It was a pleasant evening along the wharves that flanked the tall iron gate into Blackwater, no hint of the unrest that was rumored to be brewing to the south and west. The Gidaran's tent was at the far end of the wharf, just past the more permanent stalls tended by fishmongers and others hawking their goods. Its brightly patterned silks billowed in the light sea breeze.
Zan made his way toward his quarry, brainstorming a backstory as he walked. The dark-robed Blackwater guards paid him no mind, assuming him just another barbaric satyr out peddling goods. Even when he was doing something that might be perceived as sneaky, changelings were so rare that he hardly ever invoked suspicion. In that way, he was grateful for his strange singularity.
Voices pricked his ears as he neared the tent, one masculine and the other feminine, both in the guttural cadence of the Gidaran. The tent flap was closed, meaning either the occupants were with a client or chatting in private. Satyrs didn't possess keen hearing, but elves did, and thankfully it was a gift that persisted through Changes.
"Are you sure?" the male satyr said, his voice like a sudden crack of thunder.
"Indeed," a thin, reedy voice replied. It wasn't the female Gidaran. Zan couldn't tell whether it was a man or woman or something else altogether. "Neither the Witches Triumvirate nor the free Darkbane yet know."
"Who will you tell?" asked the female satyr. The sound of furniture shifting on hard ground assaulted Zan's ears, and he imagined her leaning in, waiting for the stranger's answer.
"Whomsoever I choose. Fate has been set in motion. There is no undoing what will be done. I have all the time in the world."
"So you do." The male satyr barked out a staccato laugh.
"What will you give me for this story, Gidaran?"
"What do you seek?" the female asked with the air of someone thrilled to be approaching a negotiation. "We have stories old and new, from both far and wide. Do you desire to know who shares nights with the sleepless Princess of Sorrown? Perhaps you would rather hear a tale of the magnificent jewelry caches of the dragon elves."
Zan struggled to hold his tongue. The Yansu had no gaudy jewelry caches. That was a complete fallacy. Nor did they hunt and devour maiden princesses and burn cities to the ground for no good reason. Were these Gidaran charlatans reciting bedtime stories from fairy books?
"I'm not after stories," the stranger whispered hauntingly. "I desire truth. Truth and memories sustain me. Give me your hand."
"No funny business."
The male satyr grumbled as bodies shifted in their chairs. Several minutes passed, the silence interrupted only by occasional chatter from the dirty stone streets and the lapping of waves against the seawall. Zan worried something awful had happened inside the tent, or that at any moment the flap would fly open and they'd discover him loitering.
Clothing and furniture shuffled in a barrage of sound at last, as if someone, maybe even both satyrs, had fallen out of their seat. The female Gidaran choked on a deep, wheezing gasp.
"That was... What did you do, traveler?"
"I gathered my due. That will be all, thank you."
"What are you?" Fear and awe bloomed in the male satyr's breathless words.
"I am Nothing and Eternal."
Zan was certain he'd never heard a more terrifying and confounding answer in his life.
Who–-or what?–-was both nothing and eternal? Wraiths were the only creatures that came to mind, but they weren't intelligent like this individual seemed to be. Perhaps this stranger with a voice like the wind was something Zan hadn't heard of, another gruesome result of the witches' overstepping their limits.
"W-will you be at the Revelry?" The female Gidaran's voice shook, at odds with the harsh tone of her voice. "If you come across any further details, we could discuss them."
"I shall be there, but you will not know me. You have nothing else I need."
The tent flap rustled. Zan jumped behind a stack of shipping crates and waited with breath held as a slender, robed figure emerged from the tent in a mist of gray smoke that stunk of campfires and turned soil. They–-or it-–sauntered down the wide wooden boardwalk of the wharf, paying no attention to anyone and eventually drifting out of sight.
Zan waited several more minutes before emerging. He'd intended to announce himself, but the tent flap was still open, and the female satyr was standing by the street. Her round eyes were on the distant spot where the stranger had disappeared into the twilight.
"Hail, traveler," Zan said, adopting the favored greeting of the Gidaran. He hoped the she-satyr would find no fault in his words or accent. If she suspected him, it would all be over.
She turned on her sandy hooves and regarded Zan, her head tilted. The only clothing she wore was a leather vest which left little to the imagination, and a matching belt around her waist. She was nearly the same size as Zan and as full of hair and muscle. But that was typical of their species.
"Hail, traveler," she parroted. "Have we met?"
