Verden twitched her tail and opened one eye, just a slit, remembering.
The Highbulp! This Highbulp couldn’t possibly be that same obnoxious, arrogant little twit who had brought her to this fate … could it?
Dreams clung about her, and she could almost hear the evil, mocking laughter of a vengeful goddess. And she knew, even in sleep, that it could. The soundless whimper of outrage that formed in her mind was very like the calling resonance that another Verden Leafglow, in another life, had been given to communicate with certain other agents of the Dark Queen.
* * * * *
Somewhere beyond Xak Tsaroth, beyond the broken lands fronting Newsea, beyond the mountains to the southwest, in a still, dark place, something huge moved. As though startled by a silent sound, Flame Searclaw opened dozing eyes and raised his great, spike-crested head. He turned, this way and that, searching. Green snake? he thought. How can you be alive? I sensed your death. Can it be that I was wrong? Can it be that I may still have the pleasure of killing you, myself?
* * * * *
It took quite a while to find the Highbulp. Despite his determined laziness and obvious clumsiness, Glitch the Most could move when he had reason. He had covered nearly half a mile of subterranean passageways before he found a suitable place to hide in the bottom of what might once have been a slops sump. Eventually, though, they found him. Then more time was required to pull their leader out of his hole so he could take charge.
When it was explained to the Highbulp that the giant salamander was no longer a threat because his throne had eaten it, he swelled with pride and started for This Place. But when they added that his throne was no longer a throne, but had turned into a twelve-foot-long green dragon, they had to run him down again and repeat the process of pulling him from a hidey-hole.
Finally, though, they brought him back to This Place, and Gandy greeted him at the portal. “Got a dragon here,” the Grand Notioner pointed across the chamber, where the dragon was still sleeping. “What Highbulp think we oughtta do?”
Glitch stared at the emerald form across the way, ready to turn and run again. But the dragon didn’t seem an immediate danger, and he glanced around at This Place. Gully dwarves were gathered here and there, huddled in clusters at respectful distances from the dragon, and most of them were looking at their leader, waiting for leadership.
A few, though, were wandering around doing various things, and one group nearby was busy bending and unbending Tote. They were flexing his arms and legs, bending his middle, turning his head this way and that, poking fingers at his eyes to make him blink.
Glitch tipped his head and squinted. “What matter with Tote?”
“Him?” Gandy asked. “Got a cramp. All over. Head to toe. Some kin’ cramp, huh?”
Glitch wandered over to get a closer look at the flexing of Tote, and Gandy padded after him, others following. “So what we do now, Highbulp?” the Grand Notioner asked again.
“Do? ’bout what?”
“ ’bout dragon! What else?”
Glitch turned and looked again, almost dissolving with sudden panic. For a moment, he had forgotten the dragon. “Dragon!” he gulped. “Run like crazy!” But when he turned to run, there were dozens of his subjects behind him. He bowled them over and went down with them.
Lidda had come down from the wall, and was hovering nearby. Now she shook her head. “Highbulp not good for much,” she muttered, wading across tumbling gully dwarves to help her lord to his feet. When he was upright, she faced him and poked him in the chest with a stiff finger. “Got problem here, Highbulp,” she explained. “What you gonna do ’bout it?”
Twenty yards away, the green dragon raised its head and looked around, hissing with irritation. “Will you little dolts keep it down? I just hatched, you know! I need some sleep!”
Glitch would have bolted again, but Lidda had him firmly by the ear, pulling him forward. “Dragon awake,” she said, urgently. “Highbulp talk to dragon. Make it go ’way!”
“Lidda leggo!” Glitch wailed. “How come you bossin’ Highbulp aroun’?”
“ ’bout time somebody did,” Lidda snapped. “Might make you ‘mount to somethin’.”
With Lidda leading him by the ear, Gandy prodding him with his mop handle and dozens of his subjects crowding behind him, Glitch the Most, Highbulp of This Place and Dealer with Dragons, reluctantly approached the irate creature. It wasn’t as big as the dragon he had met before, only a third that big, but it was the same color, and it was still a lot bigger than he was. And it didn’t look at all friendly.
