The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (33 page)

“Get off him!” Uda cried, watching from a safe haven at the far end of the tunnel. “Can’t you see you’re crushing him to death?”

But Berillitha did not get off. As Seagryn ran up beside them with Sheth right behind, she raised her head triumphantly and called out, “Be a tugolith, Wiser! Kill this punt!”

As Seagryn stared up at her he felt Sheth grab him by the sleeve and say, “The net, together. Ready? Now!” And, just as they had rehearsed it throughout the morning, Seagryn found himself working in concert with this man he loathed. The “net” was invisible, woven by their combined imaginations out of the powers that pervaded the old One Land. And it was effective, enclosing and trapping the two tugoliths, binding them together in a seamless, unbreakable web.

Berillitha perceived it first, and Seagryn thought his heart would rip apart when she looked at him in puzzlement and asked, “Why?” He knew what she meant. Why could she not move? But her word cut into him much more deeply. Why was he doing this to her? Why, when he’d told himself and Dark he would not? He looked back up at her, and saw the growing alarm in her huge eyes. “Wiser?” she called. “Why?” She sounded exactly like a frightened child.

“Now that was easy enough,” Sheth called out loudly, and the others began to come out of their places of safety.

“You did it already?” Elaryl asked.

“Well done!” Paumer shouted merrily, skipping a bit as he bounded out of hiding. “You two shapers work well together!”

Vilanlitha groaned in agony, and Uda scrambled back up the corridor to stroke his flank and appeal his case. “Sheth! Seagryn!” she shouted angrily. “Couldn’t you wait until she got off him? She’s crushing him! Can’t you see that?”

But all Seagryn could see were Berillitha’s eyes. They wore that same expression of betrayal he’d seen the night he and Elaryl had rolled in the snow. “Why is this happening?” she asked quietly. She’d controlled the panic in her voice now, but he could hear it there still. He knew she deserved an answer.

“Yes!” Vilanlitha wailed, echoing much more loudly, “Why is this happening?”

“You wanted to be a dragon, didn’t you?” Uda shrugged at him matter-of-factly. “This is how you become one.”

“I don’t
choose
to be close to this punt!” Vilanlitha cried, and now he, too, sounded like a frightened toddler. “She is not my pair!”

Sheth snorted, amused by their childish whining. “She is now,” he called out. “And you’d better get used to her, for she will be forever.” Then he turned around and sauntered away, Paumer hurrying after him.

Elaryl slipped up beside Seagryn and glided her arm through his. “Come on,” she murmured in his ear as she tried to pull him away. “You can’t help it. You did only what you were required to do ...”

Seagryn resisted her tugging. “No,” he responded quietly. “I didn’t have to do this at all. I chose to.”

“Wiser?” Berillitha called softly. “I am sorry I fought. Can I get down?” Seagryn gazed up at her, not knowing what to say. “Please?” she added.

She spoke so pitifully that Seagryn’s eyes, already wet, spilled tears onto his cheeks. It was the only answer he could make. No words could have passed the enormous knot in his throat.

“You’re forgetting,” Elaryl whispered in his ear. “I asked you to do this — remember?”

Seagryn looked around at his wife’s face and saw her motherly expression in place upon it. And although he didn’t want to go, he no longer felt the emotional strength to resist her pull. As she led him down the dark tunnel, he looked back over his shoulder, watching and listening as Berillitha said repeatedly, “Please can I get down? Please? Please ... ?”

*

He lay that night clutching Elaryl to him, so tightly that at one point she jabbed him with her elbow to get him to let her breathe. He loved her — there was no denying that. But Seagryn had to find some justice in all of this somewhere, and merely loving his wife did nothing for the cause of justice. Action — he needed to take action. And yet again, as he watched the constantly burning fire cast its flickering light on the smooth-cut ceiling above, the questions bubbled back up for his attention: Was this in the Power’s purpose? Did the Power need a monumental weapon forged, a scourge with which to punish a disobedient civilization for failing to take the One seriously? Or was this all a perversion of the positive human impulse to unite for the common good which had been pushed, somehow, beyond the margin of acceptability, beyond the edge of honesty, beyond the good into the realm of organized evil? “Justice,” he whispered at the ceiling, and Elaryl rolled over and mumbled “Hmm?” before snuggling back into the warmth of his arms and returning to her dreams.

