The Dragon's Lair (7 page)

When I went into the Gated City on an errand for the king, I had my fortune read by a woman named Madame Sharra. She is probably the strangest and scariest person I've ever met. She is tall and thin and gold-skinned with eyes that look as if they can see your thoughts. She has a deck of dragon scales that are very old, and each of them has an image on it that tells her something about you
.

Madame Sharra let me choose three scales in my reading. The first one had a picture of a windmill on it. She told me this showed where I was in life right now, changing all the time. The second was the Thief Queen scale—and that accurately predicted what is happening to me now
.

But the third scale I chose would give me a gift of great power, Sharra said. She warned me that most people did not choose a third scale in their readings, because great power is backed by great consequence, and most people are not willing to risk it
.

Of course, I am not most people
.

Which may be why I am frequently in trouble like I am now
.

Madame Sharra called the third card I chose the Time Scissors. It had a picture of an hourglass with a pair of scissors in front of it, a thread in between the blades. When I chose that card, the picture on it appeared in my palm, and hasn't washed off or disappeared since. She said having it gave me a magical second chance, the opportunity to undo one thing I had done in the Past. She also warned me how dangerous it would be, because everything that happened in the Past after whatever I changed might be changed as well
.

Her warnings about the use of this gift left me pretty sure I'm never going to use it. If I don't, no one will be the wiser, because aside from McLean and Madame Sharra and me, no one even knows it's there
.

Except Amariel, apparently
.

The merrow's eyes narrowed.

"Of course I can see it," she said indignantly. "Do you think I'm blind?"

"No, no, certainly not," Ven said. "No one else has been able to see it before, that's all. What does it look like to you?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"Not at all."

The merrow did not look like she believed him. "Sort of like this," she said after a moment. She touched her two fingers together and made a triangle in the air, its long side on the top, then another beneath it, its long side on the bottom.

Ven nodded. "That's supposed to be an hourglass."

"What's an hourglass?"

"Something humans—er, people—use to keep track of time," Ven said. "It's made of glass and the bottom is filled with sand. You turn it over and the sand starts running from the top to the bottom. It lets you measure time."

"You are making absolutely no sense," the merrow said. "How can you measure
time
? No one can even
see
time, let alone get it to stand still long enough to measure it. And running sand? Please. Even I know that sand can't run, and I don't have feet."

Ven smiled. "Not yet, anyway," he said. "Do you see anything else?"

The merrow eyed him suspiciously, then took his palm and looked into it again.

"There
is
something else, but it's quite strange. I think I saw one of those once in a sea dragon's lair. It's a human thing, and my mom would not let me look at it up close."

"Can you describe it?" Ven asked. His curiosity was rising inside him, making his face feel hot.

Amariel made two circles with her fingers, then a V. "Like this," she said.

Ven nodded. "Those are scissors. They are very sharp tools used for cutting things."

The merrow dropped his hand in alarm and moved away from the dock.

"Don't worry—it's just a picture," Ven said. "It can't hurt you."

"You know, you keep saying that," Amariel said. "But between kings that set you on fire, and angry people looking for you, and pictures in your hand that can cut you, and worst of all,
humans
—I'm not sure the dry world is even the slightest bit safe to explore."

"You do have a point," Ven admitted. He could see in her eyes the same gleam of interest that he saw in his own whenever he looked into a mirror. Amariel had the same gift, or curse, of curiosity that he did. "And if you're worried and don't want to go, I understand completely. It sounds like your mother won't let you, anyway."

The merrow's face lost some of its shine. "My mother is on the other side of the sea, very far away," she said sadly. "When I followed your ship, I had to leave my school and my family behind."

"I'm sorry," Ven said. "I didn't know."
Just like me, and the other children at the Inn
, he thought.
But that means she's alone here
—
and she would have to swim north past the Gated City to get home
.
An even better reason for her to come overland with me
.

"Well, that's because I didn't tell you," Amariel said. "Merrows don't go around telling their business to just
anyone
." She looked up and down the beach, and when she looked back at Ven, her eyes were beginning to sparkle once more. "When she kissed me goodbye, my mom said I should stay away from humans, but to have fun and see as many exciting things as I could before I came home. So I guess she wouldn't really mind if I went exploring the dry world, so long as I don't give my cap to a human."

The top of Ven's head began to itch fiercely.

"So you'll come, then?" he asked hopefully.

"Well, it sounds like you're going to be gone a long time. If I don't come with you now, I might never see you again."

"That's possible. So will you come?"

