The Faithful Traitor (Wizard & Dragon Book 2) Read online

  The Faithful Traitor

  Wizard & Dragon Book Two

  Robert Don Hughes

  © Robert Don Hughes 1992

  Robert Don Hughes has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1992 by Ballantine Books.

  This edition published in 2016 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  TO MY TWO EDITORS —

  GAIL AND LESTER.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: FIERY SUNSET

  Chapter Two: LIGHT SNACK

  Chapter Three: GROOM’S NIGHTMARE

  Chapter Four: DRAGON’S PET

  Chapter Five: LOST INSIDE

  Chapter Six: SOVEREIGN’S SOLUTION

  Chapter Seven: CONSPIRING MINDS

  Chapter Eight: REMNANT’S RUIN

  Chapter Nine: DARK DREAMS

  Chapter Ten: SEASICK GREEN

  Chapter Eleven: VICTORY’S SCENT

  Chapter Twelve: ELARYL’S STAND

  Chapter Thirteen: CRYPTIC ANSWERS

  Chapter Fourteen: BURNING WIZARD

  Chapter Fifteen: TRAITOR’S EXECUTION

  Chapter Sixteen: SUBMISSIVE SHAPER

  Chapter Seventeen: THAALIANA’S BOWER

  Chapter Eighteen: DRAGON’S DEVOTEES

  Chapter Nineteen: BEYOND HEARING

  Chapter Twenty: TUGOLITH’S BANE

  GLOSSARY

  Chapter One: FIERY SUNSET

  A blue flyer darted past him as Seagryn rode up the long lane to the mansion he shared with his wife and her father. He smiled as he watched it go and leaned over to scratch the side of Kerl’s neck. “Did you see that, Kerl? Don’t you wish you could move that fast?” Kerl said nothing, of course, being a horse of few words, and Seagryn sat back in his saddle and grinned up at the trees.

  The summer had been remarkably pleasant: always warm, but only occasionally hot. He turned to gaze between the tree trunks at a lush green field, where a breeze rippled waist-high stalks of grass. Insects skittered everywhere, adding the chatter of their wings to the whisper of the wind that stirred the afternoon air. Seagryn’s nose tickled and his eyes watered, but he would not trade this Lamathian lane for any other place in the old One Land. This was home, and he’d been deprived of it long enough to learn truly to appreciate it. Since the humiliating day when he’d first taken his altershape in public, Seagryn had grown wise in the ways of manipulating magic. But no magic could compare to this simple joy — riding home to Elaryl under a canopy of trees.

  She had grown so much in the last year. On the day of their marriage she’d been far more concerned with the state of her blond hair than with his state of mind. Her beautiful blue eyes had focused only on the flowers and the frills. But now she seemed to direct most of her attention to what he was thinking, how he was feeling, what he was planning … in fact, curiously so.

  Then again, Seagryn told himself, how else could she act? After all, he did possess that terrifying ability to transform himself into a monster — a horned tugolith, complete with that beast’s oddly sweet stink. And she knew he tended to take that altershape only when attacked or enraged or under pressure of some sort. Little wonder that Elaryl kept a regular check on his state of mind.

  He had wondered lately if she was trying to hide something from him, but whenever such thoughts occurred he scolded himself for being overly suspicious. While on the road, he had needed to be suspicious in order to survive. His powershaping abilities had made him a prominent figure in world affairs and had provided him some powerful enemies. But Seagryn was home at last and well loved by the people of Lamath. If Elaryl was hiding anything from him, he felt confident she did so for his own good —

  The sound of rapid hoofbeats climbed above the volume of the summer rustle that had masked them. They came from behind him, and Seagryn, suddenly concerned, reined in Kerl and frowned over his shoulder. The rider never slowed. The lane was wide enough to permit six horses to ride abreast — or one tugolith — and the man’s sleek mount dodged Kerl to the left and raced on toward the mansion. Seagryn watched him go, realizing now that this was a messenger dispatched from the capital with some news for his father-in-law.

