Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

By whom? Why? He realized he did not know Tarquin well enough to even hazard a guess, and supposed the only one who might know was Fanuilh, and Fanuilh was only a brute beast.

Or was it?

We are one.

The thought had not been his. And the creature had been staring at him so intently. Liam had heard stories that wizards and their familiars were bound in special ways, but that was the result of complicated spells and dealings with supernatural beings, the sort of thing reserved for those who worked with magic.

Swallowing the rest of his second bun, he left the corpse and went to the workroom. Fanuilh was still asleep, curled up with his snout touching his hind legs.

Like a dog, but scaled and winged and clawed and able to send its thoughts into my head. Liam winced and moved away.

The workroom's large windows looked out onto the narrow stretch of sand separating the villa from the cliffs, and let in a gray, shadowy light to illuminate the room. The first table held only Fanuilh, the second a single empty decanter of glass, but the top of the third was completely covered. Liam had not seen it in his brief glimpse the night before, but the morning light showed the table's display, and he wandered over to it.

It was like the sand-table models he had seen engineers make during sieges, but far more complex. It repoduced, in miniature, the coastline around Southwark; but where a mercenary engineer would have been happy with crude representations, the model in Tarquin's workroom was perfect in every detail.. The Teeth lay exactly at the center of the table; water on one side, the harbor and city on the other. The town was the most impressive part, completely detailed, right down to the Necquer's harborside porch, and Liam's own garret window. Tiny ships with full rigging rode at anchor, and Liam saw that they actually rode, swaying slightly as if on swells. Acting on a hunch, he put his finger down into the harbor. The ships were moving, and the water, when he brought his finger to his mouth, tasted of salt. What he had thought well-sculpted whitecaps proved on closer inspection to be real breakers, flowing constantly against the Teeth. The Teeth themselves were rock, and felt as cold and wet as their larger brethren.

Liam whistled in awed admiration and the dawning of an idea.

At the far end of the table stood a lectern, over the edge of which hung a heavy chain. With his eyes fixed on the model, Liam moved around to the lectern. A massive leatherbound book lay open on it, held down with the chain. Tarquin's spellbook, Liam supposed, and read the first few lines on the page that lay open. Abstract,.theoretical language, studded with phrases in some foreign tongue Liam had never met; nonetheless, he understood enough of what was written in Taralonian. It was a spell for removing matter to another plane of existence; "translating substance," the text called it.

"He made the Teeth disappear," he whispered. "Damn!" As a last act, Liam thought, there could be few better. A final testament to Tarquin's power, grandiose proof of his reputation in Southwark as a truly great wizard. Liam wondered if Tarquin knew that it would be his last spell when he cast it.

A paper-thin piece of wood projected from further on in the book, marking another page. Liam pushed the heavy pages aside and scanned the lines of the second spell. Much of the language was the same, and he recognized some of the foreign phrases, but the point of this one was to cloak matter, to make it invisible.

If Tarquin had been trying to decide which spell to use, he must have chosen the one for transforming matter, or else Necquer's ships would have been resting quietly beneath the sea, not to mention Necquer himself.

Could someone have killed the wizard for that?

Liam's eyes lost their focus on the page as he thought.

Who would want to kill Tarquin? As far as Liam knew, the old man had no enemies—at least none that he had spoken about. Then again, he did not know much about the wizard. When they had spoken, it had only been in generalities, about faraway places or things long past. Nothing about each other's lives in Southwark, or their present business. But then Tarquin was a wizard, and they made enemies everywhere. They quarreled among themselves, they had disagreements with those ,who sought their services, they were marked out by power for the fear and suspicions of the masses. It would not have been hard for Tarquin to acquire enemies, but it was strange that a man who could alter the work of nature in such a way could not defend himself.

I am awake.

It was a thought like the first; hard-edged and stony, brazenly pushing other thoughts away to grab his attention. His head snapped over to look at the table where he had put Fanuilh.

You have eaten. I should eat as well.

There was no doubt the thought came from Fanuilh, and

Liam remembered the bite. Why had the thing bitten him?

So that we would be one. I must eat, but I am weak.

Liam crossed the room slowly, eyeing the little dragon. Its yellow eyes never left his.

"Are you doing this? Putting thoughts in my head?"

You do not need to speak. Only think. And I am.

"How?"

We are one. May I eat?The serpentine head nudged at the final bun Liam held in his hand. Liam knelt by the edge of the table, so that his eyes were on a level with the dragon's, and held out the food.

Fanuilh's head snaked out and ripped off a large bite, chewing and swallowing in rapid gulps. Liam watched, fascinated, as the dragon ate more, gulping down the whole bun in seconds. When it was done, it began very gently licking its claws, though it continued to stare at him.

You are confused.

"How are we one?"

You know already. You are wiser