The King's Jewel

It was all anyone in the kingdom could talk about for months: Princess Lovely was finally of marrying age. King Kaiser's subjects were all abuzz with gossip and questions about her once the decree went out, as no one had been allowed to look upon the princess for years. Some speculated that she'd died, and the royal family conducted her funeral in secret. Others suggested that she'd been disfigured in a tragic accident, hiding deep in the bowels of the palace out of shame. The most popular theory, however, was that her beauty was so great the king kept her prisoner; believing no other soul was worthy to look upon her.

Why else, then, would he have created such an elaborate trial for someone to win her hand?

Hundreds of men throughout the kingdom - and a few from neighboring kingdoms - had already thrown their hats into the ring. Any man would be a fool not to try, as the challenge was open to princes and paupers alike. Not only would the victor have Princess Lovely as his bride, but he would be given a large parcel of land, a title, and five full trunks of gold and jewels as her dowry. The task itself was simple: all they had to do was climb to the top of the neighboring mountain, and retrieve the king's precious jewel. Once it was returned safely to King Kaiser's hand, the champion would collect his reward.

Although many had tried, so far none were successful. Most of Princess Lovely's prospective champions never returned from the mountain; the few who did were near death, often missing limbs or reduced to babbling, terror-stricken idiots. While no one could ever get a full explanation of what happened to these poor souls, one word kept slipping through their pain- and panic-addled lips:

Dragon.

That single word deterred many a would-be champion from taking the challenge outright. Dragons are fiercely jealous, you see, and they don't part easily with their treasure. Those unlucky enough to encounter a dragon and its hoard in the wild have but one choice: pray that their death comes as swiftly and painlessly as possible.

King Kaiser set out more decrees as the number of suitors slowly dwindled to zero. He doubled and even tripled the promised reward, and added a caveat that the victor would be eligible to become the next king upon his death as well. As tempting as the offer was, however, his subjects seemed to value their own skins more than a princess's hand and a king's crown. All, that is, except one.

Valliant may have been born poor, but he always believed he was destined for greatness. The fault of that may have been his mother's, for giving him such a name upon his birth. Not that many could blame her. Although Young Valliant was far from a prince, he certainly carried a princely air about him: tall, strapping, graceful, and ruggedly handsome. He was also smarter than the average pauper - or so he believed - quite fond of puzzles and riddles, and always thinking outside the box when faced with day-to-day problems.

When he set off to the mountaintop, his neighbors all cursed him as a fool. His mother begged him not to go, and his father advised that he try to die near the mountain's base so that his remains would be more easily fetched. Their words all fell on deaf ears, though. Valliant feared nothing, not even a dragon, and was certain he would return. Not just alive, but victorious.

It took three entire days for him to reach the mountain's peak, and the cave that lay within it. Valliant was still a ways off from it when the odious reek of dragon reached his nose. Although he'd never smelled such an odor himself before, he'd heard plenty of stories to place it: that noxious combination of charred bones, fetid meat, and molten metal. He approached the cave entrance cautiously, wrinkling his nose as he stepped over a blackened corpse that was still smoldering. As an afterthought, he pried the sword from their half-melted, skeletal fingers; they had no use for it anymore, and it might come in handy later on.

A hot, dry wind ruffled his flaxen hair not long after he entered the cave, alerting him that the dragon was much closer than he assumed. After his sharp cerulean eyes adjusted to the dim light, he made out the shape of the beast at last. Its dark green scales glittered like a blanket of emeralds stained with soot. The size of it was staggering; from snout to tail tip, it was long enough to span four huts from Valliant's home village. The length and breadth of its mighty wings were broader than all the sails of the king's fastest galleon combined. Its head alone was larger than he was tall, with a maw so wide it could swallow him easily with one gulp. It seemed to have no interest in eating him now, however.

The creature was coiled up tight on its expansive bed of treasure like an oversized housecat; eyes closed, long neck curled around its body, and its snout buried under its wing. The deep, slow rise and fall of its hide led Valliant to assume it was sleeping. Quite an excellent turn of luck. That meant he could search for the king's jewel freely. All he had to do was move quickly and quietly, so as not to wake the beast.

