Authors: R.A. Salvatore
Juraviel walked over to one of the boulders lying about the floor and sat down, dropping his head to his palm.
Cazzira walked up behind him and draped her arms over his shoulders, moving in very close and kissing him gently on the back of the head. “Your friend escaped,” she said. “Agradeleous admitted as much.”
“Escaped this area,” Juraviel replied.
“And likely escaped the mountains altogether, if she is as well-trained as you claim. You must have faith in her, my friend. Perhaps Brynn Dharielle is already leading the To-gai-ru against their hated enemies.”
Juraviel reached up and grasped Cazzira’s elbow, squeezing gently. He tilted his head back so that it rested side by side with Cazzira’s, so that he could better smell the freshness of her washed hair.
And then the ground thumped beneath them, a sudden jolt, the footfall of an approaching dragon.
Cazzira backed away and hugged herself tightly, but still, she seemed more at ease than did Juraviel, who just sat there, staring up at the rim.
The reptilian head peered over a moment later, not huge, as it had been when the elves had first encountered the mighty Agradeleous, but about the size of a horse’s head. Agradeleous’ head, though, even in this diminutive form, was intimidating, covered with rows of reddish gold scales, with pointed, gleaming teeth too long to be contained within his closed maw, and horns jutting out above his eyes—horns as long as great lances when the dragon was in its natural form. Most intimidating of all, though, were Agradeleous’ eyes, shining greenish yellow and with black lines running their center, eyes seeming somewhere between those of a reptile and those of a cat. Wisps of smoke wafted out of the dragon’s nostrils with each exhalation, framing his face as he moved forward. He came to the lip of the pit, glanced about to locate the elves, then leaped down, his wings, tiny now,
almost in the same proportion as Juraviel’s, beating the air with little effect.
He landed hard right beside the two elves, who were bounced into the air from the impact.
Juraviel and Cazzira, despite their understanding that Agradeleous would not harm them, could not help but instinctively shrink away, for even in this bipedal form, almost like a large, red-scaled man with a short and thick tail, small wings, and that horse-sized head, he was an intimidating beast, projecting an aura of power that mocked anything that Cazzira had ever seen—and second only to Bestesbulzibar himself in the memory of Belli’mar Juraviel. And while Bestesbulzibar’s might was more insidious, was the power to dominate others and use them as pawns, Agradeleous’ strength was sheer, brute force, the power of a volcano and an earthquake, of a terrible storm with focused wrath.
His movements were not fluid, but were darting, like the forked tongue that continually flicked out between his long canines. He reached forward, holding a pack, which Juraviel took, knowing it to be more of the nutritious mushrooms that had been sustaining the elves through the months.
“More tales this day,” the dragon demanded. Where Agradeleous’ voice had been deafening before, in the dragon’s true, gigantic form, now it was rasping, but hardly diminished. Each syllable sent a shiver up from the stone of the floor, coursing Juraviel’s small frame. “Tell me of this … ranger? This man I killed, that you name Emhem Dal.”
“I know little of Emhem Dal,” the elf replied, and the dragon frowned. “But there is another tale I might tell, one greater still, of a ranger named Nightbird who did battle with Bestesbulzibar, the demon dactyl.”
Agradeleous’ reptile-and-cat eyes narrowed suddenly, and the dragon exhaled, seething smoke flowing from his nostrils. Though the dragons and the demon dactyls were paired in legend as the races of darkness, though the legends named the dragons as the creations of the demon dactyls, the two races were hardly allied, and it seemed to Juraviel as if Agradeleous would truly enjoy hearing about the defeat of Bestesbulzibar.
The dragon gave a low and long growl, which Juraviel interpreted as Agradeleous’ way of saying, “Hmm.”
“It is a good tale?” came the rasping question.
“The greatest of our age,” Juraviel replied. “And one that, perhaps, is not completely written.”
“Then tell it, Belli’mar Juraviel, and let me be the judge of its worthiness,” the great wurm decided, and then Agradeleous’ voice rose suddenly to stone-shaking volume. “Fear my wrath if I judge that it is not so!”
