Cloak & Dagger: Book II of The Dragon Mage Trilogy (7 page)

Graf sneered. “They are secure in their tower. Why would they check food coming from their own kitchens? They often check food that comes into the tower, but never the food that is already inside! No - they will not discover it until it is too late, and once they do, they will be helpless to find a cure.”

There was a murmur of agreement in the crowd below.

Graf turned to a lizardmage near him and nodded. Then he sat down.

The next lizardmage, named Relg, stood up. He was taller than Graf, and his blue-green robe had a sinister sheen to it, seeming to absorb the torchlight where the flickering light should reflect the most. His wooden staff was gnarled and crooked.

“The water elemental has been contained, and my crew of mages no longer need to strain at the summoning spell to maintain control. The elemental is now entirely under our control.” Relg glanced at Graf and sat down. There was nothing more for him to say.

The crowd hissed in pleasure as Graf nodded to another lizardmage.

A shorter, stockier lizardman stood up to speak. His robe was black with a red trim. The staff he bore was a chestnut brown, with a unique curve near the top. He had a blunt nose for a lizardman, and his nostrils flared as he spoke.

“The earth elemental has been summoned, but we still have no way to contain it. My mages are working night and day to control it, but our success can only be determined by a source of containment for the elemental. Fortunately, the elemental is under our control for the time being. We can maintain magical control for at least ten days before the elemental can break free. If no containment is found, we will have to regroup and start again.” The lizardmage sat down.

There were hisses of disapproval from the alcoves at this unsettling news.

Suddenly Graf rose and addressed the council, looking at each of the superior officials as he spoke. “Narg has done well,” began Graf, indicating the black-robed lizardmage. “He has done what he set out to do. It is not his fault that none of you could come up with a way to contain the earth elemental!”

“Neither could you!” retorted a lizardmage in a lower alcove. Sinister hisses could be heard throughout the hall at the comment.

Graf sneered. He had expected this challenge to his authority. Indeed; he had hoped for it. He turned to Relg. “Relg, you have the water elemental under your control. Can you make it create ice?”

“Of course!” hissed Relg. “What do you think?”

Graf ignored the question and turned to Narg. “Narg, can you get the earth elemental to allow itself to be exposed to the water elemental?”

Narg nodded, nostrils flaring. “Certainly.”

Graf turned back to Relg. “Then you should be able to create a prison of ice to contain the earth elemental. Am I correct?”

Relg nodded in understanding. “Of course!”

Murmurs passed through the hall but one skeptical lizardmage called out, “I thought elementals weren’t affected by magic - other than summoning!”

Graf nodded. “That’s true. However, elementals are not immune to each other’s magic.”

“Are you sure?” asked another lizardman from below.

“Yes,” said Graf calmly. “When pitted against one another, their magics cancel each other out. But in this case, the earth elemental will not put up resistance because we presently control it. Once it is imprisoned in ice, the containment will remove its resistance to our magic. Then it will be unable to free itself until we desire it.”

Loud hisses of approval sounded in the crowd and Graf sat down, an evil grin spreading across his face. He had made everyone look like fools once again. As usual, it was he who had come up with a solution to a problem that no one else could solve.

After a few moments, another lizardman rose in a lower alcove to speak.

“The council recognizes Lynch,” hissed an old lizardmage directly below Graf’s alcove.

Lynch took a deep breath. “As you know, the poison Graf has devised has no antidote. Only lizardmen are immune to its effects. My task was to see if extreme heat can neutralize the poison. I took a number of lizardmages with me to a lava flow of intense heat and we increased the magnitude of the heat as far as our magic permitted. There was no effect on the poison.”

Lynch paused to allow the council to absorb this information. Then he continued.

“There was, however, a strange side effect to the heat spells we were using.”

A few of the senior lizardmages sat up straighter at this news.

“Go on,” said Relg.

Lynch looked at Relg as he spoke. “We inadvertently called up a fire elemental from the lava pit.”

Hisses drowned the remarks of several of the officials, most of whom stood up to speak at once.

Graf was surprised as well, but didn’t show it. He calmly rose and held up a hand to silence the crowd. Then he nodded at Lynch, who continued.