He looked down at her face, and found it so beautiful that he postponed his quest for justice until later. He had decided what he must do, but it took him another week to move from decision into action. He waited as long as he could, clutching Elaryl to him at every available moment ...

*

“I discovered with the rodents that if they’re looped together long enough they stop thinking of themselves as two individuals. Then you can begin to make them believe they are one. Pain seems to accomplish that best. Inside the net, when one creature experiences pain and struggles against it, the other is jerked about and suffers as well. When one shrieks the other does too, if only to stem the ringing in its own ears. We shall punish them equally, making them both hate us, giving them a common purpose — our destruction. But, of course, they’re bound together and immobile, so we also heighten their shared sense of frustration. I should think the real key will be mental, however. These are language-using beasts — which, by the way, means the finished dragon will probably speak! But it also means we can use our words to confound them, confuse them, and ultimately to convince them — convince it — that it is a single beast with a single purpose ...”

“And that is?” Paumer asked expectantly.

“To destroy mankind wherever it might be found,” Sheth finished, gloating.

They planned this morning for the horrible conditioning they would begin tomorrow upon the netted beasts. Seagryn sat slumped against a wall upon the cavern floor. His mind was on his own plan for Berillitha’s escape. He could put it off no longer.

Paumer chuckled at Sheth’s expression, and shook his head. “I can easily understand why you savor this so. Your hatred of your fellow beings is of legendary proportions.”

“Now you’re sounding like the priest here,” Sheth said with undisguised contempt as he gestured down at Seagryn.

Paumer laughed again, enjoying the philosophical debate while apparently giving no thought to the incredible sufferings his actions here would dump upon the rest of humanity. “No, I’m not that. I’m a people-
lover
, Sheth. It’s my hope your plan will finally bind us back together into one —”

“You don’t love people, merchant!” Sheth interrupted with a savage glee. “You love nothing but
wealth
!”

Paumer’s smiled tightened, but didn’t entirely die. “No, now that’s where you’re wrong. You see I ...”

The discussion continued, but Seagryn didn’t listen. He’d already heard enough to force his hand.

“Tomorrow we begin, then,” Sheth affirmed. Then he bent down to shout in Seagryn’s ear, “Is that quite all right with you, wherever you are?”

“Tomorrow.” Seagryn nodded. But by tomorrow, he and the tugoliths would be gone.

He forced a smile through his dinner with Elaryl — a tough piece of fried horse-flesh, since Sheth had now lost himself in his art and refused anymore to go meal-hunting. He watched her carefully, aware that she watched him the same way. Had he raised her suspicions with his smile? Were any of the others aware of his intentions? Did he wear his evening’s purpose upon his face, proclaiming to all who might look there that he was going to free the tugoliths tonight? Most critically — was he going mad? For this was a maddening place, an endless night broken up by day-long intermissions in one’s sleep, during which unconscionable things were planned by powerful people living like savages — and where even more horrendous things were done. Were they
all
mad, to congregate here together under the hill for the purpose of forging a scourge for mankind? And lest he forget while calling the roll of the irresponsibles — where was the Power in all these acts? Within this dungeon, the simple faith of Dark’s mother seemed more childish than the pleadings of captive tugoliths — far more childish. And he wondered again — was this all in the Power’s purpose? If so, what Kind of Power did Lamath serve?

There was no more time for reflection. Once Elaryl slept soundly, he forced himself to get up. One last longing gaze, then he tiptoed away through the cavern. The fires burned as brightly now as they did throughout the period they called day, and Seagryn felt totally exposed. He passed by the second fire in the natural cavern and followed the warm brook upstream to the dragon forge. He slipped inside it carefully, hoping the beasts would not make a stir when he woke them.

Berillitha wasn’t asleep. “Wiser?”

“Quiet, please. I’ve come to set you free.”

Her next question startled him. “Why?”

“Why? Because — it’s right. It’s — just.”

“Just what?”

“Justice.”

“Oh,” Berillitha said. “What’s justice?”

“Later. Can you quietly wake Vilanlitha?”

“I don’t know.” Berillitha frowned. “He has an ugly temper.”

“Try to wake him quietly.”

“I don’t want to,” the tugolith told him honestly. “I don’t like him.”

“Wake him anyway. I’ve come to set you free.”

