Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Here she comes,” Morvash said, as the demonologist came stumbling out the door, obviously still half asleep.

  “Good!” Zerra said, and Morvash felt the carpet move beneath him.

  Karitha tripped, and fell forward onto the carpet; Morvash pulled her the rest of the way on. Zerra did not wait for them to recover; the carpet rose straight up into the damp morning air, carrying the three of them.

  Morvash had not actually intended to ride it; he had thought he would stay behind. It was too late to do anything about it now, though; they were already high enough that falling off might well be fatal, especially given the stone-paved streets.

  And here was Tarker charging up the street, and Morvash could see Hakin standing in the doorway of Pender’s house, and then the carpet was soaring up past the dragon’s right wing, headed for the monster’s head.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Morvash of the Shadows

  4th of Newfrost, YS 5238

  The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, beneath the thinning clouds, as the carpet cleared the dragon’s side and sailed above its long back. Zerra slowed their flight and sent the carpet into a gentle turn as they looked back down at the town far below.

  Tarker was staring up at them from the street. Hakin had stepped out of the door and appeared to be talking to the demon.

  “What’s he doing?” Morvash asked.

  “How should I know?” Zerra said.

  “What do we do now?” Karitha asked.

  “You order the demon to kill Erdrik, as soon as he finishes his spell,” Zerra replied. “I talked to Ithinia again last night, and she wants him dead. He’s angered the Guild once too often. When he’s dead he won’t be able to order the dragon to do anything terrible, and maybe we can bring it under control.”

  “But once Erdrik is dead, Tarker will come after me again!”

  “It may take a little while, though,” Zerra said. “He’s a powerful wizard.”

  “Tarker’s a powerful demon. Well, not compared to other demons, but compared to humans.”

  “We’ll take you somewhere else, once Erdrik is dead,” Zerra said. “Frankly, you aren’t my problem; the Guild sent me to deal with Erdrik, not to save you from your own magic.”

  “But we have to protect her!” Morvash protested.

  “I don’t,” Zerra retorted. “I don’t know what sort of promises you made.”

  “I didn’t… I mean, someone needs to help her!”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s a human being!”

  “There are eight million human beings in the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars; I think we can spare one.”

  “Shut up!” Karitha burst out. “Just shut up, and tell me what to do!”

  Neither wizard bothered to point out the contradiction.

  “We don’t want to do anything until Erdrik finishes his spell,” Zerra said. “Disrupting it is too dangerous.”

  “If the rain didn’t already disrupt it,” Morvash said.

  Zerra threw him an annoyed glance, then continued, “Once the spell is finished, tell your demon that its next target is Erdrik the Grim. You can do that, right?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “That’s it; after that I’m done.”

  “But we’ll figure out something,” Morvash quickly added. “We won’t just hand you over to Tarker.” He looked over the edge of the carpet, to see where the demon was.

  He did not see it. He saw Hakin looking up at him, though, and pointing to the northwest. Morvash frowned. What was Hakin trying to tell him?

  Then he understood. “The demon is coming up the dragon’s tail,” he said. “The legs are too steep to climb with the ladders and scaffolding gone, and we’re too high to jump, but the tail should be easy for it.”

  “Take us higher!” Karitha cried.

  The carpet rose. “I don’t want to go too far,” Zerra said. “This could all work out. I want to lead the demon right to Erdrik before he has time to invoke his levitation spell.”

  “I can’t tell Tarker to kill anyone if it kills me first!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you out of its reach.”

  “Remember, it could jump to the roof of a three-story house with no trouble at all,” Morvash reminded her.

  “I know that!” Zerra replied angrily, but the carpet rose another twenty feet. She had rotated it so that the three of them were looking along the dragon’s back, past its tremendous wings toward its tail. Morvash crept toward the leading edge and peered into the distance. The morning sun was behind him, which worked in his favor.

  For several long minutes nothing happened save that the sky grew brighter and long shadows appeared, but then Morvash spotted something moving up the dragon’s distant tail.

  “I see it!” he called. “The demon is coming!”

  At first Tarker was little more than a dark dot, but it was running toward them at an inhuman pace. It was not long until Morvash had to poke his head over the front of the carpet to keep it in sight.

  It slowed, glaring up at them. “Karitha the Demonologist!” it bellowed. “I have fulfilled your command! Release me, or die!”

  Karitha shuddered, cowering back from the carpet’s edge. She took a deep breath, and Morvash thought she was steeling her nerve, getting ready to speak, when Zerra said, “Not yet! Wait until Erdrik’s spell is complete!”

  Tarker apparently heard that; it growled, gathered itself, and leapt upward. Morvash started back, but that turned out to be unnecessary; the demon fell about fifteen feet short of the carpet and plummeted back down to the scale-carved stone of the dragon’s neck.

  It got quickly to its feet, though, and looked around, taking in its surroundings. It considered the ridges where the wings joined the dragon’s back, and the upward curve of the neck, and the top of the dragon’s head…

  “Take us higher,” Morvash said. “And let’s get a look at Erdrik and make sure he’s still there.”

