Dragon Talker (3 page)

“Yes,” Tassaran added, between taking and eating large slices of the roasted chicken in front of him, “where is Peteara? This place is a bore without him.”

“He’s dead.”

Silence filled the room. Winderall dropped his apple with a thud. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

“If you don’t know, how do you know he is dead?” Tassaran asked and went back to eating.

“He’s my brother, you idiot, and I am a mage. You had best refrain from asking me any further stupid questions, lest you provoke me.” Perante paused, added a soothing presence to his voice, and continued, “enjoy the chicken, my fat friend, and allow me to continue.” The quieter voice carried twice as much menace as his raised voice, sending a small chill through the room.

Tassaran’s eyes narrowed at the reference to his bulk, but he knew enough not to push his host. His dog tensed at his side, watching Perante closely, though he still drooled. Xeron, the one among them who, while not the most powerful, was one of the most dangerous due to his ability to focus intensely on whatever was at hand, cut to the point, “Where did it happen and how do you plan on responding?”

“It happened in Mandan, and I plan on sending in spies. I need to know what is so special about that valley. Why did a dragon claim it? After that, I plan on killing everyone involved in my brother’s death... and everyone who knows someone who was involved in my brother’s death.”

Falanar’s brow deepened. “Is that really necessary?”

Perante smiled coldly, “It may be, if the valley is important. If it isn’t, it will be my brother’s memorial.”

Falanar didn’t hide his distaste, but he kept his tone light, as if what Perante said was the equivalent of throwing a few peasants into a dungeon. “You can get away with it, of course, but it does make it harder for the rest of us, this wiping out of entire villages. Causes hard feelings in addition to all that fear.”

“This is what I don’t get: why this valley?” Xeron continued, ignoring Falanar’s words. “The world is full of valleys. By all accounts, not only is this one not special, if you dig past planting soil, the water isn’t even drinkable. Everyone there has to use the stream, keeping sections open all winter.”

Tassaran added, “Its dragon barely seems to give it a second thought…Is there any more chicken?”

Perante snapped his fingers, waving a servant off to get more chicken. His dogs jumped up at the sound but returned to sleep when they realized he didn’t want their attention. Perante put one more stone on the scale in his mind that decided if it was more trouble for Tassaran to live or to die. The weight did not shift in Tassaran’s favor.

Perante returned his focus to the topic at hand as Xeron keep digging. “A low water table makes mining damn near impossible, so gold and silver are pretty much out, except for whatever trickles down the stream. Crops are okay in the valley, but it’s no Ogden.” Falanar looked up at the mention on village, proud of Ogden’s reputation as a fertile valley, even though that reputation sometimes came at the cost of aggressive neighbors. “Special plants?”

“What?” Tassaran asked as he looked around, searching for the servant who would be returning with more chicken. “Like dill?”

“Special plants, not cooking herbs, you idiot.” Xeron had little use for Tassaran and did not like being interrupted.

“Scrambled eggs, with dill, are special,” Tassaran countered.

He ignored Tassaran’s reply. “Is there something that grows there that is valuable? Yancy root, matterine berries? A field of either one of those and you could set up some pretty powerful magic.”

“The people?” Winderall chimed in. “I’ve heard of more than one village that they thought they had some special value because of some ridiculous story its dragon talker told them. Usually, that special ability was to be stupid, but one time I did see a village, Lindameer, where just about every man was as strong as an ox. Their dragon has something on its mind, no doubt.”

Tassaran interjected, “Remember that dragon, Venata, that gave everyone in the village the power to read each other’s minds? Everybody dead within two weeks, murdering each other. Humor or intention? And seriously,” he said raising his voice, “can I get some more chicken?”

“Can you shed any light on this?” Xeron asked Perante.

“Very little. There doesn’t appear to be anything special about this village at all.”

“What about the dragon?” Xeron was intent on finding at least one fact to give them a place to start.

Perante moved another stone on the scales in his mind, this one adding to the value of Xeron’s life, with a stone to add to his dangerousness, too. “You, Xeron, know how to ask questions. It’s blue.”

Everyone looked at Perante at the mention of the Blue.

