"Sailor."

He shrugged. "Where'd you get the dog, shamus? The old bitch give him to you? You on retainer?"

The questions seemed too crazy in the circumstances, I couldn't answer. I said, "Did you know your wife and Stevie are planning to bump you?"

He jumped up. "What'd you say?" he exclaimed, and you could see he was somewhere on the far side of crazy.

"I said, what kind of pond scum are you, forcing electroshock on her?"

"Son of a bitch." He slapped me again. "Rapist bastard." Hit me again. There were more names, I'm almost sure, but after that every time he hit me they flew out of my head.

When I came to again, I was lying on the floor of a Las Hadas jail cell.

I lay there listening, making sure no one was nearby. If I let them know I was awake, they might just begin again.

My head cracked like lightning when I tried to move it-at the very least I had a concussion. They weren't done with me either. All the man had to do was place a call to the cops and they would take their exercise on me. Like Spanking had said.

I made myself roll over. It took maybe an hour. My left hand was swollen. I must have hit somebody; I hoped it had hurt. Amazing, I considered, how much you can take and still be functional enough to fight back. Someone besides the Nazis should look into it.

How long had they had me? I had no way of knowing, but I had to get out of it somehow. The problem was, I didn't have a weapon. My gun was gone but, more important, I'd lost the lighter. I knew Kildragon didn't have it or he wouldn't have asked me about the dogs.

Someone rattled keys and I heard the cell door open. Safe to say, I wasn't going to spring up and take anybody by surprise. They knew it. The guard set a tray on the floor beside my head and walked away without a word.

The smell of food worked on me. I was hungry and nauseous at the same time, and the latter finally won out. That made me move. Stars circled my eyes and breathing was like inhaling a knife, but I didn't black out. After a while I felt better, and slid over to the tray, away from my mess. I drank the coffee and ate cold scrambled eggs, thinking this must be breakfast. I lay there, chewing every bite experimentally to find where I still had teeth.

Then I heard voices approaching. Someone was saying, "Jesus, I don't think you should."

"Don't matter what you think, they want him back up the house this morning," came the reply. "Still got lotsa questions."

"This is the worst it's ever been."

"You growing a conscience, McCandless? I wouldn't let it get out."

The keys rattled again and footsteps came up beside me. I was hoisted to my feet. Pain like a wire burned through my whole body. There was a goon on either side of me. The cop couldn't bear to see me straight on. I must have looked pretty awful.

The goons dragged me out of the station and toward a waiting car. There were fast footsteps behind us and a voice said, "You want a shine? You gentlemen need to get polished-ooh, this one polished already!"

"Beat it, ya little runt!" said the goon on my right. He jerked like he'd tried to throw a punch. I was tackled from behind, and then the footsteps pattered away. The goon let go of me altogether and took up the chase until his partner, not happy hoisting me alone, shouted for him to come back. When he did, he was muttering and cursing. "Little bastard tried to grab my wallet, you see that? Kick his ass to the moon."

They stuffed me none too gently in the car. I dazedly glanced at them both. They looked like any hundred other gorillas in the herd. As we drove to the estate, they chatted back and forth like I wasn't there. I sat with my head down. We went up the drive to the portico and they hauled me out again. I was dragged around the side of the house and down steps to a cellar.

I recognized the room I'd been in the day before. Time for round two. I didn't think I could make round three.

Today I was in the presence of the happy couple. They looked like they could have feasted upon each other if I hadn't been there. Stevie stood behind the senora, calm as a billboard in spite of a cut lip. I hoped I'd given it to him.

When I was sitting in my chair, Kildragon said, "I want you to repeat what you said yesterday about my wife."

I looked at those glittering eyes of hers and knew I didn't have a prayer either way. "You wanted to know about the dogs."

"Decided to talk?" he asked.

"While I still can."

He found that amusing. "So, talk. Where's the bruja hiding?"

"First, you tell me where your daughter is now." His lip curled and he took a step to sock me. "Look, I want to know she's all right. I want to know that you know the shape she's in."

"I oughta beat you through the floor."

I lowered my head and made a point of wincing. "You want information first. Just prove to me she's all right."

His look went squeamish when he glanced at the senora. "Go get her."

"I don't take orders from his kind. What he did-"

"Shut up and go get her. Sooner you do it, the sooner this is over with. And you do want this over with, don't you, Jenette?"

She muttered something underneath her breath and sent Stevie out. Now I knew he did know his daughter's condition, whether he liked it or not. He wasn't running the show.

I gave it a minute, then said, "Can I have a cigarette?"

Kildragon glowered at me, then nudged one of the mouth-breathers. "Give the man his last request."

"I don't think you should," mused the senora.

