Avram Davidson - Kar- Chee 02 - Rogue Dragon

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AVRAM DAVIDSON has been a respected figure in both science-fiction and mystery circles for a
decade or more. He has won both the Hugo award for the best science-fiction short story of the year,
and the Edgar award for the best mystery story, and was editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction until turning to full-time writing.
Ace Books has previously published a collection of his best short stories under the title of What Strange
Stars and Skies (F-330).
AVRAM DAVIDSON
ROGUE DRAGON
CHAPTERS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
ACE BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036
I
They had flushed the bull-dragon in Belroze Woods and paced him for about a mile before he came up
against the other line of beaters and turned to fight.
For a moment the whole hunt fell silent. Jon-Joras, feeling (so he thought) like a virgin at her first
assignation, heard only the sound of his own troubled breath; felt sweat starting on face and body. The
dragon seemed to crouch in his place on the far side of the clearing, his crest quivering. A moment
passed. The great head moved a trifle, (uncertainly,) and the faceted, gem-like eyes rolled in their hooded
sockets—blue, green, blue-green light flashing in the beam of moted sunlight which suddenly broke
through the trees. Then, incredible how long it was, the red and bifurcated tongue leaped out from the
mouth, quivered, tasted the air. It was blowing right towards him. Body rather than mind (if mind it had at
all… and what thoughts must it think!) probably making the decision, the dragon darted off to the left.
Instantly the silence was shattered. The beaters were trotting left, clashing their cymbals and howling, the
musics blared on their harsh-voiced shawms, the archers (all neat and trim in their green tunics and
leggings) nocked their arrows and poised. The dragon halted. At a signal, so swiftly that Jon-Joras
scarcely saw the motion, a flight of arrows was loosed; in another instant were visible only as feathery
shafts ridged in the great beast’s side.
To say that the dragon hissed was only to confess a limitation of language: ear-drums trembled painfully
at a sound the auditory nerves could but faintly convey. The dragon hissed. A spasm passed along the
great, pierced flank, and tiny runnels of dark blood began their paths. The dragon halted, turned its head
from side to side in search of its tormentors, its cheek-nodules swelling with rage. The wind shifted,
bringing a rank, bitter odor to Jon-Joras. He felt his skin grow cold and his heart expand.
Then the bannermen ran forward, teasing their flags on their long poles. The hiss broke off suddenly and
the air vibrated with the roar which succeeded it. Here, at last, was an enemy which the dragon could
see! Head down and neck out-thrust, it began to move towards it. At the first, slowly and ponderously,
each immense leg placed with care. The bannermen seemed almost now to dance, in their traditional
movements… the figure-of-eight, the fish, the butterfly… faster now… the wasp… the flags, white and
red and green and yellow, whipping through the roar-tormented air.
And faster and faster came the great bull-dragon, now at a lumbering trot, turfs flying as the great splayed
feet came pounding down, shaking the ground. The cymbals ceased, the horns, too. The trot became a
gallop, a charge, and the men broke into a shout as, in one sudden and tremendous movement, the
dragon reared up upon its hind legs and came bounding forward upon them, its forelimbs slashing at the
air. In one accord, the flags dropped to the ground, the bannermen swiftly twirled their poles, winding up
the wefts at the ends of them. The colored cloths had danced and teased—suddenly, suddenly, they
were gone; furled, grounded, hidden in the grass; and the bannermen crouched.
Bewildered, the great beast paused again. Twenty feet above the ground the huge head growled and
rumbled and it turned from side to side. From the left, a flight of arrows stitched the now-exposed chest.
The dragon screamed; the dragon tore at the barbs; it plunged in the direction from which they came.
And the cymbals clashed three times and another flight of arrows, now from the right, stitched the
creature hip and leg, and three more times the cymbals sounded and as the dragon sounded its pain and
fury and swiveled its head, again the bannermen twirled their palms and pinnacled their poles and once
again their bright flags played upon the air.
The dragon bellowed and the dragon charged. Striped with the blood that coursed along its paler
underside, it thundered down upon the bannermen. Once again flags and flagmen vanished. Once again
the dragon paused. Again and again it hurled its great voice upon the wind. Jon-Joras saw, midway from
throat to fork, like a blazon on its fretted hide, the white X-mark. He thought he could see the great pulse
beating in the mark’s crux, and then—sight and sound together—heard the crack of the huntgun behind
him and the crux vanished in a gout of blood. The blood gushed forth in a great arched torrent. And the
dragon stretched out its paws and talons, showed its huge and harrowing teeth in a scarlet rictus,
sounded its hoarse, harsh death cry, and fell face forward onto the ground which trembled and shook to
receive it.
