The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (12 page)

“There’s a gilded box in the upper library that can listen in on any conversation that takes place inside this palace! Didn’t you know that?”

“No! How did it get there?”

“One of our parents had some wizard put it there to spy on the other. And don’t ask me which one did it, because I can’t remember. Who knows, perhaps Paumer is listening to us this very moment.”

“No,” Uda said quickly. “He’s gone to bed.”

“Then maybe it was mother who had it put there. He may not even know it exists.”

“And how do you know!”

“I’ve lived here, remember? I like the forest.” Uda did remember now that Ognadzu had spent several summers here, as well as parts of the last two winters. He was really the only family member who had. Suddenly she understood a bit better his angry display at the gate.

“I — guess you probably feel this palace is — yours?”

“Astute, Uda,” Ognadzu mumbled.

“And the rest of us are —”

“Invaders.” Ognadzu bounced off the window seat and came toward her with frightening speed. “But then, you’ve made a lifetime of being that, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, though she knew precisely what he meant. Suddenly she felt him grab her by the shoulders and whirl her around him. She could see his angry face clearly in the starlight.

“Why did you come? Being part of the Grand Council was my one chance to be with him alone! You’ve wedged between us on everything else, Uda; now you’ve wedged us apart in this, too!”

Uda said nothing for a moment. When she did speak, it was in a monotone that proclaimed her lack of care. “Are you going to beat me up as you do the maids?”

Ognadzu grunted in shock. Then his rage took over. He picked her up and threw her across the room. Either by luck or because he couldn’t bring himself really to hurt her, Uda landed on her own bed. Even before she quit bouncing, he was climbing out the window. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

He leaned back inside to answer her. “What do you care? Should anyone ask you about me tomorrow, just explain that it got to be too much and I had to go.”

Uda had rolled to her feet and ran to the window herself. “But where?” she whispered loudly to his retreating back. “Father has very long arms! He’ll not let you leave the family.”

Ognadzu stopped and came back. “Leave the family? Did I say that?” Ognadzu took her hands in his and squeezed them, first gently, then with increasing brutality. “Oh, Uda. For such a bright little girl you can be truly
naïve
.”

“Ow!” Uda cried as she jerked her hands away and scampered backward into the room. When she returned to the window a moment later, her brother was gone.

“Ognadzu?” she called quietly. “Ognadzu!” she repeated, a little louder this time but not strongly enough to wake her father. Only the crickets answered.

Dazed by the importance of this event, Uda wandered back toward the center of her room. Suddenly the tension and excitement of the day dropped upon her shoulders like a fallen boulder, and she pitched headlong across her bed, sobbing. She cried herself to sleep.

She woke to the bright sunshine of midday and realized immediately that she’d slept all morning. She sat up in bed, yawned, then saw with chagrin that someone had dressed her in her nightgown and put her under the covers. That bothered her. It was the kind of thing nannies did to little girls, and she was certainly no little girl! She kicked off the covers with a savage — and very adult — oath, then padded to her closet to see what the servants had been able to find in her size. She was fully prepared to fly into a rage, but was disappointed — she found there an excellent selection of attire. She gazed for a moment at the rack, then selected a riding costume and quickly changed into it. She had some thinking to do, and nothing aided the workings of her mind like a long ride.

As she glided out her door, a solicitous servant sprang to attention and asked if she was interested in food. She waved him off disdainfully, striding down the corridor and out the side door to the stables. Moments later she was mounted and riding through the front gate. She’d said nothing about it to the groom, but had noticed Ognadzu’s horse was missing. As she cantered into the forest, she kept her eyes on the ground. She was looking for tracks.

Uda loved her brother. She hated him, too, of course — everyone did. But that didn’t eclipse the deep bond of loyalty she felt toward him, forged through years of being privileged children together, left for the most part alone. Who would she talk to now? With whom would she fight?

Later, as her horse walked more sedately through the trees, other questions intruded upon her silence. Did their father know? Were the spies of Paumer even now pursuing the wayward son toward who knew where? Or — and this seemed somehow worse — had Ognadzu not even been missed yet? When she got back to the palace would her father grill her about last night’s events? If so, what would she say?

“Stop!” she called sharply, and her mount obeyed. She’d heard something, something most strange. The rhythm of hoof-beats now silenced, she heard it more clearly — music! Beautiful music, the kind her mother commissioned, the kind rarely heard outside the refined art houses of Pleclypsa! Uda sat transfixed upon her disinterested pony, realizing for the first time a little of what her mother felt in the concert halls. But from where was it coming? She booted her horse in the flank and they took off at a gallop.

