The Rock Star and the Dragon
               Copyright (C) 91-95 Ted Holden




Once upon a time, on the outskirts of Austin Texas, there lived
an old farmer by the name of Melvin Sanders, along with his dog,
a number of horses, a considerably larger number of cattle, and
his three sons:  Marvin (the farmer), Merlin (the physicist),
and Ricky, the rock-and-roll sensation.  And, despite the very
obvious tendencies which three such diverse careers would have
to send the practitioners out along different roads in life, the
Sanders family stayed very close, remaining in the little farm
house.

One morning, as the odd quartet was sitting down to a breakfast
of eggs, sausages, and tamales, Ricky noticed that a strange
kind of a depression and sullenness had fallen upon his brother
Merlin.  "Why so glum, Doc, that old unified field theory gettin
ya down lately?" he asked.

"I'm getting tired of dealing with these idiot federal
people..." replied Merlin, "bunch of squirrels, I mean, there
just isn't any way to make em happy;  they want to be the
masters of time and space and rule the universe."

"Maybe you just need to take your mind off it for awhile",
responded Ricky.  "The band's goin on tour for about three
weeks...  why don't you just come along an play sax?  The CIA
sure as hell won't be lookin for ya at rock concerts, an
there'll be all the free booze an 16-year-old blond groupies you
can stand."

"Jus don't touch none of that thar LSD or illegal shit what
killed Elvis, or Ah'll tan yer hides..." interjected Melvin.

"Nah, thanks Rick, but I just need some time to sort some
things out" answered Merlin.  "Things must have been a lot
simpler for people like me back in the old days... back then,
the biggest trick in the world was turning base metal into gold;
 that I can do, easy, but those bastards don't even want to hear
about it.  You know, sometimes I almost wish I could go back and
work for King Arthur or somebody like that for awhile, you know,
really take my mind off of things and relax for about a year..."

"Think you could do somethin like that?" querried Marvin,
glancing up from a copy of the Farmer's Almanac, and beginning
to take some note of the conversation.  

"Don't rightly know" replied Merlin.  "Don't rightly know;
physicists haven't quite gotten that far just yet, or at least
if any of em have, they ain't sayin nothin."

Marvin went off to the field and spent the day ploughing and
chuckling at the thought of vacationing at Camelot.  Ricky spent
the day tuning instruments and practicing a new song with two of
the members of his group.  Melvin spent the day overhauling a
tractor engine, and Merlin...  Hard to say exactly how Merlin
spent his day, but there were strange electrical crackling
noises emanating from the converted small barn which he
sometimes used as a laboratory, strange bluish-green lights
playing on the walls, seeping through the cracks in the
side-boards, and running up and down the old barn in a kind of a
will-o-the-wisp game of tag. 

About seven o-clock that evening, the farmers in the area began
to notice what appeared to be a power outage of some sort; 
street lights went out, service to houses and buildings went
out, even the high-tension lines which ran through the
break-belts ceased making their usual humming noise and, other
than for candles, the whole world appeared to be blacked out. 
Everywhere except at the Sanders farm, that is.  Merlin Sanders
was standing on a strange kind of an electronic device,
enveloped in a ghostly, pale, blue-white light, pressing knobs
and dials on an instrument panel on one side of the device. 
Other than the light, however, nothing much was happening.

"Shit!" exclaimed Merlin, "guess there ain't no free lunches in
physics any more than there are in other walks of life... 
that's all the juice there is in Austin; I keep it up much
longer, I'm gonna join ole Johnny Cash in Fulsom Prison...
better shut it down."

At about the same time, Ricky Sanders and the two other members
of his band who were with him in the main barn had just
succeeded in setting up the latest and greatest piece of
electronic, high-powered, blow-your-brains-out rock-and-roll
apparatus which the gurus of heavy metal had yet devised.  

