They rolled against the spear and snapped it in half. The ogre found its hold and Jim felt his neck begin to be slowly twisted, as if it were a chicken’s neck being wrung in slow motion. A wild despair flooded through him. He had been warned by Smrgol never to let the ogre get him pinned. He had disregarded that advice and now he was lost, the battle was lost. Stay away, Smrgol had warned, use your brains…
The hope of a wild chance sprang suddenly to life in him. His head was twisted back over his shoulder. He could see only the gray mist above him, but he stopped fighting the ogre and groped about with both forelimbs. For a slow moment of eternity, he felt nothing, and then something hard nudged against his right foreclaw, a glint of bright metal flashed for a second before his eyes. He changed his grip on what he held, clamping down on it as firmly as his clumsy foreclaws would allow—
—and with every ounce of strength that was left to him, he drove the fore-part of the broken spear deep into the middle of the ogre that sprawled above him.
The great body bucked and shuddered. A wild scream burst from the idiot mouth alongside Jim’s ear. The ogre let go, staggered back and up, tottering to its feet, looming like the Tower itself above him. Again, the ogre screamed, staggering about like a drunken man, fumbling at the shaft of the spear sticking from him. It jerked at the shaft, screamed again, and, lowering its unnatural head, bit at the wood like a wounded animal. The tough ash splintered between its teeth. It screamed once more and fell to its knees. Then slowly, like a bad actor in an old-fashioned movie, it went over on its side, and drew up its legs like a man with the cramp. A final scream was drowned in bubbling. Black blood trickled from its mouth and it lay still.
Jim crawled slowly to his feet and looked about him.
The mists were drawing back from the plain and the first thin light of late afternoon stretching long across the slope. In its rusty illumination, Jim made out what was to be seen there.
The Worm was dead, literally hacked in two. Nevile-Smythe, in bloody, dinted armor, leaned wearily on a twisted sword not more than a few feet off from Carolinus. A little farther off, Secoh raised a torn neck and head above the intertwined, locked-together bodies of Anark and Smrgol. He stared dazedly at Jim. Jim moved slowly, painfully over to the mere-dragon.
Jim came up and looked down at the two big dragons. Smrgol lay with his eyes closed and his jaws locked in Anark’s throat. The neck of the younger dragon had been broken like the stem of a weed.
“Smrgol…” croaked Jim.
“No—” gasped Secoh. “No good. He’s gone.…I led the other one to him. He got his grip—and then he never let go.…” The mere-dragon choked and lowered his head.
“He fought well,” creaked a strange harsh voice which Jim did not at first recognize. He turned and saw the Knight standing at his shoulder. Nevile-Smythe’s face was white as sea-foam inside his helmet and the flesh of it seemed fallen in to the bones, like an old man’s. He swayed as he stood.
“We have won,” said Carolinus, solemnly, coming up with the aid of his staff. “Not again in our lifetimes will evil gather enough strength in this spot to break out.” He looked at Jim. “And now,” he said, “the balance of Chance and History inclines in your favor. It’s time to send you back.”
“Back?” said Nevile-Smythe.
“Back to his own land, Knight,” replied the magician. “Fear not, the dragon left in this body of his will remember all that happened and be your friend.”
“Fear!” said Nevile-Smythe, somehow digging up a final spark of energy to expend on hauteur. “I fear no dragon, dammit. Besides, in respect to the old boy here”—he nodded at the dead Smrgol—“I’m going to see what can be done about this dragon-alliance business.”
“He was great!” burst out Secoh, suddenly, almost with a sob. “He—he made me strong again. Whatever he wanted, I’ll do it.” And the mere-dragon bowed his head.
“You come along with me then, to vouch for the dragon end of it,” said Nevile-Smythe. “Well,” he turned to Jim, “it’s goodby, I suppose, Sir James.”
“I suppose so,” said Jim. “Goodby to you, too, I—” Suddenly he remembered.
“Angie!” he cried out, spinning around. “I’ve got to go get Angie out of that Tower!”
