Tales of Ethshar

himself, a delicate face surrounded by billows of soft brown hair. Her eyes were a rich green, as green as the moss that grew on the mountainside.

Wuller thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful.

Then the image vanished, the glow vanished, and the glass dish shattered into a dozen jagged fragments.

Kirna let out a long wail of grief at the oracle’s destruction, while Illure called, “Find me paper! I must draw the face before we forget it!”

4

Wuller stared at the portrait. Illure had come very close, he thought, but she had not quite captured the true beauty of the face he had seen in the glass.

“Who is she?” Pergren asked. “It’s no one in the village, certainly, nor anyone I ever saw before.”

“Whoever she is, how can she possibly kill a hundred-foot dragon?” Pergren’s brother Gennar demanded.

“Maybe she’s a magician,” Pergren suggested.

“There must be more powerful magicians in the World than her, though,” Gennar objected. “If it just takes magic, why didn’t the oracle say so? Why not show us some famous powerful wizard?”

“Maybe she won’t kill it,” Alasha said. “Kirna asked who could rid us of the dragon, not who could slay it.”

Gennar snorted. “You think she’ll talk it into going away?”

“Maybe,” Alasha said. “Or maybe there’s another way.”

Pergren and Gennar turned to stare at her. Wuller was still looking at the picture.

Illure certainly had a talent for drawing, he thought; the charcoal really looked like shadows and soft hair.

“What do you mean?” Pergren asked Alasha.

“I mean, that in some of the old stories, there are tales of sacrifices to dragons, where when a beautiful virgin willingly gave herself to the monster the beast was overcome by her purity, and either died or fled after devouring her.”

Pergren glanced at the picture. “You think that’s what she’s to do, then? Sacrifice herself to the dragon?”

Gennar snorted. “That’s silly,” he said.

“No, it’s magic,” Alasha retorted.

“Why don’t you sacrifice yourself, then, if you think it’ll work?” Gennar demanded.

“I said a virgin,” Alasha pointed out.

“She said beautiful, too,” Pergren said, grinning. Alasha tossed a pebble at him.

“We have a couple of virgins here,” Gennar said. “At least, I think we do.”

“Virgins or not,” Pergren said, “the oracle said that she would rid us of the dragon.” He pointed to the picture Wuller held.

“No,” said Alasha, “it said she could rid us of the dragon, not would.”

That sobered all of them.

“So how do we find her?” Pergren asked. “Do we just sit here and wait for her to walk into the village, while that monster eats a sheep a day?”

“I’ll go look for her,” Wuller said.

The other three turned to him, startled.

“You?” Gennar asked.

“Why not?” Wuller replied. “I’m small enough to slip away without the dragon noticing me, and I’m not doing anything important around here anyway.”

“How do you expect to find her, though?” Pergren asked. “It’s a big world out there.”

Wuller shrugged. “I don’t know, for sure,” he admitted, “but if we had that oracle here, then surely there will be ways to find her in the cities of the south.”

Gennar squinted at him. “Are you sure you aren’t just planning to slip away and forget all about us, once you’re safely away?”

Wuller didn’t bother to answer that; he just swung for Gennar’s nose.

Gennar ducked aside, and Wuller’s fist grazed his cheek harmlessly.

“All right, all right!” Gennar said, raising his hands, “I apologize!”

Wuller glared at him for a moment, then turned back to the portrait.

“I think Wuller’s right,” Pergren said. “Somebody has to go find her, and I’ve heard enough tales about the wizards of Ethshar to think that he’s right, finding a magician is the way to do it.”

“Why him, though?” Gennar demanded.

“Because he volunteered first,” Pergren said. “Besides, he’s right, he is small and sneaky. Remember when he stole your laces, and hid in that bush, and you walked right past him, looking for him, half a dozen times?”

Gennar conceded the point with a wave of his hand.

“It’s not up to us, though,” he said. “It’s up to the elders. You think old Wulran’s going to let his only son go off by himself?”

Alasha whispered, looking at Wuller, “He just might.”

5

In fact, Wulran was not enthusiastic about the idea when it was brought up at the meeting that night, and started to object.

His wife leaned over and whispered in his ear, cutting him off short.

He stopped, startled, and listened to her; then he looked at Wuller’s face and read the solid determination there.

He shut his mouth and sat, silent and unhappy, as the others thrashed the matter out, and the next morning he embraced Wuller, then watched as the boy vanished among the trees.

It was really much easier than Wuller had expected; the dragon never gave any sign of noticing his departure at all. He just walked away, not even hiding — though he did stay under the trees, hidden from the sky.

At first, he simply walked, marking a tree-branch with his knife every few yards and heading southwest — south, because that was where all the cities were, and west to get down out of the mountains. He didn’t worry about a particular destination, or what he was going to do for food, water, or shelter. He knew that the supplies he carried with him would only last for two or three days, and that it would probably take much longer than that to find a magician, but he just couldn’t bring himself to think about that in his excitement over actually leaving the village and the dragon behind.

He took the charcoal sketch out of his pack, unrolled it, and studied it as he ambled onward beneath the pines.

Whoever the girl was, she was certainly beautiful, he thought. He wondered how long it would take him to find her.

He never doubted that he would find her eventually; after all, he had the portrait, and magic was said to be capable of almost anything. If one ancient sorcerous device could provide her image, surely modern wizardry, or