"Dragonlord? My name is Alessa Vyledaar," she said amiably. "Kalestraan sent me to assist you."
As she stepped through the door, having decided that she was invited inside, Thelvyn stared in growing astonishment. She was tall, nearly as tall as he. Her manner was confident yet friendly, intelligent and noble, yet bold and lively. Everything about her was so unlike the usual dour character of the Flaem, a vast improvement as far as Thelvyn was concerned.
"Yes," he answered weakly at last, seeming to find it hard to think of what to say. "I was expecting someone who could, uh, stay with me, so I'll never be out of contact with the wizards when I travel."
"I'm quite prepared to go anywhere you ask of me," Alessa insisted, seating herself in the empty chair beside him. "Or do you not want the company of a sorceress? So many of the experienced wizards have already been sent north that there are few left to serve you."
"No, I have no complaints with you," Thelvyn replied, beginning to recover his composure. "I just wanted to be sure you were aware of what you are in for. I think you should understand one thing. The dragons have already attempted to assassinate me once, and I have every reason to believe that they will make further attempts, as often as they can think up some new trick. I have my armor to protect me, but it could be dangerous for anyone else in my company."
"I understand," she said calmly. "And I know that one of your companions has already been seriously wounded in such an attack. But these times are desperate, and we must all take risks. I've had little training with weapons, but I am a sorceress of the seventh level of expertise."
From what Thelvyn had heard, that meant she was experienced enough to be considered one of the senior wizards at the Academy, and also that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. A wizard in possession of advanced spells, with the power to execute them quickly, accurately, and with devastating force, and with the wits to handle herself in danger could be a greater threat than a whole company of warriors. Alessa might even be able to hold her own against a dragon of moderate size and experience.
Thelvyn had to admit that he was rather intrigued by the thought of her company. Of course, he had been thinking more in terms of a servant than a companion or friend, someone who wouldn't always be about to hear conversations that Thelvyn would rather not have overheard by the Fire Wizards. He would have to watch himself, since he found it hard to think of her as belonging to Byen Kalestraan's lot.
"Do you have everything you need for a long journey in the wild?" he asked. "We could be called away to the north at any moment."
"I believe that I do," Alessa replied. "I've traveled some in the past, so I know what I need to know. I can collect my belongings and move into your house by late afternoon."
"Move into my house?" Thelvyn repeated, alarmed.
"It seems likely that you would need me at hand to serve you day and night."
He was inclined to wish she hadn't used quite those words. "You're right, of course. I suppose you'll be at the house in time for dinner?"
"Oh, excuse me," Sir George declared as he came through the door. He was already starting to back out.
"That's all right," Thelvyn insisted. "Come right in. This is Alessa Vyledaar. Byen Kalestraan sent her."
"Indeed? We really must thank the old boy."
"Alessa is a sorceress of the seventh level," Thelvyn explained.
"Is that a fact?" Sir George asked, taking her hand gallantly. "You must be a very capable sorceress indeed."
"And you must be Sir George Kirbey," Alessa remarked, rising from her chair. "I don't wish to sound critical of the qualities of my fellow wizards, but I suspect that I will be spending my time in livelier company than I am accustomed to. Now, if you will excuse me, I should attend to my preparations."
Sir George watched with interest as she left, then waited a moment longer to be certain she couldn't hear. He scratched his head with his hook. "Another one of those scheming, self-centered, power-hungry Fire Wizards?"
"Yes . . . probably one of the worst," Thelvyn replied. "She's gone to move her things into my house."
"Oh, my. That should be interesting," the old knight remarked. "At least she is a powerful sorceress, and
Solveig is still recovering. It should be a fair fight."
"Yes . . . Solveig," Thelvyn said ruefully. "I had forgotten about her. My only consolation is that Kharendaen is no longer about."
"The two of them would kill her for sure," Sir George ventured.
"She's not to know our secrets," Thelvyn reminded him. "She's still a Fire Wizard, quite possibly selected personally by Byen Kalestraan to spy on us. She might have been sent to serve me, but her first priority is going to be to her people and to her order. By all means, she's not to know that you're a wyvern or that I'm a cleric."
"I think I'll be able to remember that," Sir George told him. "After all, she's not likely to want to seduce me, and I'm not a lonely virgin."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Solveig took the news that a sorceress was moving into the house very well. Although her recovery was proceeding quickly, she still wasn't able to be about much or leave the house, and she was bored. As far as she was concerned, having a young woman about the house to entice and frustrate Thelvyn would be entertaining. It might not be as delightful as being an actual participant in the chase, but it saved her the bother of doing it herself. At any rate, it seemed quite unlikely that either the sorceress or Thelvyn would actually become interested in a deeper relationship, since Alessa Vyledaar was human and Thelvyn was of uncertain origin.
At least there was no reason to worry about what the neighbors might think. After barbarian women and dragons, they would look upon the addition of a Flaemish sorceress as a decided improvement. Alessa arrived late that afternoon with a servant from the Academy pulling a cart that carried her belongings. Considering the fact that she was coming to live here for an indefinite period
of time, she really didn't bring much. Being a Fire Wizard, she had a fair number of books and magical items, but otherwise she brought only the clothes she needed in the city and for travel in the wild. She had her own horse and tack, which were taken to the stables behind the house. The servant and the cart returned to the Academy, and the sorceress spent the rest of the afternoon in her room unpacking.
