The Dragon's Lair

by Elizabeth Haydon

  "You are the perfect ambassador to send to the Nain. Do you speak their language?"

  Ven flushed with embarrassment. "I do," he said. "But my family has been upworld for four generations—more than six centuries. This means we speak our version of the Nain tongue—but I'm not sure it's what real downworld Nain speak. I'd hate to say the wrong thing and start that war you're trying to prevent by accident."

  "I wouldn't worry about that," the king said. "Downworld Nain also speak the common tongue, so you can converse in that, if nothing else. The Nain ambassador to my court says he doesn't know why the dragon is attacking them. If you meet with the Nain that live where the dragon is burning settlements, you can ask them questions that might help puzzle out the reason. Remember the puzzling rules I taught you, and you might be able to find the solution. The only other thing to do would be to ask the dragon directly, and somehow I don't think that's a good idea."

  "Right."

  "If you can help figure out why the dragon is so angry with the Nain, without putting yourself or your friends in harm's way, you might be able to trade that information to the Nain in return for them giving back what the Lirin want. And if you can give the Lirin back what they want, the Lirin king may give you what I want. You can bring that to me, and in return I will give you something you want."

  "I—I don't really want anything, Your Majesty," Ven stammered.

  The king smiled. "Of course you do," he said. "You've told me about your quest for the Ultimate Adventure, the thing that is so amazing, so inspiring, so wonderful, so magical that it satisfies your endless curiosity once and for all. While I can't give you that, since neither of us knows what it is, I can at least give you the tools to help you find it. I'm working on one of them right now, as a matter of fact."

  "You are?" Ven's head felt like it was going to explode.

  "Yes. I'll tell you more about it after you come back. It might be ready by then. We'll see." The king's smile faded. "Here's one last thing to remember. The king of the Lirin who live in the great Enchanted Forest far to the southeast is a proud, great man. His name is Alvarran. He's occasionally known as Alvarran the Intolerant, because he does not have a lot of patience and he does not suffer foolishness well. It is he, and he alone, who has what I want in the Lirin kingdom.

  "If you reach the Enchanted Forest in the course of your journey, say this to him: 'I am the herald of His Majesty, Vandemere, high king of Serendair, and as such I claim his protection. King Vandemere states that if you will send him the greatest treasure in your kingdom, he will swear fealty to you and ever after will call you "sire." ' Can you remember that?"

  Ven's eyes opened so wide that his eyelids hurt. The king is willing to give up his throne? he thought. For a piece of treasure? "Uh, yes, but Your Majesty—"

  "Memorize it just as I said it to you, please, Ven." The king's voice rang with an authority that made Ven stop breathing for a moment.

  "I am the herald of His Majesty, Vandemere, high king of Serendair, and as such I claim his protection," Ven repeated. "King Vandemere states that if you will send him the greatest treasure in your kingdom, he will swear fealty to you and ever after will call you 'sire.' "

  The king nodded again. "That's it exactly. Very good. Now, Ven, listen to Tuck at all times, keep your head down, and remember that the most important achievement in this mission is for you and your friends to stay alive. Nothing else matters if you fail in that."

  "Yes, Your Majesty."

  "Best of luck to you," the king said. He took one last look at the Inn. "How I wish we could trade homes someday, Ven."

  "No, thank you, sire," Ven said. "The basement of the Inn is a little scary and damp, but nowhere near as scary as your dungeons. Having spent some time in those, I think I'll stay here if it's ever safe enough for me to again."

  The king laughed. "Good enough." His blue eyes twinkled, and he looked Ven up and down one more time.

  "Your beard is coming in nicely," he said. "It's a sign you are growing up into a fine man. Perhaps by the time I see you next you'll have added another whisker."

  Ven smiled, but he wanted to sink into the earth. "Perhaps." Two whole whiskers, he thought. That's pathetic. I should have grown my entire Bramble before I was forty.

