Lord Elsen bowed as if he had just been introduced to a lady. “If you think you can, you’re welcome to try.” He held out his right hand, and a fallen soldier’s sword flew up from the ground and into his grip.
Phillip snickered. “Parlor tricks! I expected better.”
Lord Elsen shrugged. “I should hate to disappoint you.” He held out his empty left hand, palm up, and in a few seconds, Phillip gasped and almost dropped her sword.
From the way she cringed, Joe knew that Lord Elsen had made the pommel too hot to hold.
“Phil!” he called. “Phil, he says you can do magic, too! I don’t know what to tell you, but if you can figure out a way to do it, try!”
Phillip didn’t take her eyes from Lord Elsen, but she nodded. “I will.” She clutched her necklace in her left hand and resolutely gripped her sword with her right. Lord Elsen frowned and grasped his own sword more firmly.
“Die, you bastard!” Phillip suddenly yelled, and then she charged him with her sword raised to strike.
Lord Elsen easily side-stepped her charge, but he looked surprised that she had made it. He turned, always facing her as she danced about looking for a weakness in his guard.
She didn’t find one, but she had help. Behind the dark lord a huge, sinuous form rose up, and a flame shot out over his head.
Lord Elsen pivoted in alarm and raised his arms as the dragon reared up behind him.
“He’s mine!” Phillip screamed, and she ran Lord Elsen through where he stood, plunging her sword into his side and then quickly wrenching it free.
Lord Elsen poised on his toes, like a dancer, for a moment and then fell like cut timber.
The dragon blinked, coughed, and looked down at the body twitching on the ground. “Certainly. I wasn’t trying to poach. Just checking on how things were going.”
It was the old dragon from the cave. He had the same nicks and scars on his now-folded wings, but his eyes had a glitter that hadn’t been there before.
Joe dragged himself over to where Lord Elsen lay and checked the body. “He’s dead. Thanks, Phil.”
She stood, sword in hand, her chest pumping air, and nodded. “We’re even now.”
Joe looked up at her in surprise. “Is that why you came back for me? Because I saved you before?”
She hesitated and then shrugged nonchalantly. “Why else?”
“Ahem,” the dragon interjected diplomatically. “I don’t mean to be pushy, but the soldiers that aren’t dead have run off. I’ve done my part, and now there’s the matter of my fee.”
“What fee?” Joe said.
“The fee we agreed upon.” The dragon’s mental tone was firm. “Are you ready, my dear?”
Phillip looked suddenly pale. She stood stock still and said nothing.
“You did agree,” the dragon pointed out. “You gave your word.”
She let her sword fall, sucked in a deep breath, and let it out with a shudder. “I’m ready.”
“Phil?” Joe said in alarm. “What did you promise?”
“Open your blouse, just a little,” the dragon instructed. “And then hold perfectly still.”
“Phil!” Joe shouted, remembering the woman who had been eaten. “What’s going on?”
Wordlessly, Phillip pulled her shirt open. Joe watched in alarm as the dragon slithered over to her, raising small clouds of dust.
“Damn it!” Joe shouted, enraged at his own helpless state. “You hurt her, you bloody lizard, and I’ll chop you into sushi!”
“Be quiet,” the dragon answered tartly. “You’re distracting me.”
He extended his neck and held his head exactly in front of Phillip’s face. His long forked tongue flicked out and wrapped around her neck for a second, as if he were gauging the distance. “Don’t move!”
Phillip didn’t move, but her face and bosom were very pale.
Suddenly, the stone on her necklace began to glow.
“Ahh!” The dragon was plainly pleased. “Lovely!” His tongue flicked out and caught the chain, twining around the links. The dragon turned his head sideways as if he planned to kiss Phillip on her neck. She tilted her head, and suddenly the dragon jerked his head backwards with a lightning fast snap.
Phillip cried out as if she were in pain, and in the same instant, the chain of her necklace broke with a sharp crack.