The merrow glanced around again. "It's going to be morning soon," she said. "Even though no one uses this pier anymore, there will be people around here."

"Then we'd better hurry," Ven said. He tried to sound calm, but his voice cracked with excitement. "How do we do this? Do you just give me your cap and that's it?"

The merrow shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I've never done it before. I suppose we can start with that." Her smile faded. "Don't lose it, and don't you dare let anyone else touch it. Especially a human—if a human touches it, I'll start going human, too. And if
that
happens, I think I only have a turn of the moon to get back to the sea before it's permanent." She shuddered. "Uggh. My scales get itchy just
thinking
about it."

Ven unbuttoned the pocket in his shirt. "I promise I won't let anyone touch it," he said. "Not even my human friends. I would never want anything bad to happen to you."

"And
don't
tell anyone I'm a merrow. Especially boys. My father told me to be especially careful of human men, because they're the ones who want a merrow to be their household slave. If they know the legend, they might try to steal the cap from you. I don't want to be doing anybody's chores—I hate chores, especially cleaning. Once when I got in trouble, I had to peel seaweed off rocks every day for a turn of the moon—my fingernails are
still
green from it. If it even looks like that might happen, you are in
so
much trouble."

"I promise. I won't tell them—they'll think you're human."

"There's no need to be insulting."

"Actually, I only have one human male friend who I think will be going overland—his name is Char—and he would never want you to do chores. He likes doing them himself—because it gives him a chance to be around a girl he likes."

"He
likes
chores? More proof that there is something
seriously
wrong with humans." Amariel looked around one last time. Then her eyes met Ven's, shining so brightly that they looked like starlight on a green sea.

"All right," she said. "Let's try it."

Ven put out his hand. It was shaking violently.

Amariel's eyes were locked on his for a long moment. Finally she reached up, her hand shaking almost as much as his, and gently took the lacy red cap from her head. She stared at it, then slowly held it out to Ven.

I was almost afraid to touch it. I wasn't sure what it was made of, but it seemed very fragile. As much as I wanted her to come with me, I suddenly was worried that something bad might happen to her outside the sea where she has lived all her life. It probably wasn't the best of ideas to take this chance when a whole market of thieves was about to come looking for me
.

But I didn't think about that until the moment after the red pearl cap was resting in the palm of my hand
.

The cap felt very strange. It was cold and wet, as I expected it to be, but not very soft. It didn't have the suppleness that lace has, but instead appeared to be some sort of sea plant, delicate but hard. It was as intricate and fine as a spider's web, and looked a lot like one, the tiny pearls glistening the same way dew does in the morning on the nets that spiders build. I could have stood there and stared at it all day
.

But if I had, I would have missed seeing something much more amazing
.

And terrible
.

4
The Transformation

A
T FIRST, NOTHING SEEMED TO HAPPEN
.

The merrow continued to float in the water off the pier. She looked around her, then back at Ven.

"I don't think it's working," she said after a few moments. "I guess it really does have to be given to a
human
man after all. Oh well. This is stupid. Give back my cap."

"Wait," said Ven. He thought he had noticed a difference in the color of the water surrounding her, more than just the change of full-sun. He kept watching as the waves swirling around her went from blue-green to a paler aquamarine to yellow to gold.

An intense light swelled beneath the surface, gleaming brighter than the morning sun. A few seconds later, an explosion of bubbles rose up in great rolling streams, turning the water white, as if it were boiling.

"It's happening!" he shouted.

"Uhmm—yes," said the merrow uncertainly. "I—I'm not sure I like this—"

Like a giant snake shedding its skin, great peels of multicolored scales, now white and lifeless, began rising to the surface of the water on the bubble stream. Amariel's face went similarly white as she struggled to push them back down, but it was no use.

She was beginning to unravel, like a piece of cloth with a thread snagged, or a fruit being skinned.

Amariel winced as if in pain. She rubbed her shoulder against her neck, then her hand, as the tiny flaps of skin that served as her gills began to seal shut. Her mouth dropped open in horror.

"Ven," she gasped, "help me!"

Ven lunged to the edge of the pier and bent down.

"Here!" he shouted. "Give me your hands!"

"Give it back!" the merrow screamed. "Give me back my cap!"

By now coils of dead scales were floating away from the merrow and flipping around, lifeless, on the waves. Ven held the brittle cap out to her, struggling to keep from dropping it into the sea. Amariel tried to reach it, but she was being dragged farther and farther from the pier by the storm of bubbles. Ven dropped to his stomach and reached as far out over the water as he could with his free hand.