Кейт Новак - The Wyvern's Spur

He lied! Olive thought, indignant. She slipped out the door. The wizard and the servant were looking out a southern window, closer to the stairs than she was. Olive dashed for the north side of the attic. She scrambled up to the window sill and slid out onto the roof.

Behind her she heard Spot hiss.

“Thomas! The halfling! Grab her!” the wizard shouted.

Olive crawled away from the window, deliberately ripping up half a shingle as she went. When Thomas poked his head out the window, the halfling whipped the curved piece of wood at the servant’s temple. Before falling back into the attic, Thomas said a word Olive bet he’d never said in Giogi’s parlor.

Olive began climbing to the roof’s peak. The wizard hung out the window and shouted up to her, “Come back here this instant before you get yourself killed!”

Olive looked up in the sky. A red wyvern circled the house. Wyverns are supposed to be brown and gray, Olive thought. Leave it to Giogi to turn into a red one. The halfling stood and waved in the beast’s direction. “Giogi! Help! Flattery’s trapped me up here!” she shouted in the chill air.

“Would you stop shouting that!” the wizard in the window hollered. “I am not Flattery!”

Olive looked down at the window. There couldn’t possibly be any more Wyvernspurs I don’t know about, could there? “If you’re not Flattery,” she shouted back, “who are you?”

“I’m Drone.”

“Drone is dead.”

“If I were dead, wouldn’t I be buried in the crypt?” the wizard insisted.

“They’re holding the memorial service tonight,” Olive said.

“They are. Did Dorath fork out a big spread for it?” he asked with interest.

“Giogi!” Olive shouted again, waving more frantically. The wizard was not going to fool her with any more lies.

“See here, Ruskettle,” the wizard called out, “I am Drone. You just don’t recognize me because I shaved yesterday.”

“Aha. I’ve never met you,” Olive said. “You didn’t know that. Giogi! Giogi! Help!” she screamed again, waving her dagger.

“You haven’t? No, I suppose you haven’t. I forgot. I felt like I knew you. Jade talked so much about you.”

Olive looked down at the wizard so quickly that she lost her footing and slid three feet down the roof. “What do you mean Jade talked about me?” she demanded.

“She told me all about you. When she was staying here last week. I like to know about my daughter’s friends.”

“Your—” Olive regained her balance and stomped her foot angrily. “That’s a lie. Jade hasn’t got any parents.”

“I know. That’s why I adopted her” the wizard said.

“You what?”

“I adopted her. We had a little ceremony with a cleric of Mystra. I gave her a silver spoon, a pearl necklace, a yard of lace, all that symbolic rot, and she gave me a pipe, even though I don’t smoke—Dorath would never allow it.”

“Why?” Olive asked.

“She doesn’t like the way it smells. Don’t suppose I do, either, but Elminster does it. Don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to, too.”

“Not that,” Olive snapped, coming down a few more feet toward the wizard. “Why did you adopt Jade?”

“Oh, that. Well, she seemed like a nice girl, and I needed a daughter to steal the spur from the crypt before Steele stole it.”

Olive glared at the wizard in confusion. Come to think about it, he looks awfully old to be Flattery. He looks even older than Nameless, for that matter. His hair is all splotched with gray, and his face is awfully wrinkled. His appearance could be an illusion, though.

“That’s the same reason Flattery made Cat marry him,” Olive noted aloud.

“Cat married Flattery? Oh, that’s not good. He’s not a nice person. Won’t make her an adequate husband at all.”

Olive shivered in the cold and watched Giogi soar on an updraft. She didn’t really believe Flattery could imitate a doddering old man so well, but she couldn’t risk falling into his clutches unless she was absolutely positive. “I’ve got it!” she cried. She pulled out the letter with the royal seal, which she’d swiped from Drone’s lab that morning. “I’ll believe you’re Drone if you can tell me what this letter says.”

“What letter?”

“This letter I got from Drone’s lab this morning. It’s dated midsummer, thirteen-oh-six. Year of the Temples.”

“That’s almost thirty years ago,” the wizard whined. “How am I supposed to remember a letter that old?”

“Only twenty-seven years,” Olive said, “and it’s a very important letter. It’s from King Rhigaerd.”

“Rhigaerd, Azoun’s father?”

“That’s the one.”

“What would Rhigaerd want back then?” the wizard muttered to himself. “Oh! Yes! It’s about the spur. Let’s see. Rhigaerd said he understood that Dorath wasn’t interested in using the spur, but he wanted to know if there wasn’t someone else in the family who would give it a go. That’s why I told Cole all about it, even though Dorath told me not to. A royal request outweighs a cousin’s orders after all, even a cousin like Dorath.”

“All right. You’re one for one. Here, in the second paragraph, Rhigaerd writes, ‘I don’t think your colleague has ever gotten over’ something. What is it?” Olive demanded, feeling her toes going blue on the chill roof tiles.

“Never gotten over? Never gotten over Dorath’s refusal.”

“Who’d she turn down?” Olive asked.

“The letter doesn’t say.”

“Tell me anyway,” the halfling insisted.

“Vangerdahast,” the old man snapped.

“Really?” Olive asked. “Old Vangy? Azoun’s court wizard?”

“Really,” the wizard said grimly. “Now, you little pest, would you come down so I can fireball you without setting Giogi’s roof on fire?”

This landing thing could be tricky, Giogi thought as he circled around his townhouse for the fifth time. He was circling closer each time, looking for a clear spot in the garden, when he noticed Olive Ruskettle on the roof, waving at him. He couldn’t imagine what the halfling would be doing on his roof, nor could he hear what she was shouting, but it was clear to him that the roof was a very dangerous place for her to be.

Just as Olive began climbing back toward the window, Giogi swooped down, as silent as an owl. The halfling was just beside the window dormer when the Wyvernspur wyvern snatched her up in his talons and swooped away from the roof.

Olive’s screech could be heard down at the Five Fine Fish. The sensation of the roof dropping away from her feet, combined with the icy wind slamming into her face, took all the pleasure out of her bird’s-eye view of Immersea at sunset. What does he think he’s doing? Olive wondered. My fragile body can’t take these reckless stunts!

The halfling had once been snatched up by a red dragon, and while she had been terrified that the monster would eat her, at least she could be certain the dragon knew how to land. He’s going to land on top of me and smash me to halfling jelly, she thought as Giogi dropped downward rapidly. At the last moment, he veered up suddenly. He was indeed uncertain how to make his touchdown with cargo. On his second approach, though, he dropped Olive over a yew bush just before he smashed into the side of his carriage house.

Olive’s teeth chattered from the cold. Ches is too early in the spring for flying, she noted, scrambling out of the bush. Drone and Thomas rushed out of the townhouse’s front door as the halfling was brushing herself off.

“Giogi, my boy. Are you all right?” Drone asked.

The wyvern wobbled to its feet, hissing.

“You’ll have to change back to human form,” Drone said. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Concentrate on turning human. Think about afternoon tea; that’s what your father used to do.”