Dragon Solstice

By Nance Crawford

This new American fable for the Holidays confronts the mysteries of dragons, vampire bats, sea serpents, time travel and the North Pole with wry, heartwarming humor as the pleasant, ordinary lives of citizens in a tiny Medieval kingdom are interrupted by an angry witch “vanishing” their young, beloved royal twins.

William of Linke, the Whipping Boy, is immediately promoted to King’s Champion. Enchanted armor, shield and sword are William’s weapons. The sword, broken in half during an ancient battle, now has a double-pointed blade and the armor is too big. The enchantment is completely confusing.

When eight-year-old Sarai gets lost in the royal forest, William, with the help of Sarai’s brother, sets out to rescue her and slay the Dragon. Unaware that the two have made friends and are fleeing a witch, the knight and his companion follow their unexpectedly challenging route.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nance Crawford
• Release date: Jun 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476350950

Nance Crawford

Nance Crawford grew up in Hollywood, began working in film at age six, was twice a produced playwright by age sixteen, and columnist for a national teen magazine at twenty-one. However, for her generation, maturity meant being a successful homemaker. Five children and six grandchildren later, she returned to theater as an actor and writer/director. A participant in the initial program of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab West, she belongs to ASCAP, The Dramatists Guild of America, the California Writers Club-San Fernando Valley Branch, Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC), and is a Lifetime member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP). She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, actor David Stifel, where they serve as staff to their feline roommates, Suzette, Sir Thomas More, and Anya Fabiola Featherfoot.

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What others are saying about

Dragon Solstice

The story is everything people want a fantasy to be. I caught myself laughing out loud in a few places. It’s clever, delightful, funny, smart, sweet, charming, enchanting, and endearing.

— Saundra Goodman , Author www.gotteethguide.com

Superb writing! Charming and suspenseful! A jewel on every page! A fabulous tale for young and old alike.

— H. LaMora, Author www.findingbadger.com

Dragon Solstice

by Nance Crawford

Copyright 2010 by Nance Crawford

Cover Art by RedElk

ISBN 9781476350950

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Books written by Nance Crawford can be obtained either through the author’s official website:

http://www.nancecrawford.com/

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Dedication

To David Stifel and Elisabeth Moss

Whose Talents and Dedication

Continue to Inspire

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Epilogue

Prologue

Rosemary was shocked to find she was no longer three inches tall.

Granted, it was not the same kind of shock as finding herself without a job, abandoned in an empty kitchen, forgotten when the householder moved away to live with his children.

The householder’s wife would never have forgotten her but the poor woman had passed to her Reward six months before, leaving the old man to rattle aimlessly about, no longer master of his destiny, much less of his kitchen.

The wife had been a sweet soul of excellent housewifely gifts, more at home in her kitchen than her parlor, delighting in the invention and construction of delicious foods and excelling in the art of pies and pastries.

They had enjoyed a fruitful, pleasant working relationship, the two of them, from the day the happy young bride had received her as a wedding gift and immediately recruited the young husband to put a nail in the wall above the kitchen fireplace.

Her name is Rosemary, the wife had declared decidedly, as the young householder stepped down from the chair he had used to stand on, Rosemary D. Thyme.

What does the ‘D’ stand for? the husband had asked, placing the chair back where it belonged at the kitchen table, Delores?

The wife had laughed merrily. No, silly! For ‘Dill!’ She’s a Kitchen Witch, isn’t she? Her name must be herbs, because she is going to help me make wonderful things!

They were partners together for many years. Rosemary shared all of the delights and sorrows of the modest household. She knew all of the neighborhood gossip and all of the neighboring families and their histories, because everyone would congregate in the kitchen to sip tea and eat the always superb cookies which Rosemary helped her housewife to bake.

Rosemary had delighted in the little family, for as the children grew older, they would share their adventures and experiences around the kitchen table. One year, with much giggling, the oldest daughter had taken Rosemary from the wall and fitted a tiny, peaked black hat on her head, stitching it carefully to the kerchief that covered her hair so it would not fall off.

When the housewife returned to her kitchen, the daughters waited for her to notice the change. When she did, looking up from the bowl of mincemeat pie filling she was mixing, her daughters exploded in a storm of laughter.

