Richard Knaak - The Legend of Huma

“He must be here!”

“Why did you do it?”

“The renegade had them both. He —aaaugh!”

The first of the two spellcasters suddenly found himself standing with a sword point beneath his chin. His companion made no move to attack Huma.

“No false moves,” the knight whispered.

“It is him!” the other mage hissed at his comrade.

“I can see that!” the spellcaster said, then added to Huma, “We are allies! Did not Gunther tell you?” The spellcaster’s face was difficult to read in the dark, but Huma thought his eyes were wide with fear.

“Gunther?”

“Slight, with animal features. Bald.”

A simple description, but fairly accurate. That did not mean these two were friends, however.

“He gave you a tiny, emerald sphere.”

“All right.” It was risky, but Huma decided to lower the sword. The mages sighed audibly. Both were of average height and one was on the heavy side, but Huma could only guess at details.

“Another time and we might have taught you what it is to threaten one of the Order of Nuitari,” the heavier one grumbled. “But now circumstances force us to aid you.”

“I care for it as little as you.”

“Dracos knew you would take the empty courtyard as an invitation to land, but he planned a surprise for you. We did not have the time to seize both of you, so we settled on you as most important. In order to prevent one of the renegades from tracing you, we were forced to fling you to a random location in the castle and hope for the best.”

“I had a very good idea where you would land; there was no reason to worry.” The narrower of the two mages gave an audible sniff of contempt.

“Some of us are purely lucky at times.” The words of the stocky mage were aimed at his companion, and Huma got the vague notion that they were brothers of the flesh as well as of the cloth. “Be that as it may, we want you —”

“You want?” Huma’s grip on his sword tightened, and he waved it at the level of the two spellcasters’ throats. “I do not take orders from Black Robes. We work together, yes, but as equals.”

Twin sighs. Allies such as these Huma could have done without, yet they had saved his life once already.

“What happened to the dragon I was riding?”

“That thing?” asked the first mage. “It’s frozen. In stasis. Galan Dracos wastes no raw material.”

“What does that mean?” The thought that something terrible might be happening to Gwyneth even now nearly put Huma into a panic. The mages mistook that panic for murderous anger and quickly did their best to placate him.

“Nothing! He’s much too busy at the moment! He has some grand spell which he claims is going to change Krynn forever. He has no time for the dragon.”

Huma took a deep breath and calmed. “You’ve been of invaluable assistance up to now, but I think you have compromised yourselves. Surely he suspects all Black Robes by this time?”

The thin mage sniffed again. “He does not know how great the revolt has become. He suspects it is only a few disgruntled members of our Order. He does not suspect that it is a mass conversion. We will not bow down as slaves to the cur and his mistress.”

“Be silent,” hissed the first. “You’ll draw her attention, and that is the one thing we cannot face!”

“Cannot?” Huma looked at both of them in disgust and wished they could truly see his expression. “So. You still intend for me to do all the work for you. Fine. Which way lies Galan Dracos?”

“You cannot be that mad!” It was difficult to tell which of the two had spoken.

“Which way?”

“We brought him here,” said the first to the second. “We may as well get it over with.”

“This is not the way we planned.”

“Has anything we planned from the beginning gone as we thought? Sagathanus died the first time he spoke up against the renegades—and he was the one who recruited them, promised them that we would agree to coexistence with them! That they would no longer be hunted down and destroyed if they refused to join the Three Orders and obey the guiding laws set down by the Conclave!”

“That was our mistake! We promised them freedom to continue their abominable experiments—experiments that go beyond even our tolerant limits.”

Huma prevented the present argument from going any further by thrusting the tip of his blade between the faces of the two bickering spellcasters. They became stone-silent instantly.

“Galan Dracos? Last time. Where?”

The stocky mage listed a sequence of turns and distances, repeated it again, and then asked Huma if he had it memorized. Huma did.

“We shall endeavor to free the dragon if we can. If not.. .” The mage shrugged.

“What about my other companions?”

“They departed when the trap was sprung. I cannot say whether they will return. Perhaps they have scurried back to Vingaard.”

Huma ignored the jibe. He was sure the others were nearby and were planning. It would be best if he continued his present course of action.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. The two magic-users literally jumped.

“Go,” whispered the narrow one.

With quick steps, Huma moved away from the Black Robes. He faintly heard the sounds of voices and realized that the two were stalling for him as long as they could.

Ahead he saw the shadows of armored men. Huma ducked back into another corridor and waited.

Six guards walked by silently, their attention fixed on whatever duties they had been given.

The Black Robes were in more danger than they knew. If Huma read the situation correctly, the guardsmen were beginning the process of rounding them up—if they did not intend to kill them immediately. That would leave Huma alone to deal with Galan Dracos and his goddess of pure evil.

Huma paused at the next turn, for he was suddenly confronted by three brightly lit passages.

Voices. Huma crept closer—then froze as he recognized one.

“You know what to do with the gem, Gharis?”

“A place has been chosen. Master Galan. We will wait for your signal there.”

“It’s merely a safeguard, Gharis. She demanded it—but it is my signal that you will obey when the time comes. Understand?”

The one called Gharis answered with a slurring voice. Huma suspected Dracos had need to reinforce his commands with something akin to mesmerism.

Apparently satisfied that he would be obeyed, Galan Dracos ordered the other to depart immediately. Huma stumbled back, but Gharis—seemingly a renegade like his master, for he wore a plain, brown cloak and not one of black—did not depart through that entrance. Instead, his footsteps dwindled away in another direction.

There was more than one entrance to the chamber. Apprehensively, Huma set off toward the chamber down another corridor. Slowly, as he edged closer, he peeked into the room.

If anything, the chamber was more a design in madness than the rest of the castle was. Huge, demonic figures lined the walls, each appearing ready to pounce upon any unsuspecting intruder. The thought made Huma shiver. Chief among the artifacts in the room was a platform seemingly made of black crystal. It rose in four tiers, upon the last of which stood a gleaming emerald sphere.

The knight pulled back quickly. Dracos was indeed there and standing before the sphere, his back turned toward Huma. The presence of the mage had been expected, but sitting calmly behind the sphere, three times the size of a man and watching intently, was a green dragon.

Huma had never seen such a dragon, and that was what disturbed him.

“You see now why I have always held the upper hand, do you not, my little friend?”

“Great is Master Galan,” the young dragon hissed. It had a cruel, sly voice even for one of its kind. What little Huma knew of the green dragons revealed them to be the most sinister, for they worked most often through trickery and deceit. Open combat was not their way, but they were just as respected for their physical abilities as their minds—their convoluted, treacherous minds.