Dragon's Ring

by Dave Freer

  "I hear you've been consorting with humans," said Zuamar.

  She did not answer. She simply attacked. Launched straight off the cliff edge at him, spewing a clumsy ill-directed fountain of flame.

  It was so unexpected it almost succeeded. Zuamar folded his wings and dropped like a stone, the ferocious heat of her flame hot on his tail. He turned the maneuver—which left him dangerously exposed from above—a dragon never willingly gave up height advantage—into a steep banking turn. She followed, clumsy in her haste, revealing her youth and anger in doing so, instead of gaining height. His wings were bigger than hers, even if she had youth on her side. She tried to flame him again . . . but either she had less breath or flame than she thought she had, for it came nowhere near him.

  He beat his way up into the sky, tendrils feeling for the advantage on the thermal above the sunbaked rocks of her island. She was doing no more than to try to follow him by sheer wing-power. Had she never dueled with another dragon of similar size? Zuamar knew that the answer would be "probably not." Once, before Tasmarin, dragon had fought dragon, often. They'd been SENT to fight—aside from anything else. Zuamar was the veteran of a dozen such duels, and many more minor skirmishes. Nowadays . . . picking on something your own size was not a particularly clever thing to do, and there was seldom a reason to do so. He turned his head to give her a burst of flame . . . but she'd lost ground. She was out of range. Zuamar knew his range precisely, and would not waste dragonfire. Besides, if he could get above and behind her . . . He gained more height. Too late she worked out what a precarious position she was getting herself into. He dove. Frantically, with what was plainly every ounce of her strength, she managed to veer away from a direct impact. But his talons tore one of the webs on her wing, and his blast of flame seared her delicate wind-tendrils. He banked and used the momentum to regain some of his lost height.

  She began . . . to flee.

  Zuamar simply continued to climb. She was struggling to fly, losing height, trying to reach that piteous island of hers. A worthless strategy, as she had no cave to retreat into! He dove again. This time she failed to evade his talons. In a spiraling wash of crimson fire—mostly his, they fought. She fought with the desperation of one who knows that there is but one possible end to it all. He—largely out of reach of her claws—ripped through her scales and wing-webbing, tearing great gouges into her muscles. Dragon blood spewed as they fell towards the broken and shattered stone of her old eyrie. At the last minute, Zuamar tore himself clear.

  She could not halt her fall. Dragon scale, skin and bone were tough beyond all other forms of living flesh, but not harder than the new-splintered rocks.

  Lord Zuamar roared his triumph to the sky. And then, as was ancient tradition, he sank down onto her carcass and began to feast.

  He felt . . . younger and stronger afterwards. They might claim that here, on a plane of Dragons, that dragon should not devour dragon, but he was larger than most of them. And those that he was not larger than, would not raise a single claw against him.

  He quested about for her hoard. It was—rather like her attempts to fight—pathetic. Barely a dozen bits of gold. Several rings, a bracelet, and the rest in coins. One of those caught his attention. It was something he had not seen for many years. A ducat. He wondered how such a treasure had come into the hands of the fat-witted Jakarin. Well, he couldn't ask her now.

  Chapter 16

  It was good to be out in the sunlight again, Meb realized. The leaves were turning and changing the land into a vast canvas in shades of reds, ochres and yellows. The countryside so far from the sea was strange and unfamiliar. There were no gulls, and the breeze carried a thousand smells that were not salt or rotting seaweed or fish. Decay, yes. A wet-leafy, mushroomy smell, which, to her surprise, she discovered went along with huge numbers of mushrooms. She'd never had much to do with them before. It was rapidly apparent that Finn had.

  Mushrooms, it appeared, were something that came out in the woods and fields after the rain. The trees were still dripping. That didn't stop her master bounding around under them, pushing over little hummocks of wet leaves and chortling with glee when he found a good mushroom. She did her best to join in. Her efforts were hampered by not having the slightest idea what she was doing. He was not impressed by the red and white spotted ones. "Hallucinogenic. Throw them away." Her next effort was, if anything, worse. "Good grief, Scrap. Do you not know anything about mushrooms? In the name of the First don't touch your mouth, nose or eyes. Here, rub them thoroughly on that moss. There is a bit of a trickle over there by the sounds of it. You need to wash those hands of yours. And rub under your fingernails with that moss too."

