The Dragon's Apprentice (4)

“When is the bridal auction?” The dragon asked several hours later. Lynn didn’t even look up from the rings she was carefully sorting into several piles even though he knew how sensitive a subject it was for her.
Every five years in Lynn’s village every unmarried woman of marriageable age was collected and, for one day, offered up to the highest bidder be they slaver or single male looking for a wife as long as they could pay the asking price. Usually it was uneventful enough with only the single males from the town and maybe a few from the next town over making any kind of appearance, though Lynn knew from the older women that that wasn’t always the case. The year that Lynn’s own mother had been purchased by Lynn’s father a slaver from the capital had attended the auction and outbid everyone for her mother’s best childhood friend who had been taken away and never heard from again.
Only the oldest daughters were exempt from the auction as they were seen as the symbol of a family‘s wealth. The greater the dowry behind the eldest female child the higher the social standing of the family left behind after her marriage. In most cases the money gained by selling off any other daughters was added to the dowry of the eldest.
Lynn herself wouldn’t technically be old enough for the auction this year until five days past the auction’s date, but it had been decided for her that she would attend the auction anyway since she was so close to the correct age and the next auction wouldn’t be for five more years. By then the money raised by auctioning her off wouldn’t help her sister’s dowry as it would only be another year before her sister would be considered “past her prime” at the ripe old age of nine-teen. She therefore had to be married before that dreaded date.
Lynn sighed loudly and flicked another ring into a pile.
“The auction’s tomorrow,” She said and shook her head, “Though I don’t think it matters.”
“Oh? And why not?” He asked as he doodled absently in the ashes of the fire with one long, white claw.
She laughed almost bitterly. “Because no one who knows me is going to want me. I’m the ugly duckling, Vaden. Everyone knows that I’m eccentric. Odd. The best I’m ever going to be able to hope for is that eventually everyone will leave me alone or that I’ll somehow find the means to leave. Marriage is never going to be an option for me.”
He looked up at her with keen interest. “Do you actually want to get married?” He asked, scaly eyebrows raised.
Lynn shrugged. “Eventually. I’d like it to not be to a perfect stranger, but I have the feeling that the only way anyone is ever going to want me is if they don’t know me first.”
“Oh, come now, that’s not fair. You’re a very lovely, bright young woman with many valuable attributes. To add to that you’re a very bright young woman who has been taught magic by a dragon. That looks very good on a resume.”
Lynn laughed. “Maybe in the rest of the world, but not in Gold Spring nor in any of the towns surrounding it.” She tossed another ring into a pile.
Vaden snorted and a smoke ring traveled up to the ceiling where it disappeared into the dark. “My dear, it should not be you worrying about them liking you, but them worrying about you liking them. Don’t you want to say who you mate instead of having it chosen for you?” He asked.
“Of course, but such freedom to choose is a luxury for the eldest daughters,” She said as she tried one ring on, holding it up in the light as it sat on her finger to see how it shone. He watched it intently until she took it off and tossed it, too, aside. “Besides,” She added, “There is only one male I can think of wanting and I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to have him.”
“Oh? And why not?” The dragon asked again. His hands stilled in front of him.
The silence lengthened until all that could be heard was the crackling of the torches. "Lynn?" His tone was commanding and brooked no argument.
“Because he’s scaly and bad tempered,” She said to her lap and stood abruptly, scattering a handful of rings. “I need air. I’ll be back to finish this.”
With that she headed for the exit, but he beat her to it. Moving with inhuman speed he slapped his tail across the only easy way out and lowered his head to stare directly into her face when she pulled up short.
“Did you mean that?” He asked and tilted his head until one of his large eyes took up her entire field of vision.
She shrugged.
“Answer the question, Lynn. Did you mean that?” He asked again. She met her own eyes reflected back at her from the depth of his gaze.
“Yeah, not that anything can come of it, right?” He didn’t answer and stared at her so long that she fidgeted. “Right, Vaden?”
At last he just nodded slowly, sat up, and looked deliberately away from her. She sighed and looked away, too.
“Crushing on the teacher. Pretty pathetic, huh?” She said at last.
“No, Lynn,” He said and slithered back to the fireside where he curled up like a very large, scaly cat.
