Dragonsight Read Online Free PDF Page B

raged. ‘You and that wench Andzu.’
    Zimak pulled his head back as though slapped. ‘Actually, she was Princess Andrella from Bazite. You think you’ve been hard done by. Look at her. She wound up in Premiel’s wasted body with dozens of voices screaming in her mind for revenge. To top that, she was slashed to death while giving me time to free you. Think of others for once in your life, Daretor.’
    ‘I’ll kill him!’ Daretor swore. He struggled, but somehow Jelindel managed to subdue him.
    ‘The Sacred One,’ Jelindel said, diverting Daretor’s rage. ‘Speak now or I’ll let Daretor go.’
    ‘Gah, what an abomination,’ Zimak spat. ‘What did the old clown say this time?’
    Calling the Sacred One an ‘old clown’ seemed sacrilegious. ‘He wants us to find the dragonsight,’ Jelindel said. ‘I imagine there are the usual inducements.’
    Zimak nodded. ‘Like, they’ll cut off our orchids if we don’t?’ ‘I imagine that’s pretty close,’ Jelindel said. ‘At least in your case. Now, before we go any further, did you or did you not steal the relic?’
    ‘For the last time –’
    ‘It was around King Amida’s neck,’ Daretor interrupted. ‘The day we fought the mantid in the arena. You pointed it out to me.’
    ‘Looking and stealing are two different things,’ Zimak said, wagging a finger. ‘Besides, when did I get a chance to steal anything? You were with me the whole time.’
    ‘You could have snuck off when I was sleeping,’ Daretor said.
    ‘That’s preposterous,’ Zimak said. ‘I’d need to be super human to get out of the slave pen, break into the king’s chamber, steal the dragonsight, and return to the pen unseen.’
    ‘We were super human on that paraworld,’ Daretor reminded him.
    ‘I didn’t even know that the bauble was worth anything,’ Zimak said. He flapped his hands in exasperation. ‘We’ve been framed, pure and simple, you great big lummox!’
    Before Daretor could point out that it was now he, Zimak, who was the ‘great big lummox’, Jelindel flicked a glance at the sleeping man. ‘Who’s he?’
    Zimak seemed surprised. ‘You don’t know?’ He crossed to the sleeper and shook his shoulder. ‘Wakey, wakey! We’ve got visitors.’
    The man sat up. Dazed, he turned to face the others.
    Daretor cried out, amazed. ‘Osric? Is it really you?’
    Daretor grabbed Osric by the shoulders and embraced him. ‘Tell us everything that happened after we escaped the tower. By White Quell you must have a story to tell!’ He stepped back before the Bazitian could gather his wits. ‘You look unwell,’ Daretor added, as an aside.
    ‘It is also good to see you, my friend,’ Osric said. ‘First, you must know that time does not flow the same on the different paraworlds. In my world some ten years have passed since last we saw each other. In that time, much has happened. I reached my people and, as you foresaw, I became a hero, returning with a fertile red female dragon. We chose our best male to breed with her and in no time we had a clutch of powerful dragonlings, more than sixty in the first laying alone. It was a wonderful time. We raised the dragons as equals, as they are meant to be, not under the domination of a vain tyrant and a cruel vizier. The dragons respected this and grew in freedom, in a way that the king’s dragons did not. By the start of this year we had over a hundred sturdy dragons, each as large as those in the tower’s thrall.
    ‘By that time the king realised he’d made a mistake in not striking early, as his vizier had advised. But it was too late; we were a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, we were also a force to be dickered with. I and a large group of my brethren – some fifty in all, each riding a free dragon – were invited to the Tower to sign a treaty. But it was a trick.’
    ‘Surely you could have seen through such a lame ploy?’ exclaimed Daretor.
    ‘There was a woman involved,’ muttered Osric. ‘A woman