Dragonslayer: A Novel Read Free

with profound pity. He had no answer to that question, "Why me?", although he himself had asked it countless times. He leaned forward and took the child's tousled head between his hands. "Such talent!" he said. "If only . . ." He did not finish the sentence, but fell into a reverie from which he was finally drawn only by the mother's broken sobbing and the father's plaintive question, "Can you . . . can you cure him?"
    Ulrich made his decision then, a decision influenced by the fact that in all the long and lonely years of his sorcerer's quest he had never seen such a natural and exuberant talent as that which sent these strange creatures tumbling about his feet, and by the fact that he deeply feared the bending of such power to evil ends, and by the fact—most poignant—that he had no heir to whom he might pass on his knowledge of the ancient, dwindling Craft. "Cure him? No. That I cannot do. I can merely govern his power. But . . ."
    "Oh thank you!" The mother seized Ulrich's hand.
    The father's brow creased. "Will it . . . cost much, this cure?"
    "Nothing. But later, when the child has become a boy, I will want him to come here, to Cragganmore, to live. I shall want to teach him. That is my condition."
    Sighing, drying her eyes, the mother nodded.
    "And you understand," Ulrich added, raising a warning finger, "that it will be dangerous. It is always perilous to meddle with such power. If I should miscalculate ... If I should cast too strong a spell. . ."
    "Oh," the mother whispered, "you couldn't make a mistake. You're a sorcerer."
    Ulrich smiled sadly.
    "Done!" the father said. "Agreed."
    Ulrich frowned and sighed heavily, remembering.
    All visions vanished. The liquid in the bowl lay still, reflecting only the flames from the braziers and the sconces, while the old man dreamed back, his tongue working at the bearded corner of his mouth. He had indeed erred, suppressing that innocent power; the charm, a dangerous one, had twisted serpentlike upon him. It had flawed Galen's gift, leaving him bemused and easily distracted. Later, when Ulrich had begun the formal training, following the precepts of his master Belisarius, he found that the boy lacked interest and concentration. And in fifteen years—what failure! what shame!—Ulrich had not brought him even to the First Degree. After all this time the lad still could not levitate, could not transmute, could not foresee. He was unable, in other words, to perform the most rudimentary tasks. Very soon, Ulrich feared, the boy would be called upon, and then he would need help; yes, would need much help.
    Stiffly, massaging his hip, the old man straightened up. He groaned and sighed. The birds stirred expectantly, watching as Ulrich shuffled toward a second table, smaller and raised on a dais at the center of the room. On it lay an object covered by a white silk cloth. It was cunningly embroidered, this cloth, colored with arcane symbols intertwined, and as the magician approached, it began to shimmer with a light which was not a reflection but which radiated intermittently from the embroidery and from the object beneath, brightening and fading with an unnatural rhythm.
    When Ulrich lifted this cloth—rather, when he caused it to rise by a touch at its edges and an upward gesture—a marvelous and subdued luminescence briefly pervaded the room. The night birds blinked and stared at the object that had loosed such weird light. It appeared to be a stone, gold-set and hung on a golden chain. To the gyrfalcon's eye it was the size of a small mouse scurrying through November stubble.
    "Ill wrought!" muttered Gringe, shrinking in the far shadows of the room. Ulrich took it, enclosed it in his cupped hand, momentarily containing the light, and then gathered up the golden chain so that the amulet nestled among its coils like a small egg. Then he released the strange glow again from his cupped palms, just as it began to fade.
    Seen close, the object was almost colorless, its tints of