“Pierced!” a voice cried the traditional acclamation, high and shrill and exultant and shaking. “Pierced!
Pierced! Dragon pierced…!”
It broke off abruptly as Jon-Joras suddenly recognized it as his own. And all the music sounded.
==========
The man who shot the dragon was a Chief Commissioner Narthy from somewhere in The Snake, that
distant constellation whose planets all seemed to abound in precious metals and rare earths . ; . and rich,
hunt-buying Chief Commissioners like Narthy.
Actually, the C.C. wasn’t a bad sort, though quite different from Jon-Joras’s own superior. He joined the
ring of men crowding around to congratulate him on his kill.
“A fine shot, Hunter!”
“Well-placed, Hunter!”
“—and well-timed—”
Narthy, sweating and grinning, mumbled his thanks, his shyness before other, vastly more experienced
Hunters vanishing before his pleasure in the the new—the so suddenly gained—title. Conscious of the
cameras, “he sucked in his pendulous belly and tried to look appropriately grim. Then the Master of the
Hunt came over for the ritual, and the well-wishers fell to one side.
The Master was a stocky man with a sunburned, wind-cracked face; his name was Roedeskant, and,
unlike most of the hunt masters, who were of the Gentlemen, he was not, although bred on their estates.
He had been cool and sufficiently self-assured during the hunt, but now—aware of the cameras and of his
low-caste accent—he fumbled a bit.
Partly because he was embarrassed by the embarrassment of Roedeskant, and partly because the sight
of pudgy, grinning Narthy being ritually bloodied did not much appeal to him, Jon-Joras turned and
walked away. His own home world, the beta planet of Moussorgsky Minor, was nowhere near The
Snake (where he had never been and never expected to or wanted to be). No one who knew him would
see him in the 3Ds for which Narthy had payed a small fortune and which he would doubtless be showing
to his friends, family, associates, subordinates and such superiors as he wanted to impress for the rest of
his life.
The scent of the strong-smelling grass rose, pungent, as he stepped on it heavily in his hunt-shoon, but it
was not quite strong enough to overcome the bitter reek of dragon musk. A voice beside him said,
“What a rotten shot!”
Surprised, rather than startled, Jon-Joras turned, said, “What?”
It was someone he didn’t know, dressed in the white garments of a Gentleman—a tall fellow with
bloodshot eyes and grizzled hair. “Rotten shot,” the man repeated. “Badly timed. Trembly trigger finger,
is what it was. These novices are all the same. Why that bulldrag had at least another quarter-hour’s
good play in him! No… Don’t tell me that Roe signaled him to shoot, I know better. Oh, well, they
won’t know better, back in The Lizard or The Frog or wherever ‘Hunter’ Barfy or what’s-his-name
comes from—”
He looked at Jon-Joras with shrewd, blue eyes. “Not a Company man, are you?”
“No. I’m one of King Por-Paulo’s private men. Jetro Yi, he is a Company man, is going to arrange the
hunt. I’m just here in advance to make his personal arrangements.”
The man in white grunted. “Well, to each his own, I don’t hold with monarchies myself, having to renew
your damned crown every five years, make concessions to the plebs and scrubs: poxy business,
elections. No. But of course, no reflections on your own local king, mind.” Having probably a notion of
quickly changing the subject of his probable tactlessness, the Gentleman added, “Kind of young aren’t
you, a king’s private man?”
The subject of his youth being a somewhat touchy one with Jon-Joras, he brushed back his shock of
black hair and said, a bit stiffly, “Por-Paulo is a good man.” His youth—and how he came, despite it, to
hold his position. Brains, ability, judgment, and a top rating at the Collegium, all good reasons, sufficient
ones, no doubt. But when a young man is young, and the son of a young (and lovely) mother, when he
cannot remember his father, and when rivals in his peer group are ready enough to hint that he need look
no further for his real paternity than the Magnate with whom his mother is most often seen, why—
“No offense,” repeated the older man. Then, “Your customs don’t forbid self-introductions, do they?
Good. Allow me, then.” He stopped, put his hands out, palms up. “Aelorix,” he said.
Jon-Joras stated his name, placed his hands, palms down, on the other’s. Aelorix said, formally, “I am
yours and mine are yours.”
Thankful that he had taken the trouble to look into local ways, Jon-Joras said, “Unworthy.” Behind them,
the musics struck up a tune of sorts and Narthy was led around the dead dragon. Aelorix raised his
eyebrows and made a disrespectful noise.
