Is This Apocalypse Necessary? - Wizard of Yurt - 6 (15 page)

Naurag flew up outside—I realized what was bothering me. This whole group seemed composed of men and women no older than King Paul, without anyone older, and without any children.

A recent settlement, then, of elves who had left the main group to establish a new colony? But the dazzling porphyry columns that circled what they referred to as their "humble" chambers certainly did not suggest a frontier colony.

"This is beautiful!" I said in awe, looking around at stone in shades of ivory, pink, and mauve, all brightly polished and set off by baskets of flowers and ivy. The elves seemed pleased; one made an allusion to how hard it had been finding the right stones, gathered from all over this land.

Outside the windows we could see the leaves of other trees, as well as Naurag looking in.

They fed me spring water and fruit, melons like those I had eaten earlier, apples, strawberries, raspberries, and lemons, apparently all in season at the same time here in the land of magic. It was the best fruit I had ever had in my life, perfectly ripe, juicy, sweet, its aroma alone a sensuous pleasure. Gir had the young woman in charge of the gardens come forward rather shyly to describe to me her many years' project to bring the fruit to such a pinnacle. She must, I decided, have been gardening since she was old enough to walk.

Even if I never saw this place again, I thought, it was good to know that it was here: an enchanted spot thousands of miles from home, but to which, in the darkest winters and the harshest times, one might imagine coming.

"And may we ask," Gir asked when I had sampled some of everything and tossed Naurag a melon, "why a wizard has come to the land of dragons?"

I wiped my mouth on a delicate napkin, shining white like all their robes. "Actually, I need to get into a dragon's lair. I realize this may seem foolish to you, and I'm afraid I really can't explain why, but I wonder if you could tell me if it is very far from here."

The others looked at each other, and Gir shrugged. "It is not far at all. A five-minute flight on the beast you name Naurag will take you there."

"Maybe I'd better get started," I said reluctantly, "though first I do want to thank you for this wonderful food—"

But they urged me to stay for the rest of the day and the night: not, I thought, as though wanting to give me a mournful farewell dinner, but rather as though visiting the dragons would be mildly fatiguing event, which it was best to approach fresh.

After my escape from the gorgos, I was delighted to put off dragons and their fangs until tomorrow. "Isn't it dangerous," I asked, "having dragons virtually on your doorstep?"

"It could be, of course," Gir said gravely. "One must never underestimate either their ferocity or their cunning. But long ago we found a way to deal with them, and after all we endured before we came here, we do not find them so bad a watch-dog on our porch. Although our life here requires vigilance, I would not call it dangerous."

Perhaps, I tried to reassure myself, dragons' ferocity had been grossly overrated. But the voice at the back of my mind, which refused to look on the bright side, reminded me that I had met a dragon once, and although it was several decades ago now, time had not obliterated the memory of coming extremely close to being messily devoured.

Gir and his people wanted to entertain me. First the food and then this, I thought, toying with the idea of living here for the rest of my life while Elerius did whatever he wanted. They seated me in the middle of the grove of trees, brought out stringed instruments, and began to play. From the first notes, their melodies entered straight into my bloodstream, drawing me deep into the melody. One of the silver-haired women began to sing, words I could not understand, set in a minor key. Somehow, although I had no idea what she was singing about, her song brought me images: a brave band of explorers lost in a foreign land, their valiant efforts to survive, their sorrow and despair as their numbers began to dwindle, the unexpected discovery that gave them hope—

Something heavy and hot hit me on the leg. Startled, I looked down to see that Naurag was hovering next to me and had put his head across my knee. I put a hand on his head and scratched it as though he were a cat, which he enjoyed tremendously, then went back to listening to the music.

But the spell was gone, and the words to this song were no more to me than beautiful sounds in a foreign tongue.

The next song, however, I could understand, for it was sung in the language of men—for my benefit? Three of the women sang together, their voices light and clear, singing of the joys of their grove, their pride in their homes and in their fruit trees, the deep companionship among their group, their love for their neighbors the giants and even, if I understood them correctly, the dragons. I could appreciate why they danced with pure pleasure, robes whirling around them, as they sang this song.

