She was midway through changing back into her lizard form when Nahala’s spear thrust into her heart.
The dragon fell like a great black wave, smashing foulness everywhere. At her demise, the cavern collapsed in on itself, burying both her and her two remaining amulets under enough stone to build a new city with.
The warrior Nahala threw back her head and ululated in triumph.
Nahala, watching it all and shivering with joy, knew: That’s me. That’s who I’ll grow up to be!
When it was over, both Nahalas turned toward Olav, lying motionless on the ground. His skin was pale but his breathing steady. It was obvious he would recover.
“Look at him!” said the warrior Nahala, and there was a fondness to her expression. “Oh, he is lovely in his youth, with his beard so black and his limbs so strong. Do you not agree?”
Young Nahala turned toward Olav and, to her amazement, heard herself say, “Yes, he is. Oh, he is indeed.”
“Just be sure, when he wakes up, to let him think he did the deed himself. You know what a child he can be.” At which words, the older woman touched her amulet and faded back into the neverwhere of times to come.
This is the tale of Olav the Merchant, known also as the Dragon Slayer. For many years, he and his wife guided caravans across the desert. On occasion they encountered brigands, whom they slew without mercy. They had many children. In time, he became rich, retired to a villa near the sea, grew fat, and died old. May such great good fortune come to us all!
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Camouflage
Patricia A. McKillip
Patricia A. McKillip (www.patriciamckillip.com) has written many fantasy novels over many years, among them The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, the Riddle-Master trilogy, and, most recently, Kingfisher. She has won World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards for her work. Her short story collections include Wonders of the Invisible World, Harrowing the Dragon, and Dreams of Distant Shores. She lives in a small town on the Oregon coast with her husband, the poet David Lunde.
Old Professor Seeley was droning again as he darted bee-like among his students, dropping exams on their desks: papers on some, oddments or more recognizable objects on others. It was his last year before retirement, Will remembered, stifling a yawn as he watched the ancient wizard turn and stop, stop and start again as if in some forgotten dance around the students and the aisles. Occasionally his mustachios, long and white as sea-lion tusks, puffed with his breathy humming. He had made his way two or three times to the desks before and behind Will, pulling items out of his pockets, dragging others out of his sleeves. But so far, he had danced away from Will, after dropping a paper, a pair of sunglasses, a flower, a palm-sized harp, a party hat under the bemused gazes of others.
“There,” he announced finally, and Will’s head came up abruptly, the urge to nap forgotten.
What about me? he thought, appalled at the idea that he might have to take the Elements of Ancient Sorcery class all over again. What did I do wrong? What did I not do? he wondered frantically. It was mostly just history, very little actual experience with hoary spells; like most history, it was neither memorable nor particularly useful, especially not to the Magical Arts degree.
“Professor Seeley?”
“Look again, Mr. Fletcher,” he heard clearly within the language of bees the professor had returned to, buzzing behind his nose again as he wandered back to his desk.
Will glanced down at his own empty desktop. And there it was, coming clear against the pale wood: a small spiraling hillock of dark stone, looking very much like a lump of petrified dung except for the odd, colorful glitter across its surface.
He stared at it, reluctant to touch it. Finally, he prodded it gingerly with one finger. He heard half-stifled snorts of laughter around him.
“Might there be a problem, Mr. Fletcher?”
“No,” he said, and sighed. It was his own final year as well, the seventh of seven, and midway through what was called “the Winnowing” by the masters and “the Hell-Harrow” by the students. Already, three of his closest friends had vanished in that final year, culled by the mercilessly constant testing.
Even Laurel. There one night and gone the next. He contemplated her glumly in memory: she of the wild gold-green hair, and the long, long bones, her fingers like new, tender twigs that seemed to break into blossom when she touched him. Even she.
Well, he thought, gazing at the bleak little pile on his desk with something like a stirring of interest. I can go and find her if I get kicked out of here.
A blue, wrinkled, bloodshot eye opened in the stone. “Really, Mr. Fletcher,” he heard in his head as his bones melted and tried to pour him under his desk. “Don’t give up so easily. Anyway, nobody likes being a consolation prize.”
He straightened himself, his mouth tight, holding back a protest. It was fair, he conceded, that voice invading his head. Professor Seeley would be aware of the entire class throughout the test period, in case they got lost, or into trouble, or ran off in despair.
The eye in the stone closed; the professor’s public voice returned. “By now you are all familiar with the seventh year tests. Some of you will find yourselves in unexpected places; others will remain here. There is no advantage to those with tests on paper. Much of the past exists in written form these days; it is no less difficult. Just remember that you are facing the burgeoning early elements of magic and sorcery, some of which you may not recognize. Do your best to see and define what you have been given. Think about the words you would use to define what I’ve given you. Remember: always, always the language is the magic. And take comfort in this: in the long history of this school, no one has ever died taking a test.”
“Cold comfort,” Will muttered.
And then he was out, who knew where, standing among trees and light and a long hillside of meadow grass, the wind roaring like a dragon around him.
“My stone—” he said on a hiccup of panic, turning circles around himself, searching the grass. It was nowhere, his test; he had forgotten it, left it behind; he had already failed.
A slit in the air opened above his feet; the stone spilled out of it, thumped on his shoe. He gazed down at it, both relieved and sorry to see it. No eye opened to glower at him. The wildly waving grass blades blowing back and forth across the stone loosed jewels of light, then doused them in shadow, flowing and vanishing in a seemingly endless cycle. Mesmerized, he bent over it. The glittering melted completely away under his shadow, left only very ancient dung.
Reluctantly, he bent and picked it up. A memory of the dry, humorless voice of one of his early teachers surfaced in his head: To have power over a thing, name it. To name a thing, know it. To know a thing: become it.
“Shit,” said Will, which pretty much summed things up.
All color left the sky. Snow began to fall.
Sydney heard Gauda sing the camo-dragons out of the sky before the storm broke and they turned themselves into snowflakes.
Her voice meant food. It meant sleep. It meant morning, wake, move. It meant attack. Begin. End. They had heard it since they were tiny. Gauda had grown up with them; they had been children together. The camo-dragons would have followed her voice anywhere.