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

apprentice."
    "St. George, er, I mean George Skinner, was your apprentice?" Jesse asked.
    The dragon shot Jesse a look designed to discourage further needless interruption. "That's what I just said, boy. And a promising one he was, hungry for knowledge. My fatal blunder was not seeing his hunger for what it was. He was a comely lad, too, and he had turned the head of the king's daughter, the flame-tressed one."
    "Princess Sadra," Daisy said.
    "Princess of Darkness," the dragon intoned gloomily.
    Emmy broke in. "That means she's a witch!" The dragon dust shower had tapered off, and she now listened to the story while turning every which way, trying to reach an itch on her back. "Didn't I tell you two that she was a witch?"
    "Yes, you did," said Daisy. She sprang up and tried to scratch Emmy's itch for her. But the
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    dragon's squirming made it impossible. Daisy finally threw up her hands and returned to her listening spot.
    "Go on with the story, Balthazaar," Emmy said. "Don't mind me."
    "Don't worry. I won't," the big dragon said snappishly. "Now, where was I?"
    "Sadra the witch had just become George's girlfriend," Emmy said cheerfully.
    "Ah, yes!" said Balthazaar. "At first, I couldn't believe my good fortune. George was the most diligent apprentice I could have asked for. And Sadra was every bit as helpful. She even took charge of the meals. I was flattered, having a princess in charge of my scullery, but I have always had a weakness for flattery. One night, we sat together in the dining hall, as we did every night, to sup. But on this night, one taste of her wild boar stew sent me into a stupor."
    "Sadra drugged you!" Jesse said and turned to Daisy. "Do you think that's how she keeps the dogs and dog-men in her power? By feeding them drugged meat?"
    "That's exactly what she does," said Daisy. "I'm sure of it!"
    "When I came to my senses," said Balthazaar sadly, "over a year had passed. My treasure trove
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    was gone! Skinner and Sadra had made off with every last coin."
    "Skinner stole me ," Emmy said, now scratching her back against the edge of one of the bookcases, "when I was just a hatchling, didn't he, Jesse and Daisy? But my Keepers got me back."
    "Would that my Keeper had been there to save me, but I had outlived my own Dear One by several hundred years by that time. I went to Uffington Castle to beg the king to intervene on my behalf. The king had always been my friend. But my friend was gone. George and his own daughter had driven him off, and now they held the castle and the kingdom. I stood outside the walls and begged them to give me back my gold. That was when they started spreading those vile rumors about me."
    "You mean about you killing all the cattle and sheep?" Daisy asked.
    "Yes. Maidens, too. Orphans, mostly, so there were no families to stand up for them. George made a great show of offering up those sacrificial maidens. At sunset on the night of the full moon, he would bind them to a stake outside the castle walls on a place called Dragon Hill. I would come at night and set the poor terrified creatures free. They fled and took sanctuary in the next kingdom. But their disappearance worked to George's
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    advantage. He told the people I had eaten the maidens, and he left a pile of bones outside my home. It wasn't long before he had turned my neighbors and even my dragon associates against me."
    "Hey, no fair!" Jesse cried.
    "One night," Balthazaar went on, "the townspeople came for me bearing torches and clubs. The world believes that dragons are fierce, but by nature, we're not. What is more, my powers had been weakened by that long period of morbid slumber. I found I could neither flame nor fly. The mob easily overpowered me and removed my last ounce of strength by binding me in iron chains. Iron weakens dragons, you know."
    "We know," said Daisy, summoning a grim memory of St. George trapping Emmy in a coil of iron chains. If the hobgoblin queen hadn't come to the rescue, St. George would have