DragonKnight - Donita K. Paul [115]
“I said, ‘Can you read it?’ But it looks like you are doing just that. So you need not answer. That is, if you’re too busy.”
“What?” Regidor shook his head and turned away from the wall. “Are you being sarcastic? No, I can’t read it. I was scanning the text to see if I recognized a word or even a syllable.”
“How do you know it’s Kere?”
“Saw some in one of Librettowit’s old books.”
“You don’t have a clue as to what it means?”
“Oh yes. I believe it’s a warning about a two-headed dragon.”
“You said you couldn’t read the script.”
“I can’t.” Regidor moved over a few feet and shone his light on another section of the wall. “They drew pictures.”
Scratched into the soft rock, elaborate line drawings depicted a party of men fighting a two-headed dragon, losing most of their fighting party, and the few survivors hobbling away. By the size and shape of the men, Bardon guessed they were all tumanhofers.
“This is very interesting, Regidor, but we still have a tumanhofer of our own to track.” The squire waved his hand back the way they had come. “We haven’t seen a sign of a grawlig. We haven’t even seen a druddum. I think we should retrace our steps and try another direction to find Bromptotterpindosset.”
“I would agree, except we now feel a fresh air draft coming from ahead of us.”
“We do?”
“I do.” Regidor moved on down the burrow.
Bardon made a face but followed him. “How long ago do you think that picture was made?”
“Hard to say,” Regidor answered over his shoulder. “I would guess before tumanhofers began recording their adventures on paper.”
“Is it unusual for tumanhofers to write in Kere?”
“We don’t know that the message was written at the same time as the picture. The words may have been there before the picture was drawn. In that case, the picture explains the text. Or the picture could have been scratched onto the walls first. Then someone came along to explain the picture with words.”
Bardon pondered the possible order of events. He didn’t see how the timing made much difference, but it was the kind of thing Regidor liked to dwell on. “Well, it all seems to be done for naught.”
Regidor laughed. “Because all that explaining, in one way or another, has left us without any understanding?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You are agreeing to keep me from further expounding on the subject.”
This time Bardon responded with more enthusiasm. “Uh-huh.”
Regidor lifted his hands and let them drop. “What am I to do with you?”
Bardon laughed. “Leave me as I am. Not everyone has a compulsion to understand everything.”
“You misunderstand, Squire. It is not the compulsion to find answers that drives me, but rather the contentedness after I fully comprehend that satisfies me.”
“Nevertheless, my meech friend, I am content to allow you to know it all while I know enough to answer my immediate questions.”
Regidor shook his head. “Someday I will find my meech relatives and have a discussion that lasts for days.”
Bardon groaned at the prospect, and Regidor grinned.
They walked on, and Bardon finally felt the slight, fresh breeze that Regidor had detected earlier. The passageways leading off to one side or the other became more numerous. Regidor checked Glas’s diary once again and insisted the largest tunnel was the most likely to lead them to the grawligs’ meeting ground.
Bardon spotted the next etching in the wall. Upon examination, the picture was remarkably like the first.
“Another two-headed dragon,” said Bardon.
“Or the same two-headed dragon.”
Bardon shook his head and twisted his mouth. “I’m getting an uncomfortable feeling, Reg. You know, there is the possibility that this two-headed dragon is still roaming around these tunnels.”
“The thought had occurred to me as well.”
Bardon pointed to the picture. “It looks a bit like the snake dragon you killed at the entrance to this part of the mountain. Except for the two heads, of course.”
“Of course. And that thought had occurred to me as well.”
“Has it occurred to you that we have not rescued our tumanhofer? We are probably lost in this mountain full of tunnels. There