The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (29 page)

“Charming, yes.” Seagryn nodded. The pace of the litter had slowed, and he wondered why. Then they were moving up a hill, and he and his lady were tilted backward against the seat.

Elaryl turned her head to look at him and grinned playfully. “Now this is nice — don’t you think?”

They were able to squeeze in several kisses before they arrived at their destination — several very long kisses. Suddenly they were turned upright again, and the four legs of the litter crunched down into hard snow. Seagryn threw aside the curtain and looked out.

The hillside was beautiful, its slopes decorated with perfectly conical fir trees, their branches all glazed with identical helpings of snow. But the structure that crowned its crest did everything possible to spoil the picture. The misshapen building was flat, blocky, and awkwardly gangling at the same time. Most of it was a squat box of cut rock, but right in the center a spindly tower, constructed in an entirely different architectural style, pointed nakedly at the sky. Perhaps its flaws would not have been so noticeable had the building’s stones not been painted turquoise and yellow. A more garish place Seagryn had never seen, and he looked at Elaryl in shock.

She let a hint of a smile turn up one side of her mouth as she nodded toward the litter-bearers. “These are the men of Stator Monastery,” she announced to prevent him from sharing his opinion out loud. “And this is the monastery itself — designed, I understand, by its founder.”

Seagryn looked back at the building and blinked.

“What is this?” Berillitha asked, and Seagryn looked around to see she had followed them up.

“It’s — a dwelling. A place where we live.”

Berillitha looked up at this huge blemish and said, “It is ugly.”

Seagryn looked back at Elaryl and caught her helpless shrug. “I doubt if anyone could put it more plainly,” she said, and she held out her hand for Seagryn to help her from the litter.

Other litters crawled up the hill, bearing Paumer and Ranoth, Talarath and Elaryl’s mother, Uda and Dark, and the other dignitaries who had gathered at this place to welcome Seagryn. He would have waited for them, but Elaryl took his hand and led him toward the door. He turned around to call to Berillitha, “I am fine. I will be inside here. Enjoy the snow!” The creature gave him a dubious look but didn’t move from where she stood. Elaryl led him inside and down a high-ceilinged hallway to the apartment they would share.

“Ah!” she said as she stepped inside. “Just as I ordered!”

“What did you order?” Seagryn replied as he walked to the lead-lined window and glanced out to insure Berillitha had remained outside. She had.

“A bath!” Elaryl cried, loudly enough to get him to turn around and look at her. She stood beside a large ceramic trough filled with steaming water. Already she had shrugged off her fur, and now she turned her back provocatively and said, “Untie these bows, won’t you?”

The magenta gown made her cheeks glow like roses. Seagryn crossed the carpeted room in two strides. When the bowstrings hung loose, Elaryl turned her head back and looked inquiringly into his eyes. “Join me? You already seem dressed for it —” She glanced down his body and he realized then that in his haste he’d let the coverlet Dark had brought him gape open. She glanced immediately back up, and her confident smile relaxed him. “It’s all right, Seagryn. Remember? We’re joined at the feet ...”

They slipped down into the water together, and Seagryn wrapped himself in its warmth and her arms. They kissed and the tugolith outside was the last thing on his mind — until the window behind them shattered, and Berillitha thrust her huge head inside it. Elaryl flew out of the water and raced to the doorway, pausing only long enough to grab up the discarded coverlet. Then she was gone, disappearing down the hallway.

Seagryn stared at Berillitha in shock, and the tugolith returned his gaze. Then she smiled. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Chapter Twenty-seven

MAKING NEW PAIRS

WHEN at last he joined the others for dinner, Uda assured him that Elaryl was fine. “I told her all about tugoliths,” the girl explained officiously. “I have one of my own, of course-well you’ve seen him. And I told her what was going to happen to this one and that she didn’t need to worry. She said to tell you she’s not angry and she’ll be down soon — if you promise that the beast won’t barge in on our supper.”

There was no longer any chance to sit down unobtrusively, but Seagryn still took a place at the far end of the table and responded as quietly as he could and still be heard. “The tugolith is safely within the monastery enclosure. I don’t think there will be any further problems. She’d just never seen a human dwelling before, and was curious.”

Uda nodded as if he’d addressed this directly to her, and said, “Elaryl wasn’t all that surprised. How could she be? Dark had already told her it would happen.”

Seagryn took note of this, but didn’t comment directly. He tasted cooked, human food for the first time in weeks, and found it delicious. He savored it momentarily before looking across the table at Dark. “Then your gift is fully restored?”

Dark nodded, but didn’t speak, instead shoving food into his mouth as if this were his last meal. It occurred to Seagryn that the boy would know ...

“No more blind periods?” he asked.

“No,” Dark grunted. “Not for a long time, in any case.”

