Sparhawk
Active Member
A Finnimbrum of Bumfuzzle
By Sparhawk
This is a story about a Dragon and, as everyone knows, Dragons are great collectors of trinkets - gold and anything else that grabs their fancy. The Dragon in this story goes by the name of Edward Bibliophage. Now Edward was not only a Dragon of great age and size he was also of a rather shockingly brilliant shade of green (He had seen this color one day while out looking for new thing to add to his collection and decided that he liked it and simply changed his color) but i think that i am getting way ahead of myself here, this story does not start with Edward, it starts with a very troubled prince and a quest for a Finnimbrum of Bumfuzzle.
Now this Prince had been unfortunately been named Peaworth Smells-All III,by what he hopes were well meaning parents. The problem, as he saw it, was the fact that he did not at all look like a Peaworth, he was in fact quit tall and had straight brown hair and brown eyes. But not a hint of Peaworthiness anywhere. On top of that, was the fact that his parents had many many years before been usurped by his uncle Xiphoid, and they had had a very unfortunate accident, after his uncle had been crowned King (By this he meant that his uncle had thought that leaving them in a known Dragon hot spot with a sign that said "Free Meal" was a good way to make sure of his claim on the throne).Luckily for Peaworth his uncle had decided that having his baby nephew fed to some hungry Dragon was not a good move as King. But now it was different for one thing he could now, if he was so minded, look down his nose at his uncle.
'Maybe' Peaworth thought to himself, now that he found himself standing out side of the throne room doors awaiting an audience with his uncle. 'It had not been one of his more brilliant moments when I stood up in front of all of the high uppity ups and tell him that he was a "Silly old fart" and a few other things along that vein.' Although nothing had happened yet Peaworth had the feeling that it was not going to end well.
The doors in front of his slowly creaked open and one of the Kings Advisers stood in the gap and said in an nasil voice, 'The His Majesty, the King will see you now.' Peaworth took a deep steadying breath and mentally steeled himself for the encounter. Peaworth walked towards the doors, which on every other day looked like perfectly ordinary wooden doors, but had suddenly by some magical means turned dark and menacing. The Adviser waved at his to hurry up and once he was through into the empty quiet of the throne room quickly closed the doors with a thump.
Peaworth swallowed. The King was sitting on the throne and all of his advisers where standing around him. 'Not a good sign.' Peaworth thought to himself as he started the long walk to the King. All eyes were on him as he moved slowly across the room towards the throne. It was all that he could do not to turn around and make a run for it and hope that they did not catch up to him before he reached the border. Peaworth stopped at the bottom of the steps that lead to the dais that his uncle and the Advisers where upon. He looked up at them stood and waited for someone to say something. That someone turned out to be Uncle Xiphoid.
'You really made a fool of me last night. Do you know that people are now making jokes about me?' Xiphoid's left eye started to twitch. As Peaworth saw this his stomach sank to the floor with the certainty that this was most definitely not going to end well for him. He wanted to say something that was going to fix things and just maybe let him stand a chance of surviving whatever his uncle throws at him, but nothing came to mind that fit the bill so he said nothing. The King snorted through his nose and taped his fingers against the arm of the throne. 'Very well,' He said after a short while.' If that's the way you are going to be, I shall send you on a quest to redeem yourself in my eyes.
'There is a trinket, called the Finnimbrum of Bumfuzzle and I want it. You now have the honor of going and getting it for me.' This pulled Peaworth out of the grim thoughts that he was thinking. It almost sounded sane and rational, two things his uncle were not, so there had to be a catch somewhere. A faint glimmer of hope twinkled in his hart. He had never stayed because he had wanted to. In fact he had been kept a prisoner for all of these years. He was not allowed to go anywhere on his own and if he was sent on this "Quest" without a guard then it was straight for the border and away to freedom for him.
There was a long pause of silence as he thought of a way to phrase the question that he wanted to ask with out making thing worse. One had to always say things carefully around Uncle Xiphoid.
