The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (32 page)

“One would certainly think so!” Uda said in the same disdainful tone of voice, only now she directed her vitriol at her youthful prophet. “Why didn’t you warn us what we were getting into? Didn’t you know?”

Dark calmly met her gaze. “What have you gotten into?” he asked.

“This!” she screamed, standing up and baring one of her shivering shoulders.

“Oh. Goose-flesh.” Dark nodded. “Terrible tragedy. I really ought to have prepared you better — such a burden.”

“And this!” she shouted again, gesturing about her at the primitive cave, the walls of which seemed to reflect back little of the fire’s illumination.

“Ah.” Dark nodded, still unbothered. “And have you investigated this place, to know that it’s so terrible? Couldn’t it be that Sheth has carved a gorgeous dining room from the rock somewhere back there, and we’re just sitting in his courtyard, so to speak?”

Uda frowned. “Are we?”

Dark chuckled, and Seagryn looked up in surprise. He’d not heard the lad laugh since — since — “Actually, no,” the prophet explained. “At least, I never see it, if he does. But this is a rather extensive dwelling, and I assume it meets the needs of our host. As to my not having told you what it would be like ... Did you ever really ask me?”

Paumer snorted. “We assumed you could be trusted to steer us away from unpleasant —”

“You assumed. Seagryn didn’t. Did you, Seagryn?”

Now they all looked back at Seagryn again, and somehow — how did this happen? — the group blame rolled inexorably back onto his shoulders. He was a powershaper, he knew about Dark’s abilities and might have explained them more fully to the others in the party, he was an adult and the prophet was, after all, still just a boy. He was guilty.

Seagryn met Elaryl’s eyes. Even she wore an expression of cool distaste upon her pretty features as she waited for him to respond. There seemed to be only one other source to blame, and Seagryn did so. “It’s neither my fault not Dark’s. The Power gave Dark his gift and me mine, and probably Sheth his, though to what good end I surely don’t know. That’s the cause of all this. Why don’t you blame the Power?”

“Why don’t you come eat dinner instead?” Sheth called from down the corridor. Apart from Dark, they looked at one another with trepidation. The boy, however, had no qualms about eating. He jumped to his feet, and smiled at the rest of the group.

Trusting Dark, Seagryn stood and reached down to help Elaryl up. They followed Dark down the tunnel — for that was really what this place was. A closer look at the walls confirmed Seagryn’s belief that it had been carved by the megasin, or something like her. Recently? He shivered at the thought, and Elaryl glanced back at him in worry. “It’s nothing.” He smiled confidently.

“I don’t know how you can say that,” she muttered, adding to herself, “I should have listened to my father.”

Yet as they turned the corner and saw the second of Sheth’s fires, their spirits lifted considerably. This room was as dark as the cavern they’d left, but it smelled wonderful. Next to the fire Sheth had placed two small tables, and on the tables sat a dozen golden serving bowls, each filled with steaming food. Sheth took a gold plate and offered it to Elaryl. “You’ll not think it rude of me to request that you serve yourself?” he asked with mocking politeness.

“Where did this come from?” Uda asked, having come up behind them with her father.

“Oh — this?” Sheth said, gesturing at the imported feast. “Call it a gift from the King of Arl. It did come from his kitchens — although he appeared to be nowhere around ...”

“Oh, yes,” Paumer offered, brightening. “I remember now Jarnel once telling me that the king had gone into hiding because you kept appearing unannounced in his bedroom!”

Sheth dimpled wickedly, then his forehead creased in a slight frown. “Jarnel?” he asked. “Where did you last see the dear prince?”

“In these woods. He took us captive over a week ago.”

“Took you captive?” Sheth said, grimacing over at Seagryn, who was at that moment filling his plate. “Weren’t you veiling these poor people?”

Seagryn felt glad of the darkness, for he knew he was blushing. “It never occurred to me.”

“What’s the use of having shaper powers if you don’t use them?” Sheth exploded, but in derision rather than anger. “You’re a fool, Seagryn, did you know that?” He looked at Elaryl and asked, “Did you realize this husband of yours had left you exposed to all the dangers of the forest?”

“There was no danger we didn’t know already was coming,” Seagryn protested, angry at feeling the need to defend himself, but unable to keep from doing so.

