DragonQuest (9 page)

         
15
         

T
HE
C
OMPANY
A
SSEMBLES

The guests did not arrive that evening, which meant the cakes could not be eaten. Fenworth finally relented and cut one cake into nine small pieces. The eighth piece was shared by Metta and Gymn. The ninth piece was given to a big blackbird named Thorpendipity, who landed on the windowsill when Fenworth whistled.

Toopka went to bed grumbling over the cakes going stale and woke up with a bad stomachache. A second cake had disappeared during the night, with only a few crumbs left to testify to its former existence. Those crumbs dotted Toopka’s bed covers.

The only ones awake to witness the little doneel’s suffering were Dar, Kale, and the minor dragons. Dar shook his head and put a small copper teakettle on the old stove.

“We’ll scold you,” Kale said, “after you’re well enough to listen. I’ve got something Granny Noon gave me. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I won’t
ever
eat a whole cake again,” promised Toopka. “I won’t
ever
eat
anything
again.”

Gymn curled up on Toopka’s shoulder while Kale fetched the moonbeam cape and spread it out on the kitchen table. She reached into a hollow and handed a packet of dried, pink leaves to Dar to brew.

“Something is wrong,” she muttered, running a hand over the front pockets. Six of them held unhatched dragon eggs.

Toopka groaned loudly. Kale ignored her and took out the eggs, one by one, placing them carefully on the inside folds of the cape. The sight of the eggs struck awe in Kale’s heart. Paladin had charged her to tend the unborn dragons and raise them once hatched. She’d even been called the Dragon Keeper. The responsibility seemed too enormous for a former slave girl.

The fourth pocket held a stone, not an egg. When Kale saw the irregular shape and dark gray color, she dropped the offending rock on the table and moved on to the last two pockets. In only a few seconds, Kale looked with dismay at the row of eggs. She had five dragon eggs and one smooth stone.

Toopka’s groaning subsided to a whimper.

Dar came to stand beside Kale, putting a comforting hand on her stiff arm. “Nothing can be stolen from a moonbeam cape. Did you move the egg?”

Kale shook her head slowly.

“Then the only way it could have been taken is if you allowed someone to ride within the cape, and that someone took the egg.”

Toopka’s noise ended abruptly.

Dar and Kale both turned to look at the forlorn figure huddled beneath a light blanket in her hammock.

Kale took a step toward the doneel child. The little girl’s ears perked upright on top of her furry head, and she dove beneath the covers.

“Toopka and I,” said Kale as she continued walking, Dar beside her, “went for a walk several days ago. It began to rain, and Toopka rode back under my cape.”

Dar put his hand on the blanket and tugged, but Toopka held fast from underneath.

“I’m sick,” she wailed.

Dar growled. “Because you got up in the middle of the night and stole a whole cake, it seems you are still a common street thief.”

“I didn’t steal the egg.” The muffled protest quivered.

“Then where is it?”

“I just wanted to see a baby dragon hatch. I didn’t mean any harm.”

Kale patted the trembling hump of blanket. “The egg has to quicken before it begins the hatching process.”

Toopka’s eyes appeared at the edge of the covering. They were big and full of wonder. “It quickened.”

Kale stifled a moan. Paladin had trusted her with the eggs. If this egg quickened under the warmth of Toopka’s body, who would the egg bond to? Kale could only imagine the kind of mischief Toopka and a young dragon could instigate.

Dreading the answer, Kale asked, “Who quickened the egg, Toopka?”

“You did.”

“Me?”

“Yes, it’s under your pillow.”

With a flutter of leathery wings, Gymn and Metta raced out of the room.

Toopka sniffed and ducked her head. “I thought you’d be mad at me if I held it until it quickened. I was right, wasn’t I? But you’re mad anyway, so I guess all that figuring out how to do it without getting into trouble didn’t work. I won’t bother figuring next time.”

“There better not be a next time,” warned Kale. “Why didn’t I feel the egg?”

“Because I put it under your pillow after you went to sleep and took it out before you woke up. Only last night, when I came back in here, I saw the cakes on the counter, and I was just going to have one piece, but it was so good.”

“And this morning,” said Dar with a shake of his finger, “you were too sick to retrieve the egg.”

