“Reorx,” she whispered. “I have stepped aside from the spear. Am I free?”
The iron shield at her breast throbbed.
She was aware again of the two gully dwarves, still clinging to her crest. She lowered her head. “Release me,” she said.
For a moment, Glitch clung desperately, then he realized that the commotion was over. “Okay,” he said. Releasing his grip, he clambered down to the floor and stood, trying to remember at least some of what he had just seen. He wasn’t at all sure, but it seemed to him that he had just done battle with a red dragon and won! He began to swell with pride, and by the time he reached the dead dragon he was strutting and grinning. Lidda came after him, and took him by the hand.
“That all settle, then,” she said. “We get marry right away.”
He glanced around at her, puzzled. “We do what?”
“Never mind,” she said, firmly. “It all settled.”
“Highbulp kill a dragon!” he chortled, pointing at Flame Searclaw’s dulling corpse. “Glorious Glitch th’ Most, Highbulp an’… an’ dragon-basher! Get ever’body, come see dragon Highbulp kill!”
He started to climb the corpse, so he could stand atop it and be admired, but Lidda pulled him back. “Highbulp gonna let other dragon go?”
“Already did!” he reminded her. “Turned loose, got off an’ …” he looked around at Verden, frowning. “Jus’ as soon dragon get lost while Highbulp show off dead dragon,” he said. “Don’ need you here! Shoo! Go ’way! Come back later!”
“Glitch don’ need dragon anymore,” Lidda persisted. “Glitch great dragon-basher. Don’ need dragon for keep aroun’.”
“Nope,” he admitted. “Jus’ get in way, prob’ly.”
Lidda gazed at Verden for a moment, something like true understanding shining in her eyes. Then she elbowed Glitch in the ribs. “Go ’head, then,” she demanded. “Highbulp say, ‘dragon is release.’ ”
“Okay,” Glitch said. “Dragon is release! Don’ need dragon anymore! Go ’way!” He waved an imperious hand. “Shoo!”
Verden’s eyes widened. Within her, something fell away and she was unbound. The geas was broken. She was free! Free to do as she pleased. Free even to kill these miserable creatures if she chose! Still, Lidda had given her back her life. The little female gully dwarf-least of the least-had done an act of mercy!
Verden Leafglow turned away. Up the corridor, and beyond other connecting corridors, beyond the buried city of Xak Tsaroth, beyond the Pitt, spread a whole world that she had never seen in this life. It was out there, waiting for her.
Something clattered at her feet, and she looked down. The Shield of Reorx had fallen from her breast. With gentle talons, she picked it up and half-turned, holding it out to the gully dwarves. “Keep this,” the green dragon said. “When you have children, give it to them.”
She didn’t look back again. Somehow, the sight of the Highbulp standing atop a slain dragon, looking smug and arrogant and actually believing that he, personally, had killed the great beast, was a little more than Verden Leafglow really wanted to deal with.
But in her mind as she crept around the upward bend, a silent voice like the voice of iron whispered.
Vengeance? Verden wondered.
PART 2
Chapter 9
“Before yesterday, somebody make all places,” Scrib mused aloud, not really caring whether anybody was listening or not. “Rocks an’ dribbles, leafs an’ hills, mud an’ holes … Somebody make all this stuff be. Even make sky, prob’ly Somebody say, ‘be sky,’ an’ sure ’nough, there sky is.”
Around him his students shuffled their feet and one snapped, “So what? Who needs sky?”
“Gotta have sky,” Scrib explained, straining at the concept. “All places under sky. ’thout sky, no place for places be under.”
Impressed with his own logic, Scrib squinted fiercely and wished that somebody might somehow remember what he had just said, so that somebody could repeat it back to him later. He knew he wasn’t likely to stumble upon that bit of exquisite wisdom again.
As usual when he felt the need to teach, Scrib stood on a high place with his students gathered around him. Today’s high place was a half-buried boulder in a marshy clearing, near the old Tall ruins that the tribe was occupying at the moment. The boulder was a good choice. A previous gathering, just the day before, had been dismissed early when it turned out that Scrib’s rostrum was an active anthill.
The “students,” as usual, were a dozen or so other gully dwarves who were here because they had nothing better to do at the moment.
Now one of them-a muscular young Aghar named Bron, who was usually in charge of the legendary Great Stew Bowl and, Scrib recalled vaguely, was related to somebody important-raised a tentative hand. “All that happen before yesterday?”
“Yep,” Scrib said with a nod. “Sky, places, everything, all made before yesterday.”
“How long before yesterday?”
Scrib screwed up his straggly-bearded face in thought. “Long time,” he decided. “Yesterday before yesterday. Long time ago.”
“What was long time ago?” a curly-bearded citizen named Pook asked.
“Long time ago somebody make everything,” Scrib repeated patiently. He had noticed that some people’s attention spans were shorter than others.
“Who did?” Pook wondered.
“Somebody,” Scrib emphasized.
“Somebody do all that?” Bron pursued, skeptically. “Make everything? Places, sky, turtles? Even us?”
“Yep. Somebody.”
Bron was on a roll now. “Make things, too? Like rats an’ trees an’ stew pots? An’ … an’ mushrooms an’ bashin’ tools … an’ dragons an’ bugs?”
“Yep,” Scrib assured him. “Make ever’thing, make ever’body.”
“Why?”
“Dunno,” Scrib admitted. Of all the questions he sometimes heard, that was the toughest one. “Don’ make much sense, does it?”
“Somebody pretty dumb, do all that for no reason,” another student pointed out. This one was a young female named Pert, one of his regulars. Students came and went, and Scrib never knew who or how many might show up when he began a talk-and-tell. Participation in a talk-and-tell group required thought, and thinking was not