“Oh, yes! Your little fortune-teller. But did he not suggest that you might have avoided such by using simple shaper’s caution?”

“He did not, because I didn’t ask. That can’t be a surprise to you, surely? You, who’ve told him to keep his mouth shut? Besides, we learned some information during our encounter with Jarnel that you might find useful.”

“And that is ...”

“That the King of Arl has instructed his warriors to assassinate you on sight.” Seagryn said it forcefully, expecting Sheth to be shaken.

The wizard only laughed. “This is valuable information, Seagryn? That’s been the king’s intention ever since he became king. He’s had raiding parties scouting the Marwilds for my den for years. In fact, I sometimes wonder if half of the supposed Marwandian bear-baiters aren’t really Arlian warriors under my dear king’s specific instructions to kill or entrap me.” Sheth looked at Paumer. “Surely you knew that? Why else would I associate myself with your little Conspiracy?”

Seagryn looked at Paumer, but the merchant’s expression revealed nothing other than his appreciation of the cuisine. “Wonderful food, Sheth,” the merchant replied after a moment, as if the wizard had just asked his opinion of the meal. “And it’s encouraging to know you were only jesting when you talked of eating horse meat or Marwandians!”

“Yes,” the wizard responded — almost wearily, Seagryn thought. Then he disappeared.

“Now where’s he gone?” Paumer frowned.

“Perhaps he’d not gone anywhere,” Seagryn said. “Perhaps he’s just cloaking himself to get away from us — or to watch and listen while we settle into his dwelling.”

“Or perhaps,” Dark offered from his place by the fire, “he’s gone to get the other tugolith and bring her inside.”

“Is that in fact where he is?” Paumer asked.

“I just said perhaps,” the prophet responded. He never took his eyes off his plate.

Investigation revealed that the system of natural caves and megasin channels was indeed extensive — nothing to compare with the underground city of the Remnant, but certainly more than enough space for an individual. Seagryn found his way blocked repeatedly by wooden walls constructed across the openings of new channels, each with a door set into the center of them. All the doors were locked. Sheth was a secretive individual in the world outside; why would he be any less so within his den? Seagryn wasn’t certain whether the walls and locks were designed to keep people like himself in, or creatures — potentially dangerous creatures? — out. He did decide, however, that at least one of these channels must lead to the outside and that Sheth intended to bring Berillitha into the den that way. The locks were strong and couldn’t be forced. But Seagryn noted with some encouragement that the wooden barriers could easily be torn loose from their moorings in the rock wall if one leaned upon them in tugolith shape. And he wondered — where was the other tugolith?

By the time Sheth reappeared, Seagryn had found Vilanlitha’s pen. It was on the far side of the cavern from where they’d eaten, past that first fire where they’d dried themselves, across the brook and on beyond a third fire. He found another wooden barrier closing off a channel, which he decided must be backed by yet another wall, enclosing a room. He knew from the powerful scent that a tugolith was near, and he guessed the beast was housed beyond this room.

“You’ve smelled your way to it, I see,” Sheth said behind him, causing Seagryn to jump and spin around. “Easy, I would suppose, to track your own stinking kind?”

“Did you try to lead Berillitha inside? I imagined you might need my help —”

“I didn’t try to move her, I moved her. She’s back beyond that wall,” Sheth said, pointing across the corridor to a barrier opposite this one. “Listen carefully. You mustn’t suppose that because you bested me in that Rangsfield encounter your control over the powers is the equal of mine. I told you once, Seagryn — I’m the foremost shaper of this age, with abilities that would astonish and threaten you were I to reveal them. I won’t. I prefer to hide them until needed. You may find this remarkable, but I speak this way for your benefit, to insure you don’t thrust yourself between me and my goal. That would be very foolish — and very costly to you personally. I need your assistance, true — that’s why you’re here. But it must be as an assistant and when I request it. Do you understand?”

“I do. But there are some things which you need to —”

“There’s nothing I need to hear from you, Seagryn Bears-bane, other than an expressed willingness to aid me in my effort. You could say no, of course — but then I’d kill you. You see?” Sheth smiled suddenly, incredibly. “You have no choice. So you don’t have to feel so responsible for it all! You Lamathians — always bearing such responsibility for everything! Forget it.” Sheth’s face grew fierce as he finished with great gravity, “But do what I say, Seagryn — or you will be responsible for some hideous results.

