“Ye weren’t… I’m not for…” Belexus tried again, futilely.
“Of course, I’ve got a head full now, now don’t I?” Ardaz rambled, grabbing at his thick shock of hair, shining more silver than white in the morning light. “Desdemona!”
Belexus started to speak again, thought the better of it, and clapped his strong hands down hard on the wizard’s shoulders, settling Ardaz’ dangerous movements, and hopefully the wizard’s rambling words, as well. Ardaz looked him right in the eye and blinked repeatedly.
“Take ease, me friend,” the ranger calmly prompted.
“Would’ve, would be, would never have not been, if you hadn’t shot me,” Ardaz replied dryly.
Belexus couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer, erupting in a howl, and drawing a scowl from the old man, but one that fast melted as Ardaz, too, joined in the mirth. “Oh, and a good shot, I do daresay!” the wizard roared, reaching around to the twin holes once more. “Right between the drumsticks!”
His laughter flew away as he thought on that last statement for a moment, his face blanching white. “A bit too good,” he muttered under his breath.
“Suren I’m glad to be seeing ye, me friend,” Belexus said. “But why’re ye here, so far from yer home?”
Ardaz snorted. “Not so far from my home as is Belexus of Avalon,” he shot back. “And coming of my own powers, instead of forcing a poor cold pegasus out here with me, I do daresay!”
Belexus conceded the point with a nod, not even trying to explain that Calamus had come of his own volition.
“So what is it, what could it be, that might bring a ranger from the forest in midwinter?” Ardaz asked bluntly. “Especially a one who has so taken a fancy to my sister-and you and I, oh yes, we shall talk about that later!”
Belexus blushed fiercely, but the mere mention of Brielle brought warmth flowing through his veins. “A quest,” he admitted.
“A quest?” Ardaz echoed, in a somewhat more sober and controlled tone. “Well, well, so the tale gets more interesting. But what quest?” he pressed. “I’m guessing that a hundred hundred could be found in this time of Thalasi, a hundred thousand, I do daresay! Hunting talons, then?”
“I’ve but one true enemy,” Belexus said seriously.
Ardaz snorted again. “One?” he asked skeptically. “I’ll show you a thousand more than one. Fly with me to the Four Bridges… er, to where the Four Bridges used to be four bridges, with King Benador, and I’ll-”
“One enemy,” Belexus said again, his voice so grim that it had a sobering effect even on Ardaz. “And when Mitchell’s wraith is put to rest, only then will I be looking for me next.”
Ardaz nodded and understood. Of course, Mitchell’s wraith, the slayer of Andovar. “I beg your pardon if stupid I prove, but are you not going in the wrong direction?” the wizard said, as politely as he could manage. “The wraith, if it even pulled itself from the river, would be far south of here, and likely to the west. Do you mean to circle the world-and it is round, you know-” he added with a wink, “and catch up with the beastie from behind?”
The absurdity of the question might have drawn anger from serious Belexus, except for the subtle reminder that Ardaz had stood beside him in his last encounter with the wraith, had stood shoulder to shoulder on the northernmost of the Four Bridges and, in fact, had sundered the bridge, thus putting Mitchell in the river.
“I seek a weapon,” Belexus admitted. “One Brielle has shown to me, the one in all the world, perhaps, that can truly harm the undead demon the Black Warlock has set upon us.”
“No settlements up here,” the mage reasoned. “Not a person to be found. A few talons, perhaps, but hardly any possessing such a weapon, I do daresay!”
“Not a settlement,” Belexus clarified. “A lair.”
“Oo, but I hate that word!” Ardaz replied, shaking his hands and his head vigorously. “A lair. A lair,” he said repeatedly, rolling the words off his tongue in a different manner each time, but shuddering with each pronouncement. “Conjures images of dragons and the like. Oo, a lair.”
“So it does,” the ranger replied evenly.
Ardaz stopped his babbling and stared long and hard at Belexus. “A dragon?” he managed to ask after a long pause, holding his arms outstretched, his hands waving under the edges of his great sleeves, making them appear as ominous wings.
“So says the witch,” Belexus answered without hesitation.
“You are going after a sword that rests in a dragon’s lair?”
“I seek the one weapon with which I might be paying back me enemy,” Belexus answered resolutely, his tone telling the wizard in no uncertain terms that any obstacles standing between him and the sword were unimportant.
“Whip-dragon?” Ardaz asked hopefully, for Belexus had defeated many of those.
“True dragon,” the ranger answered.
“Little dragon?” the wizard asked, again with the hopeful grin and tone.
Belexus crossed his arms over his muscled chest and shook his head slowly, side to side.
“Sleeping dragon?”
The ranger shrugged, again as if that were not important.
“Oh, well, let us hope,” Ardaz said suddenly, excitedly.
“Us?”
“You and me, of course,” the wizard bellowed. “Us. Though you would probably call us ‘weselves’ or some other such silly thing, what with that silly accent me-my-sister gave to your father and he to you.”
“I canno’-” Belexus began.
“See?” Ardaz accused, pointing a finger at the ranger’s mouth. “Canno? Canno what? Canno beans?”
“Stop yer babbling,” Belexus scolded, understanding that Ardaz might just be trying to confuse the serious issue-and worrying that the wizard might just be being the wizard! “I canno’ think to-”
“Stop me. Right,” Ardaz finished. “Of course, you canno’. I make my own path, you know. One of the agreements with the Colonnae when they made me a wizard, and quite beyond anything you might say or do.”
“I’m not asking-”
“Nor am I, nor am I,” Ardaz was quick to reply.
The ranger just gave a great sigh and held up his hands hopelessly.
“I will go, I think, and so I will,” Ardaz said with finality. “But, oh, first I must, I must, I must, find my hat. What with the hole in the backside, after all. Oh, the draft does tickle! Where, oh where, might it have gone off to?”
Belexus again started to formulate a more reasonable protest against the wizard’s intentions, but seeing Ardaz already hopping about the ledge again, searching frantically for his lost hat, the ranger realized that he might as well scream at the mountain wall. “It flew over the ledge,” he explained. “Caught in the wind, is me guess, and long from here.”
“Would’ve had it if you hadn’t shot me,” Ardaz remarked quietly.
“Would’no’ve shot ye if ye came in announced, or asked for,” Belexus replied in the same dry manner.
Ardaz shrugged and began looking once more.
“Come,” Belexus bade him, motioning for the wizard to follow him to Calamus. “I need go to the valleys below in any case. Might be that we’ll find it along the way.”
Down the pair went on the back of the magnificent steed, Calamus seeming to hardly notice the added burden of skinny Ardaz. The wizard complained continually about the wind whistling through the holes against his backside, but his grumbling fell away soon enough, when they spotted a patch of blue on a ledge halfway down the sheer cliff. It proved a tricky maneuver, but one worth making-or, Belexus realized, he’d have to listen to Ardaz complaining forevermore. The ranger brought the pegasus in as close as possible to the ledge and Ardaz, holding Belexus’ bow, leaned out to the side, hooked the brim of the hat, and slipped it free of its perch.
The ensuing shriek startled both wizard and ranger as a curled black cat fell out of the hat, plummeting down the cliff. Desdemona was a quick one, though, fast sprouting wings, fur going to feather, and then drifting down lazily, cawing in protest.