The Wyvern's Spur

by Kate Novak

  “Not that,” Olive snapped, coming down a few more feet toward the wizard. “Why did you adopt Jade?”

  “Oh, that. Well, she seemed like a nice girl, and I needed a daughter to steal the spur from the crypt before Steele stole it.”

  Olive glared at the wizard in confusion. Come to think about it, he looks awfully old to be Flattery. He looks even older than Nameless, for that matter. His hair is all splotched with gray, and his face is awfully wrinkled. His appearance could be an illusion, though.

  “That’s the same reason Flattery made Cat marry him,” Olive noted aloud.

  “Cat married Flattery? Oh, that’s not good. He’s not a nice person. Won’t make her an adequate husband at all.”

  Olive shivered in the cold and watched Giogi soar on an updraft. She didn’t really believe Flattery could imitate a doddering old man so well, but she couldn’t risk falling into his clutches unless she was absolutely positive. “I’ve got it!” she cried. She pulled out the letter with the royal seal, which she’d swiped from Drone’s lab that morning. “I’ll believe you’re Drone if you can tell me what this letter says.”

  “What letter?”

  “This letter I got from Drone’s lab this morning. It’s dated midsummer, thirteen-oh-six. Year of the Temples.”

  “That’s almost thirty years ago,” the wizard whined. “How am I supposed to remember a letter that old?”

  “Only twenty-seven years,” Olive said, “and it’s a very important letter. It’s from King Rhigaerd.”

  “Rhigaerd, Azoun’s father?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What would Rhigaerd want back then?” the wizard muttered to himself. “Oh! Yes! It’s about the spur. Let’s see. Rhigaerd said he understood that Dorath wasn’t interested in using the spur, but he wanted to know if there wasn’t someone else in the family who would give it a go. That’s why I told Cole all about it, even though Dorath told me not to. A royal request outweighs a cousin’s orders after all, even a cousin like Dorath.”

  “All right. You’re one for one. Here, in the second paragraph, Rhigaerd writes, ‘I don’t think your colleague has ever gotten over’ something. What is it?” Olive demanded, feeling her toes going blue on the chill roof tiles.

  “Never gotten over? Never gotten over Dorath’s refusal.”

  “Who’d she turn down?” Olive asked.

  “The letter doesn’t say.”

  “Tell me anyway,” the halfling insisted.

  “Vangerdahast,” the old man snapped.

  “Really?” Olive asked. “Old Vangy? Azoun’s court wizard?”

  “Really,” the wizard said grimly. “Now, you little pest, would you come down so I can fireball you without setting Giogi’s roof on fire?”

  This landing thing could be tricky, Giogi thought as he circled around his townhouse for the fifth time. He was circling closer each time, looking for a clear spot in the garden, when he noticed Olive Ruskettle on the roof, waving at him. He couldn’t imagine what the halfling would be doing on his roof, nor could he hear what she was shouting, but it was clear to him that the roof was a very dangerous place for her to be.

  Just as Olive began climbing back toward the window, Giogi swooped down, as silent as an owl. The halfling was just beside the window dormer when the Wyvernspur wyvern snatched her up in his talons and swooped away from the roof.

  Olive’s screech could be heard down at the Five Fine Fish. The sensation of the roof dropping away from her feet, combined with the icy wind slamming into her face, took all the pleasure out of her bird’s-eye view of Immersea at sunset. What does he think he’s doing? Olive wondered. My fragile body can’t take these reckless stunts!

  The halfling had once been snatched up by a red dragon, and while she had been terrified that the monster would eat her, at least she could be certain the dragon knew how to land. He’s going to land on top of me and smash me to halfling jelly, she thought as Giogi dropped downward rapidly. At the last moment, he veered up suddenly. He was indeed uncertain how to make his touchdown with cargo. On his second approach, though, he dropped Olive over a yew bush just before he smashed into the side of his carriage house.

  Olive’s teeth chattered from the cold. Ches is too early in the spring for flying, she noted, scrambling out of the bush. Drone and Thomas rushed out of the townhouse’s front door as the halfling was brushing herself off.

  “Giogi, my boy. Are you all right?” Drone asked.

  The wyvern wobbled to its feet, hissing.

