Jo shook her head. “I’ll help you bring some treasure back to camp, but I’m coming back here with supplies. Verdilith’s injured; he’ll return to his lair sometime soon.”
Braddoc shrugged. “We’ve got maybe a week’s worth of rations left, if we stretch it. But you’re right. It makes sense to harry the dragon now before he heals and regains all his powers.”
As the three of them started across the cavern floor, Karleah stopped to get her staff. She frowned at the ball of light, but Jo didn’t bother to ask why.
“I don’t think Verdilith’s healed any since Flinn attacked him,” Johauna said seriously. “Aren’t dragons supposed to have lots of healing spells?”
"So the sages say," Karleah answered absently. She was looking around nervously. “And I can’t divine why the dragon wouldn’t fight us with spells, particularly since he was too injured to really engage in physical battle.”
“We can puzzle that out later,” Braddoc interrupted as they reached the edge of the golden hoard. The magical light flickered across the vast mounds, which spread out as far as the light would reach.
Hadn’t the light extended farther before? Jo wondered. She dismissed the thought, thinking that perhaps the area of illumination diminished naturally as the spell wore on. “Karleah,” Jo murmured as she and Braddoc moved toward the piles of gold, “you keep watch. We’ll get a few things and be right back.”
“Make it fast, Jo,” the old wizardess called. “I want to get out of here soon. . . .”
Braddoc wandered to the right, and Jo circled to the left. She began wading through the gold and silver coins littering the floor, enjoying the shift and clink of coins slipping by her boots. She paused every now and then to reach out to touch some gem or gold-chased bauble. Her eyes flitted from necklaces and brooches to rings and bracelets to encrusted footstools and ornamented portrait frames. Jo’s brain reeled. How could there be so much wealth in the world? she wondered. How could there be so many exquisite, exquisite things? Johauna picked up a fire opal the size of her fist and an aquamarine diadem and tucked them in her belt. For the most part, however, the poor orphan girl from Specularum was too overwhelmed to greedily gather treasure. Johauna continued to walk on, her eyes touching on pieces of metalwork that would have paid a king’s ransom in the present age.
Some unknown time later, Braddoc came up behind Jo and touched her arm. The squire jumped. “I’ve been calling you for the last minute, Johauna,” the dwarf said. “Don’t let the dragon’s treasure root in your brain. It’ll take over your thoughts, mesmerize you, consume you— you’ll stop eating or sleeping or thinking of anything but the treasure.”
“Really?” Jo said thickly. She reached out a finger and stroked a cupboard made of gold, inlaid with jade.
Braddoc jerked her arm. “Come along! It’s a good thing I’m here—the treasure’s gotten to you already.”
Jo scowled, trying to think. It was true she hadn’t thought of anything but the riches she’d seen, but she couldn’t have spent more than a few minutes . . .
“We’ve been picking through the hoard for more than an hour now,” Braddoc said testily, as though sensing her thoughts. He shifted his bulging knapsack on his shoulder. “Karleah’s been nagging us to leave for that whole time.” “How . . . how does the treasure get to me like that?” Jo asked. Her thoughts were beginning to clear.
The dwarf shook his head. “It just does. The dragon sleeps on the treasure, you know. I think his essence permeates the gold and traps the unwary. Even I’m not immune to it. Karleah had to tap me with that staff of hers before I was able to shake it off.”
The two rounded a mound of treasure and found Karleah anxiously pacing. She whirled toward them in a pique of nerves and held out her hands.
“There you are, you old stump!” she snapped, waggling her withered finger at Braddoc. “I sent you after Jo a quarter hour ago! There’s no time to lose! We must leave immediately!” the old wizardess urged. “Come!” She gestured for them to move closer.
Jo saw that the light atop Karleah’s staff had faded, giving off the dull illumination of an oil lantern. Jo’s thoughts cleared completely, and she tightened her hold on Wyrmblight. “Whats wrong, Karleah?” Jo asked.
The old woman shook her wrinkled head rapidly. “No time to explain!” she cried. She held out her staff before her. “Quickly! Put your hands above mine as you did before! We must leave now!”