  The king turned back to the wagon and motioned to Tuck, who bent down, and whispered something in his ear. Then he went to the mule and mounted, waved to Ven, and started back east toward the Great River, beyond which Elysian lay.

  "You ready?" Tuck asked.

  "Just a moment, please," Ven said. He hurried inside the Inn, ran to the kitchen and pulled Char aside.

  "After breakfast, be ready to leave and be gone for a long time," he told his roommate, who was struggling to carry a large pile of plates to the table.

  "What? What are ya talkin' about?" Char demanded.

  "I've got to leave here right away, and so does Ida. I've learned by now that anywhere I go, you're going too."

  "Darn right," said Char. " 'Bout time ya stopped arguing about it."

  "Then finish serving breakfast and get packed."

  "I am packed," Char said. "I'm always packed. I don't own anything."

  "Tell Ida to do the same."

  Char groaned. "You want me to talk to Ida? It's not even light outside yet. Are ya tryin' to ruin my day?"

  "If we get caught by the Raven's Guild it will be a lot more ruined," Ven said. "We need to hide out for a while. While you're at it, ask Nick, Clemency, and Saeli if they want go, too. They were in the Gated City with us, so they may be in danger as well. We'll all fit in the wagon. I'll be back before noon-meal. Anyone who's ready then can come. Anyone who's not stays behind. Understood?"

  "Aye, sir," Char said, grinning. "Faith, you're startin' to sound more and more like the Cap'n."

  "If only I could think like him," said Ven. "See you in a few hours."

  He ran out the front door of the Inn and climbed aboard the wagon next to Tuck. Tuck clicked to the horses, and the wagon rumbled off into the west toward Kingston.

  Ven was too excited, and it was too dark, to see the long line of black birds perched atop the roof the Inn, watching them as they went.

  3

  The Merrow

  WHEN THE SUN CAME UP BEHIND HIM VEN WAS SITTING AT THE end of an old abandoned pier at the north end of Kingston's harbor. It was a place he had sat several times before, waiting for a friend to show up. His stomach was boiling with excitement and nervousness.

  The tide was coming in, and frothy white waves rolled under the pier. Ven watched them bubble through the holes in the wooden decking. He knew that if he had been home in Vaarn and his mother saw him sitting on such a rickety structure she would be very nervous. She would probably drag him off it by the ear. But he had tested each of the boards of the pier carefully, and knew where all the solid ones were.

  I've certainly had plenty of time to do so. Amariel usually keeps me waiting a while, so there's else nothing to do.

  Full-sun is what sailors call the moment in the morning when finally the whole ball of light rises above the sea's edge. The sun rises on the other side of the Island, but you can still tell that it's full-sun by the way the color of the sea changes. It's very rare to see Amariel before full-sun. Maybe she's sleeping late, but I would never ask her. She can be a little touchy and gets offended pretty easily.

  I'm not sure exactly how she sleeps in the first place. Being a merrow, what humans call a mermaid, she may look for a floating piece of debris or a rock off shore to rest on. Or perhaps she swims down to the darkest depths and sleeps there, because she has gills that let her breathe under water. Maybe she just floats between the waves. I've never actually seen her do it.

  I'll have to remember to ask her about it. But I will be sure not to imply that she's being lazy. Girls don't appreciate that, at least the human girls I know. When Char accidentally greeted Ciara the other day with "Good afternoon" when she came in for breakfast, she almost pulled every hair from his head
.

  But however I have to say it, whether it offends her or not, I have to get her away from this place, now that the Thief Queen's thugs are breaking open the tunnels beneath the sea.

  Finally, when Ven was beginning to wonder if he would see her at all, the merrow's head popped up in front of him, just behind the breaking edge of a white-capped wave.

  "Good morning," she said.

  "Well, hello," said Ven. "Are you feeling adventurous today?"

  Amariel snorted. "Of course. Merrows are always adventurous. Does this mean you want to come with me and explore the depths of the sea? Because you keep promising to do that but you never actually come. I'm starting to believe you are just teasing me."