Searching for one particular jewel in a sea of treasure was definitely more challenging than Valliant originally thought. For one thing, he didn't know what the blasted thing looked like. No one did, in fact. King Kaiser was vague on the details purposefully. According to the decree, the champion would know the king's jewel when he saw it. And, after a few minutes, Valliant understood exactly what the king meant.

Floating high atop a pillar behind the dragon was one lone jewel, roughly the size of his fist. The pure white stone caught the light like a star, casting it about the cave in every hue of the rainbow. There were no other jewels that high off the cave floor either, as if it had been placed there deliberately. Surely, that was the king's most prized possession, as nothing on heaven or earth could rival its splendor. The only question remaining was how to reach it.

After scanning the tall, stout pillar up close, the puzzle seemed much more complex than it did at first blush. Its surface was perfectly smooth, polished to a glassy shine. There were no hand or footholds that he could see, and none of the cave's other natural structures were close enough to the pillar to be of any use. No matter; he didn't really need them anyway. Using the expertise he'd developed over the years climbing trees in the forest near his hut, he took off his boots, setting them carefully on the ground beside him. Next to go was his belt, which he tied around his borrowed sword and wrapped around the back of the pillar. Using the sword as a counterweight, he then wrapped his legs around the pillar, relying on his strength to inch his way slowly toward the top.

Although Valliant was quite strong, the task was much more easily said than done. The pillar was so smooth, he had to use every muscle to keep from slipping down. Once or twice, when the sword scraped its mirror-like surface too loudly, the dragon below grumbled softly and shifted in its sleep. Valliant was forced to freeze in place whenever such a thing happened, waiting until the tinkle of shifting coins ceased. His arms and legs quivered violently, aching from the strain he put on them, and his trousers, shirt, and surcoat were already sodden with his own sweat before he was halfway up. Still, Valliant pressed on like his namesake, believing the prize at stake was well worth the excruciating effort.

It took several hours for him to finally reach the pinnacle, but by the gods he did. The top of the pillar was deceptively wide, allowing him to sprawl upon it with a triumphant groan when he got there at last. He lay there for a few minutes with his arms and legs dangling over the sides, his chest heaving and his muscles crying out in relief, before realizing he shouldn't have been able to do such a thing. When he sat up a few minutes later, the answer to such an impossible riddle became shockingly clear.

Once he'd touched the top lip of the pillar, the air around it had turned completely solid, as if he were seated on a sturdy, transparent wooden platform. The king's jewel was at its center, nestled on a velvet cushion atop a small glass pedestal, which was invisible from below. Surely some magic was at play here, but he didn't take the time to question it. With his prize within reach, all Valliant need do was take it and leave both the cave and its foul inhabitant as fast as his feet could carry him.

When he tried to do just that, however, Valliant discovered the trial had yet another element to it.

He reached forth without question or thought, planning to grab the king's jewel and flee... but his fingers passed right through it. Perplexed and a little shocked, he tried again. And again. Every attempt ended in failure, frustrating Valliant to no end. His hand kept phasing through the jewel as if it were vapor, grabbing nothing but air. Before his temper got the best of him, Valliant took a step back, examining the jewel and the pedestal below it. Perhaps there was some trick or mechanism he was missing, that would allow the jewel to become solid again. While he was still probing around the edges of the cushion, Valliant froze in place at a sudden blast of hot, foul air gusting upon his back.

Valliant spun on his heels quick as a wink, and in an instant he came face to snot with the dragon. All his frustrated grunts and growls must have startled it awake, as he'd completely forgotten his need to stay silent for a moment. With an ominous growl, smoke curled out of its massive nostrils and its scaly lips pulled back, allowing Valliant to see its sword-like teeth. Without hesitation, he dove for his sword resting on the invisible platform. The moment he did, the beast bathed the pillar with a column of bright green fire.

In order to avoid the blast, Valliant had to change course at the last second, right off the edge of the platform. It and his sword were both reduced to cinders as he went flying through the air. His instinct kicked in immediately, forcing him to grab onto the first available object to break his fall. Unfortunately, that object happened to be the dragon's neck.