Juraviel noted Cazzira’s look of concern, but he dismissed it with a wry grin. There was no tale that he knew of to exceed the story of Nightbird and his heroic companions. And even if Agradeleous somehow found a way to judge the tale as unworthy, Juraviel understood the dragon’s roar to be greater than his bite. Agradeleous would not kill them over a story, not when he craved so many, many
more.
And Juraviel began the tale of Elbryan, starting with the sacking of Dundalis those years before, and the rescue of the young man, really just a boy. It occurred to him as he spoke that another survivor of that fateful day, one who would be mentioned often in his recounting, had a story not yet completed, though of course, Juraviel had no idea that the same little girl who had crawled, soot-covered and battered, out of Dundalis was soon to become the queen of Honce-the-Bear!
With great detail, Juraviel spoke of the years Elbryan spent with the Touel’alfar, of his training and of his strength of body and of mind.
“All this from a human?” Agradeleous asked incredulously, more than once, and each time Juraviel nodded, the dragon gave another growling, “hmm,” as if the tale was making him reconsider, a bit at least, his previous views of the lesser human race.
Cazzira listened, too, sitting on the very edge of a rocky seat, leaning forward, devouring every word. That pleased Juraviel greatly, more so than he would have expected. He didn’t fear that the Doc’alfar was gathering information here—none to use against him and his people, at least—but rather, that she was just enjoying the story. And even more than that, she was enjoying the
storyteller
.
Juraviel went on for a long, long time, and was still not even close to telling of the final ceremony, when Elbryan became Nightbird, when he sat back and took a deep breath, then sat silent for a long while.
“Go on!” Agradeleous and Cazzira said together, and they looked at each other in surprise, then laughed at the shared emotion.
“I am tired, and wish to eat and to rest,” Juraviel said.
“But I wish to hear more! I wish to hear it all!” the dragon growled.
“And I fear to tell it all, for what tale shall I tell next that would not pale beside the story of Nightbird?”
“Tell it!” Agradeleous demanded, and stomped his clawed foot, shaking the pit. “And if it is as worthy as you say, then tell it again and again and again, through the years and the ages!”
Juraviel nodded, taking it all in, trying to draw some better measure of the dragon’s perceptions and intentions toward him and Cazzira. He wished that he could view this situation as Cazzira obviously saw it, with the contentment that it was a worthy experience, an enriching conversation and meeting, expanding her understanding of this, the rarest of Corona’s races—and in many ways the most magnificent. And truly, if Juraviel had not had pressing business at that time, he might have viewed his long time with Agradeleous quite differently. But though months had passed, the elf could not forget the possibility that his charge, his friend, was out there, facing trials that he was supposed to help her overcome, trials that might have a profound and direct impact upon the survival of his own people, should the scar from the demon dactyl continue to grow.
Juraviel needed closure with Brynn, needed to know if she had indeed escaped the tunnels and found her way into To-gai, and if she had, how she was faring,
before he could begin to accept this chapter of his life beside Agradeleous openly.
So Juraviel went on again, telling of the naming of Elbryan as Nightbird and the passage of the ranger back into the lands of his own people.
“And you did not accompany him?” Cazzira asked. “None of the Tylwyn Tou went with him? I thought that was your way.”
“Only with Brynn,” Juraviel explained. “Because her journey would take her to lands where we could not readily gather any information.”
“And because that information is important to your people?” Agradeleous asked slyly. “Why is that, Belli’mar Juraviel? What are your people planning if not a journey to the south, through the mountains, through my home? And perhaps your army means to take my treasure with it, yes?”
“No! No, no, no, no!” Juraviel shouted, waving his arms, trying hard to slow down the dragon’s mounting anger. “How could we have planned such a thing if we did not even know of your existence, great Agradeleous? The only dragons that we know of, if they are even still alive, dwell in the ice pack of the northland of Alpinador, a place where no Touel’alfar goes.”
“But if Belli’mar Juraviel could tell his people …” the dragon hinted.
“They would stay as far from the Path of Starless Night as possible,” the elf countered without the slightest hesitation. “Why would the Touel’alfar wish conflict with Agradeleous? For Agradeleous’ treasure? But that treasure is not what we treasure, if you understand. We have the silverel of the darkfern and a valley of magic and enchantment. Gold holds no great sway over us, as it does with the humans.”
