The dragon laughed. No one else did.
"I am Belkis," he roared, "king of the dragons! You areonly a human king, so do not give me orders!"
"But I am sovereign majesty of a mighty kingdom," said theking, "and my word is law. I order. I really do order. And I amalways obeyed. So please do not go about burning tapestries andpeople and things like that."
Belkis laughed again, and the flames danced about therafters.
"No one orders Belkis to do or not to do anything. I amonly here for one reason. I want to meet your RoyalCartographer, Mister Gibberling. Produce him!"
Chapter 6
AND THE KING BACKED AWAY.
"That is Mister Gibberling down at the end of the tableyou just broke," he said. "The man with the white beard. Theone still holding a glass in his hand."
"Aha! Mister Gibberling! So we meet at last!" snarledBelkis. Mister Gibberling, who was indeed an old man, roseslowly to his feet.
"Uh I don't quite understand ..." he began.
"You are the one who is giving dragons a bad name," saidBelkis.
"Wh-what do you mean?" asked Mister Gibberling.
"Your maps! Your stupid, nasty little maps!" said Belkis,burning the edges of Mister Gibberling's beard as he spoke.
"'Here There Be Dragons'! That is absurd! That ischeating! It is the refuge of a small mind!"
"Yes ! Yes !" agreed Mister Gibberling, putting out hisbeard by emptying his wine-cup over it. "You are right! I havealways felt mine to be quite small!"
"I want you to know that over the past several thousandyears we dragons have taken great pains to stay out of the wayof humans," said Belkis. "We have even taken to assuming otherforms such as that of the little lizard Bell, which you saw abit earlier. We do not want people to know that we are still