It was perhaps his greatest curse among many that the arcanopath's
accomplishment and fame brought him not worthy challenges but instead an
avalanche of niggling annoyances, boring little people with their
uncomplicated little problems.	

To escape the quotidian tribulations of the workaday world and find the
solitude he craved, he had at last retreated to the most inaccessible
setting he could locate. Once, thousands of years ago, it had been a
castle, home to a wizard whose name has been lost to time. Now only a
single turret remained, floating sixty feet in the air above a rushing
stream supported by still-powerful magic. Birds and other flying beasts
shunned the conical, slate shingled roof where no banner fluttered from
the flagstaff. The shattered stones that once formed the turret's
foundation churned the stream into a foaming whirlpool with powerful
currents that sucked unwary swimmers into a watery grave of labyrinthine
flooded cellars. 

On the lowest intact level the sole decoration was a nine-pointed star
graven deep into the flagstones. The star acted as a portal rune that
matched others carved on remote ruins, and would instantaneously transport
the unlucky fool who stepped on it to its twin in a random, distant
location. 

Up the crumbling stairs slick with moss, any intruder who escaped that
fate would find a sumptuously appointed room hung with gorgeous tapestries
illustrating a variety of bizarre monsters. A long table piled high with
freshly cooked food occupied the center of the room. Despite the delicious
scent wafting through the air and the irresistibly compelling scenes
covering every wall, it would be wise not to taste the dishes nor stare
too long at the tapestries. Every bite of the feast was drenched in
various potions of chaotic effect, and any tapestry examined too closely
hypnotized the viewer, holding them paralyzed as the beasts depicted
sprang to vicious life.  

The arcanopath Gregorius House dwelt on the highest floor in a chamber
that at first glance one might have mistaken for the nursery of a mad
child. Banks of cabinets on the walls displayed crystals, candles, bells
and chalices, decorated icons of various religions, dried specimens of
insects, dilly-bags, animal bones, bundles of feathers and herbs, pickle
jars with twisted fetal creatures floating in murky liquid, and other
brightly colored trinkets. Long swaths of fabric stretched from floor to
ceiling, which was painted in swirls of orange and yellow stars on a
blue-black background.	

The eminent arcanopath himself was idly bouncing a Crystalline Sphere of
Influence against the far wall and attempting to catch it on the rebound
when he was interrupted by a knocking on one of the windows. They were
paned with thick red glass that cut even the strongest sunlight down to a
level comfortable for aging eyes, and welded shut, making the air thick
and close and heavily scented by acrid sweetness wafting from the herbs.
With a wave of his hand and a muttered invocation, the arcanopath unbound
the welds and let the window swing open. 

  

A living gargoyle crouched on the sill, neatly folding its batlike wings.
"Someone's here to see you, sir."  

"Send them away. It`s almost lunch time, and I`m busy." 

"It's the Marchioness. She looks pretty fierce, and she's very insistent."
The gargoyle extended a hind foot and delicately nibbled between its
outstretched toes. "This is important, I think." 

"I didn't animate you to think, you talking waterspout." 

"I'm only trying to be helpful. I didn't ask to be given the artificial
semblance of life, you know." The gargoyle tucked its beak beneath a wing
with an affronted air.	

Irritated, House fumbled the Sphere and it fell to the floor, shattering
into a thousand sparkling pieces. "Oh, fine, fine. Send her to the Verdant
Altar and I`ll meet her down there."  

With a loud sniff, the gargoyle spread its wings and drifted away on a
updraft. 

The arcanopath's garden was gorgeous this time of year, mostly because he
had absolutely no role in creating or maintaining it. That duty was
delegated to various dryads, nixies, treelings, flower sprites and forest
critters he'd charmed into obedience. He was skilled in charm spells,
having very little natural charm of his own.  

The Verdant Altar stood at the heart of the garden, by a deep, still pool.
In the age of mist and dreams the Altar had been used by priests of a
nature cult to offer human sacrifices to their moon goddess, but the
arcanopath had managed to pick it up cheap at a bazaar because one of the
plinths was shorter than the others, making it wobble. Despite that, the
rough-hewn chunk of granite scrawled with exotic runes and stained by the
blood of countless innocents just added that perfect certain something to
the landscaping. 

