Tales of Ethshar

1

The dragon atop the mountain loomed over the village like a tombstone over a grave, and Wuller looked up at it in awe.

“Do you think it’ll come any closer?” he whispered to his aunt.

Illuré shook her head.

“There’s no telling, with dragons,” she said. “Particularly not the really big ones. One that size must be as experienced and cunning as any human that ever lived.”

Something was odd about her voice. Wuller glanced at her face, which was set in a rigid calm, and realized that his aunt Illuré, who had faced down a runaway boar with nothing but a turnspit, was terrified.

Even as he looked, her calm broke; her eyes went wide, her mouth started to open.

Wuller whirled back in time to see the dragon rising from its perch, its immense wings spread wide to catch the wind. It rose, wheeled about once, and then swept down toward the village, claws outstretched, like a hawk diving on its prey.

For a moment Wuller thought it was diving directly at him, and he covered his face with his hands, as if he were still a child.

Then he remembered how high that mountaintop was, and his mind adjusted the scale of what he had just seen — the dragon was larger and farther than he had assumed. Ashamed of his terror, he dropped his hands and looked up again.

The dragon was hovering over the village, directly over his own head. Wuller felt a tugging at one arm, and realized that Illuré was trying to pull him out from under the great beast.

He yielded, and a moment later the creature settled to the ground in the village common, the wind from its wings stirring up a cloud of grey dust and flattening the thin grass. The scent of its hot, sulphurous breath filled the town.

A swirl of dust reached Wuller, and he sneezed.

The dragon’s long neck dipped down, and its monstrous head swung around to look Wuller directly in the eye from a mere six or seven feet away.

He stared back, frozen with fear.

Then the head swung away again, the neck lifted it up, and the mighty jaws opened.

The dragon spoke.

“Who speaks for this village?” it said, in a voice like an avalanche.

“It talks!” someone said, in tones of awe and wonder.

The dragon’s head swept down to confront the speaker, and it spoke again.

“Yes, I talk,” it rumbled. “Do you?”

Wuller looked to see who it was addressing, and saw a young man in blue — his cousin Pergren, just a few years older than himself, who had only recently started his own flock.

Pergren stammered, unable to answer coherently, and the dragon’s jaws crept nearer and nearer to him. Wuller saw that they were beginning to open — not to speak, this time, but to bite.

Then a man stepped forward — Adar, the village smith, Wuller’s father’s cousin.

“I’ll speak for the village, dragon,” he called. “Leave that boy alone and say what you want of us.”

Wuller had always admired Adar’s strength and skill; now he found himself admiring the smith’s courage, as well.

The dragon reared up slightly, and Wuller thought it looked slightly amused. “Well!” it said. “One among you with manners enough to speak when spoken to — though hardly in a civil tone!”

“Get on with it,” Adar said.

“All right, if you’re as impatient as all that,” the dragon said. “I had intended to make a few polite introductions before getting down to business, but have it your way. I have chosen this village as my home. I have chosen you people as my servants. And I have come down here today to set the terms of your service. Is that clear and direct enough to suit you, man?”

Wuller tried to judge the dragon’s tone, to judge whether it was speaking sarcastically, but the voice was simply too different from human for him to tell.

“We are not servants,” Adar announced. “We are free people.”

“Not any more,” the dragon said.

2

Wuller shuddered again at the memory of Adar’s death, then turned his attention back to the meeting that huddled about the single lantern in his father’s house.

“We can’t go on like this,” his father was saying. “At a sheep a day, even allowing for a better lambing season next spring than the one we just had, we’ll have nothing left at all after three years, not even a breeding pair to start anew!”

“What would you have us do, then?” old Kirna snapped at him. “You heard what it said after it ate Adar. One sheep a day, or one person, and it doesn’t care which!”

“We need to kill it,” Wuller’s father said.

“Go right ahead, Wulran,” someone called from the darkness. “We won’t mind a bit if you kill it!”

“I can’t kill it, any more than you can,” Wuller’s father retorted, “but surely someone must be able to! Centuries ago, during the war, dragons were used in battle by both sides, and both sides killed great numbers of them. It can be done, and I’m sure the knowledge isn’t lost...”

“I’m not sure of that!” Kirna interrupted.

“All right, then,” Wulran shouted, “maybe it is lost! But look at us here! The whole lot of us packed together in the dark because we don’t dare light a proper council fire, for fear of that beast! Our livestock are taken one by one, day after day, and when the sheep run out it will start on us — it’s said as much! Already we’re left with no smith but a half-trained apprentice boy, because of that thing that lurks on the mountain. We’re dying slowly, the whole lot of us — would it be that much worse to risk dying quickly?”

An embarrassed silence was the only reply.

“All right, Wulran,” someone muttered at last, “what do you want us to do?”

Wuller looked at his father expectantly, and was disappointed to see the slumped shoulders and hear the admission, “I don’t know.”

“Maybe if we all attacked it...” Wuller suggested.

“Attacked it with what?” Pergren demanded. “Our bare hands?”

Wuller almost shouted back, “Yes,” but he caught himself at the last moment and stayed silent.

“Is there any magic we could use?” little Salla, who was barely old enough to attend the meeting, asked hesitantly. “In the stories, the heroes who go to fight dragons always have magic swords, or enchanted armor.”

“We have no magic swords,” Illuré said.

“Wait a minute,” Alasha the Fair said. “We don’t have a sword, but we have magic, of a sort.” Wuller could not be certain in the darkness, but thought she was looking at her sister Kirna as she spoke.

“Oh, now, wait a minute...” Kirna began.

“What’s she talking about, Kirna?” Pergren demanded.

“Kirna?” Illuré asked, puzzled.

Kirna glanced at the faces that were visible in the lantern’s glow, and at the dozens beyond, and gave in.

“All right,” she said, “but it won’t do any good. I’m not even sure it still works.”

“Not sure what still works?” someone asked.

“The oracle,” Kirna replied.

“What oracle?” someone demanded, exasperated.

“I’ll show you,” she answered, rising. “It’s at my house; I’ll go fetch it.”

“No,” Wulran said, with authority, “we’ll come with you. All of us. We’ll move the meeting there.”

Kirna started to protest, then glanced about and thought better of it.

“All right,” she said.

3

The thing gleamed in the lantern-light, and Wuller stared, fascinated. He had never seen anything magical before.

The oracle was a block of polished white stone — or polished something, anyway; it wasn’t any stone that Wuller was familiar with. A shallow dish of the smoothest, finest glass he had ever seen was set into the top of the stone, glass with only a faint tinge of green to it and without a single bubble or flaw.

Kirna handled it with extreme delicacy, holding it only by the sides of the block and placing it gently onto the waiting pile of furs.

“It’s been in my family since the Great War,” she said quietly. “One of my ancestors took it from the tent of a northern sorcerer when the Northern Empire fell and the victorious Ethsharites swept through these lands, driving the enemy before them.”

“What is it?” someone whispered.

“It’s an oracle,” Kirna said. “A sorcerer’s oracle.”

“Do we need a sorcerer to work it, then?”

“No,” Kirna said, staring at the glass dish and gently brushing her fingers down one side of the block. “My mother taught me how.”

She stopped and looked up.

“And it’s very old, and very delicate, and very precious, and we don’t know how many more questions it can answer, if it can still answer any at all, so don’t get your hopes up! We’ve been saving it for more than a hundred years!”

“Keeping it for yourselves, you mean!”

“And why not?” Alasha demanded, coming to her sister’s defense. “It was our family’s legacy, not the village’s! We’ve brought it out now, when it’s needed, haven’t we?”

Nobody argued with that.

“Go on, Kirna,” Wulran said quietly. “Ask it.”

“Ask it what, exactly?” she replied.

“Ask it who will save us from the dragon,” Pergren said. “None of us know how to kill it; ask it who can rid us of it.”

Kirna looked around and saw several people nod. “All right,” she said. She turned to the oracle, placed her hands firmly on either side of the block, and stared intently down into the glass dish.

Wuller was close enough to look over her left shoulder, while Illuré looked over her right, and Alasha and Wulran faced them on the other side of the oracle. All five watched the gleaming disk, while the rest of the crowd stood back, clearly more than a little nervous before this strange device. Wuller’s mother Mereth, in particular, was pressed back against the wall of the room, busily fiddling with the fancywork on her blouse to work off her nervousness.

“Pau’ron,” Kirna said. “Yz’raksis nyuyz’r, lai brinan allasis!”

The glass dish suddenly began to glow with a pale, eerie light. Wuller heard someone gasp.

“It’s ready,” Kirna said, looking up.

