Is This Apocalypse Necessary Page 12

  When the stories ended, my hosts brought out supper, fruit again but also sheep's milk cheese. "We barter for it with the giants," Gir told me, seeing me look around in a surprised search for sheep. He did not tell me what they traded.

  "I understand that as a wizard far from home, you may be uneasy about revealing too much of your abilities—at least at first," one of the women said when I had eaten. "But tell me—was that idea of Naurag's of creating a wizards' school ever put into practice?"

  They were all politely waiting for my answer, but I, having just worked something out, took a moment to reply. "You knew Naurag, then," I said slowly. "The original one. The wizard eight hundred years ago."

  "Of course," said Gir, delighted. "I told you we had. And you knew him too? Your creature is named for him?"

  They weren't King Paul's age after all. They were the people of the songs and the stories and had probably been right here since before the kingdom of Yurt even existed. "No, I never knew him," I said cautiously, "but I've read about him." I felt hesitant to tell them specifically about the old wizard's ledger—especially since he had showed a remarkable carelessness in not mentioning that elves lived boldly on the dragons' doorstep. "He had a purple companion just like mine. He did not start a school himself, but one of his apprentices' own apprentices did so, where I received my own wizardry training."

  And which I might be expected to head if I could locate the Dragons' Scepter. Well, if I found it I could defeat Elerius, and if I couldn't I wouldn't have to become Master, being dead, so it was a victory either way.

  "I guess you could say," I said, stretching, "that interest in dragons continues among wizards even after all these centuries. I'll head into their valley first thing in the morning."

  Part Four:

  The Funeral

  I

  Dragons aren't cold-blooded like lizards. The fires that burn in their bellies keep their blood hot enough, or so they had told us in wizards' school, that dragons actually prefer the cooler climate of the northern land of magic. Therefore there was no reason to expect them to be sluggish at dawn. But I started before dawn anyway, slipping out of the gorgeous guest room inside the elves' tree without bothering them with my departure. The more I thought about it, the less I liked old Naurag's failure to mention the elves, and it seemed safest to answer the fewest questions possible about my mission.

  My purple flying beast was floating outside the window as I came through it. But he lifted his head from under his wing at once, spotting the melon I had brought for him. I tossed it to him, swung a leg over his back, gave a quick, quiet command in the Hidden Language, and we were off on the final leg of our trip to find the Dragons' Scepter.

  The sun was not yet up, and I shivered as the wind hit me. It felt as if it had come straight from the glaciers that lie, unmelting, further north of the land of wild magic. I decided I would skip a visit there this trip. The eastern sky was a thick layer of clouds, tinted orange.

  But I forgot the cold the next moment, for the purple beast's steady wing beats brought us over a high knife-edge of rock, thrust up from the boulder-strewn plain, and I saw before me the valley of the dragons.

  Warm-blooded or not, the dragons were still sleeping this early in the morning. I pulled up Naurag for a moment merely to gape.

  It was a stunning sight. And one seen, I told myself triumphantly, by very few wizards, or at least by very few who were still alive five minutes later. Fifty feet long or more, covered with glittering scales in red or green or blue, long fangs protruding around its jaws, each dragon lay in front of its lair, burning eyes closed in sleep, great leather wings folded, smoke rising from the nostrils. The valley, not surprisingly, was devoid of any other form of life. Any one of the dragons, even the smallest, could have snapped me up as easily as Naurag ate a melon.

  My purple companion had thought of this too. He turned his long neck to look at me accusingly. But this was no time to hold back. With or without the final touches the old wizard had put on his finding spell, I would have to use it before the dragons awoke.

  I put my heels to Naurag's sides, and to his credit he responded at once, shooting toward the largest one of all. As we flew forward I had to revise my impressions once again: these dragons were even larger than they had appeared from the valley rim.