“I told you not to interfere with me, Seagryn!” Sheth shouted from behind, and Seagryn whirled around in time to see a ball of fire shooting toward his head. He dodged to one side, hid himself within a magic cloak, and quickly came to grips with this new reality. The worst had happened. He’d been caught, and he’d seen enough of Sheth’s power demonstrated to realize he’d never win a face-to-face encounter. Only one thing was important now, and that was to free Berillitha.

It would be an easy thing to cut the net — just a flick of the mental image that had set it in place, and its fabric would tear. But he would have to show himself to do it, and Sheth could probably counter him if it wasn’t timed just —

Sheth penetrated his cloak and spotted him. This was in itself an act of shaping, meaning the other wizard’s power wasn’t focused at this moment on preserving the net. Seagryn showed himself, and willed the web to tear —

With a roar and a grunt, Berillitha and Vilanlitha came unstuck and tumbled free and a moment later both came charging down the tunnels. “This way!” Seagryn shouted as he leaped aside to let Berillitha fly past him toward one of the wooden walls that blocked the end of the passageway. “Stop them now!” he taunted Sheth, who instantly turned and looked at that same wall. Suddenly Berillitha swerved to avoid it, rushing around a corner and out of sight. Sheth had thrown some illusion, but Seagryn didn’t wait around to discover what. He turned tugolith and chased after the charging female.

She had rushed into the main cavern and now charged around inside it just as Seagryn had watched the squirrel circle aimlessly through the mouse-dragon’s cage. Paumer and Dark dodged aside on one side of the fire, then Berillitha was rumbling around to the other side and Elaryl and Uda were diving toward the walls. As Sheth appeared in the center of the cavern, Seagryn charged the only wooden barrier in this room.

It splintered on his impact, and his tugolith voice shouted, “Berillitha! Through here!” As he pulled up alongside it, she rumbled past him into a room Sheth had never showed him, and he watched with satisfaction as she demolished its contents on her way to destroying another barrier that blocked its far side. Seagryn saw nothing beyond this one but darkness. “I hope that’s the right direction,” he said, more to himself than to her. Then he suddenly felt a terrible burning cold surrounding him and freezing him into place. “So this,” he murmured, “is what the net feels like.”

Elaryl rushed up to him and grabbed him around the foreleg. He peered down into her stricken face as he heard Paumer shout, “The female! She’s getting away!”

He couldn’t see Sheth, for the powershaper was behind him. He heard him, however. “No matter,” the wizard announced calmly. “Vilanlitha’s still here, and we have Seagryn. We’ll start the process tomorrow — just as we’d planned.”

Chapter Thirty-one

SACRIFICES

“WHAT harm will it do to
ask
him?” Uda argued.

Elaryl frowned, and glanced through the fire at Dark. The boy sat cross-legged against the far wall, his gaze focused on the heart of the blaze. He propped his elbows on his knees and his chin in his cupped hands and just sat there, staring. She quickly looked away. “What’s he
doing
?” she asked Uda.

The younger girl turned to look across the cavern with knowing eyes. She’d spent enough time with Dark now that she thought she understood him. “He’s waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you, probably. He knows we’re over here discussing whether or not to talk to him, and he’s waiting.”

Elaryl shook her head. “He’s — such a — pardon me, Uda, but he’s so odd! He’s just sat there for days! He never talks — he never smiles. He did nothing to help Seagryn escape, and they’re supposed to be friends. Why should he want to help him now?”

“Because he does.” Uda shrugged. “Look, it’s really very simple. He knows what he will do, because it’s as if he’s already done it. He lives in the future, you could say. Seagryn didn’t ask for help. Dark knew he wouldn’t. Seagryn’s trapped now. Dark knew he would be —”

“He told you that?”

“No, he never tells me anything,” Uda grumbled.

“Then how do you know he knew?” Elaryl asked skeptically. “By his eyes. They never show surprise. Believe me, he already knows what will happen to Seagryn. And what’s the harm in asking?”

Elaryl pulled down the hem of her skirt. She’d never in her life worn such rags. She would never forgive herself for ignoring her father’s warnings and coming along on this hellish adventure. He had known! But that was the trouble. Her father had always known what was best for her and had always forced her to do it. If he’d only allowed her a little freedom in deciding for herself what was best for her before all of this began —

“Go ahead, Elaryl. Ask him now, before my father and that terrible bear-person web Seagryn and Vilanlitha together.”

Elaryl looked again at Dark, and saw he was now staring at her. This was just a little boy, he had no right to be so all-knowing! She put her head in her hands and rubbed her forehead as she thought about Seagryn.

