Split Heirs (23 page)

Ochovar spun around, expecting to see a great green dragon's head in the mouth of the cave, but all he saw was blue sky and sunshine.

“Over here,” the voice said.

Ochovar whirled again, back toward the interior of the cave, but all he saw was the heap of bones, the big rock on the far side…

The big rock with its two golden eyes, staring at him.

“Hello,” Ochovar said, in a weak gasp.

“Hello,” the boulder rumbled. It uncoiled somewhat, and Ochovar realized that it was, indeed, a dragon
—
a very large dragon. “What brings you here? If you're looking for a fight, I'd really rather not, and you're welcome to back down now
—
I don't much like fighting on a full stomach. And if you came to commit suicide, or to sacrifice yourself to me for the good of your village, wherever it might be, I'm afraid your timing is all wrong; I've just eaten, and I'm really quite full. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow, or next week
—
I'd be glad to make an appointment.”

The dragon stretched its forelegs, each considerably larger than Ochovar, displaying claws the size of cats.

“That's quite all right,” Ochovar said, “I don't mind if you don't eat me.” The dragon's speech had relieved a good part of his anxiety, and he was now merely terrified, instead of utterly panic-stricken.

“Good,” the dragon said. “Would you go away, then, and let me finish my post prandial nap?” It closed its eyes and lowered its head to a comfortable position on its foreclaws.

“Uh…I'd be glad to, but…”

“But what?” One golden eye opened, and Ochovar didn't care for the expression in it.

“Well, I hope you'll excuse me…”

“
But what?!
” A curl of yellow flame flicked from the monster's jaws, and the blast of sound and warm air sent Ochovar reeling. When he recovered, the dragon's eyes were wide open, its neck was extended, and it was glowering down at him from several feet up.

For a few seconds Ochovar stared, frozen, up at the beast; then, when it occurred to him that it was getting even
more
annoyed, he quickly asked, “Is your name Bernice?”

The dragon blinked.

“Is my name what?”

“Bernice,” Ochovar said.

“What kind of a name is
Bernice
for any self-respecting dragon?” the dragon bellowed.

“Well, it's…it's not,” Ochovar stammered. “It's a name for a sheep.”

“A name for…”

The dragon stopped in mid-sentence, and fixed one eye on Ochovar. It glanced at the mouth of the cave, where Ochovar's companions were conspicuously absent, then back at the terrified young man.

“All right,” the monster said. “Ordinarily, at this point, I would fry you to a crisp and eat you as an after-dinner snack, but I just know that if I did that, I'd regret it afterward. I'd get a stomachache, I'm sure, and I'd also never find out what in the forty-six green and purple hells of the ancients you're doing here. So I'm going to keep my temper, interrupted nap or no, and I'm going to sit here and listen while you explain to me just
what in the bloody world you're talking about
, and if I'm not satisfied by the explanation,
then
I'll toast you. Now, would you mind telling me what
I
might have to do with sheep, or with anyone named Bernice?”

Ochovar gulped, and then explained. Not just that they were searching for a dragon named Bernice who had once been a ewe; one thing led to another, and he found himself telling the dragon about the Gorgorian invasion of Hydrangea, and the Black Weasel's brave and determined and ineffectual resistance movement, and King Gudge's reported demise, and the wizard who seemed to be doing thoroughly unwizardlike things such as working
useful
magic, and all the rest of it.

His voice gave out eventually, and he stood there, looking woefully up at the beast.

The dragon looked back, then sighed
—
fortunately, not including any flame, though Ochovar cringed before the blast of hot, fetid air.

“An amazing tale,” the dragon said, “simply amazing. And no, I'm not this Bernice you're looking for
—
I am Antirrhinum the Inquisitive, and I'm a true dragon, born and raised a dragon, the scion of at least a dozen generations of respectable purebred dragons.”

“Ah. Well, in that case, I'm very sorry to have disturbed you, Lord Antirrhinum, sir.” Ochovar bowed, and then began inching toward the cave entrance.

“You should be,” Antirrhinum remarked, in a rather distracted fashion.

It was at that moment that the Silver Squirrel abruptly tumbled into the cave and came rolling down the passageway, to stop a few feet away.

