The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (27 page)

When they turned to the task of building the bridge, he felt he
knew
. It mattered little, he decided, what purpose his abilities had served or would serve for the race of men. If he had been gifted for no other reason than to rescue this starving species, that was certainly enough. He used his magic to help cut away portions of the cliff, heating cracks and then letting them cool and freeze until large slabs broke free and tumbled to the ground. The tugoliths used their strength to drag them into place. While there were some toes burned in the process, and thousands of lesefs were permanently evicted from their warrens, there was at last a wide causeway of stone over which the tugoliths could walk, and through which the lesefs couldn’t tunnel. It was done.

Many wheels celebrated by trading pairs, which Seagryn learned was the conventional way of arranging for mating. Two wheels would circle together, one inside and one outside, until brother-sister pairs of each wheel faced one another. Then the males would ceremonially bash horns with one another, and trade places. A wheel kept its own females and gave away its males, but always, always in pairs. Then the new pairs would wander off together to find a snowdrift, and what ensued there Seagryn didn’t want to know, for it inevitably brought to mind the question of what he was going to do about Berillitha. He had searched among the circles for Gadolitha, Berillitha never leaving his side, but they’d not found him. They’d not found any punts at all. And now that the bridge was completed and his unfinished future in the south again began to dominate his thoughts, the problem became acute.

“Berillitha,” he said on the first day free traffic was permitted over the platform, “what am I going to do with you?”

“You are the Wiser.” Berillitha smiled. He sometimes found her confidence in him overwhelming. And he had to face it — she had many virtues he wished Elaryl possessed.

Then again, Elaryl was beautiful. As a picture of her face floated into his imagination, Seagryn decided this was the day. But which beast would he take with him?

A ceremony was necessary, and so the wheels gathered at the bridge, standing on both sides of it while Seagryn stepped to its center to address them all.

“You have done it!” he shouted, and he smiled. The throng shuffled and stamped in agreement and self-approval. “I congratulate you all! Now my work is done. I must go to be with people. But I must take one of you with me! I offer to one of you the chance to live long after your wheel is gone! I offer one of you the chance to be greatly honored by men! Who would like to do this? Who will go with the Wiser?” He waited for a response for what seemed to him a very long time. “Well? Who will go?” Still no one answered his summons. “Is there not one of you who will go?”

Yashilitha was frowning. Seagryn looked at him and said, “You didn’t understand all that, did you.”

Berillitha’s father cleared his throat. “I don’t understand.” Seagryn tried again. “I want one tugolith to go back with me.”

“
One?
”

That was it. They did everything in pairs. Once again, Seagryn wished he could make contact with a punt. There had to be some around somewhere, but where to find one —

“I am one,” said a soft voice behind him; when he’d walked out onto the platform, Berillitha had tentatively followed.

“Oh — Berillitha. No. No, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You asked one to go. I am one. I will go.”

“No, but not you. I — I just can’t take you —”

“I am your pair,” Berillitha said firmly. “I go.”

“But Berillitha —”

“I will horn you.”

Seagryn stared at her. Never had she taken this tone before, and it shocked him. “What?”

“I will go. Or I will horn you.” The young female obviously meant it.

“I see.” Seagryn nodded.

“We all can see,” Berillitha reminded him quietly.

Later that day they began their journey southward to the land of men. Berillitha danced, but Seagryn found the road very tiresome indeed.

Chapter Twenty-five

ELARYL’S CHOICE

As she stood before the mirror, Elaryl made a great show of studying the two dresses. She first held the magenta fish-satin under her chin, admiring the way it enhanced the natural blush in her cheeks. On the other hand, the rich dark green of the velvet gown seemed to turn her hair into threads of spun gold — and Seagryn had always loved her hair. Which should she wear? She turned slowly around to face the flippant girl who sprawled across her bed. Holding up first one dress, then the other, she asked, “Any opinions?”

She teased, of course. She’d known Uda only a few days, but she’d discovered immediately that Uda had an opinion on everything and felt compelled to share it, whether or not she was asked.

Nor did the girl disappoint now. “The green, I should think. It’s both formal and ethereal, and I like that. You haven’t seen this man in months and you mustn’t let yourself appear too accessible. After all, just because your father wants you to marry him doesn’t necessarily mean you have to want to.”

