Finding a way to contact the lizardmages, the human had formed a tentative alliance, bringing them in on his devilish scheme. The lizardmen were to cause a distraction while he led his minions against the Tower of Sorcery. The lizardmen agreed to this, having no love for the humans and their magic either.
What the lizardmen hadn’t counted on was the delay by the undead troops to attack the Tower of Sorcery. Everything had fallen apart because of that delay, and the rest - well, that’s another story.
Graf shook his head. He shouldn’t have trusted a human, even if he had the same objective. He had lost his brother because of it. From now on, he would do things his way.
The lizardmage loosened his long ebony robe as he rounded a final bend where the entrance to his quarters lay. He produced a key, entered his home, and cast a spell, lighting all the torches on the wall simultaneously. He didn’t stop walking as he did so, heading directly for his study.
When he arrived at the study door, he removed the cowl of his dark robe, revealing his pointed green head and black, sunken beady eyes. His mouth opened slightly, displaying his white, pointed teeth. He half raised a hand to remove the protective ward on the door when he let out a short gasp. The ward was gone! Someone had broken into his study!
A low, guttural growl emerged from his throat, and he clenched his teeth in anger. Whoever had broken into his study was going to pay dearly! With vengeance, he barged into the study, a spell ready on the tip of his split tongue.
At first, he could see no one, but a slight movement at the corner of the room indicated someone was present. Without hesitating, Graf let loose with a fireball, flinging it in the direction of the intruder.
Several shrieks of different tones sounded at the same instant. Graf spun on his victim as soon as the fireball was cast, ready to do battle with the spell caster who had broken into his home.
In the next few moments a multitude of things happened. First, the fireball streaked toward its still-shrieking victim, making the intruder perfectly visible to Graf. On impact, the fireball, instead of doing damage, simply fizzled out and vanished in a puff of smoke. The intruder almost screamed at this point, one voice saying, “Nooo!”, while another voice cried, “Don’t hurt us!”
The momentary glimpse of the intruder, along with the many voices crying out at once, confused Graf enough that the next spell he was already chanting didn’t come out right. At the conclusion of his chant, the intruder stopped shrieking, and a sudden silence descended upon them - along with thousands of large, white feathers.
Graf swore and chanted two quick spells, one to stop the feathers from falling, and the other to cause the wall torches to shine even more brilliantly. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the intruder, who whimpered and cowered in the corner. Each of the heads tried to hide behind the other.
“What - who are you?” hissed Graf angrily.
“Please don’t hurt us!” wailed Frag’s voice from the middle head. “We didn’t mean to break in - I mean enter - er - it was Garf’s fault!” She spun to look at the third head.
“Shut up!” snapped Garf. “It was your idea, Frag!”
“And it was your magic that got us in here!” argued Frag.
“And you touched the dragon orb when you shouldn’t have!” growled Garf.
“So did you!” snapped Frag.
“Enough!” shouted Graf suddenly. He glanced at the table with the empty box on it and back at the hydra, who cowered in silence. “So! You came in here to snoop around and play with things that don’t concern you, eh? Magic is a complex power that novices like yourselves should treat with great caution.” He glared at the hydra. “By the way, who broke the ward on the study door?”
“Garf did,” said Frag quickly.
“Garf”s head recoiled nervously in anticipation of Graf’s wrath.
Surprisingly, Graf grinned. “Interesting! Not many magic wielders could manage that spell properly. I’ll have to change the complexity of my warding spells in the future.”
Garf breathed a sigh of relief.
Graf wandered over to his table, kicking aside feathers in the process. He examined the empty box, which had housed the damaged orb. “So, you went and touched the orb. How did it happen?”
The three heads began talking at once and Graf had to hold up a hand and command them to stop. Then he pointed at Gif’s head. “You! I take it you’re Gif?”
The head nodded. “Yes, uncle Graf,” whimpered Gif.
