"I know not how far to trust these creatures."
"Oh, I am sure—"
"Aye, I have accepted your assurances to my sorrow ere this. What's their most binding oath?"
"By Thio's soul, I believe."
"Very well, tell them to swear peace with us by Thio's soul. I must release this fellow sooner or later, since I cannot dig for the crown and hold him hostage at the same time."
More twittering, and Jorian released his captive. The three Silvans faded into the vegetation. Jorian asked:
"How did you come to know so much about them?"
"I bad to pass examinations in those subjects when studying wizardry at Trimandilam."
"If you knew their language, why didn't you speak to them sooner?"
"I was too frightened and out of breath."
They plodded on. Jorian sweated, swatted flies, and cast anxious looks through the aisles of the greenwood. The day wore on.
In the afternoon, they came out on the shore of a branch of the Marshes of Mom. One of the small crocodiles of the marsh slipped into the water, sending ripples out across the still, black mere, over which glittering, glassy dragonflies hovered and darted.
"This is odd," said Jorian, frowning at his map. "It looks like the middle finger of the north branch of Kadvan's Marsh. But we should be much farther south, around here." He pointed. "I thought I knew this country like the palm—great Zevatas! I know what's the matter! Your confusion spell has confused me, too!"
Karadur spread his hands. "What expected you, my son? I had no means of immunizing you from its effects."
"Does it affect you, also?"
"Not really, since I never did learn my way about this lieu so well as you did when you were King; so I have little knowledge to be twisted by the spell."
Jorian shrugged. "Then there is naught for it but to keep on trying. Come on!"
He started off on a vast circumambulation of the marshes, plowing through thickets of shrubbery and sinking into boggy patches. Karadur's fatigue forced them to stop to rest more and more often. Time and again, Jorian would set his course by the sun and start off in what he meant as a straight line, only to find soon after that he had somehow gotten turned around and was heading in the opposite direction. At sunset they were still struggling.
"I thought we should be back at the cart with the crown by now," grumbled Jorian. "I can testify that this spell of yours, at least, works fine. Had I known, I should have brought food and blankets. No use blundering on without light to see our way."
"Must we spend a night on the ground?" asked Karadur.
"So it seems. Let's hope that tiger I saw at Mount Aravia wander not down this way. Twere not an impossible distance for it."
Jorian built a small fire and spent an uncomfortable night, sleeping in snatches with his back to a tree and wondering whether the sounds he heard were those of some prowling predator or the rumbling of his empty stomach. Karadur seemed to manage better, settling into a cross-legged position, putting himself into a mystical trance, and awakening with dawn apparently none the worse.
They plodded on through the morning, as the cool of the night gave way to the steamy heat of midday. At last Jorian said: "We should be near our goal. The lay of this land looks familiar, unless your spell has addled what memory I have. Have you a short-range divination spell that will tell us where lies the crown?"
"Nay; that is Goania's specialty. Let me see; we buried the bauble beneath a log, did we not?"
"Aye. Younder lies a log; could that be the one?"
It was not; nor were the next six logs they investigated. Jorian said: "I shall have nightmares of digging under one fallen trunk after another through all eternity—ah, that one looks familiar!"
A few minutes later, Jorian gave a whoop as they dragged out a mass of rotted rags wrapped around a heavy object. The rags were the remains of the clothing from which Jorian had changed when he made a rendezvous with Karadur here on his flight from Xylar. Inside the tatters, bright and gleaming, was the crown of Xylar.
Jorian held it up to admire the gutter of the morning sun on the jewels around the rim, which flashed scarlet and azure and green. "At least, 'tis some satisfaction to have guessed right for once… What's that?"
A sound of a heavy body moving came to his ears. He sprang to his feet, peering about. The swish of displaced branches and the thud of heavy footfalls came closer. Jorian cried:
"It's a Paaluan dragon! Up a tree, and yarely!"
Through the brush came a monstrous lizard, over thirty cubits long. Jorian sprang to the nearest large tree, an old silver-gray beech, with enough low branches for easy climbing. As he swarmed up the trunk, he turned to see how his companion fared.
Instead of climbing a tree, Karadur had loosed the rope from around his waist and laid it in a coil before him. He was chanting a spell over it. The upper end of the rope reared up, like the head of an angry cobra. As it rose to man-height, Karadur seized the tip in both hands and wrapped his scrawny legs around it lower down. The rope continued to rise until it almost stood on its tip, raising the wizard three fathoms above the ground.
The dragon came briskly to the foot of the tree that Jorian had climbed. It placed its foreclaws against the trunk and reared up, maneuvering its head among the branches and shooting out a long forked tongue. Jorian climbed higher to keep out of its reach.
The dragon backed down the trunk and turned its attention to Karadur, bunched at the top of his rope. It cocked its head to one side and then to the other; it approached the rope and gingerly touched it with the tip of its tongue.
Jorian foresaw that even its small reptilian brain might have the wit to seize the rope in its fanged jaws and shake Karadur off his precarious perch. Without stopping to ponder, Jorian descended with reckless speed, ran to where the lizard was still scrutinizing the rope, and drew his sword as he ran. He aimed a cut at the dragon's tail, opening a small gash in the thick, scaly hide.
With a hoarse bellow, the dragon swung its ponderous head about to see what had stung it. Prepared for this, Jorian sheathed his sword and ran, the dragon lumbering after.
Jorian did not run so fast as he could have, knowing that if he tripped and fell, the dragon might gobble him up before he regained his feet. So he ran cautiously, watching for roots and fallen branches. Behind him came the dragon. From the sounds it made, Jorian thought it was gaining; but he held to his course.
Jorian ran and ran. His heart pounded and his breath came in gasps. At least the sounds of pursuit seemed to be getting no closer.
Then, despite his care, he put his foot into a hole in the turf, masked by dead leaves, and fell sprawling. He scrambled up, expecting the fanged jaws to slam shut on him. A glance showed him still several fathoms ahead of his pursuer. He ran on.
When his laboring lungs seemed ready to burst, Jorian became aware that the dragon, too, had slowed. He risked a glance back. The monster was still coming, but more and more slowly, like a clockwork toy running down.
Jorian slackened his own pace, taking care not to gain so much on the dragon as to lose sight of it altogether. A savant in Iraz had explained that cold-blooded organisms like lizards had less efficient hearts than birds and mammals and hence could not sustain such strenuous efforts so long. And so it had proved.
The dragon stopped altogether, lowering its huge barrel to the forest floor and lying still, save for the movements of its tongue and rib cage. Breathing great gulps of air, Jorian watched from a distance. After a while the lizard rose to its stumpy legs and ambled off. Jorian feared it might head back toward Karadur; but instead it set out at right angles to its former direction. When it was out of sight and hearing, Jorian returned to the place where he had buried the crown.