Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III Read Online Free Page B

over yet another tiny figure. He reached the bottom of the stairway easily enough, but perhaps a bit too much at ease because of that, the warlock almost did not notice the living wall coming from his right.
    “Do pardon me, my Lord Bedlam. I must admit my eyes and my mind were elsewhere or I would have certainly made note of you.”
    Benjin Traske stood before Cabe, an imposing sight if ever there was one. Traske was more than six feet in height and had the girth to match. His face was full and round and on any other person would have seemed the jovial kind. On the scholar, however, it was more reminiscent of a judge about to pass sentence. He wore a cowled scholar’s cloak, a gray, enveloping thing with gold trim at the collar, and the ebony robes of his profession. Traske also wore a blade, not part of the usual fare for a man of his occupation, but the warlock had learned the day of the tutor’s arrival that he was a survivor of Mito Pica, a city razed to the ground by the armies of the Dragon Emperor in their search for one young Cabe Bedlam. Benjin Traske had seen his wife and child die because he had only had his bare hands with which to protect them. He himself had barely survived a wound to his stomach. The blade had remained with him since then, a symbol of his willingness to defend those under his care at the cost of his own life.
    There had been some question as to whether he would be able to live among drakes, much less teach their young, but the Dragon King Green, who had discovered him, had assured the Bedlams that Benjin Traske saw cooperation between the two races as the only possible future.
    Even when he was not tutoring, Traske sounded as if he were lecturing. Cabe found he could never listen to the man without feeling like one of his charges. “No apologies, Master Traske! I was hardly paying attention myself.”
    The tutor ran a hand through thin gray hair peppered slightly with silver. An expression of exasperation crossed his face. “You have seen your prodigy’s latest effort, then. I feared as much. They have journeyed upstairs, I take it?”
    Cabe nodded. “All three of them. The Lady Gwen is hunting them down now.”
    “Only three of them? There should be five.”
    Such knowledge in no way encouraged Cabe in the efforts of his son. “We saw only three.”
    Traske sighed. “Then, if you will excuse me, Lord Bedlam, I will hunt out the other two while your good bride deals with the three above. I feel at some fault, for when he lost control, my mind was elsewhere.”
    “You were teaching him magic?” While there was a hint of sorcery about the tutor, he had never struck Cabe as an adept.
    His remark seemed to amuse the man. “Teach him magic? Only if young Master Aurim desires to know how to lift a feather for the space of three seconds. No, my lord, my skills will never be much more than wishful thought. If I were an adept, the fall of Mito Pica might have taken a different turn. I was merely his audience. I believe your son was trying to impress the teacher, so to speak. No, the magic of mathematics and history is the only magic I can teach.”
    “Well, I think I’d better teach him a little about concentration and patience . . . again. Where is he?”
    “In the center of the garden.” Benjin Traske performed a bow, a momentous achievement for one of his build. “If you will excuse me, my lord, I do not want my quarry getting too far afield and if the other two are not upstairs, then that means they must be headed in the direction of the kitchen.”
    “Mistress Belima will have a fit if she sees one.” Belima was the peasant woman who ran the kitchens as her own kingdom. Considering the results she achieved, Cabe was more than willing to grant her that territory.
    “Indeed.” The hefty scholar departed, moving with a swiftness and grace that the warlock could only marvel at.
    It took only minutes for Cabe to reach the location where Traske had said his son would be. Aurim was