The King of the Hummingbirds Read online

  “Eddie’s fat,” the king said happily.

  “That’s true,” said the queen, softening. “Make somebody a good husband.”

  Two or three weeks later, Eddie went back to the castle and said, “How’d it turn out, man?”

  The guards looked at each other and shrugged.

  “You know,” Eddie said, “the rose.”

  Still they looked blank. “You sure it’s one of us you talked to, not the cat that works nights?”

  Eddie laughed. “Hey come on, you guys, don’t kid around. You got my rose someplace?”

  “Man, if there was a rose around here we’d see it, you dig? Look how clean we keep it.” They waved for him to look around the gatehouse. But the elves slipped the rose from under the visitors’ book up onto the top of the table and Eddie saw it. It was smashed a little from being under the book, but it still wasn’t withered.

  “Oh, there it is,” Eddie said. “Good as new, too. Mind if I take it to the princess?”

  “You kidding?” the guards said. “Tonight’s her wedding night.”

  Eddie looked horrified, his eyes as round as his glasses, and so the guards took pity on him.

  “Dude came along with this pear,” the guards said. “It wasn’t much, you ask me. But the king was bored with the whole thing, so he decided to allow it. It’s a crying shame, you ask me, brother. This dude that got her, he looks like a bear in clothes.”

  “Oy!” Eddie said. He put his hands to the sides of his head. After a while he said, “Maybe I could slip the rose in under her door?” He had to wipe his glasses. The guards were sorry for him.

  “We don’t see you pass, we can’t very well stop you, brother,” they said. They looked up at the trees and started humming, jiving with the birds. Eddie stood there in a moral quandary. The elves got a running jump and gave him a shove, and in he went.

  When he knocked on the princess’s door, a funny thing happened. He’d just finished knocking, and the princess was just starting to open the door when, zap, a pear tree grew out of the rose.

  “Wow,” said Eddie, and lowered his eyebrows and looked at it.

  “You knocked?” said the princess. Then she saw the pear tree, loaded with pears, the most beautiful pears in the world. “Say!” she said.

  “I thought you’d like—” Eddie began.

  “One sec,” said the princess. She went back inside, where there was a man. “Rupert,” she said, “I have the worst headache. Do you mind?”

  He left. He looked like a bear in clothes.

  The princess smiled and said, “Come on in, tall dark and handsome. Excuse me just a sec, while I slip into something more comfortable.”

  He pretended to salute, hand cupped; it was a gesture he had.

  “Where do you want the pear tree?” Eddie asked.

  The elves laughed with glee. They were so happy they turned the perfect pears into diamonds and rubies; but when the princess came back she was disappointed, so they turned them back to pears. Except for one, which remains a ruby to this day, and if you want to know more, put out some milk and ask for Irving.

  The Gnome and

  the Dragon

  Once upon a time, in a strange country, there lived an incredibly ugly little gnome who was a great artist, changing the world around any way he pleased, whether from boredom or for nobler reasons. Reality was putty in the clever gnome’s hands, as it would be in the hands of a whittler or a fiddler or a teller of moralizing tales. He could change anything to anything and could even change himself to anything, or even into twenty things at once. He changed reality so frequently by his magic that in the end he lost track of it, for all he ever thought was “What might I change this into?”

  He lived all alone in a cave in the side of a mountain, and for years he never saw a living soul except his billy goat, because every time he heard footsteps coming, whether it was something real or something he’d created, he hid, sometimes by changing himself into thin air, sometimes by changing whatever it was into thin air, and sometimes by means more ingenious. The only thing he couldn’t seem to change was, for some reason, dragons. And so he kept changing things to other things, insofar as possible, and refusing to look. It was just as well. It was by now the most curious country in the world, where the magic was out of control completely, and if the gnome had looked to see what creature was approaching him, real or otherwise, he might well have been frightened into his grave.

  Sometimes what he would have seen would have been a dragon blowing smoke and fire and burning up the grass in front of him, making a road. Sometimes he would have seen two dragons, and sometimes three, or thirty, or three thousand. The whole country was crawling with dragons, as if somebody couldn’t get enough of them, and all the people and all the birds and animals were terrified of them, including the billy goat, the gnome’s only friend in the world. When the people of that country saw a dragon, they would shake so badly they’d set off small earthquakes. It was terrible. The only creature in the whole country who didn’t shake (not counting the dragons) was the gnome. The reason was not so much that he was brave as that he was afraid of everything, whether or not he’d created it in the first place—rabbits, mice, chickens, even clock towers—but only mildly afraid, never having looked to see how bad it really was and knowing, moreover, that however ugly the thing might be, it wasn’t as ugly as his own black-bearded, warty face, which was his main inspiration. He had, it should be added, an unusually strong constitution and couldn’t be hurt too much by dragon fire. Besides, he knew the thing might not be there at all; more likely than not it was some magic he’d made up that had slipped his mind. So he merely shivered and hid, then went about his business.