Jo and Braddoc hurried to do as the wizardess bid. Karleah began murmuring her incantation, an undercurrent of fear lending urgency to the words. Jo closed her eyes and braced herself for the unnerving shift through space and matter.
The old mage had frenetically muttered many phrases before Jo felt the magic began to weakly wrap about her. But, even then, the sensation was all wrong. The magic felt unsure, its grip on the three tenuous and fragile at best. The spell that had brought them into the lair had been like hurtling over water aboard the steady deck of a ship. This spell, though, was like falling—falling and rising and falling. Images of rock and sand intermixed with images of sky and ground, as though they were shifting back and forth above and below ground ... as though they were slipping down through the world into the nether realms, then back up again.
And it seemed an eternity.
Jo thought she heard Karleah murmur, “Something’s . . . no, it’s not right—something’s wrong—” Jo tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. Keep a grip on the staff! she told herself. If you let go, you might end up inside rock!
Moments stretched to minutes and then on into endless days before the uneasy travel passed and Jo felt herself returning to her solid form. She opened her eyes and blinked dazedly at Karleah and Braddoc, The dwarf returned her gaze with the same measure of disorientation.
The wizardess let go of her staff and collapsed to the ground.
“Karleah!” The shout came from Dayin, who stood nearby. Karleah had teleported them to the hill where they’d asked Dayin to stay with the animals. We’re safe, Jo sighed as the realization of where they were set in. She turned to Dayin, who was helping Karleah sit up.
“What’s the matter, Karleah?” Johauna asked. She gestured back toward the hill covering the dragon’s lair. “Why was that such a rough transport? Are you still able to send me back to the lair to kill the beast?”
The old woman’s tiny eyes were wide with terror. “Something’s wrong! There’ll be no going back to the lair. We’ve got to get back to the castle, Jo . . . immediately.”
Jo bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “But I’ve sworn vengeance for Flinn’s death. That dragon is never going to get any weaker than he is now! I’ve got to kill—” “And I tell you all my magic has been drained from me!” Karleah interjected. Her black eyes flashed. “Don’t you see? We almost didn’t make it that time! I can’t send you back to the lair because . . . my magic’s gone!”
Verdilith watched the creatures vanish. They flickered in and out for many moments, and he wondered if the old woman’s spell would fail. When at last it seemed unlikely that they would return, he seeped out of the crevice in the ceiling he’d hidden in. His misty form floated gently to his bed of gold, the mist settling through the mound.
The dragon rued the theft of some of his hoarded treasure, all save one piece. He’d known every item the squire and the dwarf picked up, and he’d been tempted to attack again. But he had held his rage in check and watched and plotted. He was too weak now to attack them all, especially now that his magic had been drained away. But he would not always be weak. That would change. That would change.
Verdilith s misty form sank into the cracks between his coins and jewels and other items. He sank down to the very depths of his treasure. Ah! It is good to touch the first gathered, he thought as he reached the very roots of his hoard. And it is good to be rid of that box!
An evil chuckle emanated from the mound of gold and spread out through the cavern. The dwarf had found the box and couldn’t resist it: preternat
urally featureless, marvelously simple, finely crafted, solid and guileless, like the brain of the dwarf himself. The iron box had called to the iron in the dwarf’s soul. When he had picked up the accursed box, a shadowy smile formed along the cave’s misty ceiling. Verdilith considered the other items the grubby creature had pilfered to be almost fair payment, a kind of service fee for taking Teryl Aurochs horrible box from his lair.
The dragon assembled his thoughts, a difficult task in this form, particularly situated as he was within the treasure. Teryl Auroch gave me the box, knowing what it would do, knowing it would drain me. Now the mage himself will know the pain he has caused. Verdilith frowned mentally, then added, I serve him no longer. By the time he comes looking for his precious box, it will be lost, I will be whole, and Wyrmblight and its bearer will be broken.
The dragon turned his thoughts to the squire and her comrades. Invaders. Ignorant and weak. Women, two of them were, he reminded himself. He had thought Flinn’s death would be vengeance enough for him. But it isn’t Flinn. The sword’s the thing. It’s what cut me. It’s what hungers like a tongue of steel for the taste of my blood.
