The Spriggan Mirror

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  And he did eat a lot.

  “Really, Sirinita,” her mother said, “you didn’t think we could keep a full-grown dragon around the house, did you?”

  “No,” Sirinita admitted, “but I thought you could just let him go, somewhere outside the walls — I didn’t know you were going to kill him!”

  “Now, you ought to know better than that,” Sensella said. “If we turned it loose it would eat people’s livestock — and that’s assuming it didn’t eat people. Dragons are dangerous, honey.”

  “Tharn isn’t!”

  “But it will be.” Sensella hesitated, then added, “Besides, we can sell the blood and hide to wizards. I understand it’s quite valuable.”

  “Sell pieces of him?” This was too much; Sirinita was utterly horrified.

  Sensella sighed. “I should have known this would happen. I should never have let you hatch that egg in the first place. What was your father thinking of, bringing you a dragon’s egg?”

  “I don’t know,” Sirinita said. “Maybe he wasn’t thinking anything.”

  Sensella chuckled sourly. “You’re probably right, Siri. You’re probably just exactly right.” She glanced over at the dragon.

  Tharn was trying to eat the curtains again.

  Sirinita followed her mother’s gaze. “Tharn!” she shouted. “Stop that this instant!”

  The dragon stopped, startled, and turned to look at his mistress with his golden slit­pupilled eyes. The curtain, caught on one of his fangs, turned with him, and tore slightly. The dragon looked up at the curtain with an offended expression, and used a foreclaw to pry the fabric off his teeth.

  Sensella sighed. Sirinita almost giggled, Tharn’s expression was so funny, but then she remembered what was going to happen to her beloved dragon in a few days’ time, and the urge to giggle vanished completely.

  “Come on, Tharn,” she said. “Let’s go outside.”

  Sensella watched as her daughter and her pet ran out of the house onto the streets of Ethshar.

  She hoped they wouldn’t get into any trouble. Both of them meant well enough, but the dragon did have all those claws and teeth, and while it couldn’t yet spit fire it was beginning to breathe hot vapor. And sometimes Sirinita just didn’t think about the consequences of her actions.

  But then, that was hardly a unique fault, or even one limited to children. Sensella wondered again just what Gar had thought he was doing when he brought back a dragon’s egg from one of his trading expeditions.

  One of the farmers had found it in the woods while berry-picking, Gar had said — had found a whole nest, in fact, though he wouldn’t say what had happened to the other eggs. Probably sold them to wizards.

  And why in the World had she and Gar let Sirinita hatch the egg, and keep the baby dragon long enough to become so attached? That had been very foolish indeed. Baby dragons were very fashionable, of course — parading through the streets with a dragon on a leash was the height of social display, and a sure way to garner invitations to all the right parties.

  But the dowagers and matrons who did that didn’t let their children make playmates of the little monsters! The sensible ones didn’t use real dragons at all, they bought magical imitations, like that beautiful wood-and-lacquer thing Lady Nuvielle carried about, with its red glass eyes and splendid black wings. It moved and hissed and flew with a perfect semblance of life, thanks to a wizard’s skill, and it didn’t eat a thing, and would never grow an inch.

  Tharn ate everything, grew constantly, and couldn’t yet fly more than a few feet without tangling itself up in its own wings and falling out of the sky.

  Sirinita adored it.

  Sensella sighed again.

  Outside, Sirinita and Tharn were racing side-by-side down Wargate High Street, toward the Arena — and Tharn was almost winning, to Sirinita’s surprise. He was getting bigger. He was at least as big as any dog Sirinita had ever seen — but then, she hadn’t seen very many, and she had heard that out in the country dogs sometimes grew much larger than the ones inside the city walls.

  Much as Sirinita hated to admit it, her mother was right. Tharn was getting too big to keep at home. He had knocked over the washbasin in her bedroom that morning, and Sirinita suspected that he’d eaten the neighbors’ cat yesterday, though maybe the stuck-up thing was just hiding somewhere.