The dragon tossed his head back and let the necklace drop into his mouth. He swallowed in one gulp, and then lowered his head and smiled at Phillip. “Thank you so much, my dear. You have no idea what this means to me.”
And with that, he slithered away a few dozen yards, moving at an incredible speed, and then flapped his wings and launched himself into the air.
Joe swore with relief. “I was afraid he was going to eat you.”
Phillip stood motionless and silent.
Joe grew alarmed. “Phil? You okay?”
She didn’t answer. Joe had started to drag himself closer when she closed her eyes and sank to the ground in a dead faint.
Nine: The Return
Joe searched the soldiers’ discarded gear and found blankets, clothes, and supplies, including food and water. He made a rude tent—the best he could do with limited mobility—and was glad of it when it rained during the night. He slept next to the still-unconscious Phillip to keep them both warm.
In the morning, Joe crawled out from the shelter and surveyed the carnage. Between huge patches of scorched earth, bodies lay scattered about under the clear blue sky. Joe had dragged Phillip as far away from the dead as he could, in case there were scavengers, but none of the bodies showed signs of having been disturbed.
In the distance, a horse grazed. Joe stumbled toward it, hoping to persuade it to let him get near before it ran off. The horse never moved, and when Joe got closer he saw that the still-saddled gelding had caught his reins in the roots of a bush. The horse skittered when the man got close. Joe clucked soothingly and spoke softly. Once the animal was still, Joe stroked its neck before he untangled the reins.
He led the horse back to the shelter and found Phillip standing there watching him.
“Hello,” Joe said. “How are you? I was worried about you.”
She didn’t speak but only stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“Come on,” Joe said, hoping a firm tone would help. “Time to head back.”
She didn’t answer, but she followed his directions and helped him collect supplies and his pack, which had providentially been abandoned, and still contained the seven dragon scales.
It was while they were assembling their supplies that Joe first noticed the strange shape in the sky. He thought at first that it was the dragon coming back, but as it got closer, the shape didn’t look right. It was too wide, and its path was erratic, traversing the sky in wide loops and swoops.
When it was almost overhead, Joe realized it was two dragons, their bodies twined together in an incredible aerial ballet—a winged double helix. They never lost touch as they flew over the plain, but they were constantly in motion—an unceasing undulation of serpentine bodies moving together, their wings beating the air with rhythmic precision.
The spectacle passed quickly, moving out of sight in a matter of seconds, but Joe was quite certain that one of the two was the old dragon from the cave.
“It looks like you did the old guy a real favor,” he said to Phillip.
She said nothing, but stared at the spot in the sky where the dragons had last been visible.
Joe went back to deciding what they should carry with them. He couldn’t find their map, but he figured if they headed east, they were bound to hit the Great Barrier—unless they were already too far north, in which case they might encounter Lord Elsen’s soldiers, out searching for their mage.
Joe knew it would tire the horse to carry two riders, but he didn’t feel up to walking. He mounted and then directed Phillip to get up behind him, leaning down to offer her a hand. She pulled herself up without a word.
He tried
talking to Phil, but she never responded. When he reached back to pat her knee reassuringly, she pulled away from him, so Joe didn’t repeat the gesture.
They rested part-way through the morning, and then Joe walked for a few miles, to stretch his legs. He had Phillip mount the horse, and then he held the reins while she sat dumbly in the saddle and let him lead. It was so unlike her that Joe was further alarmed.
After a while, walking didn’t hurt so much. When they stopped to eat at noon, he had to suggest delicately to Phillip that she should relieve herself. She looked confused but she did wander off alone for a few minutes.
When they made camp at night, Joe did most of the work, as Phillip sat quietly unless directed otherwise. She ate what he gave her, but with no sign of enjoyment, and lay down on her bed roll when he told her to.
Sometime in the night, Joe woke to find Phillip clutching him in her sleep. She wept quietly, but with her eyes closed. Joe held her close, in spite of the pain it caused his burned chest.
