DragonKnight (27 page)

Greer hissed, and the hunter’s chest deflated.

“We go.”

“No, you answer some questions first. Do you know of a castle in the mountains?”

The brute’s forehead collapsed into deep furrows. “Castle?”

He looked at his cohorts. They muttered, “Castle?” and shook their heads.

“Big house?” asked Bardon.

They repeated their performance of confusion.

A voice from the ridge opposite Greer spoke with deep authority. “You won’t get anything out of them.”

The horde of grawligs gasped in terror. In sheer panic, they scattered, bolting in every direction, right through their captors’ wall of defense as if the warriors held no weapons. Some of the beasts cried out as they encountered the swords but kept on running.

Bardon turned to face the newcomer. Against a backdrop of brilliant blue sky stood a tall, lean figure dressed in black, with a cape billowed by the wind, and a broad-rimmed hat shadowing his face.

“Welcome, Squire Bardon of the Castle Pelacce, Dormenae, Wittoom.”

         
34
         

A
N
O
LD
F
RIEND

The figure shifted, striding several steps along the top of the cliff.

Bardon smiled and lowered his sword. “Regidor!”

The meech dragon stepped off his perch, dropped ten feet, and landed lightly beside the squire. His tail, glistening, green scalelike skin with a dark ridge down the center, swooped out from under the long cape, then back under. With one forefoot on the hilt of his sword and the other a fist against his waist, he smiled his long, flashy grin. Two rows of gleaming, pointed teeth showed between thin lips. His hairless jaw line extended from a squarish chin with a deep dimple in the center to the almost indistinguishable ears on the sides of his head. Even with the oddness of his appearance, Regidor was handsome.

Bardon considered the seven-foot meech dragon. “You’ve matured a great deal since last we met, my friend.”

Regidor agreed with a downward jerk of his head. “Almost too fast. It was more fun chasing Toopka around and trying to get Librettowit to let me stay up late to read.”

Bardon gave a slight nod.
Sounds like a typical, though short, childhood. I have no recollection of the years before I entered The Hall. Wonder if my childhood included chasing friends and reading at night.

This is awkward. What do I say next?

His comrades inched closer to him and the odd visitor. They still had their weapons drawn and looked ready to pounce should Regidor make a threatening move.

Bardon nodded to Captain Anton. “This theatrical fellow is a friend, Wizard Regidor of The Bogs.”

The guard relaxed on their leader’s signal but continued to watch the meech dragon, now out of curiosity.

On the crest of the hill, Ahnek whispered earnestly to Sittiponder. A few feet away, Granny Kye stood beside N’Rae, who had gotten up and was dusting off her clothing. It seemed everyone but the minneken had gathered at the gully.

“So.” Bardon shifted on his feet as he sheathed his sword. “How’d you get here?”

“Sir Dar sent a message, and I came. I wasn’t far. In Dael, in fact.”

What in the world would he be doing in the tumanhofer underground capital city? The universities! I bet he was studying.

“Yes, I was.”

Now that’s not very polite.

Regidor grinned. Bardon responded with a laugh, and the two young friends embraced, pounding each other on their backs. Regidor was more than a foot taller than the squire.

“You overgrown lizard,” exclaimed Bardon. “What have you been up to? And I have a hundred questions to ask you about those in the bog. Did you finish your apprenticeship? Are you a wizard?”

“I am,” said Regidor. “Best pupil Fenworth has ever trained.”

“I bet!”

“Well, considering Fen slept through most of my instruction and Cam Ayronn and Librettowit taught me most of what I know, it is an amazing feat. Of course, the venerable Wizard Fenworth is capable of any task.”

A sudden thought struck Bardon as odd. Greer had not told him of the arrival of another major dragon. “Regidor, how did you get here?”

“Sir Dar—”

“No, no. Physically, how did you get here?”

“I floated in on a stiff breeze.”

Bardon looked at his friend’s serious face for a moment. The expression was almost too serious, as if he were trying to hide an emotion.

No, he couldn’t have. But…
“You flew?”

Regidor’s green eyes gleamed, and he silently nodded.

The squire gasped. “I didn’t know it was possible.”

“There is very little known about the meech, including whether or not they fly. I figured I had the wings, so I would give it a try.”

“And?”

“And I fell off successively higher platforms until I eventually got the coordination down right.”

