The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (16 page)

“Yes, your Majesty,” Yost said quickly, bowing low and grabbing Seagryn by the arm. The new shaper of Haranamous was hustled quickly back to the spiral staircase and urged up it. Once out of earshot, Seagryn looked at Yost and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Don’t look at me.” The warrior shrugged. “That was my first audience with him too!” The captain snickered, then they were up onto the next level, where Yost checked signals with the posted guards to discover the whereabouts of Nebalath’s apartments. The guards rolled their eyes sympathetically and pointed the way, and Yost grinned at Seagryn again as they entered the indicated doors.

At the far end of an extremely cluttered room, a thin-faced man sat behind a Drax board. Dark sat on a stool beside him. Both were looking at the doorway expectantly. “This is the one,” the red-eyed wizard muttered. Seagryn couldn’t tell whether that was a question or a statement.

“Dark,” he said brightly. “Is this where they brought you?”

“The boy stays with me when he’s here,” Nebalath explained. “Which isn’t often enough, and he never tells me enough —”

“Ask the walls,” Dark grumbled, looking back down at the board.

“Don’t act your age, lad,” the wizard whispered loudly. “This House has its own ways of extracting vengeance —”

“Which is
exactly
why I stay inside it as little as is necessary.”

Nebalath glanced up at the wall and seemed to pause for a moment. Then he cackled merrily, and turned to look at Seagryn. “Did you get that?”

Seagryn blinked. “Get what?”

The strange wizard looked up at the ceiling. “He doesn’t hear you. How can we be certain he’s a shaper if he can’t hear you?”

“Why not take my word for it,” Dark said, staring down at the Drax board.

Seagryn looked at Yost, whose expression was, if anything, more perplexed than his own.

“Warrior?” Nebalath called.

“Yes, my — Lord?” Yost said.

“We’re all quite out of our minds in here. Unless you wish to be too, please go. I’ll take care of your young wizard.” At this Nebalath seemed to smile at Seagryn. It appeared the old man could be charming when he so chose.

Yost smiled encouragingly at Seagryn, but his own great personal relief was apparent. “Until tomorrow, then,” he said and bowed out of the room.

“And close the door!” Nebalath shouted. Yost replied with a heavy slam. Seagryn turned back to the wizard and began to walk tentatively into the room. “That’s right, come join us,” Nebalath called. But when Seagryn reached the table and started to take the empty stool, he snapped “Not there, that’s the House’s chair. Sit over there.” Nebalath pointed to one pile among a number of piles of books, and Seagryn went to sit down on it, shooting Dark a confused look.

“I told you.” Dark shrugged. “The House is alive.”

“Alive?” Seagryn winced.

“Of course it’s alive,” Nebalath muttered, moving one of his pieces and pegging it. “Has been ever since chubby little Nobalog roamed these halls. He needed some company — evidently this place was as full of fools then as it is now!” Seagryn wisely kept his mouth closed, waiting. In a moment the powershaper continued. “What I don’t understand is why you can’t hear it. All wizards can hear it!”

“You haven’t taught him the language,” Dark argued without passion. “Teach Seagryn the language and he’ll understand too.”

Nebalath turned around to Seagryn and grinned at him. “Teach him? How can you teach someone who already knows it all?”

That stung, and Seagryn shot Dark a frown before protesting, “Those are the boy’s words, not mine! I know very little about this powershaper business and, in fact, I asked Sheth to give me lessons —”

“Ha!” Nebalath hooted, then suddenly stopped and tilted his head toward the wall. After listening a moment he hooted again and looked back at Seagryn. “You actually asked the bear to teach you something? It’s a wonder he didn’t bite your head off!”

Seagryn smiled politely, trying a bit of class in the face of what he perceived to be mockery. “I think he tried.”

“Ha-ha!” Nebalath hooted again and looked back at the board, listened a moment, then frowned. “You just took my column!” he protested, and with a curse he reached out to move another piece across the board, then pegged it with a jab.

Dark looked at Seagryn. “The Imperial House is winning,” he explained.

“As usual,” the elder wizard grumbled.

Seagryn glanced around the room, feeling most uncomfortable. When at last he’d built his courage, he said “There is something I’d like to ask you, Nebalath.”

“And what is that,” the wizard mumbled, eyes still on his Drax set.

“Would you be willing to teach me?”

The old shaper seemed to rise from the board and then off his stool in stages, turning slowly around to gaze into Seagryn’s eyes. How bloodshot was that gaze! “You want me to teach you?”

