The Faithful Traitor (Wizard & Dragon Book 2)

by Robert Don Hughes

  “You don’t. It’s not your business — it’s not your fight.”

  “Elaryl,” he murmured. “How can you say that?”

  “You did your part — and more! They just want to use you!”

  Seagryn studied the flickering lamplight on the ceiling. “I’ve got to go, love. The Western District is my home.”

  “This is your home!” She lay down beside him and slipped one arm beneath his head to hug him tightly to her. “Those people don’t care anything about you! They wouldn’t even recognize you after all these years!”

  “It’s my fault, Elaryl. I did turn the dragon loose.”

  “Sheth would have loosed it eventually anyway, and you know it!”

  “I don’t want to argue,” he murmured, enjoying the closeness of her touch. He reached around to pull her up on top of him and kissed her cheek, but her eyes weren’t on him. Her gaze was turned inward upon her own thoughts. He lay back on his pillow and waited for her to express them.

  “I don’t understand why they always do it — why you always do it,” she corrected herself, including him in the indictment.

  “We always do what?” he asked, wishing he didn’t have to hear this right now but knowing he had no choice.

  “This is supposed to be the land of faith. Everyone always talks about the One Who Holds All Power. Yet you clerics always act as if the outcome of the world depended entirely upon you. You act as if the Power is nothing other than a convenient myth, a magic word you can use to justify whatever you decide you want to do!”

  “Umm,” he nodded, partly because there was some truth in what she was saying, but partly, too, because if he made no comment now she would only get angrier and demand some further response from him.

  “Why can’t you just wait? This plan is my father’s idea, and Ranoth’s — why can’t you wait until the Power speaks to you and tells you to go battle the dragon?”

  He thought for several moments before responding — not because he didn’t know how he felt, but because he didn’t know how best to phrase his answer. The fact was, he’d known all along this night was coming. He’d managed to conceal it from himself this long because he couldn’t abide the thought of leaving this face, these eyes, this precious spirit, these pretty little thighs …

  “I’m trying to talk to you seriously,” she scolded.

  “I know,” he grumbled, gliding his hands back up onto her back. “You want to know why I can’t wait for the Power to speak. I guess we have to face the fact that perhaps that’s already occurred.”

  She leaned her head back to gaze at him. “Has it?”

  “Events move at their own pace,” he quoted her father to her, and Elaryl rolled her eyes. “That’s true. Elaryl. And gifts of power — abilities like mine — bring responsibilities.”

  Elaryl groaned and rolled off him. “So you’re going to be our savior now, is that it?”

  Her sarcasm didn’t offend him. “Dark knows,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she said to the ceiling, “he probably does. Did he tell you so?”

  Seagryn visualized for a moment the charming young face of his friend Dark the prophet. He realized he missed the lad. “Dark never tells me anything if he can avoid it.”

  “I wish you’d avoided him,” Elaryl grumbled.

  Seagryn chuckled. “Jealous?”

  “Well, he has spent far more time with you than I have since our wedding day.”

  “Never by my intention, my love, I can assure you. I’ve never found Dark; he’s always found me, and it’s impossible to escape him, since he always knows exactly where I’m going to be long before I know myself.” Was it possible, Seagryn thought to himself, that even now the young prophet waited for him somewhere along the road to the Western District?

  “But why you?” Elaryl demanded, truly angry now. “Do you think so much of yourself that you feel no one else could deal with this beast the way you could?”

  “It isn’t just that,” he muttered, wishing they didn’t have to fight on this last night together. He wondered how long he’d be gone. It struck him, then, that he’d really not considered the possibility that he might not return. Obviously, Elaryl had.

  “Then what is it? This — this monster is destroying villages, devouring people, ruining the countryside! What makes you think you can go find the thing and change its behavior with a wave of your hand?”

  “I — don’t know.”

  “I’d guessed as much,” she snapped, sitting up in bed and folding her arms across her breasts.

