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

"Then—you are like a familiar to me? Bound in that way?"

As you are bound to me. We share a soul now; your soul rests partly in me, and partly still in you.

Liam rose, shaking his head in confusion. "Why did you never speak like this before?"

We were never one before. This can only be done between those who are one. Look.

Suddenly, Liam's sight went black. He cried out, and then his vision returned, but his perspective was wrong. He was looking up into an angular, unlined face, framed with close-cropped blond hair. Pale blue eyes rolled sightlessly on either side of a long, thin nose. It was his nose; he was looking at his own face.

You see with my eyes.

"I want to see with my eyes!" he said, and there was another sickening jolt of blindness before he returned to his own perspective. The dragon's head was cocked to one side, regarding him curiously. "Never do that again!" he admonished shakily.

You can do it as well.

"I don't want to!"

Perhaps you will.

There was a long silence. Liam wondered, and then stopped wondering, realizing the dragon could read his thoughts.

"I want you out of my head!"

You can keep me out.

"How?" he demanded.

I will show you, but you must do things for me.

"Do things for you? You've stolen my soul, you little beast! I want you out of my head!"

I am sorry. It was necessary. I was dying. We may—

Liam felt the edge of the thought, notched like the blade of a broken sword, as the dragon paused—We may make a bargain.

"A bargain! What have you got in return for my soul?"

We only share it. I would not have taken even a small pan, were it not necessary. Master Tanaquil thought my gifts wonh a small pan of his soul. And it does you no harm. But if you help me only a little more, I can teach you things.

"What things?" Liam demanded.

There are things that must be done, and then I will teach you.

"What things?"

How to keep me out, how to see with my eyes. Other things as well.

Despite himself, Liam was intrigued .

"Magic?"

Not much. You do not have the mind for the complicated kinds. But smaller ones, perhaps, and other things. I can help you write your book.

"My book? How did you know of that?" The dragon cocked its head again, and Liam raised a hand. "No, never mind. I understand."

I shared all these things with Master Tanaquil. I can teach you. If you will do things for me.The dragon still looked directly at him, but there was no expression in the creature's eyes.

Liam heaved himself to his feet, favoring his unbitten leg. "What things?"

First, you must bring me more food. In the kitchen, think of raw meat, desire it, and look in the oven.

"I noticed that. An easy enough condition." He limped to the kitchen, and though it was difficult to make himself desire raw meat, eventually the oven produced an uncooked cut of beef, which he brought back to the dragon.

Fanuilh tore into it, biting and chewing in the same convulsive gulps. It did not stop sending its thoughts, however.

Second,the message appeared in Liam's mind, you must tell the Duke's man in Southwark of Master Tanaquil's murder. His name is Coeccias. Can you find him?

"The Duke's man? The Aedile? Yes, I can find him. I would have told him in any case. What else must I do?"

Third, you must nurse me to health. As painful as the sharing was for you, it was much worse for me. I almost died when Master Tanaquil was struck down.

"When he was struck down," Liam echoed, and then asked intently: "Do you know who killed him?"

I do not.

Liam mused over this, disappointed, and the dragon did not interrupt him for a while. Then:

I am weak. It will perhaps take a month for me to recover.

Brought out of his reverie, Liam nodded. "Yes, of course. Simple enough. Is there anything else?"

One other. I will tell you when you return with the Aedile.

Liam balked. "Tell me now."

It will be simple enough for you, and there will be time enough when you return with the Aedile. You must be sure he brings a ghost witch.

"A ghost witch? What's that?"

He will know. Tell him that. Is it a—again, the shorn-off thought, as though the phrase was unfamiliar—a bargain?

"Yes," Liam said, after a moment's thought.

Then go.

Stung, he turned abruptly for the door, only to tum back. "Why don't you know who killed Tarquin?"

Master Tanaquil could exclude me from his mind at will. He often did.

"You can teach me to do that?"

I can. I will, when you fulfill the last thing I will ask. Now go.

Still Liam paused, wondering to himself. It was strange to talk and receive the response directly in his head; it was strange to take orders from a tiny, weak dragon; it was strange not to argue—but what, he asked himself, could he do?

It is as strange for me to give orders as it is for you to take them. When you have fa/filled my last request, I will teach you how to be my master.

With that in his head, Liam limped out of the house and onto the beach.

Between Liam's limp and his distracted thoughts, it took far longer to return to Southwark than it had to come out the night before.

Fanuilh had taken part of his soul, but for some reason he felt neither violated nor angry. Liam knew himself to be accepting by nature, taking what was given and making the best of it. There was, really, nothing he could do: he had heard enough about wizards and their familiars to know that the link could only be broken through the death of one of the sharers. He had no idea what would happen to his soul if Fanuilh died, and he had no intention of finding out.

As he thought of it, he reasoned that the experience must indeed have been worse for the dragon. He still had his soul;