The Journeys of a Different Necromancer Read Online Free PDF

the soft bed and started dreaming of dragons
from his studies.
    * * *
*
    When Thomas awoke the next morning, he washed, donned his
leather tunic, and followed the aroma of sausage down to the common
room where an ample, older maid bustled about serving breakfast to
four other people.
    “ Excuse me,” he said. “About this…”
    “ No questions before breakfast,” the serving woman said. “Eggs
and sausage this morning, and some nice, warm rye
bread.”
    “ That sounds great, but…” Thomas started again, but again, the
woman interrupted.
    “ Sit, sit.” She hurried to the fire behind the bar.
    “ It’s best not to argue with her at breakfast. Come sit
here.”
    Thomas looked at the man motioning toward a chair across the
table form him and decided to take the offered seat.
    The man, already eating, wore a rather nice blue and red wool
tunic with only a bit of grey hair on the sides of his head. The
tunic fit his well-formed frame quite nicely, Thomas
noticed.
    The smell of the breakfast began to make Thomas’s mouth water
even more now as the maid placed it in front of him. He ripped a
piece of bread off and put it in his mouth.
    “ Now, about this dragon.”
    “ Not you, too,” the man mumbled with a mouth full of
sausage.
    “ What?” Thomas asked.
    “ That’s all I’ve ’eard since coming ’ere three days ago, now.”
The man swallowed. “Dragon this, dragon that. Did ya ’ere that
dragon killed twenty thousand men with a swipe of its left
wing?”
    “ But I want to know its name,” Thomas continued anyway. Now
that he had slept and filled his stomach, his curiosity was working
in full force to get to the truth behind this creature.
    “ Name? Didn’t know dragons ’ad names.” The man offered his
hand over the table. “I’m Reginald of Sorson.”
    “ I’m Thomas, from the east.” Thomas took the offered hand.
“Now, what’s its name?”
    The serving maid stepped over to the table. “What’s a beast
like that need a name for? Why would it have a name? Why if it
weren’t for its beastly magic, it would never ’ave come
back.”
    “ What do you mean, come back?” Thomas asked.
    “ Why, ya don’t know much ’bout dragons, do ya sir,” she said,
as if she spoke common knowledge. “The dragon was killed ten years
ago by the queen’s soldiers, but the captain didn’t cut out its
’eart. The queen’s mage said that’s the reason it came
back.”
    Thomas blinked and then squinted his eyes at her.
“What?”
    “ You’ve got to cut out a dragon’s ’eart or it comes
back.”
    Thomas smiled and shook his head.
    Well, it’s not my job to educate the masses, he
thought.
    “ The queen knows now though. She’s putting together ’er troops
and this time the captain knows. ’E’ll cut out its heart this
time.” The maid then left to go to another table and continue
spreading her wisdom and dragon lore.
    Thomas ate his breakfast in silence and let the man tell of a
few choice places in the city he felt Thomas should see. All the
while though, Thomas could think of nothing but meeting a
dragon.
    Thomas wandered around the city for the rest of the morning,
listening to the absurd tales going around about this dragon. He
found himself in the city’s central park with its cobblestone paths
and beautiful gardens with blooms the colors of a rainbow. All
paths led to an impressive, marble bridge. In the slow moving water
under this bridge swam a dozen swans. All this, he found, the queen
had constructed for the public with her own gold. It seemed she
cared a great deal for her people.
    On the bridge, he went over all he had learned of this dragon.
Most of it he dismissed as simply too ridiculous. Once he even
laughed in the face of a man saying this dragon destroyed an entire
army with a glance from its red glowing eyes. Ninety percent of
this foolishness seemed to originate from the mage in the employ of
the queen. Nothing of which seemed believable, of anyone being hurt
by this