“We hadn’t expected the elemental, so we weren’t prepared to capture it. It got the jump on us and ran away before we could react.”

“It got away!” shrieked Relg, who was one of the officials who had risen when the strange announcement was made. He looked at Graf. “That could be a problem. If it finds out where the other elementals are, it could destroy our hold on them!”

Graf nodded calmly. He turned to Lynch. “Well, Lynch, it looks like you had better locate and capture that fire elemental.”

Lynch swallowed hard. “I understand.”

Graf smiled deviously. He knew Lynch needed to redeem himself, and this was the only way to do it, whether he liked it or not. Then Graf directed his attention to a lizardmage wearing a blood red robe. “Brind, your fire magic is powerful. Why don’t you take on the task of summoning the fire elemental? I know it’s harder to summon an elemental who is already in our plane, but that way there are two chances to capture it. We may not need a fire elemental, but we can’t have one running loose in our tunnels either.”

Brind nodded. “Of course.”

“Besides,” continued Graf, “the fire elemental could benefit our cause greatly. We could even try to get the air elemental and have all of them help us.”

The crowd murmured at this suggestion.

Graf turned to a high ranking lizardmage in a nearby alcove. It was a female lizardmage. She had a bluish tinge that was common to the females of the species. “Narla, you have skill with air magic. How would you like the task of summoning the air elemental?”

Narla smiled, her fishlike lips spreading in a grin. “Certainly! I have access to the spells, and my group has the skill necessary to do it.”

“Good!” exclaimed Graf. “You can begin preparations immediately.”

Narla nodded.

Graf rubbed his scaly hands together. “Now! We’re ready to generate more of my poison and apply it where we discussed. You all know your jobs. Let’s get to it!” Graf turned to the wall at the back of his alcove, chanted a spell, and walked through the rock as though it was not even there. The other officials did a similar thing in each of their alcoves, disappearing from sight. The lizardmen in the general assembly area of the hall left via conventional tunnels, leaving the council hall in silence.

Chapter 6

C
yril sighed as he tended the clerical herbs known as faelora, a pink-leafed plant that thrived in the late summer and early fall. This herb grew naturally in this climate, but was rather scarce in the wild. When planted in the gardens here at the Tower of Hope, it grew in thick bunches, each leaf pressing the others aside for sunlight. Cyril was responsible for making sure weeds did not interfere with the herb’s growth. He did his job well in the ten years that he had worked here, tending every form of herb and plant that grew in the tower’s grounds.

“Don’t forget to water the faelora,” ordered the head groundskeeper behind him suddenly.

“Yes, sir,” answered Cyril without looking up.

Cyril was tolerated but avoided by everyone working in or for the tower. He was a big man, some six and a half feet tall, with large arms and legs. He had no hair, and his skin had a slight green cast to it. But it was not his size or complexion that drove people away. It was his eye. For Cyril was the by-product of a human and a cyclops.

Cyril’s lone eye was that of a cyclops. It was centered in his forehead, and the black pupil was centered in a yellowish background. The eye also mimicked a cyclops’ in function as well as appearance. When someone looked into it, the eye had the effect of temporarily paralyzing them. Some would have considered this trait as useful, but Cyril regarded it as a curse.

Even as a boy, Cyril had few friends. Other children made fun of him, but he refused to fight back. By nature he was mild-mannered. Over the course of the years, he had paralyzed a number of people by accident, but each time they had believed he had done it on purpose, and each time he had been punished severely.

Cyril’s mother, who never spoke to him about his father for obvious reasons, tired of the hardships facing her son and brought him to the Tower of Hope at the age of ten. She had little hope of giving him a decent life, and hoped the clerics could care for him. A year later, she died of a severe illness during the winter and Cyril was alone.

Life at the tower was hard, but Cyril was treated with an aloof respect. He left others alone, and they responded in kind. Only Cyril’s boss, the head groundskeeper, treated him poorly. The groundskeeper, whose name was Jake, felt that Cyril was merely a laborer, who had no special skills or abilities. The fact that Cyril was deformed only confirmed Jake’s opinion of him. Whenever Cyril accidentally paralyzed someone and Jake found out about it, Cyril would have to endure another round of rude comments and remarks by his boss. Despite this harsh treatment, Cyril never once lost his temper and fought back. He simply hung his head in shame and found a quiet place in the garden to hide his embarrassment. No one who overheard Jake’s remarks, be it cleric or co-worker, bothered going to comfort him.

