by Patty Jansen
“For what?” a man asked. His voice sounded suspicious.
“We’re planning to leave the city as soon as the weather turns warmer and the roads are open. I want to know where the bandits are.”
“Is that all?” Master Beck said.
Madame Sabine shot him a furious glance. Oh, she wanted that dragon, just as badly as Nellie wanted to keep him out of her hands.
And Nellie grew even bolder. “We could use a cart and a horse, and a crate of liquor, wine, beer or gin, to bribe the guards.”
“That’s asking a lot. The horse and the cart, I hand you that, but getting the guards to look the other way? That amounts to treason.”
“Someone else has made that offer to me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Who, if I may ask?”
“I bet it’s that witch Julianna or her wayfarer friend,” someone said behind Nellie. “I heard a story that a councillor’s wife got the most terrible skin rash from a concoction that was said to have been made with dragon excrement.”
Oh, the glory. Nellie had suspected that Julianna and Zelda might be friends. Here was her evidence.
“She didn’t say her name,” Nellie said.
“And you would give a magical creature to someone who doesn’t give you her name?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I’d had an offer. I have to think of the women and children in my group and I’ll take the best deal. I don’t think you can handle the dragon anyway, but if you will give me things in return for a free creature, then I’ll take the best deal.”
“We want the box, you stupid woman,” Madame Sabine said.
“The dragon is not in the box.”
“Give us the box, and the dragon will come.”
“I don’t have it with me. I can bring it when I see you fulfil your side of the bargain.”
“How do we even know it’s the real box?” the man opposite Nellie said. “She could be trying to lead us all astray.”
“Heavens, she is Cornelius’ daughter. Will you lay off it?” Master Beck said. “Or would you rather that she gives this treasure to the witches who will do goodness knows what with it?”
Silence. A few men shook their heads.
“What do you intend to do with a dragon?” Nellie asked.
“Study it, and use it to fight the fire dog. And learn about magic because that study has been sadly neglected in this city.”
Despite the greed in this group, Nellie trusted Master Beck’s intentions. It was tempting to agree, because a rogue dragon might cause all kinds of problems for her, but there were many reasons she couldn’t give in.
She asked, “What do you think these witches would do with him?”
“It’s hard to say. There are many possibilities. Already, one of them has been peddling ‘products’ based on the dragon. They might continue to extort people who have money and really should know better, or they may do a range of other things, including selling the box to people we definitely don’t want to gain control over it.”
“Such as?”
“King Leopold, Baron Uti’s family.”
No. Nellie shuddered, thinking of the round-waisted, big-bearded baron, who already had far too much dark magic at his court. If she had to pick between giving the dragon to him, or to Master Beck or Zelda, there was no choice. But the dragon wasn’t hers to give.
A merchant said, “I could bring blankets and child’s clothing. I have no more use for those now that my children have grown up.”
“I can spare a cart,” said another.
Oh, they wanted this dragon. Their naked greed was ugly.
Then another man said, “If you had any wind magic, you’d know that the stories about bandits are highly exaggerated. Yes, there are some rogues, but not nearly as many as the palace wants us to believe.”
Nellie found the speaker at the other end of the table. “Are you a wind magician?”
“I am. I can tell you which places are the safest.”
Another man said, “With regard to this dragon, I have a worry. I say we keep everyone relating to the creature within the city walls, including this woman. We will give her some food and blankets and shelter them if they want, but I am not happy to let them leave the city. We may need her later on.”
A few people made noises in agreement.
Nellie hated how these people kept talking over her head. “Excuse me, but what would you need me for?”
Master Beck said, “Do you know anything about dragons?”
“Aside from having lived with one?”
“Do you know about their biology? About their needs?”
Nellie’s cheeks grew hot. She hadn’t even figured out what the dragon ate.
From the other side of the table an older man said, “We cannot judge her like this. She’s unaware of the knowledge we have.” He looked at Nellie. “In the lands in the far east, dragons appear in times of great need, when towns are threatened by evil. There are many stories of towns and even great cities saved by the appearance of a dragon. Each town has a dragon magician who can use dragon stones to summon the beast to the defence of the people.”
Nellie was wondering where he got this information. These learned people always seem to be so certain of themselves.
As far as she understood, dragon magic was a type of artisan magic, just like wood magic or water magic. And children with magic in the east received a box which they then filled with a magical object, like a tree or a dragon. And as far as she knew, the thing in the box only protected its owner in extreme need.
These people were just full of nonsense. They made it sound like they knew what was going on, but if there was any science in this group, it had long since been overtaken by politics and scheming.
They didn’t know what dragons were for. Whatever Madame Sabine had done to the dragon, it was not how dragons were meant to be treated.
