The Faithful Traitor (Wizard & Dragon Book 2)

by Robert Don Hughes

  “Why?” Seagryn asked, his mouth going suddenly dry.

  “Why?” she croaked, echoing his question back at him scornfully. “For vengeance, that’s why! He’s the traitor who let the beast out of its cave, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Seagryn murmured, his eyes shifting down to his feet.

  “There’s nothing to be done about this dragon, you can mark down my words on that. We’ll have to learn to live with his visits. Be like watching out for blizzards or tornadoes — you know they’re going to come, sometime, but you hope, if you watch them closely, that maybe you’ll survive. Still, it’d do a whole lot of people a whole lot of good to make the one responsible for the twi-beast suffer! This Seagryn fellow ought to be chopped in two and fed to the thing, one half to this head and the other half to that! Although somehow I think —”

  Suddenly she was racing away through the ashes, moving with remarkable swiftness for a woman of her apparent age. Seagryn looked up after her in surprise. Had something startled her? Had it dawned on her somehow that he was the person she vilified? And was she now running away from him for fear of his alter-shape? He strained to make out her muffled parting shout. “Just remember not to talk to it!”

  He watched her scuttle on, stirring up a plume of ashes behind her, and tried to make sense of her words. Not to talk to — ? Then he felt the shadow cross him and understood.

  Vicia-Heinox, the two-headed dragon, was in the air above him.

  Chapter Two: LIGHT SNACK

  HAD he been spotted?

  Seagryn instantly cloaked himself. It was the first trick he’d learned from watching Sheth, and it would protect him long enough to dodge the dragon’s attack. He raced away from the spot where he’d stood, expecting the shadow to swoop down upon him at any moment. Once he felt certain he’d reached a safe distance from the place, he filled his lungs with a deep draught of courage — and not a few ashes — and turned his gaze to the sky.

  Vicia-Heinox wasn’t looking at him with either head. They were instead looking at each other, wings flapping the air erratically in a halfhearted effort to stay airborne while they argued. The beast seemed to be in a quandary about where to go next. Seagryn could barely make out the words of the debate.

  “I want to go back to the cave where I spent last night.”

  “I do not! I am hungry, and there is nothing to eat in that cave.”

  “I cannot understand how I could still be hungry! I’ve gobbled persons until my stomach wants to pop. When I think of all the weight I’ve put on in the last week alone —”

  “And it’s been marvelous! I can’t remember a more entertaining group of suppers!”

  “I can’t remember much of anything at all …”

  “But then again, what’s to remember?”

  “Where I came from, what I’m doing here … ?”

  “I came from the place where dragons are made!” Vicia shouted at his other head impatiently.

  Seagryn knew the dragon as well as any man could. Only the gallant sacrifice of Berillitha had kept him from becoming a part of it himself. And by their conversation, he could easily tell that this more arrogant speaker had once been the foul-spirited Vilanlitha.

  “I live, I fly, I eat — why do I need to ask why?” Vida’s kettle-sized nostrils hissed as he sucked in a deep breath. “I smell that lovely odor of a charred human habitation and I think to myself, ‘What could be lovelier than a barbecue?’ ”

  “All I can smell is myself,” Heinox responded.

  “Exactly!” Vicia enthused. “My fragrance fills all that I survey!”

  “I stink, therefore I am.”

  Seagryn listened with growing confidence. He had once ridden through the sky atop this Heinox head and had managed to control the beast by getting its two personalities to argue. If he could just talk to the thing, perhaps he could convince Heinox, at least, to reconsider its behavior. Feeling bold, Seagryn dismissed the spell that had cloaked him and revealed himself to the dragon.

  Vicia-Heinox apparently didn’t notice. “Why am I so indecisive?” Vicia snarled. “I never used to have this much trouble making decisions!”

  “I don’t remember that …” Heinox said.

  “And I get so tired of talking to myself all the time!”

  “I don’t talk to myself all the time,” Heinox corrected. “Often I talk to my dinner.”

  “Now there’s a thought! I’m going to go find a meal to talk to!” Vicia announced, and one wing flapped. But Heinox wouldn’t cooperate.

