2 "INDEED YOU'RE A VERY GREAT MARVEL"

The man who sold me to your father on the day of your birth, Dennis," Chester said, "had intended to keep me for himself forever; saying that I was a great marvel."

" And indeed you're a very great marvel, Chester, " the boy agreed, reaching down to stroke the smooth metal of the little creature's case.

He was suddenly glad to have a friend who stayed a friend: who didn't glare at him with unexplained anger, like Hale; or cling and cry like Queen Selda, and neither of them able to say what was wrong.

Or even admit that something was badly wrong. It was the uncertainty. . . .

Chester reached up to Dennis with one of his eight ropy limbs, legs when he walk and hands when he chose they should be. "he said to me, can you not silence your silly wisdom, Chester? And I told him "The fault of every character come from not listening, master." And he sold me to your father, saying I was just the thing for a child babbling nonsense."

" If you had fur, Chester, I would rumple it," Dennis said as his fingers scrabbled against the metal. "Since you did not, I will only tell you that indeed I have gained from your wisdom if that wisdom made you become mine."

Chester's tentacle squeezed the boy's waist gently, then release him.

Again a dragon roared. The beast lurched up on it's hind legs, lifting it's great toothed snout a full twenty feet in the air. It's short forelegs we're flailing at an invisible barrier, the passenger that Parols magic had armored across the beasts concourse.

Lizardmen waited at the edge of the jungle. Distance made their features impassive to Dennis, but their heads darted from one side to the other to watch each of the pair dragons. When Parol signaled, the lizardfolk would Sprint across the perimeter into Emath with their trade goods.

Not so long ago, the native traders would have crossed with stately pomp. Some of them would rolled clumsy great wheeled carts laden with fruits and pelts and timbers, gems washed from the flank of distant mountains and items still more wonderful dug from the ruins of incredibly ancient cities. But that was when the Wizard Serdic controlled the perimeter he had established when first he came to Emath.

And when Parol was only Serdic's most recent apprentice.

Parol was a plump, ill-favored youth, much like the other in previous years whom Serdic had haired or bought from trading vassels. The apprentice helped with spells so complex they required two voice, and they did the physical drudgery in the separate wing of the palace that formed the wizards quarters sweeping the floor, cleaning the equipment and carrying meals to serdic's sanctum, which ordinary servants of the palace we're never permitted to enter.