Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

But Heinox had noticed. “It’s a stuttering, spluttering boy who speaks, that’s who! And you would fight for me? You can’t even talk for me!” Rosha’s temper exploded. He jerked his greatsword from its scabbard and charged at the dragon, swinging wildly. Only one thing could save him.

That was Pelmen’s voice. It lifted above the din, so golden, so commanding, that it couldn’t help but claim the absolute attention of all the host gathered in Dragonsgate.

“Of course he can’t, and wise of you to realize it! Only the quicker of the two heads would be capable of seeing through my little ruse! Please excuse our tasteless joke, noble Heinox—I am your true champion!” Vicia turned to look at Heinox, and Heinox at Vicia, and both bent back again to peer down at Pelmen. They knew this voice. Oh, how well they knew it! “You are the Pelmen!” Vicia snarled.

“You are the cursed Player who caused us all our troubles!” Heinox screeched.

“Of course I am! I’m Pelmen the player, come to finish the job I started! For Heinox, surely you cannot believe that it was better when you were nothing but half of a dragon?”

“I will chop you in half!” Vicia rasped, and he darted down at Pelmen with the speed of a comet.

Heinox, however, was faster. They cracked their heads five feet above Pelmen’s scalp.

“Oh!” Vicia groaned, enraged. “Why do you do that to me? Why do you always do that?” Heinox snorted. “He was starting to make sense.”

“Don’t listen to him, Lord Dragon!” Serphimera raced to clasp her arms around a single talon of the dragon’s vast foot. As she clung to her god, she cried out in despair, “It’s a trap! A trap designed to destroy you!” Pelmen’s brow creased in concern. A flick of his claw, and Vicia-Heinox could halve Serphimera. He raised his voice in raucous laughter. “Obviously, Heinox, this woman is nothing but another of Vicia’s religious dupes!” Asher sprang forward, ad-libbing earnestly to keep the plan alive. “You blaspheme the dragon!”

“I blaspheme him, if so you wish to call it!” Pelmen shot back, picking up the cue. “I will not believe the dragon is a god! The dragon is and shall ever be a dragon!” The two men began trading insults. As they shouted, Bronwynn and Erri raced to the dragon’s feet and dragged a kicking, cursing priestess back out of danger.

Throughout this exchange, Vicia-Heinox sat back on his hind legs and watched in amazement. Old tensions re-awoke in the beast, old insults were remembered. Pride and selfishness resurfaced in each mind, until once again the two heads hated one another, and these puny men in the dirt below became living symbols of their rivalry. And these two symbols were mortal.

“Fight!” screamed Vicia.

“Kill him!” roared Heinox. Asher grabbed for his scabbard, and Pelmen seized Rosha’s greatsword. The blades flashed into the sunlight.

Serphimera broke loose from her captors long enough to shout, “I’ve seen your end, Pelmen! I know your doom!”

Then they caught her again, and Erri clapped his hands over her mouth. But it was enough.

How will it come? Pelmen wondered to himself. Then he wondered no more. There was only time to fight, and a greatsword was not a one-handed weapon.

The two antagonists exchanged a flurry of blows, and Vicia-Heinox was frothing with excitement. It appeared that the dragon was trying to pull himself apart, for Heinox craned all the way around behind Pelmen and Vicia lined up behind Asher. Both heads cheered and hollered until the canyon rang with the clamor. Suddenly Pelmen jumped back, and held up his sword.

“A word with Heinox!” he cried, and Heinox immediately swept in front of him. Pelmen’s heart pounded as he spoke his final lines. “My liege, this will not do. We wrestle in the dust as two lads. Champions must be mounted!”

“Then mount your steeds! Mount your steeds!” Heinox shouted.

“My liege, the champions of Kings ride horses. For a champion of the dragon, that is simply not enough.”

“Then what? What would you ride?”

“You, my liege.” The idea struck Vicia-Heinox with the thunder of destiny. In both of his personalities the dragon saw in this the ultimate answer he had been seeking for weeks. “Done!” Heinox trumpeted aloud, and Vicia chorused, “Done!” If Heinox had a chin, it was buried in the dirt as Pelmen climbed aboard the head.

There were ridges along both sides of the huge skull, and he gripped these with his knees as the giant neck whooshed him into the air. Pelmen grabbed hold for his life, and stared in shock at the tiny figures of Rosha and Bronwynn forty feet below him. His head was spinning, but he closed his eyes and fought to relax. When he opened them again, it was to watch Asher ascending into the sky on Vicia’s back.

But something was different about Asher now. Pelmen’s mouth fell open as he realized what it was. Asher had torn his brilliant red robe from his body. Visible now was the garment he had worn beneath it all the way from Lamath—a flowing robe of vivid sky blue.

“No!” Pelmen shouted, but. the shout was torn away by the whistling wind, for Heinox was hurtling him toward Asher much faster than he had ever traveled before.

“Fight!” Heinox roared as the two champions whisked past each other without crossing swords, and Vicia echoed,

“Fight!” Pelmen saw Asher’s face as it flashed by—the man seemed frozen to his perch. He had replaced his sword in its scabbard, and now clung with both hands to the ridges along Vicia’s head.

“Fight for me!” Heinox screamed again as they made another pass.

Pelmen called out, “Draw your sword, Lamathian coward!” But this time Pelmen saw Asher’s eyes as well as his face.

There was nothing there but death.

Asher rode astride Lord Dragon. He rode a beast he had worshipped throughout his life. He wore a gown Pelmen had believed would doom him—and his mission was to kill the most frightening beast known to man.

Asher had conquered whole nations for his King. He had killed hundreds on the battlefields. He had directed the movements of thousands of men, while his resolve and courage never wavered.

But this was no mere army to be conquered, no mere nation to be defeated. This was Vicia-Heinox. He rode Lord Dragon. And Asher acknowledged again a simple basic truth. One cannot slough off a lifetime of conviction without any trace of guilt. It just wasn’t that easy. The residue of fear remained.

“Fight me, Asher! You have to fight me!” Pelmen was yelling himself hoarse. The dragon would soon grow weary of waving its necks without seeing any action. They had to cross swords at the very least. “Asher, please! Fight me!” he yelled again, and the General seemed to wake. The blue-clad warrior at last pulled his weapon free, and the next time they passed the two swords clashed together. Vicia-Heinox was excited beyond measure.

Again they clashed, as the dragon’s necks laced in and out. Pelmen was forced to grip the ridges with his good hand to keep from being tossed a hundred feet into the air. His knees were being rubbed raw, and his thighs were cramping.

“Now, Pelmen!” Bronwynn screamed. “Now!” Now it must be, Pelmen thought to himself. He shifted his position to get a firmer leg-lock on Heinox’ head, and painfully gripped his sword in both hands. Then he leaned down and spoke to Heinox. “Come in very close. Hold me close, and we will end this battle in a stroke!” Heinox swooped down and back up, then jerked in beside Vicia and hung there. Tightly gripping the haft of his greatsword, Pelmen rammed the point home. But not in Asher. He slammed his sword deep into Vicia’s right eye.

Heinox jerked back with an agonized scream, and Pelmen clung to his sword to pull it free. As long as he lived, he would never forget the look he saw on Asher’s face. It was a crazy smile, a lost smile, a smile of victory and a smile of good-bye. In anguish beyond anything he had ever known, Vicia tossed Asher high into the air and caught him by the leg, as if he were but a diamond from a long-forgotten game.