The Lazy Dragon and Bumblespells Wizard (23 page)

“By the Three Rivers and all the River Rats, don't you pay attention to anything but yourself?” Hazel stared at Cl'rnce, then snorted. “Someone issued a challenge seven days ago. You two should be handling this alone, but since your wizard brought us here, we will stay and advise,” Hazel said, sitting down.

Cl'rnce was relieved that Hazel wasn't who he'd fight, but him fight? Shouldn't a potential Primus delegate that kind of work? “Advice? That's all you're offering? You're just going to hang around and nag? How about gearing up and helping me fight? Do you know who I have to fight?”

Hazel pursed her lips and shrugged. “I do not know precisely. No.”

Gaelyn looked at the ground, her lips mashed together.

All of a sudden it fit together: why Nasty Sir George or anyone would want him dead. “Well, I know.” Cl'rnce hissed. “It's Lasair!”

“Ah.” Hazel's wide eyes flicked to her Wizard Partner, who shrugged. “That's a rough one. What have you done to prepare?”

“Prepare?” Cl'rnce felt himself losing control. “So far I've fought off a knight who was sent to kill me. Rescued Great and Mighty—”

“Hold on! You didn't rescue me,” Great and Mighty said. “I got away all on my own.”

“Technicalities. I'm trying to get us some help here.” Cl'rnce glared at her, willing her to stop talking. Great and Mighty sucked her lips together and nodded.

“Look, Cl'rnce, this is a little complex. Since your wizard has the power to bring the Nations, she is not a usual Wizard Partner. Having a wizard with a dr'gon's power is like having another dr'gon for a Wizard Partner, but one from a different clan.” Hazel put a claw to her nose as if she was remembering something. “Long in the past there
was
a wizard Primus, so it's awfully rare but not impossible. And then there is the little one. The Old Language is a little fuzzy sometimes, but I think the legend means any one of you three could defeat Lasair and become Primus. It's that simple. We are not allowed to do more than back you up. If Lasair brings an army at you both, we will fight. But as long as it's you against him, you've got to handle this on your own.”

“And his witch,” Cl'rnce added. “Her old guardian.” He jerked an elbow at Great and Mighty. “That's two
against us. So, are you going to help?” The idea that Great and Mighty could end up the one with all the responsibility of being Primus wasn't so bad. He could go back to napping. But no matter what, even he couldn't allow the evil Killer Dr'gon Lasair or Hedge-Witch to become the Primus.

“Interesting but irrelevant. I don't see an army opposing either of you, so we'll settle down here and wait while you handle things. You still have the Whisper Stone, right?” Hazel leaned back and stared upward. “Ghost Mountain. Long time since we've been here, huh, Gaelyn? I'll bet you three spells he lost the Stone.”

“I did not lose it. I …” He patted his neck and remembered the locket was gone, up the little dr'gon or somewhere. Turning his back on Hazel, he tried to think of a way to come up with a substitute. Desperate, he wished Great and Mighty could hear him and pick up a stone and pass it to him, so he could fool Hazel long enough to find the lost Whisper Stone.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Great and Mighty sidled up close and slipped a pebble into his paw.

Cl'rnce turned back and held it up to show Hazel. He kept his digits covering most of it in hopes she wouldn't notice the difference.

“What has it told you?” Hazel said, studying her claws.

“Nothing. It hasn't said a thing. It showed me Great and Mighty, Lasair, and Sir George. And it spit purple and gold flame out, but it hasn't said word one. Just like him.” Cl'rnce jerked his thumb at the little dr'gon. It wasn't a real lie. All those things had happened, if not from this particular rock.

Hazel stopped polishing her claws against her scales. Gaelyn stopped fluffing her hair. Every dr'gon around them became completely quiet and solidly still. “He doesn't talk?” Hazel asked finally, staring at the little dr'gon, whose scales turned back from black to the signature green of a River Dr'gon.

“Not a peep. I don't even know his name. But he is really good at pantomiming. And he sat on the Whisper Stone and gold and purple flame shot out of his rear.” Cl'rnce started to laugh at his joke, but he stopped when he realized every eye was no longer on him but fixed on the little dr'gon. And no one was laughing.

Hazel took a deep breath. “River Gods!”

“That's it? River Gods?” Cl'rnce asked.

