Her voice gained inflection as she continued, however, and her blunted features sharpened and became more distinct, radiating new spirit, as if she’d swallowed a sprite rather than a bead.
Verity and Fiona joined Bowen in coaxing the mud girl to sing, and even sang with her until they grew weary and sleepy, but Clodagh sang on.
The mud-girl was newly infused with life—magical life at that—so why wouldn’t she feel like singing?
Fiona and Bowen, accustomed to the thumpings and bumpings of the bawdy house on Fiona’s part and the shipboard noises on Bowen’s, soon fell asleep, but Verity lay awake, hearing a babble of voices outside the hut. Lifting the blanket covering the entrance, she saw a small crowd gathered by the noise of Clodagh’s song. Their faces, lit by a full moon, reflected consternation and also fear.
“Oh, really!” she said, stepping out to join them. “Her singing isn’t that bad and she’s improving.”
The blacksmith regarded Verity without sympathy. “You’re to blame, giving that fancy bauble to a walking mud pie!” he said.
“How do you know what I did?” Verity asked.
“Village this size? You hear everything. Why didn’t you give it to one of Warlock’s human heirs instead of that thing?”
“I was following directions,” Verity said, meaning the ghost cats, the warming of the bead and the rattling of the shells. “He wanted her to have the bead.”
The blacksmith snorted, “Says you. There’s those of us related to him by his first wife, you know.”
“Blood relation?” she asked.
“Yes!” he said belligerently, which set off her alarm bells and an impending headache.
“No you’re not. What was it? You were children by the first marriage of his first wife? Because you’re no blood kin of his or I’d have known.”
“That thing cannot be called kin to anyone human,” he said.
“She can be, and she is. She says his blood was in her making. So back off.”
“We can just dissolve her, you know. She can’t stand a good downpour and even if she’s got a tongue on her now, she’s still mud-born and can go back to mud with a good dousing.”
“If the bead isn’t intended for you, it will do you no good,” she said, though she had not known it before she did.
“Himself won’t know. Him’s long dead,” the innkeeper’s wife said.
“You don’t know that,” Verity said. “Wizards have their ways, or so I’m told. I suggest you disperse. We know the bead allows her to speak, but that was a very powerful wizard you had here. Don’t you suppose the magic in his bead may give her other powers as well?”
After some muttering and growling, they did leave, but she could feel eyes on the entrance of the hut anyway.
She woke her companions and said, “We have to go. Now.”
Clodagh continued to sing, but Verity pulled at her arm. “Come on. You need to come with us before they harm you and take the bead away.”
Surprisingly, Clodagh stopped singing and said, “Wait,” before resuming her song at a lower volume. Then digging her blunt brown fingers into the cracks between the mud bricks in the back wall of her hut, she pulled out enough of the wall to pass through, and for the others to pass through too. “I must fetch Kiln first. I’ll not leave him here for them to kill to spite me.”
They followed her through the back wall, out the edge of the village and to the cave where they’d first seen her emerge. A glow came from within. Between it and the will o’wisp-like shapes of ghost cats, they found their way in after her. Clodagh strode toward a bend in the cave wall beyond her potting table where slabs of clay and coils of clay lay and a wheel waiting for clay stood.
Verity had her own bead that gave her certain powers, from the days she had spent training the young dragons who helped form beads from the magic once sprayed over the walls of their mother’s lair. So she heard what was unsaid, or at least one side of the conversation, and was not surprised when Clodagh reemerged with her hand protectively on the head of a dragon the size of a small pony.
“Strangers, this is Kiln. Kiln, these folk are to be our new companions.”
Now that she could talk, Clodagh’s mouth had become something of a perpetual motion machine. “I have known Kiln longer than any being here. He worked with Wizard Warlock before I was made. When the wizard took his last journey, Kiln and I waited together for him, looking for him to return. When he did not, and the village began to decline, we went into business together, me fashioning the clay, Kiln firing it.”