"Shut up, I told you." Giving me a cigarette was a little act of defiance. I took one.

The door opened and Janine was wheeled in. Her gaze was absolutely vacant, no one home-until she focused on me. Then the blankness slipped a moment and I saw the horror underneath. Horror at what they'd done to both of us.

Everyone was watching her while I fished out the Zippo Elroy had slipped into my pocket. The hardest part was making my swollen hand operate it. I snapped back the top. The sound caught the senora's attention. She said, "Who gave him a lighter?"

The heads all turned, as if in slow motion, as I dragged my thumb down the wheel once, then twice, then three times. The goon who'd offered me the smoke started to reach for my hand. I smiled up at him, said, "It's not working," and dropped my hand quickly. He didn't know whether to snatch the lighter or offer me his.

Janine's chair was propelled across the room as the first dog pushed in behind her. After him came the two others, cramming the hallway outside. For a second the senora and I traded glances. Understanding. Then I said, "Mop the deck with 'em," and the hounds leaped into action. The copper dog jumped on the nearest goons. The silver one bounded over him and bit through Stevie's throat. The idiot in front of me swung around to shoot. I managed to kick him in the back of the knee and he fired straight up. The third dog swelled into the room and, like the monster he was, reached over everyone and closed the goon's skull between his massive jaws. Threw back his head and slammed the body against the ceiling. The light fixture exploded and sparked.

Finished with the hired help, the dogs turned on their cornered prey-Mr. and Mrs. Kildragon. Even trapped, they wanted nothing to do with each other, and stood their ground separately. The pack closed on them, so massive that the couple vanished from sight. The screaming didn't last long. When the dogs parted again, there was nothing left. Not so much as a smear.

Janine rolled her chair to me, crying, "My God, my God," over and over. As best I could, I took her to me. Jagged fire shot through me.

The three hounds sat in a column, like those Russian dolls that fit one inside the other. In unison, they queried, "What does the master bid?"

"Heal us," I answered.

They came forward, circling us as they had the other two, then started to lick us. Tongues as big as bath towels, as big as bedsheets; as loud as surf.

Las Hadas is different now. I run it. So far as anyone remembers, I always have. Only Elroy knows otherwise, and he's too happy with his shoe shop to mention it. People attempting to maintain Kildragon's level of graft and corruption have mysteriously vanished in the night. The rumor is . . . well, you can probably guess.

The house is a lot nicer than you might think when you first see it, especially with all the mouth-breathers gone.

The dogs like it, too. Behind the high walls they can roam the grounds at their leisure. There are no better bodyguards.

Janine and I try to leave them pretty much to themselves.

STEN WESTGARD.

Sten Westgard's first story was published in Tomorrow Magazine in 1994. Since then he has sold another story to Tomorrow. He attended the Clarion East Writers' Workshop in 1995 and "The Dog Rose" is the last story he wrote while there. His is the second fairy tale that came to us from that Clarion. Westgard works as a desktop publisher/video producer/programmer for the family software company. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and has recently married.

It is the tradition of many fairy tales to have a prince awaken or otherwise rescue a princess. "The Dog Rose" instead focuses on less royal folk who might have an interest in the outcome.

THE DOG ROSE.

by Sten Westgard.

In the middle of May, when irises grow their beards and bleeding hearts shed their first white drop, Edward battled the sun for the life of the garden. Father was too old to haul buckets, so Edward carried the rain of the absent clouds on his shoulder-yoke. But in spite of his dousing, the herbs and flowers sagged under the growing heat. Shepherd's knot leaves shriveled and turned brown, and Edward saw the fevers he would not cure. The petals of the peonies curled up and died, and Edward dreamed of the gout that would flourish in months to come.

"Every moment you waste costs us an herb, Edward," Father chided. He sat outside the stone-and-turf hut, watching Edward work. "Do you think we can trade dry twigs for food?"

Edward didn't answer. For every plant skeleton, he saw a man's bones. The ache in his shoulders grew worse with each day, just as Father's words grew harsher with each withered plant. The patch of sweet peas, the stand of bellflowers, reduced to brown stalks and sapless twigs. His muscles felt as if they were ripping off his bones, as if he were being stripped as bare as the garden.

It was then that Edward heard the news of Thorn Castle. Dobelis the merchant told him when he came to trade with Father.

"Did you know the roses are about to bloom?" Dobelis asked, as he tethered his horse to the low stone wall surrounding the garden. Edward's limbs tingled, and his throat felt suddenly rough. He set down his buckets, sloshing water onto his boots and cuffs. He looked back at Father, and saw his tanned skin draw tight against his cheeks.

