The Redundant Dragons Read online

  Smelt mumbled to Devent, “Once we find my hoard again, we’ll have gold to pay for our food like humans do.”

  Casimir did not seem to have heard him, but strode ahead of them, his step enlivened by their brush with mortality.

  Devent’s stomach rumbled.

  Casimir was also quite hungry. It had been a long time since they’d eaten the elk, and the ewe had been very small, especially split between two dragons and a man, and both game and farms with herd animals were scarce so close to the mountains. He at least could eat berries and some of the hard bread he carried in his pack, but such was not decent fare for dragons.

  Casimir’s Ulterior Motives

  Casimir could not simply return to the time he came from and bag another elk as he had the first one, and haul it into the Faerie Knowe with him. This entire area was devoid of game. He had been advised to bring the elk by the lady called Romany, an expert on this time period.

  Like Casimir, the Rani Romany was Xenobian Gypsy by blood, though half-caste. Her mother, Bronwyn of the house of Rowan, had been the last queen. Her father, a Gypsy boy named Jack who became King of Ablemarle, since on his father’s side he was descended from a Gypsy lady and a previously enchanted bear who was until his transformation the Ablemarlonian crown prince. These lineages were a very important part of Casimir’s work. He sang family trees as often as great deeds. People not only liked to know who they came from, it was often necessary in business transactions among his people. People also liked to know who they were dealing with, which clan, if there had been cursed people perhaps or nobility among the forebears.

  He had been perfectly happy doing that when he met Romany again by the hillside. He did not recognize her as the one who had set him on his true path in the first place. He’d thought her a fan. He was a favorite among the ladies, even Gypsy ladies, who unlike settled ladies got to travel around and ought to have known that life as a free roaming musician’s love was not exactly glamorous. In Romany’s case, she had no expectations about his glamor since she had plenty of her own. The first time he’d met her, he was glumly pursuing another line of work when she accosted him begging for his wine and bread. Fortunately for him, he’d been brought up to be kind to old ladies like the one she appeared to be. Years had passed between parting ways with her and meeting this younger, prettier version.

  “You know those songs where people go into Faerie Knowes and disappear for seven years and a day, Bard?” she’d asked him by way of an opening line.

  “Which one did you have in mind?” he asked. “I know at least three and could fake two others.”

  “What if I told you the stories behind them were real except, instead of Faerieland, once you entered the Knowe, you were able to travel to another time.”

  “Which time?”

  “Any time past or future.”

  “Sounds dangerous. You could end up in the middle of a battle or some bedchamber in a castle where you were not supposed to be.”

  “You can choose the place as well,” she’d said. “Think of the people you’d meet, the songs you’d learn, the stories you could tell about such adventures.”

  “There’s a catch, isn’t there? I don’t suppose I could come back here when I wanted, could I?”

  “After the seven years and a day passed. You have to stick it out, but then you can return.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to do it often. A person only has so many seven yearses in him.”

  “That’s the best part. You won’t have aged at all and can pop back through whenever you wish. You could, for instance, leave to follow Princess Bronwyn on her quest, the one where she met Prince Jack, and come back here when you were finished to tell us how it all went. The only thing you must remember when traveling in the past is that you are only an observer. You mustn’t change things or now won’t be the same now any longer.”

  “And I’d have to rewrite all the songs. I think I could handle that,” he said. “As it is I travel where I will and go where I may so no one is ever exactly expecting me and I’m almost always surplus to their requirements, so I can slip to the side and watch, and note, and rhyme with no one the wiser. I often do now.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “Then you qualify to be one of my operatives.”

  “Operatives? I thought I was supposed to be observing things that would further my own career.”

  “Oh, you are, but now and then I may ask you to do some little favor for me.”

  “How am I to do so without changing things?”

  “I will instruct you when the time comes.”

  But once she showed him how it was done, and he became not just a Traveler but a Time Traveler, she let him go where he would and do as he pleased.

  He learned the food to pack for his journeys, the clothing to wear to blend with the current populace, that he must always bring with him a measure of mead to calm his throat until he could find the local equivalent in the period where he found himself. He learned to play any number of instruments, and a great deal about what had preceded his time and the years that came after, and with this lore he wrote a thousand songs. He changed history only in that his name was sometimes whispered among musicians who came after and he was called the Master Minstrel. He had no problem with that.

  Sometimes he encountered others of Rani Romany’s operatives, all Gypsies like himself, and learned that often they were sent to spend seven years sometime, someplace, to insert themselves in one place to perform one task, after which they were free to do as they liked.

  If the task were one that might cause them to be pursued, their entry time was planned so that they were able to leave once they’d accomplished their purpose, slipping away into the nearest Faerie Knowe.

  At the campfire of one such band, once they knew that he knew who they were, and he realized they knew who he was, he heard some of their stories of their perilous missions. He asked them to explain to him how it was that they were permitted intervene in events that might change the past for some point in the future.

