Dragon's Ring

by Dave Freer

  The flames danced as Haborym spoke again, his voice warm and persuasive as usual. "We thought it best to present you with a de facto situation. We've known that our final component is somewhere in Zuamar's demesne for several moons. What have we done? Sat and argued. Zuamar is not aware of the intrusion. The raiders are not aware that they were sent thence by us. Even if they are caught, they cannot betray us."

  "It's not right," grumbled Rennalinn. "It's not done that way. It's not the tradition."

  "Actually," said the centaur Actaeon, from the far corner—without stopping his narcissistic posing in the standing mirror there, "it is traditional, Lord Rennalinn. This business of respect for another's demesne is a new thing. Historically, territory belonged to he who could hold it."

  Rennalin scowled. "Yes, but we've moved on from the war years. Civilization, Lord Actaeon . . ."

  "May I remind you, alv, that we are trying to prevent the collapse of that," interrupted Lyr.

  "And sometimes we have to go outside the rules of civilized conduct to do so," said Haborym.

  The dragon snorted. But quietly. He needed those two. True, Rennalinn was powerful and wealthy on his island. But alvar conspirators were ten a penny. Merrow and dvergar mages could be compelled—and virtually every one of their kind had some skill. But one had to remember that all the sprites were effectively one creature. Alienate one and you alienated them all. And the untrustable creatures of smokeless flame . . . well, Duke Haborym had orders from on high, or the fire-being would not be here. They were more hierarchal than creatures of flesh and blood. Even their names followed a certain rigid tradition—based apparently on some arcane joke on humankind! The dragon did not share their sense of humor, but well . . . Anger their Emperor, and that would be the end of their collaboration. He needed one of each of the intelligent species, a representative from each of the ancient planes, if his plan were to work. Besides, he rather agreed with the sprite and fire-being. Rennalinn's petty insistence on protocols, meaningless outside the traditions and rituals of alvardom, made reaching decisions like plowing through mud. A dragon flew above that. He was accustomed to making up his own mind, and doing whatever needed to be done himself. This need for consensus was un-dragonish.

  "My good fellows, we are here to prevent a catastrophe. A catastrophe that will destroy our world. Yes, preventing it requires that we take actions that are frowned on by our various kind. It will take courage, and taking risks and breaking rules, because we pursue a high purpose. All we need is a human magic-worker. Lord Rennalinn, you know that we have caught and put to the test seventeen so far. Every one proved a fraud or of such minor power as to be useless for this task. We know that the one we need exists. By divination we have pinpointed it. We cannot afford to wait indefinitely. Since the loss of the South-Eastern tower, we've found serious cracks in the Western, South-Eastern and Northern towers. Dragon and alvar have bent their skills to the attempt to repair them. We have failed. And there have been sudden and cataclysmic infalls—sinkholes in the very reality of Tasmarin. Are we going to sit and argue and worry about breaking a few rules to save our world? I say no. We only need one human . . ."

  "There are a few other things," said the centaur—too valuable a conspirator, if a hopelessly vain one—to be incinerated for stopping a dragon in full oratorial flow. "The treasures."

  "Those can be easily obtained," said the Demon.

  "Perhaps we need to do that then," said the centaur. Like all of his kind he was a historian. Centaurs recorded everything in the endless stories of their oral tradition. Almost certainly he would recite all of this, even though his kind had foresworn contact with other species. They had withdrawn onto the high grasslands of their islands, and kept themselves to themselves. They had a very high opinion of their culture and their histories.

  They also had the best and most complete record of the magical creation of this place, the refuge of dragons. Vorlian knew that he would need that, as much as he needed a centaur. Besides . . . treasures. No one had mentioned those before. And treasure often equalled gold. He was a dragon. He needed gold as other beings needed . . . air. The fire-being and sprite did not of course, but the other species could not do without air for very long. Humans tended to think dragons wanted gold for mere greed. There was that too, of course. It was beautiful. But at least there was real need behind their greed. "Tell us," he said suspciously, "about these 'treasures.' And why no one saw fit to mention them before. It is apparent several of you knew of them."

  "Because they really are not an issue," said the fire-being. "They're mere symbols of the power of each species—given into the keeping of another species' treasure as a gesture of faith." Was that a hint of snicker in the fire-being's voice?

  "So where are they?" asked Vorlian, allowing his displeasure to show in his tone.

  "We have the alvar treasure. And that of centaurs," said Haborym. "The former was given to to us, as there was no human to hold it."

  Vorlian wondered about the "given" part.

  "We have the treasure of the humans," said the sprite.

  The centaur nodded. "And we hold the treasure of the sprites. The dvergar hold the dragons'. The dragons have the treasure of the creatures of smokeless flame, the merrows have the dvergar treasure, the alvar that of the merrows."

  "Are they . . . gold?" asked Vorlian.

  Several of the conspirators had the temerity to laugh. "Only the dragon one," said the centaur. "They are symbols. The harp of the alvar is silver, the staff of the sprites is, naturally, wooden. The diadem of the merrows is a thing of pearls and dried sea-wrack."