Twenty feet from the creature, the party stopped because Glitch had his heels dug in and would go no farther. The dragon was still looking at him, contemptuously.
“Make dragon go ’way,” Gandy urged.
Glitch waved a tentative hand at the thing. “Shoo!” he said softly.
The dragon raised a scaly brow. “What?”
His knees quaking, Glitch tried again. “Dragon shoo!” he chirped. “Go ’way!”
The dragon yawned. “No.”
The Highbulp gulped, then tried one more time, a little more firmly. “Shoo, dragon! Scat! Go ’way, okay?”
“No,” the dragon said, again.
“Oh, okay.” Glitch thought for a moment. “Why not scat, though?”
“Because I belong here,” Verden Leafglow said, resignedly.
“Fine,” Glitch assured it. “We scat, then.” H$$ to his subjects. “Ever’body pack up! Time for go someplace else!”
“Don’t be such an idiot,” the dragon hissed. “I am …” It was a difficult thing to say, but she had no choice. “I am yours. I belong to you. Don’t you understand?”
“Nope,” Glitch admitted.
Verden shook her head in frustration. Not only was she delivered into the hands of these obnoxious creatures, but it was up to her to explain it to them. And there was nothing she could do about it. In her mind, a force greater than any power of hers demanded it.
“I am rejected,” she said, hissing the words. “I have been given to you, to serve you as … as you please.” Her eyes closed, her head turned upward and she wailed, “Goddess, release me! I can’t stand this!”
But there was no response, no lessening of the curse that was upon her. She lowered her head, looking away. “I am unable to hurt you puny beings, any more than you can hurt me. I belong to … oh, gods! Any god! Help me!” The only response was an agonizing prod by her geas—the curse the dark goddess had put upon her.
With a shudder, she told the gully dwarves, “I belong to you little twits!” For a long moment, she turned away from them in revulsion, then her dragon head turned toward them again, big slitted eyes blazing with fury. “There! I’ve said it! Now leave me alone! I have to sleep and grow!”
Beyond her, in the big tunnel, another gully dwarf had appeared. Blip had just arrived on the scene. Both his hands were full of bashed rats, carrying them by their tails, and he was making his way past the mutilated remains of the salamander, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Wow,” he said, gawking at the corpse. “Took care of that, alright.” Then he stepped past it, turned and bumped into the nose of the green dragon just lowering her head to sleep. He froze for an instant, his eyes going huge, then screamed at the top of his lungs, spun around and ran, throwing dead rats everywhere.
“Gods!” Verden Leafglow twitched her tail in disgust, then went back to sleep.
Chapter 6
The Great Stew Bowl
It was a part of the goddess’s punishment, Verden knew, that she was growing so fast. Day by day—almost hour by hour, it seemed, she gained in size and strength. In a matter of weeks, she nearly tripled her length. Her mass and physical power were multiplied by hundreds, and she could feel within her the capacity for breathing chlorine clouds, though within the confines of the gully dwarves’ realm she was unable to do so.
From the vestigial nubs on her shoulders, great wings grew—wings that stretched almost from wall to
wall of the great subterranean chamber when she spread and flexed them. She had attempted to exercise her wings properly, but the results had been disastrous. At first beat, the downdraft had sent every gully dwarf in This Place rolling and tumbling, and her geas had risen to punish her, to remind her painfully: Do not hurt them!
It was all part of the punishment. Until she reached full size and full power, she would not fully appreciate the exquisite humiliation of being powerless against the “least of the least,” the Aghar. The goddess had not allowed her even the slight comfort of a lingering development or chanced the passage of time in which the short-lived creatures might have disappeared entirely.
Within the blink of an eye, it seemed, Verden Leafglow became a fully mature, fully-endowed green dragon. Enormous powers rested within her and festered there in the constant torment of powerlessness.