  "I'm sorry," she said humbly. "Mushrooms don't grow much in the cove. And no one picks them. I thought those were the same as the ones you had."

  "Ink caps. You had deadly destroying angels. Look at them carefully. Remember them. Notice details. Anyway, I think we have enough for a feed. Now we'll need a fire."

  That was something they were unlikely to get in the wet woods. But it seemed that she had underestimated Finn's ability to find semi-dry wood, and to make it burn. He also seemed to have the most amazing assortment of useful things about him, and in that pack of his, including a little piece of fat bacon and a small iron skillet. And he had very tough hands and a mouth that seemed impervious to heat. He could eat sizzling bacon fat fried mushrooms with his fingers, straight from the pan into his mouth. Meb had to spike them on a knife-point and then blow on them. They were, however, worth running around the damp forest for.

  When the last mushroom and scrap of bacon had been devoured, Finn looked regretfully at the pan. "Well, it's a change from frogs and fish. I've been told it's an unnatural taste for one of my kind, but wild mushrooms are one of my weaknesses. One of many," he said with a grin. "And now, looking at that sky, unless you have a fancy for a soaking, we'd better move along."

  He cleaned the pan roughly with some leaves, kicked out the fire, and they set off again. A mile or two down the road they came to a large rock that someone had crudely chipped an arrow onto, with what Meb imagined was the name of the next settlement and of course, the distance. She could read some numbers. She was very proud of the skill.

  Finn clicked his tongue, looking at it. "We'll have to move that. Come on, Scrap. Push and shove time."

  Meb looked at the boulder. There was no way they'd budge it! But he was already putting his shoulder to it so she scampered to join him, and pushed.

  She nearly fell on her face because it moved . . . it came free of the earth with a ripping crack, and rolled onto the track.

  "Phew!" Finn blew on his hands. "Now. Let's see . . . Over there."

  Between them they rolled the rock about five yards down the hill. It took all their strength . . . but it moved. The arrow now pointed at the hillside, though a generous tangle of bramble.

  "A job well done," said Finn with some satisfaction. "No respect, these people. That stone was put there for another purpose and didn't like being a signpost. Things are better balanced now. Come on, let's go. We're still racing the rain."

  They walked on. Meb wondered just what local people would make of the rock's movements. It seemed a lot of hard work for a practical joke . . . to the extent that she wondered if it was.

  It was starting to rain when they reached a hamlet, complete with a local inn. "Time for us to sing for our supper, Scrap," said Finn.

  Meb hoped that she didn't really have to sing. Somehow she thought sea-chanties would not get them much supper, and she didn't know anything else. The locals looked pleased enough to see the gleeman, though. They were hauled into the tap room, which was a long step down from the inn in Tarport. This one had old straw on a dirt floor, and a few rough-hewn benches. And beer. Meb realized that she was going to have to get used to that. So she set about doing so. It wasn't that she'd never tasted the stuff before. Just not much of it. People said you got used to it.

  Fionn was expecting another quiet
night of some mediocre brew, ordinary food and providing a little entertainment in exchange for the same. Of course he knew that humans got hopelessly drunk and disorderly. They often did. Dragons had multiple and complex livers for dealing with toxins. It took some very special spells bound to gold to have much effect on him. He'd almost forgotten that Scrap wasn't his kind when he'd seen the mushrooms. She was too observant for her own good, let alone his. He could—and did—eat mushrooms that would have killed her. She was trying hard to fit in. He'd been careful enough to keep her to actual hard practical work which took concentration, not daydreaming. He was fairly sure she had no idea what that imagination of hers could do, given the right cues and stimulus. So juggling had seemed a good thing to teach her. Of course, because she wanted to please, and wanted to do it well, she was bending the rules of causality a bit. Nothing that would cause more than a few misshapen trees, un-seasonal sunlight or strangely human faces on occasional root vegetables. Nothing to worry about.

