The Spriggan Mirror

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Now what is it?” she asked impatiently, turning back.

  “What do you mean, ‘find a place for your dragon’?”

  “I mean find somewhere he can live. He can’t stay in the city any more.”

  “You don’t have any supplies.”

  Sirinita blinked up at him in surprise. “Supplies?”

  “Right, supplies. It’s a long way to anywhere it would be safe to turn a dragon loose.”

  “It is?” Sirinita was puzzled. “I was just going to take him outside the walls.”

  “What, on someone’s farm, or in the middle of a village?”

  “No, of course not,” Sirinita said, but the guard’s words were making her rethink the situation. She probably would have just turned Tharn loose on someone’s farm.

  But that wouldn’t be a good idea, would it?

  “Um,” she said. “I’m going to take him to my grandfather, I’m not going to turn him loose.”

  Her grandfathers both lived in the city — one was a Seagate merchant, the other owned a large and successful carpentry business in Crafton — but she didn’t see any reason to tell the guard that.

  “Your grandfather’s got a farm near here?”

  Sirinita nodded.

  The guard considered her for a moment, then turned up an empty palm. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead, then.”

  “Thank you.” She turned eastward once again, and marched out of the city.

  She wondered what sort of supplies the guard had meant. Whatever they were, she would just have to do without them. It couldn’t be that far to somewhere she could turn Tharn loose.

  She looked out across the countryside, expecting to see a few farms and villages — she had seen pictures, and had a good idea what they should look like, with their half-timbered houses and pretty green fields.

  What she actually saw, however, was something else entirely.

  The road out of the city was a broad expanse of bare, hard-packed dirt crossed here and there with deep, muddy ruts. A few crude houses built of scrap wood were scattered around, and people stood or crouched in doorways, hawking goods and services to passersby — goods and services that were not allowed in the city, and Ethshar was a fairly tolerant place.

  A hundred yards from the city the farms began — not with quaint cottages and tidy little fields, but with endless rows of stubby green plants in black dirt, and rough wooden sheds set here and there. The only roads were paths just wide enough for a wagon.

  Sirinita was surprised, but walked on, Tharn at her heels.

  She was still walking, hours later, when the sun sank below the hills she had already crossed. She was dirty and exhausted and miserable.

  She had finally reached farms that more or less resembled those in the pictures, at any rate — not so clean or so charming, but at least there were thatched farmhouses and barns, and the fields no longer stretched unbroken to the horizon.

  But she hadn’t reached forests or mountains or even a fair-sized grove. The only trees were windbreaks or orchards or shade trees around houses. As far as she could see, from any hilltop she checked, there were only more farms — except to the west, of course, where she could sometimes, from the higher hills, still see the city walls, and where she thought she could occasionally catch the gleam of sunlight on the sea.

  And everything smelled of the cow manure the farmers used as fertilizer.

  The World, she thought bitterly, was obviously bigger than she had realized. No wonder her father’s trading expeditions lasted a month at a time!

  Tharn had not enjoyed taking so long a walk, either; he was a healthy and active young dragon, but he was still accustomed to taking an afternoon nap, to resting when he felt like it. He had not appreciated it when his mistress had dragged him along, and had even kicked him when he tried to sleep.

  And when the sun went down, he had had enough; he flopped onto a hillock, mashing some farmer’s pumpkin vines, and curled up to sleep.

  Sirinita, too exhausted for anger or protest, looked down at him and started crying.

  Tharn paid no attention. He slept.

  And when she was done weeping, Sirinita sat down beside her dragon and looked about in the gathering gloom.

  She couldn’t see anyone, anywhere. They weren’t on a road any more, just a path through somebody’s fields, and she couldn’t see anything but half-grown crops and the shadowy shapes of distant farmhouses. Some of the windows were lighted, others dark, but nowhere did she see a torch or signboard over a door — if any of these places were inns, or even just willing to admit weary travelers, she didn’t know how to tell.

  She was out here in the middle of nowhere, miles from her soft clean bed, miles from her parents, her friends, everybody, with just her stupid dragon to keep her company, and it was all because he was growing too fast.

  And Tharn wouldn’t even stay awake so she could talk to him. She kicked him, purely out of spite; he puffed in annoyance, emitting a few sparks, but didn’t wake.

  That was new; he hadn’t managed actual sparks before, so far as she could remember.

  It didn’t matter, though. She wasn’t going any further with him. In the morning she was going to turn him loose, just leave him here and go home, maybe even slip away while he was asleep. If the farmers didn’t like having him around, maybe they’d chase him off to the wilderness, wherever it was.

  And maybe they’d kill him, but at least he’d have a chance, and she just couldn’t go any farther.

  Tharn breathed out another tiny shower of sparks, and a stench of something foul reached Sirinita’s nostrils; Tharn’s breath, never pleasant to begin with, was getting really disgusting — even worse than the cow manure, which she had mostly gotten used to.

  Sirinita decided there wasn’t any need to sleep right next to the dragon; she wandered a few paces away, to where a field of waist-high cornstalks provided some shelter, and settled down for the night.