  "Of course," said Haborym, "the leather bag we had from the centaurs may be full of gold."

  The centaur snorted. "You know full well that it is not! Any more than the copper cauldron of humans is full of gold."

  "But I believe that the last holder did make jam in the pot," said the fire-being. "Humans are not fit custodians."

  "The iron hammer of the dvergar should hardly be kept in the salt sea either then," said the centaur. "The flame of the people of smokeless flame you have seen often, Vorlian. It burns in your conclave. A globe of the eternal fire."

  He'd seen it. Every dragon had. Never thought twice about what it was doing there, or what it might be. It was just a globe of flame on a plinth at the entry, that had always been there. It should be easy to go and take . . . "So, should we not be gathering these items?"

  The fire-being's flames shrugged. "Why? The dvergar and merrows can be compelled to give what they hold up to us. You know how it works, dragon. The weaker species cannot resist."

  The centaur twitched. It really didn't like Haborym. The centaur disliked having its expertise challenged too. "Not really. There is a balance of compulsion between the species. But it is in our favor in this instance. In fact the only issue is the merrow treasure."

  "Surely we have one of the leading nobles of alvar in our midst?" said Lyr.

  Rennalinn looked excessively uncomfortable. "I am not on the best of terms with Lord Gywndar of Yenfar."

  "Yenfar?" said the dragon. That was the dragon Zuamar's demesne . . . where those two had just raided in their search for a human mage.

  Chapter 4

  Fionn the dragon looked down across the bay. Across the burning crofts. It was a lucky thing for most of the villagers that there'd been a thunderous rockfall on the cliff that had drawn their attention to the sea. If that hadn't happened he might just have had to bestir himself, with all the consequences that that might have had. It was none of his business, after all, but he did come from an earlier time, when life had been more precious.

  The bulk of the fishermen, and their women and children, had fled, scattering into the gorse. There were always one or two who were damned if they'd leave, and they'd paid the price. But what had been oddest was the dance of energies around the village. Someone had been using magic. Using it liberally too, in a place that should barely have boasted a midwife, let alone a spell-worker of great
power, if vast ineptitude. Magic had its price, and the village could certainly not have afforded it. Odd. It was also a place that was truly not worth a tenth of the cost of that raid. Even if they'd taken alive every man, woman and child to sell, outfitting and equipping at least a hundred and twenty men would cost far more than the profits could be. Human slaves were cheap, after all. There was a strong magical compulsion on those raiders. There'd have to be. Raiding this deep into Zuamar's territories was a risky pastime, as Fionn had reason to know. The old dragon was lazy, but this was still his territory.

  Magic and money had been spent on wiping out this fishing hamlet. Why? And why had someone else expended magic on making it a good place to live? To a planomancer such as he, the energies of the place were as twisted as any he'd seen. Fionn puzzled on it, briefly. It was not his business, although he had made a habit of interfering in things that weren't his affairs . . . It would be fascinating to find out, but he had a lot to do in a fairly short time, if he was going to finally destroy Tasmarin. He'd done the little adjustments necessary for the energy flow in this area. A matter of aligning some rocks and destroying a small dam on the stream.

  He'd spent enough hours here. He stretched his wings to fly, and kicked off up into the twilight, riding the last thermals of the dying day, using his magics to multiply their effect. He flew up, up into the thinner air. Far below Tasmarin's endless lacework of sea and islands stretched out to the sunset. When he got high enough he could see the other dragons flying up, distant shapes against the purple of night-fall.

  It was something of a conceit having the seat of the conclave in the sky, far above the world below. Fionn rather liked it.

  It also meant that it was a place no lesser life-form could ever reach. Even if they had the magic to assist the flight and infall, none but a dragon could manage the airlessness.

  Fionn always thought that particular aspect of the conceit something of a delusion. But then, he smiled to himself, dragons were prone to delusions. He could think of several mechanical means, let alone magical ones, of achieving the trick.

  As moons went, this one was an unimpressive thing, and it took a fair amount of bending of the laws of physics to keep it up here, so close that the great rock was almost in the atmosphere of Tasmarin.

  It was not a very stable arrangement. But then, neither was the plane of dragons that was this world. The plane that dragonkind had carved out for themselves had all the permanency and stability of a hen's egg balanced on the small end, on a sow's back. A drunken sow, at that. Fionn felt that it was fitting that the conclave should be held in a place equally frail.

  The guardian towers were all visible from up here. Six great bastions on the edges of the world . . .

  Fionn smiled wickedly to himself. There had been seven for many years. Soon there'd be five. And after that the fall would be fast.

  He spiraled in to land at the gates of the conclave. He'd bet that they didn't even remember that it had been he who, all those long years ago, had arranged for air to breathe up here. Dragons could cope without it, but it did limit conversation to pointing and hitting. That was fine if you were the biggest dragon with the longest and the most powerful tail, but Fionn wasn't. Talk opened far more opportunities for making size a slightly less relevant factor in winning arguments. Not that talk counted for too much. Among dragons, size was really what counted most.