  “We’d better hurry, Keri,” he muttered, spurring the flanks of his stolid steed. “This looks important; if we don’t hear it straight from the messenger, we’ll never learn what it’s about. Old Talarath certainly won’t tell us.” Kerl responded with a businesslike canter; but if Seagryn wanted any more than that, he was out of luck. Kerl knew his rights.

  Talarath was a member of the Ruling Council of Lamath, headed by Ranoth himself, and this rider wore Ranoth’s livery. The Council sent regular reports from the capital each week, but Elaryl always seemed to have something for Seagryn to do whenever they arrived. He’d once asked Talarath, “What was the news?” But the old man had only snorted and growled back, “Are YOU on the Ruling Council?” Seagryn wasn’t, of course. But he had been privy to many of the Council’s recent dealings with other powers and he had a personal stake in the course of events. If this was news of the dragon, then it concerned him deeply, for Seagryn had played a rôle in making the two-headed beast and was solely responsible for losing it on the world. But even if the news did not concern him, Seagryn was determined to hear it. This was not the normal day nor time for the weekly messages to arrive, and the horse and rider moved at emergency-level speed — a pace not matched, unfortunately, by his own mount.

  “Kerl,” he grumbled, “come ON.” The gray horse ran several steps to indicate his spiritual willingness but gradually slowed back down to a trot, obviously hoping Seagryn wouldn’t notice. Seagryn spurred him again. With a deep sigh, Kerl pushed himself forward into an unenthusiastic gallop.

  The courier was already inside the mansion when they finally arrived — and Elaryl waited in the doorway with a radiant smile. Seagryn jumped from Kerl’s back and walked quickly toward her, returning her smile in the hope that she would let him slide past her. When she immediately blocked his path he realized there wasn’t a chance.

  “Did you have a good ride?” she murmured, slipping her arms up around his neck and punctuating her question by nibbling his ear.

  He craned his neck to look beyond her down the entryway. “Beautiful. Did you see a messenger from Ranoth arri —”

  “For Father,” she interrupted, shifting to his other ear and screening his view.

  “Passed me on the road. Seemed to think it was urgent —”

  “They always do. All messengers have an inflated sense of self-importance.” She slipped her arms down around his waist now and flattened herself against him, tipping her head back to plant her chin against his. “Do you love me?”

  “You know I love you,” he answered. No chance of hearing the messenger now. She was deliberately preventing him from —

  “How do I know?” Elaryl pouted prettily, subtly shifting her hips against him. He felt her hands dropping down from his waist to clasp around his thighs.

  On the other hand, if the news was truly important he’d hear it eventually anyway …

  Kerl watched the couple disappear inside the mansion, then trotted off toward the stable to put himself away. He had enough sense to know he wouldn’t be needed again this afternoon.

  Summer sunsets were spectacular when viewed from the rooftop of the rebuilt House of Talarath, and Seagryn and Elaryl had taken to eating their evening meal there in order to enjoy them. They seemed even more pleasant whenever Seagryn contrasted their silent beauty to the equally silent tension of dinner in the formal dining room. Tala
rath’s mood always set the tone of meals in the great hall, and the old gentleman was surly far more often than he was not. Seagryn wondered about that occasionally, since, to his knowledge, things were going well in Lamath. He usually attributed his father-in-law’s foul spirits to his own presence. Talarath had seemed to care about him years ago, when he was the old man’s student. But a student is quite different from a son-in-law, Seagryn realized; besides, the events of the last year had put their relationship under quite a strain.

  Just a glance at this building reminded him how much. While a beautiful house, it was also quite new. On the day of his wedding to Elaryl, an attack by Marwandian raiders had forced Seagryn to take his tugolith shape. Quite without noticing, he’d proceeded to knock the old house down.