  But did Tharn have to die, just because he was a dragon?

  There had to be someplace a dragon could live.

  She stopped, out of breath, at the corner of Center Street. Tharn tried to stop beside her, but tripped over his own foreclaws and fell in a tangle of wings and tail. Sirinita laughed, but a moment later Tharn was upright again, his head bumping scratchily against her hip. If she’d been wearing a lighter tunic, Sirinita thought, those sharp little scales would leave welts.

  He really did have to go.

  But where?

  She peered down Center Street to the west; that led to the shipyards. Tharn would hardly be welcome there, especially if he started breathing fire around all that wood and pitch, but maybe somewhere out at sea? Was there some island where a dragon could live in safety, some other land where dragons were welcome?

  Probably not.

  There were stories about dragons that lived in the sea itself, but somehow she couldn’t imagine Tharn being that sort. His egg had been found in a forest, after all, up near the Tintallionese border, and he’d never shown any interest in learning to swim.

  The shipyards weren’t any help.

  In the other direction both Center Street and Wargate High Street led to the Arena — Wargate High Street led straight to the south side, four blocks away, while Center looped around and wound up on the north side after six blocks.

  Could the Arena use a dragon?

  That seemed promising. Dragons were impressive, and people liked to look at them.

  At least, in pictures; in real life people tended to be too frightened of adult dragons to want to look at them.

  But Tharn was a tame dragon, or at least Sirinita hoped he was tame. He wasn’t dangerous, not really. Wouldn’t he be a fine attraction in the Arena?

  And she could come to visit him there, too!

  That would be perfect.

  “Come on, Tharn,” she said, and together the girl and her dragon trotted on down Wargate High Street.

  There wasn’t a show today; the arena gates were closed, the tunnels and galleries deserted. Sirinita hadn’t thought about that; she pressed up against a gate and stared through the iron grillwork at the shadowy passages beyond.

  No one was in there.

  She sat down on the hard-packed dirt of the street to think. Tharn curled up beside her, his head in her lap, the scales of his chin once again scratching her legs right through her tunic.

  People turned to stare as they passed, then quickly looked away so as not to be rude. Sirinita was accustomed to this; after all, one didn’t see a dragon on the streets of Ethshar every day, and certainly not one as big as Tharn was getting to be. She ignored them and sat thinking, trying to figure out who she should talk to about finding a place for Tharn at the Arena.

  There was one fellow, however, who stopped a few feet away and asked, “Are you all right?”

  Sirinita looked up, startled out of her reverie. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said automatically.

  The man who had addressed her was young, thin, almost handsome, and dressed in soft leather breeches and a tunic of brown velvet — a clean one, in good repair, so Sirinita could be reasonably certain that he wasn’t poor, wasn’t a beggar or any of the more dangerous inhabitants of the fields out beyond Wall Street.

  Of course, people who lived in the fields rarely got this far in toward the center of the city. And there were plenty of dangerous people who didn’t live in the fields.

  She had Tharn to protect her, though, and she was only a few blocks from home.

  “Is there anything I can help you with? You look worried,” the man said.

  “I
’m fine,” Sirinita repeated.

  “Is it your dragon? Are you doing something magical?”

  “He’s my dragon, yes, but I was just thinking, not doing magic. I’m not even an apprentice yet, see?” She pointed to her bare legs — if she was too young for a woman’s skirt, she was too young for an apprenticeship.

  In fact, she was still a month short of her twelfth birthday and formal skirting, which was the very earliest she could possibly start an apprenticeship, and she hadn’t yet decided if she wanted to learn any trade. She didn’t think she wanted to learn magic, though; magic was dangerous.

  “Oh,” the man said, a bit sheepishly. “I thought... well, one doesn’t see a lot of dragons, especially not that size. I thought maybe it was part of some spell.”

  Sirinita shook her head. “No. We were just thinking.”

