Stranded, unprotected, Gerald watched Lional and his dragon throw flame and vitriol and the worst curses in history at the holy man's shimmering shield. Spittle flew from Lional's mouth and green poison poured down the dragon's teeth, turning the ground beneath their feet to acid mud as the attack went on and on. Still the shield held.
Exhausted, half fainting, Lional fell back, one hand grasping at his dragon's spines to stop himself from falling. Equally spent, the dragon lowered its head and panted, wings limp and splayed upon the ruined grass.
Inside the barrier Shugat's eyes unrolled. He sighed, arms falling to his sides. Looked at Gerald, one wild eyebrow lifting in sarcastic invitation. Oh. Right. Gerald ran.
The flowerbeds at the far edge of the palace gardens had somehow escaped untouched, with unburned blossoms rising rank upon perfumed, bee-buzzed rank. With the last of his strength he dived headfirst into a cloying collection of hollyhocks, daisies and snapdragons. Ha.
Panting, he snatched up his arms and legs thinking: hedgehog. This far from the palace, to his shamed relief, he couldn't smell the stench of the dragon's kill. Thank God. Images of Lional and the dragon rose like flames before him. Kill them? He'd never kill them.
I'm going to die… I'm going to die… I'm going to die…
Some six inches from his nose a rustling of leaf litter. He sucked in moist, compost-rich air, unmoving. Another rustle. And then a lizard, a skink, skinny and brown with only one good eye, darted out from under a leaf and stopped, nervously scenting the air with its tiny tongue.
Gerald held his breath. Memory replayed recent, desperate words.
I'm the only wizard with a hope against Lional. But only if I fight with the same weapons he's got\
When he'd said it he was convinced that meant using Grummen's Lexicon. But what if… what if…
You know what they say. Fight fire with fire. Or… dragon with dragon?
His stunned mind reeled. No. He was mad. How the hell could it possibly work? As lizards went, this one was pathetic. With its left eye shrivelled, practically crippled. Its matrix would make a piss-poor dragon; even with the strongest magic this little skink could never hope to match the brute muscularity and mindless viciousness of the bearded spitting lizard from Lower Limpopo. The dragons would never be equaclass="underline" magic could only do so much.
But hey, Dunwoody. Remember your mantra: beggars can't be choosers, and it's the only lizard you've got. Even if all you can do is distract Lional… tire him out… buy enough time for Monk to return with reinforcements…
He didn't have a staff but that didn't matter. He had no need of staffs any more.
'Impedimentia implacatol On the brink of bolting, the little lizard froze and stared at him with its one good eye, cream-coloured sides pumping frantically for air.
He swallowed a sudden stab of conscience. Poor little thing. So timid. So frail. Did he have the right to do this? Change it? Distort it? Pit it against Lional's dreadful dragon, most likely to its death? There's no choice. I have to.
'Sorry little lizard,' he whispered, it's you and me or everyone else. I promise I'll make you as strong as I can. I just hope you survive transmogrification.'
And if it did, there remained the matter of his survival. Not just physical but mental. The Tantigliani sympathetica. If Lional, with the stolen potentias of five powerful wizards, couldn't resist its seductive destructive undertow, then prodigy or not, what chance did he have? Little to none.
Fear like a tidal wave smashed him to the dirt. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, or see anything in his future but a slow and bleeding insane death.
You took an oath and then you broke it. Here's your chance to mend it, just a little.
With infinite care he raised his head high enough to see around the garden, straining sight, hearing and wizard senses. No Lional, no dragon. But the respite wouldn't last. Withdrawing into his scented hiding place he scrabbled in the dirt for something sharp. His questing fingers found a rock, chipped on one side. It would have to do.
Setting his teeth, he unclenched the fingers of his left hand and struck into its palm with the piece of stone, again and again until he breached the sealing skin and freed the blood below. The pain was a welcome distraction.
Next he summoned from memory the exact sequence of blotches Lional had made on the crimson and emerald lizard's back to set in place the Tantigliani sympathetica.
When he was sure of it he opened his eyes, whispered 'Absorbidato complexus' and painted the skink with his hot, dripping blood. Then he ran his finger along its meagre length. 'A4anifesti retarto'. Finally, after checking it was still safe beyond the flowerbed, he picked up the skink and crawled out into the garden proper… where he set the lizard down on the close-clipped grass, took a deep breath and turned it into a dragon.
A roar of power. A rush of heat along every nerve. Vision incandescent, heart bursting, he felt the ether twist and turn in torment, felt the little lizard's dim-witted astonishment as bones lengthened, wings budded and fire filled its belly-He opened his eyes and saw his second dragon. A muted, muddy brown. Eight foot high and twelve foot long. No spines. No poison. A teaspoon of fire. He snapped his fingers before it could react. 'Manifest! asbsolutuml Tantigliani sympathetica obedientium singularum mil' And then, sealing both their fates:'Mix- nullimia!' The skinny brown dragon stirred. Turned its head to look at him, blinking. In a single heartbeat the world turned inside out… and he was staring at himself through the dragon's single black eye. He'd looked better.
The dragon raised its head and scented the rising breeze. Gerald, nostrils flaring, smelled smoke and fire, death and decay. A quick flutter of movement to the right caught the dragon's attention. He turned to look. A hummingbird, black and gold and unaware, paused to sup nectar from a nodding bloom in the next flowerbed. The dragon lashed out its tongue and pulled the hummingbird into the embrace of its gleaming white teeth. He felt fragile bones crack and split and hot blood course down his throat. He bent over, gagging. The dragon swallowed, and waited.
Straightening slowly, smearing bile from his lips with his sleeve, Gerald inhaled a deep calming breath. Inhaled another. And another. Then he took his dragon and went hunting for Lional. 'Right,' said Melissande. 'I've had just about enough of this.'
Monk sighed. 'I did warn you. Look, Melissande, they'll get to us when they get to us so there's no point — '
'There is every point! Because at the rate your precious Department's going I'll have qualified for the pension before they come to a decision!' she snapped. 'And another thing! You may be the one who said "Call me Monk" but / never answered, "Do call me Melissande". In fact if memory serves I said "Don't call me Melissande".'
Squatting between them, Reg refluffed all her feathers and said, 'Oh, give it a rest, you two, or I'll do both of you a mischief.'
They were sitting uncomfortably side by side by side in a drab grey waiting room outside some official chamber or other in Ottosland's antiquated Department of Thaumaturgy building. Apart from the back-breaking chairs there wasn't a stick of furniture. Neither were there windows to look through or any tedious old magazines to read. The room was cold and stuffy and not designed to succour its occupants.
Shivering, Melissande glanced through the open door to the drab grey corridor beyond. 'Where the hell has Rupert got to? It doesn't take this long to use the lavatory'
'Ha,' said Reg. 'He's probably been side-tracked by a moth.'
'That's not funny! Whatever you may think of him he really loved his butterflies! He's grieving for them, you horrible bird, he's probably got his head buried in a towel right now, crying his heart out for those stupid, stupid, insects!' 'Reg…' said Monk.'Please. You're not helping.'