She had died once, before her rebirth. Now, relegated to servitude among the most contemptible of races, she would gladly have died again to escape the awful humiliation of it. Within weeks, she would have welcomed death. But death, like freedom, was denied her.
Throughout her growth, she was ravenous. The provisions for weeks of gully dwarf fare for the entire tribe were less than a single meal for her, and she was forced to hunt for herself, within the confines of Xak Tsaroth. By the time her growing slowed, there wasn’t a giant salamander left in the ancient city, nor a fish, squid or giant eel in the submerged levels of it. Even the hairless, blind moles of the outer reaches—ugly creatures the size of cattle—were depleted in number.
At least, the constant, gnawing hunger had subsided a bit. Now, her existence settled into a monotony of misery as bumbling Aghar—now used to her presence—came and went about her, and Aghar children played slide-and-tumble on the scaly slopes of her flanks.
Powerless! The reality of it was a never-ending agony. She was commanded to serve them, but for the life of them, not a one of them had been able to think of anything they wanted her to do. It was as though she had become one with the stones, rubble and trash of This Place, except that they wouldn’t leave her alone.
The Highbulp, finally convinced that the dragon posed no threat, had decided that her helplessness was all his doing. Except when he was sleeping or eating, he spent most of his time making life miserable for her. He was forever strutting and preening around her, bragging to anyone who would listen what a glorious Highbulp he was to have his own personal dragon, again. And having no throne now, he had taken to sitting on her nose at times.
Verden would happily have torn the little twit into a thousand bloody shreds and plastered the walls of This Place with him … if only she could.
But the Dark Queen’s curse was total. Verden had no choice but to suffer the indignities, and no hope of ever being free again. Unless …
A memory from that other life tugged at her mind. A memory of the goddess’s voice saying, “You seek mercy? Seek it from them.”
But what Aghar would have mercy in his heart? It seemed hopeless.
For days at a time, she lay inert and immobile, suffering in silence, and many of the gully dwarves simply forgot that she was there. Not all of them, though. Glitch the Most was a constant nuisance to her, old Gandy kept hanging around being inquisitive, and a female called Lady Bruze came now and then to insist arrogantly that the dragon call in some rats for the stew pots.
Verden noticed that there was a real friction between the Lady Bruze and a younger female named Lidda. This one she recognized as the one who had shot the skewer at her.
With nothing much else to do, Verden observed gully dwarves.
They were as dull-minded as she had always thought. They were not exactly stupid, though. Rather, it seemed, they were just incredibly simple. And she began to see distinctive differences among them. Some, like Lidda and old Gandy, showed occasional signs of real intelligence, not always, but now and then, as though their minds held reserves that sometimes came into play for no apparent reason.
Just within the past few days, Verden had seen Lidda dragging a big, shallow bowl of heavy iron across the stone-paved floor, toward her. It had been a lot of work, but the little female finally had the thing in place near the dragon. Lying facedown, it was the shape of a large, shallow bowl. “Here, dragon,” Lidda said, panting. “This for you.”
“For me?” Verden had blinked at her. “What is that thing for?”
“ ’Case dragon want some stew,” Lidda explained. “This nice, big thing for stew bowl.”
It was ridiculous, of course, but it did show a sort of erratic intelligence.
And there were variations in personality. The Lady Bruze, for instance, seemed to enjoy ordering others around and making trouble for those who didn’t respond. The Highbulp, on the other hand, seemed to take no special pleasure in exercising power over others. He did enjoy being the center of attention, but beyond that he didn’t seem to care much whether any orders he might give were followed.
The Grand Notioner came closer to being concerned about the entire tribe than anyone else, though his concerns usually manifested themselves in subtle (for a gully dwarf) manipulations that made trouble about as often as they did good.
Patterns began to emerge. Even among these, the lowest of the low, there was good, and there was a sort of evil. Given their limits, the good was rarely very good, and the evil was nothing more than an occasional cruel streak or a fondness for little chaoses from which one or another might gain status. But there was both good and evil, though the great majority among them had very little of either, and even less interest in the difference.
