A few, though, were wandering around doing various things, and one group nearby was busy bending and unbending Tote. They were flexing his arms and legs, bending his middle, turning his head this way and that, poking fingers at his eyes to make him blink.
Glitch tipped his head and squinted. “What matter with Tote?”
“Him?” Gandy asked. “Got a cramp. All over. Head to toe. Some kin’ cramp, huh?”
Glitch wandered over to get a closer look at the flexing of Tote, and Gandy padded after him, others following. “So what we do now, Highbulp?” the Grand Notioner asked again.
“Do? ’bout what?”
“ ’bout dragon! What else?”
Glitch turned and looked again, almost dissolving with sudden panic. For a moment, he had forgotten the dragon. “Dragon!” he gulped. “Run like crazy!” But when he turned to run, there were dozens of his subjects behind him. He bowled them over and went down with them.
Lidda had come down from the wall, and was hovering nearby. Now she shook her head. “Highbulp not good for much,” she muttered, wading across tumbling gully dwarves to help her lord to his feet. When he was upright, she faced him and poked him in the chest with a stiff finger. “Got problem here, Highbulp,” she explained. “What you gonna do ’bout it?”
Twenty yards away, the green dragon raised its head and looked around, hissing with irritation. “Will you little dolts keep it down? I just hatched, you know! I need some sleep!”
Glitch would have bolted again, but Lidda had him firmly by the ear, pulling him forward. “Dragon awake,” she said, urgently. “Highbulp talk to dragon. Make it go ’way!”
“Lidda leggo!” Glitch wailed. “How come you bossin’ Highbulp aroun’?”
“ ’bout time somebody did,” Lidda snapped. “Might make you ‘mount to somethin’.”
With Lidda leading him by the ear, Gandy prodding him with his mop handle and dozens of his subjects crowding behind him, Glitch the Most, Highbulp of This Place and Dealer with Dragons, reluctantly approached the irate creature. It wasn’t as big as the dragon he had met before, only a third that big, but it was the same color, and it was still a lot bigger than he was. And it didn’t look at all friendly.
Twenty feet from the creature, the party stopped because Glitch had his heels dug in and would go no farther. The dragon was still looking at him, contemptuously.
“Make dragon go ’way,” Gandy urged.
Glitch waved a tentative hand at the thing. “Shoo!” he said softly.
The dragon raised a scaly brow. “What?”
His knees quaking, Glitch tried again. “Dragon shoo!” he chirped. “Go ’way!”
The dragon yawned. “No.”
The Highbulp gulped, then tried one more time, a little more firmly. “Shoo, dragon! Scat! Go ’way, okay?”
“No,” the dragon said, again.
“Oh, okay.” Glitch thought for a moment. “Why not scat, though?”
“Because I belong here,” Verden Leafglow said, resignedly.
“Fine,” Glitch assured it. “We scat, then.” H$$ to his subjects. “Ever’body pack up! Time for go someplace else!”
“Don’t be such an idiot,” the dragon hissed. “I am …” It was a difficult thing to say, but she had no choice. “I am yours. I belong to you. Don’t you understand?”
“Nope,” Glitch admitted.
Verden shook her head in frustration. Not only was she delivered into the hands of these obnoxious creatures, but it was up to her to explain it to them. And there was nothing she could do about it. In her mind, a force greater than any power of hers demanded it.
“I am rejected,” she said, hissing the words. “I have been given to you, to serve you as … as you please.” Her eyes closed, her head turned upward and she wailed, “Goddess, release me! I can’t stand this!”
But there was no response, no lessening of the curse that was upon her. She lowered her head, looking away. “I am unable to hurt you puny beings, any more than you can hurt me. I belong to … oh, gods! Any god! Help me!” The only response was an agonizing prod by her geas-the curse the dark goddess had put upon her.
With a shudder, she told the gully dwarves, “I belong to you little twits!” For a long moment, she turned away from them in revulsion, then her dragon head turned toward them again, big slitted eyes blazing with fury. “There! I’ve said it! Now leave me alone! I have to sleep and grow!”
Beyond her, in the big tunnel, another gully dwarf had appeared. Blip had just arrived on the scene. Both his hands were full of bashed rats, carrying them by their tails, and he was making his way past the mutilated remains of the salamander, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Wow,” he said, gawking at the corpse. “Took care of that, alright.” Then he stepped past it, turned and bumped into the nose of the green dragon just lowering her head to sleep. He froze for an instant, his eyes going huge, then screamed at the top of his lungs, spun around and ran, throwing dead rats everywhere.
“Gods!” Verden Leafglow twitched her tail in disgust, then went back to sleep.
Chapter 6
It was a part of the goddess’s punishment, Verden knew, that she was growing so fast. Day by day-almost hour by hour, it seemed, she gained in size and strength. In a matter of weeks, she nearly tripled her length. Her mass and physical power were multiplied by hundreds, and she could feel within her the capacity for breathing chlorine clouds, though within the confines of the gully dwarves’ realm she was unable to do so.
From the vestigial nubs on her shoulders, great wings grew-wings that stretched almost from wall to wall of the great subterranean chamber when she spread and flexed them. She had attempted to exercise her wings properly, but the results had been disastrous. At first beat, the downdraft had sent every gully dwarf in This Place rolling and tumbling, and her geas had risen to punish her, to remind her painfully: Do not hurt them!
It was all part of the punishment. Until she reached full size and full power, she would not fully appreciate the exquisite humiliation of being powerless against the “least of the least,” the Aghar. The goddess had not allowed her even the slight comfort of a lingering development or chanced the passage of time in which the short-lived creatures might have disappeared entirely.
Within the blink of an eye, it seemed, Verden Leafglow became a fully mature, fully-endowed green dragon. Enormous powers rested within her and festered there in the constant torment of powerlessness.
She had died once, before her rebirth. Now, relegated to servitude among the most contemptible of races, she would gladly have died again to escape the awful humiliation of it. Within weeks, she would have welcomed death. But death, like freedom, was denied her.
Throughout her growth, she was ravenous. The provisions for weeks of gully dwarf fare for the entire tribe were less than a single meal for her, and she was forced to hunt for herself, within the confines of Xak Tsaroth. By the time her growing slowed, there wasn’t a giant salamander left in the ancient city, nor a fish, squid or giant eel in the submerged levels of it. Even the hairless, blind moles of the outer reaches-ugly creatures the size of cattle-were depleted in number.
At least, the constant, gnawing hunger had subsided a bit. Now, her existence settled into a monotony of misery as bumbling Aghar-now used to her presence-came and went about her, and Aghar children played slide-and-tumble on the scaly slopes of her flanks.
Powerless! The reality of it was a never-ending agony. She was commanded to serve them, but for the life of them, not a one of them had been able to think of anything they wanted her to do. It was as though she had become one with the stones, rubble and trash of This Place, except that they wouldn’t leave her alone.