'And I will gladly go and get this Finnimbrum of Bumfuzzle for you your Majesty. Where is it this Trinket of confusion, so that I may go and get it for you?' This he thought sounded worshipful enough. It was always a fine balance. The King smirked.
'It is a small thing, it is said to look like a bent old ring. I had my best Scholars search out where it was and they found out that it had been taken by a Dragon a few years ago.' 'Ahhh' Thought Peaworth, 'there is the catch.' The King held out his hand and one of the Advisers pulled a rolled piece of paper out of his sleeve and handed it to the King. 'Here is a map to where they think this Dragon's lair is. I will of course be sending with you twenty Guards so that you are well protected from bandits. People shall never say I didn't look after you.'
Even as his uncle was speaking that tiny twinkle of hope of escape was fading and then gone altogether. Peaworth just stood there in silence too stunned for words. All that he could do was to look blankly at the map that the King was holding out for him to take. His uncle, saying in a irritated tone of voice, 'Well aren't you going to take the map Boy?' while waving the map at him, broke Peaworth out of his shock. Slowly on what felt like legs of jelly he climbed up a few of the stairs to stand before his uncle and with a unsteady hand took the map and manged to say,
'When do you want me to leave your majesty?'
'Now Boy now. Everything has been packed and made ready! I would not have asked you to go on this Quest only to have you leave next week!' The King waved his hands in the air in a shooing motion. 'Go Go Go!!!'' And so Peaworth went, with a heavy heart, down into the yard where the guards that his uncle had chosen to go with his were waiting.
So the long journey started, and a long journey it was, not that Peaworth minded at all, in fact the longer the better. There was miles of forest, then miles of hills, there were miles alongside rivers and with every step of his horse Peaworth was more and more certain that he should try to enjoy the scenery because it was probably going to be the last he ever saw. But every journey had to come to an end at some point and with afternoon light casting there shadows far in front of then Peaworth and the guards rounded a hill and saw the Dragon's lair in front of them.
It turned out to be an old fort that looked like it had been abandoned a few centuries ago. There was a tree growing out of one of the walls and through the gateway Peaworth found himself looking at a jungle. Trees and ferns had taken over the inner court yard to such an extent that you could not even see the keep itself. There was a small stream flowing in front of it in a disconsolately peaceful way. Birds were singing and there was the buzz of happy bees. Wild flowers filled the air with their smell and as Peaworth sat there looking upon all of this a Fiery red butterfly fluttered past his nose.
One of the guards behind him cleared there throat. Peaworth turned in the saddle to look at the guards that were clustered all together behind him. The leader, a man named Troy, shifted in his saddle in a nervous way as he said. 'We will set up camp behind this hill and will wait here until you return.' Then as one all twenty of them turned their horses and cantered behind the hill. Leaving Peaworth to make his way to the dragon's lair on his own, and the way Troy had said "until you return" he had most definitely meant for him to go now. He straightened in the saddle and again looked into the deep green shade of the forest that hid the Keep from view.
'Taking a horse into that jungle would not be the best of plans and I have no idea of how long I am going to be or if I am ever going to get out again. I think it would be best for you if you stayed here with the other horses.' Peaworth said quietly addressing his horse as he gave it a pat on the neck. He pulled on the reins and with a nudge trotted around the hill to where the guards where making camp. Peaworth dismounted in front of Troy and without saying a word handed him the reins. Then turned around and started the short walk to the gateway and the forest within.
Oddly enough now that he was here, and walking towards almost certain doom, he found that all the fear and everything else that he had felt on the journey had disappeared like frost under the summer sun. A sort of light headed feeling of invincibility had come over him. Much to his surprise it did not fade when he reached the stream that gurgled over it's stones in a contented manner, or when he entered the cool shade of the trees and was walking through a forest filled with ferns and brambles over loaded with blackberries. The forest had a peaceful feeling to it and he caught himself wishing that he could stay here for awhile, Dragon or no Dragon.
