Dragon's Ring (2 page)

You had to see the funny side of it, he thought, grinning wryly to himself. He was aware that the force lines of everything from water to earth had been badly twisted and torn here by some adept's bungling magics. That was not surprising. Magic workers usually used magic, without understanding how—or what—they were doing, simply following a rote. He was used to having to adjust objects and tweak forces after their bungling. But it was the first time he'd actually been a part of the crude tangle. Well, the balances out here near the edge of the world were unstable anyway. There was a seasonal flux, something you got so close to the edge of existence, where matter had been twisted and abused. Still: Yenfar was one of the largest and most stable of the islands. He had not expected it here.

Fionn blinked his huge scarlet eyes, adjusting his vision to the entire spectrum of energies, not just the visible spectra, but all of them. Now he saw the world as a swirling soup of complex patterns, not merely as reflections of light. And the weave here was indeed twisted, dented and torn. Water, sky and earth energies swirled well away from the true shape of their physical being. Chaos and misery! He sighed. A planomancer's work was never done. He'd rather be sitting in the shade, drinking cool wine, with a platter of crispy fried whitebait and baby squid on the side—which was exactly what he had been doing before the summonsing—than wrestling with this mess. He chuckled. Ah well. It had got him out of paying for the earlier bottles of wine and platters of food rather neatly. Saved him a bit of trouble.

It was odd, though. The summonsing had felt like human magic. But there were no human magicians in Tasmarin.

Dragonkind had hunted down and killed all of them.

Falling takes a long, long time, thought Meb. It was either that, or time itself that stretched. The first idea was somehow easier to deal with. Like the scream that came from her mouth, falling to her death seemed to be happening to someone else. Even if she survived the fall, the sea would kill her. The villagers knew perfectly well that it killed men, let alone women. Women didn't even go out on the fishing boats, never mind into the sea. The blue water was full of sharks, rays, whales and merrows. She'd never actually seen one of the merpeople. She had, somehow, a time for regret and to try and imagine what a half-fish half-man really looked like before she hit the water.

It was a lot harder than she'd thought it would be.

* * *

Fionn shifted his weight uneasily. There it was again. Just as he'd worked out what would need re-alignment, something plucked and twisted at the water energy lines, changing them. The cliff on the far side of the bay was re-aligning itself, cascading in a shower of rocks and turf into the foam-edged blue. That could not account for this tweak, however. It was more like a great, clumsy hand pulling fatelines, with no care for what it did to water or earth or even fire. He frowned.

Humans!

Fionn paid more attention to humankind—the lice, as the others put it—than most dragons in Tasmarin did. They were an unusual interest for a dragon. But then, he was an unusual dragon. Unique on this plane, possibly the last of his kind on any plane, anywhere.

That didn't mean that he interfered with human affairs, any more than other dragons who merely taxed them.

It would have been a great deal too much like hard work, for a start.

He paid no attention to the raider-galleys whose keels were crunching onto the shingle. Instead, he reached a long-taloned forepaw into his front-pouch and hauled out a wad of folded parchment. He looked around and grimaced. These rocks were not a good spot. Nowhere flat to lay out the diagrams. In truth he didn't really need them, but he loved the detail and intricacy of them. They helped him decide. He spread his wings, unfolding the joints, extending them. It was a lousy place to launch from, but it was either fly from here or swim. The water looked cold, and might get at the charts. There was much labor in the drawing of them, and didn't feel like doing it again. The way things were finally falling apart on this plane of existence, he didn't think that he'd have enough time to, before the end.

He'd done enough work to get it into this dire state.

He launched. A trailing tip of his vast wings just touched the water. It was, indeed, cold.

Meb found that the water was not only hard, but also icy. The sudden shock of the cold broke the odd unreality of her falling trance. She was going to die! DIE!

Eyes wide open, all she could see was trailing bubbles and blue. She thrashed wildly, panic overwhelming thought.

Her head broke through into the air. She gasped for breath, frantically flailing at the water to stay afloat.

A wave hit her in the face, tumbling her.

And then strong, web-fingered hands seized her, dragging her under.

She fought them with all her remaining strength as they hauled her down into the watery darkness.

She was so busy struggling that she took a while to realize that she could breathe. And hear.

"Will you stop all this thrashing about, woman!" said someone irritably. " 'tis hard enough swimming with you, without that."

Part of Meb was unwilling to let go of her panic.
This was the sea. You died in the sea
. Another part of her, the odd rational bit that poked fun at the rest of her, that also dreamed dreams that rose along way above fish-guts, said:
Don't be afraid. Be terrified. And breathe deeply.

As usual, the ordinary village Meb listened to the inner voice, after a while. She was stiff with fear, but at least she could breathe . . . And cough. It was amazing that there still was any sea left out there. She seemed to have swallowed most of it. And now she was dead.

The rational part of her mind said:
so why are you still breathing?

"Sit here. There's a bit of a shelf," said the voice. "I'll need to make a light so that we can inspect the damage."

The "shelf" was narrow and rough with barnacles. The current plucked at her as she sat on it. But at least she was half above water, on something solid. She tried to dig her fingers into the very rock. The place reeked of drying sea-life: seaweed, dead crabs and a hint of fish.

Then she saw a greenish-white spark glowing in the darkness. It grew into a globe of light of the same color, held in a webbed hand. The hand had rather more fingers than was normal. It was also blue and scaly, like the rest of the merrow it was attached to. He smiled at her. His smile revealed white teeth. They weren't square and blunt like human teeth. No, his teeth were pointed and sharp. He held the light up, looking her over thoughtfully.