  “I don’t think I could eat another thing …”

  “Hello!” Seagryn called up at the twi-beast, but obviously not loudly enough, since the dragon continued to debate, “Down here!” he called. Still the heads argued. “Listen to me!” Seagryn shouted, but it was no use. No one could make himself heard over two such powerful voices. To roar loudly enough for them to notice him, he’d need the lungs of a tugolith —

  But of course. Once again Seagryn took his tugolith shape and bellowed at the sky.

  “What is that?” the dragon said to itself as both heads turned to scan the ground below.

  “I — don’t know what that is,” Heinox said thoughtfully. “But I must confess it looks very familiar to me.”

  “It certainly does. I have the feeling that I’ve seen such a being before — somewhere.” Vicia looked at Heinox, a wicked glint in his eye. “I wonder if it talks!”

  “If I’m thinking what I think I’m thinking,” Heinox groaned, “I’m going to have one enormous bellyache …” Then the green dragon spiraled down from the sky to talk with the waiting tugolith.

  As Vicia-Heinox settled its mansion-sized bulk into the ashes of this once-prosperous village, Seagryn started having second thoughts. “A bit late for that —” he told himself, and cleared his throat.

  “Did you bellow?” the Heinox head asked.

  Before he could answer, Vicia added, “Can you talk?”

  “Of course I can talk,” Seagryn said.

  “Wonderful!” the elated Vicia said. “How do you taste?”

  “How do I what?” Seagryn frowned. He found Vicia’s question disconcerting. Who wouldn’t?

  “You must understand,” Heinox explained quickly, “that I only eat those who talk to me.”

  “Why?” Seagryn demanded, and Heinox looked with uncertainty at his other head.

  “I — don’t exactly know …”

  Vicia did. “Good talk, good food — they just go together!” he said cheerfully. “But I’ve never eaten anything like you, so I wonder how you’d taste. What are you?”

  Did the dragon really not know? Seagryn had been impressed to this point with the beast’s vocabulary. After all, Vilanlitha and Berillitha had talked like children. Had the incredible spell that had merged them into one somehow doubled the beast’s intelligence as well? Seagryn had to believe so, and that was worrisome. He’d found tugoliths very susceptible to suggestion. An intelligent dragon would be less so …

  “I asked you what you are,” the dragon repeated in a threatening tone — but this time it was Heinox who spoke. Seagryn had been regarding these heads as separate beasts. He reminded himself that they were now one and probably becoming more so every day.

  “I’m a tugolith — at the moment.”

  “A tugolith,” Vicia mused. “Never heard of such a thing …”

  “ … that I recall,” Heinox finished.

  “Are you certain?” Seagryn asked. Being shaped into a dragon had apparently wiped the beast’s mind — minds? — of certain memories. Which memories? What did Vicia-Heinox remember? Could Seagryn use these memory gaps somehow to change the beast’s behavior? “What do you recall?”

  The dragon frowned and looked itself in the eyes. “Tugoliths are nosy creatures, aren’t they?” Heinox observed.

  “Perhaps they’re tasty as well …

  Which returned Seagryn to that most important question of all — that is, how was he to keep the beast from eating him?
He decided to try and change the subject. “Do you remember Sheth?”

  He’d evidently succeeded. Both heads jerked around to stare at him.

  “Sheth,” one head murmured quietly as the other snaked forward to peer at him eyeball-to-eyeball.

  “What do you know of Sheth?” Heinox demanded menacingly.

  “I know that he made you,” Seagryn said, and both heads suddenly recoiled back as if he’d thumped them each on the nose.

  “Made me?” Vida howled.

  “Sheth didn’t make me, he tormented me!” Heinox screamed.

  “I’ve looked long and far for this Sheth,” Vicia roared. “I’ve destroyed cave after cave. I will find him eventually, and when I do —”

  “ — I will rip him limb from limb and devour him!”

  “Slowly, of course.” Vicia smiled wickedly. “Savoring the taste of his flesh.”

  Heinox had glided around behind and now pulled right up beside Seagryn, one eye barely a handsbreadth away from his own. “What do you know about Sheth? Do you know where I might find him?”

