Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3) (5 page)

“What has he got in mind?” I asked. “Gathering signatures? Organizing a hunger strike? Maybe a sit-down protest?”

“He was thinking a judicial duel.”

“He’s a red mage! I’m just a grey mage! He’s like a thousand times more powerful.”

“He could ask one of his old apprentices to challenge you. Have you met Jocasta Lissesul? She’s only one rank ahead of you.”

Damn. “That’s right, black mages can battle grey ones.”

“She’d be fighting under a handicap, but she’d still be more than a match.”

“I could insist on trial of arms,” I said. “I feel pretty good about my swordwork.”

“He’d only ask Lord Czeleborn. Remember my ex-fiancé? The best swordsman in the land?”

“He doesn’t always join the tournaments, but he always wins first place when he does,”

Heronimo said.

Damn damn damn. I stood up.

“Where are you going?” Mina asked.

“I had a burger that was a bit too greasy.”

Chapter 5

The restroom was clean and bright. As one of the newest restaurants in Corinthe, Biggo’s had all of the latest conveniences. That included constant-flow toilets.

Elves are no stranger to plumbing, of course. Our earliest cities had sophisticated sewer systems.

During the lowest point of the Dragon Wars our entire race took refuge in Deepwood. There were so many of us crowded into that forest that sanitation became vital to our survival. Many of our cleaning spells and architectural practices originate from that period.

The dwarven toilets were something else though. I won’t go into details but the waste matter was subjected to high heat, then spray-dried. The result was a dense, sterile powder that I’m told makes a great heating fuel. Apparently the dwarves use the same process to make dehydrated coffee.

So there I was, on my royal throne, listening to the toilets recirculating. It sounded like a dozen gurgling streams. I was also playing sparrow solitaire in my head. I was losing, but that’s how you know you’ve shuffled the tiles.

Someone knocked on my stall. “Heeey, man. You want some fairy dust?”

I said nothing.

“Cut you a good deal on some Lamemhessian marching powder, if you know what I mean,” he said.

“This is a family restaurant,” I said. “Really appreciate if you’d take it somewhere else.”

“Oh yeah?” I could hear the sneer through the door. “And what will you do?” he asked.

“I know the manager,” I said.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

What the hell. “I also know Prince Veneanar.”

He laughed. “That
fop?
What could he do?”

Fop? “Listen here, boy, I’ll not have you disrespect our lord and soon-to-be king.”

“Soon-to-be? I wouldn’t put money on it.”

“Now look here—” There was a rumble. The kid snickered.

“That wasn’t me,” I said. There was another rumble deep in the plumbing. The vibrations were growing stronger. I activated my Sight and the bathroom stalls turned transparent. So did the walls and ceiling. The punk’s aura was lit up like an elf’s. Probably a half-elf, considering his occupation. The toilets were set into the wall. The pipes behind it were glowing bright.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

Bloosh!
The toilet on the far end became a fountain, spraying the ceiling with clear, high-pressure water.
Boom.
The toilet slammed into the stall door.
Bloosh!
The next toilet became a fountain.

“Oh, fuck,” I said. I clapped to activate the cleaning spell but I couldn’t get my mind around the specifics.

Boom.
The second toilet smashed into its stall door, wrenched off the wall by the force of the jet.

Bloosh!
The next toilet became a fountain.

“Come one, come on,” I said, clapping like a madman. Sparks flew from my silver hand but I couldn’t manage the spell. It was as complex as teleportation because it
was
teleportation, applied to skin surfaces. Was I going to have to run for it?

Bloosh! Boom. Bloosh! Boom. Bloosh! Boom.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I said.

“Are you doing this?” the dealer asked, panic in his voice. “How are you doing this?”

“Run, you idiot!” I said. The toilets kept jetting and exploding, jetting and exploding.

“I’m sorry! I’ll never come here again!”

I completed the spell. Maybe a little too thoroughly—the hair on my arms disappeared. I pulled up my pants and burst out of the stall.