“Ouch!” Bardon laughed. “Are you joining our quest?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me introduce you to our party.”

The riders stepped aside so Bardon could lead Regidor to Granny Kye and N’Rae.

“Granny Kye,” said the squire in his most formal tones, “may I present Regidor.”

The meech dragon bowed, and the emerlindian granny curtsied. He took her hand and kissed it. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Granny Kye. I admire the wisdom of your people.”

“Oh w-well,” Granny Kye stuttered, “you see…well, I kind of missed out…on the wisdom. Took my mother forever just to teach me to tie my shoes.”

“That would seem to be a problem of dexterity, not discernment.”

Granny Kye took back her hand and propped her chin on it. “Yes, I see your point, but I’m not sure they would.” She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t make sense at all. Now my fingers are much more clever than I am. I paint, you see.”

Regidor nodded his long head solemnly. “Yes, painting requires dexterity.”

“Bardon, you will unravel this knot for me at a later time, I trust.”

Oh yes.

“And this is her granddaughter, N’Rae.” Bardon gestured toward the pale emerlindian. “It is her father we seek to rescue.”

Regidor bowed. N’Rae curtsied.

“Charmed,” said the meech dragon.

The emerlindian girl giggled.

“A beauty.”

Don’t.

“Don’t what?”

Dally.

“Why not?”

She innocently captures men’s hearts and then doesn’t know what to do with them.

Bardon cleared his throat. “I’ll introduce you to the guard Sir Dar sent to accompany us. Captain Anton will want his riders to get back to their duties.”

The captain and his riders were loath to return to camp. None of them had met a meech dragon or knew anyone who had. But their military training won out, so they took their curiosity and returned to camp.

Bardon moved to the next member of their questing party.

“Bromptotterpindosset, this is Regidor.” He turned to the meech. “Regidor, our mapmaker friend reads and speaks meech.”

Regidor’s eyes grew wide. “A rare accomplishment. I do not speak the language of my heritage. I would be honored if you would instruct me.”

“Gladly.” The tumanhofer beamed with pleasure at such a prospect.

“May I ask, where did you learn meech?”

“On the vast continent of Punipmats, there is a thriving colony of meech in a hard-to-reach area surrounded by tropical forest.”

The two would have continued their discussion, but Bardon interrupted.

“We have four more members of our party.” He took Regidor’s elbow and turned him to face the marione.

“Holt Hoddack is…a riding-animal expert.”

As the two exchanged conventional greetings, Regidor snickered in Bardon’s thoughts.
“This will be an interesting story.”

Later.

“One of N’Rae’s smitten beaus?”

Later.

“And these two youngsters are Sittiponder and Ahnek.”

Regidor shook hands with both lads.

Overawed, the boys merely bobbed their heads in response to the meech dragon’s deep-throated, “Hello.”

“I believe you said four more members, Squire.” Regidor looked around. “I see no other.”

“Jue Seeno,” squeaked Ahnek.

“Jue Seeno?”

Both lads nodded vigorously.

“Come see,” said Ahnek. He took the shorter tumanhofer’s arm and turned him toward the camp.

“He means come meet her,” said Sittiponder over his shoulder. Aside to his friend, he whispered, “Be polite. You don’t show somebody to somebody as if one somebody was an interesting cat or dog you happen to have in the barn.”

“What are you talking about? We don’t have a barn. She’s in a basket.” Ahnek frowned at his friend as they walked.

Bardon and Regidor exchanged glances, each smiling over the boys’ argument. Bardon shrugged, and they followed the two lads.

“You have the manners of a street urchin,” Sittiponder grumbled.

“I am a street urchin.”

“Not anymore!” He shook Ahnek’s hold off his arm and trudged forward, using his walking stick. “You are a member of a questing party charged by Paladin himself to rescue noble knights from an evil curse.”

“Now you sound as if you’re telling one of your grand stories again.” Ahnek stomped alongside Sittiponder. “And I learned to eat with my mouth shut like you wanted. That’s manners.”

“You still slip up.”

“How do you know?”

They stopped and faced each other, oblivious to the grown men who stopped as well.

“I can hear you,” shouted Sittiponder. “I’m not deaf, you know.”

“It might be easier if you was.”