  Ven stood up. "I would never tease you. At least not in a mean way like that."

  "That's a good thing, because you owe me," Amariel said, floating backwards into another oncoming wave. It broke over her head, making her long, dark hair drift all around her like seaweed. "Merrows don't forget their friends. But more important, they don't forget when their friends are rotten to them. What happens as a result is not pretty."

  "I would think not," Ven agreed. "But I'm not teasing—I'm here to invite you to come on an adventure with me." He sat back down again on the rotting dock.

  "An adventure? Out of the sea? In the dry world?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "Today."

  Amariel's green eyes blinked. "Today?"

  "Yes," Ven said quickly. "I have to get out of this part of Serendair—er, the dry world—right away." And so do you, he thought. Your family and your school, if they're still out there, need to leave as soon as they can.

  "Why?"

  Ven thought back to something the merrow had told him when they first met.

  My father knows that if he tells me not to go to a place, I sometimes don't listen.

  Can't risk that happening now, he thought. Amariel already knows about the tunnels into the harbor. If her curiosity gets the better of her, and she goes to investigate—

  "Well, it's gotten very dangerous for me here," he said. "The king thinks it's important that I leave today, before the people I made angry in the Gated City come looking for me. And he gave me an important mission."

  Amariel's eyebrows drew together suspiciously.

  "Is this the same king who set you on fire?"

  Ven thought for a moment, trying to guess what she meant. Amariel saw the world through a sea-dweller's eyes, and sometimes that led to misunderstanding of the language of the human world. "Set me on—oh, you mean fired me? Yes. I mean no. I mean—that's a long story. But if you come with me, I will have lots of time to tell it to you. And you have said in the past that I owe you stories, since you told me so many merrow tales when I was floating on that wreckage in the sea."

  "Hmmmm," said Amariel.

  "Please come," Ven said. His excitement was growing, squashing his nervousness. "It will be so much fun! You'll finally get to explore the dry world, and meet some of my other friends."

  The merrow's face went white in alarm. She blinked, her eyes wide, then disappeared below the surface.

  It took Ven several seconds to recover from his surprise. He scrambled to the edge of the dock on his knees and leaned as far over as he safely could.

  "Amariel!" he shouted over the breaking waves. "Amariel, come back!"

  Farther out in the harbor he could see a red cap encrusted with pearls pop out of the water, followed a moment later by hair and eyes. The rest of the merrow remained below the surface.

  "What's wrong?" Ven called anxiously. "What did I say to upset you?"

  More of her body emerged. Ven could see the beautiful multicolored scales that came up to her armpits glint in the light of dawn beneath her gown of bubbles.

  "Other friends?" the merrow shouted back. "What other friends?"

  Ven nervously wiped the salty grime and sweat from his hands. "Er, just a few people I know, mostly my mates from the Inn where I live."

  The merrow's head disappeared again. It resurfaced a few moments later in the waves in front of him, wearing a frown.

  "Like that boy you were fishing for birds with?"

  "Yes!" Ven said, relieved. "That's Char." He and his roommate had flown a kite on this very pier on the night he landed in Serendair. Amariel had been hiding beneath the water, watching them. She had thought the kite string looked like fishing line in the sky, and told him so after Char had gone away.

  A cold blast of salt water hit him directly in the face. Ven shut his eyes just as the merrow's tail slapped down on the waves again, drenching him a second time.

  "Are you crazy?" the merrow said angrily. "These friends of yours are humans!"

  "Uhmmm—yes, most of them."

  "Didn't I tell you about humans and merrows?" Amariel demanded. "I'd rather be in the company of Megalodon than a human."

  Ven shuddered. He had seen Megalodon when he was aboard the good ship Serelinda, after Amariel had saved him from drowning. The Serelinda was one of the biggest ships Ven had ever seen, a four-masted schooner more than 150 feet in length. Megalodon, an ancient deep-sea shark, had appeared beneath the ship's hull, a ghostly black shadow that rose from the depths.