The three ghost cats that had come with Verity, Bowen, and Fiona now sat on Clodagh’s shoulder, the dragon’s back and the top of his head. Unlike Bowen, Kiln did not seem to mind.
The villagers did not challenge the travelers as they departed. They paid little attention to Kiln, such a small inoffensive dragon. Since he was associated with Clodagh, the village seemed glad to see the back of him.
As the travelers mounted the trail to the pass, the dragon flew away.
“I suppose he’s happy to have his freedom now?” Fiona ventured, interrupting a string of gossip Clodagh was sharing about the blacksmith and the innkeeper’s second girl.
“Oh no, he’s just hunting,” she said, “But that second girl just had a babe and the poor little thing was born all muscley…”
“Has Kiln had the trouble adjusting his diet since the kibble was destroyed?” Verity asked.
“Since what was destroyed?” Clodagh asked, in mid-description of the muscley child’s birth. Verity suspected that if Clodagh had remained in the village, they’d have wanted rid of her for reasons other than envy.
“The kibble. What working dragons have been eating since the Great War.”
“Not Kiln. We heard something about that kind of food, but it sounded a very odd diet for dragons and nobody bothered. We’ve plenty of game here and he pays his way for it. Since I have not needed material goods, the villagers and other customers often give us farm animals for him to eat and when business is slow, he hunts.”
By the time Kiln returned from his hunt, they were picking their way along a ledge. Kiln positively frisked ahead of them, melting the snow and ice from their path, much improving their journey. And when the melt turned back to ice, it would make the way much harder traveling for any who might want to follow.
Chapter 10: The Hoard
Auld Smelt made no secret of his dislike and distrust of Casimir. “He’d never make it in the mines,” the old dragon told the younger one, now calling himself Devent. “Too soft and scrawny.”
“I don’t think he would have liked mining,” Devent agreed. “It would be pretty hard on his voice.”
Smelt snorted. “It would have been too much like work. So look, are you coming with me to winter in my lair or will you be goin’ with him?”
“I have more to learn about singing,” Devent said. “I thought all three of us could…”
“Think again,” Smelt said, sounding harder than the steel he’d once smelted. “That human is getting nowhere near my hoard. Come with me or go with him, I don’t care.”
Devent huffed out a small cloud of ashes. Auld Smelt was like a grandfather to him, had he known what a grandfather was. Returning to Casimir, he said, “Smelt will not finish his journey while you are with us. I don’t think I should try to be a singer after all. I cannot abandon him.”
Casimir said, “Don’t dragons usually go to their lairs to hibernate?”
“I don’t know for sure. I have heard it said though…”
“So go with him to his lair and wait ‘til the old boy goes to sleep, then come back. That way he will have your company while he needs it and his privacy while he slumbers. Then you can return here, and I’ll continue to tutor you in the art of the troubadour.”
Devent thought it over and decided that was a very good way to do everything he wanted. “You may have a long wait,” he said. “But if that doesn’t bother you, as soon as Smelt goes dormant, I’ll return.
”
“I don’t mind as long as I have my instrument with me,” Casimir assured him. “I shall occupy myself in practice and evaluating how I may best combine our skills to illuminate your talent.”
“I may be gone for some time,” Devent told him.
Casimir smiled, as if amused by Devent’s caution. “As it happens, my dear dragon prodigy, time is something of which I have a sufficiency beyond what you might expect.”
Smelt by that time was deep enough into the forested foothills that Devent had lost sight of the tip of his tail. So he simply grunted agreeably and in a couple of bounds was within the trees, where he could no longer see the minstrel but could smell the gas from Smelt’s last meal. One more long hop and he was alongside the older dragon. He noticed as he hopped that he was able to achieve some elevation and remain aloft for a moment or two before landing in what he thought was a graceful stance, on back legs and the broad part of his tail. Were his wings a bit wider now?