  Fionn furled his wings and walked in through the portal. The great cave was full this evening. Dragons were normally solitary creatures. They mated and parted. Young dragons were hatched and reared by the mother. And she didn't keep the young past learning to speak and fly. It had created the isolation that had made the all-powerful dragons victims to other species that did organize. They maintained they did not need others . . . but the conclave gave them something that they'd lacked hitherto: a place to brag. And that had, to some extent, socialized them. Fionn grinned at them all, long sharp teeth showing, which of course was normal for dragons. With the amount of hot air being produced here tonight, he needn't have bothered with providing an atmosphere. He sauntered slowly through the vast, dragon-crowded cavern. More than one dragon drew their wings aside, as if fearing contamination. Fionn thought that that was pretty funny too, all things considered. He found himself a position near one of the magma vents and sat down to listen. He had very keen ears—keener than the others realized, and he had discovered that if he was patient enough all the news and all the rumors in this place would eventually come to him.

  Listening in: It was the usual soup of plots and counterplots. Of petty fights and shifting alliances. Of ineffectual plans to do something about the destroyed guardian-tower. They'd been at that one for the last seventeen years, and were still no further on. They weren't much good at admitting that they lacked the skill. Of course, there was also a steady discussion, and the usual dissent, over what should be done about the slow dissolution of Tasmarin. The latest break-up, it would appear, had caused the dragon Jakarin's lair to collapse into the sea . . . along with the better part of her hoard. Fionn found that almost as funny as if he'd done it himself.

  He did laugh a little immoderately. Enough to pause the heated conversation taking place some yards away, and turn several arctic eyes onto him.

  "And what, if I may ask, is so funny?" demanded a large vermilion dragon. Myrcupa, if he recalled the name correctly. One of the self-appointed guardians of the guardian towers. A self-important tailvent if there ever was one. Even in this select company of like-minded dragons he was exceptional. Called himself a High Lord!

  "You are," said Fionn, cheerfully. "And she is." He pointed a wing at Jakarin.

  The vermillion dragon was not amused. "Your manners are as offensive as your misshapen body, runt," snarled Myrcupa, pushing the incandescent Jakarin back, and pushing his extensive chest forward instead. "Jakarin has just suffered a terrible loss."

  "Tch. That's too bad," said Fionn in mock sympathy, grinning.

  "Bad? BAD! Is that all you can say, worm?" demanded Myrcupa, thrusting his flared nostrils into Fionn's face.

  Fionn wrinkled his nose. "Bad seems a good description. Nearly as bad as your breath, in fact. Been eating carrion again?" asked Fionn, waving a languid wing-edge in front of his face, and winking at the shocked onlookers.

  "Carrion!?" shrieked Myrcupa.

  "Well, it's not surprising really. It's all you can catch with a body that's nearly as flabby as your wits," said Fionn loftily. "Now, I can recommend a course of swimming. It'll help you and that fathead to lose some lard. And maybe you can save some of her hoard in time for molt. I'd shift shape into something more suited for swimming, mind you. Maybe a well-larded whale. It could only improve you."

  Jakarin and Myrcupa's tails twitched almost in unison. Odd. The thought had never struck Fionn before, but they looked remarkably like cats about to pounce. Direct insult and straight derision was something they'd probably not had to deal with for many years. They were both very large. And very stupid. As far as Fionn could see the two traits seemed to go together far too often. It was a natural progression, really. When you were that powerful, you didn't have to think. And to imply that they'd shift shape to something less lordly than their dragonish forms was the vilest insult to most of dragonkind. Dragon was, after all, the ultimate form! Heh. Any moment now these two idiots would start a fight right here. That would solve a few problems for everyone.

  And then, just when it was all going splendidly . . .

  "Jakarin. Myrcupa." The dragon Vorlian pushed forward. He was bigger than both of them. And there was no fat on him. "Cease. You know our law as well as anyone. He is baiting you to that end."

  Briefly, Fionn allowed himself to scowl. What call had Vorlian to interfere? Without him, the problem of a dragon without a hoard could have been avoided. Vorlian was big enough to be safe from likes of these two, away from here. Looking at the idiot Jakarin, she was close to molt. She'd have to get enough gold before then, and that meant trouble for the small
er, younger dragons. Better if she'd been dealt with here and now. And it would have gotten Jakarin's charming friend away from the guardian-towers. Not that he'd be in any position to stop what Fionn had planned for them. Even dragons couldn't resist those forces.

  Jakarin and Myrcupa, thus paused, realized just where they'd been heading.

  The self-named High Lord narrowed his slit-eyes and peered angrily at Fionn. "I won't forget this. And you won't always be in the conclave, runt."

  "Indeed," said Fionn. "And my hoard is out there, somewhere, too. If you look hard you might find it and me, before Jakarin molts."

  "Bah. Your hoard!" snorted the now-hoardless Jakarin. "You wouldn't have two bits of gold to rub together."

  Fionn grinned. "Actually, I have a hoard far bigger than any other dragon. I've been collecting for a long time. A long, long time. All you've got to do is find it. Here." He tossed a coin at the startled Jakarin. "A start for your new hoard. A small thing, but of great age. It's a ducat from lost Earth."