Free Dragon Magic by Andre Norton

bar of light coming through the open inner shutter fell squarely on the table and chair.
    The puzzle was still there, Sig had not taken it. And it was exactly as Ras had seen it last, the silver dragon coiled and rearing in a way which made it look alive.
    Somehow Ras found himself sitting down, studying the partly completed puzzle. He knew what he had to do—put together some more of it. He picked up the lid of the box, traced with his fingertip the bisecting lines which divided it into four parts—the silver dragon at the top, the red dragon to his left, the gold-yellow one to his right, and the queer blue one, very unlike the other three, far more stiff and strange looking, at the bottom. Then he was pushing out of the way the reds and the yellows, concentrating on gathering all the blue ones in a heap.
    And he forgot, as he hurried over that sorting, time or where he was, or anything but the need to fit one piece to another, and the next to that, and to that. The blue dragon now had one leg, back haunches—now two hind-feet with their birdlike claws, a tail, long and thin, held up at a stiff angle to match the long, snaky neck at the other end. Now—here was part of a paw—why did the thing have paws like a lion in front and bird claws at the back? Yes, that was the other leg! No—rather a part of the neck. Ras paused to study the picture on the box more carefully.
    The head had a curled bit like a mane, and a cone-shaped horn halfway down the creature’s nose. He had the head nearly done. Some more bits of upper neck—
    As he picked and chose, fitted and discarded, Ras knew a growing excitement. There was something about this strange picture that he knew, had seen before; only, he could not remember when or where. He frowned as he hunted for the section that would unite head with body. Suddenly he closed his eyes, trying to think of the whole thing as a picture and not a puzzle. Where had he seen it? Something Shaka had shown him? A picture in a book? Memory stirred very faintly.
    All done now but one piece of clawed paw. Ras hesitated, trying again to remember how—when—where—This must be the right piece, but it was upside down. Those queer marks on the back looked like little wedges set in a broken pattern.

    He remembered! Writing! He had seen that writing in a history book—Sumerian writing! Those wedges were made on clay with a stick and then baked so that the blocks of clay were books! Ras was surprised at the clearness with which it came back to his mind now. Carefully he detached two of the pieces he had fitted in earlier and turned them over.
    Each piece had some of the wedge writing, though each was different. The Sumerians had lived a very long time ago. What would their writing be doing here on the back of the puzzle?
    It had something to do with the dragon, he was sure of that. Bricks!
    Yes, bricks! He suddenly saw the picture his mind had been seeking—a wall and on it this queer shape made of colored bricks.
    “Sirrush-Lau!”
    Ras started, looked around the many-shadowed room. Who had said that? He—he must have! But how—why?
    Sirrush-Lau. He stared down at the creature now complete. That was its name. And it blazed up at him fiercely as if brilliantly lighted by a hot sun.
    PRINCE SHERKARER
    The sun blazed, so strongly that the brick pavement of the wharf was oven-hot. Yet inside himself Sherkarer shivered with cold. But to let these pale-faced barbarians know that he had ever been touched by fear—! He stared straight ahead, his head as proudly high as he could hold it: he, who was of the blood of Nubian Piankhay, Lord of the Two Lands, Pharaoh of Egypt, a slave in this place of towering walls and strange, bearded men.
    He need only glance at his own wrist to see the blue tattoo marks braceleting his dark brown arm—the coiled Serpent with the lion head of the great god Apedemek—to remember how it had been. How long ago?
    One day wove into the next and the next. First only a