The dragon considered the reasoning for a few moments, then nodded and gave what Juraviel took to be a sincere and accepting growl. Juraviel went on, then, in a very animated manner, playing out the many battles he described, even making up a few that fit in with the few props—a single branch and a relatively flat stone that he could hold as a shield—which were available to him in the pit.
He finished, exhausted, at the point where he was accompanying Elbryan, Pony, and Avelyn to the distant Barbacan, before he turned back to the south with the refugees, before his encounter with the demon dactyl. He finished with, “Little did we know that the beast was watching our every move, ready to spring upon us,” which he doubted was exactly true, but which he knew would keep the dragon’s interest piqued for his continuation the next day.
“You cannot stop there!” Agradeleous roared in complaint, stamping his foot, its report lifting Juraviel right from the ground.
“But I must,” the elf replied. “I cannot recount the most exciting of battles when I am too weary to play the role. Allow me my sleep, good Agradeleous.”
“Sleep?” the dragon echoed skeptically. “Why, sleep for the centuries and play when you are awake, little one!” And then he laughed, spouting fire that had Juraviel and Cazzira ducking and dodging wildly.
“Very well, then,” Agradeleous offered when his mirth had played out. “But I will not let you sleep for more than a year! It is a story I wish to hear!”
Juraviel shook his head emphatically, trying hard to suppress a grin. A year? He had been thinking of only a few hours!
“Not a year,” he tried to explain, reminded again of the profound difference between dragons and all the other races. These were the creatures from the dawn of time, who witnessed the early sunrise of Corona. They lived forever, unless they were killed, and saw the passage of time from an entirely different perspective than even the long-living elves. “I need but a few hours to rest and to eat, and then I will call to you, mighty Agradeleous.” As he finished, an idea came to Juraviel. He started looking around the floor of the pit, scratching his head.
“What is it?”
“I am trying to discover how I might better embellish the story,” Juraviel explained. “No matter—I will think of something.”
Agradeleous stared at him, yellow-green eyes blinking, and then the beast shrugged, fell into a crouch and leaped away, easily clearing the fifty feet to the ledge.
“That is power beyond measure,” Cazzira remarked, coming over to stand beside Juraviel, who was also looking up to where the dragon had disappeared. She draped her arm comfortably over Juraviel’s shoulder, moving her head very close to his.
Juraviel let his still-formulating plans slip away for a few moments then, basking in the sweet scent of this beautiful creature. He turned and considered her porcelain skin and those striking blue eyes.
If it wasn’t for the missing Brynn, Belli’mar Juraviel would not have minded the captivity at all.
“Y
ou keep stopping!” Agradeleous protested when Juraviel again halted his story and began stalking about the pit.
With a growl, the elf grabbed up one stone and inspected it, then tossed it aside. “What?” the dragon demanded.
“How can I properly perform with a stage so bland?” Juraviel angrily replied.
“Perform? I asked you to tell a story!”
“But it is a story of battle and courage, of heroes, living and dead!” the elf shot right back. “I would do the memory of Nightbird justice, or I will tell his tale no more!”
“You will tell …” the dragon started to argue, and forcefully, but Agradeleous stopped suddenly and glanced all about, at Juraviel, at Cazzira, and at the nearly empty pit. The dragon looked back to Juraviel and nodded. “Come along,” he instructed, and he stepped toward Cazzira and grabbed her up tightly with one mighty arm, then similarly scooped Juraviel when he neared.
With a single mighty leap, the dragon exited the pit and set both the elves down on the stone floor of a huge treasure chamber, full of armor and weapons, and mounds of silver and gold coins, sparkling with glittering gems and jewels.
“A grander stage,” the dragon explained.
Juraviel nodded and moved about the area, studying the hoard. Were there items here that he might put to better use than as props in a play? he wondered. A mighty sword or gemstone that would bring him freedom?
He dismissed that almost immediately, remembering the foe he would have to defeat, a creature beyond his power even if he held the finest sword in all the world, if he was clad in the finest armor in all the world, and if he possessed the greatest gemstone in all the world.
Besides, Juraviel knew, he really didn’t want to do battle with Agradeleous, even if he thought he could win.