"You know, sometimes I wonder about this kind of thing" Ricky
said, "people used to be happy just listenin to saxophones and
ordinary guitars and drums... just give me that old-fashioned
rock-and-roll, that kinda music just soothes my soul, today's
music ain't got the same soul, give me that old-fashioned
rock-an-roll, yeah."

"Come on, Rick, get with it!!" replied Iron Mack, the drummer,
"You gotta know your clientele, man, they just wanna get their
brains blasted apart and die happy, an this baby's gonna send em
away, man, whoooooooooah MAMMA!!!!!"

"You know," thought Merlin out loud, "maybe if I were to just
patch the old generator over there into the grid..."  Three
minutes later, Merlin was ready:  "Five!, Four!, Three!, Two!,
One!..." and pulled the lever again.

"Okay, okay, let's do it!" Ricky said.  "One!, Two!, Three!,
Four! HIT IT!"

"Double Shit!!!" swore Merlin, still standing on the platform
in the barn;  "I guess I'm stuck working for the CIA for another
year!!"  Merlin switched off most of the exotic looking
electronic gear in the barn and, miraculously, the lights and
electricity came back on around Austin.  

Merlin was walking past the main barn figuring to finish off
the leftover tamales from breakfast, when he noticed the two
band members standing in front of the electronic riot machine
with blank stares on their faces, their hair standing straight
up as if they'd seen Julius Ceasar's ghost.  

"Hey man, you look like you seen a ghost!" said Merlin, "say,
where's my brother, the great rock-an-roll idol... hey, you all
right Mack???"  Merlin waved his hand in front of the two rock
stars' faces, and they continued to stand there dumbfounded. 
Merlin picked up a bucket of water from in front of an old draft
horse who didn't seem terribly thirsty that evening and splashed
it over the young teen-heart-throb's head, and the latter began
to come around.  "You all right, Mack?" Merlin repeated.

"Yeah, I'm fine, an I think Tommy's gonna be all-right..." the
drummer replied, shaking his head.  The keyboardist, Tommy, was
walking around in circles, starting to get his wits back
together, rubbing his hands over his eyes.  "Don't know what the
hell happened to your brother, though...  Damndest thing I ever
saw:  we no sooner turned on the riot machine over there an
struck the first chord, than Ricky got covered by this
blue-green light, man, an there was this kind of an
electro-magnetic shock, sort of, really knocked us on our asses,
man, an, like, when we got up, Ricky was gone!!!!!"

"Oh Shit!!!!!!!" moaned Merlin, "I think I done fucked up
again!!!"

Ricky Sanders, rock star and teen-age idol, was out cold, lying
on top of a woody knoll with a guitar (one of the old fashioned,
non-electric sort) lying on his stomach.  Presently, he began to
come around.  There were strange grasses and varieties of wild
flowers which Ricky had never seen before, and giant oak trees
and other flowering trees with vines laced in and around their
branches, and some of the vines had flowers.  Birds and
butterflies flittered and darted in the air, and pollen and
tufts of flower dander and flower petals floated about merrily;
dew-wet filaments of spider-distaffery hung through the vines
like an icy lacework.  Flowing from ledges above the knoll, and
meandering through the wooded area and out onto the fields, was
a fast-flowing rivulet with cold, ice-crystally water, and
numerous birds and small animals were splashing and drinking at
the strand where the stream met the field at the foot of the
little hill.  

There was absolutely no sound or smell of humans, no acid or
smoke or sulphur or carbon-monoxide or cordite or tetra-ethyl
lead or burning rubber or oil or anything at all man-made in the
air, no throb of tractors, train whistles, jet-engine whines,
gear-shifting, school bells, dirt-bike engines, drag racing,
rock-and-roll, or anything at all.  There was only the
twittering of birds, the splashing of the small stream, and the
clippity-hop of rabbits playing hide-an-seek in the tall rushes
and wild flowers.  It took Ricky a number of minutes for his
senses to adjust to this unwonted total lack of man-made sensory
ambience: for the emptiness itself to cease roaring in his mind.