“Base-born, I shouldn’t wonder,” he growled, indicating the triumphing chief commissioner with a jerk of
his head. “Roedeskant is a good Huntsman, none better. But he knows his place, more than I can say for
a lot of basies, local and otherwise, I remember when he was one of my old father’s chick-boys. Fact.
Where are you at, in the State?”
An implausible vision of the hefty Chief Huntsman as a bare-legged boy chasing dragon-chicks through
the woods and thickets made Jon-Joras think a moment before he was able to answer the question.
The—the State … oh, yes… confusing local speech-way: if the City proper was termed “the State,”
what did they call the whole City-State? Answer: by its name, of course. In this case, Peramis.
He said that he was staying at the Lodge. “That’s no good,” Aelorix shook his head. From somewhere
deep in the woods a faint bellow sounded over the raucous music, and the higher note of another dragon
almost at once seemed to respond to it. Instantly diverted and alert, the Gentleman cocked his head,
harkened a moment, pointed. “Off there. A big cow-drag, by the sound of her. Word of advice. When
you hear those love-calls, don’t go to eavesdrop… No, the Lodge is no good. Stay with me. At Aelorix.
What? Till your boss-chap arrives.”
Jon-Joras, sensible of the compliment, flushed slightly. An invitation to stay at the Gentleman’s seat, and
the one from which he took his name and style—“Only proper, courteous, a king’s private man,” he
heard his would-be host say—no common compliment, from all he’d heard and seen about the
Gentlemen in the short time he’d been here on Prime World (Earth, the locals called it; name sounding
so startlingly archaic on out-world ears). He could hardly refuse, of course. More—he wanted to accept.
He wanted to see for himself what the semi-feudal life was like at first hand. Then, it was his duty to his
elected king, too: the more contacts he made, the more pleasant he could make Por-Paulo’s stay.
Only—
“Would it not be difficult,” he said, slowly, “if I am there, where I wish to be, to coordinate my work with
Jetro Yi?”
For answer, the Gentleman pulled out an instrument like a whistle, blew a couple of notes on it.
Immediately a man detached himself from the throng and came running towards them. “Company Yi,”
called Aelorix, as soon as his servant was within hearing distance. The man nodded, made a sketchy,
informal salute, and ran back. In a few moments he returned with Jetro, the latter not running, but coming
at quite a brisk walk.
“Company, I want to host this young fellow at Aelor‘.”
Yi made his eyes go round, as if astonished there could be any objection. “Of course,” he said. “As the
High Nascence wishes.”
“You’re to keep in touch with him,” the Gentleman ordered, as casually authoritative as if he were a
director of the Company, “twice a day. And have his things sent over as soon as you get back to the
State.”
“Of course—of course—”
“Get along, now.”
As Yi, having bowed almost to his navel, departed, Aelorix said, without malice, “Flunky…”
Narthy was now making the first cut in the green-black hide. The skinners would do the rest of the work
later, and, before he left, the Chief Commissioner (now “Hunter,” too) would be presented with his
silver-mounted belt, his braided hatband, and enough dragon skin to upholster all the seats and sofas in
his villa if he desired to. The cost of tanning, like everything else, was included in the immense fee—in this
case, mined and mulcted from the rich flesh of The Snake Worlds—which he had paid in advance to the
Hunt Company.
Somewhere downwind the cow-drag once again blared her presence and her need; again, replying and
following, the bull bellowed. Aelorix listened, his face puckered.
He shook his head, seemed faintly puzzled, faintly disturbed. Jon-Joras asked if anything was wrong.
“No… Not really at all. I know the cow… don’t mean we’ve met, socially, but one becomes familiar
with the calls of all the drags around, sooner or later… But I don’t know the bull. Well, well.” He took
his guest by the arm. “Come along. Aelorix, ho!”
==========
Aelorix-the-place seemed less an estate than a city-state of its own, repeating on a smaller scale the
pattern into which all the civilized parts of ancient Earth had formed after the planet’s emergence from the
dark and painful chaos of the Kar-chee Reign. Its fields and groves were pleasant to see after the somber
forests, and at first Jon-Joras could not tell which of the many wooden buildings clustering closely where
brook and river met was supposed to be his host’s seat.
A scene in the market-place or courtyard quickly diverted his thoughts from this. A group was gathered
around two men dressed in dirty hides who were arguing with what, by his manner, appeared to be an
upper servant. This one looked up at the entrance of the Gentleman and said, “Ah, here’s His
Nascence.”
