DragonKnight - Donita K. Paul [104]
Ahnek clapped his hands and stomped his feet, then grabbed Sittiponder. “They’re green and glistening like I told you his tail is. He’s got dark ridges running through them just like Frost, only a different color, of course. Sitti! They must be fifteen feet across and taller than he is at the highest point. They’s stupendous.”
Regidor brought the wings forward until they touched in front of him so that he stood within a circle of his own making. Then he flashed them back, and Ahnek plopped down with a thud, stunned.
For a moment, the lad just took in the wondrous sight. Then, he reached up and grabbed Sittiponder’s hand, jerking him down to sit.
“The underside of his wings is now like oil in a puddle, dark with swirly colors in it.”
The others in the camp came to watch as well. Regidor repeated the action. This time his wings gleamed red. Once more he encircled himself, and after a longer pause, he slowly unveiled not only himself but also a beautiful female meech dragon.
She stood in front of him and a little to the side, so they faced the small crowd as a pair. Their smiles reflected amusement at the astonishment they had created. Her blue gray dress contrasted with Regidor’s black garb and blended in with his now moonlight-gray wing.
“She’s not really there,” Ahnek whispered to Sittiponder before he even described the vision. “You can see through her like she was made up of smoke or something.”
“No,” corrected Bardon. “She is there.”
He bowed his head to the female meech. “Welcome, Gilda. I see you still travel with Regidor.”
She glanced over her shoulder toward her companion’s face, then back at the squire. “He kindly includes me in his daily life. It’s much more exciting than sitting on a shelf, I assure you.”
A breeze flitted between those watching and the two meech dragons. The zephyr swirled dust into the air and bent the grass. Gilda’s dress swayed as the air stirred. It looked for a moment as if the edges would blow away, like tendrils of smoke. But the scattering substance pulled back together.
Regidor moved his wings around them once more. When he snapped them open, Gilda was gone. He stretched the now-shimmering green appendages out to their complete wingspan, and then with a loud ruffle, they folded and disappeared behind him. He reached to his shoulders and adjusted his cape.
The riders reluctantly turned away. Holt went with them.
Bardon tried to interpret the young marione’s reaction. Of those assembled, only Holt seemed disgusted by what they had seen.
What was that? Jealousy? I better find out what is sticking in that young man’s craw.
Before he could make any more speculations, he saw N’Rae leave Granny Kye’s side and run to Regidor.
“Can I talk to Gilda? Will she come back? She’s lovely, isn’t she? Is she your wife?”
Regidor gazed down at the excited girl. “No, she is not my wife. Yes, she is lovely. Yes, she will come back. And yes, you may talk to her, but not now. Gilda does not feel comfortable when exposed to the elements.”
He put a hand on N’Rae’s elbow and steered her back toward the minneken’s basket. “I believe my conversation with Mistress Seeno was interrupted.”
He glanced over at the two boys. Their heads nearly touched, and Ahnek talked in rushed undertones, his hands waving in small, jerky movements.
Jue Seeno waited for them, standing and tapping her foot, fists on her hips. Bardon had not moved, and so he heard her sputtering even before Regidor and N’Rae arrived.
“Quite a display,” she said. “So much for mingling unobtrusively with the higher races.”
“This is hardly a town square.” Regidor seated N’Rae on a pile of parcels unloaded from the dragons. “Now, why have you turned all prickly on me, Mistress Seeno?”
“Don’t worry,” said N’Rae. “It’s her natural reaction to life. She bristles whenever you don’t do something exactly as she thought you would.” N’Rae shrugged. “She’ll be over it in a trice, and quite often it will be ten or fifteen minutes before she gets all riled up about something again.”
The minneken’s body stiffened. Her whiskers quivered above a pinched