The Rose and the Skull

by Jeff Crook

  "Nobody bring us. We come alone," Glabella said as she swallowed the last of the yam. "We walk two days and two and two days, hunted by slagd. We hungry, we cold, but we brave. We not scared of slagd."

  "I scared of slagd," Lumpo said.

  "I not. I bite slagd on nose. That show 'em!" Glabella boasted.

  Uhoh snorted. Glabella slapped him.

  "Slagd scary," Lumpo agreed.

  "Excuse me, but what are slagd?" Nalvarre asked.

  "Dragonmen," Uhoh said with great solemnity.

  "Draconians?" Nalvarre asked in astonishment.

  "That right!" Glabella said."He's smart."

  "Draconians are chasing you?"

  "Uhoh see them kill Papa," Glabella said.

  "That big secret!" Uhoh shouted as he slapped Glabella. He turned to Nalvarre and said fiercely, "You not supposed to hear that."

  "Draconians killed your father?" Nalvarre asked mystified. "I don't understand. Why would they kill a gully dwarf?

  "They not kill gully dwarf, they kill Papa," Glabella said.

  "You not supposed to say!" Uhoh shouted.

  "When did this killing happen?" Nalvarre asked with genuine curiosity.

  Draconians were even more rare in his experience than gully dwarves. Of course he had heard of the evil dragonbred creatures, but to have gully dwarves and draconians both cross his threshold—mixed up together somehow— was hard to credit.

  "Papa not killed two days ago," Lumpo said. Uhoh turned on him again, and seemed ready to strangle him. "I not tell him!" he whined as he backed to the end of the bench.

  "Why we not tell?" Glabella asked Uhoh. "You say Papa tell you warn others. He others."

  "He not others. You others. He maybe a bad Knight," Uhoh said.

  "I'm not a Knight," Nalvarre said, a little miffed.

  "You human," Uhoh said.

  "That's right, but not all humans are Knights. I was a priest of Chislev once, the goddess of nature," Nalvarre said.

  "You talk to gods?" Uhoh said in awe.

  "I did, once upon a time," he explained hesitantly. "I still do sometimes, when I feel alone. I don't know if she listens, or if she can even hear me. But I protect and care for the land and the creatures that live on it. If draconians are really hunting you, though I can't imagine why, and you are in danger, perhaps I can help. I'd like to know more."

  Uhoh gave him a long hard look, as though weighing his decision with all the mental powers at his disposal. Gunthar had been right when he said Uhoh was unusual for a gully dwarf, for he was unusually self-aware. Perhaps this was a result of his mother dropping him on his head when he was a baby, no one knew. The gully dwarf had spent the last few years living with Knights (or at least in their stables and kennels), so to him, being human had come to mean being a Knight. But this human was obviously quite different than every Knight he'd ever met. For one thing, Nalvarre wore a truly attractive beard, one enviable even by gully dwarf standards. No Knight of Solamnia wore a beard like that. His clothes weren't in much better condition than Uhoh's, while Knights tended to dress meticulously when not encased in armor.

  Then, too, Nalvarre smiled at Uhoh and his companions just as Gunthar had always done, and he had gray hair like Gunthar, though not as gray nor so well groomed as the Grand Master's. Nalvarre spoke to Uhoh, not at him, very much unlike most Knights, except for Gunthar.

  Still, Uhoh didn't know whether to trust Nalvarre. Already on this trip they'd nearly been captured twice by their dreaded slagd pursuers.

  Throughout their journey, the shadowy creatures had dogged their trail, filling the gully dwarves with terror. They were allowed no rest, no time to stop and feed to their satisfaction. At night in the lonely places of the wild, they heard whispers and stealthy footsteps stalking around their hiding places, and only their gully dwarf instincts for selfpreservation kept them still and quiet, and thus alive.

  Uhoh was weary, weary down to his very bones. He nodded and sighed.

  "Tell me what happened," Nalvarre softly said.

  "It all happened when me and Papa and Garr hunt big ugly pig, Man-something-or-other," Uhoh said.

  "Mannjaeger?" Nalvarre exclaimed.

  "That him," Uhoh said.

  "You were hunting Mannjaeger, you and your father and Garr?" Nalvarre asked.

  "Yes."