Graf nodded and grinned. Gif was usually hanging around his siblings. It was not unusual that the others had dragged him into this situation. Of the three, Gif was the least likely to embellish the account of what had happened. He was the honest one. “Gif, tell me what happened.”
Gif anxiously gave an account of their encounter with the orb and the transformation that had followed. “But I told them not to touch it!” concluded Gif, who regarded the others fearfully and drew as far away from them as his neck allowed.
Graf grinned as the other heads hissed at their counterpart but said nothing. He aimlessly handled the empty wooden box while thinking.
After a long, uncomfortable silence, Frag spoke up. “Are you going to change us back again, uncle Graf?”
Graf didn’t look away from his box. It was a few moments before the hydra heard the hissing indicative of laughter as far as lizardmen were concerned. Graf was laughing.
Finally the lizardmage sat down and caught his breath. He turned to the hydra. “You really don’t know what you’ve gotten yourselves into, do you?”
“What do you mean?” asked Frag.
“Can’t you change us back?” asked Gif with a trembling voice.
“No,” stated Graf coldly. “My magic cannot help you.”
“Oh, no!” wailed Frag despairingly.
Gif whimpered.
“Can you still cast spells?” asked Graf, looking at Garf’s head.
Garf shook his head sadly. “No. I tried. I haven’t even got any hands to assist my spell casting.”
“No matter,” said Graf calmly. “It probably isn’t necessary.”
“Necessary for what?” asked Frag.
“It isn’t necessary for my plan to work,” said Graf cryptically.
“What plan?” asked Garf.
Graf stood up. “You’ll see.” He turned for the door and paused on his way out. “Stay put until I return.”
“I’m hungry!” blurted Gif.
“I’ll bring back some food,” said Graf. “In the meantime, you can try to clean up all the feathers. Just don’t touch anything! I shouldn’t be too long.” He left the study and locked the door behind him. Then he exited his quarters and headed at a brisk pace for the council hall, quietly hissing in laughter.
There was a fair bit of noise in the lizardmen’s council hall as the lizardmen debated amongst themselves about recent issues and events. To the untrained ear, the sound was not much different from a snake pit full of rabid vipers.
The hall was a gigantic semicircle with elevated alcoves at the sides and end where Graf and other superior lizardmages sat or stood. Graf had the highest alcove, positioned in the middle of the others. Each of the alcoves was situated so that all of the other alcoves were visible. The only difference was that the lower-ranking lizardmen had to look up at their senior counterparts. The more common lizardmen stood in the middle of the hall, and had to turn to see each speaker above them in one of the alcoves.
Graf waited for most of the major players to arrive before rising and waving a hand for silence. A few minutes later the debating ceased and all turned their attention to Graf, waiting expectantly for him to speak.
Graf licked his lips and began. “The Tower of Sorcery has been successfully poisoned.”
There were hisses of astonishment from many in the hall. Graf grinned when he saw the number of disbelievers who had once again underestimated him.
“How did you manage that?” asked a lizardmage to Graf’s right, above the hiss of the cro
wd.
Graf lifted a scaly hand for silence and continued. “As I told you before, my magical power is superior to that of the humans. The slow-acting poison has been planted inside the tower, and it is only a matter of time before it takes effect, if it has not already done so.”
“How do you know they will not detect your poison?” asked another lizardman, this time to Graf’s left.
Graf sneered. “They are secure in their tower. Why would they check food coming from their own kitchens? They often check food that comes into the tower, but never the food that is already inside! No - they will not discover it until it is too late, and once they do, they will be helpless to find a cure.”
There was a murmur of agreement in the crowd below.
Graf turned to a lizardmage near him and nodded. Then he sat down.
The next lizardmage, named Relg, stood up. He was taller than Graf, and his blue-green robe had a sinister sheen to it, seeming to absorb the torchlight where the flickering light should reflect the most. His wooden staff was gnarled and crooked.
“The water elemental has been contained, and my crew of mages no longer need to strain at the summoning spell to maintain control. The elemental is now entirely under our control.” Relg glanced at Graf and sat down. There was nothing more for him to say.
