The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (7 page)

Finally, he settled for:

"Oh, Stewball had a saddle,

And I wish it were mine,

Scaled up for a draco

In a size ninety-nine.

With buckles of silver,

And chasings of gold,

And the worth of this saddle

Has never been told!"

The air glimmered before them, building into a hazy something that clarified and solidified--into a huge coil of leather that broadened out into a contoured top at least four feet across.

They just stood there staring at it for a while. Then Matt turned away.

"Confound and blast it! When will I remember to check the fine print!"

"Well, it's pretty...

"It ought to be, with all that precious metal--but it's, shall we say, a little too generous? I mean, I know I've gained weight these last three years, but not that much."

"What happened?"

"I called for a saddle for a dracogriff--so I got one big enough for you to ride in."

The dracogriff stared. Then its mouth lolled open again.

"Please!" Matt squeezed his eyes shut. "Not the laughter. Please, no. I can change it easily enough."

"Oh, yeah?" The draco chuckled. "This, I want to see!"

"All right," Matt said. "Here we go." He glared at the saddle, thinking furiously, then chanted

"From a size for a griff to a size for a man,

Great saddle, shrink down fill my hands' double span

Will encompass your breadth, while your cinch holds its length. Great saddle, dwindle, but retain your full strength."

"Doesn't seem to be working too well," the dracogriff remarked with some relish.

"Well, what can you expect from homemade verse?" Matt snapped. "I mean, it's not as though I had a master's poem to butch--uh, adapt, this time. None of the great ones ever went into rhapsodic detail about his saddle." The saddle's form began to blur.

"On the other hand," Matt said quickly, "it could just be a delayed reaction."

The saddle turned into a tan cloud, but the great pile of leather under it held its form and clarity. Then the saddle coalesced again, looking just as it had before, only of no more than standard size.

"Hey, that's pretty good!" the dracogriff said, startled. But Matt stared at the diminished saddle, appalled.

Then he turned away. "Confound it! Remind me to do my research next time." The dracogriff frowned. "I don't see anything wrong with it."

"It's an English saddle," Matt explained. "I ride Western--or try to."

"What's the difference?"

"The Western saddle is a lot more comfortable--especially if you're going a long distance. Besides, it has a handle to hold on to."

"Picky, picky!" The dracogriff snorted. "Awright--I suppose we gotta wait while you change this one around, right?"

"Oh, I can live with it," Matt grumped.

"Spare me!" The dracogriff rolled its eyes up. "All I need is a martyr for a rider! Go ahead, go ahead! It's not as though we're in a race or anything." Somehow, those words sent an eerie prickle up Matt's spine--but he turned back to the saddle, determined to ignore the premonition. "All right, let's see, now...

"Back in the saddle aligned!

With that good old Western design-A cantle so restful, a pommel so high, To grab and hang on to, if we're in the sky!

Translate from English to wild Western style,

So I'll ride in comfort, for many a mile!"

The saddle's form fuzzed again, becoming almost as nebulous as smoke for a minute, then coalesced and firmed once more, into a saddle that would have done credit to the best Hollywood horse opera.

"Are we done yet?" the dracogriff said hopefully.

"Yeah." Matt grinned down at his new word work. "How do you like it?"

"It's beautiful! It's lovely! It's you! Can we go now?"

"Oh, all right, all right." Matt hefted the saddle and turned to his mount.

"Care to try on your new wardrobe?"

"Not really," the griff grumped, "but I made you an offer, and I'm stuck with it."

Matt paused, the saddle in his arms. "No, you're not. I don't want to impose..."

"Awright, so you're welcome, you're wanted!" the griff bawled. "Can't a guy gripe a little now and then?"

"Oh! Oh, sure!" Matt reached up to settle the saddle between the beast's shoulder blades. "Just didn't realize that was your normal operating mode. Sorry." And he ducked down to buckle the cinch.

There wasn't a whole lot to spare.

A few minutes later, Matt was back in the saddle again, and the dracogriff was prowling on down the slope. For a while, Matt just enjoyed the scenery, letting his spirits lift with the cool mountain air, feeling cleansed and almost whole again.

He stiffened, alarmed by the thought. "Almost whole"? When had he started feeling shredded? And why?