  “We think of ourselves as instruments of fate, for so it must seem to those whose lives we change at a certain moment. To them, meeting us or one of us is an accident, a coincidence, a chance encounter that changes everything, but the Rani and her fox friend have lived far into the future and she has a plan for how it ought to be, and if that doesn’t turn out so good, she comes up with another plan and we help with that one too. It’s a great joke. We may seem completely expendable to the people we meet during these missions, but in fact, our presence helps bring about the most important things that happen to them.”

  Casimir puzzled over this for many miles and many years until after one seven-year journey he emerged from the Knowe back to his own time, back to a moment shortly after he met the Rani, and there she was.

  He was about to ask her about the people she gave a purpose when she said, “Music and traveling come naturally to you. Have you ever taught music?”

  “Oh yes, quite often,” he assured her. “I teach lute and crumhorn, piccolo and pipes, harpsicord and harp alike.”

  “And lyrics? Singing?”

  “Especially lyrics that tell stories to be sung, and the vocal skills to impart them. My students are much sought after in the great houses during all times and in all places throughout Argonia and the continent.”

  “Excellent,” she had said. “How do you feel about dragons?”

  Chapter 8: Horn Haven

  A chattering, gaudily but not too heavily dressed delegation of females met the Belle’s longboats as the crew landed.

  “Hello, me darlings,” cried a voluptuous lady wearing a fur coat over her negligee. “Which of you is my true love, eh?”

  “You there, handsome.” A raven-haired beauty in tiers of pink, yellow and red taffeta, pulled at second mate Bretwen Bowen’s arm. Her voice was as low and sultry as she could manage, what with the wind whining down from the glacier-studded mountains. “Where’ve you been all my life?” Something about that
voice was vaguely familiar too, but Verity didn’t see how that could be since she’d never been here before.

  She tried to walk apart from the crew and their new friends, as her head had started throbbing when the amorous banter and bargaining began. A lot of reciprocal lying was involved. She knew—or thought she knew—that the business about true loves and so forth was just a commercial courtship sales pitch, not to be taken seriously by anyone, but the chatter stimulated an ache along her eyebrows that slightly nauseated her.

  She was still dressed as a man, albeit one much bedecked with shells, an oilskin hat pulled down over her coiled braid. Sailors spent long hours alone though and rigged themselves out in all sorts of individually accessorized apparel. Angus had a fascinating array of self-inflicted tattoos. Legs liked to do scrimshaw in her spare time and found interesting ways to display it on her person and appendages. Shells were fairly conservative, as such things went. At least two of the other sailors had collections they wore as necklaces and bracelets, but unlike Verity’s, theirs didn’t contain the voices of murdered magicians.

  A purple-haired woman sidled up to her. “Who are you, then, my sweetie? Strapping lad like you is a bit large for a cabin boy.”

  “I’m a girl, actually,” Verity said. “I’m looking for a relative of mine, an aunt named Erotica Amora.”

  The woman chuckled. “You’re in luck. We’re just headed back to our mutual rooming house. Madame Erotica is our landlady, you might say. Also our business manager, talent agent, and the Human Resources Department.”

  Verity nodded and tried to smile, but the woman’s euphemistic job description of her aunt, the brothel keeper, did not help her rising gorge. Not that she was any more of a prude about naked stuff than anyone else. It was just that lying seemed to be an integral part of any conversations surrounding the transactions being negotiated all around her. When her classmates spoke of lewd doings, real and imagined, it hadn’t bothered her. For the most part their discussions had been frank, if a bit exploratory since only one or two had any idea what it was really all about. But somehow, this was different. The honest crew of sailors and musicians, with whom she had trusted her life, were making extraordinary promises and telling incredible lies to these painted ladies who gave as good as they got in the lying department.

  Her colorful companion had momentarily turned from her to try to snag a crewmember. She clutched a posy of little yellow flowers in one hand, and now Verity noticed that the other women did as well. The crew seemed to have all found other escorts, while the woman with a scarlet mouth and purple eyelids satisfied her curiosity about Verity.

  “How far gone are you?” the woman asked. “Might be you don’t have to stay the whole time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that there’s some of us knows a thing or two about that—” she made a bump over her belly with her hand “—kind of thing.”

  At first Verity was a little confused, and then she understood. A young woman seeking out an aunt in a remote place? Most likely with child.

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Verity assured her. She started to explain about the magicians and the dragon crisis, but before she could the woman cast her a side-eyed suspicious look.

  “You’re not looking for Madame to give you a berth here, are you, just because you’re related? You look a bit of a gawk right now, but there’s homelier than you been put right with their hair done, a little paint, a flashy frock. Oh, yes, with your youth and all, you’d be popular.” She glared over at the young woman who gripped the second mate’s arm as the two briskly strolled up the hill ahead of them.

  Her voice had taken on a hostile edge, and Verity felt she could ill afford to lose a possible ally.

  “No, no, it’s to do with another matter altogether… family business. Not that kind of family business, but another issue my aunt’s sister, my other aunt, thought she might be able to advise me about…”

  But the other woman was no longer listening and instead was sizing her up in a different way. “Well, then, if you ain’t sellin’ and you ain’t buyin’—unless you prefer your own sort?”

