Кейт Новак - The Wyvern's Spur

“Already got a pair of them kind,” Bottles said.

Shaver, Lambsie, and Chancy broke into laughter.

Bottles eyed the three “gentlemen” with disdain. He pushed the yellow crystal away. “Keep your stone, milord. Your credit’s good here.”

“Whoa!” Shaver exclaimed. “Is that the breaking of a tradition I hear?”

“How come my credit isn’t good here?” Chancy demanded.

“ ’E feels bad about it. You don’t,” Bottles replied.

Giogi smiled gratefully. “Thanks, awfully, Bottles. I’ll have Thomas stop by to settle up first thing in the morning.”

“See that you do,” Bottles said, and walked off.

“First thing in the morning for Giogi, isn’t that somewhere around noon?” Shaver joked.

“For your information,” Giogi replied with a haughty tone, too inebriated to consider what he was saying, “I’ll be up before the crack of dawn tomorrow, crawling through the family crypt.”

“Whatever for?” Chancy asked.

“Someone’s stole the spur and he’s trapped down there,” Giogi explained in a conspiratorial whisper. “Or not,” he added, still confused by Uncle Drone’s mysterious confidence to the contrary.

“Not really?” Shaver gasped.

Lambsie and Chancy looked up with horror.

Too late Giogi recalled that Aunt Dorath hadn’t wanted outsiders to know about the theft.

“But the spur’s supposed to ensure your family’s success,” Chancy said.

“No,” Shaver corrected, “his family succession. Right, Giogi?”

“That’s just a superstition. Look, do you think you might keep this between the four of us?” Giogi asked. “It’s best if it doesn’t get around.”

“Of course,” Shaver said. Lambsie and Chancy nodded in agreement.

Looking at his friends’ faces, Giogi did not feel reassured. They were all too blank. One of Uncle Drone’s little sayings popped into his head: Nothing flutters so frantically when caged like a secret, nor flies so fast when released.

Giogi didn’t like to imagine Aunt Dorath’s reaction if, when she sat down to breakfast tomorrow, she were to find a letter of condolence from Lady Dina Cormaeril, Shaver’s mother. At least I’ll be in the catacombs by then, Giogi thought. Maybe Aunt Dorath will have calmed down by the time I come out. No, he realized, Aunt Dorath could stew for hours and still be boiling mad by sunset.

With a feeling of doom, Giogi took leave of his friends and wove his way out of the Immer Inn. He headed west, toward the Wyvernwater. “A bracing sea breeze would fit the bill,” he said aloud, though there was no one present to hear him, nor did it matter to him at that moment that the Wyvernwater was a freshwater lake, not a salty sea.

He grew less anxious walking in the fresh, cold air, and by the time he’d turned south on the main road, he’d reasoned himself out of his fear. If Aunt Dorath finds out I babbled about the theft, he thought, I can always go abroad again. Maybe, though, if I find the spur, she’ll forgive me and I can stay home.

A stiff gust of wind off the lake blew right through his cloak. He shivered and suddenly felt very tired. What am I doing walking around in this cold? I could be home sleeping in my warm bed.

He quickened his stride, but before he turned down the road leading home he remembered the duties facing him in the morning. His desire to sleep vanished, and he slowed his pace. If he stayed awake, it would be hours before he had to go into the crypt with Freffie and Steele and face the guardian.

Somewhere nearby Giogi heard the strumming of a yarting and the jangle of a tantan. He turned toward the music to find the door to the Five Fine Fish standing open as a crowd of travelers squeezed its way in.

“Sudacar,” Giogi whispered, suddenly remembering the local lord’s invitation to stop by the Fish to talk about Cole.

The Fish was renowned for its ale and very popular as a meeting place among adventurers who passed through Immersea. Giogi’s friends all patronized the Immer Inn, so Giogi, who had never felt very comfortable among strangers, had not been in the Five Fine Fish very often. It would be full of strangers tonight, but Sudacar, while not exactly a friend, could hardly be considered a stranger—not if he knew things about Cole that Uncle Drone hadn’t even spoken of.

Determined to learn more about his father’s adventuring life, Giogi strode purposefully toward the inn. He slipped through the front door behind the last of the travelers and squeezed his way past them into the common room.

The room was packed with people. Five musicians in the corner struck up a reel, and several people began dancing on the wooden floor. The dancers’ shadows swayed against the wall whenever someone bumped into one of the oil lamps hanging from the low ceilings. The tables and chairs of the Fish’s common room were built for durability rather than style, not carved, but hewn, and polished, not with wax, but by generations of oily hands and elbows. Lem, the inn’s owner, was tapping a fresh keg of ale, banging the spigot into the barrel in time to the music. He looked up at Giogi and gave him a wink.

Giogi searched the room for Sudacar while people coming in and out jostled him. Finally the young noble spotted the local lord in a corner opposite the musicians. He was seated with a few members of the town guard and some adventurers Giogi did not recognize. Sudacar rose to greet one of the travelers who’d just come in—a wool merchant. The two men gave each other a hearty handshake. Sudacar offered the newcomer a seat and signaled for more drinks before sitting back down himself.

Giogi suddenly felt very nervous. True, Sudacar had invited him, but the local lord was obviously very busy with friends and associates. Uncertain as to what sort of reception Sudacar would have for him, Giogi turned about and left the inn.

Once outside again, Giogi felt aimless. He meandered toward the market green with his hands stuffed deep in his cloak pockets and his head tilted back toward the stars. At the near end of the green stood a statue of Azoun III, grandfather of the present king. The stone monarch sat on a granite stallion frozen in the act of rearing and trampling rock-carved bandits. Giogi leaned against a stone bandit and sighed loudly.

“This was not the homecoming I expected,” he explained to the bandit.

The wind, chill and damp, blew from the lake. Giogi sighed again and watched the ghosts of his breath drift east toward his own home.

“The house felt like a tomb when I got in last night,” he told the bandit. “I have to spend my second day back, tomorrow, visiting the family crypt. Shaver says I missed the best summer regatta in ten years. His yacht, The Dancing Girl , came in second against four hundred-to-one odds. And Chancy says that his sister, Minda, did not wait for me. She married Darol Harmon, from over in Arabel. Not that there was anything official between us, mind you. I thought we had an understanding, but I guess a year is a long time for a girl to wait.”

Giogi studied the bandit’s grimace. “I suppose, though, that you have your own troubles.”

The bandit did not keep up his end of the conversation, so Giogi continued. “Everyone laughs at my boots, and no one wants to listen to the tale of my travels. I’ll admit, there aren’t any princes or elves or casts of thousands in it, but it does have a whopping big dragon, and an evil sorceress, and a lovely, but quite mad, lady sell-sword. Wait. There was one person who was interested,” Giogi amended. “Gaylyn, Freffie’s wife. Nice girl, and pretty, too. Olive Ruskettle, the renowned bard, wrote a song in honor of their wedding—Freffie and Gaylyn’s wedding, that is. Now, how did it go?”

Giogi began singing snatches of the song: “Something, something, syncopated breath. Something, something, love transcends even death.”