“Ask it,” Wulran told her.

Kirna looked about, shifted her knees to a more comfortable position, then stared into the dish again.

“We are beset by a dragon,” she said loudly. “Who can rid us of it?”

Wuller held his breath and stared as faint bluish shapes appeared in the dish, shifting shapes like clouds on a windy day, or the smoke from a blown-out candle. Some of them seemed to form runes, but these broke apart before he could read them.

“I can’t make it out,” Kirna shouted. “Show us more clearly!”

The shapes suddenly coalesced into a single image, a pale oval set with two eyes and a mouth. Details emerged, until a face looked up out of the dish at them, the face of a young woman, not much older than Wuller himself, a delicate face surrounded by billows of soft brown hair. Her eyes were a rich green, as green as the moss that grew on the mountainside.

Wuller thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful.

Then the image vanished, the glow vanished, and the glass dish shattered into a dozen jagged fragments.

Kirna let out a long wail of grief at the oracle’s destruction, while Illuré called, “Find me paper! I must draw the face before we forget it!”

4

Wuller stared at the portrait. Illuré had come very close, he thought, but she had not quite captured the true beauty of the face he had seen in the glass.

“Who is she?” Pergren asked. “It’s no one in the village, certainly, nor anyone I ever saw before.”

“Whoever she is, how can she possibly kill a hundred-foot dragon?” Pergren’s brother Gennar demanded.

“Maybe she’s a magician,” Pergren suggested.

“There must be more powerful magicians in the World than her, though,” Gennar objected. “If it just takes magic, why didn’t the oracle say so? Why not show us some famous powerful wizard?”

“Maybe she won’t kill it,” Alasha said. “Kirna asked who could rid us of the dragon, not who could slay it.”

Gennar snorted. “You think she’ll talk it into going away?”

“Maybe,” Alasha said. “Or maybe there’s another way.”

Pergren and Gennar turned to stare at her. Wuller was still looking at the picture.

Illuré certainly had a talent for drawing, he thought; the charcoal really looked like shadows and soft hair.

“What do you mean?” Pergren asked Alasha.

“I mean, that in some of the old stories, there are tales of sacrifices to dragons, where when a beautiful virgin willingly gave herself to the monster the beast was overcome by her purity, and either died or fled after devouring her.”

Pergren glanced at the picture. “You think that’s what she’s to do, then? Sacrifice herself to the dragon?”

Gennar snorted. “That’s silly,” he said.

“No, it’s magic,” Alasha retorted.

“Why don’t you sacrifice yourself, then, if you think it’ll work?” Gennar demanded.

“I said a virgin,” Alasha pointed out.

“She said beautiful, too,” Pergren said, grinning. Alasha tossed a pebble at him.

“We have a couple of virgins here,” Gennar said. “At least, I think we do.”

“Virgins or not,” Pergren said, “the oracle said that she would rid us of the dragon.” He pointed to the picture Wuller held.

“No,” said Alasha, “it said she could rid us of the dragon, not would.”

That sobered all of them.

“So how do we find her?” Pergren asked. “Do we just sit here and wait for her to walk into the village, while that monster eats a sheep a day?”

“I’ll go look for her,” Wuller said.

The other three turned to him, startled.

“You?” Gennar asked.

“Why not?” Wuller replied. “I’m small enough to slip away without the dragon noticing me, and I’m not doing anything important around here anyway.”

“How do you expect to find her, though?” Pergren asked. “It’s a big world out there.”

Wuller shrugged. “I don’t know, for sure,” he admitted, “but if we had that oracle here, then surely there will be ways to find her in the cities of the south.”

Gennar squinted at him. “Are you sure you aren’t just planning to slip away and forget all about us, once you’re safely away?”

Wuller didn’t bother to answer that; he just swung for Gennar’s nose.

Gennar ducked aside, and Wuller’s fist grazed his cheek harmlessly.

“All right, all right!” Gennar said, raising his hands, “I apologize!”

Wuller glared at him for a moment, then turned back to the portrait.

“I think Wuller’s right,” Pergren said. “Somebody has to go find her, and I’ve heard enough tales about the wizards of Ethshar to think that he’s right, finding a magician is the way to do it.”

“Why him, though?” Gennar demanded.

“Because he volunteered first,” Pergren said. “Besides, he’s right, he is small and sneaky. Remember when he stole your laces, and hid in that bush, and you walked right past him, looking for him, half a dozen times?”

Gennar conceded the point with a wave of his hand.

“It’s not up to us, though,” he said. “It’s up to the elders. You think old Wulran’s going to let his only son go off by himself?”

Alasha whispered, looking at Wuller, “He just might.”

5

In fact, Wulran was not enthusiastic about the idea when it was brought up at the meeting that night, and started to object.

His wife leaned over and whispered in his ear, cutting him off short.

He stopped, startled, and listened to her; then he looked at Wuller’s face and read the solid determination there.

He shut his mouth and sat, silent and unhappy, as the others thrashed the matter out, and the next morning he embraced Wuller, then watched as the boy vanished among the trees.

It was really much easier than Wuller had expected; the dragon never gave any sign of noticing his departure at all. He just walked away, not even hiding — though he did stay under the trees, hidden from the sky.

At first, he simply walked, marking a tree-branch with his knife every few yards and heading southwest — south, because that was where all the cities were, and west to get down out of the mountains. He didn’t worry about a particular destination, or what he was going to do for food, water, or shelter. He knew that the supplies he carried with him would only last for two or three days, and that it would probably take much longer than that to find a magician, but he just couldn’t bring himself to think about that in his excitement over actually leaving the village and the dragon behind.

He took the charcoal sketch out of his pack, unrolled it, and studied it as he ambled onward beneath the pines.

Whoever the girl was, she was certainly beautiful, he thought. He wondered how long it would take him to find her.

He never doubted that he would find her eventually; after all, he had the portrait, and magic was said to be capable of almost anything. If one ancient sorcerous device could provide her image, surely modern wizardry, or some other sort of magic, would be able to locate her!

An hour or so from home he stopped for a rest, sitting down on the thick carpet of pine needles between two big roots and leaning back against the trunk of the tree he had just marked.

He had worked up an appetite already, but he resisted the temptation to eat anything. He hadn’t brought that much food, and would need to conserve it.

Of course, he would get some of his food from the countryside, or at least that was what he had planned. Perhaps he could find something right here where he sat.

Glancing around he saw a small patch of mushrooms, and he leaned over for a closer look — he knew most of the local varieties, and some of them were quite tasty, even raw.

This variety he recognized immediately, and he shuddered and didn’t touch them. They might be tasty, but nobody had ever lived long enough to say after eating them. Illuré had told him that this particular sort, with the thin white stem and the little cup at the bottom, held the most powerful poison known to humanity.

He decided he wasn’t quite so hungry after all, and instead he took a drink from his water flask; surely, finding drinking water would be easy enough! If he kept on heading downhill, sooner or later he would find a stream.

Far more important than food or water, he thought, was deciding where to go. He had talked about going all the way to Ethshar, but that was hundreds of miles away; no one from the village had ever been to Ethshar. Surely he wouldn’t really need to go that far!

He looked about, considering.

His home, he knew, was in the region of Srigmor, which had once been claimed by the Baronies of Sardiron. The claim had been abandoned long ago; the North Mines weren’t worth the trouble of working, when the mines of Tazmor and Aldagmor were so much richer and more accessible, and Srigmor had nothing else that a baron would consider worth the trouble of surviving a winter there.

Sardiron was still there to the south, though.

To the west lay unnamed, uninhabited forests; he did not want to go there. True, beyond them lay the seacoast, and there might be people there, but it would be a long, hard, dangerous journey, and he knew nothing about what he might find there.

To the southwest the forests were said to end after about three days’ travel, opening out onto the plain of Aala. If Srigmor were part of any nation now, it was part of Aala.

He had never heard of any magicians living in Aala, though. He tended to associate magicians with cities and castles, not with farms and villages, and Aala had no cities or castles.

The Baronies of Sardiron it would be, then.

His grandfather had visited Sardiron once, had made the long trip to the Council City itself, Sardiron of the Waters. If his grandfather could do it, so could he.

He stood up, brushed off pine needles, and marched onward, now heading almost directly south.

6

Streams were harder to find than he had thought, and not all were as clean as he liked; after the first day he made it a point to fill his flask at every opportunity, and to drink enough at each clear stream to leave himself feeling uncomfortably bloated.