  Seagryn propped himself up on an elbow and reached out to trace the curve of her back. She jerked aside once, but when his hand returned she let him stroke her without comment. He already missed her terribly. Why was he going?

  “There is the guilt, you know …” he murmured.

  “About loosing the dragon on the world?” she asked. “Or about causing that female tugolith to be incorporated into the beast?”

  Seagryn thought about it. “Both, I guess.” Evidently he’d said the wrong thing, for Elaryl bounded off the bed and stalked angrily to the door. There she stopped and turned around to glower back at him in the lovely glow of the lamplight.

  “While you’re feeling guilty, why not add to the list some guilt about leaving me?” Elaryl slammed her way out.

  Talarath had certainly used heavy doors in rebuilding this place, Seagryn thought to himself. He felt certain that sound had been heard in every part of the mansion. He didn’t sleep well at all …

  Elaryl’s mood was much subdued in the morning as she watched him roll a few belongings and store them in a leather bag. Her attitude hadn’t changed; she was just controlling it better. “Don’t take Kerl,” she half suggested, half ordered. “Take one of the stronger horses.”

  “There’s not a stronger horse than Kerl in the stable, but I’ll not be taking any horse. I can cover more ground faster in my tugolith shape than I can on horseback.”

  She looked as if she wanted to argue about that, too, but restrained herself. “You’ll need to eat. I’ve asked the kitchen to prepare several meals to carry with you —” She stopped herself and gave him a sidelong glance. “But since you’ll be in bestial form, I guess you’ll be able to grab a bite along the way. An occasional fellow traveler along the road, perhaps?”

  Ignoring her, Seagryn shouldered his bag and walked down the steps toward the great hall. Several packages sat on the head table, prepared for his journey at Elaryl’s order. She had followed him, and watched silently as he stored them in his bag. “How will you carry it?” she muttered.

  “On my horn,” he said, giving her an artificial smile. “It has a large strap — see?”

  Talarath overheard them from the stairs and walked into the great hall to join them. Seagryn could tell at a glance that his father-in-law knew what had transpired between his children and was trying hard to hide his elation at the outcome. Seagryn wondered if Talarath might not be just as pleased to hear the news that the dragon had consumed him as to learn he’d somehow restrained the dragon.

  “The Land of Lamath is deeply grateful for your sacrificial spirit, Seagryn,” Talarath began with great formality.

  “I can’t handle that,” Elaryl said as she wheeled around and headed for the door. She stopped when she got there and turned to look back at Seagryn, her blond hair hiding half of her face. “I hate what you’re doing,” she announced loudly enough for everyone in the common room to hear. “But I love you.” Then she was gone.

  Talarath watched her go, then looked back at Seagryn and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Women — who can fathom their moods?”

  Seagryn ignored the look and answered Talarath’s statement with a mocking formality of his own. “I’m pleased to know that ‘the Land of Lamath’ thinks so highly of me. And I would be grateful for any support ‘the Land of Lamath’ might lend me — although of course, I expect none.”

  Talarath frowned — which looked far more natural on his cragg
y face than that deeply appreciative expression he’d been forcing onto his features. “Why do you say that?”

  “You’ve openly declared me a hero, Talarath. You’ve restored my light to live among my own people, despite the fact that I’m a magic user. You’ve even accepted me into your own home. But I can’t say you have welcomed me. I wonder sometimes what you talk about in your private councils of state. Do I make a convenient dumping ground for all the troubles that plague ‘the Land of Lamath’ today? Well, you can tell ‘the Land of Lamath’ — if you should ever chance to address it on the issue — that Vicia-Heinox was never my idea. I go to deal with the dragon for my own reasons and none of yours.”

  Talarath raised himself to his full height as Seagryn spoke — a long way, for he was tall — and glared down at his son-in-law as he so often had when he’d been a teacher and Seagryn a mere student. “You want everything on your own terms, don’t you, Seagryn? You always have.” He clucked his tongue reprovingly and added, “You’ll never change.”

  Seagryn smiled. “On the contrary. I’m going to change right now.”