Seagryn took another bite, and glanced down the table to nod at Paumer, Ranoth, and Talarath. Was his father-in-law scowling? It was so hard to tell with the old man. He always seemed to look that way.

Talarath finished chewing a bite and swallowed, then peered earnestly at Seagryn and said, “You’ll be leaving tomorrow then?”

Seagryn’s eyes widened. “I will?” he said. He looked at Dark. “I will?”

“We will,” the boy grumbled, took another piece of bread, and halved it before stuffing both pieces into his mouth.

“Is that the best plan?” Seagryn wondered aloud, feeling as helpless as he always did in the face of Dark’s certainty. “I’ve just arrived here in Lamath from a very long journey. I think a day or two of rest —”

“We can’t allow that animal out there to destroy this monastery!” Talarath thundered. His fierce frown turned his bushy eyebrows into a continuous line across the bottom of his forehead.

“What Talarath is saying,” Paumer stepped in quickly, “is that there is a grave need for haste in all these matters. You and Dark were — delayed — I understand, underground. That was time the Arlian king spent profitably in resting and refitting his army for another attack upon the east. Now that Haranamous is without the services of either Nebalath or —” he smiled “— may I say it? Or Seagryn Bearsbane, the people of that fair land are just as vulnerable to attack as they were last summer. Perhaps more so, since now the Pyralu Army want vengeance as well as spoil. No, Seagryn, I’d say there’s little time to rest. Unfortunate, but true. We need to get this tugolith down to Sheth as quickly as possible, so the two of you can get on about making the dragon.”

“We? Are you going too?”

“I am.” Paumer nodded. “Not that I can do anything to help in its construction, of course, but we all know Sheth, and it does seem to be in the best interests of the Grand Council to be well represented on site, as it were.”

Seagryn was staring now at Dark, searching the lad’s face for some acknowledgment of what they’d talked about today upon the road and for some guidance as to how to handle Paumer’s pressure. Dark wouldn’t look up. He just kept filling his mouth full. To keep from having to talk? Seagryn wondered.

“There she is,” Uda announced, and she nodded toward the door. Seagryn looked around, saw Elaryl, and jumped up to go to her.

“I’m all right,” she said frostily, holding up her hands to keep him from touching her. “I — should have believed what I’d been told,” she added, glaring at Dark. The prophet paid her no attention, so she strolled over to take her seat at the table. Seagryn joined her, watching her face earnestly. She glanced up, caught him watching her, and snapped, “I said I’m fine!”

He nodded and returned to his food. He was hungry, still, but it seemed he could no longer taste. He ate with good appetite but little passion.

“Of course,” Talarath murmured, clearing his throat before continuing, “your wife will return with us to southern Lamath until you’ve completed the job.”

“What?” Seagryn said, sitting up and staring at his father-in-law.

“It — would be better for both of you,” the old man added.

Seagryn saw that now Dark did choose to look at him, but gave him no signal other than a supportive smile. “My dear sir,” Seagryn stated with great formality, “what my wife does shall be my concern — and hers. We’ve just this day been reunited. I do not intend to part with her again tomorrow morning!”

Talarath didn’t look at him as he growled, “If the decision rests partly with her, perhaps you should ask my daughter what she intends to do.”

Seagryn felt very certain in his dealings with old Talarath and the rest of the Ruling Council. He knew the way their minds worked, and had learned how to counter them. He felt far less secure when it came to predicting Elaryl’s wishes. Her father had evidently been working on her already, and the episode with Berillitha this afternoon would not encourage her to want to travel off to the Marwilds with the creature. But he had said she would share in the decision. He had to let her. He looked into her eyes and raised his eyebrows. “What will you do?” he asked.

“I’m really not sure yet. Can we talk about this later? I’m hungry.”

So they left weightier matters aside and finished eating. By the time the after-meal sweets had disappeared from the table, Elaryl and Seagryn were laughing and flirting as of old. A trio of the brothers had been scheduled to provide after-dinner entertainment, but their singing was as bad as the decorating tastes of their order’s founder; anyway, the couple had already planned other entertainments for the remainder of the evening. They slipped away hand-in-hand, while everyone at the table took pains not to notice their departure.

“This way is shorter,” Elaryl whispered, and she dragged Seagryn out through a pair of double doors into the cobblestoned courtyard. It had started snowing again, thick, wet flakes just right for packing into balls, and Elaryl stooped to scoop some up and shoved it into Seagryn’s face.

“You —” he gasped. Then he, too, grabbed a handful and pushed it toward Elaryl, laughing as she shrieked and danced away. She wasn’t dissuaded by his attack, however. It just called for a strong retaliation, and she skipped to a stone bench layered with snow and flung it into his face with a swoop of her arm. Cackling with delight, Seagryn chased her, grabbing her around the waist and throwing her into a pile of snow that had drifted up against the courtyard wall. Their laughter was cut short by a bellow of rage neither of them had expected.