She sighed, looked from the exit then back to the dragon, then finally settled again to her seat amongst the rings where she resumed her careful sorting.

The Dragon's Apprentice (3)

He grumbled something unintelligible as she disappeared into the shadows cast by the mound. A moment later his head reared back and he snorted loudly. Snot covered coins stuck to the side of the gleaming piles as they flew from his nose and he quickly kicked more coins over them least Lynn spot them. She was terrible when she was right.
“What are you doing?” He asked as her disappearance lengthened with the only sign of her the odd scraping and thump from the dark. “How can you possibly find anything in the dark?”
“It’s not that dark,” She called back and her voice echoed as if she were some distance away.
He frowned and craned his head around the side of his hoard. Over the years the mound of treasure had taken on a life of its own until it completely blocked his large bulk from the back of the cave. Usually, when he needed to get back there, he either shape shifted or just shoved hunks of the mountain aside to get where he desired. He’d gotten lazy about both since Lynn had gotten old enough to be sent in after the odd bit or piece. She had become much better at finding what went missing then he was anyway.
“What are you doing?” He asked again as her absence continued and lifted himself up onto his hind legs until he could look over the top of the gleaming pile. He rested his chin on the coins and tried to see her through the gloom. As a dragon he had amazing sight, even in the dark. Even so he could just see her shadow moving about in the recesses of the cave as she fought and argued with what appeared to be a small trunk.
“Hunting for your ring. What does it look like I’m doing?” She asked and finally managed to heave the small trunk onto her shoulder before she began to pick her way back around the mountain toward him, ungainly with the extra weight she now carried.
He lowered himself back down to the cave floor and went to look at her again around the side of his gold to watch her progress. After several slips that looked vaguely painful she finally dropped the trunk and simply began to pull it after her across the coins. He stepped back as she finally emerged, butt first, from the dark with the small trunk in tow.
The trunk itself was rather unremarkable. It was unvarnished and bound, not in gold or silver or even well polished brass, as most of his trunks were, but in roughly pounded, thick copper that had been applied to the wood when it was so hot that there were char marks around the bands. While small, the dark, roughly finished oak from which it had been constructed made it heavy even empty which meant that, while full, it had to be a nightmare for someone as slight as Lynn to carry.
“You should have told me you were after that trunk, Lynn, and I would have gotten it myself,” He said as she dropped it with a solid thud at his feet.
Lynn straightened, breathing hard, and shook her head.
“Wouldn’t have done any good. It had somehow gotten shoved into the way back in that little crack you never bothered to fill in,” She said breathlessly and wiped gleaming sweat from her brow. “Packrat.”
He puffed a smoke ring at her face. “I am in no way, nor have I ever been, in any way, shape and or form, rat like,” He said with dignity.
She grinned at him and crouched to undo the latches of the trunk that were constructed for human hands to operate and, therefore, way too delicate for draconic hands to master. He could have, again, shape shifted to get into it, but with Lynn there he saw no point in doing so. Of course, if he had had to retrieve it himself he would have already been in an appropriate form for getting into it. Hands were useful that way.
She threw back the lid to expose the trunk’s contents. Inside gleamed mounds of assorted rings. Small, large, jeweled, simple silver or gold bands, delicate things that looked as if they were so fragile that they would crumble to the touch. Some bore tarnish while still others looked freshly polished. A few others looked as if they were still hot from the forge that had created them.
“Ah,” He sighed and scooped out a small claw full to allow them to fall back into the pile. “Now I remember the day we did this. There should be one in here that looks as if it’s worth more then the others, though it’s not. It’s gaudy with a large green jewel surrounded by what could be diamonds.”
“And that’s the one that turns thieves into pigs?” She asked as she crouched to paw through the trunk.
He nodded his massive head, sending light playing across the sides of the cave as it caught off his scales. “I wanted something that would be sure to be stolen. It isn’t my most valuable ring by any means. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The stones are real and the gold it’s made from is as pure as it comes, but there’s more to value then gold and jewels.” He chuckled. “I guess that’s you’re lesson for today.” He paused. “Tell you what, Lynn, if you can pick out the ring that is indeed the most valuable from this trunk then you may have it. I’ll even give you a clue to make it more interesting if you like.”