They plunged deeply into the Marwilds, far enough that even the fearless Uda began to question the wisdom of the search. It hardly mattered now, she supposed — the music had stopped. About the time she turned her horse around and started home, she realized she was lost. She didn’t mean to, but for the second time in two days Uda cried.

“Can I help you?”

“What!” she shouted, terrified at the closeness of the voice. She threw her head around to look behind her and met the eyes of a face she recognized. Her heart skipped a beat. “You — you’re the wizard ... Sheth?”

“You haven’t forgotten me so quickly, have you?” Sheth grinned, and there was no mistaking the menace in his smile. “It was, after all, only yesterday.”

“You — you remember me?” Uda gulped.

“Of course. You’re the daughter of Paumer. And crying, too. I wonder — are you lost?”

“I’m not lost!” Uda snarled quickly, then added, “I mean, not very lost. I was following some music,” she explained matter-of-factly. “That may sound odd, to hear music in the midst of a forest, but I did. So there.”

“Many odd things happen in the Marwilds.” Sheth grinned again, in a manner Uda found far from comforting. “Would you like to come visit me and see more?”

Uda didn’t hesitate. “I think at the moment I’d like to return to my father’s house. Since you’re his friend, would you be willing to guide me there?”

“Am I his friend?” Sheth smiled wickedly. “Has he ever told you so?”

Fear was just not a sensation Uda was accustomed to feeling. Thus, when it did come, it shattered her. She stared at the wizard, acknowledging for the first time how very deeply into danger she’d put herself. She gazed into the most menacing face she could recall and wondered what this man was about to do to her.

Abruptly, the powershaper’s expression changed. “Come child,” he said officiously. “I’ll take you home.”

Chapter Nine

S’MOTHERED

“MY ears!” Seagryn thought immediately upon waking. Had he screamed that thought? He couldn’t hear his own —

“Your friend is awake,” said a pleasant voice nearby, and Seagryn moaned with relief. He could hear after all.

“I told you he would, didn’t I?”

“Oh, I’m almost certain you did, yes.”

“You never listen to me.”

“That’s not true, son,” Dark’s mother responded amiably. “I always listen to you. I just never pay any attention to what you say.”

“And that’s what I mean by not listening!” Dark sounded vexed.

After a brief pause, Seagryn heard the woman again. “Ehm? I’m sorry. What was that, son?”

“I give up!” Dark screamed, but it seemed to Seagryn a mocking scream, a loving, gentle, playful scream. The conversation continued, but he was floating away, buoyed by the warmth of those two voices ...

*

He walked in a peaceful parkland, along the moss-covered bank of a brook. No, he didn’t walk — he floated instead, and he thought that odd, but disregarded it as no more odd than many other things he’d seen and felt in these past days. None of the strangeness mattered any longer, for he was about to be wed, and his anticipated joy rinsed all his recent troubles from his mind. What troubles? It occurred to him that he needed to remember them, that some critical things had happened, that a total loss of memory could be quite dangerous ...

He realized he was lost. The woods had grown sullen, choked with weeds and thorny shrubs. There was a path, but he took it unwillingly, wishing for other options but finding none. As he followed it, the forest seamed itself shut behind him, impelling him forward. And there was something up ahead, he knew, something very fearful, something that both drew and repelled him. He stopped. He started backward, but bumped into the bole of a giant tree that had suddenly grown up behind him and which shoved him further down the path with its ever-widening girth.

Then he heard music — enchanting music, meat for the spirit, and he realized what awaited him and good-naturedly berated himself for being such a fool. His wedding, of course! Elaryl awaited! Now he sprinted down the path, which seemed to drop downward in a sharp incline. He burst out of the woods into a meadow aglow with every conceivable shade of yellow. There she stood, his bride, the sun behind her head, her golden hair a halo of high-minded promise, and the music swelled and swelled — and swelled still further — until he felt himself ready to burst with it, and he glanced down in horror to realize that his body had swelled along with the sound!

He’d grown scales, the scaly armor of a lizard or a snake! In the midst of his forehead an enormous horn sprouted and grew, and he crossed his eyes to stare at it in humiliation. He turned his enormous head to gaze downward, and saw that his expanding torso had ripped through his wedding garments. They lay in tatters on the ground between his massive hooves, and he was utterly naked! Mortified, he looked for Elaryl’s reaction, certain of her rejection.

