The Prancing Cat was crowded, its long plank bar filled to brimming with a motley assortment of travelers. The regulars sat at crusted tables pushed back into the shadows, some of them seemed never to leave.

Kant sat at a small table along the wall. His pointed hat, thin frame, and star incrusted robe would have quickly marked him out for special attention from the local rowdies if he hadn't been one of the tavern's most regular regulars, and a well known wizard, though he rarely chose to demonstrate his talents. Across the table from him sat Sir Haplet, a good friend, and oft-time collaborator in adventures of various sorts. A newspaper, open to the classifieds, was spread out between them.

"How about this one," said Kant pointing to a picture of a beautiful woman, not very much more than a girl. "It says, 'Princess captured by dragon. Large cash reward and hand in marriage, if rescued intact.' I think I know that dragon, used to play cards with him in school. I could take the princess and you could take the cash."

Haplet picked up the paper and looked closely at the picture. "You're too old for her, you are." He had two tankards of ale in him and his nose was turning decidedly red. He was not particularly good at drinking. "Dirty old man, that's what I call you. I'll take her and you can have the cash."

"I'm only twenty-three."

"Filthy, filthy old man."

"You're twenty-seven."

"Fresh like a daisy, I am."

"No, pickled like a herring, you are." Kant took a long pull on his own tankard. "You couldn't fight a dragon anyway. What kind of position are you in to dispute terms?"

"Could too." Haplet was silent for a moment. "Better than you, at any rate. You're not even a real wizard; all you can do is play card tricks and float things about."

Kant leaned into Haplet's face and hushed him. "Not so loud. I have a reputation to protect, you know." Haplet snorted. "Besides, I don't have to fight him; we were buddies in college. I can exploit his weaknesses."

"Exploit, you say. You'd exploit your own grandmother, I'll wager." Haplet said the last bit quite loud, causing the tavern's more sensitive patrons, and its gamblers, to stare at him. "Won't associate with the likes of you any more. I'll defeat the dragon and rescue the princess on my own, don't need your help." He pushed himself away from the table and stumbled towards the exit. On his way out, the barkeep tried to approach him about his tab, but he would have none of it.

"Yes, I suppose I would," said Kant and chuckled, but no one heard. He slowly finished up his drink and then followed Haplet out, paying the bill as he went.

Sunlight was already pouring through Kant's window when he awoke. It was late, so he hurried to get dressed and be on the road. He grabbed a loaf of bread for breakfast on his way out. It wasn't far to the dragon's cave, but Kant wanted to get there before Haplet did. So he jogged, eating the bread as he went.

The cave was a dreary place. Most of the trees nearby had died or been burned down, and there was no water in sight. Dragons didn't like standing water at all. They considered it unhealthy, unnatural, and unpleasant. Most even avoided rain.

Outside the cave's entrance was the dragon himself, sitting and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. He wasn't paying any attention to the road at all; instead he was watching his smoke rings drift away. Kant strolled right up to the cave before the dragon noticed him. "Hello, dragon," he said.

Huge, yellow eyes looked down at him from a few feet over his head. "Kant, I haven't seen you for ages. Care for some lunch?" The dragon's breath was hot and rank, but Kant had learned not to hold his nose. It hurt the dragon's feelings.

"No thanks, I've eaten." Besides, he knew full well what dragons ate for lunch.

"Your loss, then." The dragon blew another smoke ring, which he seemed tremendously pleased with. "You still play poker as well as you did back in school?"

"I do. In fact I thought you might remember, so I brought a deck." Kant pulled a deck of cards out of the air, only slight-of-hand, but it was always good to keep up appearances.

The dragon stubbed out his cigarette, sticking the butt behind one ear. His eyes sparkled. "Would you like to play right now? Hardly anyone comes by that will, and none of them are a challenge anyway."

"Certainly," said Kant. He sat down by a flat rock and began to shuffle. Poker, as played by wizards and their associates, bore little resemblance to the traditional version. It was fast, brutal, and relied heavily on artful cheating. Kant was a master, so was the dragon, they had been far and away the best players in their school.

"How about a wager?" said Kant. He carefully watched the dragon as he shuffled, moving his hands faster, and faster until the cards were just a bluish blur. "I hear you have a princess in your cave, her freedom if I win, and you can keep me here as an opponent if I lose. What do you say?"