"Doubtful. I was passing through town when I heard there was to be a Revelry in Blackwater by week's end and thought to myself, I should like to attend one of these famous witchy affairs. See what all the fuss is about. I stopped at that inn yonder." Zan pointed over his shoulder, toward The Elusive Catch, the cheapest place in town for a transient to rent, and the closest to the docks. The sign that hung over the door was missing a few letters, but anyone with half a brain could fill in the blanks. "Patrons over at the Catch told me I should come down here and offer a trade. I'm not trying to compete with you, mind. Just stopping for a few days. Won't even be setting up shop."
The Gidaran cast scrutinizing eyes on him. Zan's palms sweated. Had he said something conspicuous? Did satyrs not patronize inns? He was sure they did. Pretty sure.
"Who is it, Rika?"
The male satyr ducked out of the tent, stretching to his full and unashamedly naked height. Zan's first instinct was to balk at the half-beast's sheer size, until he remembered he was just as big and bad. For now.
"I don't know." Rika shrugged, her reddish brown eyebrows raised in twin arcs. "Who are you, stranger?"
"Name's Ronin," Zan said. "I thought perhaps we could swap stories. I've a juicy one straight from the Coven."
"Nobody has dirt on the Coven. It's impenetrable." The male satyr pointed at the duo of black-robed elven guards standing at attention at the gate. They appeared defenseless, but rumor had it they wielded enough magic to thwart an entire army.
Zan had never actually seen Blackwater guards use their magic, but he wasn't inclined to provoke them into a display.
"I can't reveal my sources, you understand," he said in an undertone, holding a beefy hand to the side of his mouth. "But it involves the Yansu."
"The dragons?" Rika's long canines peeked out behind thin lips parted in surprise. "Surely they aren't in conflict with the Coven. The entire world would have heard about it. If we survived the battle."
"You can doubt me, or you can invite me in for the story of a lifetime."
The male satyr snorted, folding his massive arms across his chest. "Only a fool attempts to barter 'the story of a lifetime.'"
"Unless it's the truth."
Zan shrugged as if it were their loss, turned, and started toward the inn, taking slow, careful steps. He adjusted his coin pouch, making sure the pieces of copper inside clinked together noisily. It wasn't a lot of money, but it might draw their attention. Later on, he might show them the coins along with the other, more precious piece of insurance he had brought along.
"Ronin, wait." It was Rika. A small grin twisted Zan's lips. "You tell us 'this tale of a lifetime first,' and then we'll decide on a suitable payment."
"Hmm..." Zan played coy, counting on his strategy to pan out. "How am I to know you'll honor your word?"
The male Gidaran stiffened, a fire burning behind his deep-set brown eyes. "How dare you make such an accusation?"
Zan held up his hands again. "I don't even know your name, brother. Isn't that preliminary to the establishment of trust?"
So far, so good.
"I'm Sorar and this is Rika, my sister." Sorar jabbed his finger toward the female satyr, scowling. "We are honorable, as are all Gidaran of the Four Rings."
Zan gave a long-suffering sigh, as though they were twisting his leg. Actually, he was thrilled; they were playing right into his game. "Fine. I'll tell you, but you had better not repay me with lies of dragon gold and flying hogwis."
Sorar clenched his teeth, bones standing out along his jaw, but said nothing. His sister snorted and waved a hand at Zan to follow them into the tent.
***
They sat around a circular wooden table covered by a patterned silk tapestry that looked to be made of the same materials as the tent and its many pendant flags. Fabric partitions separated their personal space from the public area where the Gidaran did business. Gaudy displays of cheap jewelry and metallic ornamental decor hung on fishing hooks at random heights and odd angles, garish against the jewel-tone silks.
The makeshift room smelled of smoke and something acrid Zan couldn't identify.
"Let's hear this story, then," Sorar drawled, his voice a deep rumble. As he leaned heavily on his chair, Zan noted their furniture was sturdy compared to what he was used to. It would have to be to support these behemoths.
Rika sat forward, her forearms crossed over the tablecloth, curiosity and doubt at odds in her intense gaze.
"The events that precipitated the tale began several years back...".
Zan was having trouble keeping his bulky thighs from upending the table. Angling himself sideways, he spread his legs, dropping his heavy arms between them. He clasped his hands in front of his loincloth, for lack of a better place to put them.
Sorar watched, his thin lips twitching with suppressed mirth.
Did they think him funny, an oddball? To hell with it. They wanted the story, didn't they? Why should they care how he saw fit to make himself comfortable?