“Well, things are a little more complicated now. I thought because Thomas instructed me to supervise you and have you fetch the Whisper Stone to the Council Chambers that you were the next Primus, that he had persuaded the rest of the Council that you must be Primus. Not that you deserve it, but when Thomas says to do something from the Primus throne ….

“When you teamed up with a great wizard, I thought perhaps you'd found a more qualified Primus. When you found the little dr'gon, I thought you'd found one of the legendary fae dr'gons who left the River clan millennia ago. I thought you had found the power to be a truly great Primus. But a dwarfed River Dr'gon who does not speak … but communicates with the Whisper Stone … that's the Phoenix Legend. Your friend—” She nodded at the little dr'gon, who had settled on Cl'rnce's shoulder, his small paws tucked under him like a sleepy cat. “—will forge a once in an eon powerful Primus, if you three can defeat Lasair.”

Cl'rnce would have laughed that a tiny dr'gon could be powerful, but two things occurred to him. First, the little guy had communicated with the Whisper Stone, and in fact the spot where he'd spit the purple and gold flame still glowed on the mountain side. And second, and even better, if the little guy was the new Primus, then Cl'rnce definitely wasn't. With that burden on the little dr'gon, Cl'rnce would never have to work a day in his life. Once they helped the little guy into the Primacy, Cl'rnce would live life as a retired hero. He and Great and Mighty could go have adventures and lots of naps.
YES!

“Does he have a name?” Cl'rnce asked.

“Ask him,” Hazel snorted.

Cl'rnce would have sassed her back, but it wasn't worth it. “What's your name, little guy?” he asked. Since
the little dr'gon hadn't said a word, he didn't expect any kind of response. Which would be good for telling Hazel she'd come to a stupid conclusion, but the little dr'gon began to vibrate on his shoulder. A kind of happy thrumming sent warmth into Cl'rnce.

It was like the little dr'gon had been waiting to be asked. He butted Cl'rnce's chin, and Cl'rnce felt a tingle of happiness, like he'd done something really good. He didn't hear the little dr'gon speak, but a warm purple aura drifted in front of him.

Cl'rnce was about to dismiss the glow as leftover little dr'gon gas from sitting on the Whisper Stone, when he heard Great and Mighty say, “Amythyst. His name is Amythyst.”

Cl'rnce stood absolutely still for a moment. It was surely a mistake. There was no way Great and Mighty heard the little guy correctly. Amethyst was a name that would be given only once, and never again. It was the name of the legendary dr'gon who would create the Primus that would rule for a thousand dr'gon lifetimes with complete justice.

The dr'gons sitting in a circle around them bowed their heads for a second, then looked up.

If she'd gotten the name right, why hadn't Cl'rnce heard it? After all, he was a dr'gon, not her. He didn't know if he was happy or sad thinking that he might be excused from being Primus. But he did know this was
confusing. “You heard him?” Cl'rnce asked Great and Mighty. She nodded.

“The wizard heard, and you saw,” Hazel said in a hushed voice. “You don't deserve it, slacker, but you have your Wizard Partner. And the two of you are thralls to the new Primus.”

The awe in his sister's voice made Cl'rnce feel very important. Although he was not sure about the ‘thrall' part. It sounded like work. Not what he'd hoped.

“Now get back in that mountain and face Lasair and his witch!” Hazel snapped.

“So much for respect and the good vibes,” Cl'rnce muttered.

Amythyst purred and dug his small claws into Cl'rnce's shoulder, as if preparing to leap hard into flight.

Before Cl'rnce could try to tell Great and Mighty what he suspected, she nodded to Cl'rnce. “We'll do this. We have to. We can't let Lasair …. I say we head for the glowing hole Amythyst made. Charge!” She slammed her crystal rod into the ground, then stiffened when a flash of light sizzled up her body, leaving her auburn curls standing in fried straw sticks.

“How about let's fly?” Cl'rnce said, snagging the back of Great and Mighty's robe and lifting his partner as he beat his wings. It felt good to let his family and everybody see him fly. There was no getting away from it. He was great. He had a great Wizard Partner
and Amythyst. He could feel the buzz of Great through every muscle in his body. He didn't feel a bit afraid. He knew down to his tiniest scale they could win. This was going to be a piece of cake. Chocolate, maybe.