The dragon was focused on the cards, he nodded vaguely. Kant stopped shuffling and fanned the deck, revealing that rather than being in any way randomized the cards were sorted neatly by suit and value. He began to shuffle again, but the dragon was no longer watching as closely, Kant had done his obligatory card trick, now the game could move on. "I have a knight too," said the dragon, "caught him fresh this morning, would you like to bet for him as well?"

"Sir Haplet?"

"That might have been what he said his name was, I wasn't really paying attention. He came at me just as I was brushing my teeth. Cursed nuisance, I say."

"Would you be willing to just throw him in with the princess?"

"No, I don't think so, but how about this? I give you both of them if you win, otherwise you teach me all your card tricks."

Kant contemplated that. He fully expected to beat the dragon, mostly because of said card tricks, but it was still a big risk. "No. I don't want him back that bad. You can keep him." He dealt out the hands.

The dragon picked his up. "That's too bad. He's a terrible conversationalist. I was really hoping you'd take him away with you." He stared gloomily at his cards, reorganized them, and gave a dissatisfied grunt.

"Well, he is my friend. What if I taught you some of my tricks?"

"Good enough for me."

They played fifteen hands, using small stones to keep track of their wins and loses. It went badly for the dragon at first, settled out in the middle, then ended in a sound defeat for Kant. He was rather surprised.

Half an hour later the dragon had placed Kant in a wooden cage. The cage hung swinging over an extensive underground lake in the back of his cave. The water was a little suppressing at first, but not on second thought: where else would a dragon put its prisoners but over a pool that it considered dangerous? Nearby were two other cages containing Haplet and the princess.

"Thought you might show up eventually," said Haplet. A sputtering torch illuminated his face brightly, and the other two cages dimly. He was sitting at the edge of his cage with his legs hanging out between the bars. His rusty armor lay next to him, covered in soot. The princess was sitting in the middle of her cage with as much dignity as possible, ignoring the other two completely. "This doesn't look like much of an exploitation to me."

"I was expecting to beat him with a rigged game of poker; he's been practicing though." There was a fried haunch of meat lying on the floor of Kant's cage that he was evidently supposed to eat. From the look of it he'd have to be pretty hungry to get it down. He kicked at it instead. "Seeing as you've been here all day, have you given any thought to escape?"

"I haven't had any luck, and anything I try the princess here just laughs at. Says she's done it all before. How about you, mighty wizard? You got any bright ideas?"

Kant was looking at the tip of his boot, which was shiny where it had hit the meat. "Bet I do." He took a quick tour of his cage finding the bars that were farthest apart. "I have one thing that neither of you have: I'm skinny."

"I beg you're pardon," said both Haplet and the princess in unison. Kant wasn't listening though; he was busy stripping out of his robes and rubbing the meat over his body.

"Do you mind not doing that?" said the princess.

Kant stopped, but didn't put the meat down. "What? Offended by the human form? Or don't you want to be rescued?"

"Not by a crude man like you." Kant resumed rubbing himself. "Especially not a crude, naked man covered in filthy grease." The princess turned around in her cage to face the other way.

"Looks like you might not have a choice." He pushed experimentally against the bars, slipped a little way between them, pushed harder and popped out of the cage into the black water below. "Have a good time, you two. I'll be back as soon as I can."

The water was cold, but the grease helped to keep him warm. Away from the torch it was dark as midnight, but there was a grayish light off in the distance so he swam for that. As he approached, the water became shallow. Soon he could walk. The lake's shore was narrow and stony. A steep slope led up from it to an opening in the wall which spilled dim illumination that looked like daylight. It was not the entrance the dragon had used to get at the lake, but it seemed to be in the right direction.

Kant crept up to the opening and poked his head through. From it, a narrow passage led up to the main entrance, which was partly obscured by the dragon. He was outside blowing smoke rings again. Side passages led into other parts of the cave, but Kant ignored those. He had no interest in robbing the dragon of anything but his prisoners.

Having made sure that he knew which way was out, Kant slid back down to the lake's edge. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and struggled to remember the relaxation exercises his mentor had tried to teach him, before finally giving up. Nothing came to mind, so he started to chant instead. On his first time through the incantation all he got was a general shiver in the water and some unusually large waves. The second time several bubbles rose to the surface; the third time was the charm. A globule of water the size of a large melon separated from the lake and floated into the air.

Levitation was the only type of real magic Kant had ever been any good at; even then he preferred a clever slight of hand, or a rod behind the curtain, but being naked and underground has a way of narrowing options. The globule drifted slowly away from the lake and towards the surface with Kant following close behind. Beads of sweat had sprung out on his forehead.