The punk
was
a half-elf. He couldn’t have been over fifty, which meant he was too young to drink, let alone snort anything. He stood, shocked, as the jets of water became searching tendrils.

“Run!” I said. I grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him past the glass-brick wall.
Boom.
The last toilet exploded. We ran out the exit, an enchanted wave chasing after us.

Diners gaped. A waiter froze, tray in hand, and I grabbed a wineglass as we rushed past. We reached my table and my friends leaped to their feet.

“What is it?” Mina asked. “Who is that?”

“An innocent bystander,” I said, letting him go. “Get out of here, kid.”

“You’re Prince Veneanar,” he said.

“I guess I am. Why else would this keep happening to me?”

I emptied the wineglass in one gulp, then turned to face the Sending. The mass of water had taken the shape of a man. Someone I hadn’t seen since he was a boy.

“Is that you, Conrad?” I said.

“I’ve very sorry about this,” Conrad said.

We stood in the ruined bathroom. Water dripped from the ceilings. The last toilet had been catapulted so hard it was embedded in the glass bricks. There was no smell, for which we can thank dwarven engineering and elven magic.

The real Conrad was far away, of course. This was just an illusion of water and light. Wherever Conrad was, he was being attended by at least one elf with an affinity for this kind of magic.

“You’re calling from all the way in the Northlands?” Meerwen asked. “That’s impressive.”

“Let’s focus on how I almost got a surprise enema,” I said. “A
surprise enema
. Would a postcard not have been enough?”

“There’s a monster in the Northlands. It’s killed a hundred innocent people and none of the humans have been able to kill it,” Conrad said. “Garvel, chieftain of chieftains, has issued a call to all men of rank.”

“Didn’t we send Heronimo and Cruix to meet with him?” I asked.

“He remembers you,” Conrad said. “I expect his own message will be arriving shortly. He sent it by fastest ship.”

“So he wants our help. He has it.”

“There’s something else, though. Garvel is offering a chieftainship as a prize. It comes with some land.”

He named a figure and I whistled. “That’s a good bit of real estate,” I said. “Enough to start your own country.”

“Exactly. I’ll be joining in myself, which is why I called.”

“What do you need?” Mina asked.

“Later. Garvel has already sent heavily-armed groups to slay the beast. None have returned. He’s opened the hunt to non-humans because he needs elven firepower, or similar.”

I grinned. “So you need elven firepower.”

“Or similar,” Mina said. “I think we can work something out.”

Conrad flickered. “Assuming I win the chieftainship.”

“What kind of monster is it?” Cruix asked.

The Conrad-shaped water column turned to him. “Some kind of wyvern, judging from footprints.

But bigger. Much bigger.”

“Another throwback?” Heronimo asked.

He meant a wyvern with a dragon in its ancestry. Such wyverns were extremely dangerous, their atavisms making them bigger, smarter, and more magical than regular wyverns.

“Could be,” Conrad said.

Damn. I’d encountered exactly two of them and they’d almost killed me.

“We’ll be there,” I said. “But I’d like to say one last thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Surprise enema!”

Humans were a tough crowd, but they had none of the explosive firepower that the other races could bring, one way or another. It was like the difference between a shower of arrows and the same weight in catapult stones. The arrows could darken the sky, sure, but against something as powerful as a wyvern you needed something with more punch.

Old Garvel might have been able to hire foreign mercenaries and adventurers—if there weren’t laws forbidding elven wizards from setting foot in the Northlands. Under most circumstances bringing so much as a single grey mage into human territory would have been an act of war.

That’s why the tournament-style invitation. He didn’t want me because I was a prince, but because I was a mage and a wyvern hunter. He sent for dwarves and caprans as well, but the whole thing was a cover for me to kill the monster.

Packing was surprisingly headache-free. Like I said, my friends and I tour the country, trying to help people as part of our campaigning. We visit towns big and small, raising mone for public works. Sometimes I get to build a bridge and sometimes I have to hunt a wyvern.

It’s great when we arrive in time for a local festival, because then I get to party and call it work. A little music, some local wine, and a woman or three… that’s my kind of politicking.