  Nalvarre's eyes widened. "You are a remarkable fellow," he said.

  Uhoh stared at him without comprehension.

  "Go ahead with your story," Nalvarre said.

  "First Garr die, but he got only a little scratch," Uhoh continued.

  "Was Garr your brother?" Nalvarre asked.

  Glabella burst out laughing. "Garr a dog, like Millisant," she giggled.

  "I'm sorry. So the boar killed Garr. Do continue," Nalvarre said.

  "Then pig attack Papa and knock Papa down, so I throw rocks at pig and pig let Papa go. Then Papa stick pig with pig sticker. Pig run away," Uhoh said.

  "Your father stabbed Mannjaeger with a knife?" Nalvarre asked in disbelief.

  "No, it long stick with knife on end. Very heavy," Uhoh explained.

  "I see," Nalvarre said.

  The longer this story went on, the less he felt like believing it. To think, the gully dwarf was not only hunting Mannjaeger, but actually wounding him, and with a spear! It was common knowledge that an armed gully dwarf is more a danger to himself than to his enemies.

  "Then Papa die, like this," Uhoh said as he performed a remarkable imitation of the convulsions which twisted Gunthar's body.

  "Papa get scratch here," Uhoh continued, indicating his thigh. "He say, 'Come close' and he tell me big secret nobody supposed to know. Then Papa say," Uhoh croaked in a remarkable imitation of a dying man's whispered last words. " 'The book… Kalaman… Liam… in bell room… tell him… tell no one.' Then slagd come, and I run away home," he finished in his normal voice.

  "We go home too," Glabella said.

  Lumpo's head hit the table and he began to snore.

  "But what does this big secret mean?" Nalvarre asked, scratching his thick, tangled beard.

  "You not suppose to know secret," Uhoh said, pounding the table. "I tell you, that before."

  "I'm sorry, but let's get back to the draconians. I thought you said the draconians killed Papa. Why?"

  "I come to that!" Uhoh frowned. "You tell story, or me?"

  "Do continue," Nalvarre apologized.

  "Before hunt, slagd do this and that. They make hoobajooba with hands so dogs don't go right way, but me and Papa we go right way," Uhoh said.

  "And Garr," Glabella added.

  "What?" Nalvarre asked in bewilderment.

  "That easy spell," Glabella interrupted. "I learn do that when I only two."

  "A spell?" Nalvarre asked. "Do you mean they performed magic?"

  "Big magic. That hoobajooba spell easy. All you need is chicken foot," she said. "I got chicken foot. You wanna see?" She began to dig in her bag.

  "Some other time," Nalvarre said to her. He turned to Uhoh. "So the draconians cast a spell to confuse the hunters? But somehow allowing you, and your father, and Garr to find the boar. It sounds feasible… "

  "That what I say," Uhoh said. "Feasible!"

  "Remarkable!" The very strangeness of the story did lend credence to it. "So after Papa died, then what happened?" he asked.

  "I fall asleep. I wake up with draconians all around. Two, at least two. So I fight and get away."

  "Really?" Nalvarre asked in surprise.

  "No!" Glabella shouted. "Millisant bite slagd on tail and he drop Uhoh on head, just like when he a baby."

  "Then I run," Uhoh said a little sheepishly. "They chase. I run away home."

  "Where is home?"

  "Town," Uhoh said.

  Town. Nalvarre had heard rumors of this place. It was a fairly recent colony of gully dwarves. Almost no one knew of its precise whereabouts. There were a few other people, like Nalvarre, who lived in the wild hills alone: rangers, druids, her
mits, and the like. Occasionally they met to exchange news or to trade. Recently, there had been talk of this burgeoning gully dwarf Town with everyone wondering how so large a population of the miserable creatures had sprung into being, virtually overnight.

  Town was said to lie several days journey to the north, well into the acknowledged realm of the red dragon Pyrothraxus. The only human habitation in the area was an old castle of the Solamnic Knights, built to guard a pass that had fallen out of use ages ago. Over the nine years since Nalvarre had lived in this region, the castle had only been garrisoned twice; the rest of that time it stood empty, a home to rooks and lizards.

  "That is quite some tale," Nalvarre said at last. "I don't quite understand all the details, but I trust they'll emerge in the light of day. In the meanwhile, you three are welcome to stay here as long as you like."

