the brothers worked nor needed to. The two endured not the slightest hardship despite their combined sloth, and often discussed money, but solely as the object of various schemes to avoid employment while they continued to feed from the parental trough.
One night when Baloyd and Suald were wandering the streets of the span in search of a rumored card game, they happened to pass by the entrance to the dragon beam. At the end of the spiraling walkway, the hexagonal bowl hovered in the air on hidden supports. Suald noticed how it glowed in the moonlight and pointed this out to his brother. They stopped and stood there, watching it.
No one else was near. The Dragon Bowl on Kakotara had then been dormant for more years than the two brothers had lived, and no one paid it much attention anymore except during festivals, when unanswered libations were poured upon the tiles.
Suald stopped. He said, “Does the hex seem brighter than it should?” He called it hex because that was the way of that span.
Baloyd, the less thoughtful of the two, had little interest in puzzles. “We should find that game house if we want to gamble,” he urged. He walked ahead, hoping his brother would follow. Instead, Suald stepped onto the beam and began strolling out along its curve. Baloyd knew full well that once his brother had fixed upon an idea there was no use arguing him off it, so he turned around and followed.
Suald had already completed the first loop of the dragon beam’s spiral. He came up directly across from Baloyd, nearly close enough that they could have stretched and touched fingertips. He asked casually, “If you could make the hex light up anytime you wanted, what would you ask for?”
“It’s supposed to be bad manners to make demands of the gods,” his brother replied.
“Gulldroppings. This thing hasn’t ignited in thirty years. How does anybody know what you can do to the gods, or what they care about? Or if they even exist beyond stories? Has anybody you know of ever tried to get what they want off a hex?”
“Probably not.” He said nothing further until he’d caught up with Suald, who waited for him at the entrance to the bowl. “I guess I don’t need money, I don’t need another wife. Wouldn’t want to be king—that’s too much work. Guess I’d like to be quick. Then I could take anything I needed anytime and get away without having to pay if I didn’t want to. You know, dash down to Balrog Harbor and steal a keg right from under the noses of those greedy trolls. Be worth it for all the times they’ve bled me for money. But hey, we’re knights of the elbow, let’s go find that game—”
“It is too bright,” Suald said thoughtfully.
Baloyd finally considered the Dragon Bowl at the center of the spiraling arm. The tiles were luminescent, and not from reflected moonlight. They glowed still brighter as he looked on.
“I think something’s going to happen.”
“You’d better say what you want, then, since it was your idea,” Baloyd goaded.
“Well, I surely don’t want speed. Too specific, see. What I want”—and he raised his voice until he was shouting at the sky—“is a way to have whatever I want later. That way I don’t ask for anything particular now, and I get lots more whenever I want!” He grinned at his brother. “Pretty clever, heh?”
“I think we’re starting to glow, too.”
Suald held his hands up. Sparks danced around his fingertips. His hair stood on end, and sparks whirled around his head. The light came from nowhere and everywhere.
Baloyd began to laugh, his giddiness sharpened by fear. Whatever would happen next, they had chosen to demand, and there was no going back, no reneging. The gods had heard them and would either honor their desires or destroy them. He shouted, “Come on, give me speed!” and his brother responded, “Give me everything I want!”
The light turned thick; the world beyond it vanished. The air pressed them and they moved back to back to withstand the pressure. There was a twistedness to the energy, as if they were about to be wrung from head to foot. The air darkened and squealed mechanically; it stank of rotten eggs, of sulfurous pits. The bowl shook so hard that they both fell. They lay screaming, their bravado forgotten, scared witless now, arms over their heads as certain death mashed them.