His food ran out at breakfast the third day, and he discovered edible mushrooms weren’t as common as he had expected — though the poisonous ones seemed plentiful enough — and that rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks were harder to catch than he had realized. Skinning and cooking them was also far more work than he had expected it to be; the hunters and cooks at home had made it look so easy!

He almost broke his belt knife when it slipped while he was holding a dead squirrel on a large rock as he tried to gut it; he felt the shock in his wrist as the blade slipped and then snagged hard on a seam in the rock, and he held his breath, afraid that he had snapped off the tip.

He hadn’t, but from then on he was more careful. The knife was an absolutely essential item now. He wished he had had the sense to borrow another, so as to have a spare.

He had made good time the first two days, but after that much of his effort went to hunting, cooking, eating, and finding someplace safe to sleep. He dropped from seven or eight leagues a day to about four.

He had expected to find villages, where he could ask for food and shelter. He didn’t. He knew that there were villages within three or four leagues of his own, and assumed there were more scattered all through Srigmor, but somehow he never managed to come across any. He saw distant smoke several times, but never managed to find its source.

By the third night he was very tired indeed of sleeping on dead leaves or pine needles, wrapped in his one thin blanket. Even in the mild weather of late spring, the nights could be chilly — so chilly that only utter exhaustion let him sleep.

Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, though, his luck finally changed. He saw a break in the forest cover ahead and turned toward it, since such openings were often made by fallen trees that rotted out and became home to various edible creatures.

This opening, however, was not made by just one fallen tree. Rather, an entire line had been cleared away, and the surface below was completely free of debris. It was a long ribbon of hard-packed dirt edged by grass, with two shallow ruts running parallel for its entire length, and Wuller realized with a start that he was looking at a highway.

His spirits soared; checking his bearings from the sun, he set out southward on the road, certain that he would find other people to talk to within minutes. In his eager confidence, he did not worry about finding supper.

The minutes passed, and added up into hours, as the sun vanished below the trees to his right, while he encountered no one at all.

At last, long after dark, he gave up. He found himself a clear spot by the roadside where he unpacked his blanket and curled up in it, still hungry.

Despite his hunger, he slept.

7

He was awakened by laughter. He sat up, startled and groggy, and looked about.

An ox-drawn wagon was passing him by. A man and a woman sat on its front bench, leaning against each other as the woman giggled.

“I like that, Okko!” she said. “Know any more?”

“Sure,” the man replied. “Ever hear the one about the witch, the wainwright, and the Tazmorite? It seems that the three of them were on a raft floating down the river when the raft started to sink...”

Wuller shook his head to get the bits of grass and leaves out of his hair, stood up, and called out, “Hai! Over here!”

The man stopped his story and turned to see who had called, but did not stop his pair of oxen. The woman bent quickly down behind the bench, as if looking for something.

“Wait a minute!” Wuller called.

The man snorted. “Not likely!” he said. The wagon trundled on, heading north.

With a quick glance at his unpacked belongings and another down the highway to the south, Wuller ran after the wagon, easily catching up to it.

The driver still refused to stop, and the woman had sat up again, holding a cocked crossbow across her lap.

“Look,” Wuller said as he walked alongside, “I’m lost and hungry and I need help. My village is being held hostage by a dragon, and I...”

“Don’t tell me your troubles, boy,” the driver said. “I’ve got my own problems.”

“But couldn’t you help me? I need to find a magician, so I can find this girl...” He realized he had left the sketch with his pack, back where he had slept. “If you could give me a ride to Sardiron...”

The driver snorted again. “Sardiron! Boy, take a look which way we’re going! We’re heading for Srigmor to trade with the natives, we aren’t going back to Sardiron. And I’m no magician, and I don’t know anything about any magicians. We can’t help you, boy; sorry.”

“But I just came down from Srigmor, and I don’t know my way...”

The driver turned and stared at Wuller for a moment. The oxen plodded on.

“You just came from Srigmor?” he asked.

“Yes, I did, and...”

“There’s a dragon there? Where? Which village?”

A sudden rush of hope made Wuller’s feet light as he paced alongside. “It doesn’t really have a name — it’s not on the highway...”

“Oh!” the man said, clearly relieved. “One of the back country villages, up in the hills?”

“I guess so,” Wuller admitted.

“Then it won’t bother me,” the driver said. “Sorry, it’s not my problem. You go on south and find your magician.” He turned his eyes back to the road, and said to the woman, “As I was saying, the raft starts to sink, and they’re too far from shore to swim. So the witch goes into a trance and works a spell to keep it afloat, and the wainwright gets out his tools and starts trying to patch the leaks and caulk it all up, but the Tazmorite just sits there...”

Wuller stopped, and watched in dismay as the wagon rolled on northward.

He had not expected a reaction like that.

On the rare occasions when an outsider happened into his native village, he or she was invariably made to feel welcome, given the best food, drink, and shelter that the village could offer. He had expected to receive the same treatment in the outside world.

It appeared that he had misjudged.

Or perhaps, he told himself, that rather hostile pair was a fluke, an aberration. Surely, most people would be more generous!

He turned and headed back down the road, collected his belongings, and marched on southward toward Sardiron, certain that the pair in the wagon could not be typical.

8

The pair in the wagon had not been typical; most people either wouldn’t talk to him at all, or shouted at him to go away.

It didn’t help any that all the traffic he encountered was northbound.

By mid-afternoon he had met half a dozen such rejections, and gone a full day without food. He was debating with himself whether he should leave the road to hunt something when he glimpsed a building ahead, standing at the roadside.

He quickened his pace a little.

A moment later he spotted a second building, and a third — an entire village!

Fifteen minutes later he stood on the cobblestones of the village square, looking about in fascination.

Roads led off to north, south, and east; he had come in from the north, and to the south lay Sardiron of the Waters, but where did the eastern road go? The mountains lay to the east, and while they did not look as tall here as they did back home, surely that was just a matter of distance. Why would anyone want to go into the mountains?

The square itself amazed him. He had never seen cobblestones before; the only pavement back home was the slate floor of the smithy. Here, a broad circle, perhaps a hundred feet across, was completely cobbled. He marvelled at the work that must have gone into the job.

At the center of the circle was a fountain, and he marvelled at that, too. He wondered how they made the water spray up like that; was it magic? If it was magic, would it be safe to drink?

Houses and shops surrounded the square, and those, while less marvelous, were strange; they were built of wood, of course, but the end of each beam was carved into fantastic shapes, like flowers or ferns or faces. He recognized the smithy readily enough by its open walls and glowing forge, and the bakery was distinguished by the enticing aroma and the broad window display of breads and cakes, but some of the other shops puzzled him. The largest of all, adjoining a shed or barn of some sort, bore a signboard with no runes on it at all, but simply a picture of a lone pine tree surrounded by flames.

Curious, he took a few steps toward this peculiar establishment.

An unfamiliar animal thrust its head over the top of a pen in the adjoining shed, and suddenly something clicked into place in Wuller’s mind.

That was a horse, he realized. The shed was a stable. And the building, surely, must be an inn!

He had never seen a horse, a stable, or an inn before, but he had no doubt of his guess. An inn would give him food and a place to sleep; he marched directly toward the door.

The proprietor of the Burning Pine blinked at the sight of the peasant lad. The boy looked perhaps fifteen, and most northern peasants kept their sons at home until they were eighteen; if one was out on the road at a younger age it usually meant a runaway or an orphan.

Neither runaways nor orphans had much money, as a rule. “What do you want?” the innkeeper demanded.

Startled, Wuller turned and saw a plump old man in an apron. “Ah... dinner, to start with,” he said.

“You have the money to pay for it?”

Wuller had never used money in his life; his village made out quite well with barter, when communal sharing didn’t suffice. All the same, his uncle Regran had insisted that he bring along what few coins the village had.

Wuller dug them out and displayed them — a piece and three bits, in iron.

The proprietor snorted. “Damn peasants! Look, that’ll buy you a heel of bread and let you sleep in the stable — anything more than that costs copper.”

Old stories percolated in the back of his mind. “I could work,” Wuller offered.

“I don’t need any help, thank you,” the innkeeper said. “You take your bread, get your water from the fountain, and you be out of here first thing in the morning.”

Wuller nodded, unsure what to say. “Thank you” seemed more than the man deserved.

Then he remembered his mission. “Oh, wait!” he said, reaching back to pull out the sketch. “I’m looking for someone. Have you seen her?”

The innkeeper took the drawing and studied it, holding it up to the light.

“Pretty,” he remarked. “And nicely drawn, too. Never saw her before, though — she certainly hasn’t come through here this year.” He handed the portrait back. “What happened, boy — your girl run away?”

“No,” Wuller said, suddenly reluctant to explain. “It’s a long story.”