  Until she'd added beer into it.

  They'd started much as usual. A bit of juggling. A bit of patter. A tumble or two. A break for beer and a few coins. Small coins here at a rural inn, but enough for food and shelter.

  Fionn cursed himself for a fool. He should have seen to it that food came before beer, and that the human brat kept to drinking a minimum of the beer.

  In part it had been his fault, he admitted. The craft of the dvergar-made wares was legendary, and of Dvalinn and his brothers more so. It was their reason for keeping themselves to themselves, and their names a secret. They also had the reputation of taking people literally. It would make her what she wanted to be. He'd meant in appearance. They, it seemed, hadn't. Of course it would work as he'd intended, but possibly not when her inhibitions were awash with beer.

  Now, in a barn a good mile from the inn the human was sleeping it off.

  It was a pity she hadn't gone straight to that stage!

  It was relatively unlikely anyone magically skilled had been about to notice her pyrotechnics. But the marks of it would remain.

  She inspected the scratches on her hand and arms. And felt her face. "What . . . what happened?"

  "The scratches, I think," said Fionn with some satisfaction, "come from when you attempted to juggle with the cat. In all fairness, I don't think you knew it was a cat at that stage. But you deserved what you got. That was before you threw up on the innkeeper's wife. You deserved what you got there too. You'll have a very fine black eye."

  She blushed to the roots of her hair. "She deserved it too. I am sorry, master. Must I go?" There was just a hint of a sob in the statement. Repressed. This one did not cry easily.

  Finn laughed. "No. But we'll not be back here for a while. Firstly, I think the innkeeper would be after us with a besom, and secondly, we'd never be able to put up another show like that. You've set quite a standard for other traveling gleemen to follow."

  What he did not say was "and left traces of powerful human magic all over an inn that never did any worse than serve watered beer." Instead he said: "Most of what we do, Scrap, is trickery. I need to teach you to do more of it, and not quite so spectacularly. We like to pass through without people noticing much. Not them remembering us in every detail for many years."

  "I am sorry, master. I remember everything the gleeman did the twice he came to our village," she said, humbly. "I didn't know you weren't supposed to."

  She would remember, of course. She must have a very precise imagination and memory to allow her powers to work. And as she saw more . . . it was going to become worse. She'd recreated some of the tricks she'd seen the night before. Only . . . they hadn't been tricks. He knew of course how to palm a coin and pretend to pull it out of a local's ear. Meb had made it lodge in the fellow's ear. He'd been lucky it hadn't been inside his skull, and it had been lucky that he'd been near as drunk as the scrap of humanity. Finn knew how to make a coin disappear. He would have made the same one reappear, not a silver thaler. That's what had started the fight . . . She was no better at dealing with that than she had been with being propositioned by the innkeeper's wife.

  Meb was inwardly crawling with shame . . . in between feeling really like throwing up and dealing with a dull headache. Gleemen drank beer. And she was a failure at it. A failure. The inner voice said Well, he hasn't chased you away. And he could have left you there. This isn't the inn. Wherever it was, she had to get up and get out in a hurry, because anything that was still in her, needed out. At a staggering run she bolted out into the rain.

  When she got back shivering and empty, he had a fire going—something that would probably horrify the owner of the barn—and a small pannikin broiling. He poured some out liquid out of it into a metal mug. "Get that down yourself."

  "I don't think it'll stay down," she said, warily.

  "Well, let it have a passing acquaintance with you," the gleeman said cheerfully. "And next time learn to spill most of the beer they buy you onto the rushes on the floor. That's the advantage of a dirt floor, with straw or rushes. They help the sound and bad light will let you get away with it. The fleas will be grateful and you won't have such a head on you in the morning."

  "Not to mention not doing such silly things," said Meb shamefaced, remembering some of it.

