Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Not like that,” Pezi quickly corrected, and he gestured down at the road. “Ah, look down there somewhere.”

Chimolitha sighed and looked at the road.

“I’m sorry, Chimolitha, but I’m—I’m very nervous right now! Do you have any idea what’s around that corner?”

The tugolith frowned in concentration, but she wasn’t good at guessing games. Soon she gave up. “No,”

she admitted.

“There’s a dragon!” Pezi announced.

The tugolith thought about that for a minute, then she nodded. “Oh,” she said.

“And we’ve got to get passed it!” The beast filtered that through her brain, nodded, and then started moving again. “What are you doing?” Pezi demanded.

“Getting passed the dragon,” she answered.

“But—!” There was no time for any protest, for Chimolitha was huge, and it didn’t take her many steps to carry the horrified merchant around the last bend.

Pezi gasped as the enormous, scale-plated body of the twi-beast slipped into view. He clutched Chim’s horn in utter panic. Then he glimpsed the two monstrous heads, and what he saw made him crow with glee. “Asleep!” he whispered excitedly. “The dragon is asleep! Chimolitha, you know what this means?”

She blinked. “The dragon is tired.”

“Yes, right, that’s right,” Pezi whispered. “But it also means we can get past without disturbing it! We’ve got to move quietly. Let me down.” Chimolitha lowered her huge chin into the dust and Pezi swung down, balancing a moment on her lower lip before dropping to the ground. Here the pass widened out so the animals behind Chimolitha were able to step around her. Pezi suddenly realized they were spilling out of the North-mouth and that some were approaching the dragon. He began jumping up and down and waving his arms furiously to get them to stop. The tugoliths did stop, mostly to get a better look at Pezi’s strange antics. Although Pezi was mouthing the same angry commands he’d been shouting at them for days, no sounds came from his lips.

Riganlitha was puzzled. “I can’t hear,” he complained, and some of the other tugs said they couldn’t, either.

“You must be quiet!” Pezi whispered with great intensity. “We must go past this dragon without waking it!”

“Why is the dragon sleeping?” Riganlitha asked.

“Because he’s tired,” Pezi snapped, unconsciously mimicking Chimolitha. “Now get in line and walk softly!”

“Walk softly?” Rig puzzled.

“Tiptoe! Like this,” Pezi said, and he demonstrated. His multiton charges obediently tried to imitate. Or rather, most of them did. Unfortunately, Thuganlitha had by now pushed his way out into the center of the pass and he was spoiling for a fight. He’d been outmaneuvered that morning by Pezi and had found himself at the end of the line going up the narrow defile, with no way of getting around the others. The unlucky tug that had climbed the hill ahead of him bore a dozen new scars on its backside and had been more than happy to let Thug by. The bellicose beast now danced arrogantly toward the center of Dragonsgate and regarded the sleeping dragon disdainfully. “What’s that?” he bellowed.

“It’s a dragon!” Pezi called back threateningly. “And if you wake it up, it will roast your hide!”

That startled Thug a bit, but he remained full of bravado. “He’d better not! I’ll horn him!”

“Thuganlitha, please,” Pezi wheedled, taking another approach. “Get in line and be quiet!” Then he added a fatal phrase: “It’s for your own good!”

Thuganlitha never did anything for his own good. He turned his head and looked at the dragon, snorted, and muttered, “I’ll wake him up.” Then he charged.

“No!” Pezi screeched, running toward Thuganlitha to block his path. The inevitable outcome of such a senseless act suddenly occurred to Pezi; with a shout of, “What am I doing!” he turned and fled in the opposite direction.

“I find that a very good question,” said a voice that seemed extremely close to him. In fact, it came from right above his head. Pezi stopped in his tracks and gazed fearfully upward at one of the heads of the new Vicia-Heinox. The thundering of enormous feet behind him abruptly halted. Then it started up again, moving now more quickly than before. Only now, the sound receded. Pezi looked around in time to see Thuganlitha wedging himself obediently back into line. The tugolith’s eyes were wide with apprehension.

So were Pezi’s as he turned to look back up at the glistening teeth and slavering jaws that hovered above him. “Greetings, your Dragonship,” Pezi said. He gulped. Then he added, “Please don’t eat me.”

“Why ever not?” asked the dragon’s other head, which Pezi noticed now had settled into the dust five feet to his left.

Pezi cleared his throat. “Well,” he began lamely, “I could cite a long personal relationship between us that spans some years—” Pezi faltered and stopped when he realized both heads were chortling.

“Or—or I could mention the centuries of commerce, from which both yourself and my family gained mutual benefit…” The heads were cackling now and winking at one another. “Or I could point out that while I might appear relatively large by human standards, I’d be no more than a mouthful compared to eating one of those!” Pezi earnestly pointed at the tugoliths.

“Yes,” one head said thoughtfully. “What are those things?”

“They look as if they’d be tough to chew,” the other head observed.

“They’re tugoliths,” Pezi explained. “They come from the far north of Lamath.”

“Ah, Lamath!” the head above him said. “The land that loves me!” Pezi knew then that this head was Vicia.

“The land of dolts,” Heinox snorted from his resting place in the dust. “But tell me, Pezi, what are these things for?”

“Why, well, they’re—” Pezi looked around at his line of anxious behemoths, then leaned forward to whisper, “I’m taking them to my Uncle Flayh. I’m planning to make war beasts out of them.”

At the mention of Flayh, both eyes in both of the heads narrowed. “And what do you think of Flayh now?” asked Vicia with a sinister sneer.

“Oh Flayh? Why, I think he’s the most powerful man in the world, of course! And I need to get back on his good side!”

The heads both regarded him thoughtfully for a minute. Then Heinox raised out of the dust and said,

“Come here, Pezi.”

Pezi looked around, decided he was close enough, and anxiously murmured, “I am here!”

“Come closer,” Heinox said, moving closer to Pezi himself.

“Are you going to eat me? Because if you are, I’d really rather not!”

“Pezi,” Heinox growled, “stop acting like an idiot and come here!”

Pezi stared. While it had been the Heinox head who said

this, the voice was unmistakably that of his uncle. “You’re—”

“Of course,” the voice snapped. “Now come here!” Pezi huddled together with the head and listened closely. The watching tugoliths regarded this with awe. Their man conversed privately with dragons.

Their opinion of him markedly improved. “I couldn’t eat you even if I wanted to. This body isn’t palpable. Your hand would pass right through it. It’s an illusion I generate to support the revival of the Dragonfaith in Lamath. It also keeps traffic through the pass to a minimum. Most of the time I maintain the form of the dragon here without animating it, but when someone passes through, I’m forced to give my attention here. You, nephew, have bungled in at a most inopportune time!”

“Uncle!” Pezi pleaded. “Uncle, I’m—I’m sorry! I just thought—”

“No, you didn’t, Pezi,” Flayh snarled, still in a whisper. “You never had a real thought in your life. I’ve known about these beasts of yours for days! My new allies in Lamath had to arrest their keeper to prevent him from coming after you. However,” he went on, softening, “now that I see them, perhaps there will be some use for them, after all. But get them out of this pass immediately!” Flayh ordered, stridency returning to his voice. “The army of Lamath is this moment on its way to Dragonsgate to ambush the Golden Throng in the pass. I’m in the process of tracking a pair of magical thieves. I haven’t time for your lumbering beasts at the moment, so get them out of my sight!” At that, both heads lifted up and away from Pezi, then curled back against their body to return to sleep. The discussion was closed.