（外文电子版资料）Paul Collins - Wizard Trouble.pdf

WIZARD TROUBLE by Paul Collins Copyright 漏 Paul Collins, September 2001 Cover art by Jenny Dixon ISBN 1-58608-219-1 Gemstar Edition ISBN 1-58608-347-3 New Concepts Publishing Lake Park, Georgia 31636 Other NCP books available by Paul Collins: Wizard Trouble Gilbon the dragon was the last of his kind. His black and grey mottled hide testified to a great age; his once sharp teeth were now blunted instruments with which he ground his greens; his silvery wings were now somewhat tarnished since he hadnt used them much for eons; his once taut body had run to fat. He had two broken and blackened horns that vaguely resembled the spinal mounds that ran the length of his back. Tall as a stone hut and twice as long, he might at first glance seem a formidable foe. He stretched languorously beneath a towering singsong tree. Its funnel fronds whistled myriad tunes as a gentle breeze combed their hair-thin antennae. The dragon heaved a sigh of contentment. Retirement wasnt all that bad, he mused. Water gurgled from an underground stream to his left, and the heat from the rising sun warmed his thick hide that, in old age, sometimes seized on him in bouts of cold weather. Brightly colored birds cavorted in the branches above his head and at that moment he truly believed himself to be in dragon heaven. Gilbon allowed his heavy lidded eyes to close. While he snoozed he fantasised of better times - when, in his youth, he had traipsed about the world challenging knights, kidnapping maidens in distress, and acquiring himself the title of King Dragon. Of course, he admitted as his sleepy head began to droop, he was too old for all that gallivanting hero stuff now. Hed been forced to assault the Dark Lord Perdurabos Tower a short while ago, to rescue a kidnapped youth who had slept for two hundred years. Never, but never, again did he expect to put himself under such duress. Then something nudged him. With a start, the aged dragon opened his rheumy ey