The chittering of excited minor dragons interrupted Dar’s lecture. Gymn entered the room doing aerobatics accompanied by wild, shrill whistles. Metta followed more sedately. Her wings whooshed the air in a steady rhythm. Between her front legs she held the missing egg.

Kale stretched out a hand. Metta landed on her wrist and placed the egg in her upturned palm. For a moment the egg lay cool against her skin, then it began to warm. A slight tingle raced up Kale’s arm, and in her hand, the egg began a gentle thrum.

Metta scampered to Kale’s shoulder, singing a song of joy in her soft, cooing voice.

Kale smiled.
Yes, the egg has quickened. And it already connects to me. I can feel its life.

She rummaged through a hollow in her cape and came up with the same red pouch Mistress Meiger had given her to carry the first dragon egg she’d found. She slipped the egg into the safety of the soft cloth and hung it around her neck by the leather thong. She tucked it under her blouse.

“Attention! Attention!” Wizard Fenworth’s voice boomed from behind his bedroom door. “Does no one around here pay attention to details? We could be surrounded by the enemy, overwhelmed by evil, blasted to smithereens by ravagers of utmost depravity. Attention to your surroundings, that’s what’s needed. We could be undone!”

Bardon, Regidor, and Librettowit barreled into the room from one of the corridors just as Fenworth’s door banged open.

A frisson of apprehension raised bumps on Kale’s arms and shivered her spine. She looked around the room at the faces of her companions. Bardon glared, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Librettowit looked annoyed. Regidor had a silly grin on his face. Dar scowled, and Toopka dove beneath the covers again.

A knock brought all eyes to the massive front door.

“See?” Fenworth whispered. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Bardon drew his sword and approached from one side of the room as Dar armed himself with two bejeweled daggers and came at the door from the other side.

Kale reached with her mind to discern who stood on the other side. She gave an exclamation of surprise. “It’s Leetu Bends and Lee Ark!”

Librettowit threw the old wizard a look of disgust.

Fenworth bristled, shaking his robes around him and clasping his beard. “I never said the enemy was here. I merely noted that no one was on guard. Our guests have arrived, and they very well could have been a troop of bisonbecks. Intentional attention to detail is essential in all quests. All quests at all times!” He raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at the occupants of his common room. “Someone open the door.”

Librettowit stomped across the wood floor and threw open the door.

“Greetings,” he said and promptly stepped aside to allow the two soldiers of Paladin’s forces to come in.

Lee Ark entered the room with Leetu following. His brown uniform covered a short, bulky body typical of the marione race. His forthright stride proclaimed power of muscle and confidence in leadership.

Leetu’s slight feminine form was likewise clothed in the earth tones of Paladin’s army. Kale hoped she would have the chance for a long talk with the young woman who had guided her through the initial stages of her last quest. She counted Leetu as a real friend.

I’m glad you’re here.
Kale spoke directly to Leetu’s mind.

Without an outward flicker of acknowledgment, the emerlindian answered.
“Friend, we have another adventure ahead of us. Paladin issued a call for warriors and for you in particular.”

Kale nodded and carefully watched her comrades from the previous quest.

Both the officers were of the same height, yet Lee Ark embodied tension and a lethal force waiting to be unleashed. Leetu displayed grace and tranquility.

They answered Bardon’s salute with a tap of a fist to the chest, Lee Ark’s sharp and Leetu’s casual.

“Welcome to my castle.” Wizard Fenworth stepped forward and clasped both of Lee Ark’s arms at the elbows. Lee Ark grasped the wizard’s lean forearms.

“I bring urgent news,” he said.

Fenworth nodded. “Yes, yes. Urgent, deadly, insidious. The world is in peril, and we must rise against evil.” The old wizard released the general and patted him on the shoulder. “Tea and cake first, don’t you think?”

         
16
         

W
IZARDRY
L
ESSON
T
WO

“Now, the universe, children, is made entirely out of three things.” Fenworth dusted crumbs from his beard and dislodged a lizard. The creature grabbed a chunk of leftover dessert and darted under the wizard’s chair. Ignoring the skittering reptile, Fenworth looked around the table where the members of the quest had assembled for tea and cake.

“Three things so small that they cannot be seen by the eye of anyone but Wulder.”