The crowd hissed in pleasure as Graf nodded to another lizardmage.
A shorter, stockier lizardman stood up to speak. His robe was black with a red trim. The staff he bore was a chestnut brown, with a unique curve near the top. He had a blunt nose for a lizardman, and his nostrils flared as he spoke.
“The earth elemental has been summoned, but we still have no way to contain it. My mages are working night and day to control it, but our success can only be determined by a source of containment for the elemental. Fortunately, the elemental is under our control for the time being. We can maintain magical control for at least ten days before the elemental can break free. If no containment is found, we will have to regroup and start again.” The lizardmage sat down.
There were hisses of disapproval from the alcoves at this unsettling news.
Suddenly Graf rose and addressed the council, looking at each of the superior officials as he spoke. “Narg has done well,” began Graf, indicating the black-robed lizardmage. “He has done what he set out to do. It is not his fault that none of you could come up with a way to contain the earth elemental!”
“Neither could you!” retorted a lizardmage in a lower alcove. Sinister hisses could be heard throughout the hall at the comment.
Graf sneered. He had expected this challenge to his authority. Indeed; he had hoped for it. He turned to Relg. “Relg, you have the water elemental under your control. Can you make it create ice?”
“Of course!” hissed Relg. “What do you think?”
Graf ignored the question and turned to Narg. “Narg, can you get the earth elemental to allow itself to be exposed to the water elemental?”
Narg nodded, nostrils flaring. “Certainly.”
Graf turned back to Relg. “Then you should be able to create a prison of ice to contain the earth elemental. Am I correct?”
Relg nodded in understanding. “Of course!”
Murmurs passed through the hall but one skeptical lizardmage called out, “I thought elementals weren’t affected by magic - other than summoning!”
Graf nodded. “That’s true. However, elementals are not immune to each other’s magic.”
“Are you sure?” asked another lizardman from below.
“Yes,” said Graf calmly. “When pitted against one another, their magics cancel each other out. But in this case, the earth elemental will not put up resistance because we presently control it. Once it is imprisoned in ice, the containment will remove its resistance to our magic. Then it will be unable to free itself until we desire it.”
Loud hisses of approval sounded in the crowd and Graf sat down, an evil grin spreading across his face. He had made everyone look like fools once again. As usual, it was he who had come up with a solution to a problem that no one else could solve.
After a few moments, another lizardman rose in a lower alcove to speak.
“The council recognizes Lynch,” hissed an old lizardmage directly below Graf’s alcove.
Lynch took a deep breath. “As you know, the poison Graf has devised has no antidote. Only lizardmen are immune to its effects. My task was to see if extreme heat can neutralize the poison. I took a number of lizardmages with me to a lava flow of intense heat and we increased the magnitude of the heat as far as our magic permitted. There was no effect on the poison.”
Lynch paused to allow the council to absorb this information. Then he continued.
“There was, however, a strange side effect to the heat spells we were using.”
A few of the senior lizardmages sat up straighter at this news.
“Go on,” said Relg.
Lynch looked at Relg as he spoke. “We inadvertently called up a fire elemental from the lava pit.”
Hisses drowned the remarks of several of the officials, most of whom stood up to speak at once.
Graf was surprised as well, but didn’t show it. He calmly rose and held up a hand to silence the crowd. Then he nodded at Lynch, who continued.
“We hadn’t expected the elemental, so we weren’t prepared to capture it. It got the jump on us and ran away before we could react.”
“It got away!” shrieked Relg, who was one of the officials who had risen when the strange announcement was made. He looked at Graf. “That could be a problem. If it finds out where the other elementals are, it could destroy our hold on them!”
Graf nodded calmly. He turned to Lynch. “Well, Lynch, it looks like you had better locate and capture that fire elemental.”
Lynch swallowed hard. “I understand.”
