Tales of Ethshar

She hoped they wouldn’t get into any trouble. Both of them meant well enough, but the dragon did have all those claws and teeth, and while it couldn’t yet spit fire it was beginning to breathe hot vapor. And sometimes Sirinita just didn’t think about the consequences of her actions.

But then, that was hardly a unique fault, or even one limited to children. Sensella wondered again just what Gar had thought he was doing when he brought back a dragon’s egg from one of his trading expeditions.

One of the farmers had found it in the woods while berry-picking, Gar had said — had found a whole nest, in fact, though he wouldn’t say what had happened to the other eggs. Probably sold them to wizards.

And why in the World had she and Gar let Sirinita hatch the egg, and keep the baby dragon long enough to become so attached? That had been very foolish indeed. Baby dragons were very fashionable, of course — parading through the streets with a dragon on a leash was the height of social display, and a sure way to garner invitations to all the right parties.

But the dowagers and matrons who did that didn’t let their children make playmates of the little monsters! The sensible ones didn’t use real dragons at all, they bought magical imitations, like that beautiful wood-and- lacquer thing Lady Nuvielle carried about, with its red glass eyes and splendid black wings. It moved and hissed and flew with a perfect semblance of life, thanks to a wizard’s skill, and it didn’t eat a thing, and would never grow an inch.

Tharn ate everything, grew constantly, and couldn’t yet fly more than a few feet without tangling itself up in its own wings and falling out of the sky.

Sirinita adored it.

Sensella sighed again.

Outside, Sirinita and Tharn were racing down Wargate High Street, toward the Arena — and Tharn was almost winning, to Sirinita’s surprise. He was getting bigger. He was at least as big as any dog Sirinita had ever seen — but then, she hadn’t seen very many, and she had heard that out in the country dogs sometimes grew much larger than the ones inside the city walls.

Much as Sirinita hated to admit it, her mother was right. Tharn was getting too big to keep at home. He had knocked over the washbasin in her bedroom that morning, and Sirinita suspected that he’d eaten the neighbors’ cat yesterday, though maybe the stuck-up thing was just hiding somewhere.

But did Tharn have to die, just because he was a dragon?

There had to be someplace a dragon could live.

She stopped, out of breath, at the corner of Center Street. Tharn tried to stop beside her, but tripped over his own foreclaws and fell in a tangle of wings and tail. Sirinita laughed, but a moment later Tharn was upright again, his head bumping scratchily against her hip. If she’d been wearing a lighter tunic, Sirinita thought, those sharp little scales would leave welts.

He really did have to go.

But where?

She peered down Center Street to the west; that led to the shipyards. Tharn would hardly be welcome there, especially if he started breathing fire around all that wood and pitch, but maybe somewhere out at sea? Was there some island where a dragon could live in safety, some other land where dragons were welcome?

Probably not.

There were stories about dragons that lived in the sea itself, but somehow she couldn’t imagine Tharn being that sort. His egg had been found in a forest, after all, up near the Tintallionese border, and he’d never shown any interest in learning to swim.

The shipyards weren’t any help.

In the other direction both Center Street and Wargate High Street led to the Arena — Wargate High Street led straight to the south side, four blocks away, while Center looped around and wound up on the north side after six blocks.

Could the Arena use a dragon?

That seemed promising. Dragons were impressive, and people liked to look at them.

At least, in pictures; in real life people tended to be too frightened of adult dragons to want to look at them.

But Tharn was a tame dragon, or at least Sirinita hoped he was tame. He wasn’t dangerous, not really. Wouldn’t he be a fine attraction in the Arena?

And she could come to visit him there, too!

That would be perfect.

“Come on, Tharn,” she said, and together the girl and her dragon trotted on down Wargate High Street.

There wasn’t a show today; the arena gates were closed, the tunnels and galleries deserted. Sirinita hadn’t thought about that; she pressed up against a gate and stared through the iron at the shadowy passages beyond.

No one was in there.

She sat down on the hard-packed dirt of the street to think. Tharn curled up beside her, his head in her lap, the scales of his chin once again scratching her legs right through her tunic.

People turned to stare as they passed, then quickly looked away so as not to be rude. Sirinita was accustomed to this; after all, one didn’t see a dragon on the streets of Ethshar every day, and certainly not one as big as Tharn was getting to be. She ignored them and sat thinking, trying to figure out who she should talk to about finding a place for Tharn at the Arena.

There was one fellow, however, who stopped a few feet away and asked, “Are you all right?”

Sirinita looked up, startled out of her reverie. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said automatically.

The man who had addressed her was young, thin, almost handsome, and dressed in soft leather breeches and a tunic of brown velvet — a clean one, in good repair, so Sirinita could be reasonably certain that he wasn’t poor, wasn’t a beggar or any of the more dangerous inhabitants of the fields out beyond Wall Street.

Of course, people who lived in the fields rarely got this far in toward the center of the city. And there were plenty of dangerous people who didn’t live in the fields.

She had Tharn to protect her, though, and she was only a few blocks from home.

“Is there anything I can help you with? You look worried,” the man said.

“I’m fine,” Sirinita repeated.

“Is it your dragon? Are you doing something magical?”

“He’s my dragon, yes, but I was just thinking, not doing magic. I’m not even an apprentice yet, see?” She pointed to her bare legs — if she was too young for a woman’s skirt, she was too young for an apprenticeship.

In fact, she was still a month short of her twelfth birthday and formal skirting, which was the very earliest she could possibly start an apprenticeship, and she hadn’t yet decided if she wanted to learn any trade. She didn’t think she wanted to learn magic, though; magic was dangerous.

“Oh,” the man said, a bit sheepishly. “I thought... well, one doesn’t see a lot of dragons, especially not that size. I thought maybe it was part of some spell.”

Sirinita shook her head. “No. We were just thinking.”

“About the Arena? There’s to be a performance the day after tomorrow, I believe, in honor of Lord Wulran’s birthday, but there’s nothing today.”

“I know,” Sirinita said. “I mean, I’d forgotten, but I know now.”

“Oh.” The man looked at them uncertainly.

“Do you work in the Arena?” Sirinita asked, suddenly realizing this might be the opportunity she had been looking for.

“No, I’m afraid not. Did you want....” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“We were wondering if Tharn could be in a show,” Sirinita explained.

“Tharn?”

“My dragon.”

“Ah.” The man scratched thoughtfully at his beard. “Perhaps if you spoke to the Lord of the Games....”

“Who’s he?”