  He did not for an instant think Erdrik was not still there—he could feel the roiling magic gathered around the dragon, and knew the spell was almost complete—but he wanted to keep the carpet in motion, if only to give Tarker a moving target.

  Zerra nodded, and the carpet rose another ten feet or so, swinging out to the side, flying around the left side of the dragon’s head rather than over the top of its skull.

  Morvash approved; if Tarker took another leap at them and missed again, it would plummet down into the ravine north of the dragon, rather than landing safely on the monster’s back. He did not think that would do Tarker any harm, but it would need to make its way back up the dragon’s tail again, which would delay any further conflict.

  They were almost over the dragon’s left ear, the very spot where Erdrik was working his spell, when there was a sudden sensation of release, and the magical tension in the air was gone. Morvash sat bolt upright, startled, but before he could do or say anything else, the gigantic stone dragon stirred. It stretched its immense wings for the first time, unfolding gigantic expanses of carved stone; Morvash guessed its total wingspan at somewhere between three and four miles. Wooden frameworks twisted and fell as the wings rose, freed from beneath them, and seconds later Morvash heard the massive timbers crashing onto the rocks below.

  The wind from the wings’ movement caught the carpet like a falling leaf in an autumn gust, and the magical conveyance went spinning away, its three passengers clinging desperately to the fabric. Zerra struggled to hold on while gesturing and calling a command, and after a moment she regained control, bringing the carpet back into level flight perhaps a hundred feet above, and almost as far north of, the dragon’s left eye.

  The dragon blinked, vast gray stone eyelids descending over gray stone eyes, and twitched its immense head. I
ts jaw moved, and it spoke, in a voice so deep that it was felt more than heard, a voice so loud that it shook the carpet and made Morvash’s ears ache.

  “There is something in my ear,” it said, in flawless, if old-fashioned, Ethsharitic.

  Those first words were still echoing from the surrounding mountains when it added, “It itches me.” And it tilted its head and shook it to dislodge the irritation.

  Erdrik had time to scream, and to shriek a word that activated his levitation spell just before he and his rug and his cauldrons and the rest hit the rocky ground, but that was not enough. The animated mountain lifted its left forefoot and stamped on the annoyance, stamped so hard the land itself shook.

  The shriek was cut off abruptly. Morvash, Zerra, and Karitha stared down at the stone foot that was planted firmly on the wizard.

  “That’s better,” the dragon said. Then it turned its head, looking about curiously.

  For a moment none of the three people on the carpet moved or spoke; then Karitha asked, “Is he dead?”

  “Erdrik? I’d guess so,” Zerra said. “He just had a bleeding mountain step on him.”

  “He didn’t have his usual protective spells in place,” Morvash said. “They would have been in the way while he was working the animation spell, and he didn’t have time to restore them after it was done.”

  “Karitha the Demonologist!” Tarker roared. The voice that had seemed so deep and powerful before was little more than a squeak compared to the dragon’s, but it was still loud enough to be heard. “Release me or die!” Morvash turned to see the demon standing on the dragon’s neck, swaying as the stone moved beneath him.

  “Did someone speak?” the dragon asked, twisting its head around.

  “Why does it know Ethsharitic?” Karitha asked. “Shouldn’t it speak Sardironese?”

  “Because Ethsharitic was Erdrik’s native tongue,” Zerra explained.

  Karitha glanced down at the dragon’s left forefoot again, and she shuddered. “But he’s dead,” she said. Then the realization struck her. “He’s dead,” she said. “What do I do now? I can’t order Tarker to kill a wizard who’s already dead!”

  “Well, it can’t get at you up here,” Zerra said.

  “I can’t stay up here forever!”

  “I know,” Zerra said. “I’ll need to renew the spell on the carpet next year—it doesn’t last forever.”

  “We’ll starve to death long before that!” Karitha exclaimed. “We don’t have any food or water.”

  “I do have a bloodstone I can activate,” Zerra said, “but only the one.”

  Morvash doubted that Karitha understood the significance of a bloodstone; she had probably never heard of the Spell of Untiring Nourishment. What’s more, when he looked around the carpet he did not see anything that might hold Zerra’s magical supplies. “Do you have a bloodstone?” he asked. “It looks as if you left everything behind.”

  “What?” Zerra glanced back to where she had usually kept her baggage. “Oh, death,” she said. “You’re right. We were in such a hurry to get the carpet in the air I forgot.”

  “Well, I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Morvash said. “Right now I think the dragon may be a bigger issue than food.”

  “By the gods I charge you, speak louder!” the dragon rumbled. “I can scarce hear you! ‘Tis like the buzzing of an insect.”

  And then it spotted the carpet.

  Karitha moaned.

  “What is this I see? Some wizard’s toy, come to plague me?” The dragon stepped forward and bent its neck to the side get a better look at the carpet and its passengers, and Morvash heard a horrendous crunch as the houses and shops of Forefoot Village were crushed.

  “Karitha the Demonologist!” Tarker called again.