When Thelvyn and Sir George returned from the palace early that evening, they were rather surprised to find Solveig and Alessa in the den immersed in conversation. Solveig was hardly antisocial; she simply had no patience with people she considered silly or superficial, having had entirely too much of that while she was growing up in Thyatis. Alessa was intelligent and serious about her work, but she was fairly easygoing about life in general, and she seemed honest. Solveig could relate to Alessa for many of the same qualities Thelvyn liked about her.
Dinner was served shortly after Thelvyn and Sir George returned. Alessa accompanied Thelvyn to the dining room but sat some distance from him at the table, whether by chance or design, with Solveig between them. Thelvyn couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed, although he kept reminding himself that it was best that he keep his distance.
"I must admit that I had often wondered what life was like in the house of the Dragonlord," Alessa said conversationally.
"It must seem terribly strange to you, I suppose," Thelvyn commented.
"No, not at all," she insisted. "It's a most welcome change after living these last few years with a lot of dour wizards. And even the wizards were fascinating company compared to my family and the town where I grew up."
"If you'll excuse me for saying so," Sir George remarked, "on the whole, the Flaem aren't the most exciting people in the world. In my experience, the wizards are the dullest of the lot."
"Excuse you? As a matter of fact, I quite agree with you. They say that travel is a broadening experience. It allows
one to recognize the deficiencies of home."
Solveig smiled; her experiences had been much the same.
&
nbsp; "I must confess to having personal motives in asking to be assigned to assist the Dragonlord," Alessa continued, becoming more serious now. "I had heard much about his companions, especially the old knight and the northland girl who come and go, leading the lives of adventurers. Frankly, I may never go back to the Academy. I wanted a chance to have a closer look at your lives, to see if such a life might be more rewarding to someone of my temperament. Perhaps even to see if I might join you in your business, Sir George—when your business returns to normal, that is."
"There's no harm in looking," Sir George said. "As it happens, our resident wizard is no longer interested in travel."
"I am a daughter of minor nobility in the southwestern part of the Highlands," she explained. "My parents were not supportive of my study of magic, having other plans for me, but my talent for magic and other intellectual pursuits could not be denied. So when the wizards insisted it was their duty to the realm to permit me to attend the Academy, I jumped at the chance. As you may know, the Flaem consider failure in even the least duty to the realm to be almost an act of treason."
"I suppose that your talent for magic must be impressive, considering the level of expertise you've achieved at such a young age," Sir George remarked.
"I suppose so," Alessa said. "For a wizard, advancement must always accompany experience. But for me, it seems to bring only discontent. The senior wizards take no delight in their magic. All they think about is power and prestige; magic is merely a tool for them. I cannot live that way, and that leaves me feeling rather out of place."
She paused and glanced quickly at each of them in turn. "Of course, I know you can't just accept my word as easily as that. I'm aware that you have been the subject of Byen Kalestraan's manipulations in the past. Even if you find that you cannot take me into your confidence, I can always leave the Academy on my own. I have traveled in the world enough so I can find my way on my own."
"Being on one's own can be a highly satisfying experience," Thelvyn said, speaking for the first time. "For all my life, I've had someone either trying to control me or destroy me, from dragons to kings and wizards."
"Well, there is something that you should know," Alessa said, looking rather uncomfortable. "This time I hope you believe me. I am not motivated by the greed for power and conquest that my fellow wizards find so all-consuming, nor do I share their hatred of the Alphatians. Because I have recently come into the higher authority of the wizards, I am aware of many of their schemes. I'm sorry that I don't know everything, but I must tell you that I fear something terrible could happen at any time, something contrived by Byen Kalestraan."
"I've been suspicious that he was up to something," Thelvyn said. "He's seemed entirely too cooperative and eager to please lately. It's never been like him to allow the king or me to decide policy without him having his say on the subject."
"He has been working on something in secret," Alessa said. "As you must surely suspect, he has been trying to provoke the king into war with the dragons. The wizards want to commit the army and the Dragonlord to all-out war, which they cannot hope to win in the face of overwhelming numbers. Then when things begin to go badly, both the king and the Dragonlord will be discredited, assuming that they survive the conflict. That is supposed to create an opportunity for the wizards to seize power and then negotiate an end to the conflict with dragons, whom they expect will have been weakened considerably by the war."
Both Sir George and Thelvyn were all ears now. "That plan certainly supposes a lot," Sir George said. "But it's typical of the schemes that the wizards have hatched in the past."
"Their arrogance blinds them," Alessa went on. "They can't conceive of being wrong in their estimates. And to make matters worse, assassins may make attempts against both the king and Thelvyn to speed up the process."
