Dragons of the Valley (22 page)

Fenworth looked sharply where Tipper pointed. “Oh my! I don’t like that color. Hold him, Tipper. He’ll recover more quickly in your hands.”

She hoisted herself onto the raft and cradled Rayn in her arms.

The wizard pointed at Hollee. “I’m going to need preparations from my hollows.”

He stood and took off his robe. Stepping onto the shore, he spread his cloak inside out over some bushes. “Librettowit, she’s going to need your help identifying the objects I call for.”

Librettowit waded to the shore with Hollee. Fenworth came back to his patient and took up his position at Bealomondore’s head. He turned the
tumanhofer’s neck so that his mouth pointed to the side of the raft. “Wit, I need that thingamajig for air in, water out.”

The librarian nodded and murmured something to Hollee. She dove into one hollow as he reached in another.

“Tipper, I need you to hold his chin this way. But stay clear of his mouth. Our friend has swallowed some of the river.” Fenworth tapped his patient’s stomach. “Maxon, jump and land with both feet right here.”

The kimen did as he was told.

“Once more,” said Fenworth.

The second pounce produced the contents of Bealomondore’s stomach. With a glare from Fenworth, the mess congealed and wiggled off the boards of the raft.

“Good, good. Now to get the water out of his lungs and some air in.” He gestured to Librettowit.

The librarian pulled his hand out of a hollow with a contraption of two oval bulbs with four dangling tubes.

“Right on top, Fen. You haven’t used it lately, have you?”

“No, not at all. Maxon, would you be good enough to carry things to and fro?”

Maxon raced to Librettowit and back.

Tipper sat on her heels and watched the wizard. Soon he had two tubes thrust into Bealomondore’s mouth and one hanging over the edge of the raft. The two bulbs he held in his hands. He pumped the flexible orbs with his fingers. Water dripped into the river through one of the small hoses from his patient’s mouth. Bealomondore’s chest rose and sank.

“Very satisfactory,” muttered the wizard. “Now a good cough or two, young man. That would help.”

Maxon coughed.

Fenworth laughed. “Not you. Our patient.”

The unconscious tumanhofer coughed.

“Very obliging,” said Fenworth and pulled his equipment out, handing it to Maxon. “Take that back to Librettowit. He’ll know how to clean it.” He hollered over the departing kimen. “Wit, I need some admitriol ointment.”

Fenworth pointed to a bluish smudge on Bealomondore’s temple. “The thumb here and four more bruises coming up along the back of his head, under his hair. The Grawl has a powerful grip. Tut, tut. Could use it in more constructive endeavors. Oh dear, the folly of men.”

With gentle movements, he felt the scalp and then ran fingers down Bealomondore’s neck. “He’s going to have quite a headache. He’s got these five indentations around his noggin. The bone is shattered but not pushed in too deeply. His brain is all right, no damage to his thinking. Nasty headache, very nasty I should think. And The Grawl jarred his neck muscles in quite a beastly manner.”

Tipper relaxed. Fenworth had called Bealomondore’s head a noggin. No nonsense had come out of the old man’s mouth since he first started working on their friend.
Noggin
meant the wizard was hopeful.
Muscles jarred in a beastly manner
referred to that creature, The Grawl. A pun of sorts. Obviously the seriousness of the injury was no longer an issue that quelled Fenworth’s fantastic flamboyance. Bealomondore would be all right.

“Tipper, rub this ointment very gently on the bluish spots.” He handed her the glass jar Maxon had brought from Librettowit. “And give me your dragon. I can’t stand that awful color for another moment.”

The wizard got up and traded places with Tipper. She knelt beside Bealomondore’s head and unscrewed the jar lid.

“Phew! Are you sure this goo is still good, Wizard Fenworth? It smells like it turned.”

“Turned? Confound it, girl, it smells like the admit root it comes from. Admitriol is supposed to stink, or it wouldn’t do any good. The
ointment will foster the healing of all those shattered vessels carrying blood, and the smell should bring our patient around. When he starts complaining that he can’t breathe through the stench, we’ll know he’s out of the woods.”

Fenworth stroked Rayn’s back. Tipper divided her attention between smoothing the smelly medicine onto Bealomondore’s battered head and watching the wizard work with her dragon.

“Librettowit, Hollee,” he called, “look for tincture of trussell. I shall need two types of torleo, the red and the blue. Of course there is the yellow, but that is for aching feet, and our patient isn’t awake to tell us the state of his feet. And Librettowit, didn’t we pack croomulite? Yes, yes, I’m sure we did. See if you can’t find that as well.”

The Grawl advanced through the forest with as much stealth as usual, but he had tuned out his awareness of his surroundings. Images of the old man plagued him. The sword had sprung from the ground of its own accord. No, the wizard had seized the sword with his magic.

Where had he come from? He hadn’t been with the others when The Grawl watched their clumsy escape from the boat stop. He hadn’t shown up to aid in the fight against the attackers. This morning The Grawl had not bothered to check on the progress of the emerlindian’s lost comrades.

To be taken by surprise was humiliating. To be vanquished by mere words was unthinkable.

Something about the authority in the old man’s voice had sent a tremor of terror coursing through his veins. Now that he was out of the o’rant wizard’s sight, it seemed implausible that he, The Grawl, had reacted so.

There hadn’t really been fire in the wizard’s eyes. The air around
them had not turned frigid. The Grawl had not felt panic, no sensation of being trapped, no quailing before a person of greater force than himself. It was all nonsense.

Before, he’d been content to allow the old man to exist.

Now, The Grawl would subdue this wizard.

But first he would go home. His arsenal would provide him with the edge he needed.

He stopped in a clearing no more than six feet across. From a state of complete stillness, he tested his surroundings. What animals hid in the vicinity? What animals had passed this way recently? What could threaten his secret? Nothing.