  “You’ll have to change back to human form,” Drone said. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Concentrate on turning human. Think about afternoon tea; that’s what your father used to do.”

  The wyvern shape wavered and shrunk until it was Giogi.

  “Uncle Drone! You’re alive!” the young nobleman shouted.

  “Shhh! Not so loud,” the wizard whispered. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  Thomas tapped Drone on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir, but perhaps we should go back inside, just in case—”

  Drone shot a glance up at the sky. “You’re right, Thomas. Come on, everyone.”

  Drone and Thomas hustled Giogi and Olive back into the townhouse. Drone motioned to the parlor doors, and they all trooped into Giogi’s parlor.

  Drone shoved some books off the couch and flopped down. “It’s nice and warm in here. You should get a fireplace in your attic, Giogi. It’s cold up there.”

  “What were you doing in my attic?” Giogi asked. “We all thought you were dead. Uncle Drone, how could you let us think that? What were you trying to do?”

  “Sit down, Giogi,” the old wizard said, patting the cushion beside him.

  Giogi sat down with a huff. Olive took a seat on the footstool by the fire. Thomas remained standing by the parlor doors and explained that Cat had ridden to Redstone.

  “I’m sorry for any grief I caused you,” Drone said to Giogi.

  “Well, you should be,” Giogi said. “I thought Flattery had killed you.”

  “He tried,” Drone said. “Sent a wight to do the job, but I disintegrated it.”

  “Then you left an extra set of robes and hat over the ashes of the wight, didn’t you?” Olive asked.

  Drone nodded.

  “But why?” Giogi asked.

  “I needed to throw my would-be killer off my trail. It was important that you all believe I was dead so Flattery would believe so, too. Then I could work at searching for the spur and trying to discover more about Flattery without having to look over my shoulder for other undead assassins.”

  “You told Thomas, though,” Olive said.

  “Well, Thomas is the soul of discretion, and I needed a base of operations and somewhere to sleep.”

  Giogi let out a groan and hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “The lilac room! That’s why you didn’t want me to put Cat in there,” Giogi accused Thomas.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Your uncle preferred the bed in the lilac room. I did prepare the red room for Mistress Cat, but you never told me you’d held firm on the lilac room.”

  “Uncle Drone, why did you try to smother Cat?” Giogi asked crossly.

  “I didn’t try to smother the girl. In the dark, I didn’t know she was there. My night vision’s not what it was, you know. I fluffed a pillow and dropped it in the bed; the next thing I know, I’ve got a hysterical woman shrieking in my ear.”

  “But Cat thought it was Flattery.”

  “Without the beard, he looks like Flattery in a dark room or an attic,” Olive said.

  “Without the—Uncle Drone,” Giogi exclaimed, “you shaved off your beard.”

  “I needed a disguise. Makes me look younger, don’t you think?”

  Giogi bit his tongue.

  “Did you really get Mistress Ruskettle’s partner, Jade, to steal the spur for you?” Giogi asked.

  “Well, no. I gave her my key and asked her to bring it out for me. Wyvernspurs have that right, after all.�
��

  “Then why didn’t you do it yourself?” Olive asked.

  “Well, Dorath would ask me right off if I took it. If I got someone else to do it for me, I could say I didn’t without lying. Then, of course, Jade had the most remarkable undetectability. If she held the spur for me, Steele and Dorath wouldn’t be able to locate it. Or Flattery, as it turns out. Of course, neither could I. When she didn’t rendezvous with Thomas at the Fish the evening after she stole it, I—well, I thought she’d betrayed me, to be honest.”

  “She was murdered,” Olive said coolly.

  “Yes,” Drone said softly, looking down at his hands. “Thomas told me. I’m very sorry, Ruskettle. I knew how close the two of you were.”

  Olive looked down at the floor and fought back her tears.

  “We owe you a debt of gratitude for returning the spur to us safely,” Drone said.

  Olive looked up at the wizard, her eyes burning with vengeance. “Get Flattery for me,” she demanded.

  “Oh, I intend to,” Drone assured her.

  “As do I,” Giogi added.

  Olive smiled with a cold satisfaction.

  “You didn’t think I’d let my daughter’s murderer go unpunished, did you?” Drone asked.