It began to dawn on him:  "Shit!!!!" he thought, looks like ole
Merlin done fucked up again...  guess a physicist's kid
brother's always gonna be the guinea pig...  I better try to
figure out where the hell I am!"  Ricky noted with some pleasure
that he still had all of his hair, and that his arms showed no
signs of green freckles and, vivid memories of Merlin's last
screw-up flashing through his mind, decided that things could
indeed be worse and set out upon a dirt road, which he
discovered about a hundred yards down from the little hill.

Along about dusk, Ricky met up with a company of traveling
minstrels and, noting the nature of their instruments and
recollecting the 'Bob's Country Bunker' scene from the Blues
Brothers' movie, dropped any thought of introducing them to
rock-and-roll and simply listened for awhile.  The music he
heard was unlike anything within his experiences, either rock or
classical;  it sparkled and glimmered, and danced over and
around the listener much as the flower petals and butterflies
had in the woods.  It was definitely not blow-your-brains-out
music;  one only had to walk 75 paces away in order to not hear
it.  

The language Ricky was hearing in the songs resembled nothing
he had ever heard before, and somehow seemed made for the music.
 Ricky tried everything he could think of:  "Any of you people
speak English??", "Habla Espagnol?", "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?",
"Vui govoritye po Russkie?", "Parlez vous Francais?", but all he
got was a lot of shrugged shoulders and blank stares.  Two of
the minstrels gestured at the guitar, very obviously never
having seen one before, and Ricky wondered:  "Now, where in hell
could I possibly be where nobody's ever seen a guitar."  Ricky
played "Love me tender" and "Greensleeves" for them, which they
enjoyed, and, after awhile, was able to blend into several of
their simpler pieces quite nicely.

There was one word which recurred in the minstrels' speech
which Ricky began to believe he recognized:  the word,
"Camelot."  "What do you people know about Camelot?" Ricky
asked, "I've got an idiot brother who thinks he wants to visit
there..."  One of the minstrels repeated the word, "Camelot",
and pointed down the road in the direction they were traveling,
as if giving directions.  "Oh, Holy Shit!!!!!" shrieked Ricky. 
It began to sink in.

Ricky traveled with the minstrels for what seemed like the
better part of seven months, vastly expanded his repertoire of
early music, and was beginning to be able to converse in the
particular version of Gaelic which they spoke by the time the
little group arrived in Camelot for the yearly minstrels'
contests.

Back in Austin Texas, our time, Merlin was beginning to get a
somewhat better handle on the technology which had gone so
strangely awry.  One bright afternoon while Ricky was resting
between performances at the fair, he imagined he heard his
brother's voice materialize in the air above him, plain as day:

"Hey Ricky, hey man, you makin out okay???"

"Yeah, I'm hangin in there, Merl, but I was beginnin to wonder
how long it was gonna take you to figure some way to get me
outta here."

"I ain't got it just yet, babe, but hang in there a while
longer... I'm close, real close...  I can see you and the fair
and everything, but I can't quite bring things back just yet and
I don't dare come over just now, we might both be stuck there
forever...  it's gonna be about another two weeks;  any problems
or anything I can get you??"

"How about a bar of deodorant soap?" asked Ricky, an some
chili-dogs an tamales??"

"Gotcha covered, babe" and the items presently materialized
behind the minstrel's wagon, next to Ricky.  "Hey Ricky, I was
noticing those minstrels who're performing now are going through
some strange-looking theatrics...  almost looks like they're
singing about something they're scared of or something...  any
idea what that's about??"

"Nah... I could ask em..." Ricky replied.

"Ooops!, gotta go now, runnin low on power, I'll catch you in
about a week, let you know how it's coming along... bye!"

"That brother of mine, what would I ever do without him!?"
thought Ricky, "life just wouldn't be no fun."  Ricky found a
rain barrel, stripped, much to the amusement of several of the
village lasses, broke out the bar of soap and, ten minutes later
and enormously cleaner and munching down one of the chili-dogs,
approached the minstrel who had sung the song his brother had
inquired about and began asking questions.