“If you
were,
not
was.
And you don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t.” Ahnek stared at his friend’s mulish expression for a moment. He reached out and punched Sittiponder’s skinny arm. “Let’s go tell Mistress Seeno a meech dragon is coming. Bet she doesn’t believe he’s real.”

“Bet he won’t believe she’s real.”

The boys hooted with laughter, grabbed each other by the arms, and ran ahead.

Regidor turned with a question in his eye, accentuated by one lifted eyebrow. Or rather, the skin that would have sported an eyebrow if the meech had any hair.

“I won’t believe this Jue Seeno is real?”

“She’s a minneken.”

“Aha!” Regidor contemplated this. “He’s correct. How refreshing that there should be someone else on this quest who is the personification of myth. I wish to meet such an oddity.”

Bardon laughed as he quickened his pace to keep up with his friend’s long stride.

         
35
         

T
EMPERAMENTS

“My, my,” said Mistress Seeno as she tilted her head back to get a better look at the dragon standing beside Squire Bardon. “You cut a dashing figure.”

Regidor swept off his hat, passing it over his leg as he made a deep bow. The gallant gesture would have impressed royalty.

Bardon raised his eyebrows.

The meech dragon, now standing straight and tall before the humble basket of the minneken, ignored him.

“I’m honored you think so, Mistress Seeno.” Regidor rested his hat against his chest as he spoke to the fur-covered person sitting in her chair on her basket. “It has actually taken quite a bit of effort to acquire a wardrobe that has style, yet minimizes my tail and wings.”

“And this was necessary because…?” prompted Jue Seeno.

“Because I wish to mingle unobtrusively with the citizenry of the high races.”

“Your height and coloring would still distinguish you.”

“Ah yes, but you’d be surprised how much a busy person hurrying down the street, absorbed in his own affairs, will overlook.”

“Height and an unusual complexion—”

Regidor nodded. “But not wings and a tail.”

Ahnek danced from one foot to the other.

Bardon put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to help him contain his excitement. “What is it?”

“We want to see his wings.”

Regidor grinned, stepped back a few feet into an open space, and tossed the sides of his cape back over his shoulders. In a great whoosh, large leathery wings expanded behind him, fanning the air and ruffling the hair of his audience.

Ahnek clapped his hands and stomped his feet, then grabbed Sittiponder. “They’re green and glistening like I told you his tail is. He’s got dark ridges running through them just like Frost, only a different color, of course. Sitti! They must be fifteen feet across and taller than he is at the highest point. They’s stupendous.”

Regidor brought the wings forward until they touched in front of him so that he stood within a circle of his own making. Then he flashed them back, and Ahnek plopped down with a thud, stunned.

For a moment, the lad just took in the wondrous sight. Then, he reached up and grabbed Sittiponder’s hand, jerking him down to sit.

“The underside of his wings is now like oil in a puddle, dark with swirly colors in it.”

The others in the camp came to watch as well. Regidor repeated the action. This time his wings gleamed red. Once more he encircled himself, and after a longer pause, he slowly unveiled not only himself but also a beautiful female meech dragon.

She stood in front of him and a little to the side, so they faced the small crowd as a pair. Their smiles reflected amusement at the astonishment they had created. Her blue gray dress contrasted with Regidor’s black garb and blended in with his now moonlight-gray wing.

“She’s not really there,” Ahnek whispered to Sittiponder before he even described the vision. “You can see through her like she was made up of smoke or something.”

“No,” corrected Bardon. “She is there.”

He bowed his head to the female meech. “Welcome, Gilda. I see you still travel with Regidor.”

She glanced over her shoulder toward her companion’s face, then back at the squire. “He kindly includes me in his daily life. It’s much more exciting than sitting on a shelf, I assure you.”

A breeze flitted between those watching and the two meech dragons. The zephyr swirled dust into the air and bent the grass. Gilda’s dress swayed as the air stirred. It looked for a moment as if the edges would blow away, like tendrils of smoke. But the scattering substance pulled back together.

Regidor moved his wings around them once more. When he snapped them open, Gilda was gone. He stretched the now-shimmering green appendages out to their complete wingspan, and then with a loud ruffle, they folded and disappeared behind him. He reached to his shoulders and adjusted his cape.

The riders reluctantly turned away. Holt went with them.

Bardon tried to interpret the young marione’s reaction. Of those assembled, only Holt seemed disgusted by what they had seen.

What was that? Jealousy? I better find out what is sticking in that young man’s craw.