She wasn’t even looking at him. She’d wrapped herself in the music, that gorgeous, haunting music, and now wore a beatific expression that focused upward upon the One they did not name, the One who had betrayed Seagryn to the —

Music! Too much music! Seagryn struggled to cover his ears but no longer had arms or hands. He bounded around the meadow, crashing through tables and chairs erected for the occasion, bellowing in pain and humiliation. Yet the music would not stop, the magic would not stop, and he found himself facing that new-grown tree and began to bang his mighty horn upon it in rhythm to the all-pervading melody.

Then it seemed the tree was a tree no more, but a man, a giant, a handsome giant with blue eyes and a mustache and dimples and a horrible, abusive laugh. When Seagryn realized that this man’s laughter was the music, he wept in abject humiliation.

He rolled in the dirt at the giant wizard’s feet, twisting from side to side, then opened his eyes pleadingly and found himself ringed now by giants — the wizard behind him, the glowering Ranoth on his right, the snarling Talarath on his left, and before him, garbed in the robes of a high prophetess and wearing the most scornful frown of all, stood the lady Elaryl. He gasped, then opened his mouth to plead for forgiveness, but before he could utter a word her visage changed — to that of Sheth. The sorcerer smirked down at the cringing Seagryn, then chuckled, and then he laughed —

*

“The music! Stop it! I can’t bear — !”

“There, child. There, there, child. It’s all right. You’re all right. There, there.”

Someone cradled Seagryn’s head against her enormous bosom, and he let her do it, grateful for the touch, for the care, and for the warmth. He was awake, aware of his sobbing, and in the process of controlling it, but it was going to take him a moment to get beyond the nightmare’s deafening chords.

What he needed most was a friend. He allowed the woman to rock him gently as he gasped for breath, listening to the pounding of his heart and doing all in his power to slow it. At last he sighed and rolled his head back off the woman’s pillowy chest. His eyes met Dark’s. They watched him with deep concern and affection. Seagryn managed a weak nod.

“Better?” Dark asked.

“Yes,” Seagryn muttered.

“I told you there’d be pain —”

“Oh, hush!” the woman snorted, and she hugged Seagryn’s head again, crushing his ears. He managed to struggle out of her embrace, then looked up at her face. It was round and red, creased into a permanent smile by a profusion of wrinkles. This woman loved life, and didn’t care who knew it. Seagryn had to smile.

He glanced over at Dark, who had raised a meaningful eyebrow. “S’mother, this is Seagryn the powershaper. Seagryn, this is my s’mother.”

“Your mother?”

“No,” the woman sighed, then she laughed girlishly. “His
s’mother
!” And to prove it, she hugged Seagryn again, earnestly enough to choke the breath out of him.

“He’s got it,” Dark informed her wearily, and the woman released Seagryn with a hearty laugh.

Unfortunately, she then grabbed him by both cheeks to turn his face toward hers as she said, “He’s called me that since he could talk — which sometimes seems like it’s been forever!” Her smile softened. “You’re welcome here, Seagryn. For just as long as you choose to stay, as well as whenever you choose to come back. Call this home. Call me Amyryth.” Then she kissed him on the cheek and released him. “Stew’s on the stove. Need some firewood.” Then the woman was out the door and gone.

Seagryn blinked.

Dark sat on the edge of the bed. “You see why I’m gone so much?” he moaned.

“I see that you’re very much loved,” Seagryn mumbled. He rubbed his bruised cheeks and gazed around the cottage, now fully alert. “Where is this place?”

“In the Marwilds. Not far from where you had your last encounter with Sheth.”

“You live in the Marwilds?” Seagryn wondered.

“Have for years. Why not?”

“I guess ... I thought ... because you’re a prophet ...”

“Not all believers inhabit your precious land of Lamath, Seagryn, despite what you may have been taught by the elders. Just as — I’m sure you know — not all who live in Lamath are really believers.”

“True enough,” Seagryn mumbled, rubbing a huge knot on the side of his head. “Still, it is the land committed to belief —”

“Come on, Seagryn. I may be just a boy, but even I know land doesn’t believe anything. Only people believe. Some people.”

Seagryn swung his head around to gaze at Dark soberly. “And you? Do you believe?”

Dark grinned. “How can I help it! I’m a prophet, right?”

“Are you a prophet? Or do you just possess a different type of magic from that of Sheth?”

Dark’s good humor evaporated. “Why do you doubt what I say?” he asked sadly. “Because we live in the Marwilds instead of within your little corner of the old One Land? We once lived in Lamath, but we finally had to leave. The faithful like to talk a lot about prophets, but they don’t like having one live nearby. As soon as my gift became apparent, they drove my family out. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Didn’t they do the same to you?”

