The fungus stayed firm, and the flavor was extraordinary. Well, maybe it tasted like a musty old book, but he’d always enjoyed the smell of old books. Eating one didn’t bother him at the moment.
It disappeared down his throat faster than an ox vanished down the dragon’s.
He roasted another ear and hoped the hot meal would warm his blood. Thunderer, he envied that egg. He wished he could curl up next to Leysamura right now and thaw out a bit.
Thinking of the dragon, he probably should check on her. He waved the fire out of existence and walked through the tunnels to the nearest peephole.
Leysamura was still asleep.
He settled down to watch her. All she did was breathe. He searched for a glimpse of the egg, but she’d curled her body and wings around it so carefully not a scrap of shell showed. He soon grew bored with looking for it.
It hadn’t occurred to him that she might sleep for several days. Maybe it was time he started carving the old girl’s earrings. He’d have plenty time to finish them. Obviously.
Now, how did he split the blasted tooth without waking her?
He meandered back to the cavern where he’d abandoned the tooth and his ‘tools’.
His wrist itched as if a thousand ants were biting him. Did that mean it was healed enough to cut out the stitches? It looked more or less mended. He grabbed one of the sharp-edged crystals and sliced through the threads.
What a relief. No more tugging across his wrist. No more feeling like the string would tear through his skin. Once he yanked out the threads, the holes left behind looked uncomfortably raw, but he saw no signs of infection. Not that there was anything he could do about it. Maybe the Kyridon’s venom had protected him.
But now that he was less distracted, he could start carving the dragon’s earrings. He tapped the tooth with a fist-sized diamond and was rewarded with a solid thunk.
Pounding on it would make too much noise.
He definitely needed to wrap it in something, but he hadn’t so much as a blanket to wrap himself in. It was far too cold to take off his clothes, smelly as they were. Thunderer, he wanted a bath. A long, hot bath. Even a short, cool bath. And a bite of bread. Fresh vegetables. Mellow Kerovi wine. Or sour Duremen-Lor wine. He’d even be grateful for a sip of Lorel’s bitter Zedisti ale. How about–
Stop that! He drive himself mad if he kept up that line of thought. All he had to eat was fungus, ice water, and bloody scraps when he was lucky.
Fungus. Wrap the sandblasted thing in fungus. That garbage should muffle anything.
He trotted down to the fungus bed and lugged back a huge armload of the thickest gray ears. He stuffed the lot into a corner and settled the tooth in the center. The fungus refused to stay put, so he crowded it back into place with his legs while gathering his tools.
Using his thighs as clamps to keep the pile in place, he positioned a diamond wedge in the cleft of the tooth and lifted the fist-sized diamond over his head.
He whacked the wedge with every bit of strength in his bony frame. A solid thump and a cracking protest split the air.
Triumphant, Viper lifted the tooth out of the pile of fungus.
It was perfectly whole.
He couldn’t believe it. What went wrong? It sounded like something broke. He pawed through the fungus.
The stone floor beneath the tooth had splintered and crumbled. He ran his fingers through the rubble, staring at it, through it. He rubbed the sharp new pebbles absently.
A dragon’s tooth was harder than stone? No wonder the creatures were so feared. They might even bite through steel.
Please, Thunderer, make sure Lorel is safely heading east. That turybird would take on a dragon for the fun of it.
Eventually he groaned and limped out of his workshop. It was time to seek reinforcements. Or better tools.
He wandered to a peephole and checked on the dragon. She hadn’t moved. He let out a silent, bone-deep sigh, and trekked out to the main passageway.
The huge, dark cavern was even colder than the tunnels.
Half wishing the dragon would chase him, he stalked along the edge of the cliff. She didn’t move, so he crept down the cliff wall to the lower floor. It cost him several minutes search to find what he needed. And twice as many to haul the thing up the cliff, but finally he was safe again, or at least, comparatively safe.
But now he had a durable anvil, a flat diamond over a foot in diameter. If he held the molar thus, and the wedge just so, the tooth should break where he wanted it to.