“Fine,” the innkeeper said, turning away. “It’s none of my business in any case.”

9

Wuller was gone the next morning, headed south, but not before listening to the chatter in the inn’s common room and asking a few discreet questions when the opportunity arose.

He knew now that he was well inside the borders of the Baronies of Sardiron, that this inn, the Burning Pine, was the last before the border on the road north to Srigmor. Each spring and summer traders would head north, bringing the Srigmorites salt, spices, tools, and other things; each summer and fall they would come back home to Sardiron with wool, furs, and amber.

To the east lay The Passes, where a person could safely cross the mountains into the Valley of Tazmor, that fabulous realm that Wuller had never entirely believed in before.

There was little magic to be found around here, save for the usual village herbalists and a few primitive sorcerers and witches — but a mere fifteen leagues to the south was Sardiron of the Waters, where any number of magicians dwelt.

None of the people who had visited the inn had recognized the girl in the picture, or had any useful suggestions about finding her.

He also knew now that a lump of stale bread was not enough to still the growling of his stomach or stop the pinching he felt there, but that he could buy no better unless he could acquire some money — real money, copper or silver or even gold, not the cheap iron coins the peasants used among themselves.

As he left the village he sighed, and decided he needed to catch another squirrel or two — which would probably be a great deal more difficult now that he was in inhabited country.

Even as he decided this, he looked down the road ahead, past the trees on either side, and saw what looked like a very large clearing. He sighed again; squirrels preferred trees.

He watched both sides of the road carefully, but had spotted no game when he emerged into the “clearing” and realized his mistake.

This was no clearing. This was the edge of the forest.

Before him lay a vast expanse of open land, such as he had never seen before, or even imagined. Rolling hills stretched to the horizon covered with brown plowed fields and green grass, and dotted with farmhouses and barns. The highway drew a long, gentle curve across this landscape, no longer hidden by the forest gloom.

A few trees grew on the farms and hills, to be sure — shade trees sheltered some of the houses, and small groves of fruit trees or nut trees added some variety. In some places, neat lines of young trees marked boundaries between farms.

Most of the land was treeless, however, like the mountains where the sheep grazed above his home village.

He would find no squirrels here, he was sure.

Even as he came to that conclusion a rabbit leapt from concealment and dashed across the road in front of him, and he smiled. Where there was one rabbit, there would be others.

Two hours later he knocked on the door of a farmhouse by the roadside, a freshly-skinned rabbit in hand.

In exchange for half the rabbit and all of its fur, he was permitted to cook over the kitchen fire and eat sitting at the table, chatting with his hostess while two cats and three young children played underfoot. Water from the farmer’s well washed the meal down nicely.

Thus refreshed, he set out southward again.

Not long after that he passed through a fair-sized town — to him, it seemed impossibly large and bustling, but he knew it couldn’t be any place he had ever heard of, since he was still well to the north of Sardiron of the Waters. A large stone structure stood atop a hill to the east, brooding over the town and a highway, and Wuller realized with a shock that that big ugly thing was a castle.

Having no money, Wuller marched directly through without stopping.

An hour later he encountered another village, and another one an hour or so after that, though these had no castles. They had inns — but Wuller had no money.

At sunset, he found himself on the outskirts of another town. Like the village of the Burning Pine and the town with the castle, this one had three highways leaving it, rather than just two. Unlike the other towns, here the directions weren’t north, south, and east, but north, south, and northeast; it wasn’t a crossroads, but a fork.

There were no fewer than three inns on the town square; Wuller marvelled at that.

He was tired and hungry, so he did more than marvel — he went to each in turn and asked if he could work for a meal and a bed.

The proprietor of the Broken Sword said no, but was polite. The owner of the Golden Kettle threw him out. And at the Blue Swan the innkeeper’s daughter took pity on him and let him clean the stables in exchange for bread, cheese, ale, and whatever he could pick off the bones when the paying customers were finished with their dinners.

She also found him a bed for the night — her own.

10

No one at the Blue Swan could identify the girl in the portrait, but the innkeeper’s daughter suggested he contact Senesson the Mage when he reached Sardiron itself. Senesson was a wizard who was said to be good at this sort of work.

There were a good many magicians of various sorts in her town of Keron-Vir, but she doubted any of them could help — and certainly not for free.

Wuller hesitated over that, but in the end he took her advice. After all, Sardiron of the Waters was only one day’s walk away now, and he wanted to see the capital after coming so close. Besides, Teneria surely knew her own townspeople well enough to judge such things.

He did, however, stop in at the Golden Kettle and the Broken Sword to show the portrait around.

As he had expected, nobody knew who the girl in the picture was.

He shrugged, gathered his things, and set out.

He glimpsed the castle towers by mid-afternoon, and he could see the city walls and hear the thunder of the falls before the sun had set, but it was full dark by the time he reached the gates, with neither moon in the sky, and he made his entrance into Sardiron of the Waters by torchlight.

Even in the dark, he was impressed by the place. All the streets were paved with brick, flags, or cobbles — not a one was bare earth, anywhere inside the walls. Where the hillside was steep, the streets were built in steps, like a gigantic staircase.

The buildings were built up against each other, with no gap at all between them in many cases, while others left only a narrow alley — and even these alleys were paved.

Torches blazed at every intersection, and despite the gloom the streets were not deserted at all — people were going about their business even in the dark of night!

The sound was also amazing. The roar of the river was a constant background to everything, and fountains splashed in a dozen little squares and plazas, as well, as the city lived up to its name. A steady wind moaned endlessly around the black stone towers. On top of this were the normal sounds of a big, busy town — creaking cartwheels, lowing oxen, and a myriad of human voices chattering away.

The great castle of the Council of Barons reared up above the city, high atop the hill, looming darkly over everything.

The place was really like another world entirely, Wuller thought, as he looked about in confusion, wondering where he could eat or sleep.

A torchlit signboard caught his eye. There were no runes, but a faded painting of a dragon hatching from an egg.

That, he knew, must be an inn. And perhaps the dragon emblem was an omen, of sorts.

There was no broad window displaying ale kegs and pewter tankards, nor open door spilling light into the street, as there had been at the village inns he had seen so far — in fact, the only window here was a small one with bars on it, high above the street, and heavily curtained with black velvet. The only door was painted in four triangular sections, red at top and bottom and blue at either side, and studded with short spikes of black iron. It was tightly closed.

However, most of the city’s architecture was equally strange and forbidding. He had seen no open doors or large windows anywhere inside the gates. This had to be an inn. He gathered his courage and knocked on the heavy wooden door, between the protruding spikes.

One of the spikes twisted, then slid back into the door and vanished; startled, Wuller looked into the hole it had left and saw an eye staring back at him.

Then the spike was replaced and the door swung open.

“We’ve no beds left,” the old woman who had opened it announced, before he could say a word, “but if you’ve money for drink, we have plenty on hand.”

“I don’t have any money,” Wuller explained, “but I’d be glad to work for a drink, or a bite to eat, or to sleep in a corner — I don’t need a bed.” He looked past her, into the common room, where a crowd of people was laughing and eating at tables set around a blazing hearth.

“We don’t need any,” the old woman began.

Wuller’s gasp of astonishment interrupted her.

“Wait!” he said. “Wait!” He slid his pack off his shoulder and began digging through it.

“Young man,” the woman said, “I don’t have time for any nonsense...”

Wuller waved a hand at her. “No, wait!” he said. “Let me show you!” He pulled out the charcoal portrait and unrolled it.

“Lady, I’ve come all the way from northern Srigmor,” Wuller explained, “on an errand for my village — there’s a dragon, and... well, you don’t care about that. But look!” He showed her the picture.

She took it and held it up to the light from the commons.

“Seldis of Aldagmor,” she said. “Good likeness, too.” She glanced into the room beyond, where the young woman Wuller sought was sitting alone at a table eating dinner, then looked at the picture again, and from the portrait back to Wuller. “What do you have to do with her?”

Wuller decided quickly that this was not the time for the complete and exact truth, but for something simpler.

“I must speak with her,” he said. “The seer in our village knew her face, but not her name, and sent me to find her. I had thought I would have to search for sixnights yet, or months — but there she is in your dining hall! Please, let me come in and speak with her!”

The old woman looked at the portrait again, then turned to look at the young woman in the room beyond, sitting alone at a small table. Then she shrugged, and handed the picture back to Wuller.

“No business of mine,” she said. “You behave yourself, though — any trouble and I’ll have the guard in here.”

“No trouble, lady,” Wuller said. “I promise!”