He didn’t seem to be bothered by his situation. In the few hours he’d been awake since Sheth had netted him, he’d raved like a madman about the value of self-sacrifice and the justice he’d done. But this wasn’t justice, was it? To trade a lifetime of promise for the freedom of a very large, very stupid piglike creature? From what he’d told her about tugoliths during their journey, the poor beast couldn’t even return to her family. She would die probably, lost somewhere in these Marwilds, and what would be the point? If she could just talk to the creature, make her understand what was at stake and —

“Why don’t you go ahead?”

Elaryl whirled around to stare up at Dark. “Why did you creep up on me like that!” she demanded.

“He didn’t creep up,” said Uda. “I waved at him to come over here.”

“Go ahead,” Dark said again. “Do it.”

“Do what?” Elaryl snapped. She did not like this boy. He was just too pushy. But then, so was Uda. And so was her father, for that matter. That was one thing she appreciated about Seagryn — he didn’t push, he didn’t prod, he didn’t try to order her around. And in the next few days they were going to turn him into a dragon —

“Go talk to Berillitha. She’s close by, you know. She didn’t go far.”

Elaryl frowned at him. “How do you know that?”

Dark blushed, and looked at Uda, who answered for him. “He’s Dark, remember?”

Elaryl looked at her fingernails. They were broken from her constant chewing of them. “What — would I say to her?”

“What you think.”

“She’ll probably eat me.”

“No,” Dark said firmly. “She won’t eat you.”

“You can guarantee that?” Dark nodded. “Where is she?”

“Just beyond that last wooden wall Seagryn broke down.”

“Why? She couldn’t find her way out?”

“She didn’t try. He didn’t tell her to, and she won’t do anything he doesn’t directly command.”

Elaryl looked at Uda. “Why are you doing this?”

The girl shrugged. “I have my reasons.”

Elaryl thought she knew. “You just want to spite your father.”

Uda shook her head. “That’s not true. The dragon will be made in any case, so I’m not spoiling my father’s scheme. I just can’t bear to see such a valuable resource as a powershaper go to waste. If I can play some role in preventing Seagryn’s destruction now, I figure perhaps he can be of help to me someday.”

Elaryl nodded absently. She’d not really intended her question to be answered. She realized she was just stalling. Dark and Uda waited for her response. “Do I just — walk out there and call her name?”

Dark stepped aside as he answered, “That would be a good start ...”

Elaryl got up off her rock, looked back and forth between her two child advisors, then walked toward the cavern where Seagryn stood frozen in magic. He was asleep again — she’d gathered from some comment Sheth had made that the net had that effect, but Seagryn told her he’d been feeling too guilty to sleep lately and that now he was free to catch up. She walked by him, trying to ignore his tugolith odor as she passed on through the demolished rooms.

She saw nothing but blackness beyond the last shattered wall, and she hesitated. She was no heroine! What if Sheth should be watching her this very moment? She remembered how her childhood friends had dreamed aloud of questing for dangers. She’d not been interested in any of that boyish foolishness. She’d never wanted adventure — just to be joined at the feet to some wonderful husband who would love her and take care of her and let her do what she liked. As she stared around this dark cavern, a step away from utter darkness, she marveled again at how the One they never named could have so miscast her. But in her hesitant survey, she looked back over her shoulder, and there was Seagryn, asleep standing up in the form of a beast, a peaceful smile on his great dumb face. It was that expression that drove her out into the dark.

“Why didn’t I bring a torch,” she muttered. “I’ll have to go back and get one.”

“Will the Wiser come soon?” a voice said behind her, and Elaryl whirled to face the sound, her heart pounding, her breath coming in short gasps.

“What?” she managed at last to force out.

“Why does the Wiser wait?”

“Berillitha?” Elaryl whispered. Dark was right. She hadn’t gone far at all! “That is you, isn’t it?”

“I am Berillitha,” the tugolith said sadly. She couldn’t be seen, but evidently she’d wedged herself in between the tunnel wall and the one part of the wooden barrier still standing. “You are the Wiser’s pair.”

“I — yes,” Elaryl whispered. This was too close to the bear’s lair! She felt certain Sheth stood somewhere nearby, listening to every word —

“Why do you leave him?” the tugolith asked.

Was she being scolded? Elaryl wondered. “When? You mean now? I came to look for you!”

“I would never leave my pair,” Berillitha announced.