It was only as he was coming to the end of the forest and he now could see small glimpses of the the Keep itself that he felt a small tremble run through him. Then quite suddenly he found himself out of the forest and standing in front of a pair of the biggest doors that he had ever seen. They were old that he could see, but their age had not made them rotten or weak but seemed to have made them into something that resembled stone. Peaworth looked up and then left and right looking at the Keep for the first time. The first impression that he had was that it was huge, massive he could have quite easily built five or more buildings the size of his uncle's palace in it with room to spare. The second thing that struck him was the fact that it was not run down of falling apart as the first wall had been, if fact it looked like it had been kept in it's original condition.
Peaworth was amazed by it's size, there had been not hint of it when it had first looked at it from the base of the hill. Peaworth took that last step forward and reached out to touch one of the great doors, then hesitated, then thought. 'I have come all this way and there is no way to avoid what it going to happen so I might as well just go in and face it.' He put his shoulder to the door and then pushed, expecting it to be tough to open, but it was not. It opened with a quiet ease and sent Peaworth tumbling onto the floor of a light and color filled hall, huge windows with stained glass in the cast a multi-colored hue over the hall.
He sat up slowly looking around himself in wonder. It was like he had fallen into another age or world. Doors, that were just as big as the ones that he had just come through showed hallways with high vaulted ceilings, leading deeper into the keep. They too were filled with light, but this time it was just with the warm afternoon light and not the rainbow colors of the hall that he was in. Suddenly the memory that he was in fact in a Dragon's lair broke through the wonder of what he was seeing. He scrambled to his feet and looked around for signs of the presence of a Dragon but found none. The hall was empty except for him. A breeze wafted through the open door and ruffled his hair as he listened for a sound of movement, but the only thing he heard was his own breathing.
With a racing heart Peaworth tuned to face the nearest set of doors from himself and, with the last of his courage, started towards it. He did not know if he was even walking in the right direction but it seemed like as good a way to go as any of the others. Anyway he had to start somewhere.
As he walked down the hallway his foot steps echoed faintly back at him, through the large windows that ran down the length of the passageway, Peaworth could see that there must have once upon a time been a inner courtyard but now it too had been taken over by plants. Wild roses, lilies, wild grasses of every kind and a wide assortment of wild flowers made a carpet of color under the scattering of trees that he could see. It was beautiful. he had stopped at one of the larger windows to look at the garden, as it happens the window was at a cross ways with another passageway which he was tempted to go down.
As Peaworth was standing looking out of the winder at the garden in front of him he heard a noise behind him. He did not look behind him hoping that he had just imagined it, but then a beep voice spoke for somewhere above his head and said. 'I am rather proud at how well my garden came out, What do you think of it?' Hot breath warmed the top of his head, Peaworth swallowed, and almost with out moving a muscle he revolved around to face were the voice. What was in front of him was a leg. A few things penetrated Peaworth's terrified brain.
One - the leg in front of him was a shocking shade of green, and two - at the end of the shockingly green leg was a set of talons, and three - these talons were exceedingly sharp.
Peaworth swallowed again, even thought his mouth was dry with fear, and looked up and then up again. What them met his eyes was the sight of a pair of the biggest nostrils that he had ever seen and above them two deep gold dragon eyes. This was the last straw for Peaworth, he was sure that he was going to be eaten and the question had only been a light chat before lunch. with a soft sigh Peaworth fainted.
Edward had had a happy morning updating the cataloging of his collection and had just been going for a walk to stretch his legs and to freshen his mind, when he heard his front door bang open. 'I did not think that it was that windy today...' He thought to himself as he turned down another hallway to find a window to see if the weather had changed. Edward bent his neck just a little bit so that his eyes where level with the window and looked out upon one of his gardens that he had been looking after for hundreds of years. There was just a gentle breeze, no wind that was strong enough to blow open the great oaken front door. He shifted his wings, in thought, as he lifted his head and looked in the direction of his front hall. He made a thoughtful rumbling sound as he started to head for the front hall.