  He snorted. "I wouldn't dream of mentioning it. Doing them, that's another matter. You'll learn, Scrap, that's exactly what we do. Silly things. But usually we know we're doing them. Sometimes we even tell people what we're doing. They don't believe us."

  She hung her head in embarrassment. "Sorry, master." The stuff in the mug hadn't come up. Actually, it was making her feel better than she had earlier, though that wasn't hard.

  He gave her a lopsided smile. "And now you're making me feel bad about it. I'm usually the one to cause trouble, Scrap. Most of the time on purpose, but sometimes just because trouble likes me. I'm just not used someone else doing it."

  "It really wasn't on purpose," said Meb. "Or at least I am sure I'd remember if it was. I was just . . . trying to be a good apprentice."

  He snorted with laughter. "At this rate you'll be a master before you know it."

  She was taken aback by that idea. She didn't want to be a master. She wanted to be his apprentice. "Oh no. I have far too much to learn."

  "That's true," said Finn. "And your first lesson for today is that you should never stay around for the deeds to catch up with you. It means early starts. A lot of no breakfasts."

  She shuddered. "I don't feel much like it this morning."

  "I'll avoid talking about it then, until you've walked it out," he said, getting up and smothering his fire. "Get your cloak around you, Scrap. It's going to be wet."

  It was. And a long time before lunch. They walked—mostly uphill—towards the mountains. It got colder. And the rain was replaced by drifts of mist around the ridges. Even while walking Meb was cold. The gleeman-cloak shed a lot of the rain. But wet crept in around the neck. She was very glad indeed when he led them off the trail and to a shallow cave in the woods. He seemed to know the country very well. Meb supposed one had to learn it. But how had he known there would be a cave there, hidden in a piece of wildwood? You couldn't see it from the muddy track they'd been following.

  "Chilly tonight," said Finn. "But we'll get a good fire going. Even the alvar won't be out in this."

  That seemed to please him.

  "Where are we going?" asked Meb. The whole world was a strange place to her, but she was beginning to feel that she should learn all about it.

  "Tonight, here. Tomorrow elsewhere. Collect some deadwood. I'll get a fire going," said Finn.

  Collecting deadwood had to be easier than lighting a fire in this, Meb reflected to herself as, tired and hungry, she trudged through the trees. Still, he could have given her an answer. The inner voice said but he probably doesn't know the answer. Meb was in no mood to let mere common sense and logic stand in the way of feeling aggrieved. She found a large dead fork, piled it with what she'd got so far,
and walked back dragging it, picking up a few pieces as she went. It was all dead . . . but wet.

  He did have a fire going. And he'd chopped a pile of bracken—wet bracken—and laid it out to dry near the flames. "Not a bad haul," he said looking at her load. "I'll get some more. I'm going to see if I can find us some dinner. You stay and tend the fire."

  Meb wondered what—besides possibly some more mushrooms, he could hope to find in the wet, wild woods. By now even frogs' legs sounded tempting. But she would be glad to sit and tend the fire. She was exhausted. It was a hot enough little fire to dry the wood she had available to put onto it. She just had to keep feeding it while everything dried out.

  Unfortunately, that meant staying awake. She would have walked, pinched herself or done something to make sure that she didn't sleep . . . if she'd realized that just closing her eyes for an instant would have her away to the land of dreams, where she was still living in a cold fishing cottage.

  It was that cold that woke her. The evening was closing in, and the little fire was down to a few smouldering embers. Her sudden panic left Meb wide awake and even colder—with an icy sick feeling in her belly. If she'd failed at this simple task he'd surely be furious. And rightly so. They'd need a fire tonight . . . and where was he? Darkness was closing in. Had he fallen and broken a leg? Had he gone off and left her here, because she was too much trouble? Hastily she piled splinters and sticks on the embers. Blew carefully. One or two smoked. Nothing else happened. She frantically felt about for more tinder, ripping the bark off the sticks to expose the dry stuff. Forcing herself to try and be calm. Pushing the embers together. Blowing again. Desperately wanting a flame . . .