  And was longer than the ship.

  "Humans really aren't that bad," he said, wiping the salt from his eyelashes. "Some of them aren't to be trusted, for certain, but most of them are good, many of them are very kind. And they definitely won't try to swallow you whole."

  Amariel had floated back and was swishing the multicolored scales of her glorious tail around in the foam. "I don't think I believe you," she said. "My mom says that merrows should never trust humans, or even talk to them. We're allowed to save them if they're drowning—that's only proper, of course—but other than that, we should keep as far away from them as possible. I only stayed with you because you told me you were Nain. Otherwise you would still be floating on that broken piece of ship somewhere in the sea."

  "No, I would be dead," Ven said seriously. "The only thing that kept me from falling into the depths and drowning was the fact that you stayed, and kept me awake, and told me stories. I can never repay you for everything you've done for me. You're my friend, Amariel, the one I've had the longest—at least here in this place. I wouldn't introduce you to anyone I thought might hurt you."

  "Hmmph," Amariel said. She did not look impressed.

  "Besides, if you want to grow legs and come explore the dry world, you would be giving your cap to me." Ven pointed to the delicate circle of red thread and pearls on top of her head.

  The merrow did not seem to be paying attention to what he said. Instead she was staring at his hands. "How do you make them work?" she asked curiously.

  "Make what work? My hands?"

  "Yes."

  "Uh, like anyone else's, I guess." Ven stole a quick glance at the merrow's hands to see if perhaps she had fewer fingers than he did, but they seemed about the same as his own.

  Amariel peered into his palms. "They're all wiggly and loose," she said. "You'd never be able to keep up with a school of merrows with hands like that. This is what hands are supposed to

  look like." She held up her own for him to see, and Ven noticed that in between her fingers was a slight webbing. "Ours make for much better swimming."

  "I imagine so," said Ven. "Nain don't usually swim. In my family, my mother and I are the only ones who can."

  "And why do you have a picture on one of them? That's very odd."

  Ven blinked in astonishment. "You can see that?"

  No one has been able to see it before except me. McLean knows it's there, but he only feels it, since his eyes don't work.

  When I went into the Gated City on an errand for the king, I had my fortune read by a woman named Madame Sharra. She is probably the strangest and scariest person I've ever met. She is tall and thin and gold-skinned with eyes that look as if they can see your thoughts. She has a deck of dragon scales that are very old, and each of them
has an image on it that tells her something about you.

  Madame Sharra let me choose three scales in my reading. The first one had a picture of a windmill on it. She told me this showed where I was in life right now, changing all the time. The second was the Thief Queen scale—and that accurately predicted what is happening to me now.

  But the third scale I chose would give me a gift of great power, Sharra said. She warned me that most people did not choose a third scale in their readings, because great power is backed by great consequence, and most people are not willing to risk it.

  Of course, I am not most people.

  Which may be why I am frequently in trouble like I am now.

  Madame Sharra called the third card I chose the Time Scissors. It had a picture of an hourglass with a pair of scissors in front of it, a thread in between the blades. When I chose that card, the picture on it appeared in my palm, and hasn't washed off or disappeared since. She said having it gave me a magical second chance, the opportunity to undo one thing I had done in the Past. She also warned me how dangerous it would be, because everything that happened in the Past after whatever I changed might be changed as well.

  Her warnings about the use of this gift left me pretty sure I'm never going to use it. If I don't, no one will be the wiser, because aside from McLean and Madame Sharra and me, no one even knows it's there.

  Except Amariel, apparently.

  The merrow's eyes narrowed.

  "Of course I can see it," she said indignantly. "Do you think I'm blind?"

  "No, no, certainly not," Ven said. "No one else has been able to see it before, that's all. What does it look like to you?"

  "Is this a trick question?"

  "Not at all."

  The merrow did not look like she believed him. "Sort of like this," she said after a moment. She touched her two fingers together and made a triangle in the air, its long side on the top, then another beneath it, its long side on the bottom.