"Dragon" replied the minstrel, "ugly sucker... teeth like you
only see in nightmares...  cold, green eyes, horns, horn plates
all up an down im, harder'n iron... big, I mean REAL big,
hundred feet or more... real fire breather, burned down old
Cadfael's barn last week, an e's got Lady Muriel, the king's
neice, up in that mountain where e lives;  real shame, beautiful
girl, only 17 years old...  the king's all broken up over it, an
only sixteen days to the full moon..."

"What's a full moon got to do with it?" queried Ricky.

"Dragons eat on the full moon!" replied the minstrel, "I
thought everybody knew that... say!, aren't there any dragons
where you come from??"

"None Whatever" replied Ricky, "I'd heard of em but I always
thought the stories were a lot of bullshit."

"Ain't no bullshit", countered the minstrel.  "Dragons eat on
the full moon, and they only eat pretty virgins and government
officials... kinda like to mix their diet for some reason.  Ate
two o' the kings tax collectors last month...  this month, looks
like it's gonna be the girl."

"Any chance of Lancelot or somebody slaying the dragon and
rescuing the girl?" asked Ricky.

"Bout like the chance o ell' freezin over" replied the
minstrel.  

"What about the possibility of somebody just sneaking in and
nabbing the girl?" asked Ricky.

"No chance" replied the minstrel, "Dragon's got the most
sensitive ears of all creatures... hear a flower petal drop on
grass five miles away... no chance..."

"That's an interesting story" continued Ricky, "what would the
king give to somebody who could get the girl back?"

"A good painful torturin', a 'angin', an a Christian funeral, I
guess..." replied the minstrel, "The accursed dragon would use
the excuse to lay waste the ole' kingdom.  Now, if someone were
to nab the girl AND get rid of the dragon... no tellin what the
king might do for THAT guy, but e'd ave to do both..."

Back in the outskirts of Austin Texas, Merlin Sanders was
entertaining a couple of visitors from the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency:  a senior director by the name of Stephen
K. Whorley, who went by the initials S.K., and a junior deputy
of operations named Charles Monk.

"You need us, Melvin, I'm tellin ya, you need us.  I mean, when
that redneck sherrif finally figures out who's been shuttin down
the city of Austin for experiments, and he will, you're gonna be
in Fulsom Prison with old Johnny Cash, learning to play
harmonicas!!"

"Okay, Chip, I assume you're gonna protect me from all of that
evil bullshit as usual..." replied Merlin, "but you still
haven't told me what you want out of it.  I kind of assumed you
two were still interested in time travel, but I'm telling you, I
may never be able to control it well enough for the kinds of
purposes you guys have in mind.  Any rate, give me about another
two weeks and I'll have a good deal better idea of how far I'm
ever going to be able to get with it."

"Funny thing about that..." replied the G-man, "the bosses have
kind of lost interest in time travel and teleportation for the
moment... they're on a new kick right now.  They want the
ULTIMATE WEAPON!"

"What's wrong with the H bomb?" queried Merlin, "that one's
always seemed pretty ultimate to me?"

"All a matter of perspective" replied the G-man, "people used
to think the cross-bow was the ultimate weapon a thousand years
ago.  Fact is, people get used to anything in forty or fifty
years... nobody's really AFRAID of the H bomb anymore; they just
accept it as another fact of life to deal with.  The big boss
says we need something new, something so dreadful, just thinkin
about it'll really scare the shit out of everybody and have em
hiding under their beds... so that when them ol Russkies see us
comin down the street, I mean, they'll just turn white, poop
their drawers, turn tail, an run like hell!!!"

"How soon they want all this?" asked Merlin.

"Within the next year" replied S.K.  "Meanwhile, several of our
top scientists want a good look at whatever you're planning on
doing to get your brother back across... you're gonna have to
figure on doing it from one of our laboratories at Langley." 

Their business finished, the two federal agents departed.

