other side of the nest, the smallest of them larger than he was.
“Could you, then?” Aldagon asked, startled.
“Sure, why not?” Dumery said. “And anything else you want, I could buy it for you and bring it up here.”
“Cattle?”
“Of course! You won’t need to hunt any more, or steal from the farmers-no more worries about poison or magic or hunger, because you’ll have your own cattle to eat! And seasonings for the meat, if you like. Sheep for variety, or anything else you fancy.” He was beginning to pick up a trace of Aldagon’s archaic phrasing.
“This seems too good to be true,” Aldagon said suspiciously.
“Oh, not really,” Dumery insisted. “I mean, I’ll have to work hard, build up the business-I better start off by apprenticing myself to a merchant to learn the trade and make contacts. And you’ll be giving blood every month or so, once we get going, you won’t be just doing nothing. And you may need to free some more breeding stock from the old farm.”
“I still find...” she began, then stopped. Then she asked, “How is it that a mere lad like you should bring this about, when I, after better than four centuries, had never managed it?”
“Age isn’t everything,” Dumery said. “You need determination, and ambition.”
“And you, a child, have those in greater quantity than I?”
“Well,” Dumery said, “back home in Ethshar, there’s a saying that’s used to describe someone who pushes hard, who won’t be stopped-they say that he was apprenticed on his twelfth birthday.” Aldagon looked puzzled, and Dumery explained, “That’s the first day someone can be apprenticed; it’s not legal to take on an apprentice before he’s twelve. Most people wait a few months, to look around and think it over and see what they want.”
“And were you, then, apprenticed on your twelfth birthday?”
“No,” Dumery admitted, “I wasn’t apprenticed at all. But it was on my twelfth birthday that I asked my father to arrange it; it’s not my fault it didn’t work out.”
“Ah,” Aldagon said, “and will this arrangement of ours work out?”
“If we’re careful,” Dumery said, “it ought to.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
They talked for hours, well into the night, working out the details; when the sun dropped below the horizon they moved outside the nest, into a clearing where Dumery made a small pile of brush that Aldagon lit, providing a fire for light and heat.
They tackled such questions as how long it would take to get things under way, and how much of the arrangement they had made should be kept secret, and how many other humans would be hired to help with establishing a cattle ranch, selling blood, and the like.
Taking Dumery’s age into account, they decided to build up slowly.
“After all,” Aldagon said, “I’m in no hurry. I should live another millennium or so, if I’m careful, ere my body fails of its own weight and my heart bursts. I’ve learned patience.”
The final discussion was over just how Dumery was to get back to Ethshar.
“You can’t walk from here,” Aldagon insisted. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Why?” Dumery asked, puzzled. He had survived encountering wild dragons; what worse dangers could remain?
“Why, you’ll be passing within two leagues of the Warlock Stone!” the dragon told him.
“I will?” Here was a chance to confirm or refute what Teneria had told him. He asked, “So what?”
“Lad, don’t you know?” Aldagon said, amazed. “That stone is the source from which all warlocks draw their power, and which draws them in when it can, turning their own power against them. I don’t pretend to understand it well, but I’ve spoken with a good many warlocks on their way to it-on their way to destruction, for none have ever returned. Ordinary mortals who go too near the Stone become warlocks themselves, but take no pleasure in the transformation, as they’re drawn immediately to it. I’ll not have you devoured by the Stone, whatever it truly is!”
“But I don’t have any talent for warlockry!” Dumery pointed out. “Everybody told me that.”
Aldagon considered.
“Well, ’tis possible,” she admitted. “In truth, I’ve flown within a league or so of the Stone myself and felt nothing beyond a certain unease-but why risk it?”
“Because if I don’t, how am I going to get home?”
“Why, go around, of course. And in truth, to be sure, I could fly you there. I’ve not seen Azrad’s Ethshar in three hundred and seventy years, but I think I can find it. I could deliver you right into Westgate Market-if Westgate Market still stands.”
“Oh, it does,” Dumery said. Then he stopped to think.
The prospect of flying to Ethshar, on dragon back, was dazzling, both tempting and terrifying-and, after a moment, irresistible.
“All right,” Dumery said, “but you can’t fly me right into the city. Everyone would see you. Everyone would want to know what’s going on. And someone might get frightened and throw a spell at you.”
“True enough,” Aldagon agreed. “Well, then, what if I fly you to the highway north of Ethshar, in the hour before dawn when all’s quiet, and deliver you there, in sight of the walls?”
“That should be safe enough,” Dumery agreed.
It was settled.
Then Dumery curled up in his blanket and slept, while Aldagon returned to her nest.
The following afternoon, when the time came to depart, a small snag appeared in their plans-just how would Aldagon carry Dumery?
“I can hold you in my claw,” she suggested.
“It doesn’t sound very comfortable,” Dumery protested. “I thought I could ride on your back.”
“But what would you hold on to?”
Dumery had to admit that she had a point; her back was far too broad to ride astraddle, as he might a horse. Still, he refused to admit defeat. Flying the entire way clutched in the dragon’s claw like a sack of meal simply didn’t appeal to him.
“What if I sat on your neck, just behind your head?” he suggested. “I think I’d have a pretty good grip there with a leg on each side, and I could hold onto your ears with my hands.”
“And choke me, and pinch me?”
“I’d be careful. And I really don’t weigh that much.”
“True enough,” the dragon agreed. “All right, then, we’ll try it.”
Dumery grinned. Aldagon lowered her head, and he clambered up onto her neck, swinging one leg over.
His seat was rather precarious at first-dragon scales were much more slippery than he had expected. Twice he almost fell off, and only saved himself by snatching at Aldagon’s immense pointed ears at the last moment.
Finally, though, he found a position that seemed secure, with his toes hooked into the underside of her jaw, his body pressed forward along the back of her skull, and his hands hooked firmly around the bases of her ears.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“Awkward,” she replied, the movement of her jaw knocking his feet loose, “but ’twill serve.”
“Don’t talk,” he said. “It pushes my feet out.”
“I shall attempt to restrain myself,” she replied. “Ready yourself, lad!”
Dumery crouched down and clung tightly while the great dragon leapt into the air.
The forests and hills fell away below with startling speed, the thick grey clouds above drawing nearer until they seemed to be almost close enough to touch.
Then Aldagon wheeled about, leveled off, and headed south.