11

He settled into the chair opposite her, still astonished at his incredible good fortune, and astonished as well at her beauty. Neither Illuré’s charcoal sketch nor the image in the oracle had really captured it.

“Hello,” he said. “My name’s Wuller Wulran’s son.”

She looked up from her plate and stared at him, but said nothing. The face was unmistakably the one he had seen in Kirna’s oracle, the one that Illuré had drawn, with the vivid green eyes and the soft curls of dark brown hair. It was somewhat eerie to see it there in front of him as a real face, a small smudge of grease on the chin, rather than as a mere image.

The reality was more beautiful than the image, grease-spot notwithstanding.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

She turned her attention back to her plate, where a few fried potato slices remained. Wuller glanced at them, reminded how hungry he was, then returned his gaze to the top of her head.

“No, really, I’ve come all the way from northern Srigmor looking for you. My village elders sent me.” He pulled out the portrait and unrolled it. “See?”

She raised her head, put a slice of potato in her mouth, and began chewing. She blinked. Then she put down her fork, reached out, and took the picture.

She stared at it for a moment, then looked at Wuller. “Did you do this, just now?” she asked. “It’s pretty good.”

“No,” Wuller said. “My Aunt Illuré drew it, more than a sixnight ago.”

“A sixnight ago I was home in Aldagmor,” the girl said, her gaze wary.

“I know,” Wuller said. “I mean, no, I didn’t know at all, really, but I know that Illuré didn’t see you. I mean, didn’t really see you.”

“Then how... all right, then who’s this Illuré person? How did she draw this? I don’t know anybody named Illuré that I can recall.”

“You’ve never met her. She’s my aunt, back home in Srigmor. She drew this because she’s the best artist of the people who saw your face in the oracle.”

“What oracle?”

“Kirna’s family oracle.”

“Who’s Kirna?”

“She’s one of the village elders. Her family got this sorcerer’s oracle during the Great War, and it was passed down ever since, and when the dragon came...”

“What dragon? One of... I mean, what dragon?”

“The dragon that’s captured my village.”

The girl stared at Wuller for a moment, and then sighed. “I think you’d better start at the beginning,” she said, “and explain the whole thing.”

Wuller nodded, and took a deep breath, and began.

He described the dragon, how it had arrived one day without warning. He told her how it had killed Adar the Smith and given the village an ultimatum. He explained about the meeting in Kirna’s hut, and how the oracle had shattered after showing them her face.

“...and they sent me to find you,” he said. “And here I am, and I thought I’d have to find some way to hire a magician to find you, only I don’t have any money, and then by sheer luck, here you are!”

“No money?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Does anyone in your village have any money?”

“Not any more,” he said, a trifle worried by this line of questioning.

He considered what he might do if she proved reluctant to come to the aid of the village. Small as he was for his age, he was still slightly bigger and stronger than she was; if worst came to worst, perhaps he could kidnap her and carry her home by force.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “Will you help?” he asked.

She looked down at the portrait she still held.

“Well,” she admitted, “your oracle wasn’t completely silly. I do know something about dragons. My family — well, my father’s a dragon-hunter. That’s been the family business for a long, long time now. That’s why I come to this particular inn when I’m here, the Dragon’s Egg, because of the connection with dragons. I was here in the city selling the blood from my father’s latest kill to the local wizards; they use it in their spells. And some of my uncles will get rid of dragons when they cause trouble. But ordinarily...” She frowned. “Ordinarily, we don’t work for free. This dragon of yours doesn’t sound like one I’ve heard of before, so there’s no question of family responsibility — I mean, this isn’t one that we taught to talk, or anything. At least, I don’t think it is.”

Wuller suggested desperately, “We could pay in sheep, or wool.”

She waved that away. “How would I get sheep from Srigmor to Aldagmor? Even if they made the trip alive, I’d do better just buying them at home. Same for wool. We don’t raise as much in Aldagmor as you do up north, but we have enough.”

“If you don’t come, though,” Wuller said, “my village will die. Even if the dragon doesn’t eat us, we’ll starve when the sheep are gone.”

She drew a deep sigh. “I know,” she said. She looked around the room, as if hoping that someone else would suggest a solution, but nobody else was listening.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose I’ll have to go.”

Wuller couldn’t repress his smile; he beamed at her.

“But I don’t like it,” she added.

12

When she realized that he was not merely poor but totally penniless she bought him dinner, and allowed him to stay the night in her room at the inn. Wuller slept on the floor, and she slept on the bed, and he dared not suggest otherwise, either by word or deed.

For one thing, he had noticed that she carried a good long dagger in her belt, under the long vest she wore. The hilt was worn, which implied that it had seen much use and was not there simply for show.

In the morning she bought them both breakfast, gave the innkeeper a message to be sent to her father when next someone was bound to Aldagmor, bundled up her belongings, and stood waiting impatiently by the door while Wuller finished his meal and got his own pack squared away.

That done, the two of them marched side by side down the sloping streets toward the city gates. It had rained heavily during the night, and the cobbles were still damp and slippery, so that they had to move carefully.

This was the first time Wuller had seen Sardiron of the Waters by daylight, and he was too busy marveling at the strange buildings of dark stone, the fountains everywhere, the broad expanse of the river and the falls sparkling in the morning sun, to pay much attention to his beautiful companion.

Once they were out the gate, though, he found his gaze coming back to her often. She was very beautiful indeed. He had never seen another girl or woman to equal her.

He guessed her to be a year or two older than his own sixteen winters. Her face was too perfect to be much older than that, he thought, but she had a poise and self-assurance that he had rarely seen in anyone, of any age.

Although her beauty had been obvious, she had seemed less impressive, somehow, the night before; perhaps the dim light had been responsible. After all, as the saying had it, candlelight hides many flaws. Could it not equally well conceal perfection?

By the time they were out of earshot of the falls, and the towers of the council castle were shrinking behind them, he worked up the nerve to speak to her again for the first time since they had left the inn.

“You’re from Aldagmor?” he asked.

Immediately, he silently cursed himself for such a banality. Where else could someone named Seldis of Aldagmor be from?

She nodded.

“Do you come here often, then?”

She looked at him, startled. “Here?” she asked, waving at the muddy highway and the surrounding farms. “I’ve never been here in my life!”

“I meant Sardiron,” he said.

“Aldagmor’s part of Sardiron,” she replied. “Our baron’s vice-chairman of the Council, in fact.”

“I meant the city, Sardiron of the Waters,” Wuller explained with a trace of desperation.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s not here. We left the city hours ago.” This was a gross exaggeration, but Wuller did not correct her. “I come down to the city about twice a year — usually once in the spring and once in the fall. I’m the one they can best spare, since I’m female and not strong enough for most of the work around... at home, so I make the trip to sell blood and hide and scales and order any supplies we need.”

“Lucky we were there at the same time, then,” Wuller said, smiling.

“Lucky for you,” she said.

Wuller’s smile vanished, and the conversation languished for a time.

The clouds thickened, and by midday it was drizzling. They stopped at an inn for lunch, hoping it would clear while they ate. Seldis paid for them both.

“This could be expensive,” she remarked.

Wuller groped for something to say.

“We’ll do our best to find a way to repay you,” he said at last.

She waved it away. “Don’t worry about it; it was my decision to come.”

Two hours later, when they were on the road again and the rain had worked itself up into a heavy spring downpour, she snapped at him, “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this!”

He said nothing.

13

They stayed the first night at the Blue Swan, in the town of Keron-Vir, but this time Teneria the innkeeper’s daughter was much less cooperative. She took one look at Seldis, and despite the dripping hair and soaked clothing saw that this was a beauty she could not possibly match; she refused to talk to either of them after that.

Seldis once again paid for meals and a small room, and once again she slept in the bed while Wuller slept on the floor.

He lay awake for half an hour or so, listening to the rain dripping from the eaves, before finally dozing off. He dared not even look at Seldis.

The rain had stopped by the time they left the next morning, and by noon Seldis was once again willing to treat Wuller as a human being. After a few polite remarks, he asked, “So how will you get rid of the dragon?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “I’ll need to see what the situation is.”

“But — ” he began.

She held up a hand. “No, really,” she said, “I don’t know yet, and even if I did, I might not want to tell you. Trade secrets, you know — family secrets.”

Wuller did not press the matter, but he worried about it. The oracle had said that Seldis could rid the village of the dragon, and Seldis herself seemed confident of her abilities, but still, he worried.

He remembered Alasha’s words, about virgins sacrificing themselves, and shifted his pack uneasily. Would Seldis sacrifice herself to the dragon?