He shifted, coins and gems sifting down, disquieted, around him. I had held that sword in my claw, he thought, incredulous. I had wrenched it against the stones. Why could I not break it? Why did I let the bitch escape with it? She will die for this. But not merely die. She will suffer and die. It is a matter of poetics.
And the sword ... I must destroy it. But how? Upon this question, he thought for a long while.
Perhaps days.
At last he thought, I must see Teryl Auroch about this sword. He will have something to destroy it. The mist that formed the dragon’s body threatened to seep away into the ground beneath his treasure. With a struggle, Verdilith pulled the mist closer together. He would have to change now; he was too weak to hold this form together much longer. Ordinarily, changing back into his natural form would be a simple and sensible matter; ordinarily he could heal his wounds in dragon form. But these were desperate days.
The dragon gnashed teeth of mist, disturbing a single coin as he did so. That accursed box! he thought. It stole his healing spells, rendered his magic items worthless, seemed to drain his very soul. Only his natural ability to shapechange remained—his gift from the Immortal Alphaks.
Verdilith shuddered. He had to pull his form together and change now ... or dissipate and die. But he feared the change. His wounds were worse in dragon form—tearing wider, filling with gems and filth. For that matter, the transmogrifications were growing longer, more difficult, as he weakened. But death would be worse.
The dragon pulled the mist up and out of the treasure hoard until he was floating above the golden mounds. With a supreme effort, he focused on the transformation. The mist gave way to something more corporeal; it solidified, shaped itself, and hardened. Scales formed, hair grew, and blood pumped through his veins. Talons and fangs lengthened and sharpened. The dragon opened his golden eyes, and his body dropped a little to the treasure hoard below.
His left front claw buckled under pressure, and Verdilith fell immediately, writhing in pain. He screamed. The dragon clutched the claw to his copper breast. Searing pain shot through the wyrm’s arm, and then he succumbed to merciful blackness.
Verdilith fell into a dark sleep, his slumber broken by fitful dreams. His left arm throbbed, and he tried to stretch his claw. The arm moved a little, and the pain subsided momentarily, but then it came back fiercer than before. The green wyrm gave a little whicker of distress. He sank deeper into tortured dreams—dreams fueled by his foreclaw, dreams centering on the flashing great sword and the darkness of death that surrounded it.
A strange, high-pitched whimper of fear escaped the dragon s curled lips, along with a drop of greenish-yellow spittle. The odor of poisonous bile wafted into Verdilith s nostrils and the dragon quieted, comforted by the familiar stench. His dream deepened, and somewhere inside him the pain was joined by hatred for the sword.
Chapter IV
A man on a chestnut horse approached Johauna and her companions as they turned their mounts onto the castle road. Parts of the knight’s armor shone in the late afternoon sun, and the rest was covered by a midnight-blue tunic embroidered with three golden suns. Behind him rode two guards, each carrying their spears upright in formal greeting. Jo had wondered if the baroness would send a guard to formally meet Flinn and his comrades upon their “victorious” return to the casde.
Jo clenched her jaw. Only there’s no Flinn to return triumphant, she thought. The baroness is greeting a party who has lost its hero—a party who hasn’t even avenged that hero’s death. Jo’s mind slipped back a few days to a conversation she’d held with Karleah and Braddoc. They’d been sitting around the campfire the night after they’d attacked Verdilith. Karleah was adamant about leaving in the morning and heading back to the Casde of the Three Suns.
“Look, I understand that you think you’ve lost your magic, but—” Jo began again.
“There’s no ‘think’ to it, Jo!” Karleah interjected. Her voice cracked with strain and anger and, Jo thought, fear. “Something inside that lair has stolen most of my spells! I’m afraid to use any more for fear they’ll disappear, too!” Jo tried to calm the distraught woman, who had begun to pace again. “I understand that, Karleah,” the squire said, “but I want to stay here and at least watch the lair! You and Braddoc and Dayin can head back to the castle. Then send me a mage who can help me get back inside.”
“Bah!” Karleah snorted. “One of those pansy (meaning no disrespect to the flower) mages might be able to get you in, but not out!”
