Dragon Magic (3 page)

Only it was not Artie at all. It was that Ras guy. But he did have the box. Its lid was open and some of the pieces were spilled out on the tabletop. Of all the nerve!

“Give me that!” Sig moved quickly. “That’s mine! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Yours?” Ras grinned and Sig did not like that grin, nor the tone of his voice as he added, “Who gave it to you? Finders keepers.”

“It’s mine!” Somehow getting that box into his own hands again seemed to Sig the most important thing in the world. But before he could grab it Ras snatched it away, so that a lot of the pieces inside sifted over the rim and fell out on the dusty tabletop. Their bright colors sparkled as if they really were jewel stones, so brilliantly they glowed.

“Yours?” Ras repeated. “I don’t think so. I think you found it here and now you want to steal it. Yeah, steal it! It belongs to whoever owns this house, not to you. Isn’t that true now? You stole it, whitey. Just like your kind steal a lot of things. My brother, he’s got the right of it, whitey. Your kind aren’t any good.”

Ras deliberately shook the box again and a sprinkling of pieces fell over its edge. Sig cried out and tried to jerk the box out of Ras’s hold, but the other boy eluded him easily. Then Sig threw away the flashlight and launched himself in a tackle. He was clumsy, but he brought Ras down and the other dropped the box to defend himself.

Sig had been in fights before, but this was more real than any of those.

It seemed as if Ras wanted to hurt, and Sig discovered that he wanted to hurt back. But, though they flailed at each other, few of the blows found their mark. However, Sig’s determined advance did herd Ras into the hall.

Then that hot fury, which had been building in Sig ever since he had discovered the box missing, boiled over and he jumped at Ras in a blind rage.

The other ran, as if something about Sig had suddenly frightened him so that he just wanted to get away. They crossed the hall, ran through the dark rooms. In the dining room Sig ran straight into a chair that Ras had pushed out in his path. He fell, and when he got to his feet again some of the anger was gone. But he still kept on. When he reached the kitchen Ras was already at the window, trying to get that stubborn pane up farther.

Sig sprang and caught handfuls of jacket near the other’s shoulders.

“No you don’t!” He tried to pull Ras back, though the boy held fast to the windowsill.

Then, outside, there was a vivid stroke of lightning, as startling as if it had struck the old house. Ras let go his hold, frightened by that flash in his very face. Sig staggered back from the window, pulling him along.

Ras jerked and pulled, wriggling free of Sig’s hold. But, as if he had been confused by the lightning, he now headed not back to the window but across the kitchen to the basement door. And he was gone through that before Sig could move.

Sig sat up. When Ras had pulled free he had overbalanced and landed on the floor. The door banged shut behind Ras. Sig looked around the kitchen. He had to get the box and pick up all those pieces Ras had dropped on the table and floor. But if he left the kitchen Ras could get out and go and tell—or else he would start fighting again for the box.

Sig got to his feet, sore in all those places which had hit the chair in the dining room. He limped to the table and began to push it across the dusty floor. It was big and heavy and hard to move, but at last he got it jammed against the basement door. Now Ras could just stay down there until he, Sig, was ready to let him out And he would make him promise some things first.

Dimly Sig felt odd, as if this were not he, Sig Dortmund, who made such plans or did such things. As if something else or someone else had gotten into his body. But that was silly—it could not happen. No, he was Sig Dortmund, and he was going to get his box. It was
his
box! Then he would settle with Ras.

He went back to the other room. His flashlight, still turned on, had rolled back against the wall, the light a path across the floor. Sparkling in that light were a lot of the jigsaw pieces. The box lay on its side where the rest of the pieces had spilled out. Sig caught it up hurriedly to make sure it was not broken. If Ras had hurt it any—!

But it was all right. He began picking up its contents, restoring them as fast as he could. They felt smooth, and their colors were so bright. He cupped a handful, red, green, silver—the silver ones must be for the top dragon in the picture. And this red—for the red dragon, probably—and the blue—the yellow. He had gathered up all the pieces on the floor now, using the flashlight to search carefully, make sure he had not overlooked any.