“Reeeally,” Tassaran dragged the word out slowly, “is this confirmed?”

Perante simply stared at Tassaran in response.

Tassaran looked away, “Right, you wouldn’t say it if you didn’t know it. So they are rare. What do we know about Blues that is actually true?”

“They are cold,” from Falanar.

“Prefer the mountains,” from Tassaran.

“They are the rarest of the dragons and reclusive,” from Xeron.

Perante asked, “Winderall, you are the most travelled, what do you know of the Blues?”

Winderall thought for a moment before answering, “Blues. First, I’ve only seen two in my travels, and considering the nearness of the locations where the sighting took place, I may only have seen one. I’ve seen and categorized seventeen different Reds, eight Yellows, and six Greens. I’ve heard legends of a black dragon to the south, but never anything to substantiate that claim.”

“And what was that blue like?” This from Perante.

“Dangerous, but I couldn’t tell you why, besides its obvious size. I have never seen such a large dragon. It didn’t do anything, but I knew there was something about it that goes far beyond your regular dragon. It has power. I used every cloaking spell I know, and I could swear it saw right through them but didn’t deem me worthy of its attention.” Winderall shuddered at the memory and then raised his finger. “Once, just once, I heard an old mage talk about the blue. He was half-mad with age and abused spells, but he was convinced it would be the end of us.”

“The end of mages?” Tassaran finally stopped looking for more chicken.

“The end of it all.”

Chapter 3

After Seth dumped the fish out of the cart and brought it to the rocks, the men lifted the broken body of Yuri gently into the back of the cart. Seth looked at Lindale, “We are in deep trouble; you know that, right?”

“Definitely. First the fire, now this.” Lindale looked down at Yuri before continuing, “We are unprotected, and if a dragon didn’t burn that hut down, we are left with only one source of the fire.”

Seth squinted his eyes, as if the truth were too bright or terrible to see, answering, “Mages.”

“Damn mages.” Lindale spit. “At least with the dragon, it didn’t seem to care what we did as long as we didn’t dig any deeper than seed depth, saved it some fish, and did the odd construction project here and there. If it wants to keep something buried or get some part of the river dammed up and we don’t have any hassles, I can live with an occasional prospector getting eaten.”

Seth followed custom when talking about mages and also spit on the ground. “Mages, they always want something. Forcing the construction of that castle was bad enough; can you image what they would make us do to get something underground?”

Lindale shook his head back and forth, “I’ve heard of Caladorn - an entire village working underground so their mage can have nice shiny things. No thank you. I’m too much like a plant - can’t live without sunlight.”

Seth scratched his chin, “Like a plant, huh? Haven’t heard that one. Let’s get this boy back to the village and figure out what the hell we are going to tell them.”

“That’s easy,” Lindale replied, “the truth.”

“Yes, yes, but how much of the truth, and from which side? We need to shape this right or this village is going to fall apart. People don’t like change or the unknown. This is both.”

* * *

As the Mayor and Lindale entered the village, the entire village came out to greet them, quietly. The mayor pulling the cart made it clear that the meeting did not go well. Yuri lay covered by a blanket on the cart. His family was the first to meet them. The mayor stepped in front of Tadeus, Yuri’s father, as he ran to the cart. Blocked from getting to Yuri, Tadeus grabbed the mayor by the front of his jacket, shouting, “What happened to my boy?”

Yuri’s mother, Agardia, stood next to Tadeus, holding to their baby daughter as her other two young sons, Hental and Lared, held onto her skirt. She stood silently, dread holding her legs firmly in place. She could only stare at Lindale, accusing him without words.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Lindale answered to her silent challenge.

She continued to stare as Tadeus answered, “There is always a choice, and the one that doesn’t put our boys in harm’s …” He stopped, tears began to stream down his cheeks. Quietly, he asked again, “What happened to my boy?”