Jo stood up and held her hands toward Karleah. This argument had gone on long enough. “What do you expect me to do, Karleah? Will you tell me that much, huh?” Jos voice rose. She took a step forward and slashed the air with one hand. “At Flinn’s pyre, I swore I would avenge his death!” Her eyes flashed at the older woman. Karleah had the grace to look momentarily chagrined, but Jo wasn’t mollified. “I must stay here—”
From his position by the fire, Braddoc spoke up for the first time that night. All the time Jo and Karleah had argued, he’d been idly rummaging through his backpack, looking at his treasures from the dragon’s lair. Dayin had stayed by the dwarf’s side, obviously seeking Braddoc’s stoic protection against the volatile argument between the squire and the wizardess.
“No, Johauna,” Braddoc interrupted, “that’s not what you must do—that’s what you want to do.” The dwarf picked up a stick and stoked the embers. He eyed Jo with his good orb, the firelight glinting off the blind one.
Jo rounded on Braddoc. “Oh, yes? Is that what you think? Come on, Braddoc! You know what Flinn meant to me!”
“Yes. I do,” the dwarf said imperturbably. He tossed aside his stick. “I also know you swore an oath to Baroness Arteris Penhaligon. When a knight dies, the squire must immediately report to the castle for reassignment ... or dismissal. Which oath is more important to you, Johauna, the oath of vengeance or of honor?” Braddoc stood and drew himself to his full height. “I could tell you which was more important to Flinn, but I think we all know. If you aren’t going to be a squire any longer, Johauna, then I’m leaving in the morning.”
“Leaving!” The word exploded from Jo’s lips. She put her hands on her hips and stood before the dwarf.
Braddoc nodded. “You heard me.” He shook his handsome russet head, the newly plaited beard gleaming with a golden braid he’d found inside the lair. “Remember: I’m a mercenary at heart. I was one before you ever met me.” He gestured at the rest of the booty he’d stolen from Verdilith. “I’ve got a few baubles I can sell to keep me in comfort the rest of my life, plus an interesting box to spend my time puzzling over.”
“But—!” Jo exclaimed, cutting short her words. She changed her tactic. “What about Flinn? I thought he was your friend.”
Braddoc didn’t bat an eye. “ Was is right. What about Flinn? He’s dead. I can’t help him
any more. He wouldn’t expect me to, either.”
Jo leaned backward, her eyes caught by Braddoc’s expression. “And what of me? Am I not your friend?” she asked quietly after a long moment.
The dwarf pursed his lips before saying slowly, “Yes, you are my friend, Johauna Menhir. But you have a choice to make here, and that is, which of the two oaths you have sworn will you honor first? If you choose your desire to avenge Flinn’s death, I can’t help you now. If you return to the castle, I can help you. I’d like to take over where Flinn left off on your training.”
The last sentence held such a ring of concern and sincerity that Jo had to swallow a sudden lump in her throat. She glanced away at Karleah and Dayin, both of whom were silently watching her, then she turned back to the dwarf. “Can’t—” Jo began, then coughed “—can’t you go to the castle with Karleah and Dayin and send back help? I can guard the lair. . . .”
Braddoc crossed his arms. “You’re forgetting one thing, Johauna,” he said quietly. “Yow are the squire, not me. Flinn’s dead and Verdilith is still alive. It’s your job to report that back at the castle.” Braddoc turned and began walking away toward his tent. “I won’t do your job,” he tossed over his shoulder.
Jo watched the dwarf retreat into the darkness. She rubbed her hands together wearily. Just as she saw Braddoc pull back his tent flap, she called out, “All right! All right! I’ll ... go to the castle.” She added when she saw Braddoc turn back toward her, “I will do my duty as a squire in the order, but I will request assignment to avenge Flinn’s death”
“And we’ll go with you,” Braddoc replied. Karleah and Dayin nodded assent.
Jo rubbed her eyes and pushed aside the memory of that conversation. Tensions had run high between her and her comrades, but they’d lessened the last few days on the road. Now the party had almost reached the Castle of the Three Suns. The knight and his guards were approaching her, and soon she’d have to make some sort of formal report to the baroness. Jo bit her lip but didn’t slow her horse, Carsig.
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