Seagryn cleared his throat. “Why — yes. Sir.”

“Sir!” Nebalath whooped, doubling over with merriment as he looked to the walls again. “Sir, he calls me!” When his mirth died somewhat, Nebalath leaned forward until his forehead almost touched Seagryn’s. “Why, I would be honored to teach you, exactly as I was taught!” He said it with such sincerity Seagryn found he had to grin. Then the wizard leaned his head upon his chest, angled it to the right — and disappeared.

The snap of air rushing together to fill the void knocked Seagryn off his pile of books. He came up off the floor rather angry, searching the room for some sight of the vanishing wizard. “Did that
mean
something?” he demanded of Dark.

“Two things,” the boy prophet said wearily. “First, he was self-taught, and you’ll have to be too. Apparently all power-shapers are. And second — I thought you weren’t going to trust anyone anymore?”

Seagryn scowled down at the boy, then turned around to walk out of the room. “Seagryn?” Dark called, and his plaintive tone stopped the angry shaper at the door.

“Yes?”

“Can I sleep in your room? This place truly terrifies me!”

Seagryn looked at the floor, his face burning with embarrassment. He needed sleep. Tomorrow he had to cover an entire army and he realized he hadn’t a clue as to how to go about it. He needed Dark as much as the boy needed him. “Come on,” he growled. Together they found their way back down to Seagryn’s room, and both slept the sleep of exhausted campers returned from a month in the woods.

Chapter Thirteen

SHAPER’S APPRENTICE

THE Imperial House of Haranamous had stood upon this confluence of rivers forever — or at least for two thousand years, which is much closer to forever than any man had ever come. For a little less than a thousand of those years it had watched and listened to the people who moved within its bowels. Brought to life by Nobalog, a wizard of great power and even greater mischief, it had been privy to the councils of the giants of history, listened to the hatchings of unnumbered plots, witnessed the collapse of the old One Land, and kept up a running commentary upon it all with a long line of powershapers who were heirs to Nobalog by ability, if not by blood. The House had talked to a lot of wizards — at least one in every generation — and it had certain standards. This Seagryn didn’t measure up to any of them.

— He can’t be much of a shaper, snorted the Imperial House of Haranamous.

“The boy says to give him time,” Nebalath muttered to the battlements. The House’s current companion stood on top of its roof, peering westward into the still dark sky while day dawned over his back.

— He cannot even understand this House! the House continued.

“Not many do immediately, remember? Saramech did, you told me. And Arkalapt — and of course Sheth.”

— Sheth! the House said with pleasure. — Now there’s a shaper!

Nebalath snorted derisively.

— Not the match of you or Nobalog, but a mighty shaper, nonetheless.

“Nobalog’s dead, remember? Happened about nine centuries ago?”

— But you’re so much like him! the House chortled.

“I’ve seen the portraits,” Nebalath muttered. “He was fat and bald, and I’m neither.”

— Appearance isn’t everything, the Imperial House sniffed. — You may believe what this House tells you. You are just like him! Excepting, of course, that you can’t play Drax.

“You’ve been practicing that game a thousand years! How am I supposed to —”

— This new so-called wizard is behind you upon the stair, the Imperial House interrupted.

Nebalath turned around slowly and looked at Seagryn. The younger man stood on the top step, holding onto the railing as he surveyed the horizon.

“Seems to stretch out forever, does it?” Nebalath asked without really asking. “Perhaps humbles you a little?”

Seagryn frowned at him, then stepped onto the roof proper and walked to a low place in the wall. He gazed down at the river, and Nebalath strolled over to join him.

“A little humility is an advantage for a shaper,” Nebalath murmured. “Especially on the morning of his first battle.”

“I’ve battled before,” Seagryn responded, still, looking down.

“Skirmished. Squished a few Marwandians between your enormous toes.”

Now Seagryn looked at him. “How did you know!”

“No great teat of shaping, if that’s what you guess. I just asked the boy.”

Seagryn gazed away again, looked toward the mountains barely visible in the north. “And he told you, did he? He never tells me anything.”

“Probably because you’re always asking about the future. Being older, I’m much more interested in the past, and that Dark seems happy to discuss. He’s still asleep.”

“Are you asking me?”

“No need. The House told me.” Seagryn had been leaning against the wall. Now he dropped his hands to his sides and looked down at it. “It’s all right. The House doesn’t mind.”

— A presumptuous statement, grumbled the Imperial House. — Did you bother to ask?

