Ross Lawhead (36 page)

“When was the last time you were here?”

“On market day last season.”

Their path joined a wider road, and Daniel could see another cart, this one covered, some distance ahead of them and, after cresting a hill and looking down upon a shallow valley, more wagons ahead of that. The traders were coming to market.

A procession of riders on magnificent horses passed them. First came what Daniel assumed were guards—they were dressed in leathers stained stained forest green and wore armour made of silver; each carried a long spear that was tipped with a head of bronze. Then came a young noble and his lady. He was dressed in blue and purple garments—a large, flowing cloak, heavy waistcoat, and trousers that ended at his knees where long riding boots began. He wore a wide-brimmed hat with long feathers of purple and black. Behind him, riding sidesaddle in a dress made up of layers of green silk and velvet, was a beautiful young woman. She also wore a large hat with black and green feathers. Unlike the Elfin gentleman, there were little silver bells attached to her clothes, gloves, saddle, and bridle, which jingled softly, like wind chimes, when the horse pranced past.

The riders passed by without a word being said on either side and eventually disappeared into the road ahead. “Who were they?” Daniel asked.

“Just travelers. A lord and lady, by the look of it,” Kæyle remarked tersely.

They were passed by another elf on horseback, this one dressed in clothing that was quite hard to make out, since it was completely covered with brightly coloured ribbons of varying lengths. His hat was squat and had streamers erupting from the top of it. All this was dazzling, but that was nothing compared to the elf's smile, which was like a blazing sunbeam when he flashed it in Daniel's direction.

“Good day to you, collier Kæyle,” greeted the rider. There was a large instrument, rather like an oversized cello, lashed to his saddle, the neck of which was wide, fretted, and extended above his head.

“Good day, Awin Kaayn,” responded the collier. “Where will you be performing this market?”

“In the usual place—the common court—except for this evening when I will be entertaining the Elfin Prince Lhiam-Lhiat in the feast hall.”

“Is he one of the nine?” Daniel asked Pettyl in a low voice, but loud enough that the musician heard him.

“Aye, he is,” the brightly costumed Faerie said. “The Secondeldest of the Nine Great Rulers. Do you want to meet him?” he asked with a sly grin.

“Would I be allowed?”

“All things can happen for a price.”

“I don't have any money—”

Daniel stopped talking as the collier placed a hand on his knee.

This act was not unnoticed by the minstrel, who merely continued to smile wryly.

“All of us are given great treasures at birth that may be negotiated and bartered with. Do you have an artist's eye? What good is it to you if you don't use it—you might enjoy having a musical ear instead, so why not trade it? Why hold on to your dancer's toe if you never exercise it? Better to have a hound's nose or the tongue of the birds. Nearly every virtue is saleable—as are all of the vices, except for one—do you know what that is?”

Daniel didn't respond, but Awin Kaayn seemed determined to wait for an answer, so he shook his head.

“Greed! You'll never find anyone willing to part with it!” He laughed merrily at his joke. Kæyle and Pettyl frowned and continued looking stonily at the road.

“Well,” the minstrel said, evidently knowing when a crowd had turned sour. “I'll be off. Find me at the Fayre, young master,” Kaayn said to Daniel, “and I'll play a song just for you.”

And with a final flash of his smile, the minstrel spurred his horse and galloped on ahead, disappearing from sight a few minutes later around a bend in the road.

“It will go better,” Kæyle said to Daniel after a time, “if you allow me to deal for you at the Fayre, or you will find return to your own world quite beyond your means.”

Nothing more was said and no other travelers greeted, until the Fayre was finally visible. There were indeed tents and booths set up, into the hundreds, and some were well over two storeys and made of many different composite parts. The booths were generally cubic and regularly spaced. The tents above them were of variable heights and sometimes spanned multiple booths. All were festooned with bright flags and banners embroidered with symbols of their trade. Freestanding tents were often erected in complex star-shaped patterns layered on top of each other, sprouting other tents out of their sides and sometimes out of their tops. Daniel wondered if they actually had different floors in them— some of them seemed as big as hotels.

The people were no less strange and vibrant. All of them were dressed in such dazzling colours and fabrics that Daniel nearly became hypnotized by the ever-shifting crowd. More than a few nobles were swanning about in clothes decorated with glittering metals and stones.

Due to the size of Kæyle's wagon, they were made to circumnavigate the Fayre in order to reach the area where the collier would set up his stall. This was in a lower part of the site, which was already quite muddy and where elves dressed in less ostentatious outfits seemed to be engaged in bartering for livestock or food stock.

The collier hopped down from the cart and led the horses by their bridles to a large authoritarian figure whom the chaotic swarm of workmen seemed to orbit. They exchanged a few words, and Daniel saw the rotund elf point towards a bank of flimsy structures that some worker elves were attempting to erect. Kæyle led the cart to their designated booth, which was little more than three flimsy walls that reminded Daniel of the fencing around his garden when he was young. There was also a large central post that rose from a hole in the middle of the site, which leaned at a disconcerting angle.

As Daniel helped Pettyl unload some of the smaller barrels packed with charcoal, Kæyle went to borrow some tools from the workers. He returned with a mallet and some wooden pegs, which he hammered into the ground alongside the walls and central posts in order to more firmly anchor them. It was the work of a moment and made the thin panels sturdy and upright.

Then they set up their stall. Pettyl took the job of raising the tent as the other two unloaded the large barrels of charcoal.

Daniel watched Pettyl scale the central pole, gripping a loop of string that she tied at the top and used to hoist the canopy, which was green and grey.