Hental, eleven years old and the next oldest boy after Yuri, let go of his mother’s skirt and started walking a wide path around the mayor, edging towards the cart. Agardia stood still, her daughter in her arms. Seeing Yuri would make it true. Frozen in place, a part of her could believe he was still alive. Hental reached the cart as the mayor answered, “He was a brave young man, stood face to face with Samora.” Agardia wasn’t listening. She was too confused by Hental’s behavior at the cart. Hental was always his own boy, reacting in ways that didn’t always match with the way a boy was expected to react, but this was too heavy an occasion for his actions to make sense to Agardia.

Hental had lifted the blanket off the wall of the cart and looked in. He shrugged his shoulders, “What’s the big deal?” Before the mayor or Lindale could answer, the gathering villages gasped as the body under the blanket began to rise. The crowd saw the back of Yuri’s head as he sat up, facing away from the crowd. Turning around, he said, “How did I get here?”

His father jumped up and ran around to the back of the cart to put his hands on his boy. Agardia felt the dread let go of her legs. She was right behind Lared, joining her family as they all began scrambling up the sides of the cart to join their older brother. Tadeus helped her climb up as one of her arms was busy holding their baby. The mayor and Lindale simply stared at each other, confused. Slowly, as the family hugged Yuri to near suffocation, Lindale and the mayor began to smile. Lindale walked closer to Yuri, speaking loudly so Yuri could hear him over the growing commotion. “What did the dragon say, Yuri, what did the dragon say?”

Between the bear hugs from his parents and the climbing of his brothers, and the noise of everyone in the village talking at once, Yuri shouted back, “Don’t die.”

Chapter 4

After their meal, as everyone began to leave, Perante motioned for Winderall to stay behind. Tassaran made sure everyone knew he was still hungry and another stone was added to the scale in Perante’s mind. Once they were alone, Perante and Winderall moved to leather chairs by the chamber’s fire. Perante ordered a servant to throw more wood onto the fire and then sent the servant away. Winderall wondered what the old man had done to become Perante’s servant.

Perante spoke in a stiff tone, “This nonsense about the end of it all needs to stop. People get stupid ideas when they think the end is near.”

Winderall looked him squarely in the eyes as he said, “I was only retelling what the old mage said.”

“I know, but stop.” Perante noticed the slight tick in Winderall’s face at his command. He knew he was getting off on the wrong foot. Winderall was too much of a wanderer for Perante to count on fear alone to comply, which was more than enough for most of the people Perante dealt with. “Consider that a suggestion. I’m going to tell you something I do not want the others to know.”

“Besides the project?” Winderall raised his head, looking at the ceiling and indicating the construction on the fourth floor.

“Of course, besides the project. If these cowards knew what I planned to do on the third floor, they would soil their pants. You, though, know the hunger for knowledge, if not power. Why else have you spent your life walking around this country instead of claiming a village for your own?”

“That is true. There is so much more to learn out there than I can find inside any building.”

“Well,” Perante responded, “that’s probably true, unless you have the books that I have.”

Winderall leaned forward in his chair. “Is there the slightest chance I would be able to see any of these books?”

“No.”

Winderall fell back into his chair.

“But I am willing to share some of that information with you. You see, I have the only books that matter: the Mage/Dragon Trilogy.”

“Wait a second.” Winderall looked at Perante closely, wondering if he was being played with. “Those books are just a legend. There has never been a Mage in the role of dragon talker.”

“In our lifetimes, Winderall, in our lifetimes. You never know what the damn beasts will do with that twisted sense of humor they have. Maybe the Black who chose him thought it was funny, or a challenge. I don’t know which, and neither did the Mage, but it did happen.”

“A black dragon with a mage talker. This has to be a fairy tale, does it not?”

“No, so far, everything I have read has borne true or true enough to give it credence.”

Winderall was leaning forward again, “if this is true, I can only imagine what he had learned. What do you want in return for this information? I have a rather large collection of dragon knowledge myself, much more than I’ve ever shared. Are you interested in a trade?”

Perante steepled his fingers. “I will give you something free right now, as a gesture of good will. Everyone knows the scale in the necklace allows for some sort of mental connection between the dragon and the talker, but it goes deeper.” Perante’s lip curled into a small smirk. “If you lean forward any more, my friend, you are going to fall out of your chair…Any dragon can tap into a necklace to know what is going on with the wearer. They can even leave messages for each other in the scales.”