  Seagryn shivered involuntarily. He had no love for Sheth, of course — and the dragon did speak the truth. Sheth had tortured Vicia-Heinox into becoming the monster that now ravaged the world. Perhaps Sheth deserved to be rent to pieces and chewed slowly. But standing this close to the razor-sharp teeth that would do the rending, Seagryn didn’t wish that on anyone. “I — don’t know where he is.”

  There was a long moment of pause. Then Heinox said quietly, “I think you’re lying.”

  “No, it’s true!” Seagryn blurted out defensively. “I’ve not seen him since you have!”

  The dragon frowned again, and now both heads rose above Seagryn to look itself once more in the eye. They then sank down to either side of him, like a pair of enormous pincers ready to clip off his head. “How do you know when I saw him last?”

  He saw no purpose in hiding his identity any longer. “Because I was there, on top of you!” In an eyeblink, Seagryn took his human form again. “I’m Seagryn!” he proclaimed.

  The heads jerked apart in surprise. Both heads just stared at him for a moment, then each began to move closer, examining this tiny human standing between them.

  “So?” Vicia murmured. This was not a response Seagryn had hoped for. As he mentally catalogued his magical options, Vicia added with a wicked grin, “I know how people taste …”

  “Seagryn,” Heinox breathed quietly. “I know you. You sat on top of me. How could I forget!” The Heinox head popped into the air to smile into Vicia’s puzzled gaze. “This is Seagryn! This is the wizard who freed me!”

  Now Vicia shot up into the sky, and Seagryn realized that while Vicia-Heinox had looked enormous from the vantage point of a tugolith, to a human he was unimaginably huge. “Seagryn!” Vicia thundered. “He’s the wizard who made me!”

  Seagryn’s relieved smile at having been recognized suddenly froze on his face. He’d made the dragon? The dragon thought he, Seagryn, had made it?

  “I’ve been looking all over for you, too!” Heinox rumbled, moving back down to stare at him with a very accusing frown. “Why did you leave me?”

  Oh dear, thought Seagryn. When he glanced back over at Vicia, he felt worse. That head had settled his chin into the ashes to peer petulantly at him, a pout on his leathery lips. Oh dear, he thought again. “You, ah — you think I made you? Have you told anyone that — ah — that you think I …”

  “I’ve told lots of people!” Heinox said, and Seagryn’s heart sank. No wonder his reputation among the population of Lamath had suffered so …

  “Of course, I then ate them all.” Vicia cackled.

  “You left me!” Heinox whined, genuinely hurt. “I was confused, and I didn’t know how to fly, and I fell into the snow, and then you left me! One minute you were on my head, and the next you were gone!”

  Vicia frowned, obviously puzzled. “You weren’t on my head,” he mused.

  “Yes, you were!” Heinox corrected vehemently. “And then you were gone! Vanished!” Heinox’ immense eyes squinted at Seagryn threateningly. “You’d better not ever do that again.”

  “Ah — yes. Well.” Seagryn suddenly felt very small and very lonely. As he glanced around in confusion, he spotted his satchel, and it reminded him of Elaryl. He started to walk toward it.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Vicia snarled, rising up off the ashes.

  Seagryn froze. “I — need to get my things. They’re — in my bag.” He pointed tentatively. “Right there.”

  “Very well.” the dragon begrudged him, and Seagryn walked the few steps to pick it up. But as he did he was very much aware of the fact that the two heads were gliding around behind him until their noses almost touched. Vicia-Heinox had encircled him within a scaly wall.

  “All this conversation has made me hungry,” Vicia told Heinox, who responded, “It sure has.” Both heads swiveled around to look at him, and jaw-to-jaw they asked this same question in unison. “Where are you taking us to eat?”

  *

  Seagryn clutched the knobby ridges at the juncture of Heinox’ head and neck and implored the Power for inspiration. His improvised plan to influence the dragon somehow had succeeded far beyond his wildest expectations. He evidently had enormous influence over Vicia-Heinox. Now what was he to do with it?

  They soared over the Lamathian landscape. The wind wrestled with him, shifting its grip all around his body in search of the hold that would prevent his being tossed from his perch. It stung his eyes and stole his breath, and all this at the very moment when he most needed his wits about him. What to suggest? The dragon was waiting!

