Read Online Dragon Wizard by S. Andrew Swann - Free Book Online

Rabbit?”
    â€œGetting a third horse, I presume.” Krys walked over and started positioning her saddle on the second horse.
    â€œWe can’t wait long,” Lucille said, lifting the pendant to look into it. “Getting to Fell Green—even at full gallop—might take most of the time he gave us.”
    â€œAnd then we hand over Frank and Sir Forsythe?”
    Lucille shook her head. “I’m hoping that knowing what happened with the prince and his spell might show some way out of this.”
    â€œDo you really think Frank is out there attacking border towns?”
    â€œI don’t know—”
    Lucille was interrupted by a neigh and the sound of hoofbeats. Rabbit came into the clearing, leading horse number three. She looked at Lucille with an expression that conveyed awareness that something had gone very wrong.
    â€œChange of plan,” Krys said as she finished strapping the bags and saddle on the second horse. “We’re leaving now. Get that horse ready.”
    Rabbit looked from Krys to Lucille.
    â€œWe have an ultimatum from the elf-king. And my father may be angry enough to send a team of guardsmen after us if he figures out where we’ve gone.”
    Rabbit’s eyes widened and she got to work putting a bridle on the new horse. Lucille looked over at Krys, who had finished with the second horse and was busy now with a knife, carving a series of cryptic symbols on the trunk of the dead tree.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Lucille asked.
    Thieves in any given area, especially those who belong to a guild, all have a native code to pass messages back and forth. Most thieves are illiterate, but most learn a series of symbols that can communicate things like “guard dog” and “clients at this inn aren’t worth the trouble.” They aren’t as arcane or elaborate as the glyphs used by wizards, but they’re just as impenetrable to the uninitiated. Of course Lucille had no idea about any of that.
    Krys just explained, “I’m leaving a message for Laya and Thea that we went on ahead. So they can meet us at Fell Green.”
    Lucille shook her head. “No, don’t send them there without us. Going to Fell Green is dangerous enough when I don’t have to worry about my father sending guardsmen after us. And they’ll probably have two artifacts I don’t want falling into anyone else’s hands.”
    Krys stopped carving. “What then? They should go back to the castle?”
    â€œNo. Tell them we’ll meet at the Northern Palace. It’s closer. We have to go back that way anyway, to go after the dragon.”
    Krys nodded and resumed carving her message.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    We rode north largely in silence. Krys asked a question or two, but Lucille’s monosyllabic answers must have discouraged any further conversation. I knew the impossible time pressure ate at her, because every few minutes she would fondle the pendant around her neck. This left me with nothing to do, even as a spectator. As the same woods rolled by us for the third hour, I discovered that I didn’t need Lucille’s body to tell me to sleep.
    Apparently I could do that on my own.
    I realized that when I noticed I walked an overgrown path toward an overgrown temple, a temple I knew was on the wrong side of the Grünwald border. Behind me a woman’s voice asked, “Miss me yet?”
    I spun around and faced the Goddess Lysea.
    She wore a literally statuesque body, the same animated carving of personified sex and beauty that she hadfirst greeted me with. This moving idol was normally a larger-than-life marble sculpture stationed behind the altar in the half-ruined temple on the hill behind me.
    Right now she towered over me, the perfect curves of divinely fleshy marble reminding me painfully that my dream-self wore my original male body. She reached down and trailed fingers too warm to be stone