In the morning Phil seemed more alert. She looked around more, and didn’t have to be told to see to her body’s needs. When Joe had her mount the horse and then took the reins, she leaned over the saddle horn and held out her hand. “You don’t need to lead.”
It was the first time she had spoken since the dragon had eaten her necklace. Joe let her hold the reins, and after they stopped to rest in a few hours, he let her walk for a ways while he rode the horse.
It was shortly after they had switched places again that they saw the line of mounted soldiers in the distance. There were forty of them, and Joe was torn as to whether to try to elude them or not.
“It’s all right,” Phillip said in flat tones. “They won’t hurt us.”
Joe decided to trust her instinct or her magic, whichever it was. He mounted the horse behind her, and she clucked to the animal to move forward. In a few minutes the soldiers changed direction and headed straight for Phillip and Joe on their lone horse.
As soon as they were close, Joe breathed a sigh of relief. The soldiers wore the Great Mage’s livery.
The officer at their head, one of Joe’s former students, reined in his troop as they drew close. “Ho, good sir! You leave on foot and return on a horse! It must have been a successful quest.”
“Yes,” Joe said. “We’re glad to see you, Gilbert. Were you looking for us?”
Gilbert grinned widely. “Indeed. The Great Mage informed us that you’d most likely return from this direction.”
Gilbert had brought two extra horses. Joe rode one and Phillip the other, as their own steed was in need of a rest.
Joe rode beside Gilbert and informed him that Lord Elsen was dead.
Gilbert nodded sagely. “We knew something was afoot. There have been wild rumors. There’s always chaos for a while after a dark lord dies.”
“What will happen in Lord Elsen’s ward? Who will rule it?
“Only time can answer that,” Gilbert said. “Anyone in the valley who has magic in him and aspires to be a mage will make his way there. If there’s more than one, they may battle each other.”
“You mean with magic?”
“Yes, and with soldiers.” Gilbert seemed sanguine about the future, but perhaps he felt no one could be worse than Lord Elsen. “It’s also possible that Lord Marcellin could try to assume Lord Elsen’s ward in addition to his own, but it’s not likely. Lord Marcellin isn’t a strong enough mage to hold that much land.”
There seemed another possibility to Joe. “Do you think the Great Mage would try to take over Lord Elsen’s ward, too?”
“I doubt it,” Gilbert said. “He has said that he made the barrier as big as he could make it, and even that didn’t take in all the land he claims as his ward. I don’t think he’d stretch himself further.”
Joe considered this statement, but Gilbert interrupted his thoughts.
“So it’s true your companion is a woman? I’d heard the rumor, but when I saw her before, I didn’t believe it.”
Joe glanced back at Phillip, riding silently a little ways behind them. He had to agree that she looked subtly different. The more womanly curves of her figure were easily explained, as she hadn’t made any attempt to bind her breasts since the dragon had eaten her necklace. But somehow her features seemed softer and less angular, and she had done nothing to change her face.
“Oh, she’s a woman all right,” he said.
Gilbert gave him a curious look but said no more.
Joe fell to anticipating the pleasure of a hot bath waiting for him back at the Barrier fort. When he expressed this sentiment out loud, Gilbert laughed.
“I didn’t want to be rude, but you do look a sight. You must have had a rough time of it.”
Joe grinned. “You should have seen me—and smelled me—before I found a change of clothes this morning.” He went on to tell Gilbert about the battle. Gilbert expressed the opinion that they had been fortunate in their choice of an ally.
“That was Phil’s doing,” Joe said. “But it was a good choice. Once the dragon flew overhead, they all took off running.”
“After all,” Gilbert said, “would you care to face an angry dragon—or a hungry one?”
“No,” Joe said. “I was damn glad to hear the dragon was on our side.”
They reached the barrier a little before dark, and Joe was gratified to be once more in the Great Mage’s ward, and inside the barrier.
They left the barrier fort at dawn, on the Great Mage’s orders. Joe hadn’t argued. He was anxious to get back to the palace himself, as he had some questions for the Great Mage.