For a moment, she was nonplussed; then she smiled. Well, Rosemary, the wife had said, I see you have a new chapeau for Halloween. It’s very attractive, although I have no idea when you found the time to go out shopping.

Rosemary, who felt a little foolish, decided that the hat was a very nice addition and the wife left it in place as a memory of her daughter’s delightful sense of humor and expertise with a needle.

As did their mother, the girls would carry on conversations with Rosemary while they were learning to cook, including her as a very important and contributing member of the group.

Don’t let me forget how much sugar to put in it, Rosemary, the oldest daughter would say as she collected the ingredients for a fruit pie.

Rosemary, I must remember to try a little lemon, next time, the middle daughter would say as she tasted a newly baked cookie.

I don’t know if I’m ever going to learn to do this if you don’t help me, Rosemary! the youngest daughter wailed on the day her first soufflé came out of the oven looking like a deformed pancake. Please remember, I’m not in this alone. You’re the Kitchen Witch here. How am I ever going to catch a husband if my puddings are burned and my soufflés don’t rise?

Rosemary had always done her best to help, for although she did not answer back, she sat on her tiny broom on the wall above the fireplace and sent out helpful thoughts, silently reminding the various cooks when the roast was finished or the milk was too sour or the eggs not quite as fresh as they were supposed to be. Rosemary did not ever give a thought to the day when she would face retirement because she knew that her luck and expertise would be handed down to the eldest daughter when the time came.

Unfortunately, the time did not come soon enough, for the oldest daughter had already gone away to marry. She had received her own Kitchen Witch as a wedding present and had just plain forgotten about Rosemary by the time her mother suddenly became ill and had to leave the house forever.

Then came the turmoil of the wedding of the youngest daughter and the general confusion of deciding with whom the now ancient and widowed father was going to stay. It was determined that each of his children would have his company for a while, in rotation. The house was locked up and the old man began his endless rounds of permanent visiting.

Rosemary waited patiently for someone to return for her.

The day finally came when men arrived at the house: big, blustering men who packed the dishes into crates, pulled dust covers from the tables and chairs and moved all of the furniture outside, apparently onto a large wagon. Rosemary heard snatches of their conversation as they worked.

This one’s going to the middle daughter, said one of the men loudly about an object that was in the parlor, out of Rosemary’s sight.

They said my wife and I could have this footstool, said a second man. Nice, isn’t it?

Generous of them, said the first man, coming into the kitchen. Who gets the crockery and the pots and pans?

The bride, said the second man, following with a large empty box. Mind we don’t break anything. She said she’s very attached to it all.

It was in this unpleasantly abrupt fashion that Rosemary had learned of the death of the old householder. As she watched and listened, all of the furnishings in the house were carefully packed against damage and moved outside to the waiting wagon.

Everything was moved except Rosemary.

The house was silent for a long time after that, shuttered and boarded against the elements until one morning, years later, new movers came with a new load of furniture.

Rosemary was delighted to hear the front door bang open and the sound of heavy footsteps pounding across the floor. Someone was pulling the outside shutters open as a tall man came into the kitchen and stopped to look around.

Light poured in through the newly opened window, glaring upon the generous layer of dust which had collected during years of neglect. When the man turned to inspect the huge fireplace, he saw the tiny, dusty figure hanging on the wall above the hearth. He walked over to pluck it from its nail.

What have we here? he asked no one in particular, for he had no idea that Rosemary was as aware of him as he was aware of her.

Rosemary did not answer, of course, because she had no idea she could talk; her training was in listening.

The tall man was not a bad sort, but he had no idea of Rosemary’s importance in the history of the house.

Superstitious nonsense, he mumbled to himself and walked out the kitchen door to the dust bins at the far end of the yard, bending to pick up an old and rusty trowel he discovered along the way.

He threw both Rosemary and the trowel into the dust bin and, without another thought, turned his back and returned to the house.

For a long several minutes, Rosemary lay at the bottom of the dust bin, stunned by the trowel and the cruelty of her dismissal.

And then she got angry.

She felt her tiny body tingling with rage at the enormous ingratitude and rudeness with which she had been treated. She sat up at the bottom of the dust bin and, for the first time in her life, spoke aloud.

