kindling. And he'd thought his little dragon could hurt it? He must have been mad.
Lional's dragon lashed sideways with its tail: Gerald staggered as it hit the brown dragon a glancing blow. Lional's dragon breathed fire: he cried out as the heat licked him along his arm, blistering flesh. The little brown dragon faltered, one wing seared and smoking. Its wings beat once… beat twice… it wasn't climbing. The brown dragon let out a hoarse cry of despair. Watching, triumphant, Lional laughed.
This was the moment. Live or die. Kill or be killed. Succeed or fail… and in failing doom two nations to death.
As one with his suffering, struggling dragon, Gerald took a shuddering breath. Ignoring their pain, their fear, for the first time he looked deep within to the source of his power. Vivid as mercury, potent as wine, it poured without end from a reservoir he never knew existed… drowning him from the inside out.
Somewhere in his mind something tore loose, shattered, exploded. It was Stuttley's all over again but a million times more powerful. His vision disappeared in a dazzling starburst. When it cleared moments later the world was strangely shadowed. Unreal. And cascading through his blood and bones a torrent of potentia that took his breath away. Compared to this, everything that had come before was as an echo, or a memory, or the merest hint of maybe. Flesh and bone fell away and now he didn't feel power, he was power. And he poured that potentia into his failing, falling otherself.
Through a silver corona Gerald watched the little brown dragon spiral away. He was the little brown dragon, their burned wing whole again, their broken ribs healed. They heard Lional grunt with surprise and then effort as he sent the crimson and emerald dragon in pursuit.
It was still an unequal fight. The little brown dragon was constrained by its original matrix; no power in the world could change that. And for all his newly woken potentia he was still a good wizard. Unsteeped in the malice and misery of the Lexicon.
He and his brave brown dragon would have one chance…just one…
Seeing through the magicked lizard's single eye, using senses he knew were his, yet not his, he felt Lional and his ravenous familiar closing the gap. Felt the hot wind of their breath on his back. Heard the greedy roar of hunger in their throat. Closer… closer… closer…
The monster would be on them in seconds. In seconds it would all be over with Lional triumphant… untrammelled… With a throat-ripping cry of effort Gerald brought his little brown dragon to an impossible midair halt and somersaulted it over the back of Lional's pursuing crimson and emerald monster. Lional and his dragon couldn't stop. He extended his claws — the brown dragon's claws — and sank them deep into Lional's — the other dragon's — hot and scaly hide. Then he reached out his jaws, snapped off one of the poisoned spines… and plunged it into the vulnerable throat of the crimson and emerald monster beneath them. Lional and his dragon screamed.
Dimly Gerald felt the acid poison burn his mouth, dissolve his teeth, run down his gullet and eat out his guts. His little brown dragon was dying and he was dying with it. Dimly, turning, he saw Lional drop to his knees, hands clawing at his throat. A bloody foam frothed at his mouth. His eyes were wild and staring, green venom bubbled from the gaping wound beneath his jaw… and where it touched the flesh curled and smoked and split like rotten fruit, releasing a stench like a thousand drowned bloated bodies.
'Leave, the beast, wizardV somebody cried.'Foolish youth, you cannot save it! Abandon its mind before you are consumedV
Unstrung with sorrow he pulled his fading mind free of the little brown dragon. His legs gave way and he collapsed to the grass. As he stared into the sweet blue sky so far above him he saw two dragons… one brown, one crimson and emerald, locked in a fierce and dying embrace, falling… falling…
And then the dragons were gone and it was two tiny lizards, falling… falling. They tumbled into a clump of burned pink azaleas and disappeared from sight.
To his left Lional let out a choked, gurgling groan… and fell silent.
Gerald couldn't move. Could barely breathe. Every muscle, every bone, every hair on his head was hurting exquisitely. All he could do was lie on the grass of the Royal Duck Pond park and stare at the sky. A sky that was suddenly full of camels and sultans and tatty old holy men, all gathered around him, their dark eyes approving.
Then the sky faded, and the camels, and the Kallarapi… and his mind folded in on itself, closing the door to consciousness.
Some time later the door opened again, with resentful reluctance, to the sound of jabbering voices and the feel of brisk but gentle hands pushing him, pulling him. With enormous effort he opened his eyes. Anxious faces crowded above him but he could barely make them out through the waves of searing flame rolling relentlessly through his body. The world seemed strangely shallow… for some reason sited at the end of a tunnel…
There was Markham, his welcome face white and frightened. His lips were moving, shouting something, but the words didn't make any sense. Melissande, too, with her rust-red hair coming down from its bun. Her dreadful shirt had lost three buttons and she was crying messily. Reg sat on her shoulder, claws clutching tightly, wise eyes brilliant with fury and fear. He couldn't see any Kallarapi.
He was still on the ground. Rolling his head he caught sight of Lional, dead on the grass a few feet away. The King of New Ottosland was a ruined travesty of his extravagantly handsome former self. The sympathetica had consumed him so completely his human flesh had succumbed to distant dragon poison, dissolved and reduced him to raw bloody meat. His blue eyes were open, gazing back with blank surprise.
Beneath the searing flame Gerald felt a vast aching sorrow. You fool, Lional. You poor twisted fool. It didn't have to end like this…
The world blurred, then. Strong arms lifted him, carried him. Placed him inside a covered carriage. The horses' hooves were too loud, they clattered on the cobblestones, on and on, making his head ring. Eventually the carriage stopped. He was lifted from shadow into sunshine. Carried indoors and up stairs, flight after flight. Taken into a familiar place, his suite in the palace. His bedroom. His bed. Swift hands stripped the clothes from his body, cool sheets scorched his shivering flesh. He cried out wildly in fear and pain. He thought Lional had returned to torment him, all blood and rotting flesh, fed to fatness on gross black magics that held the grave at bay.
He felt himself plunge into a pit of fire… knew that he was dying… and was desperately relieved.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Gerald opened his eyes again and realised he wasn't dead after all, but mending, he was swamped with a bittersweet joy. The curtains were drawn and lamps were lit. Night-time, then… but which night? How long have I been here? When can I leave?
A sound on the pillow turned his head. Reg, settled as a hen on a nest and tossing down minced chicken. Some small spark deep within him flared to a bright brief life.
'Hey' he said, his voice a scratchy whisper.'How many times do I have to say it? No eating in bed.'
She considered him thoughtfully. 'So. You're alive after all, are you? How do you feel?' 'I'm horizontal and breathing.'
She sniffed. 'And that's better than horizontal and not breathing, believe me.' i think…' he began, then frowned. Something was wrong. He closed his right eye… and stopped breathing.
'I can't see…' He opened his eye again. 'Reg? Reg, what's happened?'
She wouldn't meet his gaze. 'Do I look like a doctor to you, sunshine? Is there a stethoscope hanging around my neck?' 'Oh God. I'm blindV
She rubbed her beak against his hair, a rare caress. 'Half blind,' she said gruffly. 'And it may be temporary. No need to panic yet.'
The little brown skink had been blind in one eye. Was reborn a half-blind dragon.
… the acid poison burns his mouth, dissolves his teeth, runs down his gullet and eats out his guts. Tlie little brown dragon is dying… dying…
A pawn. A sacrifice. Killed without mercy on the altar of his necessity.
'I'm sorry' he whispered as the lamplight dimmed and soft oblivion claimed him.'I'm sorry…'
The second time he woke Shugat stood beside the bed, supporting his bent old body with his staff. The