Before he could make any more speculations, he saw N’Rae leave Granny Kye’s side and run to Regidor.

“Can I talk to Gilda? Will she come back? She’s lovely, isn’t she? Is she your wife?”

Regidor gazed down at the excited girl. “No, she is not my wife. Yes, she is lovely. Yes, she will come back. And yes, you may talk to her, but not now. Gilda does not feel comfortable when exposed to the elements.”

He put a hand on N’Rae’s elbow and steered her back toward the minneken’s basket. “I believe my conversation with Mistress Seeno was interrupted.”

He glanced over at the two boys. Their heads nearly touched, and Ahnek talked in rushed undertones, his hands waving in small, jerky movements.

Jue Seeno waited for them, standing and tapping her foot, fists on her hips. Bardon had not moved, and so he heard her sputtering even before Regidor and N’Rae arrived.

“Quite a display,” she said. “So much for mingling unobtrusively with the higher races.”

“This is hardly a town square.” Regidor seated N’Rae on a pile of parcels unloaded from the dragons. “Now, why have you turned all prickly on me, Mistress Seeno?”

“Don’t worry,” said N’Rae. “It’s her natural reaction to life. She bristles whenever you don’t do something exactly as she thought you would.” N’Rae shrugged. “She’ll be over it in a trice, and quite often it will be ten or fifteen minutes before she gets all riled up about something again.”

The minneken’s body stiffened. Her whiskers quivered above a pinched mouth. “You, young lady, are taking on airs, talking like you know more than you do. Kindly remember your place.”

N’Rae raised her fingertips to her lips, and her face went from its natural alabaster tone to ruby in a matter of seconds. “I’m sorry, Mistress Seeno. I didn’t think.”

“Nonsense,” fumed the little woman. “Of course you were thinking. No one ceases thinking. The problem is you thought only in one narrow line. Your focus was on this Regidor person with his charming smile and dashing ways. You spoke in a context of two, you and him. But you don’t live in a context of two. Your life is intertwined with many more than just two.”

Jue Seeno stood even straighter and glared with piercing black eyes. “And I, young lady, am your protector. It is my duty to bristle.”

“Here, now.” Granny Kye’s deep, gentle voice intervened. “Are we having a fuss? Let’s have tea instead. It’s still some time until our evening meal, and everyone is a bit excited.”

She shooed the boys off to help with chores. “I’ll call you as soon as the tea is ready and there is a daggart to be eaten,” she promised, then turned to the handsome new addition to their party. “Bromptotterpindosset wishes to speak to you when you have a moment.”

“You might as well go with him, Squire Bardon,” Mistress Seeno piped up. “The three of us can make the tea without your assistance.”

Bardon and Regidor inclined their heads and moved off to join the tumanhofer.

When they were a few steps away, Regidor commented quietly, “The question is, Can the three of them make peace without your assistance?”

Bardon chortled. “I believe they can. Granny Kye has a calming influence on Jue Seeno.” He paused. “You may think that the little minneken is harsh, but she has a huge responsibility. Granny Kye does little to stem her granddaughter’s impulsiveness, so the role of protector falls squarely on the minneken’s shoulders.”

“So this marione Holt is one of N’Rae’s admirers?”

“I’m not sure, Regidor. Would you mind looking at him and seeing what measure he exhibits?”

Regidor searched for Holt and caught sight of the marione bending over the fire with one of the female riders at his side. He studied the young man. “The colors flowing around his person are mostly in harmony. That would verify he is comfortable with his present circumstances. Underneath, he has rifts of displeasure, contrasting tones in one color indicating tension. A lack of uniformity would indicate he is unsettled in his desire and motivation. The serenity of Wulder’s influence is definitely missing. His measure is variable, at best.”

“So is he a good addition to the questing party or not?”

Regidor shrugged. “I would say that is as undecided as the young man’s aspirations.”

“I have a coin given to me by Paladin. It is supposed to help me discern whether a person is in direct conflict with the purpose of our quest.”

“Interesting.” Regidor returned his attention to Bardon. “Somewhat like the metal disk that has already confirmed Kale has found her lost mother and will tell her if she has found her lost father?”

“Yes.”

“Useful.”

“Not in Holt’s case. I’ve tried it several times and gotten different degrees of heat each time.”

“Then I say we keep an eye on him.”