  The next thing she knew was that an unfamiliar voice was saying, “I don’t see a lantern.”

  She opened a sleepy eye, and saw nothing at all.

  “So maybe she just burned a cornstalk or something,” a second voice said.

  “I don’t even see a tinderbox,” the first replied.

  “I don’t either, but what do I know? I saw sparks here, and here she is — it must’ve been her. Maybe she had some little magic spell or something — she looks like a city girl.”

  “Maybe there was someone with her.”

  “No, she wouldn’t be lying here all alone, then. No one would be stupid enough to leave a girl unprotected.”

  The first voice giggled unpleasantly. “Not if they knew we were around, certainly.”

  “She’s pretty young,” the second said dubiously.

  Sirinita was completely awake now; she realized she was looking at the rich black earth of the farm. She turned her head, very carefully, to see who was speaking.

  “She’s awake!” the first voice said. “Quick!”

  Then rough hands grabbed her, and her tunic was yanked up, trapping her arms, covering her face so that she couldn’t see, and pulling her halfway to her feet. Unseen hands clamped around her wrists, holding the tunic up.

  “Not all that young,” someone said, but Sirinita couldn’t hear well enough through the tunic to be sure which voice it was. Another hand touched her now-bare hip.

  Sirinita screamed.

  Someone hit her on the back of the head hard enough to daze her.

  And then she heard Tharn growl.

  It wasn’t a sound she had heard often; it took a lot to provoke the dragon, as a rule.

  “What was that?” one of her attackers asked.

  “It’s a baby dragon,” the other replied. The grip on her left wrist fell away, and she was able to pull her tunic partway down, below her eyes.

  She was in the cornfield, and it was still full night, but the greater moon shone orange overhead, giving enough light to make out shapes, but not colors
.

  There were two men, big men, and they both had swords, and Tharn was facing them, growling, his tail lashing snakelike behind him. One of the men was holding her right wrist with his left hand, drawing his sword with his right.

  The other man, sword already drawn, was approaching Tharn cautiously.

  “Dragon’s blood,” he said. “The wizards pay good money for dragon’s blood.”

  He stepped closer, closer — and Tharn’s curved neck suddenly straightened, thrusting his scaly snout to a foot or so from the man’s face, and Tharn spat flame, lighting up the night, momentarily blinding the three humans, whose eyes had all been adjusted to the darkness.

  The man who had approached the dragon screamed horribly, and the other dropped Sirinita’s wrist; thus abruptly released, she stumbled and almost fell.

  When she was upright and able to see again, she saw one man kneeling, both hands covering his face as he continued to scream; his sword was nowhere in sight. The other man was circling, trying to get behind Tharn, or at least out of the line of fire.

  And Tharn was growling differently now, a sound like nothing Sirinita had ever heard before. His jaws and nostrils were glowing dull red, black smoke curled up from them, and his eyes caught the moonlight and gleamed golden. He didn’t look like her familiar, bumbling pet; he looked terrifying.

  The uninjured man dove for Tharn’s neck, and the dragon turned with incredible speed, belching flame.

  The man’s hair caught fire, but he dived under the gout of flame and stabbed at Tharn.

  Tharn dodged, or tried to, but Sirinita heard the metal blade scrape sickeningly across those armored scales she had so often scratched herself on.

  Then Tharn, neck fully extended and bent almost into a circle, took his attacker from behind and closed his jaws on the man’s neck.

  Sirinita screamed — she didn’t know why, she just did.

  The first man was still whimpering into his hands.

  The second man didn’t scream, though; he just made a soft grunting noise, then sagged lifelessly across Tharn’s back. His hair was smoldering; a shower of red sparks danced down Tharn’s flank.

  Sirinita turned and ran.

  At first she wasn’t running anywhere in particular; then she spotted a farmhouse with a light in the window. Someone had probably been awakened by the screaming. She turned her steps toward it.

  A moment later she was hammering her fists on the door.

  “Who is it?” someone called. “I’ve got a sword and a spear here.”

  “Help!” Sirinita shrieked.

  For a moment no one answered, but she heard muffled voices debating; then the door burst open and she fell inside.

  “They attacked me,” she said. “And Tharn killed one of them, and... and... “

  “Who attacked you?” a woman asked.

  “Two men. Big men.”

  “Who’s Tharn? Your father?” a man asked.

  “My pet dragon.”

  The man and the woman looked at one another.

  “She’s crazy,” the man said.

  “Close the door,” the woman answered.

  “You don’t think I should try to help?”

  “Do you hear anyone else screaming?”

  The man listened; so did Sirinita.

  “No,” the man said. “But I hear noises.”

  “Let them take care of it themselves, then.”

  “But....” The man hesitated, then asked, “Was anyone hurt?”

  “The men who attacked me. Tharn hurt them both. I think he killed one.”

  “But this Tharn was all right when you left?” the woman asked.

  Sirinita nodded.

  “Then leave well enough alone for now. We’ll go out in the morning and see what’s what. Or if this Tharn comes to the door and speaks fair — we’ve the girl to tell us if it’s the right one.”

