Through the Darkness

“But what if something goes wrong?” Garivald said. “Then he won’t knock the dragon down, and he likely will give away where we’re hiding.”

“You worry too much,” Munderic told him. “Sadoc isn’t as bad a mage as you think.”

“No, he’s worse,” Garivald retorted. Munderic jerked his thumb in a brusque gesture of dismissal. Having just argued twice with the leader of the irregulars, Garivald supposed he understood why Munderic responded as he did. That didn’t mean he thought Munderic was right. It didn’t mean he thought Sadoc could sorcerously bring down a dragon, either.

But Munderic wouldn’t listen. And Sadoc gave every sign of going ahead with his wizardry. A crowd of irregulars gathered round him, watching his preparations. Garivald wanted nothing to do with them. He strode away from what he feared would be the scene of a disaster--and almost bowled over Obilot, who was coming up to see what Sadoc was up to.

“Don’t you want him to knock down the beast?” Obilot asked.

“If I thought he could, I would,” Garivald said. “Since I don’t. ..” He started to snarl something, then bit it back. “Do you think he can?”

Obilot pondered, then shook her head. “No. He’s not much of a mage, is he?”

“Oh, good!” Garivald exclaimed. “Here’s another question for you: If he tries to bring down the dragon and doesn’t manage it, do you want to be anywhere close by?”

Obilot considered that, too, but then she shrugged. “Probably won’t matter much. If he botches the job, this whole stretch of forest will catch it.”

That bit of common sense made Garivald stop and think. He had to nod. “All right. Shall we see what happens?”

Sadoc had started a fire from the embers of one of the morning’s cook-fires. He was throwing powders of one sort or another onto it, and incanting furiously while he did. Each new powder made the flames flare a different color--yellow, green, red, blue--and send up a new, noxious cloud of smoke. If the Algarvian dragonflier hadn’t spotted the irregulars’ campsite, he would in short order.

Sure enough, the circles the dragon was making in the sky suddenly stopped being lazy. They grew smaller, more purposeful. “How long before he starts talking to his pals with his crystal?” Garivald murmured to Obilot.

“With a little luck, Sadoc will bring him down before he can do that.”

Obilot checked herself. “With a lot of luck.” She also spoke quietly. They might--they did--both doubt Sadoc’s ability, but they didn’t want him to hear any words of ill omen while trying to work magic that would benefit them if he could bring it off.

He was giving it everything he had; Garivald couldn’t deny that. He pointed toward the dragon and cried out what sounded like a curse in a voice so loud, Garivald thought the Algarvian on the beast could have heard it. At the word of command, the smoke from the fire started to form into a long, narrow column aimed up toward the dragon. Awe trickled through Garivald--maybe Sadoc really could do what he claimed after all.

But then, instead of rising through the branches of the trees and enveloping the dragon, the column of smoke fell apart as if a mischievous small boy had blown on it. Sadoc cried out again, this time in fury. Garivald and Obilot and the other irregulars cried out, too, in disgust. The smoke stank of rotten eggs and latrines and long-dead corpses and puke and sour milk and rancid butter and every other dreadful smell Garivald had ever know. It filled the camp with its horrible stench.

It filled Garivald’s nose, too. His stomach lurched. An instant later, he was down on his knees, heaving his guts out. Obilot crouched beside him, every bit as sick as he was. “You were right,” she wheezed between spasms. “We should have tried to get away.”

“Who knows--if it--would have helped?” Garivald answered. Tears streamed down his face.

They weren’t the only irregulars bent over and heaving. Hardly anyone stayed on his feet. Munderic kept trying to curse Sadoc, then interrupting himself to vomit again. And Sadoc kept puking in the middle of his explanations.

“See if I ever trust you again!” Munderic shouted before doubling up once more. Garivald tried to say, I told you so, but he kept on puking, too.

And, no more than a quarter of an hour after the sorcery went awry, just when most of the irregulars could stand on their own two feet again, eggs started falling from the sky. They were centered on the fire with which Sadoc had thought to assail the Algarvian dragon. Men and women stumbled into the woods, some of them still vomiting. Garivald found a hole in the ground by falling into it. He lay there, having no strength to look for better shelter. Screams rose from irregulars even less lucky than he.