"The pleasure is mine," replied Tom. It seemed perfectly normal to say the words, even here in midair.
"This girl-child is named Alix Amanda," continued Retruance, beginning his shallow glide down to the war camp. "Haven't seen her in some years and I'm pleased she's turned out as well as she has. I recall her as a smudged-faced urchin playing in a sand pile at Momingside, much to her foster-mother's dismay."
"It has been some years," Alix Amanda said to Tom. "I'm no longer a child. Godfather!" she added to Retruance.
"Well, there are certainly some questions to be asked and answered, but let's save them until we meet your uncle," suggested the Dragon, still chuckling. "Here we are!"
He made a last, smooth, dipping curve and a feather-light landing before the Historian's darkened pavilion. As he carefully placed his passengers on the turf before the tent, between four startled guards, a light was struck within and Murdan rushed forth, clad in nightdress and tasseled cap.
"Thank goodness you're back, although I could have waited until morning to hear your adventures," he called, but seeing Alix Amanda standing with Tom, he stopped short.
"Niece! How came you here? I thought you were with your cousin, my daughter!"
"No, Uncle Murdan. When the castle was taken I was captured and held prisoner in Middletower. I'm so glad to see you! Retruance and this nice Librarian came to my rescue, you see, and I'm most grateful to them and to you, dear sir!"
She flung herself into her uncle's arms and gave him a huge kiss, despite his scratchy half night's beard.
"Now, now, I wish I deserved your thanks for rescue," he said, honestly, "but I didn't even know you were here in Overhall. Did they harm you, child?"
"Oh, no! The Mercenary Knights were quite courteous, I assure you. They intended, they told me, to use me as a bargaining chip, if you should gain the upper hand."
"But they held you prisoner!" protested Tom.
"I had the run of Middletower, down to the housekeeping level," the Historian's niece explained. "I watched the awful sorties and battles from my bedroom window."
"They fed you well, and werea polite?" asked Retruance.
"Yes, both," responded Alix Amanda. She certainly looked none the worse for her captivity. "I passed the time in study and reading, playing Aunt's harp, drawing pictures, and exploring the upper reaches of Middletower. I probably know it better now than any living creature. Did you know," she turned back to Retruance, "that the belfry is home to a tribe of bats who claim common ancestry with Dragons?"
34 Don Callander "They always do," snorted Retruance, "and we've always seen fit to disagree with them."
Alix Amanda rattled on and on, keyed to a high pitch of excitement by her rescue and the wild flight from Middletower, until Murdan sent for his physician-magician, a Northerner named Arcolas, who produced a soothing draft for her.
"Distilled from the nectar of sweet marjoram," he murmured. "You'll awake refreshed and ready to face the world and all its vicissitudes. Lady."
"Take my own bedchamber within," decided Murdan with a yawn. "There are no other ladies with my troop to play chaperon to you, so a"
"No need for nursemaids," cried the girl, but she drank the potion offered by Arcolas without objection and in a few moments excused herself to enter the tent and sleep.
"Now, as for you two," growled Murdan when she had gone, "what have you accomplished other than to foist another worry and responsibility on my overburdened shoulders?"
"Sorry about that!" said Tom, a shade sarcastically. "But we were successful in finding Altruance's plans for Gugglerun!"
"What's to be done next?" asked the Historian eagerly. "Slowly, slowly, sir," cautioned Retruance. "We haven't even had a chance to study them yet. Return to your rest and we'll have some word for you in the morninga-after breakfast."
Murdan yawned greatly and agreed it was wisest to tackle new plans by morning light with a good night's sleep behind them. He bid them goodnight and disappeared into his tent.
"I'm not the least bit tired," claimed Tom. "I think I'll start looking over Altruance's papers."
"Suit yourself," said Retruance. "I'll go with you and get a bite to eat before I take to my woodland bed. The mess tent is the only place you'll find light at this time of night."
Good as his word, the Dragon ate two dozen fresh dough-nuts frosted with sugar icing and went off to his oak-leaf bed. Tom turned up a lamp and spread the contents of the leather case carefully on the table, wishing he had sheets DRAGON COMPANION 35.
of vinyl to laminate the fragile pages. Must find some way to preserve them, he thought.
It took less than an hour to find what he soughta-a complete description, with maps and scale drawings of the course of the underground stream known as Gugglerun. By some means Tom didn't understanda-magic, possiblya- the Dragon constructor had diverted the stream from the mountains, under the solid rocky ridge, spilling it at last into a great basin between Aftertower and Middletower. The overflow was caught by a deep cistern.
