The Radiant Dragon tcc-4

by Elaine Cunningham

  "Aye," she replied, coming close enough to tower over both Teldin and Hectate. "Delivered and stowed. Ready to set sail."

  Still breathing hard, Teldin merely nodded up at the first mate. Dagmar was a striking woman with blue-gray eyes and thick braids of ash-blond hair so fair that the gray streaks woven in it were almost indiscernible. Her superb physique belied the years etched into her face; Teldin assumed she had seen at least a dozen more summers than his thirty-three. She was also at least two hands taller than any man on board, and she probably could best any two of them in unarmed combat. Noting Teldin's condition, Dagmar placed a firm hand under his arm and began to help him toward the ship.

  "Wait!"

  The sonorous bass plea stopped Teldin. He extricated himself from Dagmar's grasp and turned to face the aperusa man. The gypsy stepped forward, sweeping into an elaborate bow. "I have yet to thank you for saving my poor life," he said dramatically and inaccurately. "Before you stands Rozloom, King of the Astralusian Clan."

  "We're honored," Teldin said dryly, not bothering to offer his own name. Experience had taught him to protect his identity even in innocuous circumstances.

  "A king! What a shame, Your Majesty, that you lost your crown defending your clan," put in the dark green dracon in a snide tone. His sarcasm would have done credit to a Krynnish fishwife, and Teldin flashed the creature an amused look as he turned to leave.

  "No! Not to go yet." Rozloom dropped to his knees. "Please, Captain, you see before you a man in great danger."

  Suspicion came easily to Teldin. "Captain?" he echoed.

  Rozloom's eyes flicked over Hectate Kir, taking in the slight navigator's almond-shaped eyes and slightly pointed ears. "This one calls you 'sir.' An elf shows you respect?" The gypsy slapped a hand over his heart in pantomimed shock. "If you are not great captain, you must be small god."

  The gypsy's apt sarcasm so closely paralleled his own opinion of elves that Teldin couldn't resist a smile. To his surprise, the wry smile on Hectate's face echoed his own response.

  Encouraged, the gypsy sprang nimbly to his feet. "No trouble will I be," he said in a wheedling tone. "My people were born to wildspace. We need but little air."

  Teldin's eyes dropped to the sash of emerald silk that girded the gypsy's immense waist. If the ship should ever lose one of its smaller sails, there was enough fabric in that sash to make a passable jib. "Maybe you don't require much air. What about provisions?" he said, as tactfully as he knew how.

  "Provisions?" The gypsy roared with laughter and swatted Teldin's shoulder companionably. "Today much luck has come your way, Captain. Rozloom will be galley master, and never will you feast as well."

  "You can cook?" Hectate asked, hope glowing in his voice.

  At the half-elf s reaction, the guilt that was never far from the surface of Teldin's mind welled up once again. Of his skeleton crew, not one person could claim basic culinary skills. So far, not one meal had been more than edible, and few had achieved even that status.

  "Cook, certainly. And run fine shipboard tavern," the aperusa said smugly.

  Teldin bit his lip and pondered. Considering the danger he asked his crew to face, providing them with decent food was little enough. He'd learned from Aelfred the importance of crew morale. But taking on an aperusa? He looked Rozloom over carefully.

  The gypsy was several inches taller than Teldin, and almost broad enough to carry off his immense girth. Despite his size, Rozloom moved with a nimble, fluid grace. Everything about the man was flamboyant and theatrical: his voice, his gestures, his clothes. The bronzed skin of the gypsy's bald pate gleamed in the dock's lamplight as if it had been oiled, and his long black mustache flowed dramatically into a curly beard. Thick black brows shadowed Rozloom's small, unreadable black eyes, but his broad smile suggested both open friendship and supreme self-satisfaction. Teldin doubted that the gypsy would be much of a fighter; aperusa seldom were. The jeweled daggers tucked into Rozloom's sash and boots obviously were ornaments, not weapons.

  Still, the gypsy said he could cook. Teldin turned to Dagmar. "What do you think?"

  The mate shrugged. "Aperusa are wildspace camels. He's right about that much. He won't use up much air or provisions. On the other hand, if this one breeds true, you can trust him to run from a fight, drink like a duck, and pester the women."