  The biggest lay half in and half out of its lair, its snout resting on its front feet—each armed with talons that looked about the size of wizard's staff I clutched determinedly. This one's scales were not bright as were the other dragons', but a dirty yellow, as though age had stripped them of color. The scales were scarred and cracked at the edges, and the enormous wings folded down the creature's back were tattered, as if from many deadly fights over the centuries. I wondered briefly, as my flying beast zipped past, if this dragon was one of the very ones whom the old wizard Naurag had bent to the Scepter's will.

  An eye opened. We had been spotted.

  Our only advantage was the very small size—relatively speaking—that would also have made it so easy for the dragons to devour us. By the time the dragon had turned its head we were well out of striking range, flying back along its side and into the lair itself, where the long barbed tail lay coiled. That tail was twitching as I leaped from Naurag's back and started on spells.

  This would never have worked anywhere except in the land of wild magic. In two seconds I had released the spells stored in the silver-topped staff and roared through most of the rest of the finding spell the old wizard had recorded for uncovering the Dragon's Scepter. With improvisational abilities I didn't know I had, I created bridges in the spell where herbs were supposed to go, and stepped back, triumphant, by the time the great pale dragon had pulled his tail out of his lair and started shifting around to put his head in instead.

  And nothing happened. I smacked the butt of the staff on the floor in wild frustration at the same time as the first tendrils of smoke from the dragon's nostrils curled around me. I knew I had the spells right! I had spent days memorizing the words in the old ledger, and with my own abilities enhanced by the powers of this land I could feel my spell taking its correct shape. Right about now the enormously powerful spell that the wizard Naurag had created to keep his Scepter hidden ought to be breaking up, revealing the Scepter just in time for me to snatch it up and keep the dragon at bay.

  Talons scratched on the stony floor of the dragon's lair. Smoke was filling the room, and I could hear the dragon's belly rumbling, loud as an earthquake. The flying beast sensibly shot up to the top of the chamber, out of the way.

  And then I realized what was wrong. The spell of concealment was not breaking up because it was not there. At some point in the last eight hundred years somebody else had taken the Scepter.

  It would have vastly improved my chances of survival, the nagging voice in my head pointed out, if I had known this before rather than after I entered the dragon's lair. Flames licked toward me, and the great yellow eyes had fastened on me.

  No time for heroics—just for desperate flight. And sometimes the simplest ways are best. I made myself invisible.

  The dragon's teeth snapped shut, but I was no longer there. Invisible, I flew straight up to where my purple companion was doing his best to fly through the ceiling.

  He jerked as an unseen hand touched him. "It's me," I told him, low, under the disappointed roar of the great dragon. "Let's get out of here," and tried to wrap him in invisibility as well.

  Even here in the land of magic, hard spells worked at impossible speeds did not always function perfectly. Bits of his purple nose and tail protruded from my spell, but I hoped the dragon would not resolve these in the shadows into something edible. The flying beast took us winging toward the entrance to the lair—an entrance nearly blocked by the dragon—while I struggled wildly to hold on.

  Right past the dragon's jaws and neck he shot, along the flank and then down under the reeking belly, as its movement threatened to crush us between flank and wall. The tail, outside now,
was lashing madly, but Naurag dodged and dodged again, then abruptly was out, free, and whizzing over the heads of the other dragons, while I gave a shout of defiance and tried desperately to cling to his neck with sweaty palms.

  The sun broke through the cloud bank on the eastern horizon, and, invisible or not, we cast shadows. Dozens of yellow eyes were open now. With snorts and jerks of leathery wings, the dragons heaved themselves to their feet, swiveling their massive heads to pick us up. One drove its talons straight through our shadows, but another had spotted disembodied bits of purple and launched itself toward us.

  Razor sharp fangs glittered in the dawn light, only a few feet away. And Naurag dove. Down to within inches of the massive skull of another dragon that was slower getting started, then upward again at a sharp angle. Just as the first dragon, mouth still wide open, struck its companion with the force of an avalanche.

