An abiding presence in myth and literature from around the world, the dragon has been reborn in modern fantasy fiction. The classic winged fire-breathing reptile often associated with evil (they do despoil villages and demand virgin sacrifices, after all) tends nowadays to be more kindly disposed to humankind, sometimes aloofly offering magical wisdom, sometimes actively involved in human lives, whether as a servant or friend. In this volume, originally compiled exclusively for the members of the Science Fiction Book Club and not available in stores, editor Marvin Kaye has skillfully gathered brand-new contributions to the hoard of dragon lore by five top fantasy authors. Orson Scott Card---an expert at writing from a child's point of view, as evidenced in his bestsellingEnder's GameandEnder's Shadow---offers a gothic yarn set in contemporary suburbia. "In the Dragon's House" tells about the mysterious dragon that lives in the wiring of an old house, palpable only to a young boy who in dreams shares its body and feels its true size and power. But what does it really want? Mercedes Lackey, prolific author of the Valdemar saga, writes of a slave boy who is chosen to care for a warrior's dragon. Vetch (and the reader) will learn much about dragon behavior . . . and this special dragon's secrets may be the key to his freedom. (Lackey was so taken by young Vetch that she expanded his adventures into a novel with the same name as this story---"Joust.") Tanith Lee is no stranger to dragons, which appear quite often in her award-winning fantasies. The fable "Love in a Time of Dragons" is imbued with her signature atmosphere---Old World, moody, erotic-as a kitchen maid goes a-questing with a handsome champion to slay the local drakkor. But the tale takes a surprising twist. . . . Elizabeth Moon, author of the popular Esmay Suiza and Heris Serrano series, takes a break from military science fiction to give us the tale of a young man forced by lies to flee his village . . . into an adventure of dwarfs and dragonspawn, of trust and wisdom, and, ultimately, af0 "Judgment." Rounding off the collection is Michael Swanwick's "King Dragon," a strange amalgam of twentieth-century technology and faery magic, in which the award-winning author invokes a truly sinister and repellent creature-a being with the soul of a beast and the body of a machine-part metal, part devil . . . all-merciless.

Marvin Kaye is the author and editor of more than forty books, including The Game Is Afoot: Parodies, Pastiches, and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes and The Resurrected Holmes: New Cases from the Notes of John H. Watson, M.D. He lives in New York City.

Introduction Firedrakes Fierce and Friendly

(6)

In the Dragon's House

(38)

Orson Scott Card

Judgment

(68)

Elizabeth Moon

Love in a Time of Dragons

121

(56)

Tanith Lee

Joust

177

(66)

Mercedes Lackey

King Dragon

243

(52)

Michael Swanwick

Afterword Have I Got a Dragon for You!

295

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Excerpts

Mix one oddly endearing family with one oddly unsettling old house and add something unspoken with wings, and you have the elements of this, our initial story, by Hugo and Nebula winner Orson Scott Card, gifted author of the award-winning novelsEnder's Gameand its sequel,Speaker for the Dead. A native of Washington State, Scott, as he prefers to be called, has written novels of fantasy, revisionist fable, and science fiction. His numerous short stories have appeared inAmazing Stories, Analog, Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, andOmni. His tale "Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory" is a classic of twentieth-century horror. "In the Dragon's House," though complete unto itself, contains the germ of a story that Scott intends to expand into a novel. In a fit of romantic excess, the builder of the house at 22 Adams gave this lovely street of grand Victorian mansions its one mark of distinctiona gothic cathedral of a house, complete with turrets, crenellated battlements, steep-pitched roofs, and even gargoyles at the downspouts. One of the gargoylesthe one most easily visible to those who approached the front doorwas a fierce dragon's head. In a thunderstorm the beast spewed great gouts of water, for it collected from the largest expanse of roofs. But this wet wyrm was no less to be avoided than its mythical fire-breathing forebears. Inside the house, however, there was no attempt to be archaic or fey. Electricity was in the house from the beginning. In fact, it was the first house in Mayfield to be fully wired during construction, and the owner spared no expense. Knobs and wires were concealed behind the laths, and every room of any size had not just one electric outlet but fourone in each wall. A shameless extravagance. What would anyone ever need so many outletsfor? As the house was going up, passersby were known to tut-tut that the house was doomed to burn, having so much fire running up and down inside the walls. But the house did not burn, while others, less well wired, sometimes did, as their owners overloaded circuits with multipliers and extension cords to make up for the electrical deficiency. Between the gargoyle and the rumors of future fire, it was inevitable that the neighbors would call it "the dragon house." During the 1920s the moniker changed a little, becoming "The Old Dragon's House," for during that time the owner was an old widowerthe son of the original builderwho valued his privacy and had no concern for what the neighbors thought. He let the small garden surrounding the house go utterly to seed, so it was soon a jungle of tall weeds that offended the eye and endlessly seeded the neighbors' gardens. When helpful or impatient neighbors came over from time to time and mowed the garden, the old man met them with hostility. As he grew older and more isolated, he threatened violence, first with a broom, then with a rake, and finally with a cane that might have been pathetic in the hands of such an old man. But he was so fiery in his wrath that even the boldest man quailed before him, and he soon became known among the neighbors as the Old Dragon. It was from him as much as the gargoyle that the house seemed to derive its name. Finally, the neighbors went to court and got an injunction compelling the man to control the weeds on his property. The Old Dragon responded by hiring workmen to come and pave the entire garden, front and back, with bricks and cobblestones so that the only living things in the yard were the insects that wandered across it in search of likelier foraging grounds. The old man lived out his days and when he died the house went to a great-niece who called it, not "The Old Dragon&