The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (5 page)

“Not I. I had enough sense to sneak out of the tent before —”

“Hush!” Seagryn grunted, then he listened more intently. Far, far away there was still screaming, but he heard another sound, too. In eerie counterpoint to the shouts of terror he heard — music. Beautiful, incongruous music. He listened carefully until it faded. Then he turned his giant head in the direction of Dark’s voice. “So,” he muttered. “You were right. Again.”

“Boring, isn’t it,” the boy answered glumly.

Seagryn recovered his human shape suddenly. “How could such a gift be boring?”

“Can you imagine living without any surprises?” Dark asked. “Believe me. It’s boring.”

“Very well then, Dark the prophet. What happens to us next?”

“We try to find a tent still standing and get some sleep. Then tomorrow we start toward the meeting-place of the Conspiracy.”

Seagryn’s jaw gaped. “You said there was no Conspiracy!”

“So?” Dark said. “I lied.”

Chapter Three

CONSPIRING VOICES

PAUMER the merchant owned a hundred mansions, many of them splendid. But none could rival the grandeur of this house. It balanced upon the edge of a volcanic crater which cupped a bottomless blue lake. This lake was fed each summer by the melting snowcaps of the jagged peaks that ringed it. “The Hovel,” as Uda’s father liked to call the palace, nestled in a crack between two of the sharpest crags.

Had she been anxious for Paumer’s return, the petite, black-haired girl might have waited on the Hovel’s inner portico, watching for the barge to start across the lake. That’s how her father would come, for the only road into the cone wound up the mountain to the landing on its far side. But Uda was in no hurry to see him, nor the special birthday surprise he had promised. It wouldn’t be what she wanted. That he could grant with just a word — if he would ...

Instead Uda passed the time on the Hovel’s outer face, gazing down upon the green forests of northern Haranamous that ringed the volcano’s base and making plans. On most days, clouds clustered just below this summit, obscuring the view. But on this, her thirteenth birthday, the sky was so clear she could see all the way to the ocean on the eastern horizon. She could almost make out tiny galleys, plowing the waters to north and south. Did they catch the winds in the red-and-blue sails of the House of Paumer? Probably. Her father owned everything. Everything of any importance, anyway.

And that should make her powerful, she argued with herself as she planned. Her brother would doubtless call it scheming. He often accused her of such. But as she perceived it, only those without power schemed. Those
with
power planned how their influence should be applied — and protected. And Uda liked to think of herself as powerful. Why shouldn’t she? When Uda surveyed the world at her feet, she truly thought of it as her world.

Yet even as she thought it, Uda acknowledged her self-deceit. She was always scrupulously honest with herself, if with no one else. The power she longed for was still only potential power as long as her father continued to regard her as a little girl. How could she change his attitude? Her brother had managed to do so simply by acting boorish! How could she wring the same kind of respect out of him? As she listened to her own thoughts, Uda guessed she was scheming, after all ...

“Got it all laid out, do you?” her brother said from right behind her, and she jumped, startled by his sudden presence. Regaining her composure, she swiveled her head to look back at him disdainfully, and the fine strands of her waist-length black hair parted like a heavy curtain on either side of her right shoulder.

“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked him, her blue eyes wide with pretended innocence.

“Oh, come now,” he mocked. “We both know what you’re after, don’t we, Uda?” He exaggerated the guttural sound of her name to annoy her, and succeeded. Uda had always hated her name — it didn’t fit her, for it wasn’t the slightest bit pretty! But then, it wasn’t hers by choice. Her naming had sealed a contract long ago. While she’d never learned all the details, she did know it was an acronym formed from the first letter of the names of some forgotten trading houses now totally absorbed by her father. It comforted her that her brother had suffered a similar misfortune — only in his case there’d been several more partners.

“Do we, Ognadzu?”

Her brother only smiled. In his blue eyes, so very much like those that gazed back from her own mirror, Uda saw only selfishness. She wondered briefly if he saw the same in hers. “Admit it, child. You’re after a chair on the Grand Council. Have been, ever since I got mine. For your birthday, perhaps?” He cackled in genuine pleasure at her answering scowl, then clucked with the bitterest of sarcasm. “Happy birthday, little Uda dear!”