Cl'rnce flew straight at the glowing patch of Amythyst's purple and gold spit on the mountain. He knew they were headed in the right direction, because he felt the excited vibes from the little dr'gon. The little guy definitely knew things, and had some kind of power.

The positive feelings vanished when they were only yards from the mountain. The stench of dead and nasty filled Cl'rnce's nostrils. Among the gagging smells was the stink of Nasty Sir George. The rotten knight was back.

Cl'rnce slowed and hovered, looking around. He waited, expecting to have to dodge, fly sideways, and loop the loop to avoid the knight who must have found his skeleton horse and come back to attack them. It seemed to take forever, but finally Cl'rnce spotted the no-longer-rusty knight on a ledge below.

Nasty Sir George held up his sword and yelled something, but it was gobbledygook from so far away. Cl'rnce dipped to his right to veer away before the knight attacked. But a hard tug pulled him back in line
to fly down and close to the knight. Amythyst had a mouthful of Cl'rnce's wing, pulling him to the knight. “That's not a good idea,” Cl'rnce said.

“Sir George is shouting something about his sword,” Great and Mighty called out. Cl'rnce looked down to see her pointing at the knight, as she swung from Cl'rnce's talons.

“Yeah. He's yelling that he wants to use it to kill me,” Cl'rnce grumbled.

“No. He's saying to take it.”

“Huh?” When Cl'rnce looked harder, he saw that the knight held the sword out by the tip, as if offering it to them. The sight was too odd not to investigate. Cl'rnce swerved and flapped to the knight, where he teetered on a narrow ledge fifty feet below the still-glowing purple and gold mountain patch.

“My sword,” Nasty Sir George called as they neared. “I offer my sword.”

“Do you mean you'll fight alongside us?” Great and Mighty asked.

The un-rusty knight shook his head. “I gift you my sword. Take it. The little one will know what to do with it.” He nodded his head at Great and Mighty.

Before Cl'rnce could object, Great and Mighty grabbed the sword by its hilt and swung it in the hand that did not hold her rod. A trail of gold light followed the pattern she made as the sword arced through the air.

“It's magick?” she asked. “Why would you give us a magick sword? And why didn't you use the magick to kill us in the first place?” Great and Mighty sounded like she thought it might be a trick. Cl'rnce certainly agreed.

Nasty Sir George looked down the mountain as if he'd just figured out he had a long climb down. “It's not magick in my hands. It's not my sword. When you transformed my armor, you made my sword different. All I ever wanted in life was enough money to buy nice armor. You gave that to me. I'm headed off to earn enough for a horse that likes me.”

Great and Mighty laughed. “You want a horse? I'll give you a horse!”

Cl'rnce groaned. “No.”

But it was too late; Great and Mighty was already on the third repeat of her spell to make a horse for the knight. “A forever horse for Sir George.”

Cl'rnce crossed his digits that the bumblespell in this magick wouldn't backfire. From below them, he heard a whinny. Cl'rnce, Amythyst, Great and Mighty, and Nasty Sir George all looked down. The skeleton horse stood once again at the foot of the mountain.

“Oh, great,” Sir George said, sounding more like he was sorry he'd given away his sword than happy he had a horse. “That one doesn't like me at all.”

“But I said a forever horse; that has to mean it'll stay with you forever. It has to be your friend,” Great and
Mighty tried to explain.

“Nice try, Great and Mighty,” Cl'rnce said. “My sister is forever, and she definitely doesn't like me. And she's not a skeleton horse who'll never die.” Cl'rnce flapped away from the knight before Nasty Sir George decided he'd been too nice and wanted his sword back.

They circled to Amythyst's purple splot. When they hovered over it, Cl'rnce heard the knight yell. “Use the sword. It's a key. Opens the door.”

The side of the mountain glowed, but there was no cave opening, no door. No way in. Cl'rnce felt Amythyst lean against his neck. A picture formed in Cl'rnce's head of the sword flying at the mountain's purple and gold and disappearing inside.

“Throw the sword at the spot,” Cl'rnce said to Great and Mighty.

“I heard Amythyst!” Great and Mighty said. “Here goes.” She swung back and forth in Cl'rnce's grip, and when she was closest to the mountain, she tossed the sword. Just like the picture Amythyst had shown him, the sword pierced the mountain, passing through like the mountain's rocks and dirt were nothing but soft cheese. Cl'rnce's empty tummy growled at the thought of any kind of food.