This time Elaryl heard with certainty the chiding tone, and it made her angry, for she realized suddenly why the tugolith had waited here in the darkness instead of escaping. Berillitha still felt paired to Seagryn. Absurd as it was, that still stirred Elaryl’s jealousy. “If he’s your pair, why didn’t you do what he told you to do?”

The beast was silent a moment, then asked, “What did the Wiser say?”

“He told you to —”

Elaryl stopped herself. This had all just become very clear to her. She was, after all, the true pair to the “Wiser.” This tugolith knew that. Could she not also give instructions for the Wiser? For example, to tell this great hunk of flesh to get herself back into the cavern and volunteer to become a dragon? She could. She certainly could.

But she didn’t. “He told you to run away,” Elaryl said flatly. “That was his purpose in freeing you. Are you too stupid to see that? Are you going to waste his sacrifice by just standing there?”

There was another long pause. Elaryl assumed the beast was filtering all those words, and reminded herself that she needed to calm down and speak slowly and simply.

“The Wiser — set me free?”

“Yes.”

“He — sends me away?”

Elaryl again said, “Yes,” but a bit more compassionately this time. She heard something odd in the huge female’s rumbling voice. Was it — a whimper?

“I am truly a punt,” Berillitha said quietly, and then moaned — a very slight, high-pitched moan for a creature so big, more like the whine of a pup. Elaryl put her hand over her mouth and waited. The back of her throat began to ache, and it surprised her. Was she really ready to weep in empathy with her enormous rival? “I hoped he would come ...” Berillitha explained, and again gave a keening wail. And Elaryl’s question was answered for her. Yes, she would weep.

“He — he can’t come.” She sniffed.

“Why?” Berillitha asked, through what Elaryl could only assume were tugolith sobs.

“He’s — trapped,” Elaryl said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Oh, how she hated crying! “The way you were, before he freed you.” That brought a very different reaction from Berillitha, one that scared her so she jumped back against the far wall of the tunnel.

“The net that freezes and burns?” Berillitha roared.

“Yes!” Elaryl answered quickly in a loud whisper. “Quiet! Sheth will find us!”

“I’ll horn him!” Berillitha trumpeted, and the tunnel shook from the sudden shuffling of her enormous feet.

“No! No! That won’t work, don’t you see? You can’t horn a wizard; and besides, if you did Seagryn would stay like that forever!”

“Wizard?” Berillitha grunted. She sounded puzzled. “This evil punt is a Wiser?”

Elaryl understood. “I said wizard. Different thing. Listen to me,” she said, and she waited until she was certain the animal was listening. “We both —” she took a deep breath and said it “ — love Seagryn. I know of only one way to free him from that net.” She paused.

“What is the one way,” the tugolith intoned. Berillitha was not in the mood to waste time.

And yet Elaryl found it very difficult to go on. How could she ask this of anyone? She was about to ask this animal to sacrifice her life for —

“What is the one way!” Berillitha roared.

“Right, right, I’ll tell you —” Elaryl whispered quickly. “We must go back into the light. We must find the evil — punt. And then you must ...”

“I must be bound again. To that whiner punt. By the net that burns,” Berillitha finished for her. “We go,” she snorted, and the tugolith started back into the cavern.

“Wait!” Elaryl stopped her. “There’s much more. They will — change you, Berillitha. They will make the two of you together into a — a dragon.” She could see Berillitha’s head now, dimly. She thought she saw one vast eye blink in confusion.

“What is a dragon?” the creature asked simply.

“It’s — an enormous — monster, that flies — and — oh, I don’t know.” A bit belatedly she added, “I’m sorry.”

The tugolith grunted. “Why?”

“Because — it’s a terrible thing to be.”

“Oh,” Berillitha answered. Then she said, “No. A terrible thing to be is a punt. A terrible thing to be is out of the wheel. A terrible thing to be is watching your pair hurt. These things I understand.” Once again the huge beast started to walk back into the dim light of the cavern, but stopped. “I have a question.”

Elaryl could hardly answer. Her eyes swam with sorrow at the enormity of the tugolith’s sacrifice. “Yes?” she choked out.

“Will I remember?”

Elaryl blinked. “What?”

“When I am a dragon.”

“You mean, will you remember that you were once a — I ... I don’t know ...”

Berillitha snorted thoughtfully. “I hope I do not remember.” Then she shuffled back into the lighted section of the cavern, a very thankful Elaryl following behind.