Never mind what she said. It was not at all pleasant and far from ordinary.

Rosemary D. Thyme let out a roar of rage in a language no one had uttered since time turned the corner and, with every nasty, vicious explosion of fury, she grew larger. At the final utterance of the last syllable, she found herself sitting on top of the dust bin, her broom wedged between herself and the edge.

Without thinking, she jumped from her perch, took possession of her broom, and began running back to the house, intent upon thrashing the tall man who had tossed her out to within an inch of his life.

Grasping her broom with both hands, she ran three steps and suddenly found herself airborne and soaring up, over the roof of the house.

Stunned, for a moment she had no voice at all and then, realizing that her broom had taken off with her under it, instead of on it, her anger was forgotten. She closed her eyes and began to shriek in fear.

Chapter 1

A thousand years ha’ nowe gone bye

& sunn hath dawned in earlye skye;

Todaye will turn awl insyde out,

While peasants poynt and peeple shout:

Beware the wilde and woolie ryde!

Keep royal childrene tite insyde!

The pigeons woke him. There was fluttering inside the large cage at the far side of the round turret room. The entire family was upset; the cage was alive with agitated birds.

The Royal Sorcerer emerged sleepily from under his pile of warm comforters, got out of bed and went to lean against the cage, his eyes mostly shut. Still half-dozing, he talked gently to the birds until they were calmed and resumed quietly murmuring in the soft cooing he found especially soothing. He was not awake enough to question their far-from-ordinary behavior.

There was no point in going back to bed. The autumn sun was creeping coldly in through the window, so he washed his face and began his day.

He prepared a simple breakfast and took a generous bite of bread as he sat down to check the Almanac.

The bread he had begun to swallow suddenly stuck in his throat as he read the most recent entry on the page.

It was not the sort of thing, ordinarily, to have printed itself into the official Almanac of a perfectly ordinary little kingdom.

He was so shocked to see a message other than the weather report that he pulled out his reading glasses to make certain he was seeing what he was reading.

Something was about to be Terribly Wrong.

He read the mysterious message three times before the words finally seemed to make some sort of sense.

He had to warn the King and the Queen at once.

Jumping up from the table, he gestured a Click Spell to unlock and open the door.

He was so intent on his mission that he ran into the door.

It had not opened.

Startled and annoyed, the Royal Sorcerer stepped back and repeated the Click Spell, for whether the lock was locked or unlocked, a Click Spell would always reverse it.

The key did not turn; the door remained closed.

Irritated, thinking that he had neglected to use the spell the night before to lock the door, the Royal Sorcerer shrugged and reached forward to turn the key.

The key turned. The lock did not engage.

He had installed the magic lock, in the first place, because the great wooden door to his apartments was very heavy and had a tendency to stick in wet weather.

There was no reason imaginable why the door should not open.

It had to open. It was the only way out of his rooms until nightfall when, unobserved, he could safely transport himself anywhere he wished.

In a rush of indignation, the Royal Sorcerer flashed his arm up and down many times, repeating the spell again and again.

Nothing.

Finally, he stepped back, braced himself, and executed the most difficult Opening Spell he knew, the one that always left him with a two-week headache and a sore elbow.

He moved forward, grasped the lever and pulled.

The door did not open.

He could not wait for nightfall. In his present agitation, he could not even send a mental message to the King. Not only his message but also the beginnings of his headache would reach the King and not even a king could withstand the onslaught of a full-blown sorcerer’s headache. The Head of State could not be under a hot towel when it might be needed most.

Stopping for a moment to consider his situation, he remembered his pigeons. He could send a pigeon out the window. The pigeons were all trained to find the King, in case of just such an emergency - not that anyone had ever expected such an event - but pigeon-keeping had been a requirement of Basic Unforeseen Non-Magical Occurrences I-A, and the Royal Sorcerer was a creature of habit.

He went to the cage. Opening the door and stepping inside, he heard a sudden, loud, snapping sound behind him from the big wooden door. The pigeons exploded into a whirlwind of alarmed flight. Before he could close the door to the cage, every last one of them had escaped.

He heard the snapping sound again and turned to see the key turning in the lock. The Click Spell was working!