  Uhoh was nodding sleepily, as Glabella blinked. She reached across the table for another yam and tried to stuff it in her mouth, but somewhere along the way she drifted off. Her head fell on the table with a thud, though her fingers remained firmly locked on the yam. She snuggled it to her cheek like a doll.

  Uhoh yawned, his jaws cracking. "We stay two days," he said. "Not more than two." He stretched and rose from his seat, stumbled over and curled up with Millisant by the fire.

  "Poor little buggers," Nalvarre whispered as he looked at them.

  He quietly cleaned up the supper dishes, extracted his blankets from the wreck of the bed, and climbed into the loft to find a place to stretch out. As he drifted off, he gazed down on his visitors and wondered. He thought about them as sleep stole over him, and in the night he dreamed the trees were full of thousands of squirrels with gully dwarf faces, all jabbering ceaselessly, while black wolves stalked the ground below.

  17

  Four draconians, their clawed feet bruised and bleeding, scrambled among the rocks and boulders of one of the most barren and forlorn regions any of them had ever seen. Every broken stone and pebble seemed sharper than the obsidian blades and arrowheads of Abanasinian warriors, every bush was a thorn bush, every vine a tangleroot, every stunted tree spiked with needles or prickly with splinters.

  The one in the lead was the smallest of the four. A baaz draconian, his scales had a brassy golden hue, and he bore two ram-like horns curling from his sinister reptilian head. He wore a dirty green cloak thrown over his folded wings, as though he were a ranger or scout. The next two had scales of a coppery tint and wore tight-fitting outfits of blackened leather designed to allow full range of motion both to their limbs and to the batlike wings sprouting from their backs. These kapaks, as they were called, were larger than their baaz companion, and they pushed him relentlessly with their taunts and venomous comments. The fourth of the group was the largest. His reptilian scales glimmered with a silvery sheen, glaringly reflecting the light of the midday sun. He wore armor of chain and plate specifically designed to fit his draconic body. A long, heavy sword was slung across his back between his wings. He was a sivak, one of the most powerful of all draconian races.

  They were following a trail that seemed little more than an ancient wash in the grim and waterless mountains surrounding them. Perhaps it was a goat path, though no goats were to be seen. They had not seen another living creature since the sun rose over this accursed land. They stumbled wearily along, stones turning under their feet, slippery shale sliding away beneath them and bringing them to their knees again and again, snarling at each other, spitting curses with each breath.

  "There's nothing here!" one of the kapaks growled.

  "This is the way," the sivak answered in an even tone. "Krass has been here many times in the two years since we arrived on this island. Isn't that right, Krass?"

  The baaz wearily nodded his head.

  "I think Krass is lost," the kapak said. "Why would his lordship live out here in this barren waste, when he has all of Mount Nevermind to do with as he pleases?"

  "You have answered your own question, Dreg," the sivak said. "The gnomes of Mount Nevermind give him no peace."

  "Rebels?" the kapak, Dreg, asked.

  "No, tinkers. They're always poking and prodding at him, trying to find out how he works. He can't kill them all. He's tried. They're worse than gully dwarves," the sivak said.

  As they topped a small, razorback ridge, the baaz scout stopped and pointed into the valley on the other side. Clambering up next to him, the other draconians saw a wide, low-roofed cave yawning blackly from the opposite hillside. A tendril of oily smoke streamed from the upper lip of the opening.

  "There it is," the sivak gasped while pressing a fist into his cramping side. "Pyrothraxus's lair."

  They scrambled down the side of the ridge and up the opposite hillside, finally reaching the mouth of the cave just before dark. From this point, by looking south down a long valley, they could see the summit of Mount Nevermind blushed with pink from the setting sun. The long shadows of the hills had followed them down the ridge, until now they stood in a peculiar half-light, where every boulder and stone stood out in stark relief, as though cut from paper, while the entrance to the cave was a dark and misty hole, without depth.