  A horrible roaring rose behind us. Naurag turned south, propelling us onward far faster than I could possibly have flown myself. The purple neck to which I clung, the purple wings beating on either side, were becoming visible again, even to eyes streaming from the force of the wind. My staff was long gone. I glanced back over my shoulder. Two of the dragons were fighting, tearing into each other with fang and talon, their bellows ringing out across the rocky landscape and black blood spurting.

  But at least one other still had us in view, as the tattered remnants of my invisibility spell fell from about us. The dragon—this one a brilliant crimson—gave an almost lazy stroke of its wings and covered a third of the distance that separated us.

  Illusion, I thought, panic making the words of the Hidden Language that I had known for forty years suddenly seem strange and incomprehensible. Illusion is a lot easier spell than invisibility. And I made us into a cloud, a dark, fast-moving cloud, certainly not a human clinging to the back of a purple flying beast.

  The crimson dragon behind us paused as if puzzled. But past its shoulder I saw other dragons coming to join the pursuit. At least one of them must have enough brains in its bony skull to associate this suddenly-appearing cloud with the suddenly-disappearing tasty morsel they had been pursuing.

  And I realized we were leading the dragons straight toward the elves' grove.

  "No!" I screamed at Naurag. "Not this way!" But neither tugging nor commands in the Hidden Language could alter his direction. He was flying back in the direction of the melon-fields where I had originally found him as fast as his wings would carry him. And the way there led straight over the silver-haired community.

  The knife-edge ridge that marked the border of the dragons' valley was a blur below us. I darted a quick look back again, hoping against hope that the dragons would stop at that boundary. No such luck. Dragons of all colors, scales glittering in the early morning light, flames snorting in all directions, raced after us. They might not be able to recognize a wizard and a purple flying beast in an illusory rain cloud, but they saw something moving fast and were as eager to catch it as a bunch of cats. And the distance between us was rapidly vanishing.

  I said a quick prayer in case any saints paid attention to those in the land of wild magic. With luck, we would be past the elves' grove before the dragons caught up to us, and they would have so much fun playing with and eating us that they wouldn't bother the people who, after all, had for many years lived almost on their doorstep.

  But why had they never bothered them? the voice in the back of my mind asked, still curious even when only moments from death. And then through bleared eyes I saw a tiny, white-robed figure on the ground before us, and heard a voice, tiny and piping at this distance. It was Gir.

  And this time, even at a distance, I could tell he held something high in his hand. My flying beast altered course to fly toward him like a frightened child toward his mother.

  The dragons behind us were so close I could feel the heat of their breath on my back. But they stopped abruptly at whatever command Gir shouted to them, jostling together in the air, great wings smacking against each other.

  As Naurag slowed, panting hard, and drifted down toward the groves, the dragons turned, greatly reluctant but turning all the same, taking a few frustrated snaps at each other's wings as they headed back toward their valley.

  II

  I fell more than dismounted from the flying beast's back, my arms and legs feeling as if they had no strength at all. "I wish you had allowed me to accompany you," said Gir gravely. One hand was concealed in the folds of his robe, as it had been after he stopped the gorgos. "When you spoke so determinedly of going to the dragons' valley, I had assumed that you, like old Naurag, had wizardly ways to bend them to your will."

  "I thought I did," I said, sitting on the ground with my head between my knees. Several things had become clear to me, about one day too late. "But it turns out that you have what I was looking for."

  Gir sat next to me, his chiseled features concerned. For a second he bit his lip, as though trying to reach a decision, then he tossed back his silver hair and spoke briskly. "We prefer not to discuss Naurag's Scepter with outsiders, but yes, of course we have it. We have had it for centuries. Otherwise we would never be able to maintain life in our peaceful and beautiful grove. But did you not know? When Naurag gave it to us, he said he would describe the final disposition of the Scepter in the same ledger in which he had, years earlier, recorded the spells by which he created it. We could not, of course, have duplicated his spells, but we had always assumed that some of the apprentice wizards he trained might do so."