“But I do want to marry him,” Elaryl mumbled, changing hands again and examining herself once more in the magenta. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“Nothing’s
wrong
with it. It’s — mysterious. Flirtatious too, I think. I don’t know. It’s warmer, certainly. If you really want to set his heart pounding that frank invitation is what you want.”

“A frank invitation?” How gauche! Elaryl frowned at the girl. “Where
do
you get all these ideas, Uda?” Elaryl said disapprovingly. “You can’t be any more than sixteen ...”

“Thirteen,” Uda corrected, and she rolled over onto her stomach. “From my mother,” she added.

“Your mother lets you talk that way?”

Uda cackled, and looked up at the much older woman. “Why? Will yours
not
?”

Elaryl raised her eyebrows, then looked back down at the dresses. She really wasn’t interested in choosing at the moment, nor did she wish to know anything more about the family life of a spoiled adolescent. Still, Elaryl was too polite just to ignore Uda’s remark. “In this land we don’t think that way,” she murmured, trying not to sound prim, but failing, since that’s exactly what she was. She felt fully justified in being so.

Uda responded with a chortle far too cynical for one so young. “You may
say
you don’t think that way. But there are far too many little Lamathians running around underfoot for me to believe you.”

Elaryl stiffened her back and stared coldly at the girl. “Uda, you speak of matters you can’t know a thing about. Perhaps it would be better for us to part company until the reception this after —”

“Don’t send me away,” Uda pleaded, suddenly sitting up. Her reaction startled Elaryl.

“Why — why is it so important to you to stay?”

“I don’t have many women friends,” Uda confessed quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Why, I’m not embarrassed,” Elaryl said, flushing. “I’m just — don’t you talk with your mother? I thought you said that your mother allowed you to —”

“My mother rarely stays home anymore,” Uda mumbled. “I don’t know why.”

Due, perhaps, to the presence in the household of a difficult teen? Elaryl wondered. She didn’t say it, however, choosing instead the easier road. She
always
chose the easier road, she thought bitterly. “Very well then. You may stay.” And keep your mouth shut, she wanted to add. She didn’t, however. She couldn’t.

As she gazed at her pretty face in the unromantic glass she beheld with much displeasure a young woman incapable of speaking her true mind. Because she didn’t really know it? That’s what her father had told her. But Talarath had always believed anyone who didn’t agree with him must be utterly mindless.

It wasn’t that. Elaryl knew what she thought. And it was often far more sensible than the ridiculous attitudes of the Lamathian leaders she’d known since she was a child. But how could she speak those opinions, how could she make known her views when all any man in authority expected from her was a childish remark, a silly giggle, and a quick exit so that they could turn again to their important work? She was a Lamathian woman — the model Lamathian woman, she supposed, since she lived her life in full view of the public. She’d frequently overheard Lamathian mothers pointing her out to their daughters as they struggled to inculcate the values of the present into yet another generation of believers. It wasn’t that Lamathian girls were not required to think great thoughts. It was in fact that they were required not to.

And yet — she couldn’t help it. Elaryl looked about her with eyes honed by a lifetime of watching the machinations of the powerful. She’d seen the good, of course — the generous, thoughtful, forgiving acts that had eased the burdens of thousands and seemed to give mute testimony to the watch-care of the One they never named. But she’d witnessed such enlightened leadership one day reversed the next by bumbling stupidity, pettiness, lazy incompetence, and so much self-congratulatory meanness that she sometimes couldn’t even bear to look. Her gamine grin protected her in those moments when she’d sooner vomit in disgust — for she could say nothing. And yet she was required to take her appointed place and smile supportively through the worst political shenanigans.

Like this one. But this time she couldn’t hide behind her glistening teeth and free her imagination to take her elsewhere. Today she would play a principal role as the land of Lamath welcomed home a sacrilegious magic user. It wasn’t enough that she’d been publicly humiliated at the altar when this man she thought she knew suddenly shaped himself into a revolting monster. Now she had to proclaim it had all been a ruse, a masterful illusion designed to gain some advantage over the Marwandian raiders who attacked the regions bordering the Marwilds. How could she make the people believe a notion so manifestly ridiculous?

