His voice trailed off into a brooding silence. Matt had the picture. Stegoman had somehow turned out to be a menace to dragon society; so they'd clipped his wings and sent him into exile.
For what? Stegoman seemed a nice enough guy, allowing for a prickly disposition that probably went with being a member of a highly individualistic and very military culture. Matt somehow read him as the kind who'd never hurt another being, unless he were attacked. So what could he have done?
Gotten drunk.
It made sense. The dragon had appeared with a blast of fire; right after it, he'd been slightly tipsy. The more he'd breathed fire, the more drunken he'd become, till he was staggering and missing his aim. Then, when he'd quit breathing fire, he'd sobered up. The inference was that breathing fire made him drunk.
The thought made Matt a little giddy: all that dragon, cavorting around in the air, getting filled with the joy of flight till he just had to let it out, in a five-foot lance of flame. Then getting tipsy, which meant even more euphoric, which meant more fire, which meant a drunker dragon, and on and on.
If Matt was to judge by Stegoman, the dragons were a pretty realistic, practical sort; they must have been able to see that Stegoman was a menace to aerial navigation fairly quickly - or at least when he'd caused another dragon trouble the third time.
So he'd been grounded for drunk flying. And just to make sure it couldn't happen again, they'd put a few rips in his wings and exiled him.
Stegoman sighed heavily and resumed his tale. "For five hundred years peace held; no man came against us, till Hardishane's Empire had dissolved. By then, we'd grown accustomed to our own army ordering, even though we lived in peace. It had proved too useful; we had built our dragon city and we'd done away with blood feuds. More dragons lived than e'er before, and the living was richer, safer. Then, when the Empire fell, the first men's army marched into our land."
"You chased them home, of course."
"Certes. But ever and anon, they try again - though it takes them near an hundred years to screw their daring up again."
"And you don't have any trouble with men in the intervals?"
"None dare attack - save vile hatchling hunters, seeking blood to sell to sorcerers." Stegoman shut his jaws with a snap, holding Matt with a fixed and glittering eye.
Matt swallowed. He thought he'd gotten Stegoman off that topic.
The dragon stretched and came to his feet with a rattling clatter. "Which brings to mind thyself. Art thou a hunter, a sorcerer - or both?"
"Neither," Matt said quickly. "I'm a wizard." He heard his own words and felt like a fool.
But Stegoman looked at him sidewise and slowly nodded. "Methinks there is some credit in that claim."
Matt heaved a sigh of relief that hollowed his backbone. "What convinced you? My native goodness glimmering through?"
"Nay, thine ignorance. Since thou knowest so little, thou hast only newly discovered thy Power and art still a wizard. Yet thou'lt surely find temptation yet! Be assured - I trust men to be treacherous."
"Comforting thought, I'm sure," Matt mused. "It was just research, you see - I was trying to find out if I really could work a spell, and the first thing I thought of conjuring up turned out to be you."
"And thus we are acquainted," Steogman said drily. "Tell me, whence comest thou, from what benighted land, that thou couldst know so little of our dragon lore?"
Matt started to give an honest answer, then caught himself. "Uh, I don't think you're going to believe this."
"Art thou so rare?" Stegoman demanded. "Tell thy tale; if there be truth in it, be sure that I've heard stranger."
"Okay, you asked for it." Matt took a deep breath. "I'm from out of this world. Not just this land - this world. Totally. I'm not even from this universe."
Stegoman lowered his snout onto his foreclaws, watching Matt with glittering eyes. "So thou art from another universe and world? How came this?"
"I couldn't rightly say," Matt admitted. "One minute I was reading an old scrap of parchment in my neighborhood coffee shop and the next I was standing in a street in downtown Bordestang."
"No doubt some magus, here wished thy presence."
"You think so, too?" Matt leaped at it. "That's the only explanation I can think of. But who'd want me here? I scarcely know a soul."
"What soul knows thee? That's more in question." The dragon's tail-tip twitched. "Malingo, perchance - the King's vile sorcerer. Couldst thou serve him in any way?" He said it casually, but he was eyeing Matt as if Matt were a marshmallow ready for toasting.
"Well, no," Matt said carefully. "That is, I suppose I could be useful to him - but I don't think I'd want to be."
"Wherefore not? Malingo rides the wave's crest now; his tide still rises, carrying him up to glory. Thou couldst rise, too, to wealth and power."
"And the damnation of my soul." When in Rome, speak Latin. If they wanted to deal in medieval concepts, Matt pretty much had to, too. "Malingo strikes me as the kind of boss I couldn't trust. He might decide to put me down - six feet deep. Besides, I met the man already; he did some rather unpleasant things to me."
Stegoman frowned. "Thou dost not show it. Why did he mend the things he'd done to thee?"
"Oh, he didn't. But I couldn't walk around all day without my giblets, could I?"
Stegoman was very still suddenly, and Matt wondered, with a touch of panic, if he'd said the wrong thing. Then the dragon spoke and he almost sounded respectful. "Thou hast countered spells Malingo cast on thee?"
"Well, sure! I have this quirky thing about living - it's a nice pastime."
"Assuredly, it is," the dragon breathed. "Thou art, then, no weakling as a wizard, art thou?"
"Oh, now, wait a minute? Don't go making me out to be what I'm not! I'm sure Malingo wasn't really trying."
"Even so: thou dost live, and that doth show power. Too much, he should have made a servant of thee, or a corpse."
It was one of those very unfortunate situations where the only thing Matt could say that wouldn't get him into trouble was the truth - and even that was a little uncertain. He braced himself for the worst. "Well, I didn't exactly tell him no. I said I needed time to think it over."
"And hast thou thought?"
Matt took a deep breath. "Pretty much. I still need a few more facts."
"Such as?" there was a dangerous rumble under Stegoman's words.
Matt tried to ignore it. "Well, Malingo is rotten, and Astaulf's his patsy. But who's on the other side? And are they any better?"
The silence stretched out so long that Stegoman's glowing eyes seemed to be permanently burning themselves into Matt's retinas. At last the dragon spoke.
"Thou must, indeed, be new-come to this land, if thou knowest naught of those Astaulf opposes."
"Right. But I happened to be there when Malingo and Astaulf squared off, and--"
"Oh, did they?" Stegoman's eyes glinted. "A point of interest, I assure thee. And what didst thou glean from this confrontation?"
Matt took a deep breath and launched himself. "That Astaulf usurped the throne about six months ago, with Malingo's help. And the population isn't all that happy about it, or Astaulf wouldn't still have soldiers in the streets. And there's a bunch of loyalist barons fighting what amounts to a guerilla action, trying to bring Astaulf and Malingo down."
Stegoman nodded. "Thou hast caught the nubbin of it squarely. But who seek these loyal barons to place upon the throne?"
"Ah, there's the rub in the nubbin," Matt said with regret. "I didn't hear a word about the other side. Who are -- I mean, were they?"
"Thou hadst it more aright with 'are','' the dragon mused, "but as for 'were,' 'twas the fourth King Kaprin. His wizard, full of years, had died; and ere he could seek out another, Malingo leaped, with Astaulf and his soldiers, upon this town of Bordestang. The fight was brief but bloody, and King Kaprin died."