Zan cleared his throat. "As I was saying, this all started about twenty years ago. The Triumvirate had been leeching power from Blackwater for centuries, and the land was running dry as darkness crept in. Everything beyond the gate suffered. The trees became blackened husks, and the very ground crumbled to pieces underfoot."
"Everyone knows this," Sorar groaned, scratching his wiry beard. "That's how the Spindlewalkers infiltrated Blackwater. The wards had grown weak."
Zan raised an eyebrow. "Have you never wondered why their struggle to maintain the wards has greatly improved over the past several years? Why new life has breathed into the trees and the realm is growing green?"
"That was the storms' doing," Rika said, picking at the rough skin around her fingernails.
Were they growing so bored already? Zan would have shaken sense into them if he could. His tale was true, and they were not likely to hear another of as much importance should they live another millennia.
"The storms replenished the land, as they always have," Rika said, as if repeating tired news. "It's the cycle of things."
With a deep sigh, Zan drew from his woefully depleted reserve of calm. It wouldn't do to lash out at these gruff characters, not if he wanted to coerce them into revealing what their previous visitor had shared with them.
"That's what they want you to believe." He balanced on that precarious ledge between indifference and investment. He would need to tell this tale well to gain their trust, but he couldn't overdo it. "When have storms replenished a ravaged land as the witches would have us believe they have done? Untouched forests have not seen such success from a single stormy season, so why should Blackwater be any different? Because it wasn't the storms, it was dragon magic."
"Dragon magic?" Rika laughed, the hollow sound filling the small room like a cavernous echo. "You cannot be serious, brother."
Oh, but he was. Zan had no qualms admitting his sister's predicament. After all, it was his mission to spread the tale far and wide to any who would listen. The more who believed, the better for Ayer's chance at escape.
"The Triumvirate stole the Yansu's crown princess from her bed and replaced her with the corpse of a changeling. When a changeling dies in a borrowed body, it's impossible to prove it's an impostor. The witches knew this. They also rightly counted on the Yansu being too proud to believe their nest was capable of infiltration. So the Yansu declared their princess dead while the witches enslaved her, binding her magic to their dark purposes. But she is still alive. If you went to the Coven right now, you could see for yourself. Do you know what a Yansu looks like?" Zan paused, glancing between his listeners. Sorar remained silent and impassive, but his sister shook her head, admitting that they didn't. "Yansu with dragon form are tall and willowy, considered the most beautiful race by many. They possess hair as dark as night shot through with ribbons of gold, and pale skin that glows as if cast in moonlight."
"Have you seen her yourself?" Sorar was becoming snappish. "What is her name?"
"Her title is Ayer'lora–-Ayer of Loradyn. No one denies the princess was once very much alive. I've not met her, but there is one who knows her well and has been inside the Coven."
"And who is this?" Rika demanded. "This mystery person who has seen the captured dragon princess. What is their name and why should we trust their word?"
"He did not give me his name, and I didn't see his face beneath his hood. But he wasn't Yansu, he didn't share their lilting mountain accent. If I had to guess, I would say he might have been an elf of northern heritage. A spy, perhaps, or a free Darkbane."
Sorar grunted. "You offer a fantastical story with no proof and expect us to believe it. What do you take us for, brother?"
"It is a tale," said Zan, leaning awkwardly over his wide-set legs to throw his elbows onto the table, "the same as any you might tell. How are we guaranteed any of them are true? This time, however, my source is trustworthy. That I am certain."
"How can you be certain if you neither saw this source's face nor know his name? Deceit oozes from you more each moment. This is not the way Gidaran conduct business amongst each other."
"My brother speaks the truth," Rika echoed Sorar, eyeing Zan with heightened reservation above tightly crossed arms. "Have you nothing else to offer?"
Zan drew the coin pouch from his shoulder and laid it on the table, beginning to unthread the cinch. Sorar scoffed at him. "Gidaran do not trade each other's stories for coin! What clan are you from that does not know even this little? You disrespect us."
"Calm down, I'm not offering you coin." Their vehemence was surprising. Rika had looked intrigued when he'd jingled his money out on the street. Had he misread her?
"Then what is it?" Rika's enormous eyes narrowed, her critical gaze focused on the pouch. Zan put his hand into its shallow depth and pulled out his trump card, the shining jewel that would hopefully win their favor and belief.
"It's a shell..."
"It isn't." Zan held up the small pearlescent nugget, barely larger than his thumb. It covered his entire palm when he was an elf, but the satyrs were enormous and their sheer size dwarfed the item.
