The Radiant Dragon Read Free Page B

a trophy. From time to time, he had wondered whether he might have to face such a creature in battle, but he’d never dreamed he might bump into one in such a cozy, innocuous setting. So intent was he on this new threat that he barely noticed the elven creature leave by the side door.
    The beholder, levitating about four feet above the floor, floated into the tavern, leaving a spreading wake of silence behind it. As the monster glided the length of the room, firelight glistened on the brainlike folds and crevices of its circular body, and its ten eyestalks turned this way and that as it took in the local color. It made its way to a corner table and came to a stop, hovering in the air over one of the chairs.
    Speaking flawless Common, it issued instructions to the suddenly servile tavern keeper. Within moments a terrified serving girl appeared, bearing a bowl of raw meat, which she tossed piece by piece into the beholder’s fanged maw. As it chewed, the beast occasionally blinked the one large eye that was located on its spherical body.
    “Bless me, Trivit, I believe that’s a beholder. By the Dark Spider, he is a homely fellow,” piped an ingenuous voice. The remark carried to the corners of the tavern, and, although the beholder did not appear to take offense, every other patron in the room began to eye the exits.
    Teldin’s hand strayed to the clasp of his cloak, a habit he’d developed in moments of impending crisis. Out of the corner of his eye he cast a glance at the imprudent speaker. Surprise made him turn his head and stare openly.
    Two green dracons stood at the mug-littered bar, observing the beholder with open-mouthed fascination. The reptilian equivalent of a centaur, each dracon boasted a dragon’s neck and head, an upright torso with heavily muscled arms ending in clawed hands, and the thick four-legged body and powerful tail of a brontosaur. One of these two beasts had the pale green hide of a tree lizard, and its torso was covered by a shirt of fine chain mail. The other’s skin was a mottled moss green, and its armor was fashioned of leather elaborately painted with a swirling pattern of lavenders and deep rose. A chunk of rose quartz hung on a chain around his neck, and an ornamental silver axe was displayed in a shoulder strap! Their open, innocent curiosity indicated that they knew nothing of a beholder’s fearsome reputation, and they just as obviously were too ale-soaked to recognize the tension that filled the taproom. Dracons were big, and they were tough, and these two were heavily armed, but they still were no match for a beholder. Someone ought to tell them that, Teldin mused as he took a quick sip of ale. Someone else.
    “I’m reminded of a jest, of the sort that makes the rounds of the washroom after a kickball tournament,” chirped the pale green dracon. He giggled briefly. “For that matter, I’m reminded of the kickball.”
    “A ribald jest! Oh, splendid.” The darker dracon – who somehow reminded Teldin of an effete, adolescent human – clasped his mottled green hands in anticipation. “I’m fond of such. Say on, do.”
    The pale green dracon cleared his throat with much ceremony before reciting, “How does a beholder, er, shall we say, reproduce?”
    His friend cast a smirk at the hideous, still-dining monster and shifted his huge shoulders in a delicate shrug. “With all eleven eyes shut, I’d warrant.”
    The would-be jester’s visage twisted in disappointment. “You heard it already,” he accused.
    “I most certainly did not,” huffed his friend, one clawed hand clutching at his pink jewel in exaggerated, fussy outrage.
    “But you must have.”
    “Upon my word, no.”
    “You did.”
    “Did not.”
    “Did.”
    “Did not.”
    The dracons began to shove at each other like two boys in a schoolyard fight. Giving a longing glance at his half-full mug of ale, Teldin tossed back the rest of his sagecoarse and rose to leave the tavern. In his opinion, things