  He’d been banished, then, from Lamath for being a user of magic and had only been restored to his homeland by an unprecedented act of the Ruling Council itself. He’d earned his restoration, Seagryn thought grimly as he watched the clouds turn pink. He’d helped provide the raw materials for the making of the dragon, which Ranoth and Talarath had believed was a good idea at the time. But it had cost him. The thought of how a gentle female tugolith named Berillitha had sacrificed herself for him still brought an enormous lump to his throat, and he expected to live with the guilt from that act forever. But, as Elaryl always reminded him, he’d done his best to save her at the time …

  Seagryn frowned. “Does the sky look a little more red tonight than usual?” he asked.

  Elaryl looked up from her plate and followed the direction of his gaze. “No.” She shrugged, but he happened to glance at her eyes, and they said something entirely different. Suddenly she laid her fork down. “I’m not really hungry,” she announced. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Seagryn took another bite and chewed it thoughtfully. “Strange. You were eating with great appetite a moment ago.”

  “Was I?” Elaryl shrugged. “Oh — out of habit, I suppose. Come on — walk with me.” She stood up and extended her hand, but Seagryn remained in his chair.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “What’s what?” she replied, sounding rather annoyed — and far too quickly for the situation. It assured him that something was, indeed, amiss.

  “What is it that you’re hiding from me?” Seagryn asked.

  “Hiding? Why would I be hiding anything from you?”

  “He knows, Elaryl.” Talarath spoke from behind him, and now Seagryn did get up. Neither he nor Elaryl had heard the old man coming up the stairs.

  Seagryn faced Talarath and shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said quietly.

  “Not the specifics, perhaps. But you do know that my daughter has been attempting to keep something from you.” Talarath turned his accusing gaze on Elaryl.

  She appeared uncowed by him. “Father, if you’ll permit me, I had planned to explain it all fully to him in good time —”

  “Events have their own pace, my dear. I’ve honored your wishes as far as I’ve been able, but eventually national concerns outweigh even family promises.”

  “What events?” Seagryn asked, his voice flat. He’d turned to look back at the sunset, but he no longer noticed its uplifting grandeur. Instead, it filled him with an aching loneliness, a feeling he’d often experienced at dusk on the open road. It seemed to say to him, “Others have their places of rest and are settling into them right now. But you, Seagryn, are a wanderer. You have no place that is truly yours …”

  “Did I not hear you noticing a red tinge to the western sky tonight?” Talarath asked, his voice taking on a bitter edge. “Have your eyes not smarted today? Did you not smell the smoke? If the wind were blowing toward us, I fear we should be covered with the ashes, for your friend the dragon has been visiting Lamath and has left a dozen villages in cinders!”

  “‘My friend the dragon,’ ” Seagryn echoed Talarath mockingly, his smile utterly without humor. “Meaning I’m to blame for its existence.”

  “Meaning you aided in the making of the beast. Meaning you engineered its premature release. Meaning you rode upon its back and are the only person with whom it’s ever conversed whom it did not subsequently digest!”

  “Father, that’s not fair and you know it!” Elaryl shouted, walking around to put herself bodily between the two men.

  “Talk to the refugees streaming out of the Western District about what’s fair, Elaryl!” Talarath snarled.

  “It’s not fair to try to shift the blame for all this to Seagryn! He only did what you and the rest of your accursed Conspiracy agreed needed to be done —”

  “The project wasn’t completed —” Talarath began.

  “Oh, and the dragon would have been far nicer if it had been? I was there, Father, remember? There in that dismal cave, listening to the beast scream while your precious sorcerer Sheth tortured it!”

  “Your husband did not allow the process to run its full course —”

  “You believe that, don’t you?” Elaryl screamed at her father, and Seagryn noted with an odd detachment that this was the most enraged he’d ever seen her with anyone other than himself. As they argued, he turned to look to the west, imagining he could see tiny puffs of smoke on the horizon.

  “You really do believe that, if Seagryn hadn’t interfered with Sheth’s plan, Vicia-Heinox would have been controllable! Father, I’ve always known you were a stubborn man, but I’ve never believed you were a fool!”

