“Good,” Dizarn said.
“Really?” Laric asked. “This is good?”
“It is good that you feel that way about it. It’s good that you do not think it is as it should be.”
“How can I think that?” he asked, glancing back at Sashaak. “But I do have a question. There is someone in my town who claims to have come to Korthal and traded with its people.” As Laric thought about it, it seemed impossible, didn’t it?
“Korthal does not trade with outsiders,” Dizarn said.
“Well, from what I was able to see, Korthal doesn’t really exist any longer,” Laric said. “So it’s more than just Korthal not trading with outsiders. Something isn’t adding up here.”
“How did this person trade?”
“If he’s telling the truth…” Laric had to believe that Xavier was, but a part of him started to worry. What if Xavier had been misleading them? What did he really know about him, after all? Xavier had power, and ability, and connections that he shouldn’t have. He understood spellslips and spellcraft forms and claimed that he had been trained by Laric’s grandmother, but he had never gone to school and had never been truly trained by a mage. The idea that Xavier would know all of that seemed almost unimaginable, yet he was obviously capable in ways that he should not have been. “He said he learned from my grandmother. Your mother.”
“Perhaps,” Dizarn said.
Laric wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, and at this point, what he needed was to return so that he could talk to Xavier. What he had said didn’t fit, not with what Laric had seen.
But there were other aspects that didn’t really fit either.
It occurred to him that as they had been flying, he hadn’t seen any sign of other dragons. He hadn’t seen any sign of movement. He hadn’t seen any sign of mages. And considering how dangerous the mountain passes would have to be, shouldn’t he have been aware of something?
He glanced back at Sashaak, who was resting, though Laric could sense that he was still awake. He could feel that somehow, and he could also feel a connection to him that said Sashaak was trying to hide something from him. Or perhaps not exactly. Perhaps the dragon was trying to hide something from Dizarn.
“He was using the same sort of portals that my grandmother did, wasn’t he?” Laric asked.
“It is possible,” Dizarn said. “Such things are easy enough for those in the know to use. And you don’t even have to be significant or powerful to activate them.”
That was a surprise to Laric, but maybe it shouldn’t be.
“So if he was using something along that line, then she must have given him knowledge of how to do it.”
But even if his grandmother had done that, that still didn’t explain where Xavier had gone, just how.
Dizarn shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Something isn’t quite right here still,” Laric said.
“There is much that you still must see. This is but the beginning. You can see the devastation. You can see how many dragons have been lost. You can see how many of your people have been lost.”
And him saying it like that made Laric hesitate. They weren’t his people. Not really. His people were back in the village that had been attacked by… Well, had been seemingly attacked by Korthal, but had ultimately been attacked by mages.
“I see how bad this is. I know there’s something here that I don’t understand,” Laric said. “But I need to return. My town still isn’t safe. There’s a threat of mages coming because they learned I connected to the dragon.”
“Which is why you must leave. There is more you can do here to help. Come, and I will explain it all,” Dizarn said.
“If I do that, then the rest of my town suffers. My sister, my friends, people I know and have lived among will suffer.”
“But you will remove the possibility that they will claim this power.”
“I wonder what happens if I don’t?”
He straightened, looking at Dizarn, and there was a deep flutter inside his chest, a bit of anxiety and nervousness about what Dizarn might decide to do. Laric certainly didn’t know what that would be, but there was a part of him that remained on edge because he had no idea what Dizarn might try, and if he might attempt to separate Laric from Sashaak. And if he did, what would Laric do?
Could Dizarn succeed at that?
“No,” Sashaak said in Laric’s mind.
He found himself turning back to Sashaak and studying him. If it wasn’t possible, then should he even be concerned?
“You should come with us,” Dizarn said, and he seemed to be picking his words carefully. “There is much that you could learn with us that you can’t learn otherwise. If you come with us, we would teach you.”
“Teach me what? How to work with the dragon? I think I’m supposed to learn that from the dragon. Teach me how to use spellcraft forms? I’ve been learning that from the dragon too. Or do you intend to teach me about glyphs?”
Dizarn frowned. “I cannot.”
That was about as Laric had suspected. “Because my grandmother was the glyph master.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you want me to come. Because of what she knew of glyphs, because you think there is something that I need to help your people with.”
“I think you can guide—”
“Father,” Janear hissed.
“She is gone,” Dizarn said, looking over at her, “and we have lost too much.”