  The man took one reluctant final look out the door, then closed and barred it, while the woman soothed Sirinita and led her to a corner by the fire where she could lie down. The man found two blankets and a feather pillow, and Sirinita curled up, shivering, certain she would never sleep again.

  She was startled to wake up to broad daylight.

  “You told us the truth last night,” her hostess remarked.

  Sirinita blinked sleep from her eyes.

  “About your dragon, I mean. He’s curled up out front. At first my man was afraid to step past him, after what you’d said about his fighting those two men, but he looks harmless enough, so at last he ventured it.”

  “I’m sorry he troubled you,” Sirinita said.

  “No trouble,” she said.

  “I have to get home,” Sirinita said, as she sat up.

  “No hurry, is there?”

  Sirinita hesitated. “It’s a long walk back to the city.”

  “It is,” the woman admitted. “But isn’t that all the more reason to have breakfast first?”

  Sirinita, who had had no supper the night before, did not argue with that; she ate a hearty meal of hot buttered cornbread, apples, and cider.

  When she was done she tried to feed Tharn, but the dragon wasn’t hungry.

  When the farmer showed her what he had found in the cornfield she saw why. Both her attackers were sprawled there — or at any rate, what was left of them. Tharn was still a very small dragon; he had left quite a bit.

  She looked down at the dragon at her side; Tharn looked up at her and blinked. He stretched his wings and belched a small puff of flame.

  “Come on,” Sirinita said. She waved a farewell to her hosts — she never had learned their names, though she thought they’d been mentioned — then started walking up her own shadow, heading westward toward Ethshar.

  It was late afternoon when, footsore and frazzled, she reached Eastgate with Tharn still at her heel. She made her way down East Road to the city’s heart, then turned south into the residential district that had always been her home.

  Her parents were waiting.

  “When you weren’t home by midnight we were worried, so this morning we hired a witch,” her mother explained, after embraces and greetings had been exchanged. “She said you’d be home safe some time today, and here you are.” She looked past her daughter at the dragon. “And Tharn, too, I see.” She hesitated, then continued, “The witch said that Tharn saved your life last night. We really can’t keep him here, Siri, but we can find a home for him somewhere....”

  “No,” Sirinita interrupted, hugging her mother close. “No, don’t do that.” She closed her eyes, and images of the man with the burned face screaming, the other man with his hair on fire and his neck broken, the two of them lying half-eaten between the rows of corn, appeared.

  Tharn had been protecting her, and those men had meant to rape her and maybe kill her, but she knew those images would always be there.

  Tharn was a dragon, and that was what dragons did.

  “No, Mother,” she said, shuddering, tears leaking from the corners of her tightly-shut eyes. “Get a wizard and have him killed.”

  Afterword

  The Spriggan Mirror is the ninth novel in the Legends of Ethshar, while “Sirinita’s Dragon” is one of the seven shorter works in the series so far. When I began writing stories set in Ethshar I had intended each one to stand on its own, and most of them do, but I must admit that The Spriggan Mirror probably works better if you’ve already read With a Single Spell, The Spell of the Black Dagger, and maybe Ithanalin’s Restoration. I’m assured by those who have tried it that it makes sense even if you haven’t read any of its predecessors, but I suspect it makes more sense if you’re familiar with at least the first of those three.

  In assembling the second editions of the first six Ethshar novels I tried to pair each of them with a short story that was somehow related to the novel — for example, the heroine of “Portrait of a Hero” is a member of a family that plays a significant role in The Blood of A Dragon, so those two were paired. In the present volume I didn�
��t really have a choice, since only one short story had not yet been reprinted, but by good fortune there are some connections — The Spriggan Mirror and “Sirinita’s Dragon” both start and end in Ethshar of the Rocks, both have dragons in them....

  Well, it’s something, anyway.

  I do wish “Sirinita’s Dragon” didn’t have quite such a downbeat ending, though; it’s not a happy note to close on.

  For the serious Ethshar fan, “Sirinita’s Dragon” may have confusing moments, since it doesn’t say which of the three Ethshars it’s set in, and there are references to Grandgate. Don’t let that fool you. Yes, the big famous Grandgate is in Ethshar of the Sands, but there’s a Grandgate in Ethshar of the Rocks, as well, where the old coast road enters the southern part of the city. It was originally intended to be the main entrance, but was quickly superseded by Eastgate, where a newer highway begins.

  The Lady Nuvielle mentioned herein is indeed the same one who appeared in Ithanalin’s Restoration, but Lord Varrin has no connection with the famous wizard Varrin mentioned in The Spriggan Mirror, who created various spells a century or two back. Certain Ethsharitic names, such as Varrin, Dabran, and of course Kelder, recur fairly often.

  “Sirinita’s Dragon” was originally written for an anthology called The Ultimate Dragon. This is its second publication.

  The Spriggan Mirror was originally written as a reader-supported online serial; the text herein is roughly 5,000 words longer, and more polished than that first version. If you’d like to know more about that serialization, or about other Ethshar stories, past or future, please visit the Ethshar website at http://www.ethshar.com.

  Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Gaithersburg, December 2005