He lay dazed for a few seconds, then caught sight of Ochovar's worried face.

“Oh, there you are!” he said. “Ochie, we were getting worried. What took you so long?”

“The dragon,” Ochovar said, and for the first time the Squirrel noticed the creature watching, with mild interest, over Ochovar's shoulder.

“Oh,” the Squirrel said, in a voice roughly the size of a nit.

“Lord Antirrhinum, this is my companion, called the Silver Squirrel. Squirrel, this is Antirrhinum the Inquisitive. This is his cave we're in.” Ochovar glanced up at his host, and added unnecessarily, “He's a dragon.”

“Oh,” the Squirrel said again, in a slightly larger voice. He swallowed, and said, “He's not Dunwin's Bernice, then? He's a real dragon?”

“Quite real,” Antirrhinum said drily.

“Um…would you like to help us conquer the kingdom anyway, maybe?” the Squirrel asked.

“I'm afraid not,” Antirrhinum said. “I had other plans. Thank you for asking, though.”

“Oh,” the Squirrel said again.

“And now, if you don't mind, I really
would
like to finish my nap,” the dragon said.

“Of course,” Ochovar said, hastily snatching the Squirrel's hand and yanking him to his feet. “We'll be going, then, and thank you very much.”

“Yes, thank you,” the Squirrel said, as Ochovar dragged him backward up the passageway. “Thank you ever so much.”

It was only when they were both safely out of the cave that the Squirrel turned to his compatriot and asked, “Thank him for what?”

“For not eating us, you idiot!” Ochovar said, whacking the Squirrel on the ear. Then, together, they slid down the slope to their waiting fellows.

Antirrhinum watched their departure from the comfortable depths of his cave, then settled back down, curling himself once more into the shape of a boulder, and tried to sleep.

Sleep did not come. Instead he found himself thinking about everything Ochovar had told him.

Gorgorians in Hydrangea? Antirrhinum had eaten a Gorgorian once, decades ago
—
tasty, once you got the dirt off. And wizards turning sheep into dragons? That was entirely unheard of, in all his long experience
—
ordinarily, the only process that turned mutton into dragonflesh was draconic digestion. There was something rather perverse, Antirrhinum thought, in making a dragon from a live sheep. That wizard might want some talking to. While the world could perhaps use a few more dragons
—
things had got rather lonely of late, especially after that last fad for heroism and knighthood fifty years back
—
it wouldn't do to have a lot of Draco-come-latelies cluttering up the landscape and eating the livestock, stealing the food from the mouths of deserving members of the old established families.

And this impending civil war might be amusing to watch. Humans always took these things so seriously.

He would have to look into this. Really, life had gotten a little stale of late, and an excursion to the Hydrangean capital might be just the thing to liven up the situation.

He
would
go take a look
—
as soon as he was done with his nap.

With that resolved, he yawned a great gout of crimson flame and fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty
-
Six

“I don't see a cave,” Pelwyn
—
also known as the Green mole, when he wasn't traveling incognito
—
said distrustfully, as he stared at the rocky hillside.

“Well, of course you don't,” Armetta replied. “It's a wizard's cave, innit? So it's whatchacallit, invincible.”

Pelwyn turned to stare at her. “It's what?”

“Indivisible? Oh, you know the word I mean
—
you can't bloody
see
it.”

“Invisible?”

“
That's
the one.” Armetta's customary smile reappeared.

“Then how do you know it's there?” Pelwyn demanded.

“Oh, that's simple enough
—
because it's where the wizard lives.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it's where he goes when he goes home, o'course.”

“You've seen him go into this invisible cave?”

Armetta considered that. “No,” she admitted, “I can't say as I have.”

“Well, then,” Pelwyn said, “how do you know he
does
?”

“Well, he has to go
somewhere
, doesn't he?”

“Yes, but how do you know it's
here
?”

“Because 'tis.”

“But…oh, never mind.” He kicked at a rock, only discovering upon impact that it was not, in fact, a
loose
rock, but rather, one that was still solidly attached to the outcropping on which it sat.

“Can I go, then?” Armetta asked. “I've an inn to see to.”