Lynn frowned down at the trunk’s contents as she thought, one finger on her chin. At last she shook her head. “I shouldn’t need the clue.”
The dragon threw his head back and roared with laughter.
“Of all the apprentices I’ve had over the centuries you are certainly the most arrogant, my dear. Alright then. If you can correctly choose the most valuable ring from that trunk I’ll not only let you have it but any other ring you wish as well.”
She looked up at him from beneath black eyebrows with a speculative look. “Are you sure about that?” She asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Alright,” She grinned and sat, cross legged, before the open trunk.
“Oh, don’t forget that you wanted this,” She said and handed him the ring they‘d originally been searching for.
He grinned as he took it and carried it with him back to his place by the fire. There he placed it upon one of many little shelves carved into the stone, this one at about the eye level of a human. The ring glinted in the torchlight.
Lynn pulled the trunk closer and dumped the rings across the floor.

The Dragon's Apprentice (2)

She lifted one eyebrow and leaned around into the caves mouth to squint into the darkness, unafraid, though the sound was most definitely out of the ordinary. After a moment it was followed by another deep, echoing growl that managed to sound at once frightening and frustrated.
She shrugged and stepped into the dark, not in the least intimidated by the growling, as out of the ordinary as it was.
“What’s the matter? Step on your own tail again?” She asked into the darkness, following the cool cave wall with her hand as she walked. There was a sense of dampness to the cave though the stone itself was completely dry to her touch.
“No,” A sullen rumble answered her from some distance up ahead and the sound of small pieces of metal falling against other pieces of metal, like coins being dropped, echoed toward her. Just ahead she could make out the soft glow of firelight.
“Then what’s the matter?” She asked and blinked as she emerged into the light at the end of the tunnel.
The cave into which she had walked was immense. Even though torches lined the walls high above her head and a fire burned in a rough fireplace large enough to roast a house in she couldn’t see the ceiling. More light glinted from the many surfaces of gem stones, coins and who knew what else that formed a small mountain at the back of the cave. It was next to this mountain of gleaming metal that the dragon sat, the light catching off of his white and gold scales as if he too were a precious gem as he pawed through his hoard with enormous, clawed hands. He was growling and muttering to himself as he shoved aside mounds of gold coins, the odd gem incrusted crown and, on occasion, pieces of armor.
“I lost it,” He snarled and lifted a particularly gaudy crown into the light to examine it before he tossed it to the back of the mound where it rolled into the dark. Lynn heard it clatter to a stop long after it had vanished into the unlit back of the cave.
“What’s an it?” Lynn asked and continued her way to the fireplace.
His tail thrashed in agitation and he threw a handful of bits and pieces into the dark after the crown.
“One of my enchanted rings. The one that turns anyone that steals it into a pig. You haven’t seen it by any chance, have you?” He asked and at last turned his head to look at her through one gold-green eye.
Lynn shook her head. “I can’t say that I have. Are you sure you didn’t put it in that small trunk where you shoved the rest of your rings the last time you got into a cleaning fit?” She asked and retrieved a silver vase from a nook hidden to the right of the fireplace. From it she dumped two dried, petal-less flowers into the hungry flames of the fire and replaced them with the two she had picked on her walk.
“I don’t have…fits,” He huffed and turned completely to face her. A wide, almost boyish grin, if a boy had ever had teeth enough to eat a cow whole, took over his face when he saw the flowers. “Ah. You remembered.”
“What else does that ring do?” She asked.
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t think it does do anything else. Why?”
She shook her head. “I just can’t understand how someone could want a magic ring that does nothing but turn someone else into a pig.”
“All dragons have something of it’s like in their hoard, my dear, and when I had it made I wanted something no one else had thought of before.”
Lynn laughed. “If you had it made then how can you not know if it does anything else?” She asked and threw herself down into a battered, well loved, wing backed chair placed to one side of the fire place. He moved to the other side of the fireplace and coiled himself comfortably there. He then turned his head to observe her through one unblinking, cat like eye, his search obviously forgotten.
“Sometimes, as enchanted objects age, they decide that they’re going to do something completely different from their original programming. I once saw a ring that was meant to turn princes into frogs cause an errant prince's arrogant head to keep swelling until it exploded.”
