Rick Cook - The Wizardry Consulted

That produced a babble of dragon speech that made Wiz’s head ring. Finally Ralfnir cut through the din.

"Nonsense!" he roared. "I have no ’contract’ with humans." There was another head-splitting chorus of assent from the dragons up and down the canyon walls.

Gradually the noise, both acoustic and mental, died away. "Not all of us are afraid of humans," Ralfnir continued, turning his head to look at Wurm. "Dragons dealt with your kind for ages and dragons will deal with them for ages more. Magic or no, dragons will continue to handle humans as it pleases us to do so."

"That won’t be as easy with the new magic," Wiz said.

"So far, your ’new magic’ has only disturbed Shulfnim at his nap." He paused and nodded toward Griswold. "Oh yes, and bested that one."

Griswold’s renewed protest was cut off by a roar of dragonish mirth. The other dragons flapped their wings and slapped their tails against the rock to show approval.

Ralfnir waited for the noise to die again before he went on. "I do not think we have to fear such powers as these."

"This was just a taste," Wiz warned. "The new human magic is very powerful. You will have to reckon with it or I cannot be responsible for the consequences."

"If humans interfere with us," came another steely voice, "it will be we who are responsible for the consequences-to the humans."

Another cacophony of approval with more wing flapping and tail slapping burst out from the assembled dragons.

"But if you look at the long-term trend…" Wiz began, but Ralfnir cut him short.

"A human talks to dragons about the long term? We who live for age upon age?"

Wiz gathered his remaining courage and tried again. "Even dragons can die," he pointed out. "They can be killed by magic and humans now have magic that can, ah, severely limit your scope of action."

"Then prove it," Ralfnir said. "Show me the power of this new magic you think of so highly."

"I’ll be glad to demonstrate," Wiz said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he realized he had made a mistake. "Uh, what did you have in mind?"

"Why," Ralfnir purred, "if this new magic is so dangerous to us, surely you cannot object to a simple duel."

Having no lips, dragons cannot smile. But Ralfnir did an excellent imitation, drooping his lids over his golden eyes and opening his mouth slightly to run a blood-red forked tongue over his gleaming ivory fangs.

Wiz looked at Wurm but the great dragon remained impassive. The chasm had gone very, very quiet.

"Okay," Wiz lied. "How about tomorrow?"

Their business concluded, the dragons left the canyon like a cloud of startled bats. At last only Wurm and Wiz remained.

"It was perhaps unwise to challenge Ralfnir to a duel," the dragon said in a tone of mild reproof.

"Did anyone ever mention your genius for understatement?" Wiz said sourly.

"This was not your object, then?"

"No. I was suckered. What now?"

Wurm seemed surprised by the question. "Why, that is up to you. You can fight him or not."

"Any advice?"

"Advice? That would be presumptuous indeed of me. You must do as you think best."

Wiz thought Wurm had been presumptuous as hell already by getting him into this mess. However he didn’t see any point in saying so.

"But if I fight him and he kills me, I haven’t solved the problem."

Wurm considered. "Your death would be a solution of sorts."

For an instant Wiz wondered if this entire episode might have been Wurm’s elaborate plot to get him to commit suicide. He dismissed that as unnecessarily baroque, even for a dragon.

"I don’t suppose I could talk him out of this?"

Wurm cocked his enormous head. "Unlikely. The challenge was formally issued and accepted. Now it is a matter of honor." He paused, as if considering. "True, there is not much honor to be gained by killing a single human, but Ralfnir enjoys sport for its own sake."

"But if I win do I have a deal?"

"Why should you? If you win you will only eliminate Ralfnir."

"Then what’s the point?"

"No point, really," Wurm said, "unless you like slaying dragons as much as Ralfnir likes slaying humans. I told you before, Wizard, dragons do not form groups as humans do. There is none who can speak for all of us."

"So why should I even show up for this duel?"

Wurm gave a mental "shrug." "Perhaps no reason at all. Save that if you do not Ralfnir will undoubtedly hunt you down and quite likely burn down that town you humans are so fond of in the process."

"And if I do face him?"

"If you win you have nothing to fear from him. If you lose-" again the "shrug" "-he will probably not bother with the town."

"Great. And if I do beat him, I’ll still have to best every single other dragon in order to get them to leave the people alone?"

Wurm paused, as if considering. "Probably not. I imagine that after you have slain forty or fifty dragons most of the rest will decide humans are not worth bothering with." He cocked his head. "It would be an effective strategy, were you able to carry it out."

"There’s gotta be a better way," Wiz muttered.

"If there is I would suggest you endeavor to find it," Wurm said. "It would be best if you found it ere dawn tomorrow."

"I’m working on it," Wiz told the dragon and turned to start down the canyon.

"Oh, and Wizard…" Wurm’s "voice" rang in his head.

Wiz turned back to the dragon.

"Do not count on your ring of protection. Even a hatchling could defeat that spell."

"Thanks," Wiz mumbled, and turned his face again toward town.

Wiz spent most of the night staring at the screen and doodling meaningless bits of code. He knew he should be coming up with some dynamite dragon-killing spell, but instead he kept reviewing the spells he did have.

Let’s see. I’ve got lightning bolts… probably not much good against a dragon… suck energy… maybe that would do something… frictionless surface… nope, not against a flying creature… attract fleas… I wonder if dragons get fleas? Occasionally he would compound something out of the spells at his command, combining the old spells to be called in sequence or simultaneously by a single code word. He spent rather more time working on a fire-protection spell that looked pretty good. But mostly he just sat at the terminal and stared into space.

Time and again his fingers would stretch to the keyboard and he would start the sequence to reach the Wizard’s Keep over the Internet. Time and again he hesitated and his hands dropped away. He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly but trying to think more clearly only made things less clear. Like trying to squeeze a handful of jelly, he thought morosely.

Anna spent the night sleeping the sleep of the completely unworried-or the really stupid, which may have been the same thing in her case. Bobo spent the night doing tomcat things. No one knew how Widder Hackett spent the night except that she wasn’t talking to Wiz.

The only really active one in the house was Malkin. She spent most of the hours before first light gathering up the booty she had secreted about the place. Even though she’d turned most of it to gold coins through One-Eyed Nicolai it still made a substantial load.