  “What do you mean?” Talarath asked. Seagryn just looked at him. When he suddenly comprehended what Seagryn meant, his eyes grew huge, and he sprinted for the doors of the great hall, shouting, “Not in here! Please! I implore you, not inside the house!”

  Seagryn gleefully hoisted his sack upon his shoulder and left the mansion by the front door. A moment later an enormous, thick-skinned beast departed the estate toward the northwest, wearing a leather satchel on his single tusk.

  The trip to Gammel would have taken until nightfall on horseback — and doubtless until midnight on Kerl. In his tugolith shape, Seagryn made the journey by midafternoon. As soon as he saw the charred skeleton of the village in the distance, he took his human form again. Then he hoisted his burden and walked on into what had once been a town, his green eyes moist with dismay. He’d not been there long when he saw a wrinkle-faced old woman shuffling toward him through the ashes, trying to conceal a long stick behind her back. She hardly looked friendly. Then again, glancing around at the destruction, he could easily see why.

  There was not a single house left in the village — only a few individual walls that stood against the sky, looking resolute but lonely. Seagryn had lodged in Gammel on his way eastward to Lamath long years ago, and remembered it as a charmingly ordinary little village. Its people had not been particularly friendly toward him, but then, that was the western way. A westerner himself, Seagryn would have been wary of them had they been otherwise. That’s why he thought little of the harridan’s mistrustful gaze. He was certain now that she was trying to sneak up on him. He sighed, turned away, and surveyed the damage behind him. Vicia-Heinox had certainly been thorough.

  A thatch-roofed, cross-beamed inn had occupied the place where he now stood. It had been a grand building by the standards of Gammel and too expensive for the penniless student he’d been at that time. He could certainly lodge within its charred timbers tonight. Glancing around at the terrible wreckage so aggravated his guilt that he felt deserving of censure and scorn — perhaps even of the blow to the head this strange little woman seemed ready to inflict upon him. Almost — but not quite.

  *

  Pilany noticed the young man standing on the far side of the scorched village around the middle of the afternoon. He was just standing there, looking about. He didn’t move, and he didn’t weep. He made her suspicious. Of course, most things made Pilany suspicious. She had to admit it, and she did so to anyone who would listen. But announcing her suspicions to others didn’t make her any less suspicious of the scoundrels! She knew how to deal with them, too.

  This man was dressed in clerical green and wore that disgusting expression she associated with anyone educated in the east. A mudgecurdle from the Ruling Council, no doubt. He’d come to investigate the destruction of Gammel and report back to those thieves in the capital. Well, Pilany was having none of that. She had a good, heavy cudgel that had survived the fires undamaged. She’d already put it to good use braining a couple of looters from the neighboring towns. Nothing would give her greater pleasure than to plant a big knot on some cleric’s noggin, and this fellow’s would do as well as any. Pilany realized, though, that she was going to have a hard time sneaking up on him with all the houses burned almost to the ground. She hid her club behind her back. Starting to whistle, she angled across the wreckage toward him. Soon as she got close enough, out would come the stick and she’d smack him — just like that. He’d never know what hit him!

  Pilany couldn’t believe her good fortune when the fool turned away, just as she was getting into range. She took a good hold of her cudgel and charged forward swinging!

  “Drat,” Pilany muttered under her breath, for the fellow had proved nimble for a cleric and had skipped aside, kicking up a cloud of black ash that rose almost to her waist. The weight of the club carried her all the way around, and Pilany had to stop a moment and get her bearings before she could take another swipe. But she didn’t give up easily. She went for him again, this time raising the stick over her head to bring it crashing right down on his skull —

  “Margnarel!” Pilany swore as her stick embedded itself harmlessly in the spot he’d just vacated. More ashes spewed into the air, filling her nose and lungs, and she had to back away and cough for a moment. She cleared her throat, then squinted her eyes and peered through the fine black dust to try to spot him again.

  “Haagh!” Pilany shouted, and, despite her age, leaped backward a good two yards, the cudgel frozen in her hands. For now she faced no government cleric, but an immense monster — and the glistening point of its single huge horn was pointing right at her heart!