  “About the Arena? There’s to be a performance the day after tomorrow, I believe, in honor of Lord Wulran’s birthday, but there’s nothing today.”

  “I know,” Sirinita said. “I mean, I’d forgotten, but I know now.”

  “Oh.” The man looked at them uncertainly.

  “Do you work in the Arena?” Sirinita asked, suddenly realizing this might be the opportunity she had been looking for.

  “No, I’m afraid not. Did you want....” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “We were wondering if Tharn could be in a show,” Sirinita explained.

  “Tharn?”

  “My dragon.”

  “Ah.” The man scratched thoughtfully at his beard. “Perhaps if you spoke to the Lord of the Games....”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Oh, he’s the man in charge of the Arena,” the man explained. “Among other things. His name is Lord Varrin.”

  “Do you know him?” Sirinita looked up hopefully.

  “Well, yes,” the young man admitted.

  “Could you introduce me?”

  The young man hesitated, sighed, then said, “Oh, all right. Come on, then.”

  Sirinita pushed Tharn’s head off her lap and jumped up eagerly.

  Lord Varrin, it developed, lived just three blocks away, in a mansion at the corner of Wargate High Street and, of course, Games Street. A servant answered the door and bowed at the sight of the young man in velvet, then ushered man, girl, and dragon into the parlor.

  A moment later Lord Varrin, a large, handsome man of middle years wearing black silk and leather, emerged and bowed.

  “Lord Doran,” he said. “What brings you here?”

  Sirinita’s head whirled about to look at the man in velvet. “Lord Doran?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “The overlord’s brother?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But I... um....”

  “Never mind that,” Doran said gently. “Tell Lord Varrin why we’re here.”

  “Oh.” Sirinita turned back to the Lord of the Games, grabbed Tharn by his head-crest to keep him from eating anything he shouldn’t, and explained.

  When she had finished, Lords Varrin and Doran looked at one another.

  “I’m afraid,” Lord Varrin said gently, “that your father is right; we don’t ever keep dragons inside the city walls. It simply isn’t safe. Even the most well-intentioned dragon can’t be trusted not to do some serious damage — quite by accident, usually. A full-grown dragon is big, young lady; just walking down a street its wings and tail could break windows and knock down signboards. And if it loses its temper — anyone can lose his temper sometimes.”

  Sirinita looked at Lord Doran for confirmation.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” that worthy said. “I’m not even sure my brother could manage it, and I certainly can’t. Our duty is to protect the city, and Lord Varrin is right — that means no large dragons. I’m very sorry.”

  “Not even for the Arena?” Sirinita asked.

  Lord Varrin shook his head. “If we ever really needed a dragon,” he said, “we could have one sent in from somewhere, just for the show. We wouldn’t keep one here. And we’d have a dozen magicians standing guard every second, just in case.”

  “So Tharn has to die?”

  Varrin and Doran looked at one another.

  “Well,” Doran said, “that’s up to you and your father. We just know he can’t stay inside the city walls once he’s bigger than a grown man. That’s the law.”

  “It’s a law?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at her feet, dejected, then remembered her manners. “Thank you anyway,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. I’m sorry we can’t do more.”

  The servant escorted Sirinita and Tharn back out onto Wargate High Street, where she looked down at Tharn in despair and asked, “Now what?”

  He snorted playfully, and the hot, fetid fumes made Sirinita cough. She also thought she might have seen an actual spark this time.

  That would be the pebble that sank the barge, Sirinita thought — if her parents found out that Tharn was spitting sparks out his nose they wouldn’t allow him in the house, and that “few days” her mother had mentioned would disappear. He’d be chopped up and sold to the wizards today, she was sure.

  Ordinarily, when confronted with an insoluble problem, she might have thought about consulting a wizard herself. She couldn’t afford their fees, but sometimes, if they weren’t busy, they would talk to her anyway, and offer advice. She had never needed any actual magic, so she didn’t know if they would have worked their wizardry for her.

