Servant of the Dragon

by David Drake

  The world didn't expect Ilna to sort things out. That was a duty she put on herself, more fool her.

  Ilna seated herself against a hummock of sand cemented roughly by lime in the crushed shells that made up much of the whole. She looked up at the stars, wondering if the people who inhabited the heavenly spheres on which the stars turned were happier than she was.

  She smiled again. The people like Cashel were, she supposed. No doubt there was balance in the heavens as well as here.

  Vonculo and his fellows carried on a morose conversation without noticing Ilna. She hadn't made any attempt to conceal herself, but she'd been quiet and the dark blue cloak hid her better in the night than true black would have done.

  Ilna was too far away to overhear the men's conversation, not that she'd have wanted to. They'd be making a series of despondent observations about the mess they'd put themselves in. At any rate, Ilna would have been doing that if she'd been fool enough to have joined them.

  The Ravager's helmsman stirred up the fire with a salt-crusted pine bough, then tossed his poker on the rekindled flames as fresh fuel. Vonculo inserted the key in the music box and wound it.

  Ilna's eyes had been drawn by the flare of sparks, but when she saw Vonculo with the device she continued to watch. She wasn't spying--she was in plain sight, after all, if any of the seamen bothered to look around--but neither was she particularly pleased with herself.

  Vonculo released the key. It turned, glittering, and the box began a tuneless chime as if someone was tapping the blade of a good sword. The sound was empty rhythm--

  But sparks rising from the fire whirled into images of flesh. Didn't Vonculo and the others see what was happening? Their eyes remained fixed on the music box, ignoring the fiery dance in their midst.

  Ilna watched the patterns the sparks drew. Six wizards and a mummy stood in a circle chanting. She could hear the words--meaningless to her, meaningless to anyone but the powers they commanded--in the whorls of light.

  Above Ilna the stars wheeled; before her the sparks spun. Together in the tinkle of the music box they made a purposeful unity, like cogs turning Katchin's millstones and grinding grain to flour. She wasn't on an islet of the Inner Sea, though part of her mind remembered that place; and remembered Valles and Barca's Hamlet and all her past.

  Inside the circle of wizards knelt a seventh: his right hand raised with a dagger, his left holding a bound child on the floor in front of him. A man taller than anyone of Ilna's acquaintance was tied to a pillar beside the coven of wizards. He screamed, and his muscles were knotted like kinks in an anchor chain.

  The wizards chanted, then paused. Their leader in the center shouted the final verse of the incantation and stabbed downward.

  Wood cracked in the fire like sudden lightning. Sparks exploded upward, dissolving the scene. Ilna shivered in the warm night as the final note rang from the mechanism of the box.

  Vonculo removed the key and wrapped the box again in its silk brocade. He and the others drank and talked and cursed the luck they had made for themselves.

  After a time, Ilna got to her feet and walked toward the other fire, where Merota slept and Chalcus sang of a black-haired girl with lips as sweet as honey.

  Sharina took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped out of the alley. A trio of women with market baskets on their heads bore down on her, chattering among themselves. She squeezed against the wall. The women swept by, giving her only a cursory glance. The trussed capon in the middle basket craned its neck to glare at Sharina as long as they were in sight of one another.

  She grimaced. She didn't know what the bird had against her: it wouldn't be going into her oven.

  Sharina wanted to sell the gold pectoral, but she wanted to know more about where she was first. She started walking, east so that the lowering sun would be on the faces and in the eyes of people coming toward her. She listened to talk and street cries, not for the information they contained but rather to be sure that she could understand and be understood here before she tried to do business.

  She was getting awfully hungry. She passed a woman carrying a tray of wheat loaves under a piece of worsted cloth. Sharina's stomach cramped with longing at the smell of fresh bread.

  The streets meandered. This city had been laid out by sheep walking to market or by men who had as little regard for straight lines as sheep did. The thoroughfare down which Sharina started split into two branches, each so narrow that the women talking to one another across the second-floor balconies could have touched hands if they'd wanted to. She went left.

