The Faithful Traitor (Wizard & Dragon Book 2)

by Robert Don Hughes

  “I do appreciate your trying to help him,” the girl replied earnestly, and Seagryn was touched. This was the first time he could remember anyone thanking him for any of his efforts. Then Uda frowned, and added, “But I wonder if it’s good for him.”

  Seagryn sighed. “I don’t know what’s good anymore, Uda. I used to think I did. When I was a cleric, good and evil seemed so sharply defined. Now it seems every evil thing wears a mask of propriety, while every good thing seems to have some counterbalancing evil price to pay. Do you understand what I mean?”

  The girl’s blue eyes studied him thoughtfully as she ran a hand through her waist-length black hair. “No,” she said at last. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

  She had grown, true — but she hadn’t grown that much. Seagryn mumbled some meaningless response and trotted on down the steps, wishing he could find someone to talk to who could understand — someone like Elaryl. Lost in such thoughts, he wandered the eccentric halls of Kerily’s museumlike mansion without really seeing anything. Thus he reacted with great surprise when he realized he’d walked out onto the stage of a large, open-roofed amphitheater — Kerily’s own in-house performance hall. He turned in a slow circle, first gazing up at the sharply sloped seats, then around behind him at the set. It looked like a garden scene, with live shrubs and trees and a fountain that sparkled in the moonlight. “What is this?” he murmured to himself.

  “What does it look like?” a disembodied voice nearby said, and Seagryn whirled about, trying to find its source. “I’m right here,” the voice said again, and Sheth appeared before him — or, rather, a wavy, vaporous image of Sheth appeared. As always, the mustached wizard appeared to be smirking.

  He’d not seen Sheth in months, but he hadn’t missed him, either. “What do you want?” Seagryn asked flatly, squaring his broad shoulders around to face his dimpled nemesis.

  “You look as if you’re ready to fight.” Sheth chuckled.

  “That’s what we were doing when we parted ways,” Seagryn reminded his rival. “Or had you forgotten?”

  Sheth’s smile hardened, and his voice took on a keen edge. For some reason, Seagryn felt comforted by this. “Forgotten? You think I could forget how you spoiled my creation and sent it thundering through the roof of my home?”

  “What you were doing was evil,” Seagryn muttered quietly.

  “And what you did was not?” Sheth snapped back. “You wrecked my Dragonforge! You released a monster on the world before he was fully trained! That’s not evil?”

  “It didn’t seem so at the time,” Seagryn countered.

  “And how does it seem now, Seagryn? Now that the dragon has devoured the Remnant, as well as most of your country’s Ruling Council!”

  “The Ruling Council?” Seagryn frowned. Elaryl! he thought. What about Elaryl?

  “What’s the matter? Did Nebalath not tell you about that?” Sheth’s smirk had returned, making Seagryn want to flatten that nose with a blow of his balled-up fist. But as the full impact of Sheth’s news spread through his mind, all he could do was gasp for breath. “It’s true,” Sheth continued. “At the prompting of the sniveling son of Paumer, the dragon has consumed most or all of the Ruling Council, including your beloved father-in-law! I can’t believe Nebalath hasn’t told you all this. He’s known it for days.”

  “He hasn’t told me anything,” Seagryn said. He thought he now understood why.

  “So then, Seagryn Dragonspet! What are you going to do about it?”

  Seagryn swallowed hard, fighting the urge to cry out in anguish. “What can I do?” he finally managed to choke out.

  Sheth’s cleft jaw jutted out in an obvious challenge. “You can come to the Marwilds and help me destroy the thing!”

  Seagryn stared at him. “You know a way to destroy Vicia-Heinox?” he asked.

  “I made Vicia-Heinox!” Sheth answered arrogantly. “You think I would make such a beast without also planning some means to dispose of it as well?”

  “Yes,” Seagryn replied quickly, causing Sheth to fill the amphitheater with curses. Seagryn waited until the other wizard had vented his rage, then went on calmly. “If you know how, why haven’t you already done it? And why would you seek my help?”

