“Pleased to meet you, Mistress Hecate.”
“I don’t have a cent—but I am the owner of this forest by fee simple. I did a favor for the local lord—cured his daughter of the pox—so when he moved out (well, fled, really) he gave it to me, mostly to keep me from undoing his daughter’s cure, I suspect.” She cleared her throat. “Which means I am, as is sometimes said, cash-poor but land-rich, handsome Sir Blivet, and I would like to offer you and Sir Guldhogg a mutually beneficial alliance.”
It took them a year and a surprisingly large fraction of their savings to build a fence around the forest, which although not large was still a forest. Workers had to be trucked in by wagon for all the jobs that couldn’t be performed by redcaps and hunkypunks. Then they needed another year for clearing and building, with the result that the Dark Ages had almost ended by the day the grand opening finally arrived.
“I still don’t think it’s fair,” the dragon was saying in a sullen tone. “After all, it was my idea. I led you to each other. I arranged it all, more or less. And you’re still going to call it Blivetland?”
“Don’t sulk, Guldhogg,” said Hecate. “You haven’t seen the surprise yet.”
“He’s always that way,” said Sir Blivet. “He doesn’t drink, either.”
“And neither should you,” said Guldhogg, still grumpy.
“Don’t be mean, Guldy,” the witch said. “My Blivvy’s been very abstemious lately.”
“Too bloody busy to be anything else,” the knight agreed. “Do you know how much work it was just setting up the concession stands and teaching boggarts to count?”
“Well, it was either that or putting them on display, and you know what they did when we tried that. We can’t have them flinging boggart dung at the paying customers, can we?”
“Well, I think it’s time for us to get out and meet the public,” Blivet said. “Come on, Guldhogg. I’ve got something to show you.”
Considering how deserted this entire stretch of the north had been only a couple of short years ago, it was quite impressive to see the crowds lined up hundreds deep all along the great fence, waiting to enter through the massive front gate. The dragon was all for letting them in immediately—“Money is burning a hole in their pockets, Blivet!”—but the knight forbade it until a last chore had been done.
“Just pull this rope,” he told the dragon. “Go on, old chum, take it in your mouth and yank.”
Guldhogg, who had been gazing with keen regret at the carved wooden sign over the gate, the one that read “Blivetland,” shrugged his wings and pulled on the rope. An even larger sign, this one painted on canvas, rolled down to hang in plain view of the entire assembly.
“Oh,” said Guldhogg, sounding quite overcome. “Oh, is that…is that really…?”
“Yes, silly, it’s you,” said Hecate, elbowing him in his substantial, scale-covered ribs. “Well, except we’re calling you ‘Guldy Hogg,’ because it sounds friendlier.” She and Blivet and Guldhogg looked up at the gigantic sign rippling in the spring breeze, with its huge and colorful painted representation of Guldhogg himself, face stretched in a friendly grin. “It’s everywhere, you know,” she said.
“What is?”
“Your picture, silly. You’re the official mascot of Blivetland. We have Guldy Hogg souvenir tunics, tea towels—even hats!” She took one of the latter from behind her back and handed it to Sir Blivet, who put it on with only the smallest show of reluctance. The protruding nostrils of the dragon face on the hat looked almost like the round ears of some bizarre rodent. “It’s a wonderful likeness, Guldy!” cried Hecate. “So handsome!”
As Guldhogg stared at his own face perched atop his friend’s head, the gates of Blivetland opened and the first crowd of paying customers pushed their way in, hurrying forward into the forest to see Griffin Island and Nessie’s Cove and ride on Guldy Hogg’s Wild Wing Ride, which consisted of large tubs whirling around on ropes, the whole thing powered by Ljotunir the ogre spinning a sizeable potter’s wheel assembly with his strong and astoundingly ugly feet. Excited people seemed already to have filled every festive corner of the forest, and the vendors were already selling small beer and Goblin Goodies hand over fist.
The sound of money clinking into Blivetland’s coffers put the three founders in a very benign mood.
“Isn’t this better than tramping around the country?” asked Hecate. “We stay here and the country comes to us!”
“But I thought I was going to be allowed to retire,” growled Sir Blivet. “Instead, you will work me into my quickly approaching grave.”
“Nonsense. You and Guldy only have to put on two brief shows a day—well, three on Saturdays—and he’s the one who has to do all the costume changes, pretending to be all the other dragons you slew.”