“Now,” Sheth went on, much more brightly. “Why don’t you go back to where I left you and comfort your pretty wife? I’m afraid some of the day’s events may have alarmed her.”

Seagryn did as he was instructed, amazed at himself for acquiescing so meekly. Then he realized that wasn’t so amazing after all. Sheth had relieved him of a great burden of guilt. The bear was right. Seagryn didn’t have to feel so responsible anymore. He could blame it all on Sheth.

Chapter Thirty

THE DRAGON FORGE

SEAGRYN and Elaryl made an uneasy peace with their surroundings. They slept on the cavern floor near the second fire, as did Paumer and his daughter and the increasingly withdrawn Dark. They had all requested separate rooms since there seemed to be an abundance of them, but Sheth had responded angrily that this was no public house. “Those rooms are
filled
!” he shouted. And, of course, they’d all backed down.

Sheth slept — elsewhere. None of them knew where, although Seagryn speculated it might be in a bubble in the rock, open to the larger cavern only enough to provide ventilation, and accessible to Sheth alone through his magical ability to shift himself from one place to another. Sheth could feel secure in such a place, Seagryn reasoned — and perhaps nowhere else. Seagryn had never known a man more self-protective.

Sheth did open those other rooms to them eventually, when he chose to. As he had said, they were filled. Some contained treasure, a huge hoard that would please any ruler, to which Sheth added on a regular basis. He’d not returned the gold service to the kitchens of Arl just because the food was gone. Seagryn saw that the plates, unwashed of course, had been deposited here upon the pile. “I’m the world’s most excellent thief,” Sheth had cackled as Seagryn toured the room. Yet he apparently found no joy in it. Too easy, perhaps, when one could simply be and begone whenever and wherever one chose?

Other rooms contained an evil-smelling collection of herbs, roots, and animal parts that Seagryn had no wish to investigate further. He was intrigued, however, by Sheth’s library. “I own the best collection in the old One Land,” the wizard boasted, and Seagryn believed it. Why not, when Sheth could add cherished volumes to it with the same ease that he increased the height of his treasure trove?

And then there was the room of the mouse-dragon.

“Careful,” Sheth instructed as they stepped inside. “It may be a tiny beast, but it could kill if you offend it.”

“Kill me? How?” Seagryn asked.

“Perhaps you’d like a demonstration?” Sheth smiled, his mustache spreading wide. He disappeared with that acrid
snap!
that never failed to shock. Seagryn growled in frustration and not a little fear, for here he was in the room with a potentially lethal creature and he didn’t even know what to worry about. He stood by the door, looking across the room at the mouse-dragon’s cage. It was hard to see, so he stepped a little closer, enough to see the tiny beast squatting on its floor, devouring the leg of an unfortunate toad. The creature had two heads, and one of these stopped eating and raised upon its lengthy neck to look curiously at Seagryn. Its face was mouselike, even to the whiskers, but gone was the pink nose, replaced by a scaly green appendage that drooped over teeth too long for any normal rodent. Its eyes, too, had been altered. They looked at him with much more intelligence and far less fear than any mouse he’d ever faced. Of course, the most dramatic changes in the creature was in its long, snakelike necks — one for each head — and its batlike wings, which it currently tucked down close to the tiny ridge along its back. Oddest of all was its color, for the body of the creature was piebald, mixing patches of white fur with areas covered by greenish gray scales. Small as it was, Seagryn considered it horrifying, and froze in place to await Sheth’s return.

“Couldn’t find a cat,” the wizard suddenly was saying behind him, and Seagryn sighed with relief and stepped aside. “But I guess this squirrel will do.” Sheth walked to the mouse-dragon’s cage, opened its door and tossed the pitiful squirrel inside.

The squirrel had no interest at all in the winged creature, only in getting free, and it threw its weight against the wires in terror, tipping the cage over onto its side. Wild with fear, the squirrel scrambled past the confused dragon as it made a quick circuit of their tiny prison, then made the trip again. In the process, it raked the mouse-dragon with its claws, and suddenly both of the little beast’s mouths were spitting in fury.