Hauling the anvil back to his muffling fungus was a pain in the shoulders. Wedging the fungus tightly around the tooth was simply annoying. The stuff kept escaping his corral. But finally he had everything where it needed to go.
He lifted his diamond hammer and struck. A sharp crack echoed through the caves.
Now that sounded like success. He shoved the fungus aside.
The tooth was split into perfect halves – in the exact opposite way from his plan.
“Worm-tongued jackal’s tooth!” he shouted. “Stinking vulture’s egg! The dragon’s going to swallow me whole when I tell her–” He clamped both hands over his mouth.
“Oh, Thunderer, the dragon,” he whispered.
The dragon, who could certainly hear him shouting. In Setoyan, after she’d warned him to speak only in Old Tongue. What would she do to him for annoying her twice over?
Should he try to hide?
No, he was tired of creeping around. He had to find out what she was thinking. But there was no point in being suicidal about it.
He ran along the tunnel to the cavern wall, found a peephole, and stared down at her.
She slept peacefully.
Viper slumped against the cold stone. Temper, temper, Adoriel child. Unless you want to be bahtdor bait. Or dragon bait, rather.
He trudged back to his workroom and glared at the split tooth. What in the deathwind could he do about this mess?
It was the worst split he’d ever made, even back in his earliest apprentice days as a bone carver. Though he’d never tried to split a tooth before. Bahtdor teeth were impossible to carve. When Setoyans bothered to work with them at all, they were used whole, mostly as tent pegs. Of course, Setoyans didn’t have diamonds for carving tools.
How could he carve this disaster into round hoops? He couldn’t. Not when he needed to start with a pair of flat slabs
What could he do with two blocks? No way would he ask for a new tooth. He had to choose a new design. The one he’d planned on would never fit. Back to the drawing stone.
He marched into the room he’d slept in and scanned the drawings on the wall. A dragon sleeping, a dragon gliding, walking, eating pouncing. A dragon about to dive.
Viper studied the last sketch. Wings spread and vertical, its head and long neck peered down past the upright body. The tail curled to one side, behind the body. The wide ears perked forward.
It was tense, expectant, powerful.
It was his strongest memory of Leysamura from those moments before she captured him.
He didn’t remember drawing it.
It would do. Hah, it was better than the one he’d planned on. Harder, but far more worthy of the effort of carving it. Instead of a complete hoop, it opened in a broken teardrop shape. The wings would cup the front her earlobe, while the tail would touch the back. How he’d attach it to her ear, he couldn’t guess. Maybe he’d braid a rope out of scraps of his jacket.
With luck, it would be her problem.
Forcing it over his upper arm might be uncomfortable, and he’d never be able to wear his coat over it, but it wasn’t for him, anyway. The earring would fit her criteria. And it would be reasonably in proportion to her face, if she wanted dainty earbobs.
Humming cheerfully, Viper gathered the tooth and his diamond tools, settled in a tunnel just inside the cavern wall where he could keep an eye on Leysamura, and began to carve the beginnings of an earring.
The lightning-blasted tooth was even hard
er than he’d thought possible.
Chapter 14.
Lorel stared out the miswoven wagon’s back window at another morning, another meadow. When would it be her turn to go scouting?
Never. The girl with the horse made the best trailblazer. She was so much bigger than Tsai’s little mare, the horse could ride on her back. That meant she was stuck with the blood-woven wagon forever.
And she was stuck with hauling around the slithering toad, who’d gone off hunting, or whatever overgrown snakes did. Now they were stuck waiting for it to come back before they could move on.
She scooped the serdil-fur cloak off the kid’s bunk and hugged it. Poor little kid. She’d never let him wander off again. If she had to guard him while he pissed against the wall, that’s what she’d do.
Once she got him back.
All four weapons were on the kid’s bed, where they belonged. She picked up the flute and puffed across its blowing hole.
Nothing. Not whistle, not even a whisper.
She tried again from different angles, using different techniques. No luck. It never made a squeak, or even a squawk, no matter how hard she blowed.