“Where is your lair?” he asked Smelt.
“At the top of the pass, of course, overlooking the sea.”
“Is it far?”
“Not if we stop talking and keep walking.”
Secrecy was not the only reason they’d been wise not to bring Casimir. Distance that could be covered in a short time by dragons, even flight-impaired dragons, would have taken the swiftest human much longer, if he could have made it up the stony steep slopes at all.
Just ahead of them, atop the next perpendicular upheaval of the forest floor, the remains of a moss-obscured stone staircase curved up the mountain.
Devent gave his wings a trial flap and jumped. After two tries, he had successfully flown to the bottom of the staircase. Smelt lumbered determinedly forward, but turned to his right and with a slight hop climbed first one moss covered stair, then another. Devent had ignored stairs in his eagerness to reach the lair. Recent days had been so full of new wonders and discoveries, he couldn’t wait to see what would come next.
Smelt had known exactly where the stairs were and kept climbing as the steps crested the hill where Devent waited, then wound up to the next level.
Devent burned away some of the low wet moss and lichens and Smelt turned back and roared at him. “Stop that!”
“I just thought the footing would be better if I cleaned off the steps for you.”
“It would, but it would also point like an arrow to my lair. You might as well put out a big sign that says, This Way to the Dragon’s Hoard!”
As Smelt grumbled and huffed, Devent continued frisking upward.
“Oh, look at this!” he cried, stopping to peer at a small round creature with prickles all over its back. “Are these good to eat?”
Smelt’s eyes looked down at the top of the forest canopy below them and upward to the mountain ridge that jutted above them.
Devent lifted the small creature. It squeaked, doubled its size by bristling, and trembled in a heartbreaking way, staring into Devent’s fangs with terrified little round eyes. The young dragon gently returned it to the ground. The utter destruction of the creature’s entire world wouldn’t make a decent bite for Devent.
The spiky thing hurried off to hide in some greenery. Devent heard a different bird song than those he had noticed before. He craned his neck, then rose toward it, hardly realizing he was actually flying until Smelt grumbled and the voice faded with distance.
Looking down, Devent was amazed at how high he was—above the tallest craggy vestige of the ruined castle—and how far below him his friend was. He folded his wings a trifle and sank back to the mountainside.
“Nobody likes a showoff, boy,” Smelt said. “Besides, you overshot the entrance.”
As much as he enjoyed looking at the world around him, after living his life in the darkness underground, Devent’s vision was not particularly acute. He saw a rocky prominence above them, while the rock wall alongside him was interspersed with crevices and crannies of greenery with small pockets of wildflowers.
He shot a questioning glance at Smelt. The stair his friend occupied was many steps below the yawning arch that had once provided access to the fortress. But although the stairs were carved from the same rock as the cliff-face, they were sculpted into a long gentle crescent. Suddenly Smelt leaned to the side and poked his head into the moss and brush clad surface supporting the steps above him. That section of cliff face swung inward, followed closely by Smelt. Devent rushed in just before the stone slab swung shut again.
Malady Hyde Rules!
“Are you an idiot? Because I’m pretty sure I made myself clear. Death to all vagrant dragons but a conditional amnesty for those who return to their employment.”
“But, ma’am,” Toby, the Dragon Czar, interrupted, “how are you going to feed them?”
“We’ve done it before and we can do it again,” she said. “Don’t trouble me with details. They left their employment and have been hanging around making trouble for some time now. They should expect a little inconvenience, but I won’t have them killed if they return to making themselves useful. Now you make yourself useful and summon the seamstress and the printer. I want my flyers sent out to all corners of the realm. The True Queen Has Revealed Herself and she is ME!” Her flourish of the slightly moth-eaten ermine trimmed cloak was spoiled when it caught on the spear held by a stone heraldic lion, but the effect was nevertheless dramatic.