From this, conduits led some of the water to various parts of the castle, to living quarters, kitchens, and workshops in need of running water. From the cistern a series of enclosed, sloping drains emptied at last into a very deep shaft driven straight into the rock with a huge storage tank at the bottom. Waste water from the castle was led by a separate system to another vast underground pond.
"Good old Altruance!" exclaimed Tom at this point. "Anyone else would have dumped the sewage into the valley and let it stink!"
Some of the fresh water entering the courtyard basin, however, was led into the moat around the outer walls, then run off over a pretty waterfall into the valley near the Historian's war camp.
The rest of the stream, by far the largest part, drained through another underground tunnel, into the Overhall river.
At first the Librarian considered blocking the inflow of the stream. However, Altruance had tunneled it from its source, high in the mountains where melting snows fed it the year around. Nowhere, Tom saw, was it aboveground anywhere closer than thirty miles away and several hundred feet higher than the castle. As this entrance to the underground portion was all but inaccessible, given the time and manpower available, he was forced to reject it as the site for his dam.
Digging down to the channel closer to the castle seemed possible, but the notes indicated that this part was buried under yards of hard granitic rock. How long would it take to cut a shaft to intercept the stream? With experienced well diggers, weeks at least. Even in Iowa, with a fairly shallow water table, wells took a long time to dig, and with modem 36.DRAGON COMPANION 37.
Don Callander drilling equipment at that. And there was the problem of hitting the narrow tunnel precisely from high above.
"Damnation!" he swore. Weariness was catching up with him. He decided to go to bed and tackle the problem fresh, in the morning.
As he lay on his bed of oak leaves against the warmth of the sleeping Dragon, the solution leaped into his mind, plain and simple and complete.
Before he could jot it down to remember, however, he fell asleep, and dreamed of artesian fountains and enormously high waterfallsa-and a beautiful girl with high-piled blond hair and cornflower blue eyes in a sea green gown.
^6^ The Great Gugglerun Backwash "YOU'VE decided what's to do?" asked Refinance over breakfast of sausages and eggsa-two dozen of each for the Dragon.
"Once I knew the course of outflow, it was obvious," said Tom. With but four hours of sleep he was wide awake and eager to test his theorya-or rather, his plan, for he was confident of its success.
"Let's go tell Murdan, then. Put his mind at ease," suggested Retruance, withdrawing his head from the mess tent. "Sooner we get him off our backs, the better."
Tom grinned at the Dragon's change of pronouns, from referring to the problem as "yours," to terming it "ours."
"We can handle this ourselves, I believe. Just you and me, and Altruance's papers."
"Fine with me, but I advise you to tell Murdan we're working on it. Give him something to look forward to. Historians don't like to be kept guessing."
"There's always an off chance our plan will fail because I missed some little point," Tom admitted. "Engineers have a saying: *Damn that decimal!' "
"I heard Great-Grandfather Altruance say that a hundred times," agreed the winged beast. He then looked puzzled. "Never really understood what it meant, however."
"Come on! If you think we must, we'll see Murdan."
"We could say good morrow to Manda, too," added Retruance, offhandedly. "Let her thank us for rescuing her, once again."
Tom glanced obliquely at his companion to see if he was being teased, but there was no way to tell and he refused to ask.
Alix Amanda was the first person they met when they arrived at the Historian's pavilion. She was brushing her hair in a spot of bright sunshine, stooping a bit to see herself in a tiny camp mirror.
"We came by to say good morning," Tom said when she looked up to greet them with a smile.
"And to blush with you, too," said Retruance, straight faced.
"To what?" both young people asked.
"Oh, nothing. Never mind," said the Dragon. "Is Murdan around, missy?"
"I believe he's still asleep" said the girl, putting aside her brush and beginning to plait her long hair in a single, thick braid. Tom watched in absorbed fascination.
"Don't you think we should a er a get started on our Gugglerun project?" the saurian asked.
"Oh? Yes!" replied Tom. "Retruance calls you Manda for short. Is it right for me to call you that, or should I call you Alix Amanda for long?" he asked.
Retruance rolled his eyes up to the sky but held his tongue.
"My family calls me Manda. Alix Amanda is overly portentous among close friends, I thinka."