Phillip didn’t seem in a hurry, but she didn’t protest their departure. She didn’t speak much on the journey, but she did answer when Joe asked her questions.
“Say, Phil,” Joe said, directing his horse nearer to hers, “have you thought anymore about what you’re going to do when the Great Mage releases you?”
She gave him a brief, inscrutable glance and looked away. “A little.”
“So did you decide anything?”
“No.”
And that was all she would say on that subject.
“Did I remember to thank you for saving my life?” Joe asked, trying another tack.
“Yes.”
“It was pretty smart of you to go back to the dragon for help. How did you get there?”
She gave him another peculiar look. “I ran most of the way.”
“But how did you get there from the river?”
She shrugged indifferently. “I was never in the river. I jumped down to a ledge on the near bank, threw a rock in the water to make a splash, and hid under the bushes until the soldiers gave up searching. Then I went back the way we had come, but faster.”
“You made good time,” Joe said.
“I was in a hurry. And once I’d found him, the dragon carried me when he flew. It took us a while to find the caravan, but I knew they’d head north, and dragons can fly very fast.”
“You rode on a dragon’s back?” Joe said, amazed. “Wow!”
“What does ‘wow’ mean?” she said, sounding cross.
“Oh, sorry. Wow is an exclamation—like saying ‘how extraordinary.’ “
“Oh.”
“Really, Phil, I’d have been terrified. Weren’t you scared at all?”
She hesitated. “A little,” she said at last.
Joe shook his head admiringly. “You’re a damn fine soldier, Phil. You’ve got brains and guts, and you don’t give up.”
“Thank you.” Somehow she sounded as if she didn’t take it as a compliment. Without speaking another word, she nudged her horse forward and left Joe riding by himself.
“Oh, yeah,” Joe muttered to himself. “She’s a woman all right. Boy, I sure can pick ’em.”
Ten: The Decision
As soon they rode into the courtyard, Joe saw Mother Wilhelmina standing on the steps of the main hall. She gave first him and then Phillip an anxious once-over glance.
“Good
afternoon, Joseph,” she said as he dismounted. “It’s good to see you.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Joe stooped to give her a brief embrace and flinched as his burn pained him.
She looked dismayed and beckoned the sister who waited behind her. “Joseph has injuries. Take him to the infirmary and see to them.”
“Yes, Mother.” The woman stepped aside for Joe to precede her.
“But what about Phillip?” Joe asked. “I want to be there when she sees the Great Mage.”
Mother Wilhelmina gave Phillip a quick glance but shook her head. “The Great Mage has directed that he’ll see Phillip alone.”
Joe tried to argue, but Mother Wilhelmina reminded of his oath of obedience, and Joe was borne off by the waiting sisters. He was a little embarrassed to be tended by the sisters again. When he first came to the Great Mage’s ward, he had been too ill to be embarrassed at being seen naked by a series of strange women. Now he wasn’t sick, and he knew several of the sisters rather well. They weren’t a religious order but merely a group of women who dedicated their lives to caring for the sick. Joe had found the ones near his own age to be good company, and willing to indulge in occasional intimacy. They had made life in the Great Mage’s ward tolerable.
Sister Zenobiya was old enough to be his mother, and indeed, he had never seen her as anything but a maternal sort of friend. The sister who held the basin was another story, and Joe avoided meeting her eye. He had to lie naked on a bed while Sister Zenobiya examined him and then washed the cuts and contusions that covered his body. She slathered the knife-shaped burn with a soothing ointment, and Joe hoped his ordeal would soon be over.
And then Mother Wilhelmina came into the room.
“And how is Joseph?” Mother Wilhelmina asked as Joe snatched at the sheets and clutched them around his genitals.
“He’ll be fine, Mother,” Sister Zenobiya said. “His only serious injury is a burn. We’ll watch it to be sure it heals without infection.”
Mother Wilhelmina scrutinized the burn and agreed with her prognosis. “You may dress now, Joseph. The Great Mage will see you in his laboratory.”
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