Some of the bits were pretty small and it would be easy to lose one. He even got down and crawled around on his hands and knees, stirring up dust enough to make himself cough. But at last he was sure he had them all.

There were more on the table. And how much time did he have? Dad would be home soon, and if he wasn’t there—well, there would be a lot of questions. He would just sweep the pieces carefully into the box now.

But when Sig straightened up to do that his hand moved slower and slower, and he stared at what lay there. He had seen puzzles before, only this one was different. Three of the sparkling silver pieces were already stuck together. They must be part of the silver dragon. And here was another bit. Yes, and it fitted in right there! Sig sat down on the waiting chair, dumped out the box he had so recently filled, and began to hunt for silver bits, as if nothing else in the world mattered. Though the room was dark he did not need any light, because the pieces appeared to have a light of their own. Not only that, but as he fitted them together and the right ones touched, the light grew brighter. But to Sig that did not seem in the least odd.

Nor was he aware of time passing as his fingers combed through the piles of pieces to separate all those of silver, toppling the rest back into the box. For he was now intent on one thing, the putting together of the dragon. He
had
to see it complete.

Touch told him that this puzzle was far thicker than the ones he had known before, being mounted on wood. The reverse sides of the pieces had strange black marks across them which could be printing, except they did not form any word he had ever seen. They were like rows of small, irregular twigs. And when he looked at them closely they made his eyes feel queer, and he turned them over again, picture side up, hurriedly.

Silver bits. Sig checked through the box again, making sure he had them all, and then he went to work. Sometimes he was lucky and a whole section went together quickly. Other times he had to hunt and hunt for one missing piece. Then it might turn out to be not the shape he thought it would be at all.

Outside, rain lashed against the windows and walls of the old house.

There were more lightning flashes, and the heavy rumble of thunder. But Sig no longer noticed the storm. He had the wings of the dragon, its back, now put together; there was one hind leg ready to join on. Yes, here was the connecting piece for that.

The head came last and was the hardest. Some pieces seemed to be missing and Sig searched with growing uneasiness. He again studied the picture on the box cover and realized that the dragon was not all silver, after all.

It had red eyes and a red tongue, and there were greenish bits here and there. With haste Sig raked through the box again.

Red bits, green bits—But there was so much red and green in the box!

Some pieces fell out on the floor and Sig had to get down with the flashlight to hunt them. But at last he had some which seemed possible.

He put in a piece with a blazing eye and blaze it did, almost as if it were watching him! Sig wiped the hand which had fitted in that bit across the front of his jacket. The piece had a queer feel, almost slippery. He did not like it. But the fascination of finishing the dragon held him. Now a green bit which formed a curved horn on the dragon’s nose. Yes, and here was the tongue, or part of it. Again his fingers selected the right pieces as if he knew just where they lay.

There it was—no, not quite. When he compared the puzzle to the dragon of the picture one tiny piece was missing. It was the forked tongue end, raised and thrust out of the dragon’s open mouth like a spear. Why had he thought of it like that?

Sig turned over the boxed pieces. Just one tongue tip. Surely it was not lost! He had to find it.

Then he saw a piece wrong side up, showing those lines of black sticks like writing. Sig turned it over and it went neatly into place.

He leaned back in the chair. The need to get the picture together no longer drove him. A dragon—a big silver dragon all ready to claw, bite—and kill.

A dragon—Fafnir—

Who—what—was Fafnir? One part of Sig cried that question against a chill, cold fear. Another part of him knew.

The dragon coiled, reared. Sig could smell a nasty odor. The coiling dragon was turning around and around, turning so fast that sparks flew from its silver scales. Sig could hear a pounding and a loud, clanging noise.

SIG CLAWHAND

There was a cold wind coming from the craigs, cold enough to pierce swordlike to the very bones under one’s smoke-grimed skin. Sig Clawhand shivered, but still he drew no closer to the warmth of the forge, where sparks flew like fiery rain and the clang-clang of the smith’s hammer made a noise to deafen watchers. No one watched today, though, by Mimir Master-Smith’s own orders. For it was Sigurd King’s-Son who wrought with that hammer against metal of his own choosing to make a sword—such a sword as would cut through the armor of Amiliar.