  I sighed, not looking at him. "No one else ever duplicated his spells," I said, more to myself than to Gir. "They're too hard to work anywhere but right here—and, I believe, too hard for even the best wizards of our age." Could Elerius create a Scepter of his own, given a chance? I wasn't going to give him that chance. "All I could do was work the finding spell that was supposed to reveal the Scepter hidden in the greatest dragon's lair. Old Naurag set out to write an Afterword to his ledger, but I think he died before he could."

  Gir contemplated this. "Then you wizards have assumed all these years the Scepter was still there? And the others sent you to find it?" I nodded; he was close enough, and it would be too complicated to explain properly. "But what," he added, "did they intend to do with it?"

  I let his question hang unanswered. Something he had said caught my exhausted attention. Elves could not work spells.

  A wary sideways glance showed him sitting relaxed, one arm across his knees, frowning as he looked north toward the dragons' valley. With a far-seeing spell I could make out the sun flashing on their scales as they circled, preparing to land again. All my spells worked easily here. In less than a second, far before Gir realized what I was doing, I could have him wrapped in a quick binding spell and the Scepter out of his hand and into mine.

  I thought this over while my rapid breathing slowed. The other elves weren't here—presumably still back in their chambers in the great trees of the grove, this early in the morning. But sooner or later they would realize that Gir was gone and come find him, about the time that my binding spell would be disintegrating. By then, of course, I would be far away, already having raced back to the dragons' valley to round them up, to command them to return with me to the City. There I could quickly force Elerius to capitulate, before going on with my terrible winged forces to overcome the evil princes of the kingdoms beyond the mountains, to free the slaves in the East, to annihilate every fanged gorgos in the land of magic...

  And suppose the dragons didn't all go with me? the nagging voice at the back of my mind wanted to know. Several, or even one, could easily stay behind, then fly over the ridge and devour elves at its leisure, now that they were no longer protected by the Scepter. Well, I thought uneasily, I would just have to be very sure that every single dragon followed me.

  So did that mean I was going to have to spend the rest of my life surrounded by dragons, making sure that not even one ever returned? Brief and completely implausible images floated throu
gh my mind, the castle of Yurt surrounded by a great circle of quiescent dragons; a fleet of dragons hovering in the air, wings flapping slowly, high over Theodora's house while I visited her; or dozens of dragons, collared and obedient, sitting like colorful statues on the turrets of the wizards' school.

  I shook my head at the thought, which got me a questioning glance from Gir. No, I told myself, it was sad but inevitable that some elves would have to die. They had already had very long lives, and even though Gir had now saved my life a second time, it would be justifiable to sacrifice a few of his people. It was merely sentimental to think otherwise, I tried to persuade myself. After all, my principal goal was to protect the world as a whole from Elerius.

  Elerius also believed that the end justified the means, that if a few people died in the pursuit of his own obviously worthwhile goals, then their involuntary sacrifice was well worth it.

  Gir spoke suddenly, breaking a long silence. "If you cannot tell me your need, I must respect your reticence. But if your wizards' school needs the Scepter, of course—" His melodious voice began strong but suddenly threatened to break. I sat up straighter and looked at him fully. "Although I wield it, I am not the leader," he continued in a low tone. "We have had no leader since we came here. But I can speak with the others. It might require a certain amount of time to make our preparations, but perhaps we could leave our grove, find some other place where—"

  I spoke before I had a chance to consider further, but it was the only answer I could have given. "I came to find the Scepter if no one were using it. Since it was Naurag's and he gave it to you, we of the wizards' school cannot decide eight hundred years later that his gift was wrong."

  If I took the Scepter, either by force or else—after a wait that allowed Elerius to consolidate his position—by persuasion, then I would be responsible for at least some of these elves' deaths. I might be able to overcome Elerius by attacking him with dragons, but all I would have overcome was the man, a man that at times I had rather liked. Elerius's plans for world dominance, on the other hand, the self-assurance that his way was the best possible way, those would be alive and well. They would live on in me.