Dragon's Ring

by Dave Freer

  It blossomed into a conflagration that singed her eyebrows and made her fall back as half the wood and the bracken caught fire too.

  Meb scrambled back and broke a green branch and started beating it out.

  "You never do anything by halves," said Finn admiringly. Well, with what could be admiration. He put the string of neatly cleaned small animals he carried onto a limb and helped put out the fire.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to . . ." said Meb.

  "Really?" he seemed faintly amused.

  "I fell asleep," admitted Meb. "I was just trying to get the fire going again."

  "And you really wanted it to burn. You're wearing a dvergar treasure, Scrap. What did the cunning little devils tell you it would do?"

  "They said that it would help me . . ." she caught herself in time.

  "No. Typical of the tricksy little fellows. 'It will help you become what you need to be.' And right then you needed it to help you get the fire going. Or you thought you needed fire, badly."

  "Oh." She fumbled for the necklace.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "I have to take it off."

  He put a restraining hand on hers. "You'd do better to learn to use it properly. Besides, what would you do with it if you did take it off?"

  "Uh. Throw it away."

  "Besides the fact that the dvergar could be quite upset about that—their gifts are not lightly given—it wouldn't stay lost. That's the way of their treasures. And the next finder might do a lot worse. Kill themselves or others. If it fell into a dragon's hands . . ."

  "I could give it to you," Meb offered.

  He laughed. "No, you can't. Now give me a hand with our dinner. I have some salve for you to put on your hands and face. Lucky for you they're not burned too badly."

  It was a very soothing ointment that he provided. She was not too sure just what the small animals that they ate were, but even when she was told that they were squirrels, well, any food was good right now. And food in the stomach had a calming influence on her mind. That was still in some turmoil, but it was sleepy full-belly turmoil. Wrapped in her cloak, with some more bracken Finn had cut under her, sheltered from the wind and warmed by the fire, sleep came all too easily.

  * * *

  It didn't come easily to Fionn. Curse the black-hearted black-haired little mischief makers . . . Only, it was possible that they hadn't meant it as mischief. They'd liked her. Or if they had meant it as mischief, it almost certainly hadn't been in that way. It was also possible that they simply hadn't guessed just how powerful . . . and uncontrolled, she really was.

  He wanted to fly back up to the conclave tonight. The moon was overhead . . . but he was wary about leaving the scrap. For a start she might have attracted unwelcome attention with her fire-flare. And for seconds, she might die of cold without him. He had tampered a little with local airflow, keeping the cave a bit warmer. But they were late in the year and high in altitude for humans to sleep rough without more shelter than a cloak. All dragons should be given a human to raise, he thought ruefully. It'd teach them to value the strengths they had.

  There would be limits to that power of hers, even focussed and amplified by dvergar magics. That was the balance of all things. It had been so structured by the First who understood the need for it. Thus alvar magics were potent against humans, and merrow spells in turn effective on alvar. The sprites were effective against the centaur-folk, and the dvergar against the sprites and so on . . . each with more or less mastery of the different types of energy. Of course the dvergar, cunning little fellows, had done their best to give her a talisman that would expand that. Earth, wood, water, air—always a weakness of humans, and the bound and unbound, and of course metal and fire in the making, and light in shifts of color in the opal. All of that would affect forces and energies not normally easy for humans to access.

  If only the dvergar been prepared to travel more, they could have been as good a set of mischief makers as he was. As it was, they did quite well at getting others to do it for them.

  He sighed. Just what was he going to do with her? She was a serious impediment to his speed and ease of movement. . . . But there were those who wanted any trace of human magic dead and buried. That could not be permitted.

  Then there were at least three groups trying to renew the old compact of the species and rebuild Tasmarin. The sprites and the creatures of smokeless flame were part and parcel of all of them, for reasons he could guess at. Even without his interference the place was going to fall apart eventually because of the time differentials in the different planes that pieces of the refuge of the dragons had been taken from. Renewal would have a serious effect on his own plans and tasks—to say nothing of the damage it could do. They needed her alive—at least until they had achieved their end. It would all need re-doing soon enough, but they wouldn't know that, or care, for that matter.

  Basically, he was left with keeping her alive, and keeping her away from those who would use her. Well, his next move should put nice lumps of diamond in the mill of the latter. Anyway, the presence of so much sea-magic high inland had a terrible effect on the energies of the place.

  He had to change that, and moreover, get himself (easy) and her (hard) away from the consequences of his actions. He thought about it deep into the night, occasionally dozing, occasionally tossing another piece of rock into the fire. While she slept she wasn't going to know that he was burning rocks, not their supply of wood. If you knew the right ways of releasing energy from it, rock had a lot more fire-fuel in it than wood.

  By morning he'd evolved a plan. Not a great plan, and not one without flaws. But it was the best he could think of right now.