He was unworried about what could happen. After all when you are a very large dragon there tended to be very little worth worrying about. As he came around the last corner to his front hall that he saw who had opened the front door. There was a young human standing right in front of him looking out into what he thought of as his best garden of all. He seemed to have not heard him and seemed to be enjoying looking at the garden so much that Edward moved with the quietness that only Dragons can achieve to stand behind him.
In a what he thought to be a quiet voice as to not startle him, and in the hopes of starting up a conversation, Edward said, 'I am rather proud at how well my garden came out, What do you think of it?' He watched in puzzled fascination as the young man froze and then seemed to rotate by some unknown force to stare with a look of horror at him and them slowly and gracefully fold up and crumple onto the floor.
Edward blinked and then carefully nudged, the now unconscious young man in front of him, on the shoulder. There was no response. Edward lowered his head to take a closer look at this stranger that had come into his home. He seemed to Edward to be paler than he should be. Although he would be the first one to say that he had not had much to do with humans in the past, he did have a rough idea one what should be their normal coloring. 'Maybe he is unwell?' Edward thought as he gave Peaworth another experimental nudge.
Then with great care picked Peaworth up and carried him a short way down the hallway to another door, this one set deep with in the stone of the wall. Edward opened the door then walked through into a library. There were more windows here that any where else. Edward gently placed the young man on one of the cushions that he had placed around the library so that he could read in comfort. He looked closely to see if there had been any changes. There were none that he could see.
He straightened up and thoughtfully scratched one of his ears as he looked out of the window. 'I am sure that I have a copy of the "Illnesses of Humans" somewhere around here.' the thought to himself as he started to look for the book. It did not take long at all for Edward to find it for dragons always know where everything in their hoard is.
By this time Peaworth was starting to recover from his faint and had just opened his eyes to, thankfully, the simple sight of a roof and rafters and not the face of a dragon. He sat up and quickly felt along his body checking that all his arms and legs were accounted for. Peaworth was shocked. He was not eaten in fact he seemed to be quite well and on his own. Joy and surprise at having actually survived dimmed a little when the thought that the dragon might just be saving him for later, but that thought was soon forgotten.
He stood up and looked around to see where he was. As he turned around he saw the dragon.
Edward had found the book and was just returning with it when he saw the young man jump up, and apparently in fine health and turn towards him. 'Ah! Good there seems to be nothing wrong with you. I could think of no other reason that you would just collapse like that.' He said.
Peaworth, expecting to be swallowed in one gulp, was so surprised by the cultured tones that the dragon spoke in that he found himself saying, 'I thought that you where going to eat me.' The dragon blinked in surprise and shock and said in a deep voice that seemed to rumble up from somewhere below the floor.
'Eat you! Why ever would I do that?'
'Because you are a dragon.' Was the only thing that Peaworth could think of to say.
'Well...!' Edward started to say before ending that sentence with a snort of outrage. The Library was filled with silence for a while as both Peaworth and Edward stood there and looked at each other, Edward with shock and Peaworth with bumfuzzlement.
It was Peaworth who broke the silence buy saying. 'You mean to say that you do not eat people?' Edward looked down his nose at Peaworth as he said
'I do not and for your information young man, not all dragons are bad. We are a lot like you humans, some are good others are not.' Once again silence filled the space. Peaworth, found that now the immediate danger of being eaten was passing, what fear that he had left ,was fast being taken over by curiosity. But what on earth could he say to a dragon, Then out of all the confused thoughts came ...
Edward was having a similar problem, curiosity was quickly replacing the outrage that he had felt about being asked if he was going to eat the young man. A hundred questions were starting to come to mind. He was in fact just about to ask one of them Peaworth said. 'My name is Peaworth.' Edward raised his eye ridges and took a closer look at this.. "Peaworth".
'Did you just say that your name was Peaworth?' Peaworth pulled a face and sighed and nodded as he said.
