“Are you all right?”
Koryon glared. “I’m fine, except for my back.”
“You must have choked on something.” “Of course,” he said coldly.
Elgan turned back to Beldieze, folded his arms and asked casually, “Why Jaegendar?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“If it’s the same dragon. For instance, this Jaegendar wouldn’t be called Jaegendar the Black? Dark Jaegendar?” He added awkwardly, ” ‘The Wings of Death?’ ”
“Also Jaegendar the Wealthy. The one and only Jaegendar. Yes.”
Elgan frowned. “Why Jaegendar?”
He expected many things-a tale of tragedy and revenge, a story of human greed and dragon horde, a quest for glory or a magic token. What he did not expect was the sudden shimmer of air and whoosh of wings as her human form vanished and a silver dragon appeared before them.
“If he dies,” the silver dragon said calmly, “his stepchild will inherit everything.” She looked down at the humans, a fanged smile curving on her face. “Not everyone in the inn last night was human.”
Koryon started choking again.
Beldieze laughed, a silvery noise that echoed across the hills, and off she flew.
*****
“And off she flew.” Kory paused to wink at Peilanne, who frowned back. The reference to her silvery laugh hadn’t escaped her.
Peilanne gathered the dining knives back up and rubbed futilely at the scars in the bread board. In case anyone had missed the parallels between themselves and their story, Gannie had palmed four dinner knives from the table, making them disappear; then, one at a time from an apparently empty hand, he had thrown them at Kory, who caught them on the inn’s bread board and returned them, palming them himself a final time.
“So,” Peilanne leaned across the bar. “So far we have a greedy, vicious dragon and a young, treacherous, murderous dragon. What’s next?”
Everyone in the inn was listening.
“Why do you think so ill of dragons? And why does your friend keep looking out the window?”
Gannie pulled back with a start. “Habit. Sorry.” He turned around. “Not all dragons are bad, as our tale will tell you. Why, after Beldieze was gone…”
*****
After Beldieze was gone, Koryon walked over to Elgan.
“You,” he said with the satisfaction one feels when friends have been foolish, “are in real trouble.”
“So we are.”
” ‘We?’ ” Koryon looked around in mock confusion.
Elgan looked around as well. “I don’t see anyone else.”
“Jaegendar,” Koryon said firmly, “will laugh until it hurts when he sees you.”
Elgan eyed him.
“Us,” Koryon added, not happily.
“We’ll find a way to beat him. We’ll do fine. We’re young, smart, clever, coordinated-”
“All that, of course.” Koryon shivered. “But Jaegendar!”
“He’s just a dragon, right?”
Koryon said in a small voice, “When I was little, my parents used to scare me with Jaegendar stories.”
“Me too, if it’ll make you feel any better.”
Koryon froze, thinking. “Did the contract say ‘fight a dragon,’ or ‘kill a dragon’?”
” ‘Fight.’ ”
“Then there’s your answer. We fight for a while, then quit. There’s no shame in that.”
“There is, actually.”
“Maybe so, but I can live with my shame better than I can with my death. Assuming we can even survive a real fight with Jaegendar. Why are you grinning like that?”
“I’ve got an idea. Dragons are reasonable, right?” He grinned at Koryon. “Most dragons.”
“Which reminds me, did you happen to tell Beldieze how you know so much about dragon battles?”
Elgan shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t say I’d actually been in one.”
Koryon seemed to melt, his outline blurring, and a dragon stood before Elgan. “So she doesn’t know the truth yet.”
Elgan, changing his own form as rapidly, sighed. “No. She doesn’t.”
*****
“I don’t like it at all,” Peilanne said firmly as she refilled the table. “A vicious, evil dragon, a greedy, murderous, younger dragon, and two dragon-scoundrels.” She emphasized the last word. “Besides, this is an awful lot of shape-changing. All dragons don’t change shape.”
“Some do.”
Everyone turned to look at Annella, Elinor’s mother. She flinched at their stare but rallied and said, “Red dragons change shape, and silver ones. Black ones don’t.”
Brann nodded over his stein. “Young Annella’s right about everything, including the black ones. Red and silver do, black don’t. So they say.”