“Oh, what a splendid addition you will make to my collection,” Thorm gloated. His hands ran lovingly over Shayla’s flank, his caress almost that of a lover.
Brevelan swallowed her revulsion. How could they allow him to touch Shayla with his slimy hands and filthy mind?
“You do remember my collection, pretty one,” he stated rather than asked of Brevelan. “You are from Krej’s village, aren’t you?” He looked up from his fondling of Shayla’s front horn.
Brevelan couldn’t respond, even if she’d wanted to.
“With hair like that,” he reached through the haze to lift a bright lock off her cheek, “I would almost think you one of his get.” His eyes widened.
“Of course! You’re his oldest daughter.” He laughed, nearly hysterical with his own humor. Cruelly he pulled the strand of hair just before releasing it. “Pretty as you are, I can’t spare the time to take you. Next time, sweetheart. Next time.” He blew a kiss through the confining haze.
The lascivious caress left a wet imprint on her cheek. She longed to wipe her skin free of the rogue’s touch.
Jaylor’s jealous rage pounded against his bell. The haze thickened and grew, feeding on the energy of his emotions.
“You’re the one the villagers want to burn for witchcraft. Seems you murdered your husband on your wedding night.” Thorm looked directly at Jaylor now, fueling the younger man’s anger and the magic that confined him.
“Didn’t she tell you about that, boy? She wouldn’t want to broadcast her past to those gullible fisher-folk. They might decide to burn her, too. But you, you’re her lover. Surely she would confide in you.”
The blast of emotion from both Darville and Jaylor shook the red-haired monster. He shivered once, but his mask did not slip. Then he turned his attention from Brevelan to the wolf and the magician. “I can see you both have strong feelings for the chit. Perhaps I shall tell the elders of the village where to find her. You would be forced to watch her burn, before they fed you to the fish in the center of the Bay.”
His eyes narrowed in evil speculation. “You know, of course, they blame her for the rainy summer that caused their crops to rot in the fields last year. They also think she is responsible for the very hard winter that took the lives of all the old ones and some babies, too.”
Not the babies! A huge emptiness settled inside Brevelan. Babies she had helped bring into this world were gone before they’d had a chance to live.
Tears of pain and grief worked their way through the magic. They slid down her cheeks and dropped to her breast. But she couldn’t feel the moisture, only the pain of death for infants who had become a part of her as she brought them to life.
“May all the foul spirits of Simurgh’s hell and beyond take you!” Jaylor cursed as loud as his mind could scream. “How could you betray your king and cousin, the kingdom, and the Commune with this abomination?”
“Still spouting ethics, boy? You of all people should have no qualm about ethics. Where do you think I found this wonderful creature to do my bidding?” The monster gestured to his naked torso and mask. “I read your thoughts, boy. Thoughts you stole from Old Baamin’s dreams. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me sooner,” he taunted.
“I recognize only your corruption.” Desperately Jaylor sought contact with Brevelan and Darville.
Jaylor railed against his own ineffectiveness and the rogue’s audacity. His accusations against Brevelan were just too preposterous to contemplate. Brevelan couldn’t murder anyone. Least of all her husband on her wedding night! And this monster had accused Jaylor of being her lover and still having the strength of magic to throw those braids of flame. If the situation weren’t so serious, he’d laugh himself silly.
“The day progresses, and I do want to be out of this cave before moonrise.” The rogue shrugged his naked shoulders in dismissal of his prisoners as he returned his attention to Shayla.
Jaylor carefully watched each gesture the man made. Whatever happened, Jaylor would need to undo it later.
“Watch all you want, University man,” Thorm laughed. “Your false magic won’t be able to negate my powers. If I allow you to live long enough to try your puny spell, that is.”
Could the man read his mind? If so, Jaylor had to bury, very deeply, all thought of his rogue powers. Thorm mustn’t know that Jaylor might be able to counteract any spell that was thrown.
“What substance best suits a life-sized sculpture of a dragon?” Thorm mused rhetorically. “My gray bear is pewter, and the spotted saber cat was bronze. But then I had to let the cat go as bait for Darville.” He whirled to face his captives. “Nice touch that, turning the prince into a wolf. It suits his personality.”