  The billy goat noticed how calm the gnome was, all things considered, when a dragon came near, and he thought about it, being very sly. He thought, “I ought to be able to make some use of this. It would make me my fortune.” But he couldn’t think exactly how to use it, though he thought and thought.

  One day the king said, “That’s enough! Those dragons are everywhere! I don’t get a moment’s peace! I decide to go riding and I find my horses are shaking so badly I can’t sit on them. I decide to go dancing and I discover the band is too shaky to play anything but Greek. Death to the dragons!”

  The people cheered, but when they asked the king how he meant to get rid of the dragons, he had no idea. The king said, “I’ll give half my kingdom to whoever gets rid of the dragons.”

  The people all sighed. Who’d want such a mixed-up kingdom? But the billy goat, who was deeply, moaningly in love with the princess, scratched his chin and said, “How about the ‘daughter’s hand in marriage’ part? ”

  “That too,” said the king, not registering the fact that it was a billy goat who spoke. “Naturally. It goes without saying.”

  “Ah!” said the billy goat, and went home.

  That night, when the gnome and the billy goat were eating supper, the billy goat said, “Well, well. So tonight’s the night of the royal masked ball.”

  If there’s one thing a gnome can’t resist—even the shyest of gnomes—it’s a royal masked ball. The elegance, the formality, the art of it all! And then—the best part—the gnome shows his horrible, horrible face at the center of all that grandeur and tinsel and sham, and the people go screaming and flying from the castle in hysterics, crying “Spoiler! Ruiner!” It makes a gnome so happy he feels downright faint.

  “Ball?” said the gnome noncommitally.

  The billy goat nodded.

  “Hmm,” said the gnome. He felt very nervous. Self-satisfied hermit that he was, he hated the thought of facing all those people, and yet—

  “A ball, you say,” he said.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the billy goat said. “Forget it. They’re all in disguise, in hopes that if any gnome shows up the disguises will scare him to death. Their disguises will be so terrible you’ll probably run from the guests before they even get a look at you.” He chuckled.

>   “That’s what you think,” said the gnome.

  “Well all right,” said the billy goat, and shrugged. “I’ll tell you where the ball is.” And the billy goat directed his old friend to Dragons’ Mountain. When the gnome was gone, the billy goat laughed and laughed.

  The gnome found the dragons dancing in a ring in the center of the mountain, and thinking they were merely the king and his court in disguise, he walked right up to them, shy as he was, and looked them in the eye. To his great surprise they spit oily fire at him until his clothes were as black as soot. The gnome stamped his foot in anger and thought, “So!”

  When the gnome got back to his own cave, the billy goat was sitting by the fire, and he too was black as soot, as if the same thing that had happened to the gnome had happened to everybody and it was certainly nothing special.

  The gnome took a deep breath, not sure what was up, and all he could say was, “Billy goat, I expected more of you.” And went to bed.

  The billy goat stayed up late, chuckling and thinking.

  The next night the billy goat said, “Well, well. So tonight’s the night of the dooloo.”

  “Oh?” said the gnome.

  If there’s one thing a true gnome hates and detests, it’s not knowing what somebody’s talking about.

  “It’s tonight, is it?” the gnome said, not letting on that he didn’t know about dooloos.

  “Mmmm,” said the billy goat indifferently.

  “Where is it?” inquired the gnome.

  As if wearily, the billy goat gave him directions, and although the directions sounded familiar, the gnome listened with all his ears, intending to go there and find out what the devil a dooloo was. He carefully followed the billy goat’s directions, and sure enough, he ended up at Dragons’ Mountain.

  This time the dragons were waiting for him, and before he was halfway up the mountain, they rained down fire on him, and in a minute his clothes were black as soot and the hair of his beard was singed. He screamed with rage and pounded his fists and cried, “So!”

  When he got home the billy goat was sitting by the fire looking calm and collected, though his beard was singed and he too was as black as soot.

  “Billy goat,” the gnome began.

  But the billy goat said, “Well! So you’ve been wallawalled again!”

  “Wallawalled?” said the gnome.

  “Don’t you know what ‘wallawalled’ means?” the billy goat asked innocently.

  “Of course I do. Certainly!” said the gnome. Then, hastily, he went to bed.

  Gnomes are no better than they might be, and neither are billy goats. Nevertheless, the gnome was not so stupid that he fell for the billy goat’s trick on the third night.

  The billy goat said, touching his beard with his right front hoof, “Well, well! So tonight’s the night of the princess’s pig roast!”