“You are making new pairs!”

Seagryn was on his feet immediately, facing the charge of a furious tugolith. He’d understood in a moment — all tugoliths birthed their offspring in male/female pairs — and they mated in drifted snow. Berillitha had understood at last what Seagryn had tried so hard to tell her. The tryst in the snowbank made it clear.

“You are paired to me!” Berillitha trumpeted.

“Berillitha, no!” he shouted, but she’d already targeted her horn on Elaryl and had lowered her head to strike.

“I will horn this punt!”

There was no time. Seagryn took his altershape and jumped between them. Berillitha’s horn pierced his right forequarter and lodged there. This was a far deeper wound than her brother had inflicted upon him, and Seagryn nearly fainted from the pain. He managed to keep his feet, however, and held his ground on the slippery stones as Berillitha struggled to pull her bloody spike free.

“Not you!” she shouted. “You are my pair! I will horn her!”

“You will horn no one but me,” Seagryn gasped. When she did finally manage to back out of his flesh, he squared around to face her and waved his own horn in her face. “And if you try, I will horn you back.”

Standing nose to nose with him, Berillitha blinked. “But you are the Wiser,” she whined.

“That may be,” Seagryn rumbled in his deep tugolith voice, “but I am also a man. And as a
man
I am paired to
her
.”

The tugolith looked back at him, watching his eyes. Seagryn was aware that a crowd had gathered at the double doors, and that they were waving at Elaryl to run to them. She started to go, and Berillitha jumped to that side of him. Seagryn leaped to meet her, and their horns bashed together with a bone-jarring
clack
!

“Stay where you are, Elaryl!” Seagryn commanded. He could see Berillitha’s eyes follow Elaryl back to the snowdrift.

“I can’t horn the Wiser,” Berillitha complained, looking for a way around this obstacle.

“You must, if you plan to get to her. But I will horn you back if you try.”

Berillitha stopped shuffling and stood motionless before him. “I am a punt,” she said quietly. Then she turned her back on him and walked back to the far side of the courtyard. She lowered her head and leaned against the wall. Seagryn could no longer stand to watch. He took his human-form again and walked back to look down at Elaryl, who still cowered in the snowbank. He held out his left hand to her. “It’s all right now. Everything is settled. She won’t try to harm you anymore.”

Elaryl gazed up at him, her expression that of fear mixed with admiration. Then she saw his shoulder, and jumped to her feet. “You’re bleeding!”

Where Berillitha had horned him, Seagryn now had a deep wound, but not nearly so deep as it would have been had she stuck him while he was human. He’d really not noticed it much, but now it started burning, so he stooped to grab some snow to pack against it.

“Come on,” Elaryl ordered, and she led him inside, ignoring the crowd at the door as she pulled him through to the kitchen. She doused his shoulder with ale, then led him back out into the hallway where everyone seemed to have clustered to share their impressions of the event they’d just witnessed. Elaryl marched past her father to Ranoth, who stood talking with the leader of the order. “We are sleeping in the tower tonight,” she announced firmly. This was a statement, not a request, and she didn’t wait for permission. She guided Seagryn through the crowd and up the staircase into that spindly yellow and turquoise tower they’d both considered so grotesque.

In the tiny circular room at the top there was a mattress, a candle, and little else — but that was enough. Elaryl sat Seagryn on the bed and undressed him, taking care to keep the material of his garments from touching the wound. Then she pulled back the cover and helped him to lie down. Finally she stripped off her own clothes, blew out the candle, and snuggled in beside him. Despite his wound, they did not immediately sleep.

Later, as they drowsed in one another’s arms, Elaryl struggled up onto one elbow and whispered, “Seagryn?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m going with you tomorrow.”

“Hmm.” He smiled in the blackness and hugged her closer to him.

“On the condition that you do whatever it is my father and Ranoth are asking you to do. I want all of this to be over, Seagryn, so that we can go back home and get back to our lives.” Elaryl turned over then, wriggling her long body backward into his, and soon began breathing the slow, deep breaths of sleep.

For Seagryn that did not come so easily. He lay in the darkness, thinking about the beast he’d betrayed, who now mourned against the courtyard wall below them. Just before he slept, he thought he heard a quiet, mournful hooting — then weariness finally wrapped her cloak around him, and Seagryn sought forgiveness in his dreams.

*

Somewhere toward dawn he awoke, very thirsty and very sore in the shoulder. Then he remembered the hooting, and listened for it. He sat up with alarm. What if Berillitha had gone?

There were three windows in the tower, and he went to each until he found the one looking down upon the courtyard. There she was, still leaning against the wall, her back covered with a coating of white from the night’s snowfall. But Berillitha wasn’t asleep. She’d turned her head up to look at this window as she watched and waited for her Wiser’s return.