Jaylor felt Darville’s growl echo through his body. Was it possible some sentience was returning to the prince now that he was confronting his enchanter? Jaylor hoped so. The wolf’s cooperation would make escape and the spell reversal easier.
“But for a dragon,” Thorm continued his gleeful monologue, “I think glass would be proper.” He snapped his fingers in delight. “Yes, glass. You can see through dragons as well as the best glass, and only those of Lord Krej’s rank deserve that wondrous substance. Glass, smooth, clear, and yet it reflects light in a myriad of colors. Wonderful glass.” He almost sang it.
As the words took on a lilting quality, the air became heavier, filled with the stench of rotten Tambootie. Magic filled the confines of the cave. Clear and colored eddies swirled around the silent figures, over the piles of rock, and through the carefully constructed nest. Waves and waves of thick magic combined, pulled apart, and flowed with the rhythm of the spell-driving music.
A blue vortex grew and swirled into a tower of wind. Lightning flashed within the artificial tornado. It grew taller and broader, filling more and more of the cave. Then it moved around the perimeter of the cave in one huge circle.
A second vortex of green sprang up and circled the cave in a tighter circumference. Green combined with the blue and they twisted faster. Red, yellow, and purples joined in turn. With each new color the violent storm of whirling magic flew faster, higher, wider.
The magic wind sucked leaves and bits of fur from the nest into its central vacuum. Small pebbles lifted and darted about with more and more debris. Faster and faster yet, the eerie winds circled the cave.
Magic engulfed the figure of the dragon. Shayla’s hide took on the color of the Bay in sunlight as the first unnatural storm swirled around her. Then she absorbed each color in turn until all the colors of the spectrum glowed together. All colors became no color. Blinding, piercing opalescent glass.
Jaylor watched in awe as the spell matched the chanting words in intensity and speed. Everything in the cave was sucked into the magic, even the existing magic. The green in the haze engulfing Jaylor thinned. His eyes cleared and he saw the same thinning around Brevelan and Darville. He tried to move his hand. His finger twitched, barely.
Concentrate, fool! he admonished himself. Use the Tambootie in the air to shatter this immobility just as I used the timboor in my blood to remove myself from the Rover camp.
His eyelids closed with effort. He turned his thoughts inward, gathering strength. A coil of stored dragon magic was ready for release. He pushed it aside and sought a different source. It was hiding where he had put it when he banished all thoughts of rogue magic.
Jaylor drew the thin line of magic upward to his eyes. His mouth wouldn’t move enough to speak the words, so he created them in the front of his mind, for his imagination to read. The line sped from his eyes to the imagined letters, wrapped around them and then shot, like a barbed arrow, straight for the enemy’s heart.
Darville couldn’t move. Panic filled his body. He tried to growl in response to what he could not understand. The deep rumble vibrated in his chest, but he couldn’t hear it as he should. This curious fog surrounded him, blocking his view of Brevelan and Jaylor. The evil one remained in his sight.
His ears heard the other noises a
bout him with their usual keenness. His nose worked, too. He associated the curious smoky smell with the evil one. He growled again.
The faintest of sounds reached his ears. His fur bristled again, the way it should. Brevelan looked closer than just a moment ago, clearer. Jaylor, too.
“Glass! My pretty dragon is made of glass,” the evil one chanted.
His words penetrated all of Darville’s senses. He understood every sound the cat-headed man uttered. Anger and revulsion filled his suddenly cold body.
Even as he understood the entire scene, the rest of his senses dimmed. He felt as if his ears and nose were filled, like the times he had a winter cold. And his suddenly bald limbs ached. His back and thighs felt as if he had ridden his steed far too long.
Curious, Darville allowed his blurry eyes to look upon his body, to find the problem.
Vertigo engulfed him. He was a man. A naked man. He felt his skin hen-bump in response to the cold and his embarrassment at having been caught in the presence of strangers without his clothes. And not just any strangers.
