Free Dragon Keepers #3: The Dragon in the Library by Kate Klimo Page A

hauling something down, arm over arm. Soon a huge stack of parchment bound on the long side sailed down from on high and settled on the floor in front of them with a deep, musty-smelling sigh.
    It was very big, even for this collection, but it wasn't much to look at. Unlike all the other books, this one had no colorful leather cover, and its pages were stained and ragged and torn.
    "What happened to its cover?" Jesse wanted to know.
    "I know. It's rather a pitiful sight, isn't it? (But never judge a book by its cover or lack thereof, I always say, don't I? I do!) We've offered to tidy him up and even give him a dashing one hundred percent synthetic cover to replace the one he's lost, but no, he prefers to bare himself in all his battle-scarred splendor. I'm sure he'll be more than eager to recount in colorful detail how he got this way. (He never misses a chance, does he? He doesn't!)" Willum Wink tapped his toe, cleared his throat, and called out: "Balthazaar? Yoo-hoo! Balthazaar of Belvedere, come forth. Eager readers await you!"
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    Chapter 6 CHAPTER SIX BALTHAZAAR'S STORY
    The stack of pages ruffled sluggishly, then went still again.
    The shelf elf squinted hard. "Really?" he said. "You say you are not in the mood for storytelling? Even for the Dragon Keepers of Emerald of
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    Leandra and the hatchling herself?"
    Jesse and Daisy watched as a cloud of dark gray mist bubbled out of the parchment and formed itself into an enormous ghostly black dragon. A deep voice rumbled forth from the mouth of the giant apparition: "The long and short of it was, I was duped." In his ghostly face, his eyes, dark red as garnets, seethed with indignation.
    "Do start at the beginning, please. (They'll skip ahead to the climax, if you don't watch them, won't they? They will!)" The shelf elf leaned against a bookcase, his long arms seeming to have lost all their bones as he flung them casually around his neck like the ends of a scarf.
    "Very well," said Balthazaar. "Mine is the story of George Skinner and his lady, although I use the term loosely."
    Jesse and Daisy settled themselves cross-legged on the floor of the Scriptorium, ready to listen.
    "So is this the true story of St. George the Dragon Slayer?" Daisy asked. "We read one version of it already on the Internet."
    "Not my version, you didn't!" The red eyes gleamed like a pair of reflectors caught in headlights. "What you read is their story: a pack of bald-faced lies. My story is the truth. In my story, George is no hero on a white steed. He is not even a knight.
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    And in this hallowed place, we don't even mention the words 'saint' and 'George' in the same breath."
    "Then if he wasn't--excuse me, please, just this one time-- St. George," Jesse asked, "then who was he?"
    "He started out in life as George Skinner, the tanner's boy, scraping the rotting flesh from the skins of carcasses. No matter how many riches he accumulated, he never lost the stench of the tanning vat. It is the smell of death."
    Daisy, remembering St. George's breath, thought she knew the smell all too well.
    "And who was I?" asked the dragon. "I was a sorcerer."
    "Wait a minute. You mean a human sorcerer?" Jesse asked.
    Daisy nodded, the same question on her mind as she imagined a robed figure with a conical cap and a magic wand.
    Balthazaar spat contemptuously. "I was a real sorcerer. Those clowns in the peaked hats were mere students of dragon sorcerers. But of all the powerful dragon sorcerers in all the domains, none was more powerful than I. People journeyed from far and wide to consult with me, and my rates were always reasonable and fair. I had been practicing for hundreds of years and had amassed sufficient
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    wealth to buy the petty kingdom of Uffington a thousand times over.
    "That was my first mistake, to hoard my treasure in plain sight when I should have hidden it...but what are riches for if not to flaunt?"
    "What was the second mistake you made?" Daisy asked.
    "Taking on George Skinner as my