Dragon Talker by Steve Anderson Page B

any sign of a magical trap centered on the room. He rested his hand on the pouch on his waist. He felt comforted by feeling his talisman through the leather. He stopped three feet from Perante.
    “I am cautious by nature, Perante, and I have powers of my own that you would not want to trifle with.”
    “Of course not. Your powers, though not nearly as impressive as mine, are considerable, which is why I brought you here.” Perante walked away from Xeron, shouting a spell of beginning, “Sumato!”
    Xeron tried to follow, but found he could not move more than a step in any one direction. He also felt a pulling at his waist, as if a force was trying to suck out his insides.
    “You were wise not to trust me, Xeron, because I do need to run a few tests before I try this with a dragon. Your power, as you no doubtedly feel, is being drained out of you. It will either kill you or simply leave you like a peasant, I’m not sure which. It will be interesting to see, in any event. So, get free or die. And, if you get free, I do have a reward for you, something you will not want to pass up, or ruin by trying to kill me.”
    Xeron heard little of this; instead, he began looking for the source of his confinement. “End this now, Perante, and I will call this a good practical joke. There are others we could use for this.”
    “Yes, we could, but none as powerful as you. The strong get tested, my friend, the weak eaten. Let’s see which one you are.” Perante summoned a leather chair from against the wall. It scraped across the floor, stopping behind Perante and ten feet in front Xeron. Perante sat in it, steepled his fingers, and stared at Xeron.
    Xeron turned his back to Perante, who called out to him, “Now that’s just childish.”
    The first thing Xeron did was cast a seeing spell. Anything under the influence of magic began to give off a glow in his sight. All the sheets of bronze in the room where glowing, which he expected. The workers, were, too. Perante himself was giving off a large blue aura. Now he could see markings on the floor and on the wall. He could see the markings, but he could not make sense of them. Even the colors, the significance of which every mage learns early, were not clear to him.
    “What is…this?” He felt a weight on his mind, no pain, but it was making him dull. Reaching into the leather pouch he kept at his waist, Xeron pulled out the dried powder made out of a rare, blue mountain flower. He inhaled a pinch, and immediately everything became more clear. The weight that was dulling his mind and sense was gone, but it felt like his body was now under the weight. Still, many of the symbols were familiar entrapment spells. Those were on the walls. Draining spells were on the floor; these he would have to deal with first or he wouldn’t have the strength to deal with the others.
    As Xeron focused his mind, a light golden sphere began to form around him. He stood still, his brow furrowed as he stood motionless. At first, the sphere was faint. Tendrils of black energy reached up from the ground and raced around the sphere, finding openings and sinking into Xeron. He didn’t let them break his concentration, but he flinched with each attack. The sphere glowed brighter, and the black steaks of energy stopped finding ways in. Instead, they swirled around the sphere. Four separate strands were slithering around the sphere. On some unspoken command, all four lifted off the sphere and simultaneously dived back at it, exploding on impact.
    Xeron smiled. Taking a deep breath, he resumed searching the room for symbols and clues as to what types of magic were being used against him. Perante encouraged him, “Well done. I thought it would take you longer for that one. Impressive, Xeron, impressive.”
    Xeron flicked his right hand, first two fingers extended, at Perante. Perante laughed. It wasn’t magic, but it was an insult. Basically, Xeron wished Perante an encounter with a dragon’s tail. “I do