  Vicia flew above and a little behind him. “Just point,” that head roared, “and I’ll go there.” When Seagryn glanced around, all he could see were those giant, flared nostrils. He tried not to look behind him much. “Just point!” the dragon rumbled again.

  Point where? In the first place, he didn’t want to let go with either hand, even for a moment. He’d sneaked one or two glances below him and had immediately been sorry’. This was far, far different from his first ride on the dragon. Then he’d felt exultant, for he’d just freed this beast from the power of a horrible wizard. It had been new then, an unanticipated thrill — and he hadn’t known, at that point, just how painful landing could be.

  Now he knew. He’d been up here before, and it was a long way down. Besides, this time he had a lot more to lose. He thought again of Elaryl. How could he have been so stupid as to leave her this morning? Up here splashing through the moist clouds, he remembered when he’d promised himself he would never leave her again. Why is it, he wondered ruefully, that when you become comfortable, you forget all the really important promises you’ve made?

  “Where am I going?” the dragon screamed, and Seagryn struggled to think of some suggestion. He could hear Talarath’s instructions in his mind. “Get the dragon out of Lamath! Let it eat Marwandians — or Haranians — or Pleclypsans! Let it gobble the Armies of Arl! Just get it out of Lamath!” And Seagryn wanted to take it out of Lamath. But how could he sacrifice those other nations just to save his own? What made the people who lived on this particular plot of earth more special or worthy of protection than any other?

  It was a beautiful piece of ground, that was certain. As he grew more confident of his perch, Seagryn glanced down with less terror and more appreciation. He was curious to see what, if anything, a person could recognize from this height. That first time he’d flown, it had been over the untracked forests of the Marwilds, far to the southwest. Now they soared above orderly lands — neatly cut squares and rectangles of every shade of green. In just a few weeks, these fields would be yellowing or returning to brown under the harvesting scythes. In this early, summer evening, though, they were green — emerald, mostly, like the color of the priestly tunic he wore —

  Vicia suddenly whipped around in front of him to stare him in the eyes. “Where?” the dragon demanded.

  “Ah, a
h, ah —” This was very troubling. It was as if the thing flew backward! Once again Seagryn racked his mind for a solution that might prevent any more human deaths. Then he spotted a patch of brown dots upon a field down to his left and asked Vicia, “Have you ever eaten mooser?”

  “Mooser,” Vicia mused.

  “They’re delicious — even I can vouch for that! They don’t have that delicate sweetness you get with stippled-stag, but since they move in herds you could eat several at once. And they’d make a substantial mouthful — not like a puny little person.”

  “Mmm.” Vicia nodded eagerly, his eyes glowing. Saliva sprayed back from his knifelike teeth as he asked, “And these moosers make good conversation?”

  Oh. Yes. There was that. “They … say … ‘moo’ a lot …”

  Vicia frowned. “‘Moo’? What does that mean?”

  “I … gather it means quite a lot to another mooser,” Seagryn tried lamely, but Vicia was having none of it.

  “I like to talk to my food,” the dragon explained, his unblinking gaze never leaving Seagryn’s face.

  “That is going to be a problem,” Seagryn mumbled to himself. He could tell by the way the sun was setting they were flying to the northeast, and on beyond those distant, jagged mountains they would come eventually to the land of the tugoliths. The thought raced through his mind, but he just as quickly discarded it. Tugoliths could indeed talk — but the idea of loosing this slavering nightmare upon those tender creatures was beyond comprehension-worse by far than letting Vicia-Heinox consume Lamath. Seagryn gazed below him again at those beautiful farmlands of his own Western District. Then he wondered — what were the chances of turning a dragon into a vegetarian?

  “WHERE?” Vicia screamed in his face again, more loudly than ever, and by now he hovered close enough that Seagryn got sprayed by the spittle. Squinting his eyes against it, wincing in pain at the ringing in his ears, Seagryn did at last let go with one hand to wave the dragon away. Vicia evidently took it as a direction, for he immediately turned forward again, and Seagryn heard him shout, “There!” Moments later they were dropping from the sky, and for the first time Seagryn could see the ground directly in front of them — and the village. He could tell at a glance where they were.