“Go on,” Pelwyn said, resisting the temptation to hold his injured foot in his hand while hopping up and down and howling. It had never before occurred to him that it was possible to be seriously tempted to do something like that, but the urge was really very strong indeed, and distracted him from any reason he might have had to keep Armetta around. The pain in his foot, as much as anything else, convinced him that he was never going to get any sense out of her.

That there was no logical connection between his stubbed toe and the innkeeper's mental processes didn't trouble him; he was too busy keeping both feet on the ground.

Armetta stumped off down the hillside, leaving Pelwyn and the other two Bold Bush-dwellers in his party to their own devices.

“I don't see a cave,” the Vermilion Sparrow said.

“
I
don't see a
wizard
,” the Fuchsia Fox added.

Pelwyn glared at them.

“The wizard's probably bloody invisible, too, just like his cave,” he announced.

“Then how do we know there
is
a wizard?” the Fox asked.

“We don't,” Pelwyn said, “and for all I care, the damned wizard can rot in his invisible cave.”

“The Black Weasel won't like that,” the Sparrow pointed out.

“I know, Dunci
—
I mean, Sparrow,” Pelwyn sighed. He looked the hillside over once again, but saw nothing resembling the mouth of a cave. They had searched the area for days before hiring Armetta, and found nothing; it was rather disappointing that after hiring her, they
still
found nothing.

Arnetta was so certain, though; the cave had to be here
somewhere.

“All right, listen,” he said, “if we can't go to the wizard, we'll just have to make the wizard come to
us
, won't we, lads? Like that old proverb, you can lead a horse to the mountain, but you can't make him out of a molehill.”

The Ferret and the Sparrow looked at one another, confused.

“What?” the Sparrow said.

“'Snot how I heard that one,” the Ferret said.

“Oh?” Pelwyn sneered at his long-time companion. “And how did
you
, O great scholar, hear it?”

“'Twas something like, you can't break a horse without him stepping in molehills, or thereabouts.”

“But wasn't there one with mountains in it somewhere?” the Sparrow asked.

“Oh, that one,” the Ferret said. “That was, if you can't climb a nice mountain, don't climb any mountain at all.”

“No, that's, if you can't climb a mountain, sit right here by me, isn't it?”

“
Shut up!
” Pelwyn shouted. “Forget the proverbs! What we have to do is get the wizard to come out where we can see him!”

“Oh, like the wolverine on Wolverine's Day? And if he sees his shadow, he'll eat your foot off?”

“No, if he sees
your
shadow, he'll eat your foot off.”

“Isn't it his
own
foot?”

“No, that one's got traps in it somewhere…”

“
Shut up!
” Pelwyn's scream carried a warning hint of hysteria. The pair shut up, and watched their leader in wary silence.

After a moment of quiet, in which the loudest sounds were rustling leaves and the call of a distant bird, the Green Mole had sufficiently collected himself to say, “Now, we need to get this wizard out of his cave. Has either of you got any idea how we can do that?”

The Ferret and the Sparrow looked at one another, then shrugged in unison.

“Nope,” the Ferret said.

“Um,” the Sparrow said.

Pelwyn eyed the Vermilion Sparrow. “Um?” he said.

“Well, I was sort of thinking…” the Sparrow said.

“
‘Sort of' is probably as close as you'll ever get,” Pelwyn muttered to himself.

“…I was thinking, wizards do stuff with magic, sort of, don't they? I mean, sometimes?”

“I would have to agree with that,” the Green Mole said. “Invisible caves might be considered a form of magic, I'd say. What of it?”

“Well, then, shouldn't we do some magic to make this wizard appear? I mean, demons do magic, and to get a demon to appear, our granddad always said, you had to do just all
kinds
of magic, and even then he said there was a good chance the demon would eat your head, which is why he always advised us against raising demons.”

“I don't think it's quite the same,” Pelwyn said, “but you might have a point.” He stroked his beard, considering, then asked, “Does either of you know any magic? Anything you picked up from your grandfather, maybe?”

Both his companions shook their heads vigorously.

“We could fake it, I suppose,” Pelwyn said, more to himself than anyone else.

“Once when I was a boy,” the Ferret said, “I had a ferret
—
that was how I got my name, see, when I joined up
—
anyway, my ferret had gone down a rathole and wouldn't come out, and we got 'er out by putting a dead mouse nearby and waiting until she got hungry.”