  The gleaming yellow bones of dozens upon dozens of creatures—men, beasts, gnomes, and dwarves—lay strewn about the mouth of the cave, relics of the insatiable appetite of the dragon of Mount Nevermind. Three years ago he'd come in a storm. He'd conquered the ancient mountain city of the gnomes in a single day—much to his own chagrin. Those who should have trembled in his presence instead prodded him with questions or worse. They slipped into his lair while he was sleeping and stuck him with stovepipe-sized needles attached to steam-driven syringes. They begged him to breathe fire on them so they could test their newest flame-retardant fabrics. Where was the joy in destroying creatures who cared so little for their own destruction? They, in fact, measured and recorded the manner and level of their own destruction! Such were the circumstances which drove Pyrothraxus to seek safety in a cave unworthy of his tremendous importance, a cave barely large enough to hold his beloved bed of treasure, much less his gargantuan self.

  Still, the entrance to the cave was large enough to sail a ship through. As the draconians entered the cathedralsized chamber, they were awed by its size and more so by the huge gouges in the solid rock of the floor, evidence of the dragon's passing. There was little among dragonkind which could impress a draconian, but the ungodly size of Pyrothraxus, as well as that of the other new dragons from across the sea, filled them with wonder and just a little fear. They walked cautiously, reverently, holding their collective breaths, drawn by the thought of what awaited them within the cave. They stepped inside.

  The dim light from the twilight outside was enough to illuminate the mountain of gold and steel that rose before them. Never in all their lives had they dreamed of such wealth. The sight of it was almost a religious experience, stirring them to the very core of their draconic souls. It rose like a great ocean wave, bearing upon its crest two entire ships! Gems gleamed like stars, in color, in light, and in countless multitudes. The wealth of half a world lay before them… unguarded!

  "His lordship doesn't appear to be home," Dreg whispered with a hiss.

  Before anyone could answer, there was a bone-crunching thud. Droplets spattered them. A second crunch sounded hollowly from above. Staring up, they saw a reptilian head as large as a two-masted galleon gulping down the remnants of Dreg. The three remaining draconians cowered in terror.

  "Lord Pyrothraxus, we come bearing tidings from Master Iulus," the sivak hurriedly explained.

  The huge head turned to gaze down upon them, its red eyes glowing like two dwarven forges. A gout of flame shot from one barrel-sized nostril, illuminating their upturned faces. The sivak, glancing around, spotted a niche in the passage, which might offer some protection.

  "A kapak!" the huge dragon boomed, his voice shaking stones loose from the walls. "Kapaks give me indigestion."

  One massive claw splashed ringingly in the coi
ns nearby, followed by another. The dragon pulled itself off its ledge above the entrance to the cave and slithered down to the bed of treasure. The underbelly, passing so near and hugely round, radiated heat that dried the moisture from their mouths and eyes. Last of all came the great serpentine tail, as long again as its entire body, head, and neck. It settled onto the coins and began to bubble and purr, stoking the fires in its belly and filling the chamber with a sourceless red glow.

  "What have you brought?" the dragon asked, bored.

  "Tidings, O most puissant lord. Gunthar uth Wistan is dead," the sivak declared.

  "Brilliant, General Zen!" Pyrothraxus roared. "Most excellent news indeed." He lifted his head and shot a victorious gout of flame splashing against the roof. Gobbets of molten rock rained down. "So the plan is proceeding?"

  "He knows you, my general?" the baaz asked the sivak.

  "I first negotiated with his lordship for permission to build our castle in his territory," General Zen answered. "In exchange for protecting us from the prying eyes of the south, we promised to give him the Solamnics' lands when they are won." Then to the dragon, he shouted, "Everything is ready, Your Eminence."

  "It is all working out exactly as you promised, General Zen," Pyrothraxus laughed. The volume of his voice set ripples flowing through the sea of coins.

  "Indeed it is, my lord Pyrothraxus. In fact—" the sivak began, but his thoughts, and the attention of the dragon, were interrupted by the chiming of a small silver bell.

  "What is that noise?" Pyrothraxus asked.

  The sivak cursed under his breath. "A magical device, my lord, for communicating over long distances. One of our agents in the south—"

  "Answer it," Pyrothraxus demanded, the fires in his eyes flaring.

  After one final moment of hesitation, Zen reached into a pouch at his belt and removed a large silver hand mirror. As he did so, it rang again, more loudly this time. He waved one clawed hand over its surface three times while fingering the strange designs carved on its handle. The reflective surface of the mirror dulled, then went black. A face appeared, hazy, almost indistinguishable.