  If there’s one thing a gnome is totally indifferent to, it’s a pig roast; and if there’s another thing he’s indifferent to, it’s a princess. He felt, naturally, a strong temptation not to go to the princess’s pig roast. But knowing that the billy goat was perhaps out to trick him—either into going or else into not going (he couldn’t make out which)—he knew he must somehow do neither. He thought and thought.

  “Where is it?” he said.

  Indifferently, the billy goat gave him the same directions he’d given him last night and the night before—to Dragons’ Mountain.

  “So!” thought the gnome.

  Then the gnome said, “How I wish I could go!” And then he said, “I know! I’ll change you into me and me into you and then you can go.”

  “But I don’t want to,” the billy goat said.

  “But you don’t have to,” said the gnome. “You’ll be home all the time, because you’ll be me, if you see what I mean.”

  The billy goat was no great logician, and it seemed to him he was trapped. At last, shaking like a leaf, the billy goat set out—changed into the outward appearance of the gnome—for Dragons’ Mountain. “Old friend gnome,” he said as he set out, “I expected more of you.” Still, having no choice in the matter so far as he could see, he stepped gingerly on, and each rock he passed was darker and more ominous than the last. “Soon,” he thought, “I will be at Dragons’ Mountain. How ridiculous and sad!”

  Meanwhile, back in the cave, the gnome chuckled at the trick he’d played on his old friend the billy goat. But little by little his chuckling stopped. The billy goat was, for better or worse, the only friend he had; and the gnome was not quite sure a billy goat superficially disguised as a gnome would have the tolerance for fire that a gnome had. “Suppose something should happen to my old friend!” he thought. Finally, leaping to his feet, he threw on his scarf and hurried toward the mountain.

  Sure enough, when the gnome disguised as a billy goat got to Dragons’ Mountain, there was his old friend the billy goat, disguised as a gnome, plodding sadly up the path toward the dragons’ lair; and behind every tree, waiting until the billy goat disguised as a gnome should be surrounded, lurked a leering dragon.

  The gnome disguised as a billy goat had no idea what to do, but he knew that in a moment those fires would start shooting and it would be goat roast. Before he stopped to think of a plan, the gnome disguised as a billy goat found himself rushing with his goat horns lowered straight at the nearest of the dragons who, that moment, had turned his great spiny red and gold back. His goat horns threw the dragon high in the air, and the other dragons were so startled that they ran like sheep into a huddle. There they stood looking stupidly around to see what had caused all that terrible commotion. All at once they saw—really saw—the incredible ugly little gnome (really the billy goat), and it came to all of them at once that they’d never seen anything so ugly in their lives. They all began running in frantic circles, sometimes running into trees, sometimes running into boulders, sometimes running into each other. With each collision another dragon or two exploded, and the people watching from down in the valley thought for sure it was the end of the world. Soon all the dragons lay feet up, dead. With the last explosion, the mountain gave a shudder and collapsed on them and covered them completely.

  The gnome turned himself back into himself and turned the billy goat back into the billy goat.

  The gnome said, “Let this be a lesson to you, goat.”

  The billy goat apologized, but all the way home he smiled blissfully, thinking of the princess.

  The next day, the billy goat went to see the king.

  “Well,” said the billy goat, “I got rid of those dragons for you. I’d like my reward.”

  “There’s no such things as dragons,” the king said, and tapped his large black pipe.

  “What?” cried the billy goat, incredulous.

  But no matter what the billy goat said, the king went on stubbornly acting as if he’d never heard of any dragons—changing all the rules with reckless abandon and insisting he’d never promised anyone half the kingdom or his daughter’s hand in marriage. “That would be insane,” he said.

  The billy goat was furious and stomped until the palace—if it was a palace—shook. But the king merely smiled. “Let this be a lesson to you,” he said, and the voice seemed familiar.

  Now the billy goat was angrier than ever, realizing all at once that the king was really none other than the gnome, that the whole thing was fantasy and illusion! Then, abruptly, the billy goat stopped his stamping and dropped his mouth open, for he’d remembered that he himself was also the gnome. But if gnomes feel indifferent toward beautiful princesses, how could it be that—and now, horribly, it all came clear to him, and he burst out crying. He was also, obviously, the beautiful princess. “No question about it,” said the gnome tragically, and struck his forehead with his hoof, “we’ve got to stop this fooling around and get back in touch.”

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable r
ight to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1977 by Bosydell Artists Ltd.

  illustrations copyright © 1977 by Michael Sporn

  cover design by ORIM

  ISBN: 978-1-4532-0334-7

  This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media

  180 Varick Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com

  EBOOKS BY JOHN GARDNER

  FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA

  Available wherever ebooks are sold

  Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.

  Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases

  Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.

  Sign up now at

  www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters

  FIND OUT MORE AT

  WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM

  FOLLOW US:

  @openroadmedia and

  Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia