The Prince, the Princess, and the Other Wizard

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Castle is magic, but I have no magic. Or Castle. Rating: K+ for language Time: A few months after The Princess and the Wizard.

Kate stepped forward.

"Are you Otto the dragon?"

"Indeed I am."

"I'm Princess Katherine, daughter of King James XVII who rules the Valley from the mountains to the Endless Ocean. This is my husband, Prince Richard."

The dragon bowed his head.

"And how may I help you, Your Highness?"

Kate explained their mission.

"And you would like to travel across my territory?" Otto asked.

"Indeed, we would. I have gold to pay you with."

"Gold?" Otto said. "Oh, I have no use for gold."

"I thought all dragons hoarded gold."

"Many do, but I don't. I don't see the point in it. You can't eat gold and you can't sleep on it. Why, once, a century or so ago, I visited by cousin Alphonse and had to sleep on bars of gold. My back was sore for weeks. No, I want payment in books. Books I don't already have."

"Books?" Kate said. She hadn't anticipated this.

"Yes. Would you like to see my library?"

"Sure." Castle said. He hadn't expected the dragon to want books and hoped that by stalling, he could think of something.

"This way." The dragon led them into his lair, which was a really rather comfortable place. More of a den than a lair. There was a very large, but comfortable looking chair, a table with a reading lamp, and a book with a script Castle couldn't read sitting on the chair.

"I was just reading a treatise on tunnelling and mining written in Dwarvish." Otto said. "Climb up on my tail and you can see my library."

They did so and Otto raised them up in the air. There before them were row after row of bookcases extending as far as they could see.

"You have an awful lot of books." Rick said.

"Always looking for new ones."

"I'll see what we can come up with." Rick said and he and Kate went back outside, followed by Otto.,

He gathered his troops around him.

'Otto the dragon wants payment in books. Who has some?"

Everyone looked around but said nothing.

Then Master Sean spoke.

"Um, that is…I have done illuminated…er…manuscripts…By hand, you know. But….Um…Right now…."

"You don't have any books with you." Castle finished for him.

Master Sean nodded.

"Hey, Ruiz." Pappy Brown said. "Doesn't your loader, Sobel, have a bunch of old Playboys?"

Ruiz, who commanded the tank Kaos nodded.

"Sobel, get 'em out here."

"Do I have to, Sarge?"

"Yes, you do."

Sobel tried to hand the magazines to Rick, but Kate intercepted them. She opened one to the centerfold.

"This woman's boobs are huge. Is this what you look for in a woman?" She asked coldly.

As Rick tried to think of a good reply, Kate, with Alexis and Ann, continued to look through the magazines.

"Don't worry about it none, ladies." Pappy Brown said. "As the Korean ladies used to tell us back in the day, everything over a mouthful is wasted."

That got the three women giggling and defused the situation.

Kemper spoke up.

"Um, sir. I have some books. When George Dickenson DEROSed back to the World, he left me his library."

Castle was surprised that Kemper had any books. Kemper was from some tiny place in West Virginia and his parents thought he was of more use on their hard scrabble farm than in school. So, he was functionally illiterate when he entered the Army. He turned out to be of perhaps average intelligence and had begun to read a bit in the Army.

"Okay, get your books."

Kemper went back to the track and came back with four paperback books. Rick looked at the titles.

"Sorority Sluts? The Widow's Wild Party? Surfers Orgy? Naughty Night Nurse?" Kemper, this is porn."

"But I can read almost all of the words."

"What's porn?" Kate said, grabbing a book.

"it's something Otto hasn't read, I'm sure." Rick said, taking the book back. "Anyone have more books?"

Buckley, a rifleman in the infantry squad, spoke up.

"I have a couple of books like that.":

"Go get them." Rick ordered.

"I got a couple of science fiction books." Said Witzak, an M60 gunner on one of the ACAVs.

"I got some books about the Navy. Novels. One about World War Two and a couple about sailing ships back in the day. My Dad was in the Navy, told me to enlist so I wouldn't end up a grunt, but the Navy is four years, and the Army is only two. Maybe I should have listened to him." That was Martinez, one of the mortar gunners.

"I got some books up here." Bravin said over the radio. "A couple are written by some English guy about the Brits after WWII. Pretty funny. And one of the crew chiefs has some more porn."

"Okay, come on down and give 'em to us."

Castle collected everything and walked back over to Otto, along with Kate.

"We have some books for you. I hope they're enough. We'll want to come back this way when we're done."

Otto took the books. He reached under his wing where there was a large leather pouch and took out a pair of glasses. He out them on his nose and muttered a few words. The books expanded from human size to dragon size. Rick saw that Otto was looking at Sorority Sluts.

"My." Said Otto. "This is rather…saucy." He quickly checked the other books. "Several of them appear to be…naughty."

"Maybe." Rick said.

"These will do just fine." Otto said. "Please feel free to come back this way. No charge."

"Thank you." Kate said. "My father has a substantial library, perhaps I could have him send you some more books. I'm not sure that we have anything that's…saucy, though."

"Oh, these will do just fine, thank you."

"Otto, can you tell us anything about what's ahead?" Rick asked.