Librettowit nodded in agreement and sipped his tea.

The wizard closed one eye and stared with the other at a point above the empty cake platter. A cloud of green mist formed, hovering over the middle of the large wooden table. Its color faded to white, and then an image became clear as wisps of cloud drifted away.

Kale watched the translucent, three-dimensional picture of a bowl tilt slightly so they could all see the creamy batter within.

“Harrumph.” Fenworth cleared his throat and patted his beard. “This is batter for pancakes.”

Toopka licked her lips.

“Add three eggs,” said Fenworth. Three eggs floated into the image, tapped on the side of the bowl, and emptied with a plop, plop, plop into the batter. The shells disappeared. A wooden spoon stirred. “And now you have batter for crepes.”

The spoon lifted and thin batter dripped into the bowl.

“Add flour,” said Fenworth. Two glass cups of flour appeared over the bowl and dumped their white powdery contents into the batter. The spoon stirred. “And you have cake batter. Add more, and you have dough for daggarts.” Another measuring cup came barreling out of nowhere and jettisoned flour into the bowl. The moment the glass cup was empty, it shattered, but the smithereens vanished into nothing.

Fenworth cleared his throat. “You see how changing the amounts of the ingredients changes the substance?”

Kale nodded her head but had no idea how this related to the three very small things Fenworth said made everything in the universe.

“Wulder took three ingredients and made the world,” continued the wizard. “Of course, He also created the three ingredients. One is ozoic, the second is azoic, and the third is ezoic.”

The picture above them changed to three round dots, one red, one blue, and the other white.

“In the first element we will examine, we have one ozoic and one azoic.”

The bowl reappeared, and the red dot and blue dot fell into it much as the eggs had.

Except he didn’t crack them on the edge.
Kale suppressed a giggle.

“Don’t let your mind wander, Kale,”
the wizard’s voice entered her thoughts, reprimanding her.

Yes sir.

The bowl disappeared, leaving the two colored dots suspended in midair, clinging to one another. The white dot circled the pair.

Librettowit looked up from his mug. “A simple substance. Same three ingredients which make up all substances, only in different combinations. A wizard, with the right knowledge, can call together ozoics, azoics, and ezoics.”

Fenworth harrumphed and glared at the librarian. “My lecture, I believe, Wit.” He patted his beard and a slew of dots shot out from the grizzly curls to join the picture above the table.

“When a
wizard,
” Fenworth cocked an eyebrow at Librettowit and continued, “places these zoics in close proximity with each other, they assume the positions that Wulder has ordained and become the substance they are meant to be.”

Dar slurped his tea and ignored Leetu’s frown at his manners. “Only Wulder can create the primary ingredients.”

“Of course!” The wizard nodded. “And they can only be combined in a mode prescribed by Wulder. A wizard is only as great as his understanding of the complexity of Wulder’s established order. Within those parameters, a wizard can do almost anything.”

He heaved a melancholy sigh and shook his head. His shoulders drooped. His gaze lowered from the busy image hanging over the table to the empty plates and scattered crumbs.

“Where Risto and his comrades have gone astray,” Fenworth said, “is in the belief that they can create primary ingredients. And that they have no need of following Wulder’s dictums.”

Kale forgot the swirling dots above the table and eyed the wizard.
He looks old—and tired—and so very sad. Is he sorry for Risto? No, that couldn’t be. He’s mourning for all those who have lost loved ones at Risto’s hand. He’s sorry for the pain Risto has inflicted on others. He can’t be sorry for Risto.

Fenworth shrugged. As he looked back at his picture hanging above the table, his expression brightened, and he clapped his hands.

“It’s gone,” said Toopka.

“No, little one. I’ve replaced the illusion with reality. Now, in its natural size, only the eye of Wulder can behold it. But wait, I am adding to it.”

Over the table a gleam of light reflected off a narrow strip of metal that had not been there seconds before. The metal expanded and took shape.

Toopka clapped her hands and bounced in her chair. “A blade!”

“Yes,” said Fenworth. “All made from the same configuration of zoics you observed before. Then you couldn’t see them because they were small. Now there are so many of them you can see the form I have created. I will add other configurations to make the hilt.”