When the Marchioness Kaah-dhi arrived, she found the eminent arcanopath
already seated by it, throwing bread crumbs to the ducks paddling in the
pond. His staff, a twisted length of wood embedded with ruby crystals that
glowed with subdued power, rested on the Altar beside him.  

"I hate to interrupt your valuable thaumaturgical studies," Kaah-dhi said
drolly, as she strode into the clearing. Although she'd ruled the lands
hereabout as Marchioness for many years now, she still wore the customary
armor of her amazonian upbringing, which consisted of studded red-dyed
leather straps across strategic areas and a metal brassiere so low cut
that it was surely intended as a technique to distract male opponents.	

The arcanopath obliged by ogling her shamelessly. "What can I do for you
today, my Lady?" 

She upended a leather sack onto the Altar, pouring out several pounds of
pale gray ash and a few fragments of charred but identifiably human bones.


He quirked an eyebrow. "Hot date last night?" 

"This is . . . was Sir James the Unchaste," she said. "He was incinerated
by a dragon and I need you to reverse the cremation." 

"There's not much I can do with this but grit my front walk when it
snows." House stirred James's ashes with the tip of his staff. "You'd need
a high ranking cleric or a djinn with a spare wish to resurrect him. Tell
you what, though. I can summon his spirit into another body." 

"I suppose that will have to suffice." 

House summoned the gargoyle, which winged its way off to the tower and
shortly returned with a rather large jelly jar containing the pickled body
of a satyr. House dumped it out onto the altar and performed the
Compassionate Cantrip of Sobriety to unpickle the specimen. A quick scan
of the Plane of Heroic Limbo located the knight's spiritual essence, and
after that it was child's play for the supreme living arcanopath to graft
it into the satyr's tenantless flesh. Child's play for an arcanopath
without compare like himself, and he even had time left over to wonder
aloud why the Marchioness would wear a metal brassiere when it was sure to
be cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and didn't it tend to chafe? 

With a gasp and a moan, the satyr stirred, sat up and clutched his
forehead. "What hit me?" 

"A couple tons of draconic hissy-fit. Welcome back to the prime material
plane, James." 

Wiping the vinegar from his eyes, the former knight felt the shape of his
new face, then tentatively searched upward to discover the horns jutting
from his skull. He jumped off the altar and landed nimbly on his cloven
hooves, twisting around to survey the rest of his sinewy, goatish little
body with dismay. "A satyr, House? Is this the best you could do, or are
you trying to tell me something?" 

"Damn it, James, I'm a magician, not a doctor. How many spare bodies do
you think I keep stored around here? Besides, you shouldn't even have
needed me. It's a plain old boring dragon. How many dragons have you
slain? At least three for every wench you've left weeping into her pillow
the next morning." 

The satyr blushed and dug his cloven hooves into the mossy ground. 

House rolled his eyes. "As far as I've ever heard, dragon-slaying is
simple. You cast every Feathered Feline Grace, Minotaur's Might, Skin of
Stone and Fortification Against Evil spell you've got on yourself and just
charge in there waving your sword." 

"I've tried that. We all have." 

"We?" 

"Sir James was the fifth warrior I've sent to confront this particular
dragon," Kaah-dhi said. "There was even less left of the others."  

The former knight looked sidelong at him, then sighed. "I took every
precaution. After all, I didn't particularly want the next spell cast on
me to be the Ultimate Ceremony of Resurrection." 

"Look at it this way, there's no quicker way out of a bad marriage than
reincarnation." 

James brightened considerably, but Kaah-dhi cut in. 

"There's something different about this dragon, House. It just showed up
out of nowhere a few months ago and has been cutting a swath through the
farmlands ever since. It`s devoured roughly two tons of livestock every
other night, and it doesn`t seem to be picky. Horses, cows, sheep, pigs,
even crazy old man Tassilon`s emus. Now it's holed itself up in the
Shatterspine mountains somewhere, but there's no telling when it will
start rampaging again." 

"That's odd indeed," House said, interested in spite of himself. "You say
it's been gobbling up livestock. It hasn't gone after any gold or jewels?"