These people wanted to keep her here, because they were afraid of handling the dragon, and they wanted control over him at the same time.
These people knew nothing.
She thought of just giving them the empty dragon box in return for food and clothing, but that would be deceitful, and she did not like that at all. In the end, they could flee the city without extra food and clothes, and she had the information she needed. She left them with the illusion that she was desperate for their help, and sat quietly while the members of the group discussed the uses of a dragon against the fire dog—seriously, did they really think that spreading “dragon stones” around the city was going to help? These stones looked suspiciously like river pebbles.
Nellie said she’d think about their offer. She had the information she needed about the safety of leaving the city, and no one had yet offered the horse she had asked for, although Master Beck said procuring it wouldn’t be a problem.
Soon enough, the conversation moved to different subjects.
A woman set a wooden box on the table and proceeded to hand out little satchels to all the members. This happened without many words, and without discussing the contents.
Nellie asked her neighbour what the satchels contained, and he said they held pills that kept the mind clear when one was threatened with magic.
One of the men had travelled to Lurezia to study some phenomenon of the sky and gave a lengthy talk about it. He set a wooden box on the table and unpacked a selection of instruments from it and explained how one could use the instruments to determine the position of stars in the sky.
The talk was rather boring. Nellie was tired, and it was stuffy in the room. She had trouble keeping awake and wished she could leave.
Chapter 19
* * *
IT WAS GETTING LATE, and people were still talking.
Nellie’s eyes were gritty with fatigue. She was looking for a way to leave the gathering, because she had the information she needed, she wanted to avoid making any further agreement about giving the dragon to these people, and she had quite a long way to go back to the barn. The talk ab
out the fire dog prowling the streets had made her nervous. She wasn’t normally prone to seeing things in the dark, but she had seen this creature before and knew it wasn’t a trick of her mind.
In the middle of a discussion, one man in the group got up. He walked to the window and looked out. Because they were on a level below the street, the window existed for little more than letting in light from a tiny sunken courtyard.
He then went to the door and opened it. A blast of cold air came in.
Several people shouted at him to keep the door shut.
“Whatever is going on?” Master Beck asked, casting an annoyed look at the door.
“I thought I heard something,” the man said.
He left the basement—still leaving the door open—went up the stairs to the street level. A moment later, he called out, “Come up here. Look at this.”
A couple of the men ran to the door and up the stairs.
Nellie looked for her coat. It was really getting cold in here.
Voices drifted down from the street.
Most of the people now left the table and were putting on their coats, grumbling about the cold air streaming into the room.
The fire roared in the hearth, making Nellie realise how stuffy the air had been.
More people went to the door. Nellie followed, having put on her coat, wondering what all the fuss was about.
She was halfway up the steps outside when the most terrible screeching howl echoed over the city.
Men in the street shouted.
A number of people came running down the stairs. They were men who had been at the meeting and other citizens, trying to get into the safety of the basement. The press of bodies swept Nellie down until she most fell. A fierce orange glow came from the right.
Someone shouted, “It’s the fire dog!”
People screamed.
Madame Sabine’s horse let out a screaming whinny, followed by a snap and the thundering of hooves.
Nellie scrambled inside the basement in the throng of people trying to get to safety. The last person shut the door and bolted it.
Someone put the damper over the fire, and the moment it went out a waft of cold air went through the room.
Another person blew out the candles, so they were sitting in the pitch dark, not knowing what was going on.
No one spoke.
Nellie sat at the table. She listened for sounds from outside, but it was quiet as death.
“Has it gone?” a man asked after a while.
“Sounded like the horse has bolted,” someone else said in the dark.
“He will come back.” That was Madame Sabine.
Someone opened the door, showing a faint strip of light coming in from a street lamp outside.
Nellie said to the man next to her, “Isn’t anyone going to fight this creature?” Some of these people were magicians. If anyone could fight it, they could.
“Fight it? Anyone who tries would be defeated straight away. We need someone who is more than an artisan magician. But there are none left to defend the city.”
“It’s time to call an official end to this gathering,” Master Beck said somewhere in the darkness. “We should all go back home and keep our families safe. We’ll investigate this woman’s dragon, because it alone has the power to defeat the fire dog.”
Except the dragon was afraid of the fire dog.
The door opened further and one of the men went up the steps again, and a moment later voices drifted in from outside.
“Who is he talking to?” someone asked.
A man came in carrying an oil lamp from elsewhere in the house and used it to light a candle.
“There are guards out there,” a man said in the dark part of the room where Nellie couldn’t see him. “I doubt they’re here to take on the fire dog. They probably haven’t seen it, and are still in their ridiculous quest to find small time magic while the big magic has free rein.”
Another said, “I would love to see them try. They would be burnt to a crisp.”