He nibbled at the thought for a few minutes, then put it aside for his subconscious to work on while he went back to enjoying the view. It was very relaxing, having a companion who didn't insist on talking a lot. Grumpy as he might be, the dracogriff promised to be a good traveling companion. On the other hand, how much of a conversationalist would he be if Matt were feeling talkative? Just to try it out, he said, "I don't see how flying could possibly be more enjoyable than this."

"You're in the mountains," the dracogriff growled. "Wait till you see what it's like on the plains."

"Oh, I've ridden there before, too, and I'll have to agree--down there, a hike isn't anywhere nearly as much fun as up here. There, I'd rather fly."

"I'd never rather fly," the dracogriff snapped. "Let's just get that straight up front, okay? I don't fly if I can help it."

Matt frowned down at him. "It's just as safe as walking."

"Oh, yeah, that's easy for you to say! You didn't try to fly into the dragons' territory!"

Matt scowled. "What were you doing there?"

"Do you know what it's like to grow up without any of your own kind around?" the dracogriff demanded. "It's mighty lonely, let me tell you! Especially since I knew crisped well the griffins wouldn't have anything to do with me--they felt sorry for Mama, but they weren't about to have anything to do with her as long as I was there. So of course I dreamed about the other side of me! Of course I dreamed about growing up to join the dragons! After all, the cussed things are so ugly, my looks shouldn't have made any difference, no matter how grotesque I am! So when I grew up and left home, where else would I go?"

"You're not grotesque," Matt said softly.

"Oh, sure!" But the dracogriff said it with a little less conviction.

"Besides, it's what's inside that counts."

"Oh, yeah? You didn't have one of their sentries catch you in the air! You didn't have him chasing you over half the sky with his flame turned up high and reaching out twenty feet for you! You didn't get singed and crisped and burned so bad you fell a hundred feet into a treetop!"

"My lord, you poor beast!" Matt whispered

"But he didn't let up then, oh, no! The blasting monster stooped like a hawk and dove toward me, screaming the foulest names you ever heard in a blast of fire--and he was enjoying it! So I ran on the ground, but he kept coming back and coming back, and the more I ran, the more angry he got and the more vicious he got, until I finally found a little cave just barely big enough to crawl into, where he couldn't follow--and even then he prowled outside for the whole rest of the day, blasting the doorway and roaring at me that I was a...'loathsome gargoyle,' he called me, whatever that was!"

"Couldn't you breathe fire back at him?"

"Not enough to matter," the dracogriff answered impatiently. "On a good day, I can light a fire. I just got all the bad things about being a dragon, see--all the good things, I got from my griffin mother! But maybe that's just the natures of the beasts."

"You ran into one of the worst of the dragons," Matt said softly. "There are good ones among 'em."

"Oh, yeah, sure, the way there are good sorcerers and good vultures! How the hell would you know, anyway?"

"Because I have one for a friend."

The dracogriff spun about with a roar.

Matt held on for dear life.

"Off!" the dracogriff bellowed. "Get off, this second! No friend of a dragon can be a friend of mine!"

He stilled just long enough for Matt to jump down--and to back away, fast.

"Sure--it's your back. And after what that louse did to you..."

"Not me!" the dracogriff howled. "Mama! What would you think of the kind of creature who could do a thing like that to a poor helpless female?"

"I'd want to draw and quarter him," Matt said promptly, "but I wouldn't blame the whole barrel for what one rotten apple did."

"Easy enough to say," the dracogriff spat, a small blue flame issuing from his jaws. "Easy enough to say, when it wasn't you it happened to!"

"Mere were a few men who went after the woman I love," Matt said evenly. "I fought them off, and I would cheerfully have given them permanent jobs in the middle of a cornfield, as an alternative for the crows--but I don't blame all men for it. And my dragon friend is a good being--loyal, fair, and courageous. Stegoman never would have stood by and watched a bully burn you up that way!"

"I don't believe it--but if he was that good, how come he wasn't there to call off that monster?"

"Probably because he was off with me, helping save Merovence. I wish he had been there--he might not have welcomed you with open arms, but he sure would have kept that bully off!"

