The Accidental sorcerer

Shugat's look was inscrutable. 'The gods give us wings, Princess, when desiring us to fly towards… justice.'

'Ouch,' Monk muttered. 'Think that was a threat?' i don't know,' Gerald muttered back. 'Is your brother a pillock?'

'Shhhh!' hissed Reg, and thumped him with her wing.

Zazoor was gazing around the eerily hushed and deserted palace grounds. At the burned bodies. The blackened vegetation. At the plumes of smoke still rising in the distance. 'Calamity has come upon your kingdom, it seems, Highness. The city streets we rode through on our way here were sadly damaged and as empty as this grand royal residence. Tell me, if you can: where are all your people?' indoors. Underground. Run away' said Melissande. 'They're hiding from the dragon, Magnificence.'

'Well there's no point pretending,' said Reg as Gerald cursed under his breath. 'The wretched thing could land on our heads any moment.' Zazoor's eyebrows lifted. 'Dragon?' it's… an internal matter. Nothing for you to worry about, Magnificence.' Melissande looked at the army ranged at Zazoor and Shugat's backs. Silent. Disciplined. Waiting for a signal. 'Let us instead address your uninvited presence. You've come for the monies owed to you by our kingdom. With an army, to use force if we don't willingly part with them. Sultan Zazoor, if I had those monies to hand I would give them to you gladly. I don't… therefore I can't.'

Waving a fly away from his face Zazoor said, 'It saddens me to hear you say so.'

'And I'm not happy to say it,' she replied. 'But good neighbours are honest with each other.'

'Honest?' Zazoor smiled. 'A strange word in these strange times. Highness, it is not your debt that brings me here. Kallarap will not starve without your pennies. I am sent to you by my gods, who would have me speak with you of sacrilege. And treachery. And yes, indeed: of honesty!

Damn. This was where things went from bad to worse really fast. Gerald grabbed Reg off his shoulder, shoved her at Markham and threw himself into the fray.

'Sultan Zazoor, your quarrel is with me,' he said, ignoring Melissande's furious protest. 'Her Royal Highness is — '

Zazoor raised a silencing hand and looked at Shugat. 'This is he?' Shugat nodded. 'This is he.'

Zazoor's camel curled back its upper lip, lavishly fringed eyes glinting with displeasure, and stepped forward until it could blow its hot stinking breath into Gerald's upturned face.

'You are the foreign wizard who would presume to usurp our gods,' Zazoor said pleasantly. 'Why shouldn't my holy man strike you dead where you stand?'

As Melissande gasped, Gerald forced himself to meet the sultan's pitiless gaze. 'Your holy man can do whatever he likes to me. I won't stop him. I'll even agree I deserve it. Just not before he helps me kill a dragon. Or a man. Whichever comes first… or easiest.'

Zazoor's cold expression did not alter. 'Both you and the princess speak of a dragon. But dragons do not live in the world, wizard. Unless you wish to claim that Grimthak, Holiest of the Holy, greatest god of Kallarap, has clothed himself in form and flame to anoint the kingdom of New Ottosland?'

He shook his head. 'No, Magnificence.This is an unholy dragon. A monster of flesh and blood and magic'

'I see,' Zazoor said thoughtfully. 'And how does it come here?'

His hands fisted, then relaxed. 'Magnificence, I made it.'

The briefest spark of surprise showed in the sultan's hooded eyes.'For what purpose, wizard?'

Tell him, Dunnywood. You've got nothing left to lose. 'For the enslavement of your people and the pillaging of your desert's Tears.'

Again Zazoor looked to Shugat. His handsome face was grim.'"Evil", you said, my holy man. And so has evil come to pass.'

Shugat nodded, equally grim. 'The gods do not lie, Magnificence.'

'Tell me, wizard,' said Zazoor. 'By whose order did you bring forth this unholy dragon, that my people might be made to suffer?'

'I made it for Lional, Forty-third King of New Ottosland.'

Zazoor's eyes closed as though he were pierced by a terrible pain.'You did this knowing the dragon was an abomination? Knowing how Lional intended to use it?' / did. Hell, I did. 'Yes.'

Now Zazoor's eyes opened. His face was terrible.' Why?'

'Don't answer that, Gerald,' Melissande said quickly. 'You're not on trial here, this isn't a court of law. He — '

'Magnificence,' he said, touching her hand so she fell silent. 'I made the dragon because I'm weak.'

From behind him came a cackling shriek of fury. Then Reg landed in a flurry of feathers on his shoulder.

'Weak my granny's bunions! Now you listen to me, Zazoor! If you knew what that bastard Lional did to my Gerald to get that dragon, you'd — ' 'The bird?' Zazoor said Co Shugat. Shugat nodded. 'The bird.' Zazoor considered her. 'Not, 1 think, trained.'

'Trained?' screeched Reg. 'What do you think I am, a bloody circus act?'

The smallest of smiles touched Zazoor's lips. 'What you are is a mystery'

'And I can stay a bloody mystery, all right?' retorted Reg. 'Let's just stick to the point. In case you'd forgotten there's an overgrown handbag with wings around here somewhere and we've got to take care of it before this little gathering becomes the biggest outdoor barbecue in the history of New Ottosland!' Gerald sighed. 'Reg…'

She whacked him on the head. 'You shut up. What's the matter with you, telling Mr Turban-head here you're weak?' She rounded on Zazoor again. 'This boy's just come out of a dark, dank cave where he spent nine days being hideously tortured by that maniac Lional! Suffering things that'd make your camel turn white! And if he hadn't given in, nine days would've turned into foreverl Could you endure being tortured forever? No. Could you endure being tortured for nine days? Hah! I'll bet you wouldn't last nine minutesl So don't you dare sit up there on your mangy sinking ship of the desert and presume to call Gerald evil or weak or anything like it, or you'll have me to answer to! Do I make myself clear?'

If Zazoor was offended by the outburst nothing in his expression hinted at it. Instead he glanced at Shugat, who tapped his camel on the knee with his staff, waited for it to fold its legs then climbed down, staff in hand, to stand before him, his deep-sunk eyes half lidded and his thin-lipped mouth pursed.

Gerald waited, barely breathing. Is this it? Is that wrinkled old face the last thing in this world my living eyes will see? He flinched, then braced himself as Shugat pressed one palm over his heart hard enough to bruise. He felt an immense wave of power flow through him like a river unleashed. Grunting, he held his ground. Just.

Shugat's eyes closed. A nimbus of light exploded from his forehead. After a moment he stiffened, his face spasming. Then he sighed, a long slow exhalation of pent-up air, stepped back and looked at Zazoor.

'The bird does not lie, my sultan. The wizard has suffered. His blood still stinks of foul enchantments.'

Zazoor tapped one elegantly tapered forefinger against his lips.Then his gaze shifted and he lifted a beckoning hand. A moment later, Monk joined them.

'And who are you?' said Zazoor. 'Another wizard?'

Monk cleared his throat. 'Yes, Magnificence. I'm — '

'A friend,' said Gerald, and silenced Monk with a burning look.'Innocent of these doings. He's not to be harmed.'

Zazoor raised his eyebrows. 'You would stop me?' i'd try.'

A flickering glance indicated Shugat and the menacing ranks of waiting warriors. 'You would fail.'

He held the other man's gaze without flinching. 'Perhaps. But not before I'd tried.'

Zazoor laughed. 'Holy Shugat. This wizard asks us to help him destroy the dragon. What is our answer?'

Withered, sundried and bent beneath his weight of years, Shugat lifted his staff and struck it into the gravelled ground. Thunder rumbled from the cloudless sky. 'No!