Stories followed, stories of a small group of people living in what I gathered was one of the more northern parts of the Western Kingdoms, treated with growing suspicion as new neighbors migrated up from the south and settled near them. The story was set long ago, in the days of the distant Empire, but it was very poignant nonetheless. The people were first regarded with amazement and awe, but then increasing jealousy as their new neighbors could not grow food or build with beautiful stone as they did, especially when the neighbors died and they did not. Finally open resentment boiled up when the people did not have the wizardly skills their new neighbors seemed to expect. Attempts to migrate themselves were almost disastrous when they settled first near the lair of a gorgos—a danger with which I could certainly identify. I was pleased when, after a series of even more hair-raising adventures, the story finished with the people finally finding a place of peace.

When the stories ended, my hosts brought out supper, fruit again but also sheep's milk cheese. "We barter for it with the giants," Gir told me, seeing me look around in a surprised search for sheep. He did not tell me what they traded.

"I understand that as a wizard far from home, you may be uneasy about revealing too much of your abilities—at least at first," one of the women said when I had eaten. "But tell me—was that idea of Naurag's of creating a wizards' school ever put into practice?"

They were all politely waiting for my answer, but I, having just worked something out, took a moment to reply. "You knew Naurag, then," I said slowly. "The original one. The wizard eight hundred years ago."

"Of course," said Gir, delighted. "I told you we had. And you knew him too? Your creature is named for him?"

They weren't King Paul's age after all. They were the people of the songs and the stories and had probably been right here since before the kingdom of Yurt even existed. "No, I never knew him," I said cautiously, "but I've read about him." I felt hesitant to tell them specifically about the old wizard's ledger—especially since he had showed a remarkable carelessness in not mentioning that elves lived boldly on the dragons' doorstep. "He had a purple companion just like mine. He did not start a school himself, but one of his apprentices' own apprentices did so, where I received my own wizardry training."

And which I might be expected to head if I could locate the Dragons'

Scepter. Well, if I found it I could defeat Elerius, and if I couldn't I wouldn't have to become Master, being dead, so it was a victory either way.

"I guess you could say," I said, stretching, "that interest in dragons continues among wizards even after all these centuries. I'll head into their valley first thing in the morning."

part four
*
the
funeral

Dragons aren't cold-blooded like lizards. The fires that burn in their bellies keep their blood hot enough, or so they had told us in wizards'

school, that dragons actually prefer the cooler climate of the northern land of magic. Therefore there was no reason to expect them to be sluggish at dawn. But I started before dawn anyway, slipping out of the gorgeous guest room inside the elves' tree without bothering them with my departure. The more I thought about it, the less I liked old Naurag's failure to mention the elves, and it seemed safest to answer the fewest questions possible about my mission.

My purple flying beast was floating outside the window as I came through it. But he lifted his head from under his wing at once, spotting the melon I had brought for him. I tossed it to him, swung a leg over his back, gave a quick, quiet command in the Hidden Language, and we were off on the final leg of our trip to find the Dragons' Scepter.

The sun was not yet up, and I shivered as the wind hit me. It felt as if it had come straight from the glaciers that lie, unmelting, further north of the land of wild magic. I decided I would skip a visit there this trip. The eastern sky was a thick layer of clouds, tinted orange.

But I forgot the cold the next moment, for the purple beast's steady wing beats brought us over a high knife-edge of rock, thrust up from the boulder-strewn plain, and I saw before me the valley of the dragons.

Warm-blooded or not, the dragons were still sleeping this early in the morning. I pulled up Naurag for a moment merely to gape.

It was a stunning sight. And one seen, I told myself triumphantly, by very few wizards, or at least by very few who were still alive five minutes later. Fifty feet long or more, covered with glittering scales in red or green or blue, long fangs protruding around its jaws, each dragon lay in front of its lair, burning eyes closed in sleep, great leather wings folded, smoke rising from the nostrils. The valley, not surprisingly, was devoid of any other form of life. Any one of the dragons, even the smallest, could have snapped me up as easily as Naurag ate a melon.