“Here’s the Big,” muttered one of the men in leather-expressing the same thought in cruder speech. They
looked to be brothers. And they looked sullen. One of them now picked up a filthy fiber bag, tumbled its
contents on the cobbled ground. Jon-Joras stepped back. They were the severed heads of animals, one
huge one with mottled teeth and bloody muzzle, the others tiny.
“There, now, Big,” the man rumbled. “Look a‘ them!”
“Mmm…” Aelorix, noncommittal, gazed down. “What say, Puedeskant? Eh?”
They gets their yearly dole,“ his man growled, stubborn.
“But look a‘ the size a’ she!” one of the brothers protested. “Now, Big, ain’t such a karchen sizey
bitch—and all o‘ them karchen pups, look how many!—ain’t them worth a bonus, Big?”
Aelorix grunted, prepared to move on, paused. To Puedeskant he said, “Give them some fish, then.” The
brothers seemed a little appeased. Jon-Joras, looking back, saw the steward unclasp a knife and slash
the ears of the strange animals. His host, following the look, smiled. “So they don’t take the heads
elsewhere, try the same trick. Dirty chaps.”
“But who are they?”
“Doghunters… Up here, guest—these steps.” They began upon a long covered wooden walkway,
curving gently upward and to the right, gardened courtyards on either side and potted plants and caged
birds lining the rail below and above on the walk itself. The younger man admired the neatness and the
taste of the scene, but tried to fit the spoken phrase into his recollection of his readings. Doghunters…
Suddenly the key fitted and the wards turned. “Free farmers!” he exclaimed.
He saw his host’s mouth give a slight twist. “Fancy name,” he said. “Doghunters. Useful in their way.
But—dirty fellows.” Somewhere ahead music sounded, as different from the elaborate orchestrations of
his home world as it was from the crude—though, in its setting, appropriate—harshness of the hunt
musics. The covered walk continued to curve on ahead, but the two took a broad branch to the left. The
clean planking here was covered with soft reed mats on which designs had been traced in red.
The same motifs were extended and elaborated on the oiled-paper windows of the high screen door
whose panels parted silently to admit them; and the melody grew louder. Jon-Joras found himself in a
place so strange to him that he stopped short and drew in his breath. It was more a hall than a room, but
it contained things in it never seen by him in any hall before. Built around part of a hillside, seemingly, it
had a little waterfall plashing and purling in one corner of it; and the tiny stream moved in its channel
across the floor to a pool in the center. Bright colored fish swam and darted there. In another section a
garden of stepped-back semicircular shelves rose around and retreated from a tall, cylindrical aviary, a
rainbow of birds which provided their own background to the music.
The source of this was in a floor of light from a windowed cupola: a dark-skinned woman in a full,
embroidered robe. She sat, unseeing, at her instrument, from which came the flow of tinkling sounds, her
ringed fingers moving across the keys with stiff but beautiful precision. Suddenly she saw or heard,
perhaps felt, them. The music ceased. Jon-Joras might not have been there, for all the notice she took.
“Ae, what news?” she cried.
“The usual,” he said, shrugging. “A hunt—an outworlder. Usual kill. Too quick, though—”
Lustrous eyes, beautiful tan face expressed something between anger and distress. “I don’t mean that!
Don’t dissemble—what news?”
He hesitated; she saw it; he saw that she saw it. “You make too much of trifles, ma’am—”
“Ae!”
“Nothing but a bull-drag. Southward in Belroze Woods. His epithalamion. I didn’t seem to recognize his
cry. That’s all.”
An expression which was not relief, quite, but which yet relaxed the look of tense concern, passed across
her lovely face. It did not linger long. Her long fingers left the instrument, came together before her throat,
and clasped.
“I do not like it,” she said, almost as if to herself. “No. No. No… I do not like it…”
II
Although the 3D scoping equipment here on Prime World was as good as anywhere in the multi-world
Confederation (“the lands of the Starry Compact,” as Por-Paulo had called it in a speech—inwardly
wincing, so he confided in Jon-Joras, at the purple phrase), the local economy did not run to any viewing
system: the Hunt scenes could be shown off-world, not there. Communications were non-visual. Some
faint reflection that 2D was surely at least possible had engaged Jon-Joras’s mind, but not for long. Prime
World was, as far as the Hunt Company was concerned, chiefly a game preserve; had been little more
for centuries. The hand of the Confederation rested lightly, very lightly here. What was good enough for
the Hunt Company in this now remote and passed-by globe seemed good enough for the Confederation.