"I don't believe it," the dracogriff said again, but his mood was turning down from rage into surliness. "I can't complain about you, though."

"Look, if you don't want me along for the ride, I'll--"

"No, no, come on!" The dracogriff turned broadside and crouched. "Up and at

'em! Just don't let's talk about dragons again, okay?"

"Yeah...sure." Slowly, Matt climbed back into the saddle. He was silent as the dracogriff turned away and started back down the slope again, but soon he said, "Is that why you're having trouble getting home?" The dracogriff gave a short nod. "Yeah. Mind you, it took me awhile to get going again--by the time that oversize worm roared off and left me, those burns were beginning to hurt--and I mean hurt! Not to mention the stink of burning feathers. Took me two months just to grow my skin back, and I couldn't catch much to eat the whole time--just the odd rabbit that came too near. So after I could walk again, it took another month just building up my strength--and all thanks to a brainless brute, a flaming idiot!"

"Then you began to walk home?"

"No way I was going to fly! And let me tell you, you don't know what distance is till you've tried to hike it! I came across Ibile in three days, flying--and I scarcely made a hundred miles in three days, running! Then I came to that blagstabbering thing with the fake smile and the red neck and the loud voice, and it chased me back twenty miles! I just barely got away from him, and that sorcerer popped up with his wineskin and funnel--and didn't we have a jolly dance before I figured I'd better run faster than he could spell!"

"And that's how it's been ever since?"

"Right. I gain thirty miles, and I run into some new kind of monster I've never seen before--what do they do in Ibile, hold contests to see who can breed up the worst new fright?"

Matt shrugged. "I dunno. Wouldn't surprise me, though, from what I've heard about this place. How've you managed to stay away from the sorcerer?"

"Well, I think he's not too good," the dracogriff confided, "for which, praise Heaven. But every time he comes up with a spell to hold me, I manage to find a hole in it. Like, the first time, he drew a pentacle with a one-foot gap in one of the lines, and crouched there in hiding waiting for me to step in, so he could jump out, finish drawing the line, and shout the last phrase of the spell."

"But you saw it coming and turned away?"

"Of course not! I wasn't expecting anything, remember? But I flew. Just in the nick of time, I felt this thrill of danger, and I flew up fifteen feet and over two yards--then I lit out for the tall timber. First time I'd flown since I met that motherless dragon. Nice to find out I could do it if I had to." He lapsed into a brooding silence. Matt had to jolt him out of it. "And the second time?"

"Huh? Second time?" The dracogriff turned his head around, frowning. "What do you care?"

"That black-magic-worker is still following you, according to what you've told me--so I might have to match spells with him. What'd he do the second time?"

"Oh." The dracogriff turned its head frontward again. "Well, the second time he conjured up a fake lady griffin to give me the 'come-hither.' Dumb fool didn't know I would never do a thing like that to a lady, most especially not a griffin!"

Matt heard overtones of Oedipus, vowing to outwit the gods, and wondered how long "never" was. "So you just turned away from it?"

"Damn straight away, you bet your bodkin! Idiot sorcerer didn't know that I'd grown up with griffins avoiding me like a plague-carrier, either!" Matt wondered if an "idiot sorcerer" might be anything like an "idiot savant." If so, he might have trouble ahead, regardless of the man's lack of judgment. "How'd you know it was him?"

"Oh, I checked. I went over a few hundred yards, snuck past, then snuck back in--and sure enough, there he was, hiding behind a boulder, waiting for his lure to do its job on me. But I gave him a royal hot seat, and he ran away yipping." The guy definitely did not sound like much of a threat, but Matt planned to be loaded for bear anyway. "So he hasn't been able to catch you, just slow you down a lot?"

"Right--but he keeps getting better. The trap after that was a chunk of road that he'd created a bog under. I was just about to step on it when some churl of a rider shouted, "King's courier! Stand aside!" and slammed past me and right into the mud. Well, sir, you never saw a sorcerer hightail it out so fast--but the messenger shouted a spell to get himself out, then turned around and chased me back for ten miles, 'cause he thought I'd done it!"

"But you did see the sorcerer twice." Matt frowned. "How come you thought I was him? Do we look alike?"