“Ha! Now watch —” Sheth announced.

The two necks stiffened; then the two heads angled down so that all four of the beast’s eyes focused on the squirrel — or tried to, at least, for the squirrel was still in motion, and it was several minutes before it drained out all its terror and had to pause for a rest. It never moved again. In that pause, the mouse-dragon managed at last to concentrate its gaze upon the squirrel, and suddenly the panting animal burst into flames.

Seagryn stared. He couldn’t restrain his astonishment that a man of such power as Sheth would actually go hunt down a squirrel to demonstrate the lethal abilities of a tiny monster. Sheth misinterpreted his look.

“You see!” The wizard chuckled. “You don’t want to let both heads look at you at the same time — at least not in anger. I don’t know, obviously, but I expect it would be fatal to a human, too.”

“And — you — made this creature?”

“I did.” Sheth smiled proudly and walked to a lectern in the corner of the room. “Here are my notes on how I did it. I don’t know how much is actually necessary and how much is waste time, but it works. Exhausting, too — we’ll want to sleep for days afterward.”

“We ...” Seagryn murmured, looking at the notes Sheth had pressed into his hands and thinking involuntarily of Berillitha.

“We’ll work together up to a point.” Sheth nodded. “The final making is a solitary process — an art — and I need no one’s help for that. But I’ll need your shaper abilities to help hold the tugoliths in place and to bind them together in a single magic net. I could do that myself with the two mice — who needs magical netting when you can hold the raw materials in your two hands? But I can’t exactly do that with our two giants, can I? So I need your assistance in accomplishing that. I could probably also use your help in confusing the two creatures as they struggle.”

“You could use any two creatures, could you not?” Seagryn said quietly, struggling to restrain his outrage at himself for even being a part of such a hideous endeavor.

“I guess so. Theoretically, I suppose we could make a human twi-beast, given the raw material —”

“Or two pyralu? Could you make a pyralu dragon?”

Sheth took a hard look at Seagryn, then whooped in laughter. “What a vicious imagination you have!” he cackled. “You may make a worthwhile powershaper yet!”

“It would be a horrible monster, wouldn’t it? Worth banding together to war against, terrifying in every aspect?”

Sheth grew suspicious. “It would. Get to your point.”

“Why must we make a tugolith dragon when we could make one far more heinous out of a pair of pyralu?”

Sheth thought on this for a moment, then a slight grin flitted across his lips. “Only one good reason I can think of.”

“And that is?” Seagryn asked, trying to hide his hope.

“We don’t have two pyralu. And I, for one, am not inclined to go searching for any! Are you?” He chuckled. “Or are you just going priestly on me again as you battle with your moral dilemma? I warn you, Seagryn. Stew yourself in ethical concerns all you like, but if you try to interfere, you’ll quickly discover that there really is a fate worse than death.” Sheth let one side of his face dimple, then turned back to watch the mouse-dragon.

Seagryn glanced toward the cage but quickly looked away — the tiny, bat-winged beast now devoured portions of the squirrel. “Cooking its food seems to increase its appetite,” Sheth said enthusiastically. There was no mistaking his admiration of his own bizarre handiwork.

Seagryn had to get out of the room. As he made his way to the door, Sheth called out, “Get some rest. We’ll net the two together tomorrow.”

Seagryn did not sleep easily that night. He dreamed he was a tugolith who shrank to the size of a squirrel, and then was torn apart and gobbled down by the two snapping heads of the mouse-dragon. When Sheth woke him the next — morning? Who could tell inside this sunless hell? — he was almost appreciative.

“Since you’re the expert on these tugoliths,” Sheth began, “tell me what we might expect when we introduce the two monsters to one another.”

“They’ve not met?” Seagryn asked.

“Not yet. I didn’t want to give them the opportunity to conspire together.”

How very like Sheth to be worried about such, Seagryn thought. And how very unlike the tugoliths he’d known. Then again, he did not know Vilanlitha, Paumer’s pet. Had that beast spent enough time in the Hovel to absorb some of Paumer’s devious outlook? Seagryn’s own experience had proved these animals were most susceptible to human influence. Would a domesticated tugolith differ greatly from those he’d encountered in the icy north? “I’m not certain how they’ll react to one an-

other. These are communicative beings, Sheth — persons. Paumer would know his own tugolith better than I.”