The face of the communicator was nothing but an instrument board, and Jetro Yi, when he called in as
directed next morning, was nothing but a voice.
“I’m lining up one of the best Hunters for your principal, P.M.,” he said, in his usual important tones. “A
Gentleman by the name of Thuemorix. One of the best—”
“That’s good, Company.”
“He’s promised to draw us a prime bull. A five.”
“How’s that?”
“A five. Dragons are at prime at five years. After that, well, they begin to go downhill. And before that,
too green. I mean, huh-huh, literally as well as figuratively, huh-huh. How would it look for your king to
come back with a skin that anyone who knows anything, well, they could at one glance just tell by the
color that he hadn’t had a first-class hunt? Wouldn’t look good at all. You take some of these pot-bellied
parvenus, come here in a hurry, all they want is the prestige, well, huh-huh, if they draw a hen-dragon or
an old crone, who’s going to know the difference, the circles they move in; skin could be pea-green or
rusty-black. But not for your principal, no sir, nothing to worry about.”
And he pumbled on and on. There was nothing immediately requiring Jon-Joras’s attention. In a few days
he expected to have a lodge lined up for him to look at, to be let with staff while the owners went south
on a long visit. “But nothing immediate. So just enjoy your stay with His High Nascence.”
“All right, Company.”
“And I’ll report tomorrow morning.”
“All right, Company.” He flicked off before Jetro Yi could give a resume of all the face-to-face
conversations he had had with Jetro Yi. When you had heard him once you had heard him
forevermore—unless you had a boundless appetite for the commerce of the hunt.
Leaving the communicator, he strolled at ease through the charming, rambling house out towards the
by-buildings in which he knew he would find his host inspecting the livestock. Aelorix was in the
deer-sheds, greeted him with a wave of his hand towards a fat gray doe that was being washed around
the udders prior to milking.
“Beauty, isn’t she? Won two prizes.”
“I must accept that judgment, sir. We have none like this out my way, on M.M. beta.”
“No, I suppose not… This your king’s first hunt?”
Jon-Joras tentatively stroked the doe’s soft muzzle. It was Por-Paulo’s first dragon hunt, yes. (“That’s
the only kind that counts,” his host said firmly, with the self-contained assurance of an untraveled
provincial.) Jon-Joras described Por-Paulo’s three quests for sundi in the swamps of Nor, before his first
election—the absolute protective coloration of the sundi—how (so the king had described it) it seems as
if a triangular piece of swamp suddenly hurtles through the air. “It’s not a game for the slow, sir. Instant
reflexes, or death.”
“Mmm…”
“He’s gone five or six times for dire-falcons, too, out of the aeries of Gare. A thousand, two thousand
feet up, if you miss—”
“Mmm…” Insecurely mounted on one winged creature and aiming at another, fiercer one, as it swoops
and spins and dives, hooked beak and razor talons. But all Aelorix said was, “Mmmm… I don’t deny
there seems to be an element of danger. But you can get that, you know, from all I hear (oh, wouldn’t go
myself if you paid me), just trying to cross a road in one of the populous planets. No. A hunt, you see—”
They left the deer-shed, host courteously leading guest by the wrist, and crossed a wide place of beaten
earth. “— is not a mere matter of danger. Not a dragon hunt, at any rate. It’s a matter of ritual, art,
music, skill, color, tradition. There’s more to it than just exposing yourself to a chunk of mud with teeth in
it. And this is an acknowledged fact. Ask any Company man, ‘What’s your most popular, most
sought-after, most expensive hunt?’ One answer. ‘Dragon.’ It was true, this last. Jon-Joras said nothing.
“Furthermore—” and here Aelorix suddenly ceased looking rather pontifical, and exceedingly grim,
“furthermore, these other items of game (if so you call them), what are they to those that hunt them?
Nothing, really. Trophies. Mere sport. Nothing more. Whereas, the dragons,” his mouth curled down,
“we hate them. Don’t be in any error about that. We hate them!”
This came as completely surprising to Jon-Joras, for nothing he had heard previously and nothing in
Aelorix’s voice as he had discussed them earlier, had prepared him for this sudden emotion. It was as
though the man had just remembered… and remembered a most unpleasant memory, too.
“Why?” he asked, astonished.
With a grimace and an abrupt gesture, the Master said, “It was the Kar-chee… They were the
Kar-chee’s dogs. They hunted us. Now we hunt them.” Then the mask dropped again and he said,
pleasantly, “Come and see how the training’s coming on.”