Running to the door, he reached it just as the key reversed itself and locked again. He tried to turn the key, but it would not budge.

Exasperated, he turned toward the window. A sudden flurry of clicking began behind him. The key was turning back and forth in the lock, locking and unlocking the door.

The Royal Sorcerer dashed back to the door to pull and tug at it.

He was simply not fast enough. Defeated, he walked unhappily back to the window, the lock and key chattering merrily away behind him.

Leaning on the windowsill, the Royal Sorcerer looked down into the bustling courtyard and tried to catch his breath. He knew better than to shout. He was far too high above the courtyard to be heard clearly, for his Sorcerer’s Den was in the largest room at the top of the tallest turret in the highest tower of the Royal Castle. He pulled off his peaked hat and began to wave it wearily, hoping to catch someone’s upturned glance.

No one looked up.

Leaning on the windowsill, the Royal Sorcerer powerfully regretted not having taken a Master’s Degree in Wizardry, instead of being so anxious to get into the business world. He knew he was not thinking as clearly as sorcerers ordinarily do, for the thumping was increasing in his head. He also knew it was necessary to act quickly, before his left eye began working without his right eye knowing what it was doing.

He left the window, placed his pointed hat back on the nearest table, and went to his tall wooden bookshelf to pull down the Codex to his Encyclopedia of Wizardry and Whatnot.

Doing his best to ignore the unending clatter of the lock and key, he followed every obscure reference he thought might apply to his situation, the task becoming more difficult when his left eye began reading on its own. Trying to make sense of what each eye was separately telling him added significantly to the pounding in his head and did not improve his temper.

It was nearly noon when a noise he had never heard before interrupted his research. He was hearing something under the continuous snapping of the lock and key. A high-pitched, annoying buzzing was rapidly increasing in volume. Distracted, he realized the sound was coming from beyond his window. As he listened, it grew louder, taking on a definite edge of shrieking. Frowning, he went to his window.

Activity had increased in the courtyard. People were running, looking into the sky, pointing up, obviously shouting.

He looked in the direction the waving arms were indicating.

A great black flapping bird was circling high above the castle, crying out in strident, mournful alarm as its flight brought it closer and closer into view.

Then, all at once, his headache-plagued eyes adjusted themselves, and he saw that it was not a bird at all.

It was a person dressed in a long black dress, wearing a long black cape and a tall, pointed black hat very much like his own.

It was, unbelievably, a witch.

The Royal Sorcerer gaped in astonishment. There were no witches in the kingdom. There had been no witches in the kingdom since the last time Time had turned the corner. They were absolutely, positively, indisputably, and definitely Against the Law.

Watching the erratic flight, it occurred to the Royal Sorcerer that this implausible person must be very new to her craft.

She was not astride her broomstick, she was under it, hanging on for dear life as she was buffeted wildly by the wind. Her unceremonious and undignified descent was accompanied by an unmusical shrieking of terror, the like of which the Royal Sorcerer had never heard before and which he hoped he might never hear again.

There was nothing he could do to help her. He had long ago been absent from his college seminar on How to Deal With Witches, Calming Their Hysteria, Etc. because he had known he would never be required to deal with any, his upcoming employment being inherited and his future assured.

He realized with an unpleasant start that he had made A Serious Error in Judgment and that his hours of research had been completely misdirected.

As the unfortunate creature swooped and bobbed downward to her inevitable doom, the Royal Sorcerer had an abrupt and unnerving flash of recollection. Turning from the window, he hurried to his Almanac and double-checked the date.

OCTOBER 31

He should have remembered it was Halloween: the only day of the year he was required to stay up until past midnight, and it had completely slipped his mind.

He knew immediate and guilty remorse until the significance of the date fell fully upon him. In a blinding burst of insight and memory, he recognized the extent of the disaster occurring outside.

He rushed back to the window.

Narrowly missing a collision with the next turret over, the twisting and thrashing figure swooped before his horrified gaze. The fluttering, yowling decline was taking her on an erratic trajectory that could only end in the castle courtyard.

Squinting mightily to focus his errant eyes, the Royal Sorcerer peered down and scanned the scattering crowd, which was now howling a dismay loud enough to be faintly heard from his perch.