The idea seemed silly at first thought — she hardly looked suicidal. On the other hand, she had agreed to make the journey in the first place, which certainly wasn’t a selfish decision. Just how altruistic was she?

He stole a glance at her. She was striding along comfortably, watching a distant hawk circling on the wind — scarcely the image he would expect of someone who intended to fling herself into a dragon’s jaws for the good of others.

He shook his head slightly. No, he told himself, that couldn’t be what she intended.

A nagging thought still tugged at him, though — it might turn out to be what the oracle had intended.

They stayed that night at the Burning Pine, in the village of Laskros, and as Wuller lay on the floor of their room, staring at the plank ceiling, he wondered if he was doing the right thing by taking Seldis to his village.

Why should she risk going there?

Why should he risk going back?

Wouldn’t it be better for both of them if they forgot about the dragon and the village and went off somewhere — Aldagmor, perhaps — together? He would court her, as best he could with no money and no prospects and no family...

No family. That was the sticking point. His family was waiting for him back home, relying on him. He couldn’t let them down without even trying. Here he had had the phenomenal good luck to find his quarry quickly, as if by magic, and now he was considering giving up?

No, he had to go home, and to take Seldis with him, and then to help in whatever it took to dispose of the dragon.

He looked at her, lying asleep on the bed, her skin pale as milk in the light of the two moons, and then he rolled over and forced himself to go to sleep.

14

“We won’t be staying in inns after this,” he told her the next morning. “We should leave the highway late today and go cross-country.”

She turned to stare at him. “I thought you said it was another few days,” she said.

“It is,” he replied.

She glanced eastward, at the forests that now lined that side of the road.

“If you headed east for two days, anywhere along this road, you’d wind up in the mountains,” she said. “Three days, and you’d be on bare stone, wouldn’t you?”

“If you headed due east,” he agreed. “But I didn’t say that. We head north-northeast.”

“For three or four days, you said?”

He nodded.

“Why not follow the road until we’re ready to turn east, then? We’ll be almost paralleling it!”

“Because,” he said reluctantly, “I don’t know the way if we do that. I can only find my way home by following the trail of peeled branches I marked coming south.”

“Oh,” she said.

A few paces later she asked, “What were you planning to eat, if we’re leaving the road?”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.

Seldis stared at him with an unreadable expression. “What did you eat on the way down?” she inquired.

“Squirrels, mostly,” he said.

She sighed. “I think,” she said, “that we had best go back to the Burning Pine and buy some provisions. With more of my money, of course.”

Shame-faced, he agreed, and they retraced their steps.

When they reached Laskros Wuller pointed out a bakery and a smokeshop, so they did not in fact return to the Burning Pine for food. They did, however, buy three more blankets there. Wuller was proud of himself for thinking of that, and thought it partly compensated for his earlier foolishness.

There were no other delays, but the shopping expedition was enough to force them to sleep by the roadside that night, without having left the highway. Wuller refused to travel after the light began to fade, for fear of missing his trail, so the two of them settled down a dozen yards from the road, built a fire, and ate a leisurely dinner of sweet rolls and smoked mutton.

They chatted quietly about trivial matters — friends and family, favorite tales, and the like, never mentioning dragons or anything else unpleasant. When they were tired, they curled up in their separate blankets and went to sleep.

The next day they proceeded slowly, watching for marks, and at mid-morning or slightly thereafter Wuller spotted a pine branch with the bark curled back on the top — the mark he had used.

Standing under that branch he could see the next, and from that one the next.

Retracing his steps from tree to tree, they left the road and headed cross-country, back toward his home village.

They slept two more nights in the forest, but late the following afternoon Wuller recognized the landscape beyond any question, and a moment later Seldis spotted smoke from the village fires drifting above the trees.

They waited, and crept into the village under cover of darkness, making their way silently to Wuller’s own home.

When Wuller swung the door inward he heard his father bellow, “Who the hell is it at this hour?”

He peered around the door and said, “It’s me, Wuller. I’m back.”

Wulran was speechless. He stared silently as Wuller stepped inside, and as Wuller then gave Seldis a helping hand up the stoop.

The two travelers dropped their packs to the floor. Wuller pointed out a chair to Seldis, who settled into it gratefully and then put her tired feet up on another.

“You can sleep in Aunt Illuré’s room, I guess,” Wuller told her. He turned back to his father for confirmation, and was astonished to see old Wulran weeping silently, tears dripping down his beard on either side.

15

Wuller and Seldis arose late and spent the morning resting, soaking their tired feet and generally recovering from their journey. Meanwhile, Wuller’s family scurried about the village, passing the word of his return and his success in finding the girl the oracle had shown them. A council meeting was called for that evening to discuss the next step.

Shortly after lunch, while Illuré was showing Seldis around the village, Wulran gestured for Wuller to come sit by him.

The lad obeyed, a trife warily.

“Wuller,” the old man whispered, “you know what Alasha thinks, don’t you?”

“About what?” Wuller asked.

“About this girl you brought back — about how she’s to rid us of the dragon.”

Wuller thought he knew what his father meant, but he hesitated before saying anything.

“She’s to be a sacrifice,” Wulran said. “That’s what Alasha thinks. We may have to feed her to the dragon.”

Wuller’s thoughts were turbulent; he struggled to direct them enough to get words out, and failed.

“It’s necessary,” Wulran said. “Give up one life, and a foreigner at that, so that we all can live.”

“We don’t know that,” Wuller protested. “We don’t know if it’s necessary or not!”

Wulran shrugged. “True,” he said, “we don’t know for sure, but can you think of any other way that fragile little thing could rid us of the dragon?”

Wuller didn’t answer at first, because in truth, he could not. At last he managed, weakly, “She knows tricks, family secrets.”

“She may know the ritual of sacrifice, I suppose,” Wulran said.

Wuller could stand no more; he rose and marched off.

Wulran watched him go, and was satisfied when he saw that his son was not immediately heading off in search of the Aldagmorite girl, to warn her of her fate.

Wuller wanted to think before he did anything rash. He looked up at the mountaintop, where the dragon was sunning itself, and then around at the village, where his kin were all busily going about their everyday business. The sheep were out on the upslope meadows, and the smith’s forge was quiet, the fires banked, but villagers were hauling water, or stacking firewood, or sitting on benches carding wool. To the west of the smithy, the downwind side, a hardwood rick was being burnt down for charcoal.

He pulled the rather battered charcoal portrait out of his sleeve and looked at it.

Seldis’ face looked back at him.

He rolled the picture up and stuffed it back in his sleeve. Then he looked around.

Illuré and Seldis had been down to the stream, and were returning with buckets of water. Wuller thought about running over to them and snatching Seldis away, heading back south with her, away from the village — but he didn’t move. He stood and watched as she and Illuré brought their pails to the cistern and dumped them in.

Seldis was not stupid enough to have come all this way just to die, he told himself. She surely knew what she was doing. She would have some way to kill the dragon, some magical trade secret her father had taught her.

At least, he hoped so.

16

As the villagers gathered in Wulran’s main room, that worthy pulled his son aside and whispered, “We’ll listen to what the girl has to say, but then we may need to get her out of here for awhile. You understand. If that happens, you take her out and make sure she can’t overhear anything. Later on we’ll let you know where to bring her.”

Wuller nodded unhappily, then took a seat in the corner.

He understood perfectly. He was to be the traitor ram who would lead Seldis to the slaughter, if it came to that.

A few minutes later Wulran closed the door and announced, “I think everybody’s here.”

A sudden expectant silence fell as the quiet chatter died away.

“I think you all know what’s happened,” Wulran said. “My son Wuller went south to find the girl the oracle showed us, and damn me if he didn’t find her and bring her back, all in less than a month. The gods must like us, to make it as easy as that!”

He smiled broadly, and several polite smiles appeared in response.

“She’s here now,” he continued, “so let’s bring her on out and get down to business!” He waved to Illuré, who led Seldis to the center of the room.

A murmur ran through the gathering at the sight of her.

“I am Seldis of Aldagmor,” the girl announced. Several people looked startled, as if, Wuller thought, they hadn’t expected her to talk. They had been thinking of her as a thing, rather than a person, he guessed — the easier to sacrifice her to the dragon.

Wuller suppressed a growl at the thought. What good would sacrificing anybody do?

“My family has fought and killed dragons since the days of the Great War,” Seldis continued, “and I think I ought to be able to rid you of this one. First, though, I need to know everything about it, and what you’ve already tried. Wuller Wulran’s son told me a little on the journey up here from Sardiron, but I need to know everything.”