It’d played gorgeously after she finished carving it. Even the toad made happy chatter about it. But that was before the kid talked a dragon’s ghost into living inside it. Fraying magic stuff.
She tried the seahorn, too, but the Loom-warping thing wouldn’t play for her neither. Were they broke? Maybe the magic and the fire ruined them.
Should she ask the toad? No way. It would talk forever, and she still wouldn’t never know nothing useful.
She spread the kid’s cloak over the magical weapons, bumped her head on the ceiling, and headed out of the thread-snipping pintsized wagon.
It looked bigger from the outside, especially since spiny, yellow-edged blue starfish crawled all over it and died there. With lots of help from her and Tsai, of course, plus a keg of the kid’s highfalutin wine vinegar.
But bright blue like that, the fraying wagon was way too obvious. “How’re we gonna hide this thing from the dragon?”
“Out in the middle of nowhere? Who cares?” Tsai shrugged and shoved a stick into the fire they worked so hard to keep going. “When we get closer, we’ll blanket it in fur. You have enough serdil hides stashed away to disguise six of the seven holy temples.”
Something howled in the distance.
“Or we’ll get some new pelts to tack up there.” Lorel grinned and pictured the look on the kid’s face.
“No way. They’ll attract flies.”
“Might be worth it to confuse the dragon.”
Tsai shook her head. “You fell into the bog and forgot to climb out.”
One of her better insults, once Lorel figured out what she meant. “I ain’t crazy, Loom lint.”
Miswoven mosquitos buzzed around her ears. She smacked her face a few times and gave up. Weaver’s chamberpot, she needed to get the kid back just to keep from getting eaten to death.
The wagon door burst open. The raggedy tangle of brown straps that used to be a boot sprinted out.
This time Lorel was standing in the right place. She lunged and landed flat on the mess of chewed-up leather. “Gotcha, sing to the Weaver. I hate asking the toad to hunt this thing down.”
“Especially since it swears every time that it won’t run away again.” Tsai stood and brushed pine needles off her butt. “Hang onto it a minute.” She scampered into the wagon, and back out seconds later with her sewing kit in her hand.
“Whatcha gonna do?”
“Just watch.” Tsai threaded a sharp fat needle with thick yellow thread, grabbed a loose bit that maybe used to be the boot’s toe, and yanked it around clear to the top of the back. “Hold it here.”
There were so many holes in the chewed-up boot, Tsai hardly needed to push on the leather to sew through it. A dozen stitches later, she put down the needle and grabbed a little knife. “Hold on tight.” She cut through all the stitching left on the gnawed-up sole.
The boot ain’t got a mouth to yell with, but it squirmed so much Lorel guessed the surgery hurt. “Go easy, would you?”
Tsai looked at her like she’d jumped off the Shuttle, but grabbed the needle in one hand while tugging the boot sole loose with the other. She slid the sole’s toe around so its point touched the bottom of the bit she’d just attached.
“Hey, that’s its tummy. And the tip makes a lower jaw. Now it looks like it’s got a nose and a mouth.” Who’d’ve guessed her friend knew how to make stuffed animals?
Tsai grinned. “Good. That’s the idea.”
The boot stopped squirming. It still trembled, but it wasn’t fighting to get away.
Tsai stitched and stitched. Bits of leather merged together. A shape slowly grew under her needle. The upright body balanced on the bootheel. Haunches and back legs sprouted from what used to be the ankle. Shoulders and front legs grew out of rounded straps that ended in itty bitty paws with sharp little claws. Finally Tsai added perky little ears.
It looked pretty weird, made of chewed-up brown leather and all covered with stitches of yellow thread, but it would pass as some sort of toy critter. A rat, maybe, but nicer.
One tiny triangle of leather was left over.
Lorel tilted her head. “I thought it was gonna be a really tall mouse, but if that’s the tail, it’s way too small.”
“It’s not supposed to be a mouse.” Tsai put her needle down and studied the toy. “I had a little dog in mind, but I went wrong somewhere.”
Looked like a rat to her. “Close enough to a dog. Put the tail on it.”