She was disappointed that nobody had yet located the crown jewels or the crown itself. Regency didn’t actually entitle her to wear it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try it on. Nor could anyone recall what had become of the royal treasury. The current treasury, from the taxes the various industries had paid last quarter, was in a bank vault somewhere, she was told, but nobody could tell her where exactly. For that reason, her uncles said they thought a grand ball was probably out of the question, so rather than have princes from neighboring countries over to vie for her hand, they wanted her to settle for a tea party with her male cousins. The Miragenian side of the family considered cousins the only proper marriage partners anyway. It kept the money in the family.
It was helpful that Argonia had done without royals for several generations and that Verity Brown’s claim on it was bolstered only by rather weak hypnotic spells, now largely dissipated.
Fortunately, the creature had seemed to recognize true class when she saw it. At the same time she declared the very inelegant Verity to be queen, she’d appointed Malady to be her companion, assistant, and adviser. Verity had never specifically forbidden Malady to promote herself in her absence. And there was nothing in whatever the spell was that prohibited Malady from assuming her current role. She was obviously much more suited for it than the lumbering, awkward, obnoxious giantess, especially when the giantess in question had virtually begged Malady to relieve her of the burden of rule by running away. Had the big gawk not left, her head would have been less likely to be crowned than it would have been to be removed from her shoulders. The thing was, although Malady’s uncles were under the hypnotic orders to accept Verity’s rule, they were not bound to like it. They were much happier to have their beloved niece, cousin, granddaughter, sister, sister-in-law, etc. filling the post, figuring she would have to turn to them for the important decisions, like what to do about the dragon situation.
They totally failed to grasp the importance of ballgowns, however, or how critical it was for Malady to gain access to the crown jewels.
She was trying to explain this, yet again, to her Uncle Eustus who was being obtuse as he obsessed once again about the pesky dragons.
“Why not just kill all of them and import labor from Frostingdung?” Malady asked, exasperated. “Wouldn’t it be cheaper? If her oversized highness happened to get killed at the same time, what’s the difference?”
“Her mother might object to that,” Eustus replied with a glance over his shoulder and a slight tremor in his voice.
“She’s just a cheap flim flam artist,” Malady said. “What could she do really?
We ought to put the army to work and have them kill the dragons.”
Uncle Eustus gave her a rather pitying and highly uncomfortable look. “You must learn not to underestimate people simply because you dislike them, Malady petal. They say that Lady Romany, if that is who the Gypsy woman truly is, is descended not only from royals but also from powerful witches. There are even those who claim she can travel in time.”
“Preposterous!”
“Perhaps.”
“What would be the point of that, anyway?”
“I can’t claim to know what’s in her mind, nor can anyone, but stories about her have been around for many generations longer than she could possibly have been here in a single lifetime. You need to sit still and pay attention to the council sessions, niece.”
“You never let me say anything, anyway,” she complained.
But if the time travel thing was true, then surely Romany would know exactly where the crown jewels were hidden. Malady set about her rule with a will, determined to choose a dragon exterminator who was also good at extracting valuable information from human captives.
“My dear, you are still learning. Governing countries is not all gowns and jewels, you know,” one of the uncles said in an impertinently scolding fashion.
“Yes, but who cares about all that stuff? Not the people! They’ll only be interested in what I wear to which event. It gives a little glamor to their dreary humdrum lives. Of course we have to deal with the whole dragon thing, but you lot have been creating the situation for years. I have every confidence that you’ll be able to un-create it, given the proper motivation. Meanwhile I will keep the populace dazzled and distracted while inspiring all with my fabulous fashion sense.”
“Be careful you don’t glitter too much, niece,” Eustus responded. Truly, Malady’s unwillingness to focus on real issues secretly pleased him. She wouldn’t interfere that way. On the other hand, business, with the dragons out of order, was not good and she had expensive tastes. And she was letting this regency thing go to her head, thinking she was in charge. The uncles discussed it.
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