Several voices spoke up in reply, but after a moment’s confusion matters straightened themselves out. Kirna told the tale of the dragon’s arrival and the death of Adar the Smith, and of the ancient sorcerous oracle and the image it had shown them. Her sister Alasha corrected her on various details, and Wulran interjected commentary as he thought appropriate.

Seldis listened, and asked a question every so often — did the dragon seem to favor one side over the other when it ripped the smith apart, or did it use both foreclaws equally? Was its flight steady, like a hawk’s, or did it bob slightly, like a crow?

“...so we all agreed that Wuller should go, and the next morning he did,” Kirna concluded, “while we all waited here. From there on, lady, you know better than we.”

Seldis nodded. “And what did you do while you waited?” she asked.

The villagers looked at her and at one another in surprise.

“Nothing,” Alasha said. “We just waited.”

Seldis blinked. “You didn’t try anything else?” she asked.

Several people shook their heads.

“And you hadn’t tried anything else before you talked to this oracle?”

“No,” Kirna said. “What could we try? We saw what it did to Adar!”

Seldis stared around at the gathered villagers, and Wuller knew that she was trying hard to conceal genuine astonishment.

What had she expected them to try, he wondered.

Seldis closed her lips into a thin line, and then said, “Well, you haven’t been very much help, not having tried anything, but I certainly know what I’m going to try first. I can’t believe none of you ever thought to try it. You feed the beast a sheep every day, don’t you?”

Heads nodded, and Wulran said, “Yes.”

“Then I’ll need about two dozen little pouches,” Seldis said. “Pigs’ bladders would be perfect. I didn’t see many pigs around, though, so sheep bladders would do. Sausage casing should work, or even leather purses, if they’re sewn very tightly. They need to be small enough to stuff down a sheep’s throat — but not too small, and it doesn’t matter if it hurts the sheep.”

A confused murmur ran through the room.

Wuller blinked, puzzled. He glanced at his father in time to see Wulran giving him a meaningful stare and making a wiggling gesture with one finger.

His father thought Seldis was mad, he realized.

He rebelled mentally at that. He had spent a sixnight with her, and he knew she was not mad. Whatever she intended to do had to be a dragonhunter’s trick, not a madwoman’s folly.

And whatever it was, he would help her with it.

17

The meeting broke up quickly after that. Seldis refused to explain what she had in mind. Most of the people didn’t seem to think she really had anything in mind, but everyone agreed to let her have a day to make her attempt.

Wulran managed another surreptitious chat with his son, and made it quite clear to Wuller that it was his duty to keep an eye on Seldis and make sure she didn’t slip away.

Wuller agreed, unhappily, not to let her out of his sight.

After breakfast the next morning Seldis rose from the table, stretched, and said, “I’m going for a walk to gather some herbs. Could someone lend me a basket? A big one?”

Illuré produced one that Seldis found suitable, and the three of them, Seldis, Illuré, and Wuller, strolled out into the woods beyond the village.

They walked for several minutes in companionable silence, enjoying the warm spring weather. Wuller glanced at Illuré, and then at Seldis, and then back at his aunt.

He had no desire to play traitor ram. If he could get Seldis away from Illuré he would warn her what the elders had in mind, and give her a chance to slip away.

Just then Seldis said, “I don’t see what I’m looking for anywhere. Illuré, where can I find wolfsbane or nightshade around here?”

“Find what?” Illuré said, startled. “I never heard of those; what are they?”

Seldis looked at Illuré, equally startled. “Why, they’re plants, fairly common ones. Wolfsbane has little flowers with hoods on them; on the sort that would be blooming at this time of year the blossoms are yellow and very small, but the other kinds can have blue or purple or white flowers.”

“I never heard of it,” Illuré said, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Are you sure it grows around here?”

“Maybe not,” Seldis said, her expression worried. “What about nightshade?”

“What is it?” Illuré asked.

Seldis said, “Well, it’s got flowers like little bells, dark red ones, and little black berries.”

Illuré stood and puzzled for a moment.

“I don’t think we have that, either,” she said at last. “If you want flowers, we have daisies.”

“No, I don’t want flowers!” Seldis snapped.

“Well, then, what do you want?” Illuré asked.

“Never mind. Let’s just go back.” She turned and headed toward the village.

Wuller and Illuré followed her, baffled.

Wuller glanced at Illuré, wondering if this might be the best chance they would have for Seldis to slip away, but then he decided to wait. The Aldagmorite seemed far more worried than she had earlier, but still not frightened; Wuller thought she must still have something in mind, even without her magical herbs.

In the village they found Wulran glowering at them from his doorstep, and Kirna sitting nearby with a basket full of sausage casings. Other villagers were watching from a safe distance.

“Will these do?” Kirna asked, displaying her basket.

Seldis shook her head. “Those would be perfect,” she said, “but I’m afraid my idea won’t work. I couldn’t find what I needed. I guess I’ll have to think of something else.”

Wulran snorted. “Lady,” he said, “I guess you will, and quickly. The oracle said you could save us from the dragon, but you won’t do it by wandering the hills, and we can’t risk your wandering off completely. From now on, you’ll stay here, in the village, under guard.”

“But...” Seldis began.

“No argument!” Wulran shouted. The other villagers murmured.

Seldis didn’t argue. At Wulran’s direction, she was led into the house and sent into Illuré’s room, where new brackets were set on either side of the door, and a bar placed across.

The window, too, was barred, and Seldis was a prisoner.

Wuller, quite involuntarily, found himself appointed her gaoler.

“She’s mad, and the mad are dangerous,” his father explained, out of her hearing, “but she trusts you. She’ll stay if you guard her. If she can tell us how to kill the dragon, all well and good, but if she can’t then we’ll put her out as tomorrow’s sacrifice. That must be what the oracle intended in the first place.”

Wuller didn’t try to argue. He knew Seldis was not mad, but he had no idea what she had been planning, and also saw that his father was frightened and angry and would brook no discussion.

Something would have to be done, of course, but not with words.

Wuller settled down at the door to Seldis’ improvised cell and waited.

Early in the afternoon, when everyone else had grown bored and left, he called in to her, “What’s so special about those plants you wanted?”

“Am I allowed to speak now, then?” she asked sarcastically.

“Of course you are. Listen, I’m very sorry about all this; it’s not my fault!”

“Oh, I know, but it’s so stupid! There’s nothing magical about dragon-killing; it’s easy, if you put a little thought into it. Everyone around here is just too scared to think! What good does it do to lock me up like this?”

“It keeps you from running away,” Wuller said, a bit hesitantly.

“But that’s idiotic. After walking all the way up here, why would I run away now?”

“Because...” Wuller began, and then stopped.

If she didn’t already know she was to be sacrificed, would it do any good to tell her?

Maybe not.

“Never mind that for now,” he said instead. “What’s so special about those plants?”

“They’re poisonous. Wuller, what are you hiding? What are they... oh, no. They aren’t really that stupid and superstitious, are they? A maiden sacrifice, is that what they’re planning?”

Wuller didn’t answer. Her answer to his question had brought sudden comprehension. He thought for a moment, and saw it all — not merely what Seldis had originally planned, but what they could do instead.

“Wuller? Are you there?” she called through the door.

“I’m here,” he said, “and don’t worry. Just wait until tonight. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” She laughed bitterly.

18

When Wuller brought in her dinner Seldis refused to speak to him; she glared silently, and after a muttered apology he didn’t press it.

Later, though, when the others were all asleep, he carefully unbarred the door, moving slowly to avoid making noise or bumping anything with the heavy bar.

“Come on,” he whispered.

She stepped out quickly. “Where?” she asked. “Are you just letting me go?”

He shook his head. “No, no,” he said, “we’re going to kill the dragon, just as you planned. I’ve got a sheep tied outside, and Kirna left the basket of sausage casings; everything’s ready.”

“You found wolfsbane? Or nightshade?”

“No,” he said. “Those don’t grow around here.”

Seldis started to protest.

“Hush! It’s all right, really. I know what I’m doing. Come on, and don’t make any more noise!”

She came.

In the morning Wulran found his son sound asleep, leaning against the barred door of Illuré’s bedroom. Wuller looked rather dirtier and more rumpled than Wulran remembered him being the night before, and Wulran looked the lad over suspiciously.

He hoped that Wuller hadn’t gone and done anything stupid.

He wondered if there was anything to the stories about dragons demanding virgins for sacrifice.

How could a dragon tell, though?

More magic at work, presumably.

Whatever magic was involved, Wulran hoped that the girl was still in there to be sacrificed, and hadn’t slipped out in the night. What if the boy’s dirt came from chasing through the woods after her?

