."
       "Not well," the dragon rumbled. "Art thou afeared to show thyself?
       He had a nasty, suspicious tone to him. "Of course not!" Matt said quickly. "You want some light? I mean, something a little smaller and more constant than your house specialty?"
       "That might be advisable."
       "Oh, sure, sure! Right away." Matt yanked out his matchbook and tried to remember what spell he'd used.
       "What dost thou wait for?" Stegoman growled.
       "Uh, it takes a little time." Matt recited the skewed Blake quotation under his breath while he struck a match, remembering to hold it at arm's length. A twelve-inch flame gushed, and he ad-libbed quickly:
       "Let this light a candle kindle, So its light will last, not dwindle! Spearing dark and giving light, Letting us converse with sight!"
       The matchstick seemed to slam against his fingers as it thickened abruptly, and Matt found himself holding a six-foot candle, two inches thick, with a foot-long flame like a spearhead on top. He'd overdone things a bit, but that was the hazard of improvisation.
       The dragon's eyes were fixed on the point of light. "Most interesting," he murmured.
       Matt stared back at him, seeing a thirty-foot Chinese-style dragon, with short, clawed legs,