Tsai added a couple of stitches to the scrap of leather, and suddenly it was kinda curved, like a puppy tail. Three more stitches attached it to the ratty dog’s butt.
The little tail waggled.
Tsai squeaked and dropped her needle.
Lorel almost dropped the leather rat-dog. “Coward crap. The kid’s magic is way too strong if it can wake up a toy with him a thousand miles away.”
“I thought it would stop moving if I turned it into something else.” Tsai scraped her needle out of the dirt and polished it on her trousers knee.
“No such luck.” It still trembled in her hands like it wanted to run. “It needs eyes.”
Tsai groaned, huffed at bit, and tilted her head. “Do you remember Viper whining that a couple of his black pearls had holes through the edges of them, like buttons?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah, they’d be perfect. Hold onto this a minute.” She stuffed the rat-dog into Tsai’s hands.
Tsai held it as far from her body as her short arms could reach. “I’ll get you for this.”
Lorel snickered and sprinted into the wagon. Took her a while to find the kid’s bag of rejects – it was lots smaller than she remembered – but soon she had a matched pair of black pearls. She swung back under the door. “I hope you have a really skinny needle.”
“A beading needle?” Tsai shoved the rat-dog back at her and dug through her sewing kit. “Here it is.”
Lorel handed over the pearls. “Won’t they make good eyes?”
“The best.” Tsai got out a spool of fine black thread, stuck it through the hole in the skinniest needle Lorel had ever seen, and sewed the pearls onto the rat-dog’s face.
She’d’ve sworn the beastie blinked at her.
Tsai grabbed an yard-long pink ribbon out of her bag and tied it around the critter’s neck. “Tie this to a wheel or something. It’s not allowed to run away anymore.”
Lorel laughed. “Whatcha gonna name it?”
“Name it?” For just a second, the girl looked panicky. “I can’t – Viper has to name it.”
She couldn’t think of a name for it either. Nothing fit. “Gotta wonder what the toad will call it.”
Tsai giggled. “I’ll bet you chores tonight it’ll be some big word neither of us have ever heard.”
Lorel snorted. “No takers on that bet. It always uses words I ain’t never heard before.”
> “It should be back before long.” Tsai packed her sewing stuff away. “Let’s get ready to move out.”
As slow as the toad was, she’d have way too much time to do all the chores that came with breaking camp, even the new one of keeping a big clay pot full of hot coals up on the driver’s platform. She just had to remember to grab a stick and feed the fraying pot once in a while. They better find the kid’s stash of matches soon.
“You go on ahead.” Scouting was lots more important than packing up. “Won’t take me but an hour to get the wagon to the top of the hill, once the slowpoke toad gets here.”
“Fair enough.” Tsai saddled up Sumach, swung into the saddle, and abandoned her.
Moving coals into the pot didn’t take long. Shoveling dirt into the fire pit only took a few minutes. Packing up camp was even quicker, since they mostly put stuff away as soon as they used it.
Boring boring boring. All crap the kid used to do all by himself. She gotta remember to help him, once she got him back.
She carried the rat-dog inside the wagon, set it on the kid’s bunk, and tied its ribbon to the window shutter, where it could see outside if it wanted to.
It peeked out the window, hopped around the bed a bit, and settled down on the kid’s cloak in a hollow between the magical weapons. It waggled its stumpy tail at her.
Lorel laughed. “Glad you like the place.” She patted its head and squeezed back under the door.
About the time she finished harnessing the team, the legless lizard showed up. It nodded at her, swarmed up to the driver’s seat, and slipped under the door.
There was a great whopping lump halfway to its middle. The blood-woven snake caught something big and never shared it. Figured.
She climbed up after it and lifted the door.
Kyri-thing curled up on the kid’s bunk and stared at the rat-dog.
Lorel swallowed a giggle.
The snake had the funniest look on its face, and seeing as it couldn’t move its lips, the wrinkles around its eyes were even more comical.
“Whatcha think, toad?”
Still staring at the rat-dog, the overgrown wiggler tilted its head. “The configuration of the enchanted construct is further augmented.”
Dragon's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 4) Page 10