Mero snorted. All the more reason for you to take me with you if you decide to leave these complainers behind. They might decide that if you're not around, they should blame me!
Shana laughed, and patted her friend on the shoulder. It's a bargain, she told him lightly. If I bolt, I'll take you with me.
Keman rolled his eyes upwards. If you bolt, you'd better not forget to tell us! he exclaimed. We dragons are only here because of you, little two-legger, and there's no reason to stay if you leave! You think we want to have to listen to them whining without you to keep them off our backs?
I can't imagine why anyone would, Shana told her foster brother. Not for more than a heartbeat, anyway.
Caellach Gwain surveyed the cave that would be his home for what was left of his life, and seethed with resentment. The dragon that had prepared it for him had smoothed the floor and walls, it was true, had drilled a ventilating shaft right to the surface, and it was no longer as dank as it had been. He'd been promised that later another dragon would return, and shape a little cubicle into a bath and necessary, and another into a fireplace and chimney. The dragons swore that there would be no trouble in creating a real sanitation arrangement, nor a good heat source.
But it was still a cave, with his few belongings heaped pathetically in one corner, and nothing was going to make it into anything but a cave. It was not his comfortable suite of four real rooms with real walls, floor, and ceiling of warm wood, in the old Citadel. There was no furniture, and there would be none until someone learned how to make it. No bed, no tables, no chairs—no rugs, no fireplace, no cushions, no blankets…
No one to clean for me or cook for me, and everything topsy-turvy, with brats that should still be apprentices playing at being our leaders, and people who should be leaders forced to take their orders. Caellach grimaced angrily. And if it hadn't been for those same brats, I would be sitting in my favorite chair with a nice cup of tea right now, or perhaps a glass of mulled, spiced wine. His mouth watered with longing.
He had not forgotten that this Shana creature was the reason they had all been forced to flee the Citadel in the first place, and he was not about to let anyone else forget it, either. If she hadn't rashly used the old transportation spell to bring her and her three idiot friends straight to the Citadel the moment she thought they might be in a trifle of danger, the elves would never have known that it and the wizards in it even existed. Things would still be the way they always had been, the way they should be.
Comfortable, safe, and secure.
They kept telling him, whenever he tried to insist on his rights and get his apprentices back to their appropriate work, that things were different now and he would have to see to himself. He didn't see why things should be any different, especially not now. Wasn't it the duty of the young to see to the welfare of their elders? Hadn't it always been that way? And the elders paid for that with their wisdom and experience, which was only right.
But apparently that wasn't the way this new order operated. Anyone who is able-bodied will have to take care of himself, he'd been told, rudely. We'll get you started, but you'll have to make your own quarters after they're roughed in, and you'll have to see to your own needs.
The nerve of them, he seethed. That had to have been on that Shana's orders! She had never liked him, because he'd put her in her proper place more than once. He'd be willing to bet that her own master Denelor wasn't doing without the services of his apprentices!
And just what was he supposed to do to make this into something livable, anyway? He couldn't steal what he wanted from the elves, the way he had in the old days; that was part of the bad bargain that Shana had made to get the elves to agree to leave them alone. Anyway, the moment I did, they'd know where we are now. That would be stupid, even by that brat's standards. Was he supposed to go cut down trees and build his own bed, chests, chairs? Was he supposed to weave his own blankets? Were they all mad?
Of course, they're all mad, he told himself, grinding his teeth. They wouldn't have done this if they weren't mad. They wouldn't have fought the elves in the first place, they'd have rendered that Shana creature unconscious and left her for the elves to find. They had no reason to suppose there was more than one halfblood, after all. She should have willingly sacrificed herself to save the rest of us! It was her duty! Not dragging us into a war we didn't plan on and never wanted! Not turning our whole way of life upside down just because she thinks she's better than her elders!
He felt a flush of anger crawling up his face, and forced himself to calm down.
It won't be this way forever, he promised himself. It may not even stay this way for long. The other senior wizards have been listening, lately, when I've tried to show them reason. There are probably a lot of them looking at holes in the stone and thinking now that I was right. Shana brought all this on us; there's no reason for us to listen and obey when Shana and those dragons start upsetting the proper order.
There was every reason for the older and wiser wizards to start returning things to the proper order. They were no longer under a state of siege, nor were they trudging through the wilderness. It was time to set things right again.
And if Parth Agon would not take care of the task, Caellach Gwain was just the man to see that things did get back to normal.
But meanwhile—
He surveyed the hard stone floor with ill grace. Supposedly—provided that their so wise leader hadn't appropriated the children for some other necessary task—the human children had been sent down to the river in the valley to cut reeds for bedding. Supposedly they should have made several trips by now, and there should be many bundles stacked up on the riverbank, waiting for someone to come get them. That floor was going to be cursed cold to sleep on without something between him and it.
He started to call for one of his apprentices to start fetching bundles of reed down here, recalled that he had no apprentices now, and stopped himself with a growl.
Well, at least she can't forbid me to do this the logical way, he thought hotly. Cursed if I'll carry all those bundles down here by hand!
He didn't need a scrying crystal to locate the bundles of reed; that was for mere apprentices. He was a senior wizard and above such crude necessities. He simply concentrated and called upon his powers—
A glowing, ball-shaped haze of light appeared in the center of the cave, and within a heartbeat or two, the unmistakable shapes of reed bundles formed within it.
He wondered for a moment, as the power drained from him a bit, how many he should take.
As many as I can fetch! He decided. And we'll just let them see who the senior wizards are!