The Grawl used a thumb and forefinger to pull an object from his inside pocket and then placed the flat box of silver in the palm of his hand. He stroked it, smiling at its beauty, at the secret.

He banished every movement, every thought, even the pleasure he enjoyed as the device beckoned him to use it. He once more took stock of his surroundings, checked for intruders, and derived satisfaction from knowing he was alone except for the base animals of the woods.

He opened the silver box like a book. From its center, a flood of lights in strings poured over the edges, pooled on the leaf-covered ground, then began to grow upward. A framework became visible, a large archway. The lights played around the exterior while the image of the other side of the small clearing shimmered as if The Grawl looked through pebbled glass.

When the structure stabilized, no longer stretching and no longer swaying, The Grawl closed the box and tossed it through the center. It did not land on the other side among the leaves. Without hesitation, The Grawl walked forward, straight through his gateway.

On the other side, he stood in an enclosed garden, one barricaded with an eight-foot wall all around. He leaned over and picked up the silver box, opened it, and waited for the structure he’d just unleashed to dissipate.
The same strings of light that had poured out of the device now flowed in. When the silver enclosed the last vestige of his secret, he shut the lid, savoring the sound of the click that secured his special prize.

Nighttime, always nighttime, when he arrived home. He strode to the locked entry to this secluded area of his estate. Again he listened, and again he heard nothing to interfere with his progress. He didn’t go through the wooden door but leaped with a single action to the top of the brick wall. He dropped soundlessly to the other side, then strolled through the formal paths of a manicured garden to a two-story mansion. He slipped behind a hedge to a corner where a tower rose another story over the rest of the building. Scaling the network of oubotis ivy, he entered a window at the top.

He immediately pulled on the servants’ bell.

A tinny voice responded. “Yes sir?”

“A bath in my bedroom and a meal.”

“Yes sir.”

The Grawl trod the circular stairs without a sound. He entered his chambers and removed his soiled clothes in a dressing room lined with elegant clothing of silks and brocades. He heard the servants deliver the tub, then fill it with hot water. When they had retreated, he walked into the room and lowered his body into water too hot for any other creature to tolerate. He leaned his massive back against the side of the tub and allowed himself to relax.

He would look at his beautiful things, wear the fancy clothes, deposit his ill-gotten gains in the vault in the cellar, and perhaps spend some time stacking coins of gold. He would contemplate the control he had over this domain. He’d allow the pleasure of knowing that his strength grew greater with every gold coin he acquired, with every piece of art. He ruled here as well as in the woods. Two distinct worlds. One Grawl.

Then he would return to the forest in Chiril and kill a wizard.

Groddenmitersay sat across the room from Verrin Schope and his lovely wife, Lady Peg. A merchant couple had joined them for dinner that night, and the tumanhofer commander of Odidoddex’s tactical force wanted to hear the conversation. Unfortunately, no empty spaces existed at a table nearby.

Kulson entered the room, and most people glanced up to watch the bisonbeck stroll over to the bar. He ordered food, and when the tender served him, he picked up his plate and brought it to Groddenmitersay’s table. He hesitated.

“Go ahead and sit,” Groddenmitersay said. “Everyone has figured out that we do business together. Let’s hope none have figured out what that business is.”

Kulson sat and shoveled a large spoonful of stew into his mouth before he spoke. “Now that The Grawl isn’t with us, they don’t pay as much attention to what we’re doing.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Kulson paused for a moment to look up at his superior. Groddenmitersay knew exactly what he was thinking. The bisonbeck wondered if the statement indicated that he and his men had neglected some duty.

They hadn’t, but they failed to see what was right before their eyes. Groddenmitersay glanced over at Verrin Schope’s table and then to the grand parrot, who sat on a perch the innkeeper kept at the bar just for his distinguished guest.

The captain followed his gaze, obviously unaware of the significance of
these people. He went back to eating, perhaps chewing on a new idea as he ground beef and cabbage into pulp with his overlarge teeth.

The commander sighed. “Lady Peg’s father is King Yellat. Her husband is a genius, both artistically and in the sciences. Sir Beccaroon is a magistrate from the Indigo Forest. He is also a friend of Verrin Schope, even though they pretend not to be acquainted. If you would
read
the reports we send you, you would be more aware of the societal structure in Chiril.”

Frustration crossed the soldier’s face. He masked it fairly well, but Groddenmitersay knew the man did not enjoy dry reading. And he had no one in his unit who could intelligently read and summarize the reports.

Kulson despised The Grawl. Therefore, Kulson had been relieved when Groddenmitersay sent The Grawl away. The speatus had no idea that the beast was perhaps the most intelligent of all of Odidoddex’s agents. Groddenmitersay appreciated his intelligence and regarded this tool of war as a volatile entity. Few knew enough about the beast to realize his complexity. No one felt comfortable, not even the commander, in his presence.

“Schope and the bird talk to each other,” Kulson said around a mouthful of food, “but they made it look like they met for the first time here.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure they did. But that is what alerts us to the fact that they are not … Rather, what they appear to be doing is merely a cover for what they are really doing.”

Kulson stopped chewing for a moment, then resumed. Groddenmitersay fought the urge to sigh again. Loudly. Pointedly. The man wouldn’t pick up the cues in any way.

“What does Verrin Schope do?” he asked, hoping to lead his captain carefully to a logical conclusion.

“He paints pictures.”

Before the bisonbeck could load his spoon again, Groddenmitersay fired off another question. “What does he do with the pictures?”

“He sends them to a shop in Ragar.”

“In Ragar? The capital? Where the Amber Palace is?”

Kulson hesitated, then nodded.

“And the king lives in the castle, and the king is his father-in-law, and the king is interested in what we are doing in his country.”