  The shops on the ground floor here sold pottery. It was utilitarian stuff, not even as good as the salt-glazed earthenware manufactured at Dashen's Place, on the road across Haft from Barca's Hamlet to Carcosa. The shapes were clumsy and the crudely-brushed slip decoration added color but no beauty to the beige field.

  Sometimes shoppers glanced at Sharina. She was taller than other pedestrians, men as well as women, and her long blond tresses were an exception among swarthy, dark-haired folk.

  The same had been true in Barca's Hamlet, of course. The people back home had had eighteen years to get used to Sharina's appearance, though. Still, nobody here screamed when they saw Sharina and she didn't think she'd have any trouble being understood.

  She waited till she got to an intersection where three streets met and a fourth split off a few steps down the widest. A doctor had set up at a corner booth. His paraphernalia were displayed on the open counter before him: stoneware medicine jars and a rank of surgical tools. The blades were iron but had gilt and silver chasing on the bronze handles to lure custom by their flash.

  At the back of the doctor's booth hung a creature like nothing Sharina had ever seen before. It had the shape and claws of a scorpion, but its many legs were flat paddles and the body was six feet long. She supposed it was for show rather than some part of the doctor's real medicaments. She certainly hoped it was for show, not that she intended to patronize the fellow professionally.

  The doctor had just finished weighing the chunk of copper he'd gotten as his fee for putting ointment on the sores of a man with yaws. He wiped his spatula with a wad of straw which he tossed into the street as Sharina approached.

  "What can I do for the lovely lady?" the doctor asked. His eyes narrowed slightly. "If it's a matter of a personal nature, we--"

  "I need only information," Sharina said, hoping to avoid a discussion which would embarrass her. "Can you direct me to the street of goldsmiths?"

  "Ah," said the doctor, settling back on his stool. "Where was the lovely lady born, if I may ask?"

  Sharina would have liked to walk off, but that might be more dangerous than answering. She didn't know where she was or when she was, though at least the people of this day had iron tools.

  "I'm from Ornifal," Sharina said curtly. Her blood father had been an Ornifal noble, and her looks favored his side of the family. She turned away and called over her shoulder, "I hope you get all the custom your courtesy deserves."

  "My apologies, mistress," the doctor said. "If you'll follow Faggot Lane--"

  Sharina looked back; the doctor was pointing up one of the intersecting streets.

  "--to the plaza, you'll find the goldsmiths down the street on your left."

  "Thank you," Sharina said. She smiled, but the expression felt stiff. She hadn't realized how nervous she was until she collided with something as innocent as a busybody's curiosity. And of course she was hungry.

  She started down the street. "I wish you luck in your dealings, lovely lady from Ornifal," the doctor called to her back.

  A well with a low curb and a stone trough for watering animals sat in the center of the plaza. Entertainers had set up where each of the treets entered the circular open space.

  One man sang and played a monochord while a child of six or younger sang a descant beside him. Either the words were unintelligible or the pair were using their voices as instruments to make sound rather than convey meani
ng. Across the plaza a man juggled knives, occasionally snatching one from the air with his teeth.

  Sharina turned to the left. Here a bird the size of a human being danced. Beside him was a strip of blanket on which spectators had dropped a few finger-length iron wedges.

  Sharina looked around to find the owner of the performing animal. A balding fellow wearing a leather apron over his tunic was the only person who didn't glance and walk on, or simply walk on. He reached into his belt purse, fingered the money within, and then strode away quickly without dropping anything on the blanket.

  The bird was its own master.

  Despite the complaints of her stomach, Sharina stayed to watch. The creature moved with the same smooth grace as a gull flying along a shoreline. It had arms, not wings, though the short limbs bent the way a bird's did rather than those of a man or a dog. It was covered with fine down like a baby chick--though this was gray, not yellowish--and it wore a harness of coarse fibers knotted in the fashion of macrame.