He saw one side of the massive front door of the castle open and witnessed two tiny figures run out and stop at the top of the stone staircase.

He recognized the Royal Children by the glint of the almost invisible coronets on their very tiny dark heads.

Roaring his frustration and anger, he turned away, toward his locked door.

The key stopped moving.

He ran for the door and pulled with all his might.

The door gave two mighty heaves, buckled and puffed up for a moment, resumed its normal shape, and remained shut.

He dashed back to the window and arrived at the very moment the broomstick snapped to a halt directly over the gabled cover of the courtyard well, hovering. The buzzing noise stopped. The crowd fell silent.

Abruptly, the tiny black figure, broom and all, suddenly fell, crashing down onto the point of the gabled cover of the well, then bumping and tumbling down the shingles to a sudden and unpleasant meeting with the ground.

The crowd was frozen but two tiny glinting coronets at the top of the stone staircase caught the sunlight as the Prince and the Princess doubled over, reaching out to cling to each other, helpless with laughter.

Stunned, the Royal Sorcerer watched the Witch scramble to her feet, pick up her broom and turn toward the entangled pair at the top of the stairs.

Paralyzed, he watched the tiny black figure wave its arms wrathfully at the Royal Children.

Unbelieving, he watched his precious Prince and Princess disappear in a puff of Royal Purple smoke.

A cry of anguished woe rose in one voice from the courtyard, chilling through the stone-cold castle walls, reverberating in the air, as the tiny black figure sat properly on her broom.

The broom lifted gracefully. Then, with an unexpected jerk, it soared straight upward, out of the courtyard and into the bright blue sky, disappearing within seconds from view.

Regaining his senses, the Royal Sorcerer turned and sprinted for the door.

As he reached it, the door exploded.

Chapter 2

The Royal Sorcerer rounded the corner carrying two huge books, striding quickly toward the Great Hall, intent upon finding the King. He stopped short just inside the door of the hall to catch his breath as each of his eyes took in opposite sides of the same view.

Long trencher tables with bright orange linen covers lined both sides of the Great Hall and there appeared to be a gigantic silver-white Leghorn rooster sitting on the Throne.

At first glance, it was difficult to tell what specific type of fowl it was because the creature was almost completely covered with perching pigeons; it was wearing a tall bejeweled crown, its beak was in the center of its forehead, and it was holding its tail in its hand.

The Royal Sorcerer squinted to focus his eyes and recognized the face of the King under the beak.

Your Majesty, he said in his firm, authoritative voice from the back of the room.

Instantly, the quiet, sad muttering in the Great Hall stilled.

Oh, it’s you, called the King. Come along. Approach us. He waved the detached rooster tail, disturbing several pigeons into brief flight before they settled on his wing again. Where have you been?

The Royal Sorcerer handed his books to the nearest Castle Guard without looking and walked forward, approaching the Throne.

Researching, Sire, he answered, unwilling to divulge further information as three clowns and a Roman matron stepped aside to allow him to pass.

The Royal Sorcerer’s obstinate dancing eyes cavorted over the surrounding courtiers, refusing to alight on a single oddity of dress. He was walking through milkmaids, cowherds, knights Roman and Arthurian, Red Indians, Indian Indians, Chinese concubines and an apparent phalanx of obviously painted and under-dressed Zulu warriors.

If he had not been wearing bits of feathers, a good deal of dust and a generous handful of splinters in his beard, the Royal Sorcerer would have been the only normally dressed person in the room, except for the Royal Nanny.

The Royal Nanny was named Germaine Sawes but she was never called by her name to her face. She was called a good many other names behind her face, the most kindly being Tartar Sawes, because she was popular with no one except the Head Cook and the Royal Butler, the only persons who understood her methods and her madness. She was addressed as Mistress Nanny, to which she would respond with a condescension befitting her station.

She annoyed the Royal Sorcerer in the extreme because she not only reminded him of his own long-missed Nanny, without the cookies and warm milk, but because she had never once demonstrated any feminine virtues or weaknesses which might be considered charming. She was also as tall as the Royal Sorcerer, who was well over six feet, and built like Brunhilde, which was invariably the costume she wore