The Prophet of Lamath

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THERE WAS a saying in the land as old as the dust that stood ten inches deep in the back of his cavern, as old as the diamonds that he loved to toss from mouth to mouth. “Two heads are better than one,” Vicia-Heinox would hear a passerby say, and he would nod with both of his in sage agreement, then eat the traveler whole. Vicia-Heinox was a two-headed dragon, the only one there had ever been—the only one which has ever been.

To say that Vicia-Heinox was the most powerful living creature anyone could remember is to understate the case. A one-headed dragon is a national emergency. A two-headed dragon, sitting astride the only truly usable pass on the north-south trade route, is a world problem. Vicia-Heinox was an environmental feature. He not only altered cultures, he was a factor in producing them. Three ancient nations feuded and skirmished around him, for he sat on the only frontier the three realms held in common. He had been actively involved in the history of each, and all held him in awe.

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