The ball of multicolored fur that he presumed was a cat grew and uncoiled into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She, too, was naked except for the enveloping wave of hair that shimmered to her hips and below. As the woman turned, light reflected off the lustrous curtain, now blond, then brunette, with a touch of red and deep sable brown.
She lifted her arms in joy. From her lips sprang a clear and sweet song. The most glorious song of freedom he had ever heard.
All too soon the woman shrank back into her cat persona. Just as he had shrunk to the size of a wolf on that fateful afternoon.
His past engulfed him in a wave. He saw again his betrayal on the ridge . . . .
The spotted saber cat tracks he followed disappeared in the rocky scree. Snowflakes drifted lazily into the crevices of the path. He turned to speak to his cousin and hunting companion. Krej was nowhere in sight. Darville drew his sword. Waning winter light made the weapon appear black and dull.
The snow increased in intensity. Through the heavy veil of flakes stalked the saber cat. Coming toward him.
He shifted his feet for better defensive balance. The uneven ground tilted his balance. The cat came closer.
No, it wasn’t a saber cat at all, but a man with the cat’s head. Had Krej killed the creature already? If so, why was Krej wearing only a loin cloth in freezing weather?
A slight shift of wind cleared the snow away for a moment. The man who stalked him wasn’t a man at all, but some kind of monster with a beast’s head.
“Krej, save yourself!” he called to his cousin. “I am, Darville, I am saving myself,” the beast spoke with Krej’s voice. “With your death I am only one heartbeat away from the throne. Soon, very soon, I shall rule and my magic will grant me supremacy over all kingdoms!”
Fury filled Darville’s eyes. Krej, his own cousin, had betrayed him. He had to kill the man before the snow froze them both.
Magic flame hit him in the chest, robbing him of breath. He thought it was his own anger.
As he had been taught in countless arms classes, he separated his mind from his body. He needed all of his wits, cool and alert, to divert the next blast of magic.
He succeeded in catching a ball of green flame with his sword. It bounced off the polished steel and hit a rock as big as a dog. The stone shattered. Dust and gravel filled the air.
Momentarily blinded, Darville didn’t see the next blast. It struck his head, blinding him, shattering his control. His balance failed. The air around him shuddered and parted.
He was falling, falling into nothing. Cold vanished from his aching body. Fur covered him. His nose told him he had fallen into a snowdrift deep within the forest. . . .
Part of Darville rejoiced that the enchantment was broken. He was no longer a wolf, but a man once more. Even then, he mourned the loss of his keen wolf vision and sense of smell.
Then, just as suddenly, blackness swamped his awareness. But he was warm again. His fur coat was back. The stinking smoke filled his nose and he growled.
Chapter 19
A shriek beyond physical hearing tore a great rent in the air surrounding Baamin. The gaping difference in air pressure made the hair on his arms and neck stand up. Even his three-day-old beard bristled and cracked. His wine cup shattered in midair.
What was wrong? The air smelled different. Something was missing.
The magic was gone!
“Where is it?” He sniffed fruitlessly for a faint whiff of the ever-present—so easily ignored—spicy aroma of magic, something akin to Tambootie but not quite. His eyes widened as he sought every corner of his study for some clue to what was happening.
No magic anywhere. He couldn’t smell it, taste it, feel it. And he certainly couldn’t gather it. The only other time that had happened was when a dragon died.
“Shayla!” he whispered into the blankness. “What has happened?” Panic engulfed him. His breath came in short quick pants. He felt dizzy and heavy. “SHAYLA!” he wailed.
Darkness tried to enclose his vision even as the back of his neck threatened to separate from his body.
“Darcine?” he whispered.
By feel alone, he groped his way to his desk. He must run to the palace. He must summon the Commune.
He must contact Jaylor. The journeyman was near the dragon. He would know what transpired.
Where was his glass? He needed the glass and a candle to call Jaylor. Where the s’murghing Tambootie was his glass! The desktop was empty. He couldn’t find the glass, his most precious tool. Sweat dripped into his eyes, darkness encroached. He had to find the glass.