  “Your daughter?” Giogi asked. “What are you talking about, Uncle Drone?”

  “Your uncle adopted Jade,” Olive explained. “He didn’t know she was already a relative.”

  “She was?” Drone asked with surprise.

  “Yes,” Olive said. “She and Cat are related to the Nameless Bard, and Flattery probably is, too. He said to Cole, “My father will remain nameless.” I think he was making his idea of a joke. The Nameless Bard was a Wyvernspur named Finder.”

  “There isn’t anyone named Finder in our family tree,” Drone said.

  “I’ll bet if you check your family tree,” Olive predicted, “you’ll find a name blotted out somewhere. That would be Finder. The Harpers would have gotten your family to wipe out all traces of his name. See, Finder was pretty callous once. He performed this experiment that got some people killed and—well the Harpers wiped his name from the Realms.”

  “We shall do more than that to Flattery,” Drone said. “I suggest we start planning our strategy over a hot supper.”

  “There may not be time, sir,” Thomas said, his eyes widening with fear.

  “Eh?” the wizard queried.

  The servant pointed through the townhouse’s large parlor windows, which looked south over the Wyvernspur lands and Redstone Castle.

  Giogi, Olive, and Drone lined up at the window to look at what had upset Thomas.

  In the last ray of sunlight, the cut stone of the castle’s west wall shone as red as blood against an indigo sky. The vision’s loveliness was marred only by a blot of darkness that drifted above the keep. The blot’s lower surface also shone red, but its surface consisted of jutting edges and jagged crevices, like a boulder torn from the earth by some monstrous cataclysm. Only magic could have raised the stone, though. It was so large, it would crush half of Immersea if it fell to the earth. At the top of the massive rock were walls that rose so high that they disappeared into the darkness of the twilight sky.

  “What is it?” Giogi gasped.

  “Flattery’s desert fortress,” Drone said grimly. “It appears he did more than reclaim it. He’s brought it with him.”

  Flattery’s Treachery

  Very quietly Cat snuck back out of Drone’s lab. She had received Lord Frefford’s permission to be there, but there was, after all, no reason to disturb Aunt Dorath. Cat crept down the outer staircase, clutching her sack of scrolls.

  In the excitement of Steele’s leap from the tower and her recovery of the spur, she’d forgotten about the magic she’d so painstakingly collected. She remembered the sack after Giogi had left for the crypt and decided she could fetch it and be back at the townhouse before Giogi returned.

  She had to hurry now, or Giogi would worry. It had only taken a moment to retrieve the sack, but getting to Redstone had been another matter. She might have tried galloping Poppy across the fields, but she’d ridden the mare along the roads, keeping her at a walk all the way. She had no intention of riding her back to Giogi’s townhouse. Cat felt safer on foot.

  The tower’s outer stairs brought her down to the second level of the castle. She stood on the balcony overlooking the two curved grand staircases leading to the entrance hall below. To the northwest and northeast stretched hallways leading to the family living quarters.

  The memory of how nice Gaylyn had been to her earlier in the morning sprang to Cat’s mind. She felt an urge to say hello to the woman. Thinking Frefford’s lady might be sitting in the parlor, the mage turned from the staircases and headed down the northwest corridor.

  Cat had just reached the parlor door when a shout came from the entrance hall below. Curious, she ran back to the nearest staircase and looked down. Giogi stood in the hallway, calling out for Frefford. From some room below, a tall, burly man with dark but graying hair ran into the hallway in answer to the noble’s cries.

  “Sudacar!” Giogi gasped, grasping the man’s shoulders excitedly. “Thank Waukeen! It’s the baby. He’s after Amber Leona. Where is she?”

  “She should be in the nursery,” Sudacar replied.

  Giogi and Sudacar dashed up the staircase opposite the one Cat stood over. Neither man noticed the mage standing on the shadowy balcony. Sudacar led Giogi down a corridor at the other end of the building. With an uneasy, disturbed feeling, Cat hurried after them.

  Sudacar opened the door to the baby’s nursery with his heart pounding wildly. He sighed with relief. Dorath kept watch over her great-grandniece like a she-dragon over her treasure. Amber lay sleeping in the cradle. Dorath sat in the rocking chair, darning socks. She looked up at the lord of Immersea with disdain, hastily pocketing her wooden darning sock and sweeping her mending into a basket on the floor.