  Rozloom's eyes brightened as he took in the woman's substantial charms, and he rubbed his meaty hands together with anticipation. "And who is this beauty?" he asked in liquid tones.

  "Dagmar, the Valkyries first mate," Teldin said. The gypsy's bug-eyed disbelief at this revelation was almost comical. Since aperusa men regarded women as inferior- necessary only to the fine art of seduction-they were not accustomed to finding women in positions of power. Teldin considered this attitude to be one of the aperusa's less attractive traits, and he couldn't resist pushing the knife a little deeper. "As galley master, you'd be under Dagmar," he warned.

  The gypsy gave Teldin's comment a moment's lewd consideration, then he flashed a leer at the first mate. "That will be a pleasure," he said, and looked her over with a lingering gaze.

  "It's your call," Teldin told Dagmar with dry humor.

  She seemed neither interested nor insulted by the aperusa. "We could use a cook. You, gypsy, belay the prattle and stow your gear. Serve eveningfeast at two bells, night watch." She turned and strode toward the ship, shouting orders to the hands as she went.

  The first mate's mention of gear surprised Teldin; Rozloom had fled with nothing but the clothes on his back. Then the gypsy turned to ogle the departing Dagmar, and, for the first time, Teldin noted the large, lightweight silk sack strapped to Rozloom's back. His eyes narrowed.

  "All business, that one," Rozloom mused, unaware of Teldin's scrutiny. He chewed pensively at his mustache, then shrugged. "Ah, well, probably she was too old, anyway."

  "Sir," importuned the pale green dracon, his hands clasped together and his reptilian face earnest. "If you please, I am Siripsotrivitus, and this is my brood-brother Chiripsian. Since life is short, most prefer to call us Trivit and Chirp. I beseech you to grant us safe passage to our ship."

  Not understanding, Teldin shot a glance over the rows of ships bobbing at dock. "Which one of these is yours?"

  "Surely you jest!" piped Chirp, the darker dracon. "Our clan flies a ship too large to land at this port."

  Taking in the creatures' size, Teldin could believe that.

  They easily were five feet tall at the shoulder, plus about two feet of neck and head. He couldn't imagine a ship that could hold a clan of dracons. "Then how-"

  "Chirp and I were dispatched by shuttle to acquire certain supplies." Trivit paused, shamefaced. "We were derelict in our duty, and our kaba-our high leader-will be most displeased. The quality of the tavern's ale was such that we lingered too long. Our shuttle doubtlessly took off at its appointed time, and it will not return until the same hour tomorrow." The dracon leaned in confidentially. "I fear we might have offended that, er, that round gentleman in the tavern. Staying until tomorrow could prove to be injudicious in the extreme."

  "True enough," Teldin said, struggling to keep a straight face. He found himself warming to the earnest, comical creature.

  "Our clan awaits us just outside Garden's atmosphere. I can give the coordinates to your navigator," offered Trivit quickly.

  Teldin glanced at the Valkyrie, a slender drakkar, or longship, built on Dagmar's icy homeworld, then skeptically considered the dracons. Each beast had to weigh at least a quarter ton. "I'm not sure we can carry you, even for a relatively short distance."

  "Dagmar would know for sure," Hectate put in.

  Teldin nodded. He'd acquired Dagmar along with the drakkar, and the first mate knew the Valkyrie down to its last plank and barnacle. Teldin led the way to the ship, then sprinted up the boarding plank and caught Dagmar's arm as she rushed past.

  "These dracons want passage. Their ship is orbiting Garden. Can we handle the extra weight for a
couple of days?"

  The. first mate studied the huge creatures, taking in their fine armor and weapons. As they awaited her decision,

  Chirp shifted his weight from one massive foot to another and Trivit nibbled nervously at his claws. Finally Dagmar nodded crisply. "The Valkyrie could use a couple of fighters. They come." Her tone was without expression, and she strode off without a backward look at her new crewmen. Teldin and Hectate exchanged a glance and a shrug. Teldin was beginning to suspect that the brusk first mate had a soft spot for strays.

  It took three extra planks and a tense half hour to maneuver the overjoyed dracons onto the Valkyrie, and during that time Teldin saw no sign of pursuit by the beholder. With a sigh of relief, he gave the order to sail.