  “Silence! I will not hear such disrespect from you in my own house!”

  “I am not your little girl anymore, Father,” Elaryl answered, more quietly but no less dangerously. “This is my house, too, and my life, and I will make my voice heard in matters that affect myself and my husband —”

  “What do you want me to do?” Seagryn interrupted, his voice still expressionless. The other two looked at him, uncertain which of them he was asking.

  Talarath seized the opportunity first. “The Executive Committee of the Ruling Council has met in Lamath —”

  “You mean Ranoth has decided on his own,” Seagryn said sarcastically, but Talarath continued on anyway.

  “ — and sent the request that you go to the Western District and investigate the situation there.”

  “Investigate the situation!” Elaryl snarled in disgust. Seagryn had to chuckle at the words himself.

  “What did Ranoth mean by that, exactly?” he asked, and Talarath’s neck reddened.

  “The request means what it says! We need you to go and investigate the dragon’s destruction, and — and —”

  “Talk to it?” Seagryn supplied.

  “If it will talk to you, yes!” Talarath roared, his eyes snapping. “Perhaps you could assume that stinking ‘altershape’ of yours! You’ve proved yourself capable of knocking down buildings while wearing it! Presumably its thick hide would provide you some protection against the dragon’s flames!”

  “Vicia-Heinox doesn’t shoot flames,” Seagryn murmured. “The dragon focuses attention upon an object and somehow creates heat inside it.”

  “There, you see?” Talarath gestured with his long arm. “You’re the expert who can aid us in our dilemma.”

  “But Father, this isn’t fair!” Elaryl said again, returning to a theme Seagryn assumed had been frequently argued between them in his absence. “You refuse to put him on your Ruling Council because he’s a magic user, but when you run into a problem you can’t solve, you want to send him to do your dirty work!”

  “I remind you, daughter, that it’s you who has discouraged contact between the Council and your husband ever since your return from the Marwild forests. Besides — any attempt to elevate him to a Council rôle would be met with violent protest. You know as well as I do his current reputation among the people of Lamath.”

  “What reputation?” Seagryn asked, as they glanced at him in surprise. When neither answered, he asked, “What is my reputation with the people?”

  “It’s …” Elaryl began, but her voice tra
iled off.

  “It’s not good,” Talarath finished for her but didn’t elaborate.

  “So I gathered.” Seagryn nodded, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He turned to look out over the parapet again, but, although the light was fading, he could see no fires on the horizon. “And whose fault is that, I wonder?”

  “Your own,” said Talarath.

  “The fault lies with your Conspiracy!” his daughter countered, and they fell to arguing again.

  Seagryn no longer heard them. He thought of a place far to the northwest, a village in the Western District called Bourne — his home village. Was it among those that had suffered the dragon’s burning? For reasons of his own, he’d not been there for many years. It appeared he would be seeing it again soon. It no longer mattered who won the debate behind him; from the first mention of the dragon, he’d known that his summer idyll had ended. A monster had been loosed upon the world, and yes, he had loosed it. To free the beast had seemed the right thing to do at the time. His affection for Berillitha had demanded it. “But I can’t very well just let you burn Bourne, can I?” he asked the purple twilight.

  “What?” the arguing pair asked him in unison, and Seagryn shrugged and turned to look at them.

  “I’m going to bed. I have a long journey to begin in the morning, and the very thought of it exhausts me.”

  He didn’t know how long the argument continued, but it was some time later when Elaryl came drifting into their bedroom. She held a lit lamp designed to disturb his slumber as well as to illuminate her white-lace gown. “Are you asleep?” she asked.

  He hadn’t slept at all — how could he? The thought of pretending sleep crossed his mind, but he discarded the idea immediately. Elaryl was very persistent when she wanted to talk. “Not really.” She set the lamp on the table and came to sit down beside him. “You don’t have to go, you know.”

  He looked up into her face — that achingly beautiful face he and all the other students had so admired from the choir loft — and sighed. “Yes, I do.”