"Well, you don't appear to be bleeding too much," he said, sounding a little regretful. "Any other injuries besides those that I can see?"

She stared at him. At his tasseled fins and the toothy smile.

"Shark got your tongue, maybe?" he said, sardonically. "I asked you a question, human wench. Are you all right?"

She coughed.

"I'll take that as a yes, shall I?" said the merrow.

"What are you doing to me?" asked Meb, weakly. She started to shiver.

"Ah. Now that'd be a question," said the merrow, with yet another nasty toothy grin. "Saving you from drowning would be my guess. What do you think?"

"I mean, why did you bring me here? Where is this?" she tried to keep the thin edge of hysteria out of her voice. As with stopping shivering, she failed.

The merrow seemed amused. "Well, it was a question of staying where you were, or going elsewhere. You don't seem to be much of a swimmer, wench. You'd need to be doing much better than the floundering and flapping you were busy with, to not be dashed into the cliff. And there were a powerful number of large rocks falling down, too."

His insouciant humor helped to quell her panic, anyway. "We fisher-people don't swim," she said defensively. "If we fall overboard, we would rather drown quickly. Anyway, women never go into the sea." Which was only partially true. The sea had spat her out originally, if Mamma Hallgerd was to be believed.

He seemed to find this hilarious. "I can tow you back out there and you can get on with drowning, if you like. Or maybe I can take you down, down, to merrow lands, to dance among the fish, or even to be sucked away into one of the great cracks in the ocean floor? There are maelstroms down there that not even I can cope with, places where the very water streams away into the nothingness. I'd hate to stop you doing what you think you were supposed to do."

"No! No, thank you very much," she said hastily. "I really don't want to drown. It's just . . . Where am I? I have to warn the village. There are raiders coming!"

He shook his head. "To think of not even knowing where you are. Why, 'tis obvious. You're under the cliff. There are some caves here. It's to be hoped we can get out again after all the rock you brought down with you. It was a careless thing to do."

Caves? Trapped? With this creature . . . with teeth like that? "Why did you bring me here?" she asked, suspiciously. "Why didn't you take me away from the cliff if you wanted to save me?"

The merrow snorted. "It's grateful that you are! Were you wanting to go to those boats in the bay instead?"

The rational part of mind had to admit that he was right. But it didn't stop her being cold, and very scared. Obviously she looked it, because the merrow relented a little. "There is a current under here. It has to go somewhere. The cliffs are riddled with these tunnels. I could have you out to those boats in the bay in no time, I daresay."

Taking her courage in both hands she looked at the creature in the way Hallgerd said made her look like a shameless hussy . . . but it did seem to get her what she wanted sometimes. "Will you rather take me to the beach?" she begged. "Please? Please, please? I must warn my people."

He seemed to find her look-of-helpless-appeal amusing. "They don't look much like you," he said, showing no sign of agreeing to help.

It was true enough. The fisher-people who had taken her in were straight-haired and blond. Her hair was dark and naturally curly. But . . . they were all she'd known. All she could remember. And even if they laughed at her, and teased her because she was different, they were her people. "Please?"

He scratched his chin with a webbed hand. "Ach. I suppose I could. For a price."

Meb gasped. He . . . She got ready to fend him off. The boys in the village had taught her that much. Even if she didn't look attractive, and she knew they didn't think so, the boys were keen. It wasn't her face they were interested in.

He laughed loudly enough to make the tunnel echo at her reaction. "You've a high opinion of yourself, wench. I'll admit you're bluer than you were when I brought you in, and it is somewhat of an improvement, but you're not a pretty sight. Not to me anyway."

Innate honesty forced her to say, "But I have nothing else. Please."

"Well, then you've got nothing," he said with a nasty grin. "I'll be going then."

"But . . . you can't just leave me here!" she protested.

"And why not?" he asked, pausing. "You're alive, thanks to me. And not a strand of hair's profit I'll have out of that."

Hair. She remembered now. Drowned bodies washed up . . . without a hair on their heads. It was said that the mermen treasured human hair, used it to string sea jewels on. But it was supposed to be the worst of bad luck to let them have it. You were sure to drown.

The inner voice said
and if you don't give it to him, you're sure to drown.

"I'll give you my hair," she said. There was a lot of it anyway. When it was loose she could nearly sit on it.

He scratched his chin. "It's not very straight."

She suddenly recognized the look in his eye. He'd said that it wasn't lust. Then it must be desire . . . to bargain. To think of this creature being just like the pack-pedlars! "That just means that it's longer," she said stretching out a piece.

"True," he said nodding. "We have a deal then." By the speed that he agreed she knew that she'd offered too much, too soon. He abruptly produced a bronze knife. She started back and nearly fell off the rock-shelf. He laughed. "You want me to pull your hair out instead? Now, if you be wanting me to take you to the beach without the raiders seeing you, you'll have to raise the price. Say the dress too." With a sinuous flick he pushed himself up out of the water, onto the shelf, and found a place to balance his light on the rock wall. "Hold still, will you, unless you'd be wanting to be parting with more skin than hair."

She did her best not to shiver. But it felt pretty close to having her hair pulled out anyway. He tucked the bundle of wet plaits into a pouch at his waist and put the knife away. "Now do we have a deal on the dress?"

"I suppose so," she said, crossly. "But not my drawers. Or my breast-band." Everyone in the village had seen her in that little anyway.

He flapped his fish-tail. "I've not much use for drawers," he said conversationally. "Off with it, then."

Meb bit her lip. What if he'd lied? You heard stories about merwomen . . . sailors' tales. A merrow would not be that different.