  “I’ve always known how!” Sheth roared. “But the process takes time, and materials, and cooperation! Don’t you remember anything about the Conspiracy’s design? This is exactly what we’d planned to have happen!”

  “The destruction of the Remnant?” Seagryn countered angrily. “The consumption of the Ruling Council of Lamath? If that indeed has happened as you claim, I certainly doubt Ranoth planned it! No, Sheth. Something’s gone terribly wrong with your plan, or you wouldn’t be requesting my help. And I know too much about you and that slimy Paumer to spend any more of my energy aiding you! I’ll find a way to stop this dragon myself, but I’ll not do it in partnership with you. I’ve tried that before — remember?”

  Sheth’s blue eyes bored into him, but Seagryn didn’t care if this man hated him. He turned and started back the way he’d come, barely listening as the wizard shouted, “You’d better come help me, if you ever expect to see your pretty wife again.”

  Seagryn stopped and whirled around. “What?” he demanded.

  “Your wife.” Sheth grinned. “I’ve got her. And she is a pretty little thing. She’ll be really hurt when she hears you didn’t even ask about her —”

  With the swiftness of the thought itself, Seagryn’s mind formed a ball of blue-white fire and flung it at Sheth’s head. It flew through the shimmering outline of the wizard and flamed out against the amphitheater’s stone wall.

  Sheth stared at him incredulously. “I’m not actually there with you, Seagryn — surely you’re not so dense as to believe I am … ?”

  “No,” Seagryn muttered, struggling to keep his feet beneath him. “That was — reflex. You … have Elaryl?”

  “I would think that news would please you,” Sheth mocked him. “Especially in light of the word about her father.”

  “Why … is she … with you?”

  “Why with me? I would think that would be obvious.” Sheth brushed invisible fluff from his vaporous garment, preening himself like one of the exotically plumed birds from the jungles of Emeraude.

  “I’m afraid it is not obvious to me.”

  “I’ve decided very little is obvious to you, Seagryn,” Sheth said. “You’re quite talented, but you’re also dense. I think it has something to do with your religious heritage — you often fail to think for yourself.”

  Seagryn struggled to remain calm. “Why is my wife with you, Sheth?”

  “Simple.” The dimpled wizard smiled. “Because I need you to come help me, and that was the easiest way of getting you here.”

  “You’re lying,” Seagryn rumbled low in his throat, and Sheth laughed. “If she’s there with you, show her to me!” Seagryn roared, his temper finally loosed. “Prove to me you have her!”

  Sheth laughed again — insulting laughter — then said, “You’re a powershaper yourself, Seagryn! You’ve learned many of the tricks of the trade, so you tell me just how I could go about doing that!”

  “I don’t care how you do it, but I don’t believe you!”

  “Then why don’t you go ask Nebalath?” Sheth shouted. “He knows. Ask Dark if the dragon didn’t burn your new house in the Rivers Region! Better yet, why don’t you just throw yourself up there into the ashes where it once stood! If you were half the wizard you think you are, you could do it! In the meantime,” he continued, “I’ll be waiting here in the Marwilds — along with your wife — for you to come to your senses. Don’t make me wait too long, Seagryn. The next time Ognadzu sends the dragon to find me, I might need to use her for dragon bait.”

  Seagryn roared in rage and leaped at the other powershaper, reaching out to throttle Sheth with his bare hands. He grabbed nothing but empty space and fell heavily to the floor of the stage, banging his knees and elbows. When he bounced up to his feet,
Sheth was gone — disappeared. He screamed in frustration and heard his voice amplified powerfully all the way up to the top row of seats. Kerily wouldn’t build an amphitheater without perfect acoustics.

  Despite the fact that he ran all the way, it still took him several minutes to race back to Dark’s bedside. The boy still slept as Uda sat quietly beside him, watching him. She glanced up in surprise as Seagryn puffed into the room. “What is it?”

  “Where’s Nebalath?” Seagryn demanded, his head flying from side to side as he searched.

  “He … said he wanted to sleep in his own bed tonight — in Haranamous. He said Dark would sleep until morning, and to tell you that he would be back then. Is — everything all right?”