He poked Wuller with a toe. “Wake up,” he said.

Wuller blinked and woke up. “Good morning,” he said. Then he yawned and stretched.

“Is the girl still in there?” Wulran demanded.

Wuller looked at the door, still closed and barred, and then up at his father. “I think so,” he said. “She was last I saw.”

“And she’ll be there when we come to get her for the sacrifice?”

Wuller yawned again. “You can’t sacrifice her,” he said. “I already fed the dragon this morning, just before first light. It’s probably dead by now.”

“What’s probably dead by now, a sheep? You fed it a sheep?”

Wuller nodded. “Yes, I fed it a sheep, and of course the sheep is dead, but what I meant was, the dragon is probably dead.”

His father stared at him.

“What?” he asked.

Wuller got to his feet.

“I said, the dragon is probably dead by now.”

“Have you gone mad, too, now?” Wulran asked. “I didn’t know it was catching.”

“I’m not mad,” Wuller said. He didn’t like his father’s tone, though, and he suddenly decided not to say any more.

“Step aside, boy,” Wulran demanded. “I want to be sure she’s in there.”

Wuller stepped aside.

He said nothing as his father unbarred the door and found Seldis peacefully asleep in Illuré’s bed.

He said nothing at all for the rest of the morning, not even when the men came later and found Seldis still sleeping, and picked her up and carried her off to the flat stone where the dragon took its meals.

19

Seldis awoke the moment they laid hands on her, but she didn’t scream or struggle. She put up no resistance as the party carried her to the flat, bloodstained stone outcropping where the dragon accepted its tribute.

There she was lowered gently to the ground. One end of a rope was tied around her ankles, the other to the tall scorched stump beside the stone where, prior to this, only sheep had been tethered. Her hands, too, were tied.

Then she was placed on the stone, and the others stepped back, leaving her there.

She looked up at the villagers and addressed Wuller directly.

“You better be right about those mushrooms,” she said.

He looked up at the mountainside above them, and smiled. “See for yourself,” he said, pointing.

She looked where Wuller pointed, and saw the tip of the dragon’s tail, hanging down from a ledge like an immense bloated vine. No one else had noticed; they had been paying attention to their captive.

The tail was utterly limp.

“See?” Wuller said. “It’s dead, just as you said it would be.”

The villagers looked, and then stared in open-mouthed astonishment.

“We’d better go make sure,” Seldis said. “I’m not familiar with those mushrooms. If it’s just sick, we’d better go finish it off while it’s still weak.”

“Right,” Wuller said. He knelt beside her and drew his knife, then began sawing at the ropes.

Wulran tore his gaze from that dangling, lifeless tail and looked down at the bound young woman. “What did you do?” he asked.

“We killed the dragon, Wuller and I,” she said. “I told you I knew how.” Her wrists were free, and she sat up.

“But how?” Wulran asked.

“It was easy. Wuller let me out last night, and we went out in the woods and gathered mushrooms, two baskets full — those thin ones with the white stems and the little cups at the bottom. You don’t have wolfsbane or nightshade around here, but you had to have something poisonous, and Wuller told me about the mushrooms.”

“But how...” someone began.

Seldis ignored him and kept right on speaking.

“We ground up the mushrooms and stuffed them into those sausage casings, and then we stuffed those down the throat of a sheep Wuller brought, and then we tied the sheep here — oh, look, some of its blood got on my skirt! Didn’t you people see it was still wet?”

Wuller grinned at her as the rope around her ankles parted.

“Anyway,” Seldis continued, “we tied it out, and the dragon ate it, and that was that.”

“Poison mushrooms?” someone asked. “That’s all it took?”

“Of course that’s all!” Seldis said, plainly offended. “Do you think I’m an amateur? I know how to kill dragons, I told you!”

“You’re sure it’s dead?” Wulran asked. “I mean, I know those mushrooms are deadly, but that’s a dragon...”

Seldis shrugged. “A dragon’s just a beast. A very special beast, a magical beast perhaps, but a beast, of mortal flesh and blood. Poison will kill it, sure as it will kill anything.”

20

“We need to check,” Wulran said gruffly. “We can’t just take your word for it that it’s dead.”

“You’re right,” Seldis said. “If I got the dose wrong it might just be sick for a few days. We need to go see, and if it’s still alive we need to finish it off while it’s weak.”

The villagers looked at one another.

“You don’t all have to go,” Seldis said. “Wuller and I will check.”

“I’ll come, too,” Wulran said.

“If you like. There’s one thing, though — could someone fetch me a wineskin, the biggest you can find?”

The villagers were puzzled, but none of them were inclined to argue with her any further.

Several minutes later, the three of them, Wulran, Wuller, and Seldis, set out up the mountainside to the ledge where the dragon’s tail was draped. Seldis carried an immense empty wineskin, the sort that would be hung up on the village commons during Festival, and still no one had had the nerve to ask her why.

They crept up onto the ledge, past the thick tail, and down into the stony crevice where most of the dragon lay, motionless and silent.

“It looks dead,” Wuller whispered as they came even with the great belly.

Seldis nodded. “Looks can be deceiving, though.” She took out her long knife and crept forward, toward the head.

“What are you...” Wuller began.

“Stay back!” she hissed. “I’m going to make sure it’s dead.”

Wulran reached out and grabbed Wuller’s arm, and pulled him back to the edge of the ledge, where they could both slide down out of sight in a hurry if the need arose.

They waited for what seemed hours to Wuller, but watching the sun he realized it was only a few minutes.

“It’s all right,” Seldis called at last. “It’s dead!”

Wuller ran back down the crevice after her, calling, “How can you be sure?”

Then he saw what she had done. She had rammed her long knife up to the hilt into one of the dragon’s eyes.

If there had been any life in it at all, it would surely have reacted to that!

After that, she had swung her wineskin into position and cut open a vein, allowing the dragon’s blood to spill into the waiting receptacle. Wuller stared at the trickle of purplish ichor.

“This will cover my expenses,” she said, almost apologizing. “Wizards can always use more dragon’s blood.”

“It’s really dead,” Wuller said. “We did it! Seldis, we all owe you more than we could ever pay you, and particularly after the treatment you got. I’m sure that everyone in the village will agree with me on that.”

Wulran came up behind him and said, “If they don’t at first, I’ll make them agree, young lady.”

Seldis shrugged. “It’s nothing. This one was easy. Hell, you people should have thought of it yourselves! You knew about the mushrooms, and you saw it eat a sheep every day — why didn’t you try anything?”

Wulran shrugged. “We had that prophecy, that oracle — that you would come save us.” He smiled crookedly.

Seldis stared at him.

“So you were going to sacrifice me?” she asked. “You thought that would save you?”

Wulran opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it again.

“Did it occur to any of you that if sacrificing me was not what the oracle had meant, that you’d be killing the one person who you’d been told could save you?”

Wulran merely blinked at that; he didn’t even try to respond.

Wuller said, “I wouldn’t have let them.”

“Ha! I didn’t see you doing much to stop them this morning!”

“But we’d already poisoned the dragon by then!”

“And what if the poison hadn’t worked?”

Wuller’s mouth opened, like his father’s, but nothing came out.

Seldis looked at him for a long moment, then at the dragon. The stream of blood had stopped; she capped the wineskin and hung it over one shoulder. Then she shoved her way past both the son and the father and marched on out of the crevice.

Wulran and Wuller watched her go. Wulran threw his son an apologetic glance, but Wuller was in no mood to accept it. He ran after her.

When he caught up with her he could think of nothing to say, and so the two of them walked silently back down to the village side by side.

When they reached the village, Seldis announced, “I’m tired, Wuller; we were up all night. I’m going to get some sleep.”

He nodded. “Good idea,” he said.

After she had gone into Illuré’s bedroom — leaving the door open and unbarred, this time — he headed for his own bed.

Wuller awoke that afternoon to find her up and dressed and checking her pack. The wineskin of dragon’s blood was at her feet.

“I’ll be going now,” she said, without looking at him.

Wuller blinked at her from the doorway of his bedroom. He looked around at the familiar house — his mother’s painted tiles on the walls, the iron skillets hung by the kitchen, the broad stone hearth. His parents and his aunt Illuré were somewhere nearby. Around the house stood his village, all the world he had known until a few days ago, home to his entire extended family and everyone he had ever known.

All of it was safe now, with the dragon dead, and Seldis was no longer needed. She would be going back to her own home, in distant Aldagmor, out there in the hostile and unfamiliar world beyond the village, the world where Wuller knew no one and had nothing.

“Wait for me,” he said, snatching up his clothes.

To his surprise, she did.