“They would be running for their mothers,” another man added.
And someone else said, “That will teach the Regent that he will need magicians to protect him.”
Madame Sabine got up. “It’s time to go home.”
“Be careful of the guards. They arrested a lot of people around here.”
“They wouldn’t dare to touch us,” Madame Sabine said. “They are my husband’s men, terrified of me, and to be honest, most of them are not very smart.”
She went into an adjacent room where people had dumped their winter coats.
A couple of men’s voices sounded outside, and the next moment a group of men came down the steps into the cellar. They were city guards, at least ten.
One of the guild members quickly whipped a book off the table and stuck it in his pocket.
“Good evening,” the patrol leader said.
There were some nods, but no one replied.
“We’re looking for any magic or magical objects in this building,” the patrol leader continued into the silence.
“We don’t have any,” said a man.
“Why don’t you check the magic beast that just crossed us in the street,” the merchant said. “We were having a business meeting here, and all of a sudden there was this terrible sound outside. We went to check, and found a giant dog, completely made of fire like the fire demons of old. You would be wise going after that thing and trying to catch it. It’s going to set the entire city on fire.”
“We didn’t see it and haven’t heard of anything like that. Trying to mislead a member of the guard with the intention to deceive is a criminal offence.”
The merchant spread his hands. “I’m telling you the truth! I saw it.”
A few men tried to shush him.
One of the guards walked to the table where the box with astronomical instruments still stood from the earlier demonstration.
“Show us what all these items are for.”
He upset the entire box of instruments. Metal stands, lenses, boxes of dials and calculus frames clattered over the table.
“Hey, careful with that!” The owner lunged after a metal tube that was in danger of rolling on the floor.
“Show us what magic all this stuff does.”
“That has nothing to do with magic,” the man said. “These instruments are to watch the stars and to plot their course through the sky.”
“We already know the course of the stars through the sky. All the stars and celestial objects appear in the east at night, and they set in the West, just like the sun except that they’re on the night canvas. There is no need for all this ridiculous stuff. This is alchemy and magic.”
“I can assure you, it’s not. I can explain what we’re all doing, but it’s late, and that creature that is out there is not going to be friendly if it finds any of us by ourselves on the street.”
Several people had moved to the door, but the guards blocked the way out of the basement.
One shouted, “In the name of the Regent everybody stay inside.”
“In the name of what Regent?” came Madame Sabine’s voice.
She emerged from the other room, where she had retrieved her coat of thick, light-grey fur with a luscious cover that sat snugly around her neck. She looked positively regal compared to the frumpy merchants who wore many layers of clothing like stuffed sausages.
Nellie expected the guards to be surprised, but they were not. They didn’t even show any sign that they had recognised her.
“What is all this about?” Madame Sabine asked.
The patrol leader said, “We have it on good information that meetings take place here every week about magic and heresy.”
“Well, just the fact I am here proves those rumours wrong, doesn’t it?”
“That man over there explained to us what exactly you were doing here. Those who doubt the existence of the sky canvas . . .” He looked around. “A number of people in this room are known to us
as being less than trustworthy.”
“That is news to me. Where did you get this information? I am merely doing business, helping the merchants of this city get access to the newest discoveries. When the time comes that the neighbouring kingdoms and baronies are convinced that they can take Saardam without much resistance, they will come with machines that fly and move by themselves, and if we don’t have those machines as well, then we’ll have no way to defend ourselves.”
Oh, she was so good at acting the prim lady.
“We have orders from your husband. You’re deflecting our questions.” He addressed the gathering. “Now, all of you, if you have any magical objects at all, give them to us, and we’ll view your case with leniency. If we are forced to search you, and we find any magical objects you have hidden on your person, we will not view that in a positive light.”
He waved his hand and two of his men sprang into action.
Madame Sabine said, “Wait, wait. Who says you can search these people. They’re my business associates. They are carpenters, they are fishermen, they are merchants.”
“What sort of business is going to be conducted then?”
“It is a council of business people and we discuss matters relating to the most terrible export conditions that our country has ever seen, and the dwindling of supplies.”
He seemed to agree, almost, because at the last moment he said, “In that case, if that’s true, none of you will have any objections whatsoever to being searched.”
“To the contrary,” Madame Sabine said. “These people are my friends and trusted contacts. They’ll consider it rude to be subjected to any form of searching. The suggestion that they conspire against my husband is preposterous.”
“It’s the Regent’s order.”
“My husband only orders this so he can humiliate me.”
“We have reliable information that there is magic and heresy practised in this meeting. I don’t care whether you call yourselves innocent business people or not. We will search you before you can leave this building, and if we find any items of magic, then you will be taken to jail.”