Graf smiled deviously. He knew Lynch needed to redeem himself, and this was the only way to do it, whether he liked it or not. Then Graf directed his attention to a lizardmage wearing a blood red robe. “Brind, your fire magic is powerful. Why don’t you take on the task of summoning the fire elemental? I know it’s harder to summon an elemental who is already in our plane, but that way there are two chances to capture it. We may not need a fire elemental, but we can’t have one running loose in our tunnels either.”
Brind nodded. “Of course.”
“Besides,” continued Graf, “the fire elemental could benefit our cause greatly. We could even try to get the air elemental and have all of them help us.”
The crowd murmured at this suggestion.
Graf turned to a high ranking lizardmage in a nearby alcove. It was a female lizardmage. She had a bluish tinge that was common to the females of the species. “Narla, you have skill with air magic. How would you like the task of summoning the air elemental?”
Narla smiled, her fishlike lips spreading in a grin. “Certainly! I have access to the spells, and my group has the skill necessary to do it.”
“Good!” exclaimed Graf. “You can begin preparations immediately.”
Narla nodded.
Graf rubbed his scaly hands together. “Now! We’re ready to generate more of my poison and apply it where we discussed. You all know your jobs. Let’s get to it!” Graf turned to the wall at the back of his alcove, chanted a spell, and walked through the rock as though it was not even there. The other officials did a similar thing in each of their alcoves, disappearing from sight. The lizardmen in the general assembly area of the hall left via conventional tunnels, leaving the council hall in silence.
Chapter 6
Cyril sighed as he tended the clerical herbs known as faelora, a pink-leafed plant that thrived in the late summer and early fall. This herb grew naturally in this climate, but was rather scarce in the wild. When planted in the gardens here at the Tower of Hope, it grew in thick bunches, each leaf pressing the others aside for sunlight. Cyril was responsible for making sure weeds did not interfere with the herb’s growth. He did his job well in the ten
years that he had worked here, tending every form of herb and plant that grew in the tower’s grounds.
“Don’t forget to water the faelora,” ordered the head groundskeeper behind him suddenly.
“Yes, sir,” answered Cyril without looking up.
Cyril was tolerated but avoided by everyone working in or for the tower. He was a big man, some six and a half feet tall, with large arms and legs. He had no hair, and his skin had a slight green cast to it. But it was not his size or complexion that drove people away. It was his eye. For Cyril was the by-product of a human and a cyclops.
Cyril’s lone eye was that of a cyclops. It was centered in his forehead, and the black pupil was centered in a yellowish background. The eye also mimicked a cyclops’ in function as well as appearance. When someone looked into it, the eye had the effect of temporarily paralyzing them. Some would have considered this trait as useful, but Cyril regarded it as a curse.
Even as a boy, Cyril had few friends. Other children made fun of him, but he refused to fight back. By nature he was mild-mannered. Over the course of the years, he had paralyzed a number of people by accident, but each time they had believed he had done it on purpose, and each time he had been punished severely.
Cyril’s mother, who never spoke to him about his father for obvious reasons, tired of the hardships facing her son and brought him to the Tower of Hope at the age of ten. She had little hope of giving him a decent life, and hoped the clerics could care for him. A year later, she died of a severe illness during the winter and Cyril was alone.
Life at the tower was hard, but Cyril was treated with an aloof respect. He left others alone, and they responded in kind. Only Cyril’s boss, the head groundskeeper, treated him poorly. The groundskeeper, whose name was Jake, felt that Cyril was merely a laborer, who had no special skills or abilities. The fact that Cyril was deformed only confirmed Jake’s opinion of him. Whenever Cyril accidentally paralyzed someone and Jake found out about it, Cyril would have to endure another round of rude comments and remarks by his boss. Despite this harsh treatment, Cyril never once lost his temper and fought back. He simply hung his head in shame and found a quiet place in the garden to hide his embarrassment. No one who overheard Jake’s remarks, be it cleric or co-worker, bothered going to comfort him.
Cloak & Dagger: Book II of The Dragon Mage Trilogy Page 5