being a barren, desolate wasteland, is chock-full of gemstones that will fetch untold millions on the international market. Millions that will pave the way to New Ottosland's glorious future.' He stared. 'Gemstones?
'Yes. Gemstones.' Lional rolled his eyes. 'Cast your scattered wits back to our little meeting with the Kallarapi delegation. Do you recall that undistinguished lump of dull grey rock embedded in Shugat's forehead?' How could he forget? 'Yes.'
'Once properly cut and polished those rocks become rare and priceless gemstones. The sands of Kallarap are littered with them. The Kallarapi call them 'The Tears of the Gods',' said Lional, his voice curdled with contempt. 'They regard them as sacrosanct. Only their holy men may touch them, and only then for arcane religious purposes. For the most part the Kallarapi just leave them lying around in the desert. They're too stupid to know the rocks' true worth.'
'Well… isn't that their choice? These rocks belong to them, after all.' 'Not for much longer,' said Lional.
'So you think if I make you a dragon,' said Gerald, after a disbelieving moment, 'and you tell the Kallarapi it's their greatest god Grimthak, they'll hand over these rocks to you without so much as an 'excuse me, but'?'
Lional laughed, a soft, shivery sound. 'It's a pleasure doing business with you, Gerald. For a moment there I thought you were going to be obtuse. Yes of course the Kallarapi will hand them over. They are a gullible and superstitious people and they'll do whatever Grimthak tells them to.'
No, no, no. Lional couldn't be serious. 'Your Majesty, I'm sorry, but your plan is flawed. I wasn't lying when I said I couldn't make an animal speak. Even if I did make you a dragon it wouldn't be able to tell the Kallarapi anything]'
Lional shrugged. 'A minor technicality. I'll do the speaking for it. Or Reg can.'
'Reg?' Gerald nearly laughed out loud.'Forget it. You'll never get Reg to play along with this!'
'I think I will, you know,' Lional contradicted gently.'It appears she's rather fond of you, Gerald. I wonder how many of your detached fingers it will take to persuade her that cooperation is in your best interests?'
Gerald pushed himself to his feet. 'Saying something like that only proves you don't know Reg. You could cut off my head and she'd never do it! You're wasting your time!'
'Let me be the judge of that,' said Lional. His eyes were narrowed, his fingers steepled. 'And now, Gerald, it seems to me our avenues for conversation are exhausted. The time has come for you to make me my dragon.'
Okay. This charade had gone on long enough. I can't afford to wait for Reg and the cavalry. For all I know they're not even coming. Fll have to fight him myself, here and now, for as long as I can. Fll probably die. It probably serves me right. 'Get a grip, Lional! You can't seriously think I'm going to transmogrify a dragon so you can terrorise the people of Kallarap into believing that their gods want you to steal their sacred stones and sell them? For money? To make you rich?'
Lional stood, his expression cold and severe. 'Guard your tongue, sir, lest it talk you into trouble.'
'I'm already in trouble,' Gerald retorted, feeling reckless. Feeling desperate. 'But so are you. You're crazy if you think Shugat and Zazoor are going to fall for a stunt like that. The sultan was at school with you, he knows exactly what you are. You may be powerful, Lional, but you're only one man. You won't stand against the sultan's army, or even against Shugat. That holy man will blast you into a million pieces!' 'Silence, idiotl You will not defy meV
'Are you kidding? To my last breath I'll defy you, Lional! I won't be a party to your — '
And then he was flying through the air, boneless as a rag doll. He cried aloud as he crashed into the wall on the cave's far side. Cried out again as Lional's sweeping arm hurtled him into the ceiling, and yet again as he was thrown mercilessly into the dirt at Lional's feet.
'Now do you see who you're dealing with, Gerald? Now do you see that I will have my way?'
Dazed, bruised, his body harsh with pain, he stared up into Lional's demented face. 'And what about Melissande? Where does she come into this?'
Lional laughed. 'She's my tool, Gerald, just like you and your little friend Reg! By the will of the gods that I've created, Melissande shall marry Zazoor and bear him a son. Once that's accomplished Zazoor and his ridiculous brother will die and I shall rule Kallarap in her name. Kallarap will cease to exist, desert and oasis both shall be New Ottosland and New Ottosland shall be the most powerful nation in history, ruled by the greatest wizard king this world has ever known!'