“Eww.” Lynn wrinkled her nose and the dragon laughed. If she hadn’t known him and what the sound was it would have been a frightening experience. His laugh was deep and throaty and made the entire cave rattle while exposing way too many sharp teeth.
“That random spell change…Is that anything like the time you sneezed and turned yourself into a cow with a devil’s tail?” Lynn asked and he looked thoughtful for a moment.
“In a way I suppose. If I hadn’t been in the middle of trying to cast a spell it probably wouldn’t have happened.” He paused to think about it. “When magic is left to its own devises it often does things that are completely useless.”
“You’d probably still be stuck that way if dragons weren’t natural shape shifters,” She observed.
He nodded. “Probably.”
As the silence between them settled into the silence of two beings that had known each other for far too long Lynn sighed.
“So, what’s my lesson for today, Master?” She asked at length and the dragon uncoiled himself to return to his hoard.
“Help me find that blasted ring and we’ll call it good,” He muttered and shoved his nose into the gleaming pile where he snuffed huge, noisy lung fulls of air.
“Careful or you’ll get coins stuck up your nose again,” Lynn said as she stood and moved to join him. Slipping and sliding on the mound she scrambled up one side and disappeared around one edge.

The Dragon's Apprentice

The sun was just rising above the horizon as she slipped as silently as she could from the shadows of the barn toward the massive trees of the ancient forest. If anyone in their family spotted her they would surely try to stop her, but they would only just be stirring and she had been awake for hours.
Lynn, for reasons unknown to her, had always seemed to need less sleep, and somehow more food, then any of the rest of her family. Those were, of course, not the only differences between herself and her kin, but they were, in many ways, the most noticeable.
Pausing at the edge of the old barn, one slender, long hand braced against the wood, she glanced back at the little house slowly being devoured by climbing plants. Within its walls she supposedly shared one small room with her three sisters, though, in truth, she more often then not slept atop the coal in the cellar with only the mice as her room mates.
The mice were certainly quieter.
As the youngest child out of nine her eccentricities were often overlooked and those that weren't weren't worth arguing with her over. According to her mother, at any rate.
Lynne shrugged to herself and turned back to face the trees. If she didn't hurry she'd either be late or caught. Either way both were just as bad... Well, maybe not. Her parents weren't inclined to bite off body parts, after all.
Ducking low she made the hundred yard dash from the shadows of the barn to the even deeper shadows of the trees. She just made it to the more secure cover when she had to freeze with all the skill of the rabbit that fears the hunter as the front door of the house opened.
The oldest of her brothers stepped into the new day's light, stretching and yawning. Oblivious to the extra shadow in the trees that was his little sister, he rubbed his eyes and wondered on into the barn.
Lynn watched him round the corner before she slipped into the next shadow, then the next, as silent and smooth in her movements as a passing breeze. She moved closer and closer to the trees, calm and patient in her progress, only to have to freeze again as the house door opened a second time and, this time, her oldest sister stepped into the dawn.
The older girl squinted and blinked like a night creature brought suddenly to light. She mumbled and growled to herself and swiveled her head back and forth like a snake trying to get a fix on a mouse it had lost before she finally followed Jacky into the barn.
Lynn sneered after the other girl and bared her teeth in a silent, unseen threat, before she turned and made the last dash into the trees.
Safe within their green depths she at last took a deep breath of the loamy air and allowed herself to relax.
If her family ever found out where she was going they would have, at the best, had her sent away. At the worst they would have had her burned as a witch. Hell, going into the trees was apparently enough evidence to convict her of witchcraft if previous, recent incidences were anything to go by.
Lynn shuddered as she picked her way toward the familiar forest path.
Fortunately all of the girls that had been recently targeted had been no one she knew or she may have been tempted beyond all good judgment to do something stupid to help them.
The new magistrate had changed everything. Before he had arrived what few witch trials there had been had been fairly and impartially administered by Father Jonas. Now it was all different. Not long after the trials had begun those girls that had not been accused of practicing the craft had begun to change. They had become mean, cold, calculating, watchful. Like Lynn's best friend. Like two of her sisters.