  They stood frozen like that for several moments before Pilany slammed her stick to the ground and shouted, “Well go ahead and stick me then! But I warn you — I’ll make a bony dish going down your gullet and I swear I’ll do my best to give you indigestion!”

  “I have no intention of sticking you, and much less of eating you.” The great nostrils flared wide in a sniff she could actually feel. “Pardon my saying it, but you smell anything but appetizing.”

  Pilany frowned and sniffed herself. “Really? Perhaps that’s what discouraged the dragon. I’d thought I talked him out of it.”

  “You talked to the dragon?”

  “I certainly did. Hard doings, too, what with him having those two heads and all, because you can be talking to this head over here, and then that long neck snakes around and the other head is right behind you, and then you don’t know which head to talk to, and I got the impression that they don’t always get along.”

  “Who?”

  “The two heads.”

  The tugolith nodded, and Pilany eyed his horn with great concern. “In fact, that’s why I’m not at all nervous talking to you,” she said nervously, “because you only have the one head. But that is one powerfully threatening horn, I’d have to say, and the dragon didn’t have that; so, if you don’t mind, I’ll just — edge-back here a way.” The woman put another two yards between herself and Seagryn’s horn, then began glancing around for the quickest route of escape.

  “And the dragon didn’t eat you?”

  She shot the beast a disdainful frown. Evidently this thing was as stupid as it looked. “Would I be standing here talking to you if it had?”

  “Of course not.” The monster chuckled self-consciously, which surprised her. It seemed a rather subtle expression for a dumb beast. Maybe it wasn’t so stupid after all. “Excuse my asking, but what are you?”

  “I’m a tugolith,” the beast grunted, its thoughts apparently elsewhere. “Did the dragon eat anyone?”

  “Only those who tried to talk to him. Excepting myself, of course.”

  “Was that — many?”

  Pilany growled in irritation. “Why? Are you writing a report?” she asked sarcastically. “I’d like to see you hold a stylus in that foot —” As she gestured down at the tugolith’s e
normous feet, something occurred to her. “Say, what happened to that cleric fellow? Are you standing on him?”

  “I am him.”

  “No you’re not,” she grumbled.

  “Who tried to talk to the dragon?” the beast asked. “And where is everyone else? Can you tell me what happened here? It’s really very important that I know.”

  Pilany studied him reflectively, one bony hand rubbing her jaw. “If you are really this cleric fellow, why don’t you turn back into him.”

  “If you’ll promise not to brain me with your stick, I will.”

  Pilany waved off his comment. “You’re safe with me,” she told the enormous tugolith. “I promise not to hurt you.”

  Seagryn did feel more comfortable back in his human form again. But as he changed, he wondered why he hadn’t simply cloaked himself in a curtain of invisibility instead of taking his altershape. He guessed he’d been living in Lamath too long. Powershaping was considered such outrageous behavior in the land of faith that he hadn’t used his abilities in months. He realized he’d better get his magical imagination back into practice quickly if he expected to deal with a hungry dragon …

  “Why were you trying to hit me?” he asked as he walked back toward the woman.

  “I thought you were from the Ruling Elders.” Pilany sniffed, scratching herself. “I just don’t care for those scoundrels much.”

  Seagryn raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly. “There’s one thing we can agree on. I don’t either.”

  “If they didn’t send you, then why the green gown?” Pilany asked, cocking her head to look at him suspiciously. “Why all the questions?”

  “I’d like to prevent any more villages from being charred to cinders —”

  “And just how are you going to do that?” she snapped, her fierce old eyes glaring into his. “He’s a dragon, for goodness sake! He’s going to burn things, he’s going to eat people, and nothing’s going to stop him, because he’s too big and too powerful and too fast!” Seagryn blinked. Pilany certainly spoke frankly. “Now, if you want my thoughts on the matter, it’s that mudgecurdle Seagryn you ought to be looking for.”