Carolinus put his staff out to halt Jim.
“Wait,” he said. “Listen…”
“Listen?” echoed Jim. But just at that moment, he heard it, a woman’s voice calling, high and clear, from the mists that still hid the Tower.
“Jim! Jim, where are you?”
A slight figure emerged from the mist, running down the slope toward them.
“Here I am!” bellowed Jim. And for once he was glad of the capabilities of his dragon-voice. “Here I am, Angie—”
—but Carolinus was chanting in a strange, singing voice, words without meaning, but which seemed to shake the very air about them. The mist swirled, the world rocked and swung. Jim and Angie were caught up, were swirled about, were spun away and away down an echoing corridor of nothingness…
…and then they were back in the Grille, seated together on one side of the table in the booth. Hanson, across from them, was goggling like a bewildered accident victim.
“Where—where am I?” he stammered. His eyes suddenly focused on them across the table and he gave a startled croak. “Help!” he cried, huddling away from them. “Humans!”
“What did you expect?” snapped Jim. “Dragons?”
“No!” shrieked Hanson. “Watch-beetles—like me!” And, turning about, he tried desperately to burrow his way through the wood seat of the booth to safety.
V
It was the next day after that Jim and Angie stood in the third floor corridor of Chumley Hall, outside the door leading to the office of the English Department.
“Well, are you going in or aren’t you?” demanded Angie.
“In a second, in a second,” said Jim, adjusting his tie with nervous fingers. “Just don’t rush me.”
“Do you suppose he’s heard about Grottwold?” Angie asked.
“I doubt it,” said Jim. “The Student Health Service says Hanson’s already starting to come out of it—except that he’ll probably always have a touch of amnesia about the whole afternoon. Angie!” said Jim, turning on her. “Do you suppose, all the time we were there, Hanson was actually being a watch-beetle underground?”
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter,” interrupted Angie, firmly. “Honestly, Jim, now you’ve finally promised to get an answer out of Dr. Howells about a job, I’d think you’d want to get it over and done with, instead of hesitating like this. I just can’t understand a man who can go about consorting with dragons and fighting ogres and then—”
“—still not want to put his boss on the spot for a yes-or-no answer,” said Jim. “Hah! Let me tell you something.” He waggled a finger in front of her nose. “Do you know what all this dragon-ogre business actually taught me? It wasn’t to be scared, either.”
“All right,” said Angie, with a sigh. “What was it then?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Jim. “What I found out…” He paused. “What I found out was not, not to be scared. It was that scared or not doesn’t matter; because you just go ahead, anyway.”
Angie blinked at him.
“And that,” concluded Jim, “is why I agreed to have it out with Howells, after all. Now you know.”
He yanked Angie to him, kissed her grimly upon her startled lips, and, letting go of her, turned about. Giving a final jerk to his tie, he turned the knob of the office door, opened it, and strode valiantly within.
L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP • DAVID DRAKE • GORDON
R. DICKSON • ESTHER M. FRIESNER • CRAIG SHAW
GARDNER • GEORGE R. R. MARTIN • PATRICIA
A. McKILLIP • MIKE RESNICK • JOAN D. VINGE
AND MANY MORE…
GIANTS OF
FLIGHT AND FIRE
Dragons are monsters, mages, heroes, horrors. Dragons thrill
our dreams and haunt our legends. Now Margaret Weis, coauthor
of the New York Times-bestselling Dragonlance™ and Death Gate
series, author of the Star of the Guardians series, and one of
the world’s leading dragonists and dracophiles, gathers the
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of every award in the fields of fantasy and science fiction.
Wise, wicked, fearsome, friendly, holy, hellish, ancient, ageless…
HERE THERE BE DRAGONS!
Includes the classic short novel that began the modern era of dragon tales. Discover anew the telepathic dragons of Pern and meet young Lessa, the Weyrwoman born to ride Ramath the Golden in Anne McCaffrey's immortal
“Weyr Search”
1 Dungeons & Dragons is a registered trademark of TSR, Inc.
A Dragon-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic Page 48