  “Is there something I can do for you, Lord Samtavan?” she asked haughtily.

  Giogi pushed past Sudacar and strode over to the cradle. He swept the baby up in his arms.

  “Giogioni Wyvernspur, just what do you think you’re doing, you fool?” Dorath demanded. “You’ll wake her up.”

  As if on cue, Amber began to cry.

  Cat peeked into the room from behind Sudacar’s broad back.

  “Hand me that baby this instant,” Dorath insisted, rising to her feet and closing in on Giogi.

  Giogi cracked Dorath across the face with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling across the room. Cat gasped. Giogi looked to the door and spotted the mage. “Catling,” he said. “How convenient. Come hold this brat, and I’ll take us all home.”

  Amber began bawling louder, and her face turned bright red.

  “No,” Cat whispered in horror. “That’s not Giogi,” she said to Sudacar. “It’s Flattery. You must stop him.”

  Sudacar gave a sharp glance at the woman now standing beside him. Her face was familiar somehow. That wasn’t a sufficient reason to believe her—he didn’t even know who this Flattery was supposed to be—but when it was combined with the display of violence he’d just witnessed, the Lord of Immersea was inclined to take the woman’s word for it. “Put the baby down,” Sudacar ordered, drawing his sword, “whoever you are.”

  The would-be Giogi snorted. He dropped the baby in the cradle. Then he whirled on Sudacar with his hands extended, saying, “Flame spears.” Cat dodged out of the doorway just before jets of fire shot out from the wizard’s fingertips. Caught unprepared, Sudacar took the full brunt of the magic, his face and hands turned red from the heat, and his shirt and hair burst into flame. He collapsed in the doorway with a groan.

  Cat threw her cape over his back and head to extinguish the flames. Then she drew the fur back from his head so he could breathe.

  “Catling, get in here!” Flattery shouted with Giogi’s voice.

  Cat dodged out of the doorway again and cowered in the corridor, not wanti
ng to obey, too frightened to run.

  “Now, Catling, or I’ll hurt the brat,” the wizard threatened. Amber gave an especially loud shriek, as if she’d been pinched or worse.

  Cat fought back her terror. It’s Gaylyn’s baby, she told herself. You can’t let him hurt Gaylyn’s baby.

  When Cat appeared in the doorway, Flattery held the baby again. Amber was sobbing and hiccuping at the same time. Flattery sneered at her. It was awful seeing Giogi’s face twisted in such a look of hatred, but Cat stepped over Sudacar’s body and walked toward her master, holding out her arms to take Gaylyn’s screaming infant.

  Flattery gave the mage a suspicious glance. “No. Maybe I’d better hold onto her,” he said, pulling the baby closer to his chest. “Take that scroll of paper out from my belt and put it in the cradle.”

  “What is it?” Cat asked, pulling out the scroll.

  “My terms, you witch. This is all your fault. If you’d brought me the spur, I wouldn’t need to be wasting my time here.”

  In the corner of the room, Dorath was struggling to her feet. “Give me my Amber!” she screamed.

  With a huff of annoyance, Flattery turned toward the old Wyvernspur dame. Cat pointed a finger at the wizard’s back and muttered the words, “Soul daggers.”

  Three shimmering daggers of light shot from her hand and buried themselves in Flattery’s back.

  The wizard cried out in pain and surprise. He whirled around, his eyes burning with fury. “You want combat, woman? I’ll show you combat,” he screamed, pulling out a crystal cone. “Death ice!” he growled.

  A freezing blast of cold covered the female mage from head to toe. Her skin felt as if it were on fire and her lungs and heart ached as if she’d been stabbed. Unable to breathe, she collapsed to the floor.

  Flattery stepped up to her and slammed his foot into her stomach. “I should kill you,” he snarled. He kicked her again.

  “Stop that!” Dorath screamed, slamming a porcelain water pitcher over the wizard’s head.

  Flattery spun to face his new challenger. The quarters were too close to cast one of his offensive spells at her. Besides, he was forced to clench his hands tightly around the baby to keep the old woman from pulling her away from him.