  They'd just walk in and take it. That, he knew from experience, would work.

  It was getting away that would be problematic.

  Chapter 17

  The sky was still leaden, but at least it wasn't raining when they started off the next morning. She also didn't feel as terrible as she had on the previous day, so in general Meb found the world a better place. Her master had even come up with some stale rye bread for breakfast. He plainly didn't think much of it, but to Meb, it was a familiar sort of food for a morning. If it hadn't been for a lurking feeling that she was a disaster looking for a place to happen, she'd have said it was the best experience a poor girl from a fishing village could ever dream of. She had to be grateful to that merrow for taking her hair . . . and turning her into an imitation boy and thus into the gleeman's apprentice. She had a lot to thank him for, besides being grateful for him saving her from drowning.

  "Where are we going today, master?" she asked, fully expecting "elsewhere" or some such answer.

  "Alba."

  She gaped. Wanted to skip with excitement. Alba! That, to a girl who had dreamed of going as far as Tarport, was the other side of the world. The citadel of the alvar was a place of legend to the fisherfolk. Nobody had ever been that far! Why, it was leagues away, in the mountains.

  Which, looking around her, might be where they were now, if the cloud would lift. They walked on, Meb with a new spring in her step. Inevitably it came on to rain—but it was a brief shower, and after it was over the clouds did break up a little, giving her glimpses of steep slopes and distant peaks. And then they rounded a spur and came out of the trees onto an open—and windy—point of gray rocks and grass clipped by grazing sheep.

  Yenfar stretched out below them, the sun breaking through the clouds and picking out bright patches. Forests adorned in autumnal shades, still-green patchwork fields, and the distant, sparkling sea. Looking across the water there were hints of purple mountains beyond that again.

  "Aye. It is beautiful," said Finn, taking a seat on a boulder, as Meb stared, trying to drink in the bigness of it with her eyes. "It's a pity it is not stable."

  "What do you mean, master?" She looked again, wondering if it would disappear.

  "It's a mishmash of magical places, stuck together with magic. It's beginning to tear itsel
f apart."

  "Now?" she looked at her feet. Across the landscape.

  "Not just yet."

  "Then we should fix it," she said resolutely.

  Her master got to his feet. "Not me. Come on, we've a few hours walk ahead of us."

  The track they were on joined another track, a larger, muddier one. That joined up with a third . . . which was paved. It pleased Meb. It was very splendid, even if there were now other people on the road too. She'd enjoyed their solitude.

  Her master seemed taken up with studying the sharp granite ridges and the cuttings that had been made through them to level and straighten the road, so she thought she'd juggle, practicing as they walked.

  "Don't," said Finn. "Just work on being a quiet unobtrusive boy, walking along the road. Make an effort to think of yourself as looking like one. The kind of person no one would look twice at. Really want it and try to look like it."

  She put the balls away. "Yes, master." She was quick enough on the uptake to understand: he wanted her to use the dvergar magic to appear innocuous. He was up to something. It frightened her a little. But at the same time . . . she trusted him. He'd led her into trouble but had also got her out of it. And it had been at some risk and effort to himself. The ordinary Meb, the one that had been raised by Hallgerd to be a good girl, said she ought at the very least to run away, or better, tell someone in authority. The inner voice just laughed at her. So she worked on being a simple country boy. It seemed to work. The sharp-eyed alvar guards at the checkpoint scarcely gave her—or him—a second glance. They did seem to be taking an extreme interest in the travelers coming up the road.

  Finn led her on towards the vast sculpted gateway to the white citadel. It stood on edge of a lake, looking across the still water to the mountain beyond. Tall, slim towers soared above the wall. What struck Meb was the endless carving on the translucent white stone of the gate-towers. There were patterns—flowers and leaves—below and a long hunting scene frieze carved there above.

  "It's so beautiful!"

  "Yes. So daft as well. The walls are carved too. And the whole place is made of alabaster. Very white. Quite soft. It's a good thing it's in the middle of the island, just about under Zuamar's eyrie, or someone would have taught them the advantages of using harder stone, and making less handholds."

  Meb was rather taken aback at his lack of interest in the romance of the city. She still thought it was quite the most beautiful place she'd ever seen. That was, she admitted, not a very long list of places. But it left Cove village and Tarport in the shade. Perhaps the gleeman had seen many such places. He'd traveled. "What do we do now? Find an inn? I promise I won't drink any beer," she said, virtuously—and meaning it. She still hadn't forgotten how she'd felt on the morning after her first serious exploration of beer, let alone what she'd done under its influence.

  Finn snorted. "I wish. We'll get a pass ahead, that'll allow us into the city for the day. Don't lose it. There are no inns inside for the likes of us. This is an alvar city and they'll see that you don't forget it."