It slid into his hand, summoned by his thoughts and rogue powers he didn’t realize he had tapped.
His vision cleared instantly.
With shaking fingers, he struck the flame rock with a rough metal rod. A spark leaped from the rock to the wick. It wavered, nearly died, then caught. His breathing calmed.
Baamin held the glass in front of the candle with still trembling fingers and began his spell. For a moment nothing happened. Then he remembered again to seek his magic in a different place. Now that he knew where to look, it was there, waiting, full of life and ready to spring forth at his calling.
He reduced the aching pace of his lungs. Air swept deeply into his body. He held it the required three heartbeats and released it on the same count. Tension flowed from his muscles as the air escaped. His eyes focused on the leaping green flame, found its hot core, and sent it on its journey.
In his mind Baamin saw the tiny flame skip across the river boundary of Coronnan City, over the tilled fields, southward beyond the Great Bay. At a tiny hamlet in the foothills the tiny flame paused, seeking direction. Then upward it climbed into the mountains. Baamin followed.
He saw a hut, burned and abandoned. Forest creatures cowered at the edges of a clearing, equally forlorn and abandoned. The flame moved on.
Upward, ever upward, Baamin followed the seeking green morsel of magic. Finally it lingered on a small plateau. It hovered a moment, then recoiled in a straight shot back into Baamin’s eyes.
The beast-headed monster twisted his torso into an impossible angle. He reached out and caught Jaylor’s magic arrow between two fingers. Playfully he lifted the weapon to his lips and blew on it. The blue and red magic withered and died.
“You’ll have to work harder than that, University man. I saw your attack coming. Your impudence just earned you a longer, slower death. My coven will delight in your screams. We’ll have an orgy at your feet as Simurgh rips your soul from your body.”
Brevelan’s hope sank to the cave floor along with the attack.
“Well, my pretty little witch, I’m finished here.” Thorm reached through the bell of magic to tug at Brevelan’s hair one more time.
From any other man the gesture might have seemed affectionate. She knew that no such emotion ever entered this man’s breast.
“Under other circumstances, I mig
ht consider training you to be my successor.” The rogue magician quirked one eyebrow. “But circumstances dictate differently. As soon as I have settled my glass dragon in her new home, I’ll be back to finish with you and the University man.” He laughed. There was a weakness in his mirth—fatigue. He had worked some very strong magic in the past half hour.
Brevelan watched Thorm marshal his energies once more. With a mighty upward heave of his shoulders and arms, he commanded the glass figure that had once been Shayla to levitate an arm’s length above the floor of the cave. The dragon had been reduced in size to little more than an extremely large sledge steed.
Thorm hovered the statue briefly, then gestured for it to follow him. He exited with a salute to the entrapped companions. The statue followed, drifting on a pillow of air.
A flash of muted colors streaked across Brevelan’s limited vision.
“Yeowwll!” Mica screeched as she landed on Thorm’s bare shoulder. Her fully extended claws and teeth drew blood.
“Aiyee!” Thorm hunched and whirled, trying to dislodge the cat from his back. He lost control of the statue.
Tons of clear glass dropped to the ground, rocked and titled. On the edge of one hind leg and tail the sculpture that had once been Shayla teetered and threatened to crash.
Pain washed back into Brevelan from the rogue magician. His spotted saber cat features blurred and faded for just a moment. His familiar face and hair as red as her own burst through the disguise.
Recognition tore at Brevelan’s consciousness.
“Enough!” Thorm shook his arm, flinging Mica to the ground. With the same gesture he righted the statue with a magic tether. His feline mask reasserted firm control over his appearance.
“Mica!” Brevelan’s scream echoed around the cave, bounced against the walls, and crashed back to the bells of magic isolation.
No response. The little cat lay limp where she had fallen. “The same fate awaits you, little witch,” Thorm—and yet not Thorm—sneered. “I’ll be back for you and your lover. Only your deaths won’t be as quick.” With one last hate-filled glare, the beast-headed monster stalked out of the cave, his glass prize in tow.
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 18