About four days later, Ricky was availing himself of one of
Camelot's public restrooms (otherwise known as a nearby forest),
when he again noticed his brother's voice materializing from
empty air.

"You think I'm old enough to get married, Merl?" Ricky asked.

"Why would you ask me something like that?" replied Merlin.

"Hell no!, bout thirty's a good age fer marryin, an you're only
twenty-three!" chimed in Marvin, who was also listening in.

"I'm thinking, there might be a way to solve a whole bunch of
problems here in one move" replied Ricky, "including most of
your problems with the CIA.  "Where's the gateway gonna be?"

"South side of the city, about eight miles out on the road,
about 100 yards off to the West of the road itself... don't want
any travellers coming over."

"How big's the gateway gonna be, or, better yet, how big can
you make it?" queried Ricky.

"Big enough for you, I guess... what do you mean?" asked Merlin.

"I mean, how wide and how high?" Ricky responded.

"Max would be about sixty feet by sixty feet" replied Merlin,
"but I'd still like to know what the hell you have in mind."

"Trust me!" enjoined Ricky.  "Now listen good:  when you open
the gate, you gotta be in some kind of a big room over there at
Langley, tell em you need the auditorium or somethin. 
Meanwhile, you're gonna need to lay low for about a year, and
you wanted to spend a year in Camelot anyhow... what the hell,
we just pass eachother going North-South, South-North... the
machine's gonna get trashed in the process; you gotta have
another machine back in the barn, an you gotta get me a set of
instructions for the machine so's I can get you back over when
the heat dies down.  Oh, one other thing I need... can you send
me the electronic riot machine, an electric guitar with a jack
connect to the riot machine, and an Ingersoll-Rand generator big
enough to run it? need em by tomorrow!"

"You got it, Babe, but I sure hope you know what you're doing!"
 replied Merlin.

"It'll work out all right" said Ricky, "but listen:  be sure to
be all the way to one side of the gate when you come over...
we're only gonna have time to wave at eachother as we go by,
you'll see what I mean when I come by, man.  Yo Marv, you still
there??"

"Shore am, babe" responded Marvin, still listening in at the
physics barn.

"I could use a couple of Arabian or thoroughbred horses, Babe,
really fast... any chance?"  queried Ricky.
 "Not round Austin, Babe...  we got quarter-horses though...

Bert an ole George ain't zactly slow, an I could give ya
somethin to give em so's they'd think they was Arabians an act
like Arabians for about two hours...  they wouldn't be much use
to nobody for about a week afterwards..."  

"It's for a real good cause, Babe."  replied Ricky, "Do it!"

Three days later, Ricky Sanders was in the great hall at
Camelot, speaking to King Arthur.

Perhaps you could inform me, how Lady Muriel came to be
captured by the dragon in the first place?" inquired Ricky.

"The lady fancies herself something of an agronomist, or an
expert on animal husbandry..." replied the king, "I am afraid
that she was on some sort of a mission to study the dragon, and
is now able to study him somewhat more than she had intended..."

"I shall need a small troop of your soldiers, mostly just to
carry my equipment" spoke Ricky.  "I shall send the dragon to a
place which is more in need of his services than thy kingdom,
and I will take Lady Muriel with me, simply because there will
not be time to do otherwise, and I shall either marry her or
find a suitable husband for her in my own land.  In return for
the lady and the dragon, I shall send to your court one of the
greatest wizards of my own land, a man to whom transmuting base
metals to gold is but childs' play."

"A man'ld have to be a fool to turn that down!" replied the
king. "You're the first person I've spoken to with a positive
attitude in the last six months.  I was beginning to think the
whole world had wimped out on me.  You got it, Babe!!!"

Two days later, Ricky Sanders was approaching to within about
200 yards of the lair of the fiercest and most evil of all of
the world's creatures, along with a company of thirty mounted
knights, two wagons containing the electronic riot machine and
an Ingersoll-Rand generator, and the two would-be thoroughbreds,
saddled and ready, tied to the front wagon.  