"There have been attempts against me already," Thelvyn said. "I wondered at the time if the attack on the night of the Ambassador's reception had been contrived by the wizards. I was becoming uncomfortably influential at court, and Byen Kalestraan seemed to resent it bitterly. I take it that you don't think Kalestraan can defeat me.
"You presume correctly," she said. "After all, the Immortals seem to support you almost as if you were one of their clerics." She arched her eyebrows questioningly at Thelvyn, but when he didn't say anything, she went on. "I cannot say that the Flaem don't believe in the Immortals, but they certainly don't understand them."
When dinner was over and both Solveig and Alessa had retired to their rooms, Thelvyn and Sir George had a private discussion in the den. The old knight brought out a bottle of his best cherry liqueur and poured them both a large drink. Thelvyn was so upset he didn't even mind. He the glass up to his nose, sniffing the liquid but not drinking it. He had always thought it smelled good, however it tasted.
"I'm almost compelled to believe her story," Thelvyn said. "I wouldn't put it past the wizards to warn us of one thing to divert our attention from their true plans. But this warning was too vague. Simply putting us on our guard wouldn't seem to serve any purpose. She didn't really tell us anything that we hadn't already guessed."
"No, she didn't, did she?" Sir George observed. "And that could be suspicious in itself. It could also mean these wizards are just as transparent as we always thought they were. Since we already knew that someone was trying to kill you, our plans don't really change. The only thing we hadn't expected was that the king himself might be in dan-ger."
"So now I have to look out for both the wizards and the dragons," Thelvyn said. "Well, I'm not surprised. I thought from the first that Kalestraan was behind the king's abrupt change in policy, from obsession over destroying the
Alphatians to desperation to fight the dragons."
Sir George settled back in his chair with his drink. "For my own part, things have gotten so complicated that, under other circumstances, I would have considered it time for us to pack our bags and sneak out of town."
Thelvyn had been thinking about the same thing for some time. For his own part, he privately thought he could trust Alessa. She didn't seem at all like the other suspicious and self-serving Fire Wizards, and he could understand her desire to part company with them. And she suspected that he was a cleric; if Byen Kalestraan had been told of her suspicions, he would have used the Flaemish distrust of clerics to discredit the Dragonlord long ago. Thelvyn decided the wisest course was to suspend judgment of Alessa Vyledaar. He would have to know her some time yet before he trusted her further.
He sat up late that night with his spellbook, committing as many new spells as he could to memory. He was fairly adept at magic, perhaps even more so than Alessa, although his other duties had always interfered with his studies. He knew he couldn't expect enough improvement in time to do him much good against the dragons, but his situation was so desperate that he felt anything might help. Sir George sat up with him, taking advantage of the time to attend to his own neglected business accounts.
Thelvyn was lost in his thoughts and his studies when he heard an insistent knock at the front door. The hour was very late, after midnight, and he assumed it must be very important to bring someone to his door at such a time. The servants had since retired, so he hurried to answer the door himself. He was surprised to discover that it was Taeryn, King Jherridan's young valet. His eyes were as wide as saucers, and he was obviously terrified of something.
"Dragonlord, you must come quickly!" Taeryn pleaded. "There are dragons in the palace! I'm sure of it. I think they've got the king. Only you can save him now."
"Is anyone else there?" Thelvyn asked, wondering how many guards would be there at such a time. Most able-bodied troops had been sent to the frontier.
"The wizards know about it," Taeryn explained. "Byen Kalestraan arrived a short time ago with a couple of his wizards. They said they don't have enough power to fight dragons. He asked me to summon you."
Thelvyn glanced over his shoulder at Sir George, who had followed him to the door. "Do you want to go along?"
"I think I should. I seem to be the ranking authority about dragons around here." He hurried off to find his sword.
"I want you to stay here," Thelvyn told the young valet. "You know that Solveig's still recovering and not ready for a fight, and I need you to keep her from following us. I'm also concerned that the dragons might come here looking for me. If that happens, get everyone out of the house as fast as you can."
"You can count on me," Taeryn insisted bravely.
"Believe me, I am," Thelvyn said grimly.
A moment later Sir George came running down the stairs, hurrying to fit a wicked-looking short pike to his left cuff. "It's not exactly the way I would prefer to go off to fight dragons, but it will have to do."
"I suspect they've already gone," Thelvyn said, pausing to close the door so that the young valet wouldn't hear him.
"What concerns me is what they might have left behind."
There was no question that something was very wrong. The main doors of the palace were thrown open, and the bodies of two guards had been crushed and tossed aside into the yard. Thelvyn paused a moment in the deep shadows just inside the gate, watching for any sign of danger. No light shone at any of the windows, and that was remarkable in itself even for that late hour. Although he could see in the dark as well as any elf, he couldn't detect any sign of movement, nor could he hear the slightest sound.
By all appearances, the attack was already over and the dragons were gone. Just the same, Thelvyn knew better than to accept anything at face value. The dragons might still be lurking somewhere inside, waiting for him to rush in like a fool in the belief that they were gone. He was also somewhat worried they might attack his house, although he doubted that. It would do them no good to infuriate him even more; they just wanted him dead.
D& D - Mystara 02 Dragonking of Mystara Page 23