No sooner had he spoken his intention than a dark mass began to form at the blunt end of the shining sword. A hilt took shape with gold swirls embedded in a leather grip and a large ruby at the pommel. A gold emblem of Paladin’s army shone on the crossguard.

Fenworth reached up and plucked the sword from the air. He presented the sword to Bardon, but Bardon did not raise his hands to take it.

With his eyes fixed firmly on the magnificent sword, the lehman said, “I cannot, sir. It is a knight’s sword, and I have not earned the right to carry it.”

“You will need it on the quest.”

Kale held her breath.
Fenworth’s giving Bardon permission to take the sword. Should he take it? Will he?

Bardon squared his shoulders and stood from the table. “It would not serve me if I carried it under false pretenses.”

“Aye,” concurred Lee Ark. “Paladin will provide him with the appropriate weapon should the need arise. The boy does well not to take the offering.”

Kale saw the approval in the general’s face and hoped Bardon saw it too. But when she reached with her mind to tell him,
Good job,
she was met by a swirling mass of dark emotions. She backed off, and her glance swept around the table. Tension visibly stiffened the postures of her comrades. Everyone waited. All eyes watched the wizard and the young lehman.

Fenworth ignored Lee Ark’s interruption and continued to watch Bardon’s stonelike expression. Only the lehman’s eyes hungered for the sword.

“You desire the sword just as you desire knighthood.”

“Yes,” said Bardon.

The sword shrank until it fit in the palm of the wizard’s hand. He tucked it in a pocket of his voluminous robes. “I shall keep it for you.”

“I’ll not be a knight, Wizard Fenworth. Grand Ebeck said as much at our last meeting.”

“Really?” The wizard turned to stare at Librettowit. “Oh dear, tut-tut. No, I don’t think you have that right. Oh dear, no, no, not right at all.”

He clapped his hands together and rubbed them with enthusiasm. He moved around the table to slap one firm hand on Regidor’s shoulder and reached for Kale’s. She braced herself against the strength of the blow and even then bent under the wizard’s heavy hand.

One minute I think he’s a doddering ancient, and the next I think he could beat Brunstetter at arm wrestling.

“Right you are, Kale, my dear. I am indeed a doddering wrestler of many weighty things. Not Brunstetter, I think not Brunstetter.”

He squeezed his fingers into her shoulder and beamed at his two apprentices. “Now that your lesson on elementary wizardry is firmly established in your minds, shall we proceed with our quest?”

“No!” shouted Librettowit. “We must organize, gather pertinent data, assign responsibilities.”

Fenworth looked astonished. “But Librettowit, that is what I have just done.”

“Only in your mind, Fenworth.”

“No, no, Wit. Didn’t I just explain that until one masters certain knowledge one must content oneself with being a follower and not a leader? I carefully explained the complexity of what must be learned and that such knowledge is attainable.”

“Only in your mind, Fenworth.”

The wizard looked confused, but before he could voice an objection, the librarian pressed on. “We now have seven comrades, two children, two minor dragons, and an unhatched third, and four major dragons to consider.”

“Four?” Fenworth wrinkled his brow.

“Celisse, Merlander, and the two dragons ridden by Lee Ark and Leetu,” Librettowit explained. “And that reminds me, Lee Ark has information of import.” A hopeful tone slipped into the tumanhofer’s speech. “Perhaps his message will put off the quest to Creemoor.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Lee Ark.

All eyes turned to him. He stood and placed his fists upon the table.

“Paladin has given us a rescue mission. Our goal is to pull a longtime friend out of Burner Stox’s clutches. Until recently this devoted o’rant was relatively safe within Risto’s stronghold.” He paused, and his gaze shifted to Kale. “Your mother is in danger, Kale. She has one more task to perform for Paladin, and we are to be at hand when it is completed. We will then bring her out of Creemoor to safety.”

Kale’s breath carried a quiet question. “My mother?”

Lee Ark nodded. Kale turned to look at Dar. He gave her a gentle smile and a reassuring wink. She then looked to Leetu. The emerlindian’s eyes held a sparkle of joy in her otherwise serene expression.

But a question marred Kale’s anticipation. It hung in her mind like a black thunderhead.
Who is this “mother” who left her child in slavery?