"Oh, yes. The next person you'll meet is Medusa. Horrible woman."

"Medusa?" Rick said, remembering having heard the name before.

"Instead of hair, she has snakes on her head. And if she looks at you, you turn into stone. Luckily, that doesn't work on dragons, but it will on humans. Be very careful."

"Where is she from here?"

"Oh, I could fly there in about three hours. But you can't miss her place. It's off to your left and it's all white. Made of marble, I believe. Lots of columns, too."

"Can we just sneak by it?"

"With all the noise your wagons make? Not likely. She'll get curious and come and look and then…Well, you know."

The left Otto's lair and drove on.

"I can't help but think that I've turned a peaceable, book loving dragon into some sort of lounge lizard." Rick said.

"A what?"

"Someone obsessed with sex."

"Oh, like you?" She said with a smile.

"And you." He retorted.

"I imagine he'll be looking for a lady dragon with very large boobs."

Rick wisely said nothing,

After several hours the Huey flying ahead of them reported that the forest was now coming right up to the road except for a large clearing about two miles ahead of the column. Castle decided they'd stop there for the night.

"Does anyone know how fast a dragon can fly? How much ground he could cover in three hours?" Rick asked.

Kate, Alexis and Ann all looked at each other. Finally, Kate spoke.

"It depends on the dragon. But Otto is as pretty big dragon and looked very strong. He could probably go very fast if he wanted to."

"I don't want to be right on top of this Medusa before we see her, or worse yet, before she sees us. I've heard the name before and the whole snake hair and turning people to stone sounds familiar. Anyone have any ideas?"

Bravin spoke up.

"Greek mythology. Sounds like the same person. Snakes instead of hair and turning people to stone by looking at them."

"Any idea how to deal with her?"

"The guy who killed her, in Greek mythology anyway, used a mirror. She looked into the mirror and turned herself into stone."

"Great. Anyone have a mirror?"

Ann Hastings reached into her backpack and brought out a small hand mirror.

"I have this."

Castle looked at it.

"It's pretty small. Whoever uses it would have to get damned close. Maybe we could just shell the place with the tank main guns."

"Please remember I'm a witch." Ann said. "Maybe not a real powerful one, but watch."

She pulled on the mirror and it increased in size to about three feet by three feet. Then she closed it back up to its original size.

"I'm not sure using the tank guns is a good idea, sir." Said Pappy Brown. "We don't know how big her place is, or where she might be inside it, or even if she is inside it. She could be out taking a walk when we shoot her home to bits. She'd be plenty pissed."

"Okay, we send someone in to try to get her to look in the mirror."

"That's my job." Said Ryan, the LRRP sergeant. "Sneaking around is what I do. I've gone Airborne, Ranger, Recondo, and I've worked a lot with the snake eaters."

"Okay, you've convinced me. Now all we have to do is find her."

"If we go high enough, we can see for miles. Hopefully we'd be out of range for her…whatever the hell it is she has." That was Warrant Officer Peters, the senior helicopter pilot. "If her place is white, it should stand out against the forest."

"We hope." Castle muttered. "Okay. Take off tomorrow. We'll stay here. And as soon as you see something, turn 180 degrees and don't look back."

"Roger that."

The helicopter Death from Above took off shortly before dawn the next day. Peters hadn't been gone for more than ten minutes when he returned.

"We found it." He said, getting out of the chopper. "It's maybe five miles ahead. A really big place and it's all white. Looks like something out of one of those old movies about Rome or something. We didn't see anyone."

Castle briefed Sergeant Ryan.

"Okay." Ryan said. "I'll get ready and take off after noon. I'll move slowly through the forest and stop when I get close to her place. Not really close, though. Then I'll stop for the night and move in just before dawn. Maybe catch her asleep."

"Okay, but if we don't hear from you by tomorrow evening, we'll shoot the place up and hope for the best."

Ryan prepared himself as best he could. He painted his face with green and brown camouflage paint and used duct tape to make sure none of his equipment rattled. He thought about leaving his rifle behind and relying on his pistol but thought better of it. There might be dangerous critters in the woods. He left at noon and worked his way very carefully through the forest. He didn't want to run into this Medusa if she was out for a walk.

He spied her place through a gap in the trees and looked for a good place to hole up. He found a small grove of trees with a depression in the center. He worked his way in, checked her building and settled in. He ate a bit and as soon as it was dark, he went to sleep.

He woke up at about 0430, local time. He checked the building and saw no movement or indication of anything going on. He got going.

Coming out of the forest he came to a green lawn. He checked for mines, flares, tripwires or anything else that could give him away and finding nothing went forward. There were a dozen steps leading to the building. At first, he thought there was a statue on the lowest step, but decided it was one of Medusa's visitors. There was another one at the top step. He had been armed with a spear and a sword. It had done him no good.

There were no doors, just open spaces between the pillars. Going inside he heard something. Someone moving around. He moved forward and saw a lamp ahead of him and part of a dress. He moved again but stepped on a stone finger that had fallen off a prior visitor.

"Who's there?"

Ryan opened up the mirror and held it in front of his face.

"Over here!" he yelled.

"What?" That was followed by a scream that was cut off.

TBC