He had given up trying to sleep on tables after a couple of them collapsed
under his weight, but he still liked to nudge people to have his head
scratched. Of course what had once been just a firm, insistent push was
now enough to knock a grown man off his feet. He was also beginning to
show flashes of typically dragonish temper-which is to say he could turn
nasty in an instant-and occasionally he would burp a little tongue of
flame. Almost everyone steered clear of him and the only place he was
really welcome was the programmers’ workrooms and their living quarters.
The dragon decided he had had enough head scratching and ambled over to
see how Ian was doing. Shauna eyed him disapprovingly but he extended his
neck and sniffed the sleeping infant, giving nurse and baby a good snort
of dragon breath in the process. Ian opened his eyes and cooed at the
scaly monster looking down at him.
For some inexplicable reason LRD had decided he liked Ian. He would curl
up next to the baby’s crib for hours, dozing or watching the infant with
an unwinking golden stare. If Ian was distressed or uncomfortable, LRD
became frantic. When he wasn’t with Ian, the dragon divided his time
between chasing the castle’s cats and sunning himself on any convenient
surface.
He seemed mildly approving of June, and he and Shauna had arrived at an
armed truce. Everyone else he ignored-unless he wanted his head scratched.
Wiz finished his ale and debated making himself a sandwich. He decided he
wasn’t hungry and putting food in his stomach would only dilute the
soporific effect of the ale. He needed something to help him sleep after
the hours spent under the magic hill.
Moira left June and Shauna and came over to sit by him.
“You’re not eating?”
Wiz took a moment just to admire her. Moira was broad-hipped, deep-bosomed
and had a pair of wonderful green eyes set in a wide freckled face under a
mane of red hair. The hedge witch was the first person he had seen when he
had been kidnapped into this world and he had thought she was
breathtakingly beautiful then. They had been married nearly two years and
she still took his breath away.
“I want to make sure I can sleep tonight,” he said, slipping his arm
around her waist. Then he leaned close and nuzzled her hair. “What’s the
matter, do you want your ears scratched too?”
Moira turned and gave him one of her patented 10,000-volt looks. “Perhaps
we should discuss that back in our chambers, my Lord.”
Wiz rose and pulled her up with him. “Maybe we should at that.”
Looks like the ale was wasted, he thought as they made their goodbyes to
the others and headed off to bed.
Once again torches lit a meeting of dwarves in an underground chamber. But
this was a much smaller gathering in much less impressive surroundings
than King Tosig’s audience hall.
It was, in fact, a storeroom for hides. The torches were leftovers
plundered from wall sconces elsewhere in the hold and the twelve dwarves
sitting on the smelly bales or lounging against the rough-hewn walls had
no more right to be there than the torches did.
A minor detail, Glandurg thought as the last of his followers slipped into
the room and closed the storeroom door. Anyway, now that he was acting
under his uncle’s orders, not even old Samlig, the keeper of the
storehouses, would dare to question them.
Still Glandurg couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. Samlig was a
crusty one and he’d just as soon not put his new legitimacy to the test.
Taking a deep breath, he drew himself up to his full three-foot-eight and
faced his men.
“Comrades,” he proclaimed, but softly. “At last we have a mission worthy
of us.”
“Not another sewage tunnel, is it?” asked a dwarf named Ragnar.
Glandurg dismissed the question with a lofty gesture. “This is a mission
to the Outside World. Beyond the tunnels of the Hold.”
A couple of the dwarves exchanged suspicious glances, wondering what kind
of unpleasant and menial chore had been arranged for them now.