Wizard's Blood [Part Two] (80 page)

The creature seemed to be covered in scales of varying size everywhere that Jolan could see. It wore a simple smock of some kind of soft material, that looked almost metallic, which covered the chest, but left the arms completely bare. It seemed to flow below the waist, but from his present position Jolan couldn’t see whether this assumption was correct and what the garment looked like in those regions. A single pocket was positioned in the center of the chest which looked like it held a small square box of some kind, although it was impossible to see enough to make a guess at what it might be.

The face was clearly reptilian, with a pair of golden colored intelligent eyes with diamond irises that stared at him as he became more alert. Two flaring openings were spaced on either side of the face that had to be nostrils. The mouth was only a slight protuberance from the rest of the face rather than the sharply pointed facial extension common on the lizards Jolan was familiar with. That mouth however looked liked it could swallow his whole head, and as noted was equipped with some impressive choppers. Along the cheeks were a number of sharp pointed projections from the skin. These were colored a deeper darker green and extended in varying sizes from near each edge of the mouth back to the flat ears on either size of the head. The neck disappeared into the garment a half foot below the chin, but looked to be covered in the same flexible scales. He didn’t know exactly what gave him the impression, and he certainly had nothing to compare with, but the face somehow made him think the creature in front of him had to be quite old.

“
Hah,” rumbled Iach-Iss with pleasure. “I might be a geriatric lizard who has only been out of the suspension chamber for a few days, but I can still run the medi-table with the best of them. I think your friend is going to be just fine. It’ll take a few minutes for the rest of the sedation to flush from his system. It might be best if you introduce him to his present situation and who I am. I sense a bit of discomfort in him at my presence.”

The creature was talking and speaking in the language of the Settled Lands, although Jolan sensed it was more than that. He “felt” the words inside his mind in addition to hearing them in his ears, and he wondered if the creature was telepathic.

Iach-Iss stepped away from the table and walked over to where Shyar stood and made a motion for her to go to Jolan, something that took no prompting. The creature was clearly a biped, and walked very comfortably upright despite the fact its appearance made Jolan expect it to be walking on all fours. A moment later Jolan was looking into her eyes, which were almost on the level of his own although she was standing upright on the floor next to him. Shyar’s hand brushed his face possessively, and she smiled once again, her eyes a bit moist.

“
How do you feel?” she asked.

“
Confused,” Jolan admitted. “I seem to have lost some important memories somewhere. The last thing I recall we were back by the lake.”

“
That was eight days ago,” Shyar explained. “The small bite you received infected you with a special toxin. It is only annoying to non-magicians, but for those of us with the ability to tap the power, it can be fatal. You very quickly became comatose. We were lucky that Iach-Iss was here and knew how to treat the infection. Although the dragons taught the natives how to deal with it thousands of years ago, he doubts whether they would have been able to do much with a case that had been allowed to progress as far as yours had. You were very close to dying.”

He was getting too much input in a short time and only some of it was making sense. He vaguely remembered the bite, but he’d thought that cured by the ring, although it had continued to itch like nothing he’d ever experienced. He still didn’t know where he was or how he’d come to be here. He couldn’t imagine Shyar and Asari hauling his unconscious body very far, so there had to be more to the story. But one thing registered in his mind; Iach-Iss. That was the name he’d read back in Ygooro for one of the dragons. He looked past Shyar at the creature that waited quietly across the room. My god, was this really one of the dragons? One of the original dragons they had read about? How old was the creature?

Shyar must have understood what he was thinking. She smiled and nodded. “Yes, Asari found his dragons. Unfortunately, Iach-Iss and Den-Orok are all that remain of their crew. We can explain more about them a bit later when you are up and around. Iach-Iss says you might be a bit shaky for a few hours. You have been in the medi-table for four days now. So take it slow and tell us if anything doesn’t feel right. He says the equipment should be fine, but it hasn’t been used in over a thousand years.”

The thought didn’t give Jolan any confidence. First user of something so important after a thousand years of dormancy wouldn’t have been his first choice. On the other hand, he felt great, although a bit odd deep inside, as though his insides had been scraped clean of something and were still a bit raw.

“
Asari?” Jolan asked, realizing his friend wasn’t around.

“
He went to get your clothes,” Shyar answered.

That caused Jolan to look down at himself and discover he was quite naked. He had been so often enough with Shyar, but to be spread out on a table in front of a strange creature, despite the fact it had quite obviously saved his life, was still a bit disconcerting. He was still trying to decide how to react when Asari came hurrying into the room with a fresh set of clothes in his arms and a beaming grin on his face. Gratefully Jolan took the offered clothing, and sliding around where he could sit up he started putting on his pants. A few moments later with Shyar’s help, he slid off the high table to the floor and completed his dressing. He was interested to note that Asari had brought everything, including the minature Kimber .45 auto. All of his clothes had been cleaned and were fresh. Feeling almost normal by the time he was dressed, he gave Shyar a hug and then Asari. Finally, he turned to the silent dragon that waited respectfully a few yards away.

Seeing the full extent of the creature did nothing to diminish his sense of how large it was. He looked nothing like the dragons of the story books or even like some of the sketches they had found here on Gaea. He wasn’t as large as a dragon was supposed to be, and didn’t appear to have anything resembling wings. Nonetheless, he was a very large creature. The garment Jolan had seen was belted at the waist and extended in a pair of loose leggings that ended just above a pair of knobby knees. A thick tail that ended before it reached the floor stuck out from behind through a third opening. The exposed lower calves were the same scaly blue-green, and the feet each had the six digits with clawed talons. Jolan could see streaks of almost purple in the scales now that he looked more carefully. He was surprised he could sense no hint of magical ability around the dragon. Maybe their magic really was so different that he couldn’t sense it. He could tell the dragon had been the object of such careful study more than once in the past from the amused way he watched Jolan in return, but it had probably been a long time. Jolan wondered what they had been doing here for the long years they had been apparently missing from the Settled Lands.

