Raymond E. Feist - The King’s Buccaneer

Harry gripped Nicholas hard enough to raise a bruise, but neither boy could move. When she had vanished into the sky, the boys turned to regard each other. Both had tears running down their faces, in mixed fear and awe. The great dragons were not real. There were smaller flying reptiles called dragons, but they were merely flying wyverns with no intelligence. None lived in the Western Realm, but rumor had them common in the western mountains of Kesh. But the golden dragons who could speak and work magic did not exist. They were creatures of myth, yet there, in the moonlight, the boys had seen a woman they had dined with transform herself into the most majestic creature to fly the skies of Midkemia.

Nicholas could not stop the tears, so moved was he by the sight. Harry at last gathered his wits and said, ‘Should we wake Amos?’

Nicholas shook his head. ‘Never tell anyone. Do you understand?’

Harry nodded, with no hint of his usual braggadocio, looking like nothing more than a scared little boy. ‘I won’t.’

Nicholas left his friend and returned to his own room. He entered and his heart almost seized up as he discovered Pug sitting upon his bed.

‘Close the door.’

Nicholas complied and Pug said, ‘Ryana could not long live on the meager food she could eat at supper and maintain her pretense. She will hunt for the next few hours.’

Nicholas’s face was pale. For the first time in his life he felt far from home and the comfort of his father’s protection and his mother’s love. He knew Pug was considered a family member, but he was also a magician of mighty arts, and Nicholas had seen something not meant for him to see. ‘I won’t say anything,’ he whispered.

Pug smiled. ‘I know. Sit down.’

Nicholas sat down next to Pug on the bed, and Pug said, ‘Give me your foot.’

Nicholas didn’t have to ask which one and lifted his left leg so that Pug could examine the deformed foot. Pug studied it for several moments, then said, ‘Years ago, your father asked me if I could mend your foot. Did he tell you?’

Nicholas shook his head. He still was frightened enough by what he had just witnessed that he didn’t trust his voice not to break if he spoke.

Pug studied the boy. ‘At the time I had heard of this deformity, and of the efforts to correct it.’

Nicholas whispered, ‘Many tried.’

‘I know.’ Pug stood and walked to the window, looking out at the clear night brilliant with stars. Turning back toward Nicholas, he said, ‘I told Arutha that I could not. That was not true.’

Nicholas asked, ‘Why?’

Pug said, ‘Because no matter how much your father loves you, Nicholas – and Arutha loves his children deeply, no matter how difficult it is for him to show it – no parent has the right to change a child’s nature.’

Nicholas said, ‘I’m not sure I understand.’ The fear within was subsiding, and the boy asked, ‘Why would healing me be wrong?’

Pug said, ‘I don’t know if I can make you understand yet, Nicholas.’ He returned and sat next to the boy. ‘We each of us have it within to make ourselves over, if we choose to do so. Most of us not only do not try, but don’t even acknowledge that ability to ourselves.

‘By any understanding of magic I possess, the healing used upon you when you were young should have worked. Something prevented those spells from being effective.’

Nicholas frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying I wasn’t letting them heal me?’

Pug nodded. ‘Something like that. But it’s not quite so simple.’

Nicholas said, ‘I would give anything to be normal.’

Pug stood. ‘Would you?’

Nicholas was silent for a long moment, then said, ‘I think I would.’

Pug smiled, his manner reassuring. ‘Go to sleep, Nicholas.’ He withdrew something from a large pocket in his robe and placed it upon the night table. ‘This amulet is a gift. It is much like one I gave your father. Should you need me for anything, grip it tightly in your right hand while you wear it, and say my name three times. I will come.’

Nicholas picked up the amulet and saw it bore the symbol of the three dolphins he had seen in the fountains around the magician’s estate. ‘Why?’

Pug’s smile broadened. ‘Because I’m a cousin, and a friend. And in days to come, you may need both. And because I’m letting you and your friend keep a trust.’

‘The Lady Ryana.’

‘She is very young, and foolish to be seen so. In her race, the first stages of life are spent with little more thought than that of common animals. Every ten years the dragon hides in a cave to shed its skin, emerging a different color each time. Not a few perish during that time, for molting in the dark, they are helpless. Only those that live the longest span, surviving many human lifetimes, emerge with a golden skin and awareness. When intelligence at last comes, it is an unsettling thing. The sudden consciousness of self, and the sense of a larger universe, to a creature that is already old by human standards is a very great shock. In ancient times, others of her race would teach her.’ Pug opened the door. ‘There are few of the greater dragons left. Ryana’s mother once aided me on a quest, so I help the child. It would not be wise to let men know that among them walk those who are not men.’

Nicholas said, ‘Father has told me that over time there will be many things I shall learn that I cannot tell others about. I understand.’

Pug said nothing more as he closed the door. Nicholas lay back upon the bed, but sleep was a long time coming.

T HE SHIP DROPPED ANCHOR.

Crydee bustled with midday activity as the dock crew made the Royal Eagle secure. Nicholas examined his new home, drinking in the novelty of it. His bouts of homesickness had returned during the long voyage, only vanishing while passing through the dangerous Straits of Darkness, which had taken an eventful day and a half. Then northward past Tulan and Carse, and now to Crydee.

The town had grown in the last twenty years, with signs of expansion everywhere. As they had sailed northward, Amos had pointed out where a fishing village had grown up south of the promontory he named Sailor’s Grief. New buildings were visible high upon a distant hillside to the southeast as the ship entered the harbor. Nicholas squinted against the bright sun reflected off the white façades of the buildings. He saw two carriages and a pair of wagons draw up and halt before a building bedecked by a large royal standard, which proclaimed it the customs house. Servants sitting atop the rear of the carriages leaped from their stations and opened the doors. From the first emerged a tall woman, followed by a taller man. Nicholas recognized them as his aunt and uncle. A flurry of activity followed as the other vehicles came to a halt.

Amos ordered the gangway run out. Nicholas and Harry stood nearby waiting to disembark. Duke Martin, Duchess Briana, and their court stood ready to welcome the Royal Prince and his companions. Amos saw the reception below and said, ‘Well, we know at least one pigeon made it from Ylith.’

For the twenty-eight years since the Riftwar, a relay of messengers between Krondor and the Far Coast had been kept intact, including fast horses and carrier pigeons. With the sudden decision to sent Nicholas made only the day before he departed, word of his impending arrival reached Crydee just days before they came into sight of the harbor.

As the sailors made ready, Harry said, ‘Who are those girls?’

Nicholas had noticed the two young girls who had accompanied the Duke and said, ‘I expect one of them is my cousin Margaret. I don’t know who the other one is.’