"We hear that rumor every year," Father said, looking up from the pile of primrose flowers before him. He set aside his bronze shears. "Nothing ever comes of it."

"Where did you hear this?" Edward asked. He extended his hand, feeling the callused grasp of Dobelis.

"I saw the buds myself," Dobelis said. His face and hair were dusted brown by the road. Dirt had gathered in the wrinkles of his face like gashes from a many-clawed beast. As he talked the dirt fell off him like a mist.

"How long ago?" Edward asked, helping Dobelis take his saddlebags off his horse. Thick scents emerged from the leather bags, a pungent odor that made Edward's nostrils sting.

"Four days' travel by slow-witted mare," Dobelis said, patting the flank of his horse. "I trade with an old hermit nearby. His garden is much like yours."

Edward's cheeks grew warm. "Was anyone else there?" he said quietly.

"No one," Dobelis said, smiling.

"What have you brought this time?" Father said, changing the subject.

"Squill bulbs and sicklewort, and some winter jasmine leaves," Dobelis said. Edward watched him survey the garden with his eyes, a practiced squint that took in the drooping lilies and the faded periwinkle, and a score of late-spring blooms struggling in the harsh sun.

"The drought has hit you hard," Dobelis said.

"The fields are worse-the King and court are traveling to survey the damage," Edward replied. "We'll lose everything if it doesn't rain."

Father's voice bristled. "We'll lose everything if you don't keep watering. Come, Dobelis, we'll go inside and leave Edward to his work."

Dobelis took his saddlebag back. "Perhaps later, Edward," he said. Edward watched the two walk inside the hut, Father muttering, Dobelis taking out his two-armed balance and a set of tally sticks.

Edward turned back to the garden, staring at the drying, dying plants. As he poured water around the base of the lilies, he found himself distracted by memories of Grandfather-hands like gnarled roots, a voice that ground like mortar and pestle.

Another memory stuck in Edward's thoughts, this one a blurry recollection of a dream that came to him with every summer. Edward was working in the garden, digging, kneeling on the ground and tending to the plants. Grandfather stood before him, but Edward could only see the cracked leather of his boots. He heard Grandfather speak, words falling from his lips like the first rains of April, like seeds falling from a tree. As he weeded, Edward only caught snatches of the story. The Sleep. The thorns. And Cleome. As the words hit the ground they sprouted, shoots that raced up along Grandfather's legs and chest, surrounding him, digging into his flesh until they ran in his veins. Belatedly, Edward abandoned his toil, attacking the prison of thorny vines and knife-edged leaves that held Grandfather. He shouted, but Grandfather did not hear, did not stop telling the story of Cleome. Not a princess but a peasant, he said, ivy trailing off his tongue, eyes growing hazel and face wrinkling like bark. Edward pounded his fists against the verdant harness, but the vines had taken Grandfather. At the end of the dream, his face burst open like a flower.

The empty buckets banged against his legs like drums as Edward headed out of the garden. Father would talk with Dobelis for some time, he figured. Setting the buckets against the castle well, he made for the smithy.

A blast of hot air greeted him. Glowing coals cast the room in orange and red. The smith pounded on the blade of a scythe, oblivious to everything but the glowing curve. On the other side of the furnace, out of view of the smith, Olaus pumped the huge bellows. Edward shouted the news over the roar of the fire, the clang of the hammer on hot iron, and the gasp of the yawning bellows. Olaus puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes. "You bet our chance on the word of Dobelis?"

"He's always been honest in his dealings with us."

"A merchant who doesn't lie?" Olaus scoffed. "I'm not about to stake my fate on a coin-biter's tale." He pulled the handle up. The bellows moaned like the gust of an approaching storm.

"Whose word will you trust? The next time we hear of the roses, it will be from the man who walked through them. We can't wait for someone else to get there first."

"I just want to be sure," Olaus said, leaning his shoulder into the bellows, pushing down, feeding air to the coals.

"You want to spend the rest of your life at this bellows, your arms hairless from getting too close to the fire? You want to grow deaf like the smith from pounding the anvil all day?"

Olaus paused. The muscles in his jaw pulsed. "And you really think your father will allow you to go? Leave him alone in the middle of this drought? You're going to have to desert him, and let his life crisp in the sun."

"He'll understand," Edward insisted. "If he doesn't, I'll go anyway."

Olaus stood still until the smith hollered to keep pumping.

"I know the road to Thorn Castle. The day I hear you left your father, I'll set out on it. Not one moment before." He turned his back on Edward to work the bellows.

When Edward returned from the well, Father was waiting, his arms folded tightly around him like climbing vines.

"You think because I'm trading with Dobelis I don't know how long it takes to draw water from the well?"

Edward began to speak, but Father interrupted.