At a later point, he remembered a great deal of kissing and a walk under the stars.
“Where did you go?”
“Out. First for a walk, and then… to see someone.”
Koryon frowned suspiciously. He was good at that. “To see who?”
“Someone… an authority. He was good with a pen- writing.” He squinted, trying to remember. “Late in the night, we wrote something. Together. I wish I remembered what.”
Koryon, pausing as he pulled out a clean shirt and glanced down the hill, said, “Why not ask her?”
Elgan bounded to his feet. “Gods. I’m a mess.” He snatched the shirt out of Koryon’s hands and muttered “Thanks” as he pulled it on. He bounded downhill, remembering that he had thought her good-looking….
Now that he saw her in the sunlight he decided the Inn of Road’s Ease must have been dark, or he must have been blind; she was beautiful. Beldieze had straight dark hair down to her waist, the figure of a dancer, and a full-lipped mouth that had smiled wickedly the night before. And of course, wonderful large eyes, almost luminous. They were staring at him now, and her smile seemed self-conscious. “Beldieze?” he said, mostly to test how her name sounded in his mouth.
“Elgan. I wasn’t sure how you’d be feeling today.” She put a hand on his arm.
Koryon, cloak draped over his bare chest, stood discreetly in the background, drinking from a water jug and making a show of staying out of earshot.
Elgan put his hand on hers, smiling back. “You still like me, in broad daylight?”
“I still admire you,” she said immediately. “Your stories about dragon battles impressed everyone. It wasn’t just the way you told them”-she stepped back, throwing her arms open-“but the wealth of detail. The swooping and stalling and silent gliding and air currents and lance thrusts-” She mock-thrust, her arms rippling forward. She moved toward him at the same time, until her arms touched his waist.
He blushed. “I didn’t mean to brag.”
Koryon, nominally out of earshot, snorted.
“It sounded like expertise, not bragging. In fact”- she touched his nose playfully-“I asked you if you would fight a dragon for me, and you said you would. Remember?”
Elgan didn’t like where this was leading. “Of course, I might not really be expert enough to fight a real dragon.”
She smiled sadly. “I was afraid last night that you’d feel that way later. I said as much. You swore you could and would. We agreed on a binding contract, composed by a cleric, an older man who lives just outside of town.” She added, with light additional emphasis, “He’s more of a mage, actually.”
The hair on the back of Elgan’s neck prickled. “Why a mage?”
“So that the contract would bind.” She took it out and showed it to him.
“I’m not going to fight a dragon-”
The parchment flickered out of her hands suddenly and materialized around his right arm, tightening itself slowly. He tugged at it. Nothing happened. He took out a knife and cut at it. The parchment wrapped itself tighter.
“See?” Beldieze stood with her arms folded, looking anxiously at the parchment. “It’s exactly what you wanted. It does contract, and it is binding.”
The contract pulled still tighter, and his hand turned dark red. Elgan bit his lip, envisioning the cylinder of paper closing on itself until it severed his arm. Koryon looked worried.
Elgan took a quick, shuddering breath. “All right, I’ll honor it. For now.”
“Good.” She pointed down the hill. “Your saddle and lance are at the base of the hill; find your own mount. You have only two days.”
She pointed to the parchment, which had loosened but stayed on his arm. Elgan looked at it intently, understanding little of the legal scrawl but recognizing his own signature beneath the words “fight a dragon.”
He gave up. “So. Where is this supposed dragon?” he asked skeptically.
Her mouth quirked. “The one named in the contract is Jaegendar.”
Koryon, standing presumably out of earshot, made a great sucking sound, and dropping his bottle, doubled over choking.
Elgan ran over and pounded his back-perhaps too fervently; Koryon dropped to his knees, gasping.