  “Who is that?” the dragon demanded. “Is someone perched upon my neck?”

  Morvash cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted toward the dragon’s ear as loudly as he could, “Yes! A demon is on your neck!”

  “A demon, say you? How can this be?”

  “It was summoned!” Morvash called—which was true, but not really very informative. And then an idea struck him, an obvious idea that he had somehow not hit upon until now. “Karitha,” he said, “tell Tarker to kill the dragon!”

  “What?” Karitha said.

  “It can’t be killed,” Zerra protested. “It’s immortal.”

  “I know that,” Morvash said. “And you know that. But does Tarker know that? Does it even matter? It has to kill whatever it’s ordered to kill, doesn’t it? Anything alive, right?”

  “That’s right,” Karitha said. “It is! That’s right!” She straightened up, and told Zerra, “Take us closer, where it can hear me.” Then she told Morvash, “Tell me if it’s getting ready to jump.”

  “What are you saying, you gnats, you carpet-borne mites?” the dragon asked.

  “Just a moment!” Morvash shouted, as Zerra turned the carpet in Tarker’s direction. “There is something we must attend to!”

  The dragon turned, its claws shredding earth and stone, trying to swing its head far enough around to see the back of its own neck.

  “Karitha the Demonologist!” Tarker bellowed again.

  “Yes!” Karitha shouted. “Can you hear me, Tarker?”

  “I hear you, demonologist!” Tarker replied. “Release me or die!”

  “I will do neither, for I have a third choice!” Karitha called back. “I am she who summoned you, Tarker the Unrelenting. I am she who bound you to my will.”

  “And I have done as you commanded, O Summoner! Wosten of the Red Robe is dead!”

  “Indeed, but I have another charge to lay upon you!”

  “What are you two talking about?” the dragon asked querulously.

  “Before I release you, Tarker the Unrelenting, I, Karitha the Demonologist, by the power of the secret name I placed upon you, do hereby set you another task!” She pointed at the dragon’s immense eye. “Kill this nameless dragon!”

  “WHAT?” The dragon’s question shook the entire area. Morvash heard rocks tumbling somewhere far below.

  Tarker looked down at the stone beneath its feet. They were not close enough for Morvash to read the demon’s expression clearly, but he did not think it looked at all happy.

  “I have summoned and bound you, Tarker the Unrelenting, and now I set you a task within your rightful domain—kill the dragon!” Karitha’s voice was stronger and more confident than Morvash had ever heard it before.

  “I shall obey,” Tarker replied. Then it turned and began making its way back toward the dragon’s left wing.

  “What are you doing?” the dragon demanded. “Why would you kill me?”

  “Because you don’t belong here!” Morvash called back. “Look at you! You’re far too large for this world, and you have no purpose here. Even when you mean no harm, you smash everything in your path.”

  “For that you would sentence me to death?”

  “Yes!” Morvash called back.

  “Don’t worry,” Zerra called. “The spell that brought you to life made you immortal! You can’t be killed!”

  “But this demon…”

  “It will try, and try,” Morvash called, “but how can even a demon harm something as magnificent as you?”

  Tarker had reached the joint where the wing met the dragon’s back; now it joined two fists into one and brought them smashing down on the stone.

  Nothing happened.

  Tarker growled, and struck again.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Morvash said. “They’ll keep each other busy for years!”

  “I see it strike, and feel the blow as if it were a puff of air,” the dragon said. “There is no pain.”

  “You can’t feel
pain,” Zerra called. “It’s part of your nature, the nature of the spell that made you! Even if the demon somehow finds a way to smash you to pieces, it won’t hurt!”

  “Truly? Then let it strike, and I will pay it no heed.” The dragon swung its head back around to the east, gazing off into the distance.

  “I really think we should go,” Morvash said. “I don’t want to be here if those two start thrashing around.”

  Zerra nodded, and the carpet began picking up speed, flying west.

  “But still, it was unkind, to bid this demon strike me down. Perhaps I should strike YOU down.”

  “Go, go go!” Morvash shouted.

  Zerra did not argue, and sent the carpet soaring upward, high into the western sky, but as they rose Morvash looked back and saw the dragon turning, wings raised, clearly intending to pursue them.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Hakin of the Hundred-Foot Field

  4th of Newfrost, YS 5238

  Once he was sure Morvash had seen him, and had understood that Tarker was on its way to climb up the dragon’s tail, Hakin allowed himself to relax a little. Matters were out of his hands. He went back into the house to make breakfast.

  Darissa was already in the kitchen, though from her hair and generally rumpled appearance Hakin guessed she had only just gotten out of bed. Prince Marek appeared a moment later, and the three of them prepared the meal in mostly silent cooperation.

  “The dragon should be coming to life soon, shouldn’t it?” Marek asked, as they ate.

  “Yes,” Hakin said. “We should probably get out of here, in case it smashes the house.”

  “You’re assuming the spell will work,” Darissa said. “I’ve heard that wizards’ magic fails more often than they want to admit, and with that rain last night Erdrik may just be sitting up there cursing.”