"My companion told me that the dragon has the most sensitive
ears of all of the world's creatures" said Ricky, setting up the
riot machine and the generator.  "You men stand behind my
machines about fifty paces off, and do not fear for the loud
noises... many in my land willingly subject themselves to the
machines for prolonged times and, other than for a certain
amount of brain damage, do not suffer from it..."

The dragon, which had been listening to all of this, seized a
500-pound barrel of jalapeno peppers off of a storage rack with
one of his talons, guzzled it down, barrel and all and, thus
armed and loaded-up for fire-breathing, began to emerge from the
mouth of his lair.  

"Surrender the lady Muriel, the king's neice to me..." shouted
Ricky across the valley which separated them, "and I might
condescend to spare your wretched life!"

"Fee Fii Foo Fum, Lookout Mamma, here I come!" replied the
dragon, and began to unfurl his 200-foot spread of iron-lace
wings in preparation for swooping down on Ricky and the soldiers.

At that instant, one of the soldiers pulled the starter on the
Ingersoll-Rand generator and, instantly, the antique world
erupted in a myriad of unwonted scents and sounds: the
thrum-thrum-thrum of the generator and the sparkle-crackle of
electricity, and the smell of petroleum-based oil and of
gasoline being burned.  A number of the horses shied, and were
with difficulty kept under control by their riders.  The dragon
did a double take:  "Uh oh" he thought, "I may have a problem
here, this man has tamed the lightnings..."

And then, all hell broke loose.  The riot machine was meant for
Woodstock-sized parties, and was capable of simulating drums,
keyboard, and every kind of percussion and break-dance ambience,
along with whatever or whoever was plugged in at the jacks; 
Ricky opened up on the dragon with one of J. Geils old favorites:

"Somebody help me, find mah babee, said I gotta find mah babee
right now, SOMEBODY help me now, somebody help me find mah
babee, said I gotta find mah babee right now, I'm lookin for a
luv... I been lookin here an there... an I'm lookin
everywhere... an I'm lookin, I'm lookin, I'm lookin, I'm lookin
for a love: for a love, to call my own..."

Despite being behind the riot machine and away from the zone of
greatest damage, three of the horses bolted and fled and their
riders, completely unable to control them, were forced to jump
off.  Rocks began to fall and slide down the gorges around the
riders, and the dragon was rolling on the ground in pain.  "Oh,
my sensitive ears!!" he cried.

Ricky followed up the assault:  "I can't get no-oh,
sat-is-FAK-shun... I can't get no-oh re-al-AK-shun, but I try,
an I try, an I try, an I try... I can't GET no... no no no..."

The soldiers had all dismounted and tied their horses to trees
at this point, and the poor beasts were rearing and pulling
frantically at their ropes.  Birds were falling from the air. 
The canyon and ledges were echoing round and round with the
electric fire and the electronic thunder of Ricky and the riot
machine, and 

static flash and discharge were arcing across the canyon from
end to end.  The dragon was writhing in agony, his tail
hammering the ground in convulsive spasms, smoke and flame
pouring from his ears and nostrils.

And then, borrowing a leaf from the Beatles' White Album, Ricky
applied the coup-de-grace:

"Why don't we do it in the ro-oh-oad???,  why don't we DO it in
the ro-oh-oad???, No one will be watchin us, WHY don't we do it
in the ro-oad???"

Smoke was pouring off the tree-tops, grass and flowers
withered, turned brown and died before the horrified eyes of the
soldiers.  More rock slides crashed and roared up and down the
ledges and gorges round and about the dragon's lair, and the
dragon was out cold on the canyon floor.

Of the thirty soldiers, there remained twelve who had not
either fled with their horses or passed out along with the
dragon.  "And hast thou indeed slain the dragon?"  queried the
captain.

"You kidding me?" replied Ricky, "you don't KILL something like
that, c'mon man, we got about fifteen minutes."