Cyril’s life was lonely in a sea of white-cloaked people until one day the previous year when he had encountered a young cleric-to-be who had just arrived from the east. She had long, black hair and an enchanting smile. Unfortunately, that smile had been frozen the moment she had looked at Cyril. The cyclops had carried the prone figure into the tower where the clerics had taken over, muttering and glaring at Cyril all the while. Cyril hung his head in shame as usual and returned to his duties outside, where his boss had done his part to make him feel even more miserable.

Surprisingly, the young cleric had come to see him later that same day. She seemed to have taken the incident all in stride, and had been understanding to his situation. She had told him it wasn’t his fault and that she forgave him. Cyril had thanked her, but kept his eyes averted, afraid to paralyze her again. Despite the uncomfortable exchange, she had visited him daily, chatting about her studies and asking him about herbs. They had become good friends, and Cyril’s boss had to order him to get back to work several times when the visits became too long.

“Hi!” said familiar voice behind Cyril.

Cyril half turned, remembering in time not to look at the speaker. “Hello, Vera,” he responded. “How are you today?”

“Fine. You?”

“O.K.”

Vera looked around. “Is the boss nearby?”

“He just went around back,” said Cyril.

“Good,” said Vera, relieved. “He cut our last meeting short.”

“We had lots of work to do,” said Cyril.

“Oh, quit defending him!” snapped Vera. “He’s always working you too hard and you know it.”

“Things are going to get busier,” continued Cyril. “We have to harvest many of the herbs ahead of schedule because of the situation at the Tower of Sorcery.”

Vera sat back. “I heard about that.” She fingered the talisman around her neck. “I hope Kazin is O.K.”

“Who’s Kazin?” asked Cyril suddenly. He took a chance and looked over at her. Fortunately, she was looking straight ahead at the garden.

“He’s only one of the most powerful mages alive,” answered Vera dreamily. She looked at the talisman at her bosom. “He gave me this talisman. It provides me with fire resistance and offsets most magical fire.”

“Why did he give you that?” asked Cyril.

Vera looked at Cyril, who looked away just in time. “He gave it to me when I was a little girl. My older brother, Max, who was a master mage and Kazin’s closest friend, had died in a quest, and the Tower of Sorcery awarded my family with this talisman to commemorate his heroic sacrifice.”

“How did he die?” asked Cyril.

“A dragon killed him,” said Vera sadly. She looked down to hide her sudden tears.

Cyril nodded. “You must be proud of him.”

“I am,” said Vera. “From that moment on, I wanted to become a cleric so that mages like my brother wouldn’t die needlessly like that.”

“That’s very honourable,” said Cyril.

Vera blushed.

“I thought I told you to water the faelora!” said a harsh voice suddenly. It was the head groundskeeper.

Cyril started. “Yes, sir!” The cyclops looked apologetically at Vera’s feet as he added, “I have to get back to work, Vera.”

Vera glared at the groundskeeper. “Why don’t you give Cyril a break? He works hard all day long and all you do is push him to work harder!”

“Vera, don’t -,” began Cyril.

“He works hard because that’s all he’s good for!” retorted Jake.

“That’s rude!” snapped Vera.

“Vera -,” repeated Cyril.

“Why don’t you go and spend your time with normal people instead of wasting time with one of my workers?” demanded Jake. “I ought to report you to the high cleric himself. I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of a student interfering with the work being done on the grounds. Now beat it while I’m still in a good mood!”

Vera reddened but decided not to push her luck. If the head groundskeeper reported her to the high cleric, she would be in danger of being expelled from the tower. And with the final test that afternoon, she could lose her chance to become a level one cleric. She couldn’t risk a confrontation with this evil man right now. Later, perhaps, but not right now.

A bell sounded, alerting the students to return to class. Vera took her cue, said a quick goodbye to Cyril, and headed for the tower. She could feel the groundskeeper’s eyes boring a hole in the back of her head as she went.