  “No,” Seagryn grunted. “Everything is not all right.” He looked at her. “But I’m going to go do the only thing I can think of that might help right now.”

  “And what is that?” Uda frowned, not comprehending any of this.

  “What Elaryl would do. I’m going to go talk to the Power.”

  His room was located down the hall from Dark’s. He walked swiftly to it, closed its door, and threw himself facedown on the bed. “Elaryl,” he murmured, summoning from memory an image of her face and gazing into her knowing eyes. She was the truest believer he knew, and remembering her seemed to help him focus on the Power more easily. “Elaryl, I’m coming home …”

  And then he was. Whether by nightmare or through terrible vision he couldn’t know until later, but he was there in Lamath in the Rivers Region, on the site of the house of Talarath. And as he had in his visit to the village of Gammel, he stood in ashes. “Seagryn …”

  It was Uda’s voice, and it confused him. He woke up and looked at her.

  “It’s morning,” she told him. “Nebalath’s back and Dark is calling for you.”

  Seagryn jumped off the bed and dashed down the hallway. Dark and Nebalath faced the door, and by their expressions apparently anticipated his anger. Of course — Dark would have warned the old wizard already …

  Seagryn glowered at Nebalath accusingly. “Did the dragon burn my house?”

  Nebalath shrugged. “Apparently so. I wasn’t there at the time.”

  “But you did go there — sometime during our return.”

  Nebalath sighed deeply and nodded. “I did, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Seagryn thundered. “I was desperate for news and you knew it!”

  “You were desperate for good news, Seagryn, not bad,” Nebalath said. “I had none to give you. I kept searching for some, but …”

  “What information did you seek?” Seagryn demanded, his jaws tight.

  “I wanted to tell you something about the location and safety of your wife …”

  “She’s with Sheth!” Seagryn roared. “He told me last night that he had her! And you knew that!” he went on, turning to Dark.

  “I knew what, exactly?” Dark asked.

  “You told me Sheth would talk to me, but you were too eager to go off to megasin-sleep even to warn me what it was about!” Seagryn wished he didn’t feel so betrayed by these two friends, but he couldn’t feel otherwise.

  “What’s megasin-sleep?” Nebalath asked Dark.

  The boy brushed off the question with a quick “You’ll learn later” and returned his attention to Seagryn. “I told you we’d talk about Sheth’s visit after I woke up —”

  “Why bother, now? It’s already happened! I already know my wife survived the dragonburn, but that Sheth has somehow taken her captive! Nebalath and I need to ask questions about what’s still to come, and we’ve gone to great trouble to get you healthy enough to answer them. Is your gift still intact?”

  Dark nodded curtly. “My gift is very much present.”

  Seagryn looked at Nebalath and explained harshly, “The megasin robbed him of his prophetic ability by stealing his memories. I’d wondered if the green powder might do the same.”

  “What is this megasin?” Nebalath asked again, his curiosity growing.

  Dark raised both his hands to draw their eyes back to him, and asked, “Before I answer your questions, is it all right if I say something?”

  Seagryn chuckled unkindly. “Surely you already know if you say it or not —”

  “Listen to me, both of you,” Dark interrupted. “I want to say that I’m fully aware of the danger you encountered in fetching the dream-killing substance for me. And I can tell you already, it helps. Thank you.”

  Seagryn’s anger cooled. He sat in the chair Uda had occupied through the night. “You’re feeling better, then?”

  Dark brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. It had grown too long over these months, and his normally tan face had thinned and paled to the point that he might have been unrecognizable even to his mother. But his brown eyes had a little of the old sparkle as he smiled slightly and replied, “I am feeling better.” He pointed to the bag of green powder and went on, “At least now I have the promise of some relief from my own foreknowledge. I mourn tragic events well in advance of their happening, you know. I wish my personality allowed me to celebrate the happy ones the same way.”