“Those are the colours of our trade,” Pettyl explained when asked. “Red and yellow are the goldsmith's, white and grey the silversmith's, brown and black the bronzesmith's, white with black and red feathers is the fletcher's, yellow and orange the brewer's, and so on. You will soon learn them.”

“What about the . . .”—he didn't know the word in Elfish, so he used the English—“
blacksmith's
?” He was interested in what elfish weapons were to be had. “What colour is that? Red and black?”

“What is a ‘blacksmiths'?” she asked, unpacking and smoothing down the surface of a long banner.

“Someone who shapes, um . . .
steel
,” Daniel replied. “An
iron
monger.” He drew his sword and tapped it.

Pettyl twitched, as if shocked. “Put that away! Let none see it!” she whispered harshly. “Hidden prince,” she said as an oath, “if I had known that all this time, you—good elves have no need for such a thing!” she exclaimed.

“What do you use for swords and tools?”

“Bronze is good, as is brass or any number of mixed metals. Some swords are even made from stone, but those are expensive and rare—the art to wright those is being lost.” She frowned. “Steel is a cold, hateful metal, and iron is downright heartless. It houses none of the passion that the warm metals keep. It despises our flesh and corrupts it. We have no dealings with it.”

Daniel sheathed his sword again. This information sparked a train of thought. He now recalled, vaguely, that iron was tied up with elfish lore and myths somehow. There was iron in his blood, he knew. Maybe they didn't have any inside them. But did they get any of it in their diet? Had
he
been getting any of it in his diet? Maybe that was why he was feeling so fatigued.

What would happen if he never got it? Would he die?

“When will I be able to talk to someone who can send me back home?” Daniel asked the collier and his wife once the shop had been completely set up. Daniel was impressed. Various streamers and flags had been arranged to make a compelling pattern. Sawdust had been strewn all about the ground so that it was dry and clean, and a long banner with the colours of their trade and an elfish script describing their name had been fixed to a pole a little distance away from the tent, closer to the general flow of elves walking within the Fayre.

“That is best done soon,” the collier said. “Pettyl will mind the stall now, you come with me.”

The two followed a wide path that took them into the heart of the Fayre, where a group of more interesting and esoteric stalls stood. They passed cloth merchants selling clothes with fantastically woven patterns and pictures. Smaller vendors offered strange foods, calling out their names: Roc Eggs, Christian's Delight, Old Man's Temptation, something called snake's hoofs, suckling roasted carbuncles, spiced mandrake root, and more besides.

There were drinks and potions also: Honeymooner's Mead, Red Absinthe, sweet milk, moly tea, and wines and cordial made of fruits and berries Daniel had never heard of before. Then they came to a part of the Fayre that sold charms and trinkets—table upon table of bright, dazzling pieces of metal- and stonework, as well as vials containing potions and elixirs.

“The rule for the forest goes the same here—perhaps more so.

Lest you be trapped here permanently, touch nothing.”

Daniel kept his hands in his pockets but took in all he could with his eyes. There was a banner outside one blue-and-black tent that caught Daniel's attention—he couldn't read what it said, but it bore shapes that apparently represented different realms, because one of them was shaped exactly like Great Britain.

4

Alex inspected the wound at his side. It wasn't much. It didn't look as if he would need stitches. He went towards the dead dragon and started to work his sword out of it. “That was a good upwards swing,” he complimented Maccanish. “And well placed.”

“Thank you. I'm a keen golfer. What do we do with the body?”

“Whatever you like. Although it's not going to be around for long. The natural chemicals it makes in order to spit fire are highly corrosive. It'll be a pile of sludge by nightfall unless you know the proper way of removing them. Look, see—the head is already decaying.” Alex finally managed to pull his blade free. He inspected it. Apart from being covered in acidic dragon's blood, it seemed none the worse for wear. It needed a good cleaning. Luckily, he had an alkali solution wash in his Land Rover.

“Remarkable. What about the trolls?”

“Again, whatever you please. Leave them here or call the Royal Society of Anthropology. That'd give them a fright. I always wondered what would happen if someone did that. In any case, my work here is finished. You had bigger problems than I thought if you had a dragon move in here.”

“So what does that mean?” Maccanish asked. They stepped outside and stood in the cave's mouth. “What does that mean for the valley? For our troubles?”

“Well, you'll be back to being able to sleep, for a start. People will be less inclined to evil deeds and the feeling of dread and oppression will be lifted. But people will still be hurt, and they'll still be frightened, as they won't understand, or allow themselves to understand, what has happened. It'll be your job to help them through that. You need to keep an eye out, though. If the people hereabouts slide back into despair, these things and more could come back. Keep an eye out. And I'll give you a number where I can be contacted. But you can give thanks now that you have been delivered from evil.” Alex stuck out his hand. “And I can give thanks that you've kept such an excellent golfing form.”

Maccanish smiled and shook Daniel's hand.

“What are you going to do now?” Maccanish asked.

“There's one more thing that I need to check on. You go on back. Thanks again for your help.”

“Thank
you
.”

Rector John Maccanish started off, back down Morven. As

Alex watched him go, he heard the man begin to sing a hymn as the clouds finally opened and released a gentle rain upon the mountain and its plain.

Alex went back into the cave. He broke another glow stick and clipped it next to the other, which was dimming. He hung his sword by its hilt onto a carabiner on his belt; it bumped comfortingly against him as he walked. There would be no more danger here—he was no longer on alert.

Instead, he tried to get himself in the right frame of mind— doing the mental exercises his father taught him—and walked farther into the tunnel. He stepped cautiously over the body of the dragon and then those of the trolls. He turned the corner and passed the dragon's pile of shiny loot—its bedding. Then he came to a chiseled stone wall made of square one-foot-by-one-foot blocks, and about as high and wide as a standard doorway.