Luckily, its name spoke for itself. "It is a dragon scale, one of Ayer'lora's."
"Let me see that." Sorar swiped the scale from between Zan's fingers, holding it up to the lantern hanging from the central beam of the tent. In the golden candlelight the scale appeared mostly white, with hints of pale pink and green as it caught different angles. But in the midday sun, it was a spectacular prism of color, like a trapped rainbow.
"You say this is the dead princess' scale," Sorar murmured, analyzing it closely. To Zan's surprise, the satyr manifested a magnifying ocular lens from somewhere hidden in his lower furred area. He held it against the scale for quite some time.
"Is it real?" Rika leaned across the table, inching ever closer to the scale.
Zan was sure no one had traded them anything so grand, and tonight would be no different. He had no intention of relinquishing the scale. It was simply a talking point. "Yes, it's real," he assured them, pulling out the metal pin he also kept in the pouch. "Let me show you."
When Sorar dubiously returned the scale to his custody, Zan demonstrated its strength. A shell or a fake scale would have borne dark etch marks from the pin, but dragon scales were extraordinarily tough. Nothing so mundane could mark them.
"What proof have you that this is a scale from the princess? It could be any dragon scale."
Zan chortled. "How much do you know about dragons, my friend? Precious little, it would seem. No two dragons have the same scales. They're like fingerprints. With a small bit of research, you would have your confirmation that this scale indeed belonged to Ayer'lora. The informant traded it to me."
"That doesn't prove she's alive and enslaved to the Triumvirate," Sorar countered.
Zan seethed. What else did they want from him? He'd given them a tale that could spawn a generation of war, and yet they would rather doubt him than run with it. What kind of Gidaran were these, that would happily trade false tales of dragon gold to terrifying strangers but would not allow themselves to be traded with a more weighty and salacious story? Not even when he'd thrown a priceless dragon scale onto the table.
"So you won't trade with me?" Zan had a hard time keeping the indignation out of his voice. Patience was Ayer's inheritance, not his. "You owe me, do you not? That is how this works."
"Not a tale of the same caliber. We have only one of those, and we would not trade it, as we know it to be true, whereas..."
"I have a dragon scale to prove my story! What do you have?"
Zan's fist slammed into his thigh. It would have hurt to high hell in his elven body, but satyr bones were strong enough to absorb the blow.
"Be that as it may, we are not in agreement. We will give you..." Rika looked around the tent, eyeing the trinkets on fish hooks.
"Don't insult me with your penny jewelry," he growled through gritted teeth. "I should report you to the Blackwater guards, have them forbid you from ever returning to this part of the continent."
"Oh, really?" Rika's head swiveled to meet his gaze, her thin upper lip raised in a lopsided smile. "And what will you tell them, that we denied you payment for rumors of a dragon at the Coven? That will go over well."
"I'd mention no such thing." Zan leaned back, making himself comfortable. "I'd tell them about the visitor you let leave this tent tonight with knowledge the Coven should like to know."
"You dared to spy on us?" Sorar's voice was a low threat. His thick, furrowed brows cast his eyes into shadows. Rika hissed, "You have no proof."
"I was waiting my turn," Zan said negligently, stowing Ayer's scale and the metal pin alongside the copper coins. He slung the leather pouch over his shoulder and prepared for a hostile exit. "It isn't my fault you two talk so damn loud."
"Get out!" Sorar bellowed, pushing the table toward the back of the tent and his massive body out of his chair in one ground-shuddering movement.
The giant satyr was prepared for a dirty brawl, clearly. Zan guffawed, as if he couldn't believe what was happening, as if he found it slightly amusing. He couldn't let on that he was nervous. Although he was as big as Sorar, Zan had never fought in a satyr's body and didn't care for the idea of an impromptu lesson. Especially when he was outmatched two to one.
He paused at the tent's threshold. "Someday, when you realize the mistake you've made, you'll wish you hadn't turned me away. Dragon scales are exceedingly valuable, and the gods of old know this pitiful tent is begging for upgrades."
The Gidaran's outrage and consternation rumbled through the tent's threadbare walls as Zan stomped away. Good. All the better if they believed he'd been gearing up to give them Ayer's scale. He hoped they wouldn't sleep tonight, worrying that they'd lost a most valuable treasure, terrified that he'd rat them out to the guards.
But he wasn't done with the satyrs yet. Aye, he'd get what he was after, one way or another.