"Yes, I remember. Alix Amanda Alone was queen a while back."
"A very great queen, too," agreed Manda with a nod. "So Alix Amanda is much too formal. I use it only on party invitations and when signing things."
"You know, I do the same thing," Tom laughed, delighted to find something they had in common. "To my friends I'm just plain Toma-never Tommy!a-but when I sign checks, I write Thomas Alva Edison Whitehead."
38.DRAGON COMPANION 39.
Don Callander "Such an impressive name!" cried Manda. "I'll save that for formal occasions, shall I? I'll call you just plain Tom. It has a much more friendly sound. Tom, fetch me a sherbet!' Or, *Tom, I've lost my glove. Find it, be a dear!' "
Even the Dragon had to laugh at her flibbertigibbety impression. Hearing their laughter, Murdan burst from the tent, lathered to the ears and carrying a wickedly gleaming razor.
"Are you done with my mirror, Manda? Return it to me before your uncle slices off an ear. Oh, hello. Dragon, Librarian! Gugglerun stopped up, yet?"
"Shortly, sir," Tom assured him. "We were just come to say you can expect results by the end of the day, if all goes well."
"See that it does!" growled the Historian, waving his razor. "What do you want me to do?"
"Be ready to strike, sir," said Tom, sounding more mysterious than he intended. "If our plan works, you'll know it, without a doubt. I think the Mercenary Knights will want to leave Overhall very quickly."
"Well, it's results I want, not details, just at the moment.
Get you to work!"
Murdan nodded in curt dismissal, snatched the mirror, and stalked back into the tent, calling for Graham at the top of his considerable voice.
"Can I come along?" asked Manda, rather shyly. "Life in an armed camp is very boring when you're supposed to be a lady. It would be more fun if I were still a child."
"Don some suitable clothing, then," said Retruance. "You shouldn't be seen about the camp in that nightdress, I should say, although I'm no expert on etiquette."
"Something sturdy enough for riding Dragon-back and climbing about hillsides," suggested Tom. "A pair of sound boots, if you can find them. We'll fly a ways, but after thata"
Manda disappeared into the tent, calling her uncle's name.
"What a splendid young lady!" said Tom to himself, but aloud.
"Easy, Companion!" Retruance cautioned him. "What?" the Librarian asked, somewhat dreamily.
"Ask yourself why she's named Alix Amanda," suggested the Dragon.
"Alix Amanda? Yes, I know. A beautiful name! Wait," said Tom. "Are you implying that she is a"
"Implying, hell! The present king of Carolna is Eduard Ten. He's Murdan's half-brother."
"And Manda is Murdan's niece! You mean Alix Amanda is the king's daughter, a princess?"
The Dragon grinned broadly as the princess reappeared from the tent dressed in a soldier's orange tunic and baggy black hose, cinched to fit her narrow waist with a wide belt.
"Let me pull on these boots," she said. "Fortunately, Uncle Murdan's valet has tiny feet!"
Retruance murmured to Tom, "Don't fret, however. Your rank is nearly that of a belted knight. You need not fear her family will refuse her company to you, as long as she wishes it. Especially not after you rescued her from Overhall."
"You rescued us both, Retruance Constable!" protested the Librarian.
"A matter of viewpoint, I'd say," chuckled his huge companion. "Now, are we ready to fly?"
They were and they did.
MANDA and Tom sat side by side between the Dragon's foremost ears, their legs dangling over his brow ridge. They had only to steady themselves with one hand on the nearest ear to keep their seats on his smooth, hard scales.
"Down lower," directed Tom, pointing. "There's the spot Gugglerun flows into the river, you see!"
"Ah, yes," called Retruance. "Set us down on that rocky ledge, shall I?"
"What a marvelous way to travel!" enthused Manda. "I could go on like this for days and days. Much smoother even than a palfrey mare."
"Later, perhaps, my dearest godchild," replied Retruance. "Right now, we've a dire task to perform. Plenty of rocks here, and if we run out, there are plenty more on yon hillside."
40.Don Callander DRAGON COMPANION.
41."I thought you could do the heavy moving better than a horde of soldiers," said Tom.
"Much better, because I understand what we're driving at."
"But not I," protested Manda. "Can you tell me? What does Gugglerun have to do with driving the Mercenary Knights from Overhall?"
"Come on," Tom said, jumping from the Dragon's forehead to the ground. "I'll explain as we work. Simple and elegant!"
NOON came.