Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [151]
“That is because I permit you to see me in the human form. The evil Gods of Raj and Aelon, Lord of the New Dawn, look at me, and they see only a human, one ant in the anthill of humanity. Mortal minds see a goddess, and they cannot bear the sight and so they blot it out. Only Skylan will be able to see me. I will be his worst nightmare.”
“Poor young man,” murmured the druid. “He believes he saw his wife murdered before his eyes and that it was his fault. He will live with that forever.”
“Guilt is a powerful force,” said Vindrash. “As any mother will tell you.”
“And what of the dragon?” the druid asked.
“The Dragon Kahg is my loyal servant. He has sworn an oath that he will tell no one where I am hiding, not even the others of his own kind. I trust him as I trust you, my dear friend.”
“Our enemies are strong, and they grow stronger with every passing day,” the druid said. “I look into the future and I see flames and bitter smoke and a city built on the bones of our dead.”
“That is why we fight,” said Vindrash. “And why we keep on fighting when it would be far easier to sink into oblivion.”
Wulfe had no idea what the two were talking about. He generally found most of what adults said to each other either boring or confusing or both, and he quit paying attention. He was more concerned over what his stomach was saying, which was that it was past time to eat. Wulfe was relieved when the druid and the woman finally quit talking. He heard them walking across the deck and the sound of their feet going down the gangplank.
Wulfe didn’t stir. Not yet. He would give the druid and the woman plenty of time to return to the settlement so he wouldn’t meet them on the trail. The elder had an uncanny way of knowing just by looking at the boy that Wulfe had been up to mischief. To while away the time, Wulfe crept over to stare curiously at the young man.
He smelled disgustingly of iron.
At first Wulfe thought the young man was a corpse, for he was covered in blood. The boy studied the young man’s battered and bloodied face. “Ugly Ones” was his mother’s term for humans. Wulfe thought it fitting. He had watched this Ugly One strutting about in his iron shirt, brandishing the horrible sword, which now lay on the deck at his side. Wulfe eyed the weapon with disgust and gave it a wide berth as he hurried to the ladder. Unless some god loved him, the young man would likely die.
One less Ugly One in the world, his mother would have said.
Wulfe walked across the deck and then stopped to stare in blank dismay at the island on which he lived.
The island that was nothing but a black blotch on a starlit horizon. The moonlit ocean lay between Wulfe and his home.
The dragonship had sailed and taken the boy with it.
CHAPTER
13
Wulfe stared across the silvered sea in dismay. His home was gone, vanishing beyond sight.
“Stop!” Wulfe cried frantically, turning to the dragon. “You have to take me back. I’m not supposed to be here! I—Ulp!”
The words caught in his throat. He ducked behind one of the sea chests and crouched there, quaking. He was not alone. A woman stood beside the rudder, guiding the ship into the gentle wind.
This had to be the woman who boarded the ship with the druids, the woman Wulfe had overheard speaking to the elder. He had thought she left with the elder, but apparently not.
She looked like she sounded—stern and cold and severe. Wulfe was reminded of the time his mother had taken him to meet his grandmamma. He had been only three, yet he remembered his grandmamma vividly. She was radiant and beautiful and terrible. She had made his mother cry. She had made him cry. There was the same sort of something about this woman—something beautiful and terrible. She frightened the boy more than did the Ugly One who lay dying below.
Wulfe was in agony. He was afraid to stay where he was, and he was afraid to move. The woman seemed absorbed in either her task or her thoughts. Her gaze was fixed, abstracted. Wulfe decided to chance it. Crawling