'Yes Peaworth Smells-All the III to be exact.' The Dragon burst out laughing in front of him, it was a infectious kind of laughter and he found himself smiling.
'I am sorry but you do not look like a Peaworth at all.' Said Edward when he had caught his breath again. 'I am Edward Bibliophage.' He said with a nod. And so started a great friendship, Peaworth and Edward talked much over the next few days and slowly Peaworth told him all about his uncle and the how and why he had ended up at his front door. And of the Finnimbrum of Bumfuzzle that he had been sent to find and steal from him.
'Well' Said Edward after a long moment of thinking, 'I have never heard of a Finnimbrum of Bumfuzzle and I certainly do not have it or anything like it. I am sorry, my friend' Peaworth sighed and shook his head,
'It does not matter and the guards that are waiting outside will eventually think that I have been eaten and leave.' Edward looked at Peaworth and made a uncommitted noise, He was thinking and was uncertain what Peaworth would think of the idea. So the subject was dropped until later that day after he had done some research.
Peaworth was just starting to eat his supper in the kitchen which looked like some one could easily have cooked for an army in it, when in walked Edward in a purposeful look upon his face and said, 'Come, we are going to the palace and putting you on the throne.'
Peaworth stopped what he was doing and said in shocked tones, 'What?'
'I have thought about this all day, you know just as well as I do what happens to kingdoms that are not run by the rightful king or queen, Things go wrong and it all ends badly. There will be monsters that will come and cause no end of trouble. The kingdom needs you to be King.'
Peaworth looked at Edward and said 'That is all true but how am I going to get the throne back in a way that does not make things worse?'
Edward smiled, 'You are forgetting that I am a dragon and we are great talkers, It was once said about dragons that we could convince a rock that it could walk. A few people should be no problem.' Peaworth looked at the determined look on Edwards face and decided that if any one could talk a rock into believing it could walk it was him.
'Ok, but what are we going to do about all of the guards that are outside?'
Edward snorted. 'If they feel like sitting and waiting for nothing to happen then let them for we are going by air. Come there is no time to lose. Follow me.'
Peaworth stood up and followed Edward while saying, 'What do you meant by air?'
'We are going to fly there. Best form of travel!' They were now outside with the smell of all of the night blooming flowers filling the air. Edward stopped and faced Peaworth and held out a leg and said, 'Climb up and I will carry you.'
'And what happens if you drop me? We humans do not fly or float you know. We plummet like a rock and then go splat.' Peaworth folded his arms as he said this.
Edward smiled and started to talk and some how much to Peaworth's amazement convinced him to let Edward to pick him up and fly to the palace. It only took two hours to fly all the way there, 'But,' Peaworth later thought to himself, 'That was the most terrifying two hours in my whole life.'
He could see the palace a long time before they reached the palace. He wondered why so many lamps had been light, them he remembered that it was the Mid Year Ball and anyone who was anyone was there. Edward slowed down and they descended down through the air. Then with barely a sound they landed in the court yard in amongst all of the carriages. Edward put Peaworth back safely on the ground.
Then all confusion broke loose. Ladies screamed and fainted. Guards ran around like headless chickens. Horses ran in all directions. Seemingly quite unaware of all of this commotion Edward moved through it all and, (with more that a bit of a squeeze and a fair bit of wall coming with him), walked into the Great Hall. Peaworth followed Edward and quickly tried to say that there was no need for worry but every word he spoke was lost in all of the panic.
After a while something close to calm was restored, at which point his uncle stepped down from the throne said to Edward, 'This is my Kingdom. Leave or it will end badly for you.' Edward looked down his nose at the King and just like he had with Peaworth, started to speak. And what a speech it was, even Peaworth by the end of it wanted to crown this downtrodden and forgotten prince that Edward spoke of.
And so did everyone else. The very moment that Edward stopped talking and what he had said had sunk in Peaworth's uncle was booted off the throne and he was crowned King. So the Kingdom was saved and the rightful King was on the throne.
The End
