The Redundant Dragons

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  Verity saw her this time, although she could scarcely make out what the pear-shaped bundle dangling from the yardarm was. It swung in and out of the shadows. But once she saw it, she knew it for the source of the keening that was louder than both battle and wind.

  Erotica doused a candle and started balling up melted wax, handing a portion to each of the women. “Stop up your ears or it will drive you mad,” she cautioned. “Sailors aren’t the only ones who are susceptible.”

  The newcomers held members of the Belle’s crew at sword point on her deck. The crew liked to play at swashing and buckling, Verity knew, but they were far more adept with musical instruments than weapons, and in this case, the pirate attack was totally unexpected.

  Legs the Rigger was clinging to the topmast by two tentacles, while the other appendages writhed in frustration as she reached for ropes that were out of range, trying to make her way back to the crow’s nest.

  The pirates rampaged on deck, breaking open flasks and kegs and some of the men’s sea chests, including the ones containing the theatrical costumes.

  One of the marauders climbed out of the hold brandishing an oddly shaped blanket. He held it above his torch, as if about to ignite it, and Mr. Gray, already under guard, screamed, “Nooo!”

  Verity smelled Erotica’s perfume as her aunt crowded in close to her. “Let me through,” Verity said. “Mr. Gray is a selkie, and without that skin, he can never rejoin his family.”

  “He has to be alive first if he’s to rejoin anyone,” Erotica said. “How are you at throwing things?”

  “Good, actually,” Verity replied.

  “Excellent. Throw these at the pirates.” She pressed five stoppered glass vials into Verity’s hand and closed her fingers over them, then shoved some of the staff aside to open the door. “Out you go. You too, Sadie, Selina, Fiona, and Foxy…”

  Verity ran over the uneven ground, stumbling twice, but as soon as she was in range she flung the first vial at the pirate threatening to burn the seal skin.

  The glass smashed against the deck, but startled the pirate into dropping his torch.

  Reinforcements arrived as the other women caught up with Verity at the dock. The smoky torches sent shadows jigging across the deck, dock, and hulls of the ships.

  Mr. Gray’s tormentor bent swiftly to retrieve his torch.

  “Hold your fire!” Verity cried, though she had a hard time making herself heard above Aunt Eulalia’s siren song. “We need to get close enough to see the veins in their bloodshot eyes.”

  Devent Gets Professional Advice

  For a very long time, Devent had lingered within the doorway of the ruined castle above Smelt’s lair, half asleep, listening, feeling, hearing, even tasting the sea and the wind that seemed to drive it boiling beneath the rocky prominence that held him. A song threaded through his dreaming wakefulness. He thought at first it was one of his mother’s songs, come back to him in a dream, but another part of him knew that it was not. It was a song he’d never heard before.

  When he wakened, he thought perhaps Auld Smelt was making the song with his breathing as he slept. Devent crept back down the tunnel toward his friend’s lair but there the song vanished in the snort and whistle of hearty dragon snores.

  He didn’t bother to creep as he returned to his previous vantage point, but as soon as he was out of earshot of Smelt’s snores, the singing was again audible. This time he heard it in the roll of the waves and on the winds billowing around his cliff-top perch.

  The song was unlike any Casimir had taught him. If it had words, he couldn’t make them out and he knew the singer was quite some distance to the south of him. He needed to hear it more distinctly.

  He rose and began walking and hopping down the coast, always within sight of the sea.

  How long he travelled, listening for the song, he didn’t know. It was different by night from the daytime melody. Devent thought it was probably a female voice, though he had never heard a female human sing. But this voice was more like his mother’s than Casimir’s, and yet, not at all like hers. It wove in and out, at times alluring, at times menacing, but always compelling. Oh, if only he could sing like that! The singer seemed to harmonize with herself in many different parts, making it difficult to follow the core melody. But he tried. The first time the voice stopped, he stopped and while he rested, attempted to sing what he’d been hearing. He had some parts right, or almost, but he thought he would need to multiply himself to come anywhere near the same complexity and depth. Despairing, he was about to turn back and was stopped from doing so only because he was lost. Well, that and he hoped the singing would resume, which it did, two nights later.

  He resumed his journey and learned that when the voice stopped, it would continue further down the coast, so he kept on, trying to softly harmonize while the song was in the air, and when it ceased, to recall the melody as faithfully as he could. He traveled on as if the song were a rope towing him to it. Sometimes it slackened, but always it continued.

  Until it didn’t. Then he gave a thought to Casimir, who must be waiting for him with disappointment that he had not yet returned. But Casimir was both a singer and a traveler and if anyone should understand the compulsion to seek this song, it would be the minstrel.

  By now he was well down the coast of Argonia, the mountain range along which he had been traveling almost at an end, while he felt sure peaks he saw in the distance belonged to a different range. He kept to the coast, fearing he had gone too far and had passed his singer days before.

  His relief when he heard the voice again instantly dispelled. The song was not the same, nor was it properly a song any longer, but a scream, a cry of distress. The voice was as beautiful as before, but now it cracked on some notes, and sounded dry.

  Below, on the edge of the water, torches flared, and men tried to hit each other with long pointy things. What were they doing, playing around, when the owner of the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard was in such distress? He didn’t wonder if he could fly or not or if his wings would hold him. He jumped from the cliff, the wind caught his wings, and he was not only airborne: he was swooping!

  Boarded

  The pirate who stole Gray’s skin had changed course and refrained from burning it, instead wrapping it around himself and capering across the deck beside the rail.

  Then an unexpected dragon occurred, swooping down over the Belle’s deck and landing on the Spread Sheet.

  Verity thought at first that the dragon was Kiln, who had finally decided to wade in on their side, But even in the choking smoke and flickering light, this dragon was clearly bigger than Kiln. He blocked her view of Eulalia’s net. She saw a taloned foot raise and slash—the net hung torn and empty and a dragon rose over the smoke with what looked like a large fish in its talons, except the fish had arms and hands which held onto one of the feet.

  “Hey, you! Dragon!” Verity called over the din, “That is not sea food! That is my auntie!”

  The distraction the dragon provided allowed Mr. Gray the opportunity to snatch his pelt from the pirate, throw it on, and jump overboard after Eulalia.

  “Where did the bloody dragon come from, anyway?” the apparent captain of the attacking ship demanded.

  Verity didn’t know, and she didn’t like to leave her shipmates at the mercy of the invaders, but she was the only one on the scene who could converse with dragons. Except for Clodagh of course, but could she talk to all dragons or only Kiln?

  There was no time to ponder, as Erotica appeared, panting and winded, beside her, and handed her a fist full of fresh vials. But now, in addition to the whine of the wind, the rumble and hiss of the sea, the clamor of clashing swords and shouting, the siren song had resumed—that was all right then, if Eulalia could still sing, the dragon hadn’t eaten her. It was accompanied by a very peculiar melodic noise sung in the tongue of dragons, though Verity could not distinguish the words.

  “It’s no good,” Verity shouted at Erotica. “We can’t see to a
im.”

  “Ahoy, Missus Brown!” Legs called from the crow’s nest. Verity pitched the vials one by one to the octopus. One by one, a vial per each tentacle, Legs fired off all eight vials.

  The fighting slowed as some of the pirates ceased bullying and started wooing crew members. Those who had been struck by the glass vials smacked the cutlass-bearing hands of those who had not. “Don’t hurt him, you!”

  Amid the pandemonium, a single blast from a blunderbuss halted the quarreling. “Avast, ye mutinous lubbers! Be it known that by order of this writ, I, Captain Marquette Fontaine, claim this ship and the town of Horn Haven with all of its goods and chattels as my property! All of you work for me now, so step lively and put my ship back in order before we repair to my Spa and Brothel to take our leisure.”

  “He can’t do that, can he? Claim the Belle and the town and your establishment, too?”

  “Relax, my dear,” Erotica said, “We get this a lot actually. A professional hazard of dealing with pirates. Oh, yoohoo! Captain! Why don’t you and your lads come ashore and join the girls for some rest and relaxation? We can discuss business in a more congenial atmosphere.”