Nebalath paid no attention to this comment, continuing, “Let me see if I can guess what you’re thinking.”

“Why bother, when you have a prophet to tell you the past and future and a palace to fill you in on the rest?”

Nebalath chuckled. “That’s a good question. Perhaps because I care what happens today?”

“If you truly cared, you’d be fighting the shaper battle instead of me.” Seagryn had unconsciously reached out to grip the low wall again.

Nebalath noticed the young man’s knuckles turning white. Fear? Doubtless. “That isn’t necessarily true, you know. You could reason that I feel you’re much more likely to succeed than I.”

Now Seagryn turned around to stare at him. “How? When, as you say, I’m fighting my first real battle and know nothing of how to go about it?”

“Perhaps simply because you know nothing about it. Sheth won’t be prepared for that.”

“I’ve already faced Sheth once. Based on that experience I wouldn’t wager on my chances today.”

— Never wager on chance, the Imperial House advised. — Wager only on those things that can be controlled. Drax, preferably.

“But that’s your advantage over him.” Nebalath shrugged. “He’ll disregard your abilities and pay too little attention. If he battled me, he would concentrate, and we’d struggle to our usual stalemate. Sheth and I have locked wills so many times we each know exactly what the other will do in any situation.”

“But what do I do?” Seagryn demanded. “I’ve never even seen a shaper battle — I don’t know what the possibilities are! And you’re no help, since you refuse to teach me.”

“How can I teach you to shape?” Nebalath said, shrugging dramatically. “No one taught me. No shaper ever teaches another.”

Seagryn just nodded, and stared out over the city. The slanting sunlight painted it in stark contrasts of black and pink. Nebalath watched him, then turned to look out at the rosy landscape himself. It gave him an idea. “You could throw a blush,” he murmured.

“A what?” Seagryn asked and suddenly felt so stupid at asking such a ridiculous question that he had to grip the wall to keep from doubling over in embarrassment.

Nebalath understood the emotion precisely — for he had caused it. “A blush.” He shrugged. “What you’re feeling.” Then he released it, and Seagryn stared straight ahead in shock.

— Cease! shouted the Imperial House. — You have no idea the pain your little demonstration has caused!

“Relax,” Nebalath told the wall. “It’s not as if I’m inside you.”

— Makes no difference! shrieked the House. — Do you enjoy having your hair pulled?

“It felt as if you were inside me,” Seagryn muttered, assuming Nebalath’s comment was for him.

The veteran shaper didn’t bother to correct him. “I suppose it does,” he muttered, nodding. “Never felt it myself, since no one’s ever done it to me, but I understand it shatters the self-confidence —”

Seagryn still gripped the wall. “Horribly!” he managed to gasp.

“Can you imagine what it might do to an army, when every soldier suddenly feels he’s been caught with his pants down, and that every other warrior around is staring at his exposed backside?”

— You’re teaching, the Imperial House archly observed.

“Have you done that to the Army of Arl?”

Nebalath leaned his elbows on the wall and looked down at the river. “I try, occasionally. But Sheth counters it with a cloud of false confidence. He has enough of that to share with a hundred armies.”

— ‘No shaper ever teaches another,’ the House mocked, obviously irritated at being ignored.

“But these are — emotions!” Seagryn argued with suppressed excitement. “I thought magic was spells and incantations!”

“Tell me,” Nebalath demanded. “Have you used one incantation since you found your altershape? Even just one?”

“Why — no —”

“You’ve heard about such from your Lamathian priests. But what do they know about magic, other than that they refuse to have anything to do with it? Shaping is manipulation of powers or persons by an act of the will. Nothing more, nothing less — manipulation of emotions, of perceptions, of objects, of outcomes, whatever. Everyone shapes, to some degree — even Ranoth. Perhaps especially Ranoth.” Nebalath chuckled, more to himself than to Seagryn. “But some of us are better at it than others. Why that is, I don’t know, nor do I care. But I do know this —”

— Perhaps you should write a scholarly treatise to place within the library? the House suggested snidely.

“If these fortress walls will let me finish, I’ll tell it to you and be done,” Nebalath growled. “The essential gift of the true shaper is imagination. Free yours, Seagryn, and use it — else whatever you do won’t be shaping at all — just imitation. And that,” the thin-faced sorcerer shouted down at the battlement, “is why shapers
cannot teach other shapers to shape
!” Nebalath looked back up at Seagryn, who gazed at him in wonder. “Now,” the older man said in as kindly a tone as his naturally gruff voice would permit, “if you’ll go on down to the throne room, you’ll find General Chaom and Dark waiting for you.”

