Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [158]
Probably just as well, Skylan reflected bitterly. He might have steered the ship away from land, not toward it, sailed out into unknown waters and been lost forever.
If he wasn’t lost now.
Wulfe had said the dragonship was taking him home. Skylan hoped the boy was right, although returning home presented him with new problems. He would have to explain what had happened to Draya and what had become of his men.
I cannot tell the truth. Not for my sake, but for Draya’s. I would have to reveal that she was a murderer. She would be forever reviled among our people, and I won’t do that to her. I have caused her grief enough already. And then there are the warriors. If their families discovered they have fallen victim to enchantment, the news would kill them. I cannot do that to them. I will have to lie.
Torval despises lies and liars, but he will forgive this. I lie to spare others pain. Torval understands that.
The story would have to be a good one. Skylan would have to give it considerable thought. He turned from the rudder, walked back across the deck. His eye fell on Wulfe. The boy knew the truth. How could he prevent him from blabbing?
To be truly safe, Skylan should ensure the boy’s silence by killing him and disposing of the body. No one would ever know about the murder. Skylan shook his head at the thought. Whatever wrongs he had done, he would not stoop to murdering children.
The boy probably doesn’t know all that much, Skylan reflected. I’ll find out what he does know and work around it.
“Let’s play a game,” said Skylan, thinking this would be a good way to help the boy relax, start him talking.
“I don’t like games,” Wulfe said.
“You’ll like this one. It’s called dragonbone.”
The game being a favorite of the Vindrasi people, men often brought their boards and gamepieces aboard ship to while away the longhours at sea. Skylan had his own board and pieces he had carved himself.
Skylan set up the game board on an overturned water barrel down in the hold and arranged the pieces, explaining the game as he did so.
“Why is it called dragonbone?” Wulfe asked, regarding the pieces with distrust. “Are those the bones of dragons?”
“No, of course not,” Skylan scoffed. “The dragonbones are sacred to us. Real dragonbones would never be used in a game. The pieces represent dragonbones, that’s all.”
Wulfe found this puzzling. “Why call them bones, then?”
“Because it wouldn’t be a dragonbone game otherwise,” Skylan said. His cup of patience, never very full to begin with, was fast draining. “Now be quiet, and I’ll teach you the rules.”
Skylan set up the game board, which was made of oak, and painted with colored pictures, and began to explain the game, much to Wulfe’s mystification. There were lines that Skylan termed “paths,” though these paths didn’t appear to lead anywhere except straight into each other. The paths were marked with runes, which Wulfe could not read, and outside the paths were portrayals of sun and moon and stars, dragons and dragonships, swords and shields, trees and mountains and seas all entwined. The paintings were very beautiful, and Wulfe wanted to ask about them, but apparently that wasn’t part of the game.
Skylan laid down what he termed the “bones,” which didn’t look like bones at all, at least any bones that Wulfe had ever seen. The bones were of different shapes and different colors, and all of them were marked with runes. Skylan said some of the bones belonged to Wulfe and some to him. Wulfe was supposed to throw a bone on the table, and then he was to march the bones along the path, though to what end Wulfe could not see, since the paths went nowhere. Sometimes a bone could fly over another bone. Sometimes a bone landed on another bone. Sometimes bones “died” and were taken off the board.
Wulfe found the entire concept baffling. The idea of playing a game was foreign to him. He didn’t understand why he should want to move the bones that weren’t bones around in the first