  The bird's head was slightly smaller than that of a human so tall: this wasn't a man wearing a clever costume. Besides, no human could possibly execute the creature's dance. Repeatedly it leaped high, aiming one blunt-clawed foot heavenward while the other pointed to the ground.

  Unwillingly, Sharina walked past the dancer and down Faggot Lane. The bird paid her no attention. It continued its dance, rotating its body slowly and punctuating each sequence of mini-steps with another vertical kick.

  In a line on the left side of the narrow street were five goldsmiths, each in his separate booth. They faced the blank back wall of a stone building, a temple judging from the corner of a pediment that Sharina had glimpsed over the roofs of buildings fronting the plaza.

  The booths were open-fronted, but a husky guard with a bare sword or a broad-bladed axe stood at the street side of each. The smiths sat on their strongboxes behind a table, across from an ivory stool for the client. At the right front of each booth was a tiny shrine.

  A chest-high curtain drawn across the front of one booth gave privacy for what was probably a pawn rather than a purchase. A personal maid waited in the street beside the guard, alternately wringing her hands and trying to look nonchalant.

  Sharina looked over the smiths who were free for the moment. Three of them met her glance with stone-faced professionalism. The last raised an eyebrow in query. His guard was neatly dressed though not as ornately as those of his neighbors, and his shrine was a simple ivory plaque of the Shepherd in contrast to gilt and jeweled images of the Lady of Fortune.

  Sharina generally prayed to the Lady, but it was more than thought of Cashel that sent her into the booth of the man with the Shepherd on his wall. His guard nodded politely to her, but his eyes hardened as they lighted on the vague outline of the Pewle knife under her cape. Instead of drawing the curtain behind Sharina, he stepped into the booth with her.

  The goldsmith rose from his seat, looking quizzically at his guard. Sharina said, "Your man is concerned that I'm carrying a knife. If this concerns you as well, sir, I'll go elsewhere with my affairs."

  The goldsmith smiled slightly. "Thank you, Tilar," he said to the guard, "but I think the lady and I can be left to ourselves. It's understandable that someone with valuables would take steps to protect herself."

  To Sharina he went on, "I am Milco of Rasoc, milady." He extended a hand toward the stool.

  The guard stepped away and slid the curtain across. Plenty of light still came through the wooden grate in the ceiling.

  Sharina sat, carefully picking her words as she did so. The folk here didn't use the patronymic form of address that was general in the Isles of her own time.

  "My name is Sharina," she said. Milco was thin, old, and very precise, with eyes that didn't miss anything. "I have an heirloom that I need to turn into money."

  The goldsmith's mouth smiled; his eyes did not. "Since you're a stranger, milady--" either the accent or Sharina's appearance alone would have told him that "--I'll mention to you--without offense, I hope--that if you've innocently come into possession of a stolen object, I don't even want to see it. None of the dealers here would. I'll further mention that the chances of myself or my colleagues not knowing what's been stolen in Valhocca or the surrounding region isn't worth the risk a thief would run by displaying such an object to us."

  Sharina smiled. Very smart. "I appreciate your candor," she said. "The object involved was given me by its owner for me to sell. Before we get deeper into details, though, may I ask about your attitude toward religion?"

  She'd heard of Valhocca in epics of the Silver Age, the epoch following the thousand-year reign of the Yellow King; the city didn't figure in the geographical writings of Old Kingdom authors. Valhocca was the capital of the Sea Lords of Cordin.

  Everything told about the Sea Lords was mythical. This city was real enough, though, and there was nothing impossible about an ancient kingdom uniting the southern isles millennia before King Lorcan welded together the whole archipelago.

  If Valhocca was real, then Sharina had to wonder how real were the stories of the city's destruction. Supposedly the last and greatest Sea Lord, Mantys, put to death a wizard and threw his body into the sea. The wizard had returned with an army of sea demons which floated through the streets like airborne jellyfish. They'd stung to death everyone they met and tore down buildings with their tentacles.