Uda whirled away, the long train of her hair twirling out behind her. She could not imagine how people as fine — when they were apart from one another, anyway — as her parents could have given birth to such a repulsive ogre! How had this obnoxious, immature little toad managed to con Paumer into making him a member of the Conspiracy!

She wasn’t allowed to call it that, of course. That term infuriated Paumer. He referred to it only as the Grand Council for Reunification and required his household to do the same. But everyone else in the world called it the Conspiracy and hated it — if they knew anything about it at all. For while the most influential wizards, warriors, and merchants in the world served as its members, they’d managed to keep its existence largely a secret. Rumors of its activities circulated constantly, and patriotic bands in each of the six fragments had sworn themselves to expose it. But Paumer wasn’t worried. He boasted that his agents had infiltrated every little group sworn to bring it down. Uda felt certain her father could destroy them at will, but he never would. And though only thirteen today, she already understood why. “Political power rests upon perceptions, not facts,” she’d heard her father explain. “Let people know enough to believe you can do them terrible injury, but never enough so that they could obstruct your goals.” Those were words to live by, Uda believed, and she intended to do just that. But Ognadzu, who never listened to their father’s wisdom, had been made the second representative from Pleclypsa instead of her. Why? Just because he was a few years older — and was male?

“Uda!” They both heard a voice calling — their father’s voice, amplified by the surface of the lake.

Ognadzu languidly scratched his back. “There he is. Why not run around and see what toy Daddy’s brought you this time?”

Uda shook her head. There was no question they were related. The eyes, the pointed chin, the black hair — they all matched. But could someone have made a mistake at his birth ... ?

“Uda!” Paumer called again, more insistent this time. With a sneer calculated to show Ognadzu she didn’t care what he thought, the girl raced off around the colonnaded portico that circled the mansion and down to the marble landing. Her father, beaming broadly, jumped onto the dock and loped toward her, his arms held wide.

Paumer had silver hair and large, friendly teeth. He also had a prominent nose, but that didn’t matter to Uda as long as her own didn’t start growing to match it. He was lean and a little bit short, but still tall enough to scoop his daughter off her feet and twirl her around twice before setting her down and kissing the top of her head. “Thirteen,” he muttered in her ear. “Who could imagine?”

Uda smiled up at him sweetly, then leaned up to kiss his cheek. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to an enormous crate that two dozen servants and bodyguards were struggling to push onto the dock. Paumer broke free from her embrace and barked:

“Careful with it! Annoy him and he’ll break right out!”

“Him? Who? What is it?” Uda shouted, all in one breath.

“You’ll see,” Paumer said, grinning like a schoolboy. Then he shouted, “All right! Open it up!” A pair of servants went to work on several latches, and soon the front of the wooden box fell open with a heavy clunk.

Uda caught her breath. Grabbing her father’s arm with both hands she squeezed tightly against him. “What is
that
?”

Paumer’s smile glistened in the setting sun. “That, dear daughter, is a tugolith. Happy birthday!”

A huge horned beast strolled out of the crate and regarded its new mistress. “Hello,” it said.

Uda squeezed her father’s arm tighter, her blue eyes quite round. “It talks,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Of course he talks!” Paumer grinned, and he took a step toward the beast. “Massive, isn’t he?”

Uda swallowed, still staring. The tugolith returned her stare without blinking.

“Isn’t he marvelous?” Paumer said enthusiastically as he tried to pull his daughter closer to this most unusual gift. “Listen, here’s a joke.” He chuckled. “You know where a tugolith sits?” When Uda didn’t respond he asked her again, more loudly: “You know where a tugolith sits?”

Uda at last took her eyes off the creature and looked up at her father. “No. Where?”

“Anywhere he likes!” Paumer shouted, then he hooted in self-appreciation. The guards and servants supported him with hearty — and thoroughly false — guffaws. Uda smiled brightly at her father, and Paumer relaxed at last. His daughter had let him off the hook.

But while Uda was willing to indulge Paumer by appearing to be pleased, she wasn’t about to go near this awesome talking animal. Not yet. “Ah ...”

“Yes?” Paumer asked.

“What’s he ... for?”

The question took the merchant by surprise. “For? Why ... he’s ... for riding!”

“Riding?”