  As the captain and crew of the pirate ship and their prisoners—or guests, as some preferred to call them—from the Belle came ashore, Erotica told Verity, “Go hide out somewhere, my dear, and make yourself scarce. I’m not sure the goodwill my elixir creates would extend to getting a pirate to bypass the possibility of a royal ransom, should he recognize you for who you are.”

  “I don’t see how he’d do that unless someone tells him. Otherwise he’ll think I’m a man. He’s got our salvage.”

  The first of the Belle’s crew, accompanied by a short stocky pirate, walked down the ramp between the Belle and the dock.

  “Ladies,” said the pirate’s prisoner, the ship’s carpenter, called Chips, “this gentleman is new in town and seeking…” Erotica’s girls surrounded him until he walked off with one holding each of his arms, the girls chatting about how it must be ever so stimulating to be a pirate. The love potion appeared to be indiscriminate about who gave or received affection from whom.

  The next to walk down the dock was the best dressed of the lot, presumably the captain. Behind him, one of the Belle’s crew and a pirate supported the chest from the Nice Try between them.

  “Which one of you is Madame Erotica?” he asked, looking from Captain Lewis, to the lady in question.

  Verity’s aunt wiggled her fingers at him in acknowledgement. “I am. Erotica Amora, proprietress of the Sailor’s Spa and Brothel, at your service, handsome sir.”

  “I wish to retire to your salon, madame, and discuss business.”

  “Of course you do, dearie,” Erotica said with a flutter of her lashes.

  The weird duet still rode the roar of sea and wind, but the sound seemed to be everywhere.

  As Verity stood listening, Mr. Gray in selkie form and Legs busied themselves at the hostile ship. Neither of them had been affected by the vials, Legs clinging to the topmast and Mr. Gray in his recovered selkie skin swimming offshore. She could not exactly see what they were doing but the SS Spread Sheet went drifting soon after they left.

  The song stopped and was replaced by the very muted sound of conversation, which she could not quite make out. However, talking was easier to locate than the song. She pulled off her boots and socks and waded into the swelling waves. A swim was required.

  The mermaid, looking rather rumpled in spite of being wet, still had dry patches and the marks of the net on her skin and scales. She sat on a rock combing her hair and reached down an arm to haul Verity up beside her.

  “There you are, brother’s daughter. You must listen to this dragon, he has a fabulous barrow-tone.”

  The dragon made a good facsimile of a courtly bow. “Thank you,” he said. “Casimir says the same thing.”

  “Wait,” Verity said. “Who is Casimir and who, for that matter, are you?”

  “I am Devent, Dragon-bard in training, at your service, m’lady,” he said, imitating his mentor. “And whom have I the honor of addressing?”

  “I’m Verity, and as my aunt said, I’m the daughter of her brother.”

  Eulalia nodded vaguely. Her hair was striped with different colors all in a rather frizzy blonde. “Lovely to meet you, Verity. What’s all this about you being a queen now?”

  “That was my mother’s idea,” Verity told her. “I can’t believe I wanted her back so much and now she acts as if I’m a chess piece—go here, go there, do this, do that. Right now I’m to find the descendants of the wizards who disappeared at the end of the Great War.”

  “That woman!” Eulalia said. “I told your father she wasn’t good for the likes of us—dry behind the ears! You poor minnow, being used like that. You just do as you see fit, my darling, and if that woman wants something done, tell her to bloody well do it herself instead of scampering around on her big flat feet messing up Time.”

  “Have—er—have you spoken with my Dad lately?” Verity asked.

  “Why would I?”

  “Well, I just thought since he’s a merman now, maybe…”

  “Oh, is he? I didn’t know. The sea is a big place, sweetie. Tell me how that happened. Last time I heard anything about him, he was into fire.”

  “My stepmother—his second wife—tried to kill us. Merfolk saved him, but I guess when he nearly drowned maybe it tipped the balance of his nature so that he was more mer than human by the time they were done. He doesn’t really recognize me yet. Perhaps you could talk to him? I don’t seem to have any trouble conversing with you.”

