The Dragon King by Nils Johnson-Shelton

Author:Nils Johnson-Shelton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062070975
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

WIZARDLY INTERLUDE NUMBER TWO (OR, HOW MERLIN MAY BE THE WORLD’S GREATEST COMPUTER HACKER TO BOOT)

“Dragons!” Merlin yelled. “Dragons, dragons, dragons! The temerity of that aquatic sprite! ‘Oh, here’s Scarffern, m’lord, use it well,’ I bet she said. ‘The lords and lordesses of the Otherworld will bow and kneel and scrape! They will sniff at your toes and give you flowers and honey and blood!’ Ack! I would drain that Lake into hell itself if I could! Nyneve! Troublesome, tiresome Nyneve!”

Merlin reached into the huge cage standing next to him and snapped his fingers. A huffing sound came from within. “Dragons!” he spit.

Merlin grabbed a bloody hunk of meat from a nearby table and held it out. “Agorwch,” he called, and the cage’s door unclicked and swung wide. He tossed in the meat. “Caewch,” he ordered. And the steel bars slammed shut.

“Soon, beast. Tomorrow or the day after. I will give you something so fresh to eat that the brain will still be fracturing with electricity.”

From inside the cage came the chompings and gnashings of a ravenous thing. The snapping, crunching, and splintering of bones. The sucking of blood between teeth and gums. The licking of lips and jowls. The gulping of a long throat. The belch of a hastily consumed meal.

“Yes, pet beast. Soon you will see battle. You will slay many dragons! But not the king. No, the king is mine. . . .”

Merlin twirled from the cage and floated into the passageways of his cave. “Scarffern! The little interferer. Its vile echo rings in my ears even now.” As he moved he dragged the butt end of his owl-headed cane along the rock. Click-clack-a-tat, click-click-tick. He arrived at the room that hummed with computer mainframes. He held his hand over a scanner and winced as the light traveled up and down his palm, reading the ancient lines of his skin, still there in spite of all the sangrealitic tattoos. The door hissed open, and Merlin went inside.

The room was warm. He glided to a desktop computer with a flat-screen monitor and pounded on a keyboard. Terminal windows opened and closed and opened and closed as streams of code flew from his fingertips. He was an evil master of magic and of programming. The total package. A five-tool player. A wizard and a nerd extraordinaire.

He peered into the computer screen. Peering back was the reflection of his eyes, so red now that there was no difference between the iris and what had been the white. The pupil was no longer black but purple and clouded. His eyes were less like a demon’s than those of a deep-water fish.

“More surprises, pet,” he said, even though the creature was still in its cage in a far-off room. Merlin scratched his left temple manically. His eyes twitched. “So many more surprises. That unwitting boy has no idea that I looked through his eyes and saw that Artie has the key that will lead him to the Grail. Gram’s ragged keeper, we will make a traitor of you yet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.