Guards Guards - Dragon summoning

He opened the book.

He'd been rather surprised to find, after pages and pages of pious ramblings, that the actual Summoning itself was one short sentence. Not a chant, not a brief piece of poetry, but a mere assemblage of meaningless syllables. De Malachite said they caused interference patterns in the waves of reality, but the daft old fool was probably making it up as he went along. That was the trouble with wizards, they had to make everything look difficult. All you really needed was willpower. And the Brethren had a lot of that. Small-minded and vitriolic willpower, yes, lousy with malignity maybe, but still powerful enough in its way...

They'd try nothing fancy this time round. Somewhere inconspicuous...

Around him the Brethren were chanting what each man considered, according to his lights, to be something mystical. The general effect was actually quite good, if you didn't listen to the words.

The words. Oh, yes...

He looked down, and spoke them aloud.

Nothing happened.

He blinked.

When he opened his eyes again he was in a dark alley, his stomach was full of fire, and he was very angry.

***

Guards Guards - p44-45