  This time, though, wizards were out of the question. They were the ones who wanted Tharn’s blood for their spells. Lord Varrin had said that magicians could control dragons in the Arena, but if they could control them well enough to keep them in the city, wouldn’t they have already done so?

  Besides, there was that law — no grown dragons inside the city walls.

  Well, then, Sirinita told herself, she would just have to get Tharn outside those walls!

  She looked around.

  Games Street led northeastward — didn’t it go right to Eastgate? And of course, Wargate High Street went to Wargate, but Wargate was down in the guard camp with the soldiers; Sirinita didn’t like to go there. She didn’t mind the city guards most of the time, but when there were that many all in one place they made her nervous.

  Eastgate should be all right, though. She had never been there, let alone out of the city, but it should be all right.

  Grandgate or Newgate might be closer than Eastgate, but she didn’t know the streets to find them. Eastgate was easy.

  “Come on, Tharn,” she said, and together they set out along Games Street.

  It took the better part of an hour to reach Eastgate Plaza. Sirinita didn’t think the distance was even a whole mile, but there were so many distractions!

  Games Street, after all, was lined with gaming houses. There were cardrooms and dice halls and archery ranges and wrestling rings and any number of other entertainments, and there were people drifting in and out of them. One man who smelled of oushka offered to gamble with Sirinita, his gold against her dragon; she politely declined. And dragons weren’t often seen in Eastside, so several people stopped to stare and ask her questions.

  At last, however, she reached Eastgate Plaza, where a few farmers and tradesmen were peddling their wares in a dusty square beside the twin towers of Eastgate. It wasn’t terribly busy; Sirinita supposed most of the business went on at the other squares and markets, such as Eastgate Circle, four blocks to the west, or Farmgate, or Market.

  The gate towers were big forbidding structures of dark gray stone, either one of them several times the size of Sirinita’s house, which wasn’t small. The gates between them were bigger than any doors Sirinita had ever seen — and they were all standing open.

  All she had to do was take Tharn out there, outside the walls, and he wouldn’t have to be killed.

  She marched forward resolutely, Tharn trotting at her heel.

  Of cours
e, it meant she would have to turn Tharn loose, and never see him again — she couldn’t live outside the walls. Her mother would never allow it. And besides, there were pirates and monsters and stuff out there.

  But at least he’d still be alive.

  That was what she was thinking when she walked into the spear-shaft.

  She blinked, startled, then started to duck under it, assuming that it was in her way by accident.

  “Ho, there!” the guard who held the spear called, and he bent down and grabbed her arm with his other hand. “What’s your hurry?”

  “I need to get my dragon out of the city,” Sirinita explained.

  The guard looked at Tharn, then back at Sirinita. “Your dragon?”

  “Yes. His name’s Tharn. Let go of my arm.” She tugged, but the guard’s fingers didn’t budge.

  “Can’t do that,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. Part of my job is to keep track of any kids who enter or leave the city without their parents along. If, for example, you were to be running away from home, and your folks wanted to find you but couldn’t afford to hire a magician to do it, it’d make things much easier on them if they could ask the guards at the gate, ‘Did my girl come through here? A pretty thing in a blue tunic, about so tall?’ And I’d be able to tell them, so they’d know whether you’re inside or outside the city walls.”

  Sirinita blinked up at the man. He was a big, heavy fellow, with deep brown eyes and a somewhat ragged beard.

  “What if I went out a different gate?” she asked.

  “Oh, we report everything to the captain, and he tallies up the reports every day, so your folks could check the captain’s list. Then they’d even know which gate you went out, which might give them an idea where you’re going.”

  Sirinita said, “My name’s Sirinita, and I’m just going out to find a place for my dragon. I’ll be back by nightfall.”

  “Just Sirinita?”

  “Sirinita of Ethshar. Except the neighbors call me Sirinita of the Dragon.”

  “I can understand that.” The guard released her arm. “Go on, then.”

  Sirinita had gone no more than three steps when the man called after her, “Wait a minute.”