Lynn knew that it was only a matter of time before they came after her, too.
She jumped lightly over an old, dry creek bed that was deeper then the little bit of water it saw each year should call for and landed, as light as a cat, on the hard packed dirt path on the other side.
She paused here again and looked back just once more. She lifted her face into the still air and sucked an open mouthful across her soft pallet. She tasted rabbit, at least a day old, a deer, it's fragrant taste just a little fresher, and her own scent, new over old over older still. Other then that nothing presented itself and, at last, she turned onto the narrow path that wound it's way into the deep, deep wood.
The path began as little more then a well worn deer track, but quickly divided. One fork, she knew from experience, twisted back toward the dry creek bed and stayed an innocent, well used deer trail. The other, wider and lined with white gravel, continued its way into the woods. It was less traveled and patches of grass grew up from between the stones.
It was this path that she took. The gravel crunched softly beneath her feet, but not so much that the birds who were pecking and scratching out their breakfast beside the path even took notice of her. Just as her family had become accustomed to her long disappearances, especially as she drew closer to marriageable age, so had the birds learned to ignore her comings and goings from their world.
She walked further this time before the path began to change once again. At first it only widened slowly then it changed quickly from one length to the next the deeper she followed it into the trees. Before long, the gravel was replaced by yellow, sand strewn cobbles so smoothly laid that they would have cost even the capital city of the kingdom a year's revenue to have them duplicated.
By this point the path had become something wide enough to support at least one lane of carriage traffic, she paused and walked to the edge of the path just long enough to pluck three deep red blooms from where they grew, in all the glory typical to wildflowers, in a bright shaft of sun that cut through the interlaced tree branches.
One of these four petaled, blood red flowers she tucked behind one ear. The remaining two she simply carried with her as she continued on her way.
Once more the path turned road changed again, slowly widening until it became something wide enough for four lanes of traffic, then six, then it's edges became lost amongst the shadows of the ancient forest. Still she walked, unbothered by the changes to the once humble forest path until, at last, just as suddenly as the smooth cobbles had begun, they vanished completely into a thick, green moss that seemed as flat and planned as the road itself.
Without so much as brushing that impossibly green moss with her toes, Lynn veered sharply to her right and began to follow the straight edge that marked where the road ended. At the side of the road, where a low wall met with the ancient trees and its humble height seemed to hold them at bay, she turned left onto yet another path. This one matched the first path she had begun to walk in all but location. Its barren dirt looked like a jagged scar through the painfully green moss, moss she was incredibly careful no to so much as brush with even the smallest part of her foot as she continued on.
Lynn began to hum softly to herself as she walked, twirling one of the flower's delicate stems between thumb and forefinger. Around her patches of the moss surged toward her as if something were pushing its way beneath the lake of green. She ignored it and continued to hum to herself, unconcerned, for while man eating moss was the bane of the king's Landmen’s existence, it posed little threat to her. This particular patch had learned to fear her long ago and while it would threaten and roil it wouldn't go but so close to the path. That was not to say that it wouldn't snatch her up given even the slightest chance, but as long as she wasn't stupid she'd be fine.
The path ended abruptly at a set of narrow, stone steps that seemed to lead to the lowest branch of the nearest tree that, in its age, had begun to grow over the top most step. Still twirling the flower absently she took the steps two at a time. The steps led exactly where they seemed to lead, to the lowest branch of an ancient tree where it had come to rest, and grow, over what had once been a stone platform. It may or may not have ever been a part of something larger. Lynn didn't know.
At what had once been the platform's center was a perfectly round, clear, calm pool. Opposite the branch upon which she now stood was yet another ancient branch that belonged to yet another ancient tree. With exceptional grace, Lynn leaped the distance between branches and looked down upon the steps that led from her new perch. Aside from the difference in location the steps could have been the same ones she had just climbed. At their base, half hidden by fallen leaves, were three gray stepping stones that led to the mouth of a small cave. Statues or, more accurately, the peaces of statues and other assorted forms of stone work in varying states of decay littered the leaf strewn ground around the dark opening.
Lynn hopped the remaining distance from the bottom step to the last stepping stone and froze as a low growl issued from the mouth of the cave, echoing strangely through the dark.