  It was even more beautiful inside the walls than outside them, with the wide paved streets set with tall, slim poplars . . . and the only people afoot were visitors like them, and men in simple uniforms whose principal task was to clean up after the fine horses of the alvar. There was—of course—a market-place, and that was were they, and most of the other visitors headed. There were alvar goods on sale, and—essential for alvar customers—fresh food.

  "They're hunters. The mountains can't sustain the pressure of the population of a city this size. So they have to ship in food," explained Finn. "Of course it would make more sense to spread out, or to live in the lowlands, or to grow crops. But they're big on tradition. We've come to buy clothes or a few lengths of cloth to get some really fancy clothes made up for us. It depends on what they have."

  Meb didn't think that she'd actually ever had clothes bought for her before. It had always been hand-me downs or, at best, sewed from the cheapest cloth that Hallgerd had been able to buy from the pack-peddlers. She looked eagerly at the stalls. They were full of the stuff of dreams for anyone who had ever yearned for finery. Silks, satins, gold-threaded brocade, fine lace, pretty carved mother of pearl buttons, ribbons. And that was in the part of the market that catered to male customers. To someone who had only ever seen one piece of silk close up, to whom clothes had been made from flax or wool . . . it was nearly overwhelming. Finn seemed at ease and familiar with it, telling her the names of materials she did not recognize . . . and spending money. More than a fisherman might earn in twenty years, with a level of casualness that awed her. It didn't seem to make a huge impression on the stall-holders, so Meb came to realize that it was probably quite normal for them.

  They finally left with all their parcels and their passes, which they had to hand in at the gate a few minutes later, and followed other shoppers down a rutted track which branched off from the paved road about half a mile from the gate. It led away from the pretty valley—into another valley—which was rather full of small houses and looked like a mixture between the Cove village and Tarport. Narrow, muddy alleys squirmed their way between crowded houses.

  They made their way down one of them to something that was little more than a hovel—a far cry from the alvar beauty of the white city.

  The gleeman knocked. Eventually a woman answered. She smiled radiantly when she saw him. Hugged him. Meb knew a moment of jealously. She was—especially considering the very run-down house, a pretty woman. "Come in," she said, "It's cold and miserable out there."

  Meb decided that she preferred the weather outdoors. Really. But as Finn went in, she had little choice.

  Inside, the house was considerably more prepossessing. It had, which Meb found very strange, bright globe lights and a skylight directly above the huge table—a table piled high with linens. "It must be a good three years since I was last here," said Finn, grinning.

  "Nearer to five," said a second woman who was sitting and stitching. "I didn't think you'd ever come back after that."

  "And who is the young man?" asked the first woman, still holding on to Finn. Meb smiled determinedly. "I am his apprentice," she said as gruffly as she could.

  Finn did not either confirm it or deny it. Instead he said: "The scrap of humanity is a good juggler. I want clothes appropriate for an alvar lordling's fool."

  "You'll need a wig for him then. Girls are in fashion. But fortunately, so is juggling."

  "Well, Scrap," said the gleeman, raising an eyebrow. "Do you think you could manage to be a little alv girl? You'll need to wear a dress, I imagine." Meb nodded, open-mouthed, wondering if she should explain. But Finn had already turned back to the two women. "And you can tell me just what has got the alvar so stirred up?

  "There is a rumor," said slightly younger one, still holding on to Finn. "That some thief plans to rob them."

  Finn laughed until he had to sit down.

  The two women were seamstresses. They were craftswomen of note, Meb realized, watching how they set tiny precise stitches at a speed that was almost supernatural. In fact, watching them work, Meb had to believe they were using magic. Their comments on the fabric that Finn had bought were not flattering. "You should have come to us first. Who on earth is going to wear that violet?"

  "Me," said Finn, cheerfully. "I'll be suitably pale and blond."

  Leilin—the woman who had met them at the door—and who was making every excuse to touch Finn, snorted. "You'll stand out like a candle in a coal-scuttle."

  Finn nodded. "That was the idea, m'dear. But I rely on your clever fingers and needlework to make it look as if I am rich and wanting to be noticed."

  "And your . . . apprentice?"

  "Oh, definitely noticed. I expect at least one offer to buy the beautiful young thing from me. So that I can turn it down with suitable disdain, Scrap. I'm sure you will make a very pretty young juggler girl, in quite startling motley. But we're going to need to get out of the outfits very quic
kly. So there will be no sewing anyone in."

  Leilin grimaced. "This is going to hurt Prince Gywndar? Badly?"

  "He will lose face, considerable face," said Finn. "Indeed, I suspect there'll be some calls for his head."

  "Good," said the older sister, showing a vixen-smile. "We will lend some of our glamor. That's what you want isn't it, Finn?"