"That was my first thought. I tripled the guards at the treasury and
issued a traveler's advisory to merchant caravans. But no, it seems more
concerned with stuffing its gullet than collecting a horde." 

"So that leaves out the possibility its just after some sorry bastard who
stole its favorite tchotchke. Too bad. If that were the case all we`d have
to do was locate whatever piece of its horde was missing and return it."  

"I've never understood why dragons were so obsessed with gold and jewels
anyway," James interjected. He tottered around the garden, getting the
feel of the new bends in his legs. "It can't serve any useful purpose,
unless dragons just like looking at shiny objects." 

"Perhaps the dragon is mentally ill," Kaah-dhi speculated. "Cursed, or
charmed. Or just ill. I've had plenty of angry peasants knocking on my
portcullis to complain, and all their accounts agree on the specifics.
It's dull grey and doesn't seem to have as many horns, spines and fringes
as dragons are usually depicted with." 

Now deeply lost in thought, House didn't answer. It was certainly possibly
that the creature had contracted some obscure draconic malady that had
stunted its growth and leached its scales of tint, but considering the
rampage it had been on it gave the impression of being hale and hearty as
ever.  

"There's always the possibility it isn't a dragon at all. Maybe it's
something else shapeshifted into the form of a dragon," James suggested.
He stumbled in the soft mud edging the pond. The frightened ducks
scattered, quacking indignantly 

House shook his head. "It's a big, scaly, batwinged lizard. That makes it
a dragon in my book. Of course, my book has very short words and lots of
pictures." 

"Be serious," Kaah-dhi said despairingly. "Suppose James's theory is
correct. We've been throwing hexes at it right and left, and it just
shrugs them off. Shapeshifting generally doesn't grant the subject any
special powers, so it would have to be another creature almost equally
formidable to successfully masquerade as a dragon. A demon, perhaps?
You're fought demons before, House." 

"Once," he corrected. "I fought a demon once." 

"And you won." 

With a sober lack of his typical condescending sarcasm, he said, "I
survived. It's not the same thing. If you honestly think it's a demon,
than I suggest you consult a necromancer."  

"You see," Kaah-dhi said, turning to the satyr. "I told it was pointless
asking him for help. I already have three other wizards working at this
dragon problem. We don't need one more." 

"I'm not a wizard," House retorted. "I'm an arcanopath." 

In a tone thick with sarcasm, she said, "What's the difference?" 

"All the difference in the world." House pulled a scone from his pocket
and began tearing off bits and pieces to throw to the ducks as he
pontificated. "Look, imagine entering a huge library. The walls are
covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. You know
that someone must have written these books. You don't know who or how. You
don't understand the languages in which they're written." 

The Marchioness nodded. 

"Well, you can do one of two things with this cast collection of exotic
books. You can simply copy the text by rote, producing more books without
comprehension of what you`re doing. You have the same result, a new book
exactly like the first, but you never truly understand what`s gone into
making it. Or you can struggle to really understand, to take the little
that you do know and use that as a wedge to crack open a deeper
understanding. See, there are three basic ways to work magic. Clerics pray
to the gods to gift them with spells. Elves personify nature as spirits
which can be appealed to, conversed with, or commanded. Wizards memorize
spells out of books and scrolls."  

House tossed another crumb onto the pond, watching intently as one of the
brown ducks waddled onto land and disappeared into the undergrowth. Its
mottled brown, black and grey feathers rendered it nearly invisible when
it sat down in the dried grass and dead leaves. 

"I am an arcanopath. I seek to understand the way in which spells harness
natural forces. I have a deeper and more precise knowledge than a mere
wizard could ever hope to get from simply collecting and memorizing spells
developed by others."  

"You can't imagine how impressed I am," the Marchioness said dryly. "But
do you think you could possibly drag yourself away from your ducks long
enough to help with this dragon?" 

House paused, scowled, and took a bite out of the scone. "Oh, I suppose.
Besides, if it gobbles up all the cows what will I have to wash down my
peanut butter sandwiches with?"  

With a long suffering sigh, he cast the Splendid Exorcism of Pain on
himself and called the gargoyle to bring his traveling cloak.