Three minutes later, Ricky and Lady Muriel were on the two
quarter horses, hell-bent-for-leather headed out towards the
South road, with the twelve soldiers on English horses about a
hundred yards behind.

"I hope thou hast some means of earning thy living other than
by thy singing..." the lady shouted at Ricky, "in truth, I like
not hearing of any man STARVING."

"I'm considered a very great minstrel in my own land, lady,"
replied Ricky, "but I suspect you will find many surprises in my
land."

Meanwhile, back on the canyon floor, the dragon was coming
around and, noting the riot machine lying abandoned and untended
across the canyon, took deadly aim with his jalapeno fortified
breath and burned it to cinders.  "Oh ho" he chuckled to
himself, "those rotten sons-of-bitches are gonna pay now!" and,
so saying, unfurled his mighty wings and took to the air in hot
pursuit.

The dragon began to catch up with Ricky and Lady Muriel about
seven and three quarters miles due South of Camelot on the old
road.  The six soldiers whose horses had been able to stand the
pace fell away to either side at Ricky's orders, and the dragon
prepared for his final swoop;  in his haste and rage, he did not
notice an eerie blue rectangle of pale light which appeared to
hang, shimmering, like a mirage or a will-o-the-wisp city gate
of some sort a hundred yards to one side of the road.  Ricky and
Lady Muriel headed straight into the rectangle, and the dragon
followed in pursuit.

Ricky caught a fleeting glimpse of his brother, Merlin, as they
passed each other in the gateway.  "Is that ultimate enough for
em!?!?" Ricky shouted, gesturing at the pursuing dragon.

"That's a real beauty, Rick, they'll LOVE it!" replied Merlin,
laughing out loud,  "see ya in about a year, bye..."

Ricky and the lady bolted through the CIA auditorium doors on
the two quarter horses and, before anyone could collect their
wits or react, were off down Georgetown Pike in a waiting pickup
truck with a horse-trailer behind, just blending into the
scenery on their way back to Texas.

The Dragon landed smack in the middle of the CIA auditorium in
a hate-blinded, screaming rage.  S. K. Whorley headed towards
the door and tried to run, but the dragon seized him in a talon
and bolted him down without bothering to chew him and, then,
seized and tore apart three secret operatives who had been
sitting around waiting for events, listening to the GreaseMan,
D.C.-101 on one of the little boom-boxes which had been cropping
up in government offices.  "I HATE rock-and-roll!!!!!" screamed
the dragon, "and what I hate, I KILLLLLLLL!!!!!!  I eat virgins
and government officials, and I eat once a month on the full
moon;  you turkeys are gonna have to feed me for the next three
hundred years!!!!!"

Lady Muriel, the agronomist, fell madly in love with Ricky's
brother Marvin, and they were married about four months later. 
You might see them out roping cattle on the Sanders' ranch near
Austin.

Ricky is out having a good time playing old fashioned
rock-and-roll with real guitars and saxophones and,
occasionally, some very strange music with old instruments at
Renaissance festivals and SCA events.  About six months ago,
Ricky met the inventor of the riot machine and just beat the
SHIT out of him.

Merlin Sanders stayed at Camelot for about a year before coming
back and, occasionally, returns there for weekend visits; 
indeed, the legends of Camelot actually mention him.

Indeed, this story appears to have had a happy ending for all
participants;  all except for a certain Charles (Chip) Monk and
his companions at the CIA, that is.  They spend their days
searching for pretty virgins in and around Washington D.C., but
they're not having much luck at it.  In fact, the dragon has
eaten seventeen of their branch chiefs, five division chiefs,
and two assistant deputy directors, and they're in quite a
state.  

They have even gone so far as to run the following
advertisement in "Mademoiselle" and "Seventeen" magazines:

"Wanted:  Pretty, patriotic virgins who would enjoy serving
their country and gaining expertise in the problems of modern
government:  Dial 1-800-IMA-FOOL"

They are not, however, getting many takers, and readers who fit
the description would do well not to respond to this ad should
they ever encounter it.



                              FINIS