He floated the water globule, as quietly as he could, down the stone passage, out into the light, and over the dragon's head. The dragon was, as Kant had hoped, totally involved in its smoke rings. Kant stood behind him for several seconds, making sure that he would be able to hold the water still, and then stepped out.

The dragon blissfully watched one of his rings float off in the breeze, Kant cleared his throat. He had to do it twice before the dragon noticed. "Hey, how'd you get out of your cage? Not trying to sneak away from me are you?"

"No, no, of course not. I just wanted to ask you a question," said Kant, trying to keep his voice steady, but the water was getting very heavy. "But, wait! What's that?" He pointed into the sky.

The dragon looked up with its mouth agape just as Kant's strength gave out and the water came pouring down.

There was a heroic amount of coughing and sputtering and writhing on the part of the dragon until it had choked most of the water up and exhaled the rest as steam. "You put my fire out," he howled. "Why would you want to do a horrible thing like that?"

"All's fair in love and war. Besides, it'll grow back, but shall we say that for the moment I have defeated you, or would you like another dousing?" The mere thought of doing that again made Kant want to collapse, but bravado before all else.

"Oh, all right, but see if I ever trust you again. Would you like me to go free the other two?"

"That would be very nice, thank you."

The dragon trudged into it's cave, muttering unpleasant things about humans and their mothers, but just as it was about to disappear a gleaming knight on his horse charged down from the road. The dragon turned to look, received a vicious blow across the temple from the knight's mace, and fell flat.

The knight shouted, in a surprisingly high, nasal voice: "Victory is mine!" He galloped into the cave without taking any notice of Kant at all.

Kant didn't feel like being a dirty, naked man trying to dispute with a fully armored knight whose victory it had been. So he didn't bother following. Instead, he called after the knight asking if he would mind grabbing the purple robe while he was in there. The knight didn't hear, or at least gave no indication of it.

There didn't seem to be anything else to do, so Kant picked up the dragon's smoldering cigarette, which was at least two sizes too large, and stretched out in the sun to see if he couldn't dry off a little.

The knight was still inside when the dragon came to. "Is he gone yet?" he asked.

"I'm afraid not." Kant handed the dragon the cigarette. He took it gratefully. "He's probably having trouble getting in and out of that ridiculous armor without his page. He's going to have to do it, too, to get across the lake."

"Perhaps I should go give him a hand."

"I don't think so, he doesn't seem to like you much."

"Yes," said the dragon, "I got that impression." He rubbed his head.

"Besides, I say he deserves any inconvenience he gets--up to and including drowning in that lake of yours."

Kant lay back again. He was still quite moist. The dragon sat against a tree stump and opened his mouth to the sun, eager to get rid of the taste of water. They shared several minutes of friendly, commiserative silence before the knight reappeared.

When he did, he was riding his horse, soaking wet, looking quite uncomfortable in his armor, and in no mood to admit it. The princess, also dripping, was slumped blissfully in his arms. Haplet, who was not wearing his armor, followed several paces behind with Kant's robe slung over his shoulder. Neither the knight nor the princess took any notice of the other three as they galloped off.

"You should have eaten his horse," Haplet said to the dragon, as he gave Kant back his robe. "Would have at least made this amusing. Did that buffoon really 'triumph in noble battle' like he claims?"

"Depends on how you define noble, I suppose." Kant rubbed his hair, which was slick with grease.

"I believe that it's normally defined as: however people like him do things."

"Then the battle was very noble indeed."

Glasses clinked and conversation hummed around Kant and Haplet as they sat at their favorite table in the Prancing Cat, reading a newspaper. "There doesn't seem to be much in the 'Maidens for Rescue' section," said Kant.

"Who needs maidens, anyway? I've had enough of them. What about gold? I need a new suit of armor; lost my last one swimming in the dragon's lake. The blacksmith won't take my credit."

"I can't imagine why. Hey, how about this? 'Lost: pot of gold. Believed to be in cave of troll, northern hills. Reward.' I know that troll. We were in elementary school together. He's deathly afraid of spiders."

"No card tricks this time?"

"I'm sure I can work them in somehow."

Mr. Deason has spun an entertaining and amusing tale. I’m hoping for more about these dynamic dum-dums. Howzabout younz? (Sorry. My Pittsburgh is showing.)