“Bait, to lure it out,” Pelwyn said, nodding. “That's a good idea, too.”

The Ferret smiled proudly.

“But what sort of bait do you use for a wizard?” Pelwyn asked.

The Ferret's smile vanished.

“Magic?” the Sparrow suggested timidly.

“We don't have any,” Pelwyn pointed out. He frowned. “But when my Uncle Binch used to go fishing, he used bugs made out of feathers and sticks and wire for bait, and they worked just as well as real bugs. So maybe we could fake it.”

The other two nodded enthusiastically.

“So how do we fake magic?” the Sparrow asked.

“Talk funny, and wave your hands around,” the Ferret said. “I saw an actor do that once in a show, pretending to be a magician.”

“And they use wands, and stuff, don't they?” the Sparrow asked.

The Ferret nodded. “And they brew stuff in kettles.”

“We can make wands out of some of those sticks,” Pelwyn said, pointing.

“Come on!” the Ferret shrieked, suddenly overcome with enthusiasm.

Five minutes later the three of them were dancing about the hillside, waving sticks around and chanting nonsense at the tops of their lungs, all of them smiling and laughing, Pelwyn's damaged toes forgotten.

Forty-five minutes after that, they had switched to taking turns resting, and the chants had gotten less enthusiastic and more repetitive
—
Pelwyn's had settled down to, “Ka
mon
ya
sa
na va
bitch
, ka
mon
ya
sa
na va
bitch
!”

An hour later, the Sparrow stood alone on the slope, drearily waving a stick and reciting, “Wizard
appear
, wizard come
forth
, wizard
show
yourself, wizard get your arse
out
here, wizard
appear
, wizard come
forth
, wizard
show
yourself, wizard get your arse
out
here…”

And shortly thereafter, he flung down the stick and said, “To hell with it! Pelwyn, there isn't any wizard here!”

Pelwyn awoke, startled. “Whu…?” he said.

“There isn't any wizard here,” the Sparrow repeated.

“Or if there is, he's not coming out,” the Ferret said.

“If we stay here much longer, we'll miss the coronation!” the Sparrow pointed out. “What good will
that
do anyone? If the Black Weasel wants to overthrow the Gorgorians at the coronation, he's going to need every man he's got
—
even us!”

“That's why he wants the wizard,” Pelwyn said.

“But we can't
find
the wizard,” the Sparrow insisted. “And even if we could, he probably wouldn't do any good. Maybe all he knows how to do is turn sheep into dragons
—
what good would that be against the Gorgorians? They don't keep sheep in the capital, from what I've heard
—
just oxen and horses. So even if we
could
find this wizard, it wouldn't help!”

“Besides,” said the Ferret, “if the others found Bernice, she might not like having the wizard around. She'd probably just eat him.”

Pelwyn didn't think that was very likely, but on the other hand, he was just as bored as his companions.

“All right,” he said, “forget about the wizard. On to the capital!”

The Ferret and the Sparrow cheered loudly.

“And we'll start with a good meal at the inn in Stinkberry, to prepare for the journey!”

The cheers grew even louder. Together, the three trooped off down the slope.

Behind them, the rock outcropping shifted slightly, and Clootie peered out at the departing men.

A coronation?

The Black Weasel?

Bernice?

This all sounded very interesting. When that fool had first kicked at Clootie's door handle, the wizard had thought it was just another young idiot eager to buy aphrodisiacs or other love potions, and he had ignored the trio. The dancing and chanting had been funny enough to deserve a look, but that had grown boring after awhile.

It certainly wasn't any temptation to come out and talk; Clootie liked his privacy.

It was just luck that he had happened to take another look, to see if they were still there, just as the youngest one got fed up; he might easily have missed that final conversation.

But he hadn't, and a very interesting conversation it was.

Coronation?

The Black Weasel?

Bernice?
Dunwin's
Bernice, the sheep-turned-dragon?

This was too good to miss, the sorcerer decided. He turned and scurried deeper into the cave, to pack a bag.

He had a coronation to attend
—
and who knew, perhaps a Gorgorian dynasty to overthrow. The Black Weasel might well find a use for the transformation spell!