Seagryn blinked. “The castle told you that?”

— Why don’t you learn to listen for yourself!

“Currently, the Imperial House is only concerned with abusing us both. I try to be tolerant, realizing that old age makes some beings cranky.”

— This House shall talk with the hills when your bones are dust!

“Yes, and they’ll probably ignore you too,” Nebalath snapped, then turned back to Seagryn. “No, that I learned from Dark last night. He — he
does
tell me the future too, when I ask.”

Seagryn nodded absently, still reviewing Nebalath’s advice and challenge. Then he glanced down at his hands, and self-consciously patted the wall before turning to walk back to the stairs. There he stopped. “Thank you,” he muttered, and he descended again into the Imperial House.

“There now, you see?” Nebalath said. “He even patted you.”

— This House is not a horse.

“Some days,” the wizard sighed, “there’s just no pleasing you.”

*

New ideas unfolded through Seagryn’s mind as he left the rooftop and hurried down the spiral staircase to the throne room. Each thought opened onto a dozen new thoughts and all came so fast he had no time to judge their value. His heart danced with terror and thrill. The freedom he’d felt since the skirmish at Tunyial Falls had been tempered by Nebalath’s words into a sense of opportunity. Today he had the chance to make history-no, he reminded himself, the assurance from Dark that he would make history — and some guarantee of survival, at least until he could win Elaryl back. He’d lost so much in recent weeks he had nothing to lose today. He hungered for a personal triumph and sensed it within his grasp. He struggled to free his imagination ...

“Here he is,” King Haran grumbled as Seagryn stepped into the huge second-floor room. “We searched, but couldn’t find you. I thought you’d run away.”

“I — was on the roof. Talking to Nebalath.”

“Humph.” Haran grunted and rolled his eyes around to look at the man standing on his right. Seagryn recognized the round-faced General Chaom immediately. “The wizards have been talking,” the king grunted. “Can normal people ever profit when wizards visit in private?”

“I’ve no idea, your Majesty,” Chaom said quietly. He studied Seagryn’s face, sending a signal even as he pretended not to recognize it. “Are you certain this is a shaper?”

“He says he is. Dark says he is. Captain Yost says he’s seen the fellow turn himself into a great horned beast — for whatever good that is.”

“Yes, my Lord, I’ve spoken with Yost. What is your name?” Chaom asked loudly.

Seagryn was tempted to respond, “You’ve forgotten me so quickly?” but instead murmured, “Seagryn.”

Chaom smiled slightly, then nodded. “While you two shapers talked, did either of you happen to take note of our military predicament?” Seagryn frowned. “I assume you did not. As you were saying, your Majesty, normal people can benefit occasionally from the conversations of shapers, but only if we can first get their attention.”

“I can readily understand that.” The king nodded. “Since I’ve had a bit of trouble lately getting yours.”

“I’ve been fighting a war, my Lord.”

“Spare me the details of your days in the field,” King Haran mumbled wearily. “I know far more about them than you might hope. My concern at the moment is this column of war boats. Can you and this wizard spare the time from your private concerns to defend this city?”

“Your Majesty, we will do our best.” Chaom nodded and bowed. Seagryn noticed, when the general straightened up, how much taller he was than the king. There had been too much going on in that meeting of the Conspiracy for Seagryn to take much note of Chaom. He realized now how big this warrior was. Haran stood on the throne’s dais. Chaom stood on the floor beside it, yet the top of his head was level with the king’s. Chaom turned to Seagryn. “Shall we go plan our defense?” Without waiting for a response, Chaom turned to leave the room through a door behind the throne. Seagryn nodded to the king, who raised a gray eyebrow, then followed the warrior out.

Chaom stood waiting on the other side of the door, a hand to his lips, indicating Seagryn could not yet speak freely. The general threw a huge arm around Seagryn’s shoulders and escorted him quickly down a corridor and into another rather sizable room, decorated with tapestry maps and gilded weapons. “The Chamber of War,” Chaom explained, then plunged briskly into his subject. “Nebalath said you would come, but I’ve rarely had reason to trust the man. Here’s our situation.” Chaom grabbed a short spear off the wall as he pulled Seagryn toward one of the tapestries. He pointed to a city made of golden stitches, each obviously sewed into the map with loving care. “We’re here — the City of Haran.”