  “Might be he’s still shocked from the injury. When did this all happen?”

  Verity needed no further encouragement to launch into the tale of the last year of her life. When she’d finished an abbreviated version, she said, “Listen, Aunty, about the ships? I crewed on the Belle’s Shell from Queenston to Aunt Erotica’s place at Horn Haven. Could you, uh, do me a favor and NOT wreck them?”

  Eulalia twisted back to give her a dirty look. “You sure know how to take the fun out of family reunions, wanting favors like that on such short acquaintance!”

  “Maybe so, but they’re friends. You’d like them if you got to know them. Most of them are singers and musicians too. Maybe you could learn new songs from each other or is your repertoire, um, magically regulated or something?”

  Her aunt snorted seawater. “Not exactly. It’s just that I have very little chance to learn new songs. I only meet ships and as soon as I perform for them, well, you know.” She shrugged. “Not that I don’t enjoy that part, of course. Most of us merfolk are of the opinion that the only good sailor is a dead sailor, but drowning is a real conversation stopper.”

  Since Eulalia hadn’t asked and it hadn’t come up in conversation so far, Verity said, “In case you’re wondering why I came to see you—and Aunt Erotica for that matter—I’m under a geas of sorts to find the descendants of some of the great magicians who were murdered just before the end of the Great War. Would you happen to know or have heard of any still living near your Atoll?”

  Eulalia made a clicking sound behind her pointed teeth. “Err, I have the same problem with the living on land as I do when they’re on shipboard. They tend not to survive the introduction. But I have heard talk that the family that used to occupy Cliffslide Castle once had a wizard in the family. I couldn’t tell you if that’s true or just rumor though, because apparently the castle went under siege toward the end of the war and got razed. I believe the family moved inland after a son married into the Raspberry family from Little Darlingham.”

  For someone who didn’t know much, Aunt Eulalia was very loquacious once she got started.

  She said hospitably, “I suppose you and yon dragon are hungry by now, aren’t you? I’m starved! You’ve made it pretty clear drowned sailor isn’t to your taste—er—how about yours, Dragon? They keep pretty well wrapped in seaweed, where they’re protected from the fish.” With that, she dov
e into the sea, diving deep, and resurfacing ten or fifteen minutes later some distance away, diving again, and resurfacing near the rock with an armload of seaweed, which she handed Verity.

  “Here. Hold this while I regain my perch, will you? Get it? Perch?”

  “I do,” Verity said with an accommodating smile and nod. “Perch is a fish and you’re a mermaid. Very clever.”

  By that time Eulalia had regained her seat. “I’m famished. Dragon, you could try it if you like.”

  “But it’s plants.”

  “So it is. But they’re very nourishing, and I think you’ll find them delicious.”

  They dined on seaweed in a companionable fashion. Verity was surprised to find that the seaweed was naturally salty and even while wet had a nice crunch to it.

  “This would be nice with fish.”

  Steam rose from the sides of the dragon’s mouth.

  Eulalia looked pained. “Fish? I’m a vegetarian! I don’t really eat the drowned sailors. This tasty seaweed is much better for you.”

  “But the dragon will need more than…” Verity started to say.

  “The sea serpent who used to live in these waters got by just fine with a seaweed diet,” Eulalia assured her. “It’s very healthful. I don’t see why a dragon can’t do the same.”

  Devent continued nibbling, shortening the long tube of weed Eulalia extended to him from a pile beside her tail.

  “It tastes kind of familiar, actually,” he pronounced as he finished the first tube and reached for a second.

  Verity had to agree with him when she chewed on a second strand. It did taste familiar. It reminded her a bit of the scones her mother had made from the treated dragon kibble.

  “Now then, Dragon, I promised to teach you my song. All I ask is one teensy itty-bitty minnow-sized little favor in return,” she said, but her voice turned from wheedling to hard with the next part. “Just go out to that ship whose master dared lay hands on me and burn it to charcoal, will you? Pleeeease?”