Sig Clawhand rubbed the twisted fingers which had given him that hard name against his thin chest. Under the loose coat of shag-wolf hide he scratched skin so long dusted with charcoal that sometimes he might be thought more forest troll than true son of man. All had heard much of the armor of Amiliar, that anyone who strode the land with it on his back, across his chest, need fear no spear, no sword forged by any mortal man.

And so loudly had those boasts rung across the world that Mimir (who, men said, was of the old dwarfish blood, of those who had worked metal for the heroes of Asgard) had frowned and blown out his lips, spoken harsh words right and left, until all his roof had felt the knife edge of his tongue.

Then he had lifted up his voice in turn and sworn that he could in truth forge a blade to show Amiliar that he was not the first smith in the world, no, nor perhaps even the second! And the King of the Burgundians had laid a heavy wager upon the outcome of such a trial.

But Mimir himself was not busy at that forge, for he had Foresight. And he had laid it upon Sigurd King’s-Son to do this thing. Seven days and seven nights had Sigurd worked upon the metal, and then he had taken a blade to the stream which flowed from the foot of the craig. There Mimir had set a thread of wool afloat and Sigurd had held the blade in the water so that the thread was current-driven against it—and the thread had been cleanly cut Then all who labored in the forge shouted aloud. But Sigurd King’s-Son and Mimir had looked into each other’s eyes. And Sigurd had taken back the blade, had broken it into bits, to be once more heated, shaped, and tried.

He then tempered it in new-drawn milk. And he also used oatmeal, which, as all swordsmiths knew, gave strength to metal even as it did to man. Three days more he worked. Then he took what he had wrought to the stream and this time he cut with it a ball of wool without disturbing the winding of its threads.

Only, again he and Mimir exchanged looks. And Sigurd raised high the blade above a rock and brought it down with true warrior’s brawn of arm so that it shattered. He then took up the bits and went once more to the forge. But that had been morn and now it was night dusk. And it was plain to Sig Clawhand that Sigurd’s hammer now fell slower and with less force.

And he saw the droop of Sigurd’s shoulders and knew that Mimir strode back and forth by that spring of water which men said gave great knowledge to those daring to drink of it.

The wind blew cold again, and it was the cold of winter instead of, rightfully, the freshness of spring. So Sig Clawhand bunched together, his arms about his upthrust knees, making a ball of himself. He longed for the warmth of the forge side, but he knew better than to seek it now.

Then he saw two feet standing just at the level of his eyes as he curled so. Those feet wore the rough-finished hide of journey boots. As he raised his head slowly, he saw a kirtle of the same color as the sky when a storm draws near, and the sweep of a gray cloak. Higher still he looked, to a hood which was blue and which overhung a dark face. And in that face was a single eye for seeing, the other being covered with a patch of linen stuff.

Yet that one eye saw into Sig so that he wished to run from it, only the power of that figure held him where he was, shivering even more than when the icy wind reached him.

“Go to Sigurd King’s-Son and bid him come out. There is one here who will speak with him.”

Though the stranger’s voice was low there was no denying the order it gave. Sig got to his feet quickly and backed into the forge, fearing to look away from the eye which held him. Not until he was within the shadow of that doorway was he free of the bond it had laid upon him. He went to the anvil where Sigurd stood tall, the fire giving a red light to his face and his long yellow hair, looped back while he worked with tongs.

And, though he was indeed the King’s son, he wore but the coarse kirtle, the leathern apron, the straw footgear which were the dress not even of a master smith but of a common laborer. Yet one looking upon him, Sig thought—any man with eyes in his head—would know this was one of kingly blood, worthy to be shield-raised when a crown was offered.

Sigurd rested the hammer against the edge of the anvil and leaned forward to see his work. But there was a frown on his tired face as if what he looked upon pleased him very little. Sig dared then to say, “Master, there is one at the door who would speak with you.”

The frown was darker yet as Sigurd swung around. Sig retreated a step or two, even though Sigurd King’s-Son was not one to cuff for little reason, but was kinder than most men Sig had known in his short life.