“That was different,” Seagryn grumbled, recalling the terrible events of his wedding day. “I deserved it.”

“Why?” Dark demanded angrily. “What did you do!”

“I used magic!” Seagryn snarled back. “And mine is magic! Magic most foul! Whence it came I have no idea, I only know it’s robbed me of my life and my love, and that I cannot ever use it again!”

Dark was gazing off into his own mind. “I knew that was coming,” he muttered.

“What was coming?”

“This disavowal of your gift —”

“What gift!” Seagryn sneered bitterly.

“Oh, it’s a gift. You may not like it much at the moment, but you can’t deny it was given —”

“But by whom!” Seagryn demanded. Dark’s answering smile infuriated him.

“Who else?” The boy prophet grinned. “Didn’t Ranoth say something about that to you? If he hasn’t, I know that he will the next time you —”

“He did,” Seagryn grunted.

“Well, then.” Dark chuckled. “You see?”

“I’m not using it.” It didn’t matter if the gift had come from the One they never named. That Power had betrayed him! As Elaryl had betrayed him ...

Dark propped his chin on his hand and gazed quietly at Seagryn for a moment. Seagryn ignored him. Finally, the boy hopped down from the high bed.

“You’re not going to listen to me anyway,” Dark muttered. He left the cottage.

Seagryn peered around at the brightly painted walls and felt a disabling hopelessness creeping up from deep within himself. There was nothing he could do — or rather, nothing he could feel righteous in doing. As a person who had lived all his life seeking righteousness, he found that realization crippling.

“Here we go,” Dark’s mother said as she stepped back inside the cottage. She carried a bundle of firewood across the room and set it next to the stove. Then she straightened up and glanced around. “Disappeared again, has he?”

“He just stepped outside,” Seagryn responded. The woman’s answering giggle surprised him.

“Forgot you were a powershaper and might take me literally. That’s what I meant — he’s gone?”

“Ah — yes ...”

“Good.” She grinned as she reached out to lift the lid on the stew pot. “Not that I like him gone, you see, but you’ve traveled enough with him to realize that he can cause a throb in the forehead. You’ve not eaten any of this. I’ll wager he didn’t offer it?” Amyryth was already grabbing a bowl.

“No —”

“You need to eat. You look awful.” She thrust the bowl of stew in front of him and held it in his face until he took it. “Not as bad as when we first dragged you out of that mud, mind, but still as wretched as a three-days’-dead cat. Can I get you some more?”

Seagryn had yet to take the first bite. “Ah — no ...”

“You want me to feed it to you?” Amyryth said, nodding eagerly.

“No,” Seagryn blurted and took a quick mouthful. He found the stew delightful, and that showed on his face.

“Thought it might taste good to you.” She smiled, turning back to her stove. “Had to ask my boy what wizards eat, but he assured me simple fare was best.”

“I’m not a wizard,” Seagryn grunted. He took another bite.

Amyryth turned around to gaze at him. “Yes,” she said after a moment, “Dark told me you’d say that.”

Seagryn’s only response was to raise his eyebrows and take another spoonful. The woman turned back to her chores, busying herself around her tiny kitchen area. She kept a close watch on him, however; as soon as he took the last mouthful, she was retrieving the bowl and refilling it.

“I was in the mud?” he asked when she brought it back to him.

“Head first. Up to your neck. We had an awful time cleaning it out of your ears and nose.”

Seagryn covered his face, embarrassed that this stranger would be so familiar with his nostrils. “How long had I been there?”

“Not but a moment, or you would have drowned.”

“Then you heard the music?” Seagryn frowned. “How did you avoid —”

“I heard very little of it.” Amyryth smiled serenely. She pointed to her ears. “We plugged them.”

Seagryn sat back in the bed and considered this. “Dark knew where it would happen ...”

“An annoying trait sometimes — I’ve never been able to surprise him, neither for a gift nor for a tanning — but on occasion it has been a real life-saver. You going to eat that or stare it down?”

Seagryn took another bite, and she nodded and went on.

“It’s been a hard gift to accept. Caused his father and me great grief, sometimes, because it’s been such a burden for the boy to bear, but the Power does what the Power chooses and it’s better to rejoice than to moan.” Amyryth looked sideways at him, her expression sly.

Seagryn immediately understood where she was leading, and resented it. “I wish I’d been blessed with such a gift.”

“No, you don’t.” The woman sighed as she took his bowl and carried it back to her tiny table.