Fantasy Gone Wrong by Martin H. Greenberg

Author:Martin H. Greenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

It took a few tight turns and twists, but Jed remembered the old passageways into the dungeons. He’d used them once or twice in his youth, before he’d tried to go on the straight and good path.

Too bad that path had sent him straight back into breaking and entering.

He found Rose in one of the larger cells. She was still too big to fit in properly, so it looked as if she’d been stuffed in, back end first, with her snout sticking out. Large horse-size manacles encircled her wrists and neck, and she was chained to the floor and walls.

She looked miserable.

A group of the king’s guards sat in a circle nearby, playing a game or two of Go Fish. Jed moved quietly along the side until he was right up beside Rose’s eye.

“Jed?” came Rose’s snort.

“Shhhhh!” He nearly had a cow right there at the sound of her voice. He glanced around to the side of the cell opening and made sure the guards hadn’t moved.

They looked as if they hadn’t heard anything.

“Jed—no one can hear me but you,” Rose said in a calming voice.

That’s when he realized the voice of the dragon was in his head—just like the voice of the gnome. “Uh—” He turned and faced her eye. “Right. Didn’t know that.”

She sighed, and a slight bit of black smoke came from her nostrils. “I’m afraid I sort of botched it.”

“What happened?”

“Well I fell asleep,” she said. “Little miss spoiled was in the back of the cave, twitching and turning, and making all sorts of racket into that gag, so I set up some nice chamomile incense—you know—to soothe things a bit. And well—” Rose focused her eye on Jed. “I sort of fell asleep myself.”

“And that’s how Prince Charming captured you.”

“I’m afraid so. Woke up and I was the one in chains. So—” She blinked at him. “They’re going to kill me in the morning. Oh Jed, I’m so sorry.”

He leaned against her. “Why are you sorry? I got you into this. Me and my greed.” Well, not just greed, bub. “And the need to save my soul. I just wanted to be powerful, you know? To not be stepped on all the time—to be something more.”

“Is that it?” Rose’s voice sounded incredulous.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Then kiss me.”

Jed shook his head. “Ick. I can’t do that, Rose.”

“Why not? Am I that ugly?”

Jed looked at her. “No—it’s just that I’m supposed to get a reward, aren’t I? I mean, the gnome said he’d fulfill my heart’s desire.”

“Then kiss me!”

There was a noise at the end of the hall. He could hear the sound of marching feet. “I think someone’s coming. I think it’s the guards to kill you.”

“Kiss me!”

“NO!”

“It’s my last wish!” She looked pleadingly at him.

Well, she had tried to help him, though he could tell the poor creature didn’t have a violent bone in her body. She was a nice dragon, as far as dragons went, and she hadn’t eaten him.

Yet.

“You won’t eat me?”

“The Gottis are taking your soul—would it really matter now?”

He gulped.

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