Robert Hughes - The Wizard in Waiting

“Well, get around here where I can see your face!” Pezi was not about to turn his back on the tiny violet creature. He’d tried that before, and more than one hostile sugar-clawsp had taken advantage of the huge target thus provided. As the watchman stepped cautiously into his field of vision, Pezi grabbed the man by the collar and swung him around as a shield. The clawsp buzzed angrily, but did not strike the guard. “Now what is it?” Pezi demanded, his eyes focused beyond the man’s head.

“I… there’s someone in the courtyard to see you ”

“Who is it?”

“Tahli-Damen, the local lord of Uda in this region ”

“What!” Pezi yelped, suddenly focusing his eyes on the guard. “And you let him in!”

“Of course, Lord Pezi. Why, he is a merchant ”

“Without asking me?”

“You weren’t in your office, Lord Pezi!”

“You knew that it was time for my afternoon snack.”

“I know that all afternoon is time for your afternoon snack—”

“Then why didn’t you seek me out?”

“He told me that he bore an emergency message specifically for the Lord Pezi. Besides, he’s a merchant, and common courtesy demands that merchant houses admit any unaccompanied merchant who asks entry ”

Pezi snarled and shoved the guard backwards. The man screamed in pain and clapped the back of his neck, for the fat merchant had pushed him into the clawsp. Pezi didn’t linger to hear the guard’s angry curses.

He waddled rapidly around the corner of the kitchen toward the courtyard and away from the clawsp.

Tahli-Damen waited in the dusty court. Instead of the velvet and fish-satin robes his office entitled him to wear, he had donned the simple costume of a trading captain. His expression was almost penitent.

Pezi jellied toward him, regarding the Udan merchant with puzzled suspicion. “What are you doing here?” he blustered.

Tahli-Damen’s reply astonished him. The man dropped to one knee and mumbled, “I’ve come to beg your forgiveness.”

“Hunh?”

“I’ve had several days, Lord Pezi, to review my behavior at the conclave. I offer my apology, if I caused you and your uncle any discomfort.”

“What do you want?” Pezi’s eyes narrowed to mere slits in his fleshy face. He was keen enough to know no merchant ever acted like this unless he wanted something.

“Lord Pezi, you see right through me,” Tahli-Damen confessed. “As you’ve guessed, I’ve come seeking a favor a rather… delicate favor…” Tahli-Damen lowered his voice and glanced around. Several occupants of the castle had stopped to watch this curious spectacle unfold,

“You want privacy?” Pezi whispered.

“When you learn my business, I’m sure you’ll want privacy as well…”

Tahli-Damen replied mysteriously.

Pezi straightened up, his expression of consternation masking the gloating pride welling up inside his belly. He liked the idea of commanding the whole castle’s attention, He enjoyed being addressed as Lord Pezi by his chief competition in Ngandib-Mar. And he exulted in the picture of this competitor kneeling at his feet in the dust. He wasn’t in any hurry to move out of the public eye.

“I don’t have any secrets from my employees,” Pezi said grandly, gesturing around at the large court. “If you have business, speak it plainly.” Pezi propped his hand on his hips and splayed his feet wide apart.

“As you choose, Lord Pezi, but I ” Tahli-Damen looked up then and suddenly broke off.

“What’s the matter?” Pezi grunted. “Forget what you were going to say?”

“No, my Lord,” Tahli-Damen replied humbly. “It’s just that I noticed a sugar-clawsp buzzing around your head ”

“On the other hand, my offices are cool and quite private,” Pezi suggested earnestly, and he dragged Tahli-Damen to his feet.

“You’ll not regret this choice,” Tahli-Damen said as Pezi hustled him into a dark hallway and away from the insistent violent pest.

“I’m sure I won’t,” Pezi puffed, hurrying along the hall’s cobbled floor. In the dark of the passageway, the fat merchant completely missed Tahli-Damen’s gloating grin.

Erri cleared his throat and pointed to a wall. “That one first, Dolna.”

The tugolith keeper nodded, and began explaining to his assistants where they would attach their chains to the walls of the temple.

Nearby, a dozen tugoliths waited impatiently for the destruction process to begin.

Erri had decided weeks ago that in order to eradicate all memory of the Dragonfaith from the minds of his people, this central symbol of the ancient religion had to be destroyed. It was a pity to tumble such a grand construction. But if symbols couldn’t be changed, they had to be removed and this was one symbol he had no intention of the new sky faith adopting. Scores of initiates had urged him to reopen the delicately crafted cathedral and make it as central to the new faith as it had been to the ancient religion. But Erri resisted. “The Power cannot be contained in a house,” the Prophet snapped when anyone suggested it. If this place had to come down in order to make that clear, then come down it would. Today.

Erri felt a lingering sense of depression, however. He had been wakened in the night by horrible screaming only to find the screams had been in his dreams alone. Even so, he felt a malaise that couldn’t be denied and that wouldn’t go away in spite of the attention he gave to this project. He had been talking to the Power about it all morning.

“Is Naquin in trouble?” the Prophet asked.

“What’s a Naquin?” asked a curious tugolith. Erri turned around to stare up at the horned monster. The tugo-lith’s huge green eye, easily the size of small wagon wheel, gazed back at him curiously.

“It’s… a man.” Erri answered carefully.

“I don’t know a Naquin man,” the gigantic beast explained.

“I see. That’s all right.” Erri smiled in a soothing tone.

“But you asked me,” the puzzled tugolith pointed out.

Erri looked at it. “Oh, about if Naquin was in trouble? I was talking to someone else, child. Don’t worry about it.” It was impossible to think of a tugolith as anything other than an enormous baby. The beasts thought at the level of human toddlers.

“But if he’s in trouble…” the beast began.

“If he’s in trouble, what, Chimolitha?” asked Dolna as he rejoined Erri. The Prophet felt great relief at the keeper’s return.

“Then… you’ll be angry,” Chimolitha explained.

“I’m not angry at anyone, sweetheart,” Dolna said. “Are you ready to pull down this building for me?”

“Yes!” trumpeted Thuganlitha, an aggressive beast who liked nothing better than to bury its gigantic horn into something or someone.

“I know you are, Thug. Riganlitha? Pulanlitha? Are you ready?”

“I want to play,” Riganlitha whined.

“Why, this will be fun!” Dolna exclaimed, “You’ll really like it!”

“I like killing people,” Thuganlitha interrupted.

“I know that, Thuganlitha ”

“Are there any people inside?” the beast asked hopefully,

“No,” Dolna replied wearily. “None inside.”

Thuganlitha muttered a brief obscenity, shocking both its keeper and Erri. “Where’d it learn that?” Erri asked, wide-eyed.

“Thuganlitha,” Chimolitha chided. “You’re not supposed to.”

“I don’t care!” The aggressive monster sniggered.

“Dolna, what does that word mean?” Pulanlitha asked.

“Never mind!” the overseer shouted, and he looked apologetically at Erri. “I think I’d better get them in place right now or we could have a problem on our hands…”

“Go to it,” Erri told him, dismissing him with a wave. The Prophet turned to go back to his tiny cell, but was startled when a voice a tugolith voice called out to him.