  At Teldin's signal, Om, the ship's taciturn gnome technician, fired up the machine that drove a mysterious tangle of pipes and gears attached to the oars. The machine started with a smoky belch and a long, grinding whine of protest. Om crouched beside the contraption, her small brown face wrinkled in concentration and her tiny hands flying as she wielded one gnome-sized tool after another. From time to time she stood and augmented her efforts with a well-placed kick.

  Teldin watched, amused. At first he had been put off by the idea of a gnome-powered ship, but since the machine took the place of twenty oarsmen per watch, it kept the crew to a minimum. To Teldin's way of thinking, the fewer people he endangered, the better. The contraption worked quite well, thanks to the gnome who apparently devoted her life to keeping it running. Om was a rarity among tinker gnomes. For one thing, her inventions worked; for another, she never said two words when one would do the job and spoke not at all when a grunt would suffice.

  Soon the oars began to move rhythmically. As the ship backed away from the dock, the dracons raised their high, fluting voices in one of the bawdiest chanteys Teldin had ever heard. He was pleased to note that the dracons were excellent sailors. Under Dagmar's instruction, they hoisted the sails with disciplined exuberance. Rozloom had retired to the galley, somewhat crestfallen from the discovery that the only women on board were Dagmar and Om.

  Leaving his strange crew to their tasks, Teldin headed for the ship's stern, to the small raised room that housed the bridge. Hectate Kir was already there, bent intently over a star chart. Teldin took his place on the helm, and his cloak began to glow with the pale sunrise pink that signaled the start of its spelljamming magic.

  Until just recently, Teldin was only able to use his cloak as a helm when there was no other working helm on board. With his limited crew, however, he could hardly break a helm every time he needed to move. He'd practiced until he could wield the cloak in the presence of a functional helm. He made a point of sitting in the helm at such times-no sense in advertising the fact that the spelljamming magic came, not from him, but from his cloak-yet he could do nothing to dim the cloak's magical pink glow. Teldin slid a sidelong glance toward the navigator. The half-elf took note of the cloak's latest color shift and shrugged.

  Not for the first time, Teldin felt a surge of relief over Hectate's utter lack of curiosity in matters not directly relating to star charts. Hectate Kir seemed to be the only being in wildspace who had no interest in the cloak. He was a simple soul, content to do his job and mind his own business. For a moment Teldin envied the half-elf. His own average, ordinary life on Krynn seemed so distant that it well could have been a story he'd heard about another man. That life had been taken away, leaving him with a dangerous legacy and a quest that he had yet to fully comprehend. With a sigh, Teldin turned his concentration to the task at hand.

  As the cloak's magic waxed, Teldin's senses expanded to encompass the ship and its surroundings. He was the ship, and at the same time he had the odd sensation that he was floating high above it, looking down over it and the dock. Teldin knew the moment the cloak helm was fully operational, for the sounds and scents of the river port were cut off abruptly as the ship became encased in its own envelope of air. It was uncanny the way all sounds of life on the asteroid-the cries of the gulls, the congenial insults exchanged by the fisherfolk on nearby boats, the faint distant bustle of market life-could be extinguished as abruptly as one might blow out a candle's flame. The sound of water lapping at the drakkar's hull was their only sensory tie to the port. At Teldin's silent command, the Valkyrie rose straight out of the river. Water rushed off the hull with a thunderous roar, and the drakkar rose into the night sky.

  The archaic design of the bridge limited Teldin's natural vision, but with his expanded senses he could see the river port fall quickly away. Within moments the trade asteroid below them was an oddly shaped lump of rock, then just one of many that clung to the roots of the celestial plant known as Yggdrasil's Child. It was a bizarre construction, but Teldin did not doubt that the image in his mind mirrored the reality beneath the ship. Despite his recent travels on a dozen worlds and through the wonders of wildspace, Teldin's imagination was not capable of conjuring such a place. Garden was just the roots of the "plant," and it looked like a tangle of odd-shaped beads that some giant child had strung and, tired of them, flung aside. Or, perhaps, a young potato plant torn from the soil, complete with small, clinging tubers.

  "I wonder where the rest of the plant is," Teldin said idly.

  "Well, it's not on the star charts, sir," replied Hectate Kir with his usual flair for understatement.