“It belongs to Uda. We’ll enlist her help. But first we need to practice casting the net,” Sheth decreed, and they spent the rest of the morning involved in that task. Seagryn found the process so fascinating he was almost able to forget why he was learning to do it. But the time came at last for-him to fetch Berillitha into the long gallery where the dragon would be made, and all the old feelings returned.

“Why are we here?” she asked calmly as Seagryn watched Uda walk out of sight around the other end of the tunnel. He chose not to answer.

“Quiet. You’ll see soon enough.”

“You are the Wiser,” Berillitha said, and she closed her vast mouth and waited.

*

“You are Uda,” Vilanlitha said sagely. Though the girl didn’t realize it, this was a major achievement. It had been many days since he had seen his mistress, and tugoliths had difficulty recognizing human faces. They all looked so much alike.

“Yes, I’m Uda,” the girl grumbled as she led the beast down a corridor toward the cavern Sheth called the dragon forge. She was irritated at the wizard. He ordered her about as if she were a servant!

“Where am I going?” Vilanlitha asked. He really didn’t sound all that interested, which was fortunate, Uda thought. She didn’t want to be the one to explain to this huge monster that he was about to be turned into something different.

“Down a tunnel.” Uda had spent enough time with her tugolith to understand how to talk to him. The simpler you kept it, the less the creatures bothered you with questions.

“Am I going to be a dragon?”

Uda gulped and almost stopped walking. She didn’t — just a slight hesitation in her step, then she was right back up to speed — but she was wondering, now, how to answer. “Ah — I — how do you —”

“I want to be a dragon,” Vilanlitha offered, probably not realizing how much his announcement relieved his diminutive mistress.

“You — you do?”

“I do!” He smiled.

“Oh. Who told you?”

“The man who brought me here.”

“Sheth?”

“Of course.” Vilanlitha snorted.

“Sorry,” Uda said quickly. “Didn’t mean to offend. So he talked to you about it?”

“I said so,” Vilanlitha replied pointedly. He was not a stupid beast, as Uda had frequently reminded members of the palace staff when they’d trembled in fear before him. She chided herself for treating him so.

“Why do you want to be a dragon?” she asked.

Vilanlitha got a far-away look in his enormous eye — from where she walked Uda could only see this one — and murmured, “I can go anywhere. I can eat anyone. No wheel can keep me out!”

“What?” Uda asked, but they’d just turned the corner into the dragon forge and Vilanlitha had spotted Berillitha. His whole body stiffened.

Seagryn had a hand on Berillitha’s forequarter, and felt her doing the same. “You’d better get out of the way, Uda,” he called. “I’ve never seen lone tugoliths meet, and I’m not certain what will —”

The two creatures launched themselves at one another.

Uda needed no further counsel. She scrambled quickly and efficiently to safety first, then sprinted back down the cavern the way she’d come.

The two animals did not seek to cross horns initially, as Seagryn had come to expect. Instead they drove their points for one another’s eyes, and only by dodging aside at the last moment did Berillitha avoid being blinded. She didn’t avoid being struck, however, and her scream of pain echoed down the corridor.

“Berillitha!” Seagryn shouted. While not completely unexpected, this was happening far too fast to control.

“Good!” shouted Sheth, who stood well out of the way. “Oh, Seagryn, this couldn’t be better!”

But Seagryn didn’t hear. He chased after Berillitha, screaming for her to dodge, to duck, to dive out of the way, for Vilanlitha raced hard upon her heels, endeavoring to drive his horn between her legs and cut them from under her. “Berillitha! Berillitha! Turn!”

“Don’t interfere, Seagryn!” Sheth shouted fiercely before breaking back into his beaming smile. “This is excellent! Far better than I had expected!”

Whether she’d heard Seagryn’s shouts or not, Berillitha did turn at the very last moment, which proved to be the critical instant to divert Vilanlitha’s jab. The male tugolith had left his feet and, as she whirled unexpectedly and reared up on her hind legs, he sprawled harmlessly before her. Seagryn had never seen her do this, and he gaped in surprise. Then Berillitha dropped her full weight across the male’s back, and Vilanlitha’s groan echoed through the cavern every bit as horribly as had her scream.