'I believe you, laddie. I believe you,' shrieked Nyr, almost helpless with laughter.
'No, you don't,' said Mika, reaching for his sword.
'Yes, I do, laddie,' said Nyr, wiping his eyes and looking at Mika with sudden compassion. 'Indeed I do, for I have heard parts of this story before. Be a good lad, and I'll tell you about it.'
CHAPTER 7
'You say it's a blue-green stone and it belonged to the princess,' Nyr gasped, tears running from his eyes as he forced himself upright and wiped his streaming eyes with shaking fingers.
'Aye,' said Mika, now almost sober from rage. 'What's so funny about that? It's magical, I tell you.'
'I know, laddie. I know,' said Nyr. 'And you've used this stone, right? How many times?'
'Twice,' growled Mika. 'And it worked fine.'
'Unfortunately,' said Nyr. He looked at Mika with sympathy. 'Did the princess not tell you anything about this stone?'
'I didn't give her much of a chance,' said Mika, growing more and more uneasy. He glanced at the female wolf and saw her staring at him steadily, a satisfied gleam in her blue and green eyes.
'Ah, laddie. I hate to be the one to tell you,' said Nyr, 'but you're in real trouble. My advice is to find a hole and throw the damned stone in it, or best of all, crush it beneath your heel.'
'I cannot do that,' said Mika, and he felt something twist deep inside at the thought of destroying the stone. To be honest, he had hoped to keep the gem even after returning the princess to her home.
'Then it is already too late,' said Nyr. 'The stone has seized hold of you.'
'Tell me whereof you speak,' demanded Mika, reaching across the table to grab Nyr's shirt and pull him half out of his chair. 'What is wrong with the stone?'
'There's no need for violence,' said Nyr, freeing his shirt from Mika's grasp and seating himself once more. 'I will gladly tell you the story, only you may wish that I had never spoken.'
Mika glared down. The female wolf sat with her odd-colored eyes fixed on Mika's face, her tongue lolling out of the corner of her mouth in a wicked grin.
'There are two kinds of stones,' said Nyr. 'One is blue-green, and one is red-purple.'
'Yes?' said Mika, frowning as he failed to grasp the significance of the man's statement.
A look of pain filled Nyr's brown eyes. He looked down at his scarred and calloused hands, his wrinkled face drooping with discomfort. 'One is a female stone. The other is male,' he muttered.
Mika's heart sank in his breast like a stone through water. Even without understanding the full import of Nyr's words, he knew that he was in trouble.
'A man must use only the red stone,' said Nyr, drawing the courage to finish the tale. 'He may use the blue stone as well, but only if he possesses the red and uses them at the same time. Used separately, they are powerful, used together, they are all but invincible.'
'What… what happens if a man uses a blue stone by itself?' asked Mika, his mouth almost too dry to form the words.
'Each time he uses it, he becomes more and more female,' Nyr said softly.
Mika gulped, remembering how drawn he had been to the cloth in the marketplace; he glanced down at his new finery in horror. 'Can the damage be undone?' he asked gruffly, almost afraid to hear the answer.
'Yes,' said Nyr. 'But it would take a red stone to do it. and such a stone would be difficult to acquire.'
'Why so?' asked Mika, determined to have the stone no matter what the cost.
'Because the stones are few in number, coming as they do from the princess's own island, which is small and easy to guard. Such stones are not sold or traded on the open market like other gems.'
'No,' said Mika in a low tone. 'But how is it that you know so much about the stones?' he asked, suddenly suspicious.
'I am a sailor,' said Nyr. 'I have spent my life upon the water and have heard tales of every ocean and sea.
'I saw one such fellow who was unlucky enough to have successfully stolen a blue stone. Though most womanlike, he was cursed with a male appearance, still sporting a huge beard and mustache. He was quite ugly.' Nyr shuddered at the memory.
'He had tried without success to purchase a red stone… Last I heard, he, uh, she, had fallen in love and married a pirate.'
'Why did he not simply throw the thing away?' asked Mika, already knowing the answer.
'The stones seem to call to the soul,' said Nyr, 'much like the song of a siren as she lures sailors to their deaths. You yourself have said that you could not give yours up.'
Mika nodded, for he knew that it was true.
'Come, laddie, 'tis not the end of the world,' said Nyr in a kindly voice. 'I'm sure you' 11 think of something. Here, let me buy a new skin. Maybe it will help us think!' And holding up two coins, he summoned the serving boy and they set about their drinking in earnest.
Mika drank so much that night that Jayne's actually began to look good to him. The customers no longer seemed boorish slobs, unfit to groom his wolf. No! Indeed, he thought them to be boon companions, one and all. Fine, intelligent fellows with marvelous gifts for humor and storytelling. In fact, everything each said seemed as though it should be carved in stone for the world to read and admire. He himself was equally witty and amusing and uttered many wise thoughts. The more he drank, the more he thought so.
RedTail agreed with him; that was easy to see by the way the wolf looked at Mika with his marvelous amber eyes. As RedTail's reward for being such an astute judge of character, Mika shared his ale with the wolf, drink for drink. At length, however, RedTail ceased agreeing with Mika. In fact, he ceased agreeing with anyone, for his eyes were closed and his nose was stuck in his cup, wolven snores echoing and rumbling out of the tumbler.
Tam still snored beneath Mika's chair and, as far as Mika could tell through bleary eyes, the lump atop his head had shrunk still further.
Princess Julia, however, still sat a few paces away, staring at Mika with a malicious gleam in her eye as though delighted that he had learned the horrible truth about the gem. Mika's lip lifted in a snarl of his own. and he and the female wolf glared at each other with hatred.
Periodically throughout the long night the ceiling had rumbled and thundered and, at every occasion, the inhabitants of the bar had lifted their cups and cheered. Well into the evening, the walls began to shake and even the floor boards began to bounce, causing tables and chairs to dance across the floor, spilling food and brew.
As patrons clutched their cups and covered their heads against the rain of dust, there was a tremendous bellow that rang through the building.
It was at this moment that a fat merchant dressed in multi-colored silks wobbled over and sat down at Mika's table.
'Fine wolf you have there!' he said as he stared at the princess.
Mika nodded glumly. 'Yeah, terrific wolf,' he echoed.
'I could use such a wolf,' said the merchant, taking care not to stain his silk cuffs in the pools of spilled wine.
'Then go out and get one,' said Mika, trying to picture the smarmy fellow squeezing himself down a wolf run into the den. He snickered at the thought.
'There are other ways,' said the merchant. 'Allow me,' he said as he poured Mika a cup of wine from a flask which he drew from a finely tooled leather pouch.
Mika, who was reaching the bottom of his wineskin as well as his coins, had no objections. He downed the wine in one gulp, noticing vaguely that it tasted rather strange and left a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. Just as he started to say something, he felt his head grow numb.
The paralysis crept downward at a rapid rate. As he crumpled forward onto the table, he realized that he had been drugged and wondered if he were going to die. Gripped completely by the paralysis, he could do nothing as he watched the merchant reach down and untie the princess's leash and drag her away. The last thing he heard as his eyes closed were the sounds of snarling and snapping and an enraged curse. Then there was nothing but