  “Are there happy events in our future?” Seagryn asked, unable to contain his anxiety any longer. Dark’s face fell, and Seagryn was immediately sorry. “Please forgive me, Dark. I don’t mean to plunge you so quickly back into the very thing that troubles you so —”

  “You can’t help it,” Dark muttered, raising his feet and rolling them off the edge of the bed and toward the floor. “None of you can help it.” He sat up, took a deep breath, and stood. Both Nebalath and Seagryn stepped forward to support him if he fell. “I’m all right,” he protested, waving off their aid. He walked unsteadily to the window on the far side of the room and pulled the blue velvet drapes aside, “Humph,” he grunted as he looked down on the gardens below. “Kerily certainly has changed things since the last time I looked out this window.” Then he turned around, sat on the sill, and gazed at them with that expression Seagryn knew so well: He was about to ask, “How much of this do you want to know?” But Dark surprised him.

  “You say you have questions for me. Ask them.”

  This was a different approach to telling the future than the boy had ever taken with either of them, and Seagryn and Nebalath glanced at one another in recognition of the fact. “Why don’t you just tell us what we need to know?” Nebalath asked.

  “Because I don’t know what you need to know,” the young prophet said with a confident assurance neither Seagryn nor Nebalath recognized. “You give me too much credit, friends — and too much responsibility as well. I’ve decided to bear it no longer. You ask your questions and I’ll answer them as best I can. But I’ll not ask them for you, nor tolerate your anger at me later if you fail to ask the right ones.”

  Now Seagryn understood. Dark had never felt comfortable suggesting possible courses of action. How could he, when he knew only one would be taken and what its results would be? Nor did he feel free to make value judgments for others, despite then-demands that he tell them what they should or shouldn’t do. He had evidently chosen to absolve himself of such responsibilities in the future, and Seagryn could understand why. Still, it troubled him. “You’ll not even hint to us which questions we should ask?”

  Dark’s veiled expression didn’t change. “How would I know?”

  Nebalath chuckled at that, and Dark smiled. But Seagryn still felt uncomfortable with this declaration, and he thought he knew why. “I can appreciate what you’re trying to do, Dark, but I have a problem. You see, you involved me in all this. If it hadn’t been for you I’d never have joined the Conspiracy, never have been involved in making the dragon, and would not now be feeling such a responsibility to set things right again.”

  Dark was naturally unsurprised by Seagryn’s comments and nodded throughout diem. But neither did his attitude change. “How do you know that, Seagryn? I don’t know it, myself. You might have taken a different course into the Conspiracy, and then aga
in you might not have. Who knows? But if my mother is to be believed — and I always believe her — the Power has purposes for us that surpass all our human understanding.”

  Nebalath hooted derisively, and Dark looked at him.

  “Even you, Nebalath,” the dark-haired lad continued. “Whether you believe it or not.”

  “I don’t,” the old wizard grunted.

  Dark looked back at Seagryn. “But you do.” When Seagryn didn’t respond, Dark stood up and walked toward him. “Come now, Seagryn! Surely you know there’s always been far more at stake here than who rules which Fragment and what merchant house dominates the old One Land’s markets!”

  “What is at stake?”

  “Ah.” Dark nodded, his eyes alive. “A real question. To which I answer — everything.”

  Seagryn blinked. Nebalath stepped around to see Dark’s face, his old eyes wide with curiosity. “Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  Seagryn’s lips had suddenly gone dry. He licked them and asked, “Do you mean such things as — good and evil? The Power and those things that oppose the Power?”

  “Exactly.” Dark nodded, studying Seagryn’s face earnestly.

  For the first time in his relationship to this lad, Seagryn felt like he was being tested. It seemed of critical importance that he ask the right questions … “The Power is behind all this, then.”

  Dark frowned. “Is that a question?”

  Seagryn understood and rephrased it. “Is the Power behind all this?”

  “All of what?” the lad demanded, unyielding in his demand for specific questions.

  “The making of the dragon?”

  “That’s already passed. I tell the fixture. You can analyze past events as well or better than I.”

  “All right then,” Seagryn snapped, “is the Power behind Sheth’s plan for the dragon’s destruction?”

  Dark’s eyes glowed with intense excitement. “Yes,” he murmured, hissing the end of the word dramatically.