  Meaning other women, Verity surmised.

  “No, no, nothing to do with this side of my aunt’s—enterprises,” she said. “I just need to meet with her and discuss an entirely different subject with her. Mostly because she is familiar with this area of the country, and I’m looking for the relatives of someone who might have lived here.”

  “But you don’t mean to stay here?”

  Before the woman could continue, the boatswain and two of the other men and their companions caught up with her. The boatswain put a comradely arm around Verity’s shoulders and said to the other two.

  “Let’s personally escort our young mate to see her auntie, in case there’s a friends and family discount!” he said.

  Horn Haven was a grubby little town built between the harbor and the mountains. The Sailor’s Spa and Brothel looked like a compact version of a manor house. The crew seemed collectively excited to be there.

  “This is a long way from Queenston for such an establishment, isn’t it?” Verity asked the first mate.

  “No, it’s the perfect location actually. This way Madame avoids city taxes and has a steady clientele. Any ship coming round the Horn is likely to need to hole up here for awhile for repairs, and the crews need some relaxation and comfort-like, while they’re in port.”

  Verity considered this and found it to be a well-thought-out arrangement. “Umm,” she said, nodding.

  When she walked into the mansion with her crew of apparent swains, (though truthfully the term could only be applied correctly to the boatswain) the men already in the parlor, apparently from some other ship, did not mistake her for the cabin boy. One whistled so shrilly she thought he must be a boatswain, too. “Fresh talent, lads! Where’d you come from, sweetheart?”

  “Fine strapping lass, that. Come sit on my knee, love. You won’t break me, I promise.”

  “You louts got no idea how to woo a lady,” a third soul, snaggle-toothed and leering, said. He held up a dirty leather pouch and jingled it. “Hey, my henny, just got paid.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure what he expected her to do about it, but she didn’t want to find out.

  She looked around for her shipmates. They had quickly become otherwise occupied, getting drinks and being fawned over by the ladies. The young woman with Bretwen Bowen sat down at the pianoforte to play while he brought forth his mouth harp, and the other men and their new friends were gathering round as well.

  “I’ve come to visit my aunt,” she announced to the room in general, hoping her relative would appear and relieve her of the necessity of perhaps damaging a few of the customers.

  “Hoo-hoo. Going into the family business, are you?” a voice behind her inquired, followed by a hand on her posterior. She didn’t even think about it when she whirled around and socked him on the jaw. He staggered back and fell to the laughter of the others. Rubbing his jaw, he gazed at her so foolishly she thought she’d hit him harder than she intended.

  “I think I’m in love, boys.”

  Captain Lewis stood, fingers still on the keys, and looked as if he were about to intervene, perhaps—if he really had to, when a short buxom woman clad in brown velvet swanned into the room. Her dress almost exactly matched her chestnut hair, which was dressed atop her head in a complicated confection of curls. She carried a red feathered fan and snapped it shut.

  “What’s all the commotion?” she asked, then saw Verity. “And who are you, Miss? We have no openings at the moment.”

  This made the men laugh for some reason.

  “I am your niece,” she told her. “Er—your brother’s daughter. Is there somewhere we could speak privately?” Stepping closer, she said in a lower tone, “Aunt Ephemera said I should seek your advice.”

  “Step into my office,” Erotica said. “Gentlemen, the primrose ritual will commence directly. Meanwhile, drink up and get acquai
nted.”

  Erotica’s office wasn’t a large one, but it was filled with bookshelves, a writing desk, and a fainting couch. A large table draped with a silken shawl embroidered with yellow flowers dominated most of the space. It stood on a thick rug in turkey red. The books, to Verity’s surprise, were bound in paintings, not in leather. They did not entirely fill the shelves. The two shelves at waist height were filled with an assortment of crystals, candles, and cobalt blue, brown, and green bottles. Verity could not see what they contained. The walk-in fireplace in the room held a large pot hanging from a hook inside the cavernous opening. Something musky and slightly sweet smelling bubbled in the cauldron.

  Verity sniffed.

  Aunt Erotica said, “I’ll leave the recipe for you in my will. It’s my world-famous love elixir and massage oil.”

  “Very kind,” Verity murmured, referring to the promised legacy.

  “So, what brings you to my establishment? I assume you’re not looking for a job.”

  “No, thank you. I already have a job that, believe it or not, I feel even more unqualified for than I would be to work here, but that’s not really why I’m here either. I have more of a task to perform than a job.” She explained as succinctly as she could about the dragon-torched beads formed from the crystal deposits on cavern walls impregnated with magic purloined from magic practitioners murdered during the Great War. “So Aunt Ephemera suggested you might know where I could find one or more of the heirs of the late magicians, so I could return their ancestors’—er—spiritual belongings to them?”

  “Possibly. Can you tell me who you’re looking for?”

  “I wish I could. That would make my job a lot easier.”

  “After all these years, it’s surely not that urgent.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be except for the dragons.”

  “Dragons? We don’t really use them much out here except for the occasional steamer, and lately we’ve been seeing more sails than smoke.”