Breathing hard, Gerald sat up. There was blood running down the back of his throat and trickling down his face from a cut on his cheek. He touched it with unsteady fingertips, wincing as he found the split flesh. 'Oh Lional,' he whispered. 'You really are insane.'
'All the great visionaries throughout history have been called so,' said Lional. 'We do not heed the gabbling of our inferiors.'
Well, you'd better heed this, Your Majesty,' he said, his jaw clenched tight. 'You might as well go ahead and kill me now because I will never make you a dragon.' 'Really?' said Lional. 'Are you quite sure?'
Gerald watched, uncertain, as Lional reached into a pocket, withdrew a fine silk handkerchief then dropped to one knee beside him. Flinched, as Lional dabbed the still-wet blood from his cheek.
'Dear, dear Gerald,' he said caressingly, and leaned close. His pupils were enormous, empty black pits. 'So eager for death. You have no idea…' His hands came up, confining, restraining.
'No!' Gerald protested as Lional pressed warm lips to his open mouth and exhaled. Revolted, he shoved the madman away and rolled over, smearing a dirty sleeve across his mouth. 'What was that? What the hell did you just do?'
Smiling, Lional stood and tucked the bloodstained handkerchief back in his pocket. 'Patience, Gerald. You'll see.'
Gagging, guts roiling, he sat up. There was a foul taste in his mouth. A buzzing in his head like a rampaging swarm of wasps. Wasps with stings. And they were stinging…
'Now, Gerald,' said Lional as he fell sideways against the rough cave wall, retching. 'Tell me again how you won't make a dragon?' The torment continued for hours. For days.
Lost in a sea of suffering he was dimly aware that Lional came and went at will. Countless minutes passed, each one lasting an eternity. From time to time he fainted in an attempt to escape the misery but the blessed darkness never hid him for long. Lional's clever curses always found him and dragged him, screaming, back to the light.
Every time Lional returned to the brightly lit cave he asked the same question: 'Gerald, will you make me a dragon?' and every time he returned the same answer. 'No!
Then Lional would sigh with counterfeit sorrow and breathe another pestilence into his mouth. Boils, or carbuncles. Lesions. Rashes. A bloody flux or stones in his kidneys. Racked with pain and a kind of fascinated horror, he watched his flesh swell and fissure, watched the pus well and drip into the dirt of the cave floor where eventually he lay naked, because the torment of fabric against the open sores on his skin was impossible to bear. His body seared and sweated and convulsed in protest against the afflictions Lional visited upon it. His hair fell out in scab-encrusted clumps. His fingernails rotted softly in their beds, consumed with fungal infections. His teeth shivered in their shrinking sockets. Ulcers colonised his mouth and tongue and cataracts blurred his bloody sight. And still he said:'No!
Eventually Lional's patience began to wear thin. 'I think you're labouring under a misapprehension, Gerald,' he hissed, his lips pressed close. 'Do you think this is a competition you can win? It's not. And you can't die, either. Not unless I say you can. But I won't. How will I have my dragon if you're a discarded sack of bones and bile? No, Gerald. You will live. Like this. Abandoned to a life of solitude and suffering.'
Gerald dragged open his pus-filled eyes. His gums were bleeding.'You wouldn't..!
Lional gently touched what was left of his filth-matted hair.'Of course I would. I will. Or, Gerald, you can make me a dragon.' 'No,'he whispered.'Never.'
Lional clicked his tongue disapprovingly. 'Never is a very long time. Would you like to know how long? I'll show you…' And he whispered foul words into the air, and laughed, and left.
Then came pain so complete, so obliterating, that everything he had suffered before was as an overture to a symphony. The cave disappeared into roaring flame and he lost all track of who he was. Where he was. What he loved and believed in, and why. Lost track of everything except the endless sound of his screams.
The next time Lional leaned close and said, 'Gerald, will you make me a dragon? he couldn't speak. His throat was swollen shut and his tongue refused to obey him. Nor could he remember what he was doing here or