By and large, each individual seemed to be just that—an individual.
Having nothing else to do, nor hope of any higher kind of association, Verden bided her time, studying gully dwarves. And though she—a mighty dragon, the highest order of life on this world—could never have admitted it, she found herself thinking in ways she had never thought before.
Since she was stuck with them, it would be a small matter to rule them, except that the goddess’s curse pained her at the very thought of that. On the other hand, though, she could easily direct their lives toward a better way of life, which would be better for her, too.
But what she most wanted was simply to be free of them.
* * * * *
The Highbulp was becoming a bloody nuisance again. For a time, he had been the center of attention, and had loved every minute of it. But there came a time when even the sight of their Lord Protector sitting on the nose of a huge green dragon and preening himself became familiar to the combined clans of Bulp, and their attentions drifted elsewhere.
Realizing that the newness had worn off, Glitch the Most pouted for a while, then pondered the situation. And as usual when he pondered, he fell asleep.
He had been there for some time, snoring loudly between the eyes and the nostrils of Verden Leafglow, when Gandy wandered by, leaning on his mop handle. The Grand Notioner glanced at the Highbulp and the dragon, then glanced again. Glitch looked normal enough, curled up like a chubby child while echoing snores rumbled from his open mouth, but there was something about the dragon … Gandy stepped closer, and peered into a large, fierce eye, frowning in concern as though he saw tears there.
“Dragon got trouble?” he asked, curious.
“You might say that, yes,” Verden Leafglow admitted. As she spoke, the Highbulp on her snout jiggled happily in his sleep.
“What kin’ trouble?”
“This kind!” She narrowed her eyes, indicating Glitch. “This little oaf is driving me out of my mind!”
“Yep,” Gandy said and nodded sympathetically. “Highbulp can do that, alright. How come dragon put up with him?”
“I can’t do anything else,” she said. “Remember, I told you. I am under a curse.”
“Oh, yeah,” Gandy remembered. “That right. Dragon goosy.”
“Not goosy!” she sighed. “I have a geas upon me.”
“Got Highbulp ’pon you right now,”
Gandy observed. “Bein’ nuisance, like usual. I got idea ’bout fix that.”
Verden’s nearer eyelid rose slightly. “Oh?”
“Sure,” Gandy nodded. He stepped up on the edge of the iron stew bowl for a better view over Glitch. “Highbulp got too much time for foolin’ ‘roun’. Needs a wife, keep him in line.”
“Oh,” Verden sighed, disappointed. She had been hoping the old gully dwarf might—unlikely as it was—have an idea that would benefit her.
Suddenly, though, the Grand Notioner straightened and seemed to freeze in place. From the bowl where he stood, a rosy glow seemed to float upward, shrouding him with an eerie red radiance. He glowed, as though a lamp burned inside him, and his stance, his demeanor, his entire being seemed subtly changed.
Bathed in the soft, red glow, he seemed to radiate a power that no gully dwarf had ever had, or even imagined. He shifted and gazed up at her with a look she had never seen on an Aghar face—a bright-eyed, shrewd, almost compassionate expression that had real intelligence behind it. Abruptly, then, his eyes closed as though in sleep and the strange, reddish glow pulsed and danced around him.
His eyes remained closed, and the voice that came from him was not like the voice of any gully dwarf. “You might do well to give thought to that idea, Verden Leafglow,” it said.
She stared at the little creature, startled. “What did you say?”
“You heard me very well,” he, or something within him, said. “You do want to escape your fate, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But how?”
“Nothing is ever hopeless, Verden Leafglow, so long as one is alive, even one who lives for a second time. The curse of a god is absolute, but even a geas might be … revised.”
Chapter 7
The Prophecy
It was incredible. Verden felt suddenly dizzy, as though powers far greater than her own had entered her mind. Was this some more of Takhisis’s cruelty? Did the dark goddess have further tricks to play upon her even more cruel than the one that she had played?
The Gully Dwarves Page 5
