he thought. How can you be alive? I sensed your death. Can it be that I was wrong? Can it be that I may still have the pleasure of killing you, myself?
It took quite a while to find the Highbulp. Despite his determined laziness and obvious clumsiness, Glitch the Most could move when he had reason. He had covered nearly half a mile of subterranean passageways before he found a suitable place to hide in the bottom of what might once have been a slops sump. Eventually, though, they found him. Then more time was required to pull their leader out of his hole so he could take charge.
When it was explained to the Highbulp that the giant salamander was no longer a threat because his throne had eaten it, he swelled with pride and started for This Place. But when they added that his throne was no longer a throne, but had turned into a twelve-foot-long green dragon, they had to run him down again and repeat the process of pulling him from a hidey-hole.
Finally, though, they brought him back to This Place, and Gandy greeted him at the portal. “Got a dragon here,” the Grand Notioner pointed across the chamber, where the dragon was still sleeping. “What Highbulp think we oughtta do?”
Glitch stared at the emerald form across the way, ready to turn and run again. But the dragon didn’t seem an immediate danger, and he glanced around at This Place. Gully dwarves were gathered here and there, huddled in clusters at respectful distances from the dragon, and most of them were looking at their leader, waiting for leadership.
A few, though, were wandering around doing various things, and one group nearby was busy bending and unbending Tote. They were flexing his arms and legs, bending his middle, turning his head this way and that, poking fingers at his eyes to make him blink.
Glitch tipped his head and squinted. “What matter with Tote?”
“Him?” Gandy asked. “Got a cramp. All over. Head to toe. Some kin’ cramp, huh?”
Glitch wandered over to get a closer look at the flexing of Tote, and Gandy padded after him, others following. “So what we do now, Highbulp?” the Grand Notioner asked again.
“Do? ’bout what?”
“ ’bout dragon! What else?”
Glitch turned and looked again, almost dissolving with sudden panic. For a moment, he had forgotten the dragon. “Dragon!” he gulped. “Run like crazy!” But when he turned to run, there were dozens of his subjects behind him. He bowled them over and went down with them.
Lidda had come down from the wall, and was hovering nearby. Now she shook her head. “Highbulp not good for much,” she muttered, wading across tumbling gully dwarves to help her lord to his feet. When he was upright, she faced him and poked him in the chest with a stiff finger. “Got problem here, Highbulp,” she explained. “What you gonna do ’bout it?”
Twenty yards away, the green dragon raised its head and looked around, hissing with irritation. “Will you little dolts keep it down? I just hatched, you know! I need some sleep!”
Glitch would have bolted again, but Lidda had him firmly by the ear, pulling him forward. “Dragon awake,” she said, urgently. “Highbulp talk to dragon. Make it go ’way!”
“Lidda leggo!” Glitch wailed. “How come you bossin’ Highbulp aroun’?”
“ ’bout time somebody did,” Lidda snapped. “Might make you ‘mount to somethin’.”
With Lidda leading him by the ear, Gandy prodding him with his mop handle and dozens of his subjects crowding behind him, Glitch the Most, Highbulp of This Place and Dealer with Dragons, reluctantly approached the irate creature. It wasn’t as big as the dragon he had met before, only a third that big, but it was the same color, and it was still a lot bigger than he was. And it didn’t look at all friendly.
Twenty feet from the creature, the party stopped because Glitch had his heels dug in and would go no farther. The dragon was still looking at him, contemptuously.
“Make dragon go ’way,” Gandy urged.
Glitch waved a tentative hand at the thing. “Shoo!” he said softly.
The dragon raised a scaly brow. “What?”
His knees quaking, Glitch tried again. “Dragon shoo!” he chirped. “Go ’way!”
The dragon yawned. “No.”
The Highbulp gulped, then tried one more time, a little more firmly. “Shoo, dragon! Scat! Go ’way, okay?”
“No,” the dragon said, again.
“Oh, okay.” Glitch thought for a moment. “Why not scat, though?”
“Because I belong here,” Verden Leafglow said, resignedly.
“Fine,” Glitch assured it. “We scat, then.” H$$ to his subjects. “Ever’body pack up! Time for go someplace else!”
“Don’t be such an idiot,” the dragon hissed. “I am …” It was a difficult thing to say, but she had no choice. “I am yours. I belong to you. Don’t you understand?”
“Nope,” Glitch admitted.
Verden shook her head in frustration. Not only was she delivered into the hands of these obnoxious creatures, but it was up to her to explain it to them. And there was nothing she could do about it. In her mind, a force greater than any power of hers demanded it.
“I am rejected,” she said, hissing the words. “I have been given to you, to serve you as … as you please.” Her eyes closed, her head turned upward and she wailed, “Goddess, release me! I can’t stand this!”
But there was no response, no lessening of the curse that was upon her. She lowered her head, looking away. “I am unable to hurt you puny beings, any more than you can hurt me. I belong to … oh, gods!
With a shudder, she told the gully dwarves, “I
Beyond her, in the big tunnel, another gully dwarf had appeared. Blip had just arrived on the scene. Both his hands were full of bashed rats, carrying them by their tails, and he was making his way past the mutilated remains of the salamander, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Wow,” he said, gawking at the corpse. “Took care of that, alright.” Then he stepped past it, turned and bumped into the nose of the green dragon just lowering her head to sleep. He froze for an instant, his eyes going huge, then screamed at the top of his lungs, spun around and ran, throwing dead rats everywhere.
“Gods!” Verden Leafglow twitched her tail in disgust, then went back to sleep.
Chapter 6
It was a part of the goddess’s punishment, Verden knew, that she was growing so fast. Day by day-almost hour by hour, it seemed, she gained in size and strength. In a matter of weeks, she nearly tripled her length. Her mass and physical power were multiplied by hundreds, and she could feel within her the capacity for breathing chlorine clouds, though within the confines of the gully dwarves’ realm she was unable to do so.
From the vestigial nubs on her shoulders, great wings grew-wings that stretched almost from wall to wall of the great subterranean chamber when she spread and flexed them. She had attempted to exercise her wings properly, but the results had been disastrous. At first beat, the downdraft had sent every gully dwarf in This Place rolling and tumbling, and her geas had risen to punish her, to remind her painfully: Do not hurt them!
It was all part of the punishment. Until she reached full size and full power, she would not fully appreciate the exquisite humiliation of being powerless against the “least of the least,” the Aghar. The goddess had not allowed