  The navigator's unintentional humor brought a quick smile to Teldin's face. Having heard some of the legends concerning Yggdrasil's Child, he could see why it'd be hard to chart. It was said to be a celestial plant so large that it encompassed, not only worlds, but other planes of existence. Such a thing was so far beyond Teldin's ken that merely thinking about it made his mind spin.

  The ship shuddered faintly as it passed through the edge of Garden's atmosphere. As always, Teldin was amazed at the intense blackness of wildspace. Back on Krynn he'd thought of night skies as black, but since then he'd seen that a thousand shades lay between the blackness of wildspace and the midnight blue skies he'd witnessed with his feet on his home world.

  At two bells, Teldin turned the helm over to Klemner, a minor cleric of Ptah. He made his way below to the small mess, curious to know whether Rozloom's boasts had been founded in reality. He was amazed by the festive atmosphere that the aperusa had created. The galley tables had been pushed into a companionable cluster. Conversations were muted and fragmented as the crew members tucked away fresh fish and vegetables, bread still warm from the oven, and a sticky confection made of flaky pastry, dried fruit, and honey. Rozloom made the rounds of the room like a genial host at a well-run party. Teldin quickly filled a tray and seated himself.

  "Join you, sir?"

  Teldin looked up into Hectate's thin, serious face. He nodded, and the navigator set his well-laden plate down on the table and took the chair across from Teldin. "I see you approve of our new cook," Teldin said dryly.

  Taking in Teldin's rueful expression, the half-elf asked, "Having second thoughts, sir?"

  "Always," Teldin acknowledged with a touch of sadness. He could ill afford to trust even those who seemed trustworthy, and the gypsy "king" hardly qualified as that.

  "Rumor has it that Rozloom has started a batch of ale brewing," Hectate said, dangling Teldin's favorite indulgence before him. "He couldn't be all bad, sir."

  Teldin winced-imperceptibly, he hoped-and returned the half-elfs smile with a fleeting one of his own. Teldin's attitude toward elves had been soured by a series of bad experiences, and for some reason Hectate's features took on a decidedly elven tinge whenever he smiled. Thank the gods that he didn't do it very often, Teldin thought wryly.

  "Rozloom seems likable enough," Teldin said cautiously, surprised to find that he could in fact like a man who was so blatantly self-serving.

  "But…?"

  Teldin shrugged, struggling to form his reservations into words. "The man seems to have no convictions," he began. "Most people, for good or bad, have some set of principles that guide thei
r actions. From what I've seen so far, I'd have to say that Rozloom runs on pure self-interest. How can you sail with someone who'll follow the prevailing wind, no matter what?"

  The half-elfs smile disappeared, and his eyes dropped. For a long moment he sat in silence, his meal forgotten.

  "What is it, Hectate?" Teldin asked at length.

  "Sometimes, sir, staying a chosen course despite the winds can be dangerous. There's such a thing as holding too strongly to convictions," the navigator said softly. Without explanation, he rose to his feet and walked out of the galley, leaving Teldin staring blankly after him.

  Chapter Three

  Tekura leaned farther into the dome of the port window, drawn by the austere beauty of the world below her, set in wildspace like a vast opal against a black velvet cloth. The swirling pattern of white streaks on the orb's surface charmed her even though it probably indicated that a numbing blizzard awaited them. Intending to share the beauty, the elflike woman glanced back at the three ship's officers.

  Zeddop, their lamentable wizard, was slumped in the thronelike helm, his eyes glazed as he poured magical power into the ship, and his short silvery hair sticking up in random spikes around his pointed ears. Behind him stood the captain and the navigator, huddling together over a stolen star chart and completely absorbed with the challenge of charting their course. Sadness touched Tekura as she studied her adopted kin: Wynlar, a quiet scholar forced into a role of war leader, and his niece Soona, who possessed an exotic, flame-haired beauty reminiscent of elven royalty, as well as a reluctant talent for seduction. Soona had employed both gifts to learn of the secret gateway into the ice planet's atmosphere.

  As part of a centuries-old pact, a magical network enveloped the planet and alerted elven patrol ships whenever a craft entered or left the planet's atmosphere. A long-ago elven admiral had created a randomly shifting gate to allow elven spy ships to slip through the net. Eventually the admiral's overzealous activities were detected by the Imperial Fleet. The elves had supposedly reprimanded him, but they kept the gate open and secret. Tekura would bet her left hand that they weren't above using it either.