  That was all fancy, of course. The philosopher Brancome claimed to have found the story in ancient Serian records, but many thought he'd invented it to make a point in his essay on divine retribution.

  Well, Sharina didn't expect to be in Valhocca long. With luck she'd never have to learn how much truth there was in Brancome's tale.

  Milco nodded toward the ivory tableau of the Shepherd with two goats. "I worship the Shepherd," he said. "Most of us in Rasoc do, though worship of the Lady is more general in the city proper."

  "I myself worship the Lady first," Sharina said, "but my concern is how you feel about artifacts of other faiths. Faiths of former times."

  The settlers who'd chased her into the Dragon's ruined palace had been reacting to a supernatural event. Sharina didn't want to learn that their descendents, the folk of Valhocca, felt the same way about to the Dragon. If that was the case, she'd have to batter the pectoral shapeless with rocks before she tried to sell it.

  "Ah," said Milco, nodding with understanding. "If perhaps you've been digging in ancient tombs, well... there are a differing attitudes on the subject, but my own is that when men return an object to the earth, then the one who rediscovers it is no more to be censured than the one who dug the ore in the first place. But you're right to discuss the possibilities beforehand."

  Sharina threw back her cape. She pulled loose the neck of her tunic with one hand and fished out the pectoral with the other. She placed it, warm from her body, on the empty table between them.

  Milco's eyes widened very slightly when he saw the size of the Pewle knife. "I did Tilar an injustice," he said mildly. "I couldn't imagine why he was concerned that a lady carried a dagger for protection. Not that I regret admitting you, milady."

  "It was a friend's," Sharina said curtly. It still hurt to remember Nonnus. She set the thin gold stamping in the center of the table. "I carry it in remembrance of him."

  And to use, if the need arose. As she had used it in the past.

  Milco nodded absently, but he'd transferred his whole attention to the pectoral. "May I?" he asked. Sharina flicked her fingers toward him and he picked up the plaque.

  "Quite a perfect example," Milco said judiciously, holding the piece by the edges and rotating it under the light. "Gold doesn't tarnish, of course, but I would still have expected discoloration from debris deposited on the piece."

  Sharina shrugged, then smiled to soften her refusal to give any more information than the pectoral itself provided.

  Milco took a steelyard from the shelf of implements behind him and hung it from a ceiling hook on a long copper chain. N
ext he took gold weights cast in the image of demons from the strongbox and set three of them against the plaque. To bring the two pans into perfect balance he adjusted the beam by one notch.

  Sharina waited quietly while Milco carried out the operation. The goldsmith worked without haste but quickly nonetheless; he never wasted a motion. When he'd finished, he took a small knife from his sleeve and with it notched a tallystick of willow.

  "I hope you'll not feel insulted if I test the piece for alloys, milady?" he said. He raised an eyebrow. "Sometimes the luster can be deceptive."

  "Go ahead," Sharina said. "I have no idea how pure the gold is myself."

  Milco took what Sharina had thought was a mixing bowl for wine from the shelf where the steelyard was kept. It was of much higher quality than the pottery Sharina had passed on her way to his booth. It was already about half-full of clear water.

  The vessel's interior glaze was decorated with a harpy drawn in remarkable detail. The tips of her spread wings touched the rim so that the trailing edges of the feathers formed a series of minute notches up the sides.

  Milco slid the pectoral into the water with great care. Sharina stood so that she could look into the vessel with him, though she didn't have the faintest notion of what she should be looking for.

  Milco shook his head in pleased amazement. He pointed to where the water rose against the harpy's wings--precisely on the tip of one feather, while halfway between a pair on the other wing.

  "Absolutely pure," he said. "I guessed as much from the greasy feel. I harden my weights with copper. Metal as soft as yours can't be touched without being diminished."

  He set the vessel to one side of the table and sat down, gesturing Sharina onto the stool. "This leaves the question of how you choose to proceed," Milco said. "As you clearly surmised, there are elements in our society which would be offended by the object you've brought me. Offended enough to do violence against the owner."