My purple companion had thought of this too. He turned his long neck to look at me accusingly. But this was no time to hold back. With or without the final touches the old wizard had put on his finding spell, I would have to use it before the dragons awoke.

I put my heels to Naurag's sides, and to his credit he responded at once, shooting toward the largest one of all. As we flew forward I had to revise my impressions once again: these dragons were even larger than they had appeared from the valley rim.

The biggest lay half in and half out of its lair, its snout resting on its front feet—each armed with talons that looked about the size of wizard's staff I clutched determinedly. This one's scales were not bright as were the other dragons', but a dirty yellow, as though age had stripped them of color. The scales were scarred and cracked at the edges, and the enormous wings folded down the creature's back were tattered, as if from many deadly fights over the centuries. I wondered briefly, as my flying beast zipped past, if this dragon was one of the very ones whom the old wizard Naurag had bent to the Scepter's will.

An eye opened. We had been spotted.

Our only advantage was the very small size—relatively speaking—that would also have made it so easy for the dragons to devour us. By the time the dragon had turned its head we were well out of striking range, flying back along its side and into the lair itself, where the long barbed tail lay coiled. That tail was twitching as I leaped from Naurag's back and started on spells.

This would never have worked anywhere except in the land of wild magic. In two seconds I had released the spells stored in the silver-topped staff and roared through most of the rest of the finding spell the old wizard had recorded for uncovering the Dragon's Scepter. With improvisational abilities I didn't know I had, I created bridges in the spell where herbs were supposed to go, and stepped back, triumphant, by the time the great pale dragon had pulled his tail out of his lair and started shifting around to put his head in instead.

And nothing happened. I smacked the butt of the staff on the floor in wild frustration at the same time as the first tendrils of smoke from the dragon's nostrils curled around me. I
knew
I had the spells right! I had spent days memorizing the words in the old ledger, and with my own abilities enhanced by the powers of this land I could feel my spell taking its correct shape. Right about now the enormously powerful spell that the wizard Naurag had created to keep his Scepter hidden ought to be breaking up, revealing the Scepter just in time for me to snatch it up and keep the dragon at bay.

Talons scratched on the stony floor of the dragon's lair. Smoke was filling the room, and I could hear the dragon's belly rumbling, loud as an earthquake. The flying beast sensibly shot up to the top of the chamber, out of the way.

And then I realized what was wrong. The spell of concealment was not breaking up because it was not there. At some point in the last eight hundred years somebody else had taken the Scepter.

It would have vastly improved my chances of survival, the nagging voice in my head pointed out, if I had known this before rather than after I entered the dragon's lair. Flames licked toward me, and the great yellow eyes had fastened on me.

No time for heroics—just for desperate flight. And sometimes the simplest ways are best. I made myself invisible.

The dragon's teeth snapped shut, but I was no longer there. Invisible, I flew straight up to where my purple companion was doing his best to fly through the ceiling.

He jerked as an unseen hand touched him. "It's me," I told him, low, under the disappointed roar of the great dragon. "Let's get out of here,"

and tried to wrap him in invisibility as well.

Even here in the land of magic, hard spells worked at impossible speeds did not always function perfectly. Bits of his purple nose and tail protruded from my spell, but I hoped the dragon would not resolve these in the shadows into something edible. The flying beast took us winging toward the entrance to the lair—an entrance nearly blocked by the dragon—while I struggled wildly to hold on.

Right past the dragon's jaws and neck he shot, along the flank and then down under the reeking belly, as its movement threatened to crush us between flank and wall. The tail, outside now, was lashing madly, but Naurag dodged and dodged again, then abruptly was out, free, and whizzing over the heads of the other dragons, while I gave a shout of defiance and tried desperately to cling to his neck with sweaty palms.