He didn’t know the protocol, so he simply walked over to the creature and said, “I’m Jolan. I think I owe you a very great deal.”

Iach-Iss grinned. The grin would have spurred Jolan to flight had he not seen how his friend reacted to the creature and his awareness that this must be one of the dragons of the legends that figured so largely in the history of Gaea. Maybe now they would learn something of the truth of the past, and maybe they could learn what to do about Ale’ald. There were so many questions, but all Jolan could think of was the fact he was hungrier than he could remember ever being.

Iach-Iss held out a massive paw in response to Jolan’s gesture. As he reached out and grabbed a couple of the fingers, which were all he could get his hand around, Jolan realized the handshake probably wasn’t the standard gesture used in greeting one of these dragons. The skin was warm to his touch, and felt just a bit warmer than his own temperature. After a rather uncertain shake, Jolan withdrew his hand and tried to think of what else to say. He was still trying to put together the fact that Asari had found his dragons, and some of them still lived. He wondered what had happened to the rest of them, but he sensed that story had been told to Shyar and Asari while he had been out of it all. There was a lot he needed to catch up on.

The dragon solved the immediate problem for him. “From past experience, especially for one who has been on the table for several days, you must be very much in need of food. Let us go and take care of that while you gather your thoughts. We can explain what has been done to you, and whether you want anything undone.” Once again the words were spoken, but Jolan was certain the ideas were being emphasized by direct insertion into his brain as the dragon talked.

As they turned and headed off to the left, Jolan got a quick look at the medi-table and the equipment surrounding the chamber that seemed to have saved his life. It had obviously been designed to handle the dragons, and he must have been dwarfed inside the thing. The inner surface was covered with an odd assortment of mirrored surfaces, protruding objects, and long crystal looking strips that ran the length of the chamber. None of the equipment outside looked like anything he had ever seen, and while the greenish colored boxes had a number of controls, there were no display screens as such. One larger box that had been off to his side while he was lying on the table, still displayed a hologram floating in space above the box which showed his figure in various colors. Somehow that representation contained information that Iach-Iss had been looking for.

The room appeared to contain four of the chamber setups, each with the associated equipment. Only the one he had been in showed any indications of being powered, the others dormant and waiting as they apparently had been for a very long time. Along the far wall was a large bench-like desk with several dragon sized stools and a number of additional strange instruments. The room was windowless, which Jolan would soon learn appeared to be the case for most of the area. He never was given the chance to see what the private quarters for the dragons looked like.

Shyar’s hand grabbed Jolan’s arm and half led him in the desired direction. She had obviously become familiar with the layout here, and while Iach-Iss was leading the way, she was clearly heading in the proper direction without paying the creature any particular attention. Asari walked happily at his other side. A few minutes later they found their way into a large room that was clearly intended for eating, and was so large it had room for at least the three dozen dragons they had once read about.

Another of the creatures was sitting at one of the tables eating something the size of a small bison. Den-Orok looked up as they entered, and flashed another of those grins that Jolan was becoming used to. This one was a bit smaller than Iach-Iss, and had faded reddish color in the scales where the other had purple. Several of the reddish scales simply glowed, but most were dull. Perhaps that was what suggested age to Jolan. He wondered what these creatures had looked like in their prime.

Shyar led Jolan over to some equipment, and demonstrated how he could use the large unit in front of him to make selections. The synthesizer somehow created the desired food from patterns stored somewhere, and it arrived fully cooked and at the proper temperature for the selection. Jolan discovered that Shyar had selected a soup with a thick broth for him, whereas she had some kind of a juicy steak for herself. Asari seemed to have chosen the same as Shyar, and the dragon was hauling a plate with a large rectangular slab of something that looked like partially cooked meat over to the table to sit by Den-Orok. Shyar led them over to sit at the smaller chairs with very long legs that had been provided for them.

“
You appear well enough,” Den-Orok rumbled. If anything his voice was deeper than Iach-Iss’, and now Jolan was certain that the content of their communication was mental. Den-Orok’s words were heavily tainted with sounds that he knew he wouldn’t have been able to understand otherwise. Actually, it was a bit of a wonder that the dragons could speak at all, since they had been out of touch since a time when the old language, which they could partially read but had never heard spoken, was the primary language used by humans. It would be interesting to know how they had learned the newer language so quickly.

“
Are you fully recovered from your exposure to the poison?” Den-Orok continued.

Jolan nodded and repeated the greeting that he knew had to seem odd to the dragon, but he didn’t know how else to proceed. “I think so,” he said finally. I seem to be missing a few days from my memory while everyone else has been up and around, but I feel perfectly fine.”

It was the truth, he suddenly realized. Even without having eaten anything, the effects of whatever he’d been given while in the chamber had worn off to the point he could no longer sense he’d been sedated in any way, and he felt completely normal. He couldn’t help but dig into the bowl with the spoon that was provided before continuing the conversation. No one seemed to be surprised, and Asari grinned at Jolan’s response.

“
Good, isn’t it?” Asari said.

Good didn’t describe it. It was as if every other bowl of stew he’d ever had was merely an experiment on the way to creating this masterpiece. The flavors that tantalized his mouth were wonderful, urging him to quickly take another mouthful to see if the sensation would linger.

“
Everything the FoodSynth makes is like that,” Shyar informed him “They apparently used the most highly regarded chefs to obtain samples for the input scans. Something has been lost in the art since those days. Wait until you are up to trying the bison steaks.”