“Certainly! You can ride him all around the Hovel!”

“Inside?” Uda asked, teasing her father. As usual, he didn’t catch the nuance and took her seriously.

“Of course not inside!” he blurted. “He’d wreck the antiques, spoil the rugs!”

“Not housebroken then,” Uda observed wryly, and Paumer realized she’d been kidding.

“Ah — he’s also for protection!”

“What?”

“To protect you! From kidnappers and such! Let them try to take my daughter and Vilanlitha will either stick ’em or squash ’em flat!”

“Vilanlitha?” Uda frowned.

Paumer nodded. “That’s his name.”

“How do you know?”

Paumer smiled his “how do you
think
I know, idiot” smile and said, “Because I asked him.”

“Oh,” Uda muttered. She looked back over her shoulder at the tugolith. “Where’s my mother?” she asked.

He quickly looked away, false smile firmly in place. “She wanted to come, darling, but she had a meeting in Pleclypsa. Culture, you know. Where’s Ognadzu?”

This quick change of subject sent Uda a clear signal; her parents were fighting again. She sighed, then turned her attention to his question. “He’s up on the outer face. He’s harassing me today.”

“Good, good.” Paumer smiled as he walked quickly up the dock toward the house. He hadn’t heard her at all. Uda watched him fondly. For a man of his age, he still could move.

“You are my mistress?” a deep voice rumbled behind her, and Uda squealed and whirled around. There she froze in terror. The beast stood right in front of her! It gazed at her a moment, then said, “You seem frightened.”

Uda swallowed. “Yes,” she answered.

“Of what?” Vilanlitha asked. Was that a frown? Uda asked herself.

“Of — of you,” she squeaked.

“Why are you afraid of me?” the tugolith asked her.

“Because you’re huge! You could hurt me!”

Vilanlitha’s eyes rolled. In anger? Uda quaked in dread. “I am a wise tugolith!” he announced.

Was that an explanation? “Yes?” Uda asked.

“You are my mistress!”

“Go on?”

“I won’t hurt you!” the tugolith thundered.

Uda blinked several times. “That ... that pleases me no end ...”

“But —” the beast roared, and Uda stiffened again.

“Yes?” she asked, her throat dry.

The tugolith’s eyes changed, narrowing in unconscious imitation of the human expression for cruelty, as it sneered, “I
do
like to hurt!”

Uda felt a chill seize her, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. Her cosmopolitan upbringing had prepared her to handle unusual situations, and this certainly qualified. More than that, it suddenly struck her how she must appear to the servants standing around. Her role required her to accept this gift with grace, recognize its value, and make full use of it. “Good,” she grunted. Then, while the servants were busy marveling at her boldness, she said, “My father says I can ride you. How?”

Vilanlitha kneeled down, putting his gigantic chin on the dock as he instructed through clenched teeth, “Climb up behind my horn.”

It seemed simple enough and it was. Soon Uda straddled the beast’s horn, and primly arranged her birthday frock around her knees as she gave Vilanlitha the command to go.

The tugolith carried her up onto the terrace and around to the outer face of the Hovel. “Stop!” she commanded suddenly, and Vilanlitha obeyed as she slipped down off of his face and ran to join her father and brother and a most unexpected guest. The wizard Nebalath was here!

“Call it what it is!” aged Nebalath was shouting at her father. “It’s a conspiracy, and you’re the one who’s made it so!”

Ognadzu saw her coming and stepped toward her. “Go away,” he ordered sharply.

“How did he get here! Has he been hiding? Did he come up with —”

“He just suddenly appeared up here. Now get
away
!” Ognadzu snarled, displaying his teeth like a vicious guard dog.

“Why should I?” she snarled back, her expression the mirror image of his.

“This is Grand Council business,” he said officiously — and the way he said it, the glee with which he rubbed it in, made joining herself to this trio of men a cause for which Uda would risk her life!

“Who do you think you are?” She dodged around him.

“Stop!” Ognadzu shouted, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back. That was a mistake.

“Is he hurting you?” Vilanlitha rumbled, stepping up behind Ognadzu to tower over him. It was the young man’s first glimpse of the tugolith, and his feet took root in the tiles as he stared up in terror. Uda merely smiled and plucked her brother’s hands off her shoulders.