It roared so loud afterwards, dozens of stones rained loosely from the cave's ceiling. Valliant matched it with a roar of his own, holding onto the beast's neck with his legs so that he could shield his ears with his hands. It shook him around with such force, he feared every bone, joint, and tendon in his body would snap. As there was still quite a distance between him and the stony cave floor, he hugged the dragon's scaly neck viciously and held on for dear life. His hope was that it would eventually tire, allowing him to slide down onto the floor the moment he had the chance.

That's when he saw it.

Amidst the dragon's bone-jarring flailing and thrashing, a sparkle directly under its bearded chin drew Valliant's gaze. At first, he didn't pay it much heed; the dragon made its bed out of treasure, after all. Surely it wasn't uncommon for a coin or jewel to become stuck between its scales. The little voice within his head urged him to look again, however, and when he did, his jaw fell open in shock. The dragon had a fine, red silk ribbon around its neck... and hanging from it was a large, handsome jewel, identical in every way to the one floating above the pillar.

Before his good sense told him not to, Valliant scrambled up the dragon's neck like a squirrel, headed right for that jewel. The one on the pillar had been a red herring after all; a ruse, designed to exhaust the princess's would-be suitor so he would be too weary to fight the dragon. Well, Valliant would not be struck down so easily. Especially now that he saw through such an obvious trick. The dragon's flailing made his second climb twice as challenging as his first, rattling his brains and covering every inch of him in bruises. His fingers and hands were littered with tiny cuts from its razor-sharp scales by the time he reached its beard. With the last drop of his strength, Valliant grabbed for the ribbon, tearing it off the beast's neck. At the same time, it gave one final toss of its head, unseating Valliant at last. Valliant luckily landed on its back - which was still hard as stone but much closer than the floor - but the king's jewel was not so well fated.

Valliant watched - heartsick - as the jewel tumbled through the air and hit the cave floor... smashing into a thousand pieces.

His enraged howl was dwarfed only by the dragon's ear-splitting roar, as it reared up on its hind legs without warning. Valliant held onto the spines along its back instinctively as it once again began to thrash, but this time its flailing was short lived. Within a second, it too fell to the floor, collapsing into a heap underneath Valliant. To his surprise, the terrifying beast shrank bit by bit before his eyes; its neck shortened; its horns and wings fell off and crumbled to dust. Valliant jumped back immediately, perplexed and alarmed by the sight. Before he could even begin to comprehend what was happening, the dragon had completely disappeared... and in its place was a beautiful young maiden.

She sat up slowly, her perky bosom heaving from exhaustion and her delicate limbs shaking, as she blinked about the cave in a daze. Valliant quickly averted his gaze, stripping off his surcoat and draping it around her bare, porcelain hide for modesty. When he did, she tossed her long black hair and snapped her head toward him, her dark eyes widening in alarm. She scrambled away like a frightened rabbit, until her fingertips found the splintered remnants of the king's jewel. As soon as she saw them, clarity sprang to her eyes.

"Thank you, Brave Sir," she said, her cherry blossom lips stretching in a demure smile, "you have saved me from a terrible curse. My name is Lovely; my father is the king of this land. Won't you please return me to him? I'm sure he will reward you handsomely."

The journey down the mountain was much quicker than the way up. Perhaps it only seemed so, though, in Princess Lovely's company. When Valliant returned to the palace, the entire kingdom rejoiced; trumpets rang and flower petals were thrown, and every voice cried out singing Valliant's praises. The most overjoyed by far, however, was King Kaiser himself. He embraced his daughter with a kiss on each cheek before removing his own ermine-lined robe and putting it about her shoulders. Next, he embraced Valliant in kind.

"Today will always be celebrated as a national holiday from this moment forward," King Kaiser declared, clapping Valliant on the shoulder, "...for it is the day this noble soul has returned my Precious Jewel! Tonight, we feast, and tomorrow my Lovely and Sir Valliant will be wed!"