And how — how could she make herself kiss him? She’d not yet been able to forget the stench of that beast who only moments before had been a lover, binding her foot to his own! She’d told Seagryn her secrets. Had he told her his? No! And yet —

In the many lonely hours since their wedding day, she’d been forced to review his attempted confession over and over again. Had he somehow been trying to warn her that he was not all that he appeared to be — or rather, that he was much more? She wanted to believe that of him. For despite his abominable act of public betrayal, she loved Seagryn. She’d tried not to — oh, how she’d tried! — but without success. And when her father had returned from another of his frequent mysterious meetings, saying Seagryn would be returning home, she’d been unable to repress her shriek of joy.

But that, of course, was before the arrival of the sleazy Paumer and his undisciplined daughter — and the odd boy Uda kept as a pet, who claimed to be Dark the prophet and never smiled. Strange people, all of them, with disturbing attitudes and horrible manners. Especially the boy. He seemed to take pleasure in exposing each person’s opinions of the others, then sitting back and watching as more polite people — herself included — struggled to soothe the wounded feelings. He’d heartlessly carved her own emotions twice already, all the while claiming to have become Seagryn’s closet confidant. It was he who had predicted the time of Seagryn’s arrival and the direction from which he would come. Despite her own skepticism, she’d had to join everyone else in making preparations for the ceremonial greeting and the reception following. She didn’t like the boy — he didn’t seem
balanced
— and she certainly didn’t like the liberties he took with her own and everyone else’s future. Unfortunately, he’d proven to know entirely too much about her past experience with Seagryn and had shown no inclination to hide his knowledge. Elaryl had been forced to admit that either he did know Seagryn very well — and that Seagryn had shamelessly babbled about the most intimate details of their relationship! — or else that he was exactly who he said he was and that the future he’d predicted for her would come true.

“Still can’t choose?” Uda whined, boredom reflected in her complaint. “Dark’s outside. Why don’t I call him in? He can look at the events of this evening and tell you what you decided —”

“I’m quite capable of making up my own mind, thank you,” Elaryl replied, striving to make her voice as icy as the weather outside the pink-tinted windows.

“You’re not still angry at him for telling you what you wanted to know —”

“I did not want to know that.”

“But you asked him to tell you where you and —”

“A party game, Uda!” Elaryl scolded. “Light table chatter! I’m not surprised that he doesn’t know the difference but I thought perhaps that you might!”

“Dark doesn’t ever play games,” Uda said, her expression unbearably smug. “He always tells the truth — even when it hurts him.”

“I’d like to hurt him,” Elaryl grumbled under her breath, not at all intending for the girl to hear it. Uda did, however, and her response was painfully direct.

“You think that he doesn’t know that?”

Elaryl felt the color rushing into her cheeks again. She whirled back to the mirror, threw the green gown onto the floor, and held the rose-toned garment under her chin once more. “It’s this, I think. Definitely this. If I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon with crimson cheeks I’m at least going to look ravishing doing so!”

“Suit yourself.” Uda laughed sarcastically. “I think it’s a mistake, but —”

“Yet another good reason to choose it,” Elaryl snarled. She surprised herself — she didn’t normally talk this way. But if the girl persisted in such objectionable behavior, she certainly wasn’t going to stand here and say —

“Dark?” Uda called, and Elaryl jerked around to see Uda had hopped off the bed and padded over to the door. “Come in here a moment.”

“
Don’t
bring him into my room! I’m
dressing
!”

But Dark had already poked his head inside, his boyish face as gloomy as ever. Uda looked back at her. “You’re not dressing yet. Dark, what’s she going to wear to the ceremony?”

Dark looked sadly back at Elaryl, seemingly unaffected by her contemptuous scowl. “I’m sure she’d like to make up her mind for herself — wouldn’t you, Lady Elaryl?”

He’d spoken so gently, how could she abuse him in return? “I — why, yes, I would.”

Dark grabbed Uda by the wrist and dragged her out the door — a rather brave act, Elaryl thought as she watched him, recalling how the girl abused him without provocation. Uda struggled, but Dark proved stronger. He suddenly appeared to remember something and pushed the girl out the door and shot across the room to the bed. He jerked the coverlet off it, calling, “Seagryn’s going to need this a little later.” Then he rushed back across the room in time to push Uda back out before him. He slammed the door behind them, and Elaryl heard them arguing as they moved down the hallway toward Uda’s apartments.

She looked back into the mirror and gazed into her own eyes. “Now what will Seagryn be needing with my coverlet later on?” she asked herself.

Elaryl appeared upon the ceremonial welcome-stand wearing the magenta gown under her white fur cloak. She’d made a choice — and it was her own.