Jon-Joras, wondering mightily but saying nothing, yielded to the friendly hand upon his back, and walked
on as desired.
On one side of the wide place a group of young, naked-chested archers were shooting at training targets.
An elderly bowmaster with stained white moustachios walked up and down behind them, a switch in his
hand. The targets hung high in the air and swayed in the wind; whenever a cadet made what was deemed
too bad a shot—whisshh!— the switch came down across the lower part of the back. “Mm—hm,” the
Gentleman signified his approval. “Nothing better for the aim. Notice how careful old Fae is never to
catch the shoulder-muscles. Ah… I see my boy’s had one miss already this morning. Let’s see if he has
another.”
They paused. Aelorix’s younger son, a chestnut-haired boy in his middle-teens, stood in his place at line,
a thin red wheal marking his skin just above his belt. The old man barked, the boy whipped out an arrow,
raised his bow, let fly. Jon-Joras could not even see where the shot landed, but his host made a satisfied
noise. The bowmaster paced his slow way down the line, said not a word of praise.
On the other side of the field several squads of bannermen danced about with bare poles. A sudden
thought entered Jon-Joras’s mind, passed his lips before he had time to consider if it were polite to
mention it. “Isn’t this sort of an establishment expensive to maintain?”
“In my case, yes, because I like to see my people here at home, not hired out for Hunts all over the
place. And I don’t take Hunt contracts, myself. Don’t have to. My older boy won’t have to, either. But I
suppose the younger will, unless I divide Aelor‘ in my will, and I won’t. Don’t believe in it. Keep estates
in one piece. I’ve got a smaller place up the river and he shall have that, and I’ll start him off with a small
establishment of his own. The Company will see that he gets a few good contracts until his reputation
firms up. (That’s where most of your best Hunt Masters come from: younger sons, you know.) The
Company knows me, I know the Company. Hate to think if we had to depend on Confederation.”
He did not elaborate, but added, a trifle defensively, “Not that we, not that I, have to depend on the
Company, either. Far back as memory goes, this family has never had to buy a haunch of venison, a
peck of potatoes, or an ell of common cloth. Show me a Gentleman that does and I’ll show you a family
going down hill,” he rambled on, proudly. “That’s how Roedeskant got his estate, you know. Family that
had it, never mind their name, extinct in the male line, anyway; they went down and he went up. Well, he
earned it, I credit him, yes. Council of Syndics shall change his name to Roedorix at the next Session, or
I’ve lost all my influence and shall engage myself as a Doghunter.”
They paused for him to watch the fletchers at work and to test a new batch of arrowheads with his
thumbnail along the edges. He poked into a pile of potatoes and satisfied himself that the ones underneath
were as good as those on top. He sampled the cheeses and sausages and the apples to see that they
were being properly stored, and was en route to the armory to show Jon-Joras his huntguns, when a
party of several coming towards them through a grove of trees sighted them and called out.
“Chick-boys… what are they doing back so soon?”
The boys—some of them actually were boys, shock-headed imps with gaptoothed grins, never having
known a day’s school or a pair of shoes; others were all ages up to gray-beards who had been boys
forty years ago—beckoned their lord and set down what they were carrying. These, as Jon-Joras came
up, proved to be wicker baskets, covers tied on with ropes of grass; from within them came a shrill
twittering sound.
“What’s up, boys.”
All talking at once, they undid the baskets. “Ah, now, Nasce‘, looka here at these beauties—” “Isn’t they
a fine lot, Nasce’?” “Have a eye on’m, won’t y‘, Nasce’—” They held up about a dozen young dragons,
deep yellow with just a faintest tinge of green along the upper body in some of them.
“Very nice, very nice,” Aelorix said, brusquely. “But if you’ve slacked off searching just to show me a
batch of chicks— No. You wouldn’t. What’s up?”
They fell silent, eyes all turning to one man who stood by the sole unopened basket. He opened it now,
reached in gingerly, winced, lunged, and drew out something which brought a roar from his lord. “What
in blethers are you dragging that back for? It’s not a chick, it’s a cockerel—do you have six fingers and
want to lose one?—and a marked cockerel too! What—?”
The man with the gawky dragon-child needed both of his hands to hold it, but another man pointed to the
mark, the gray X on the underside which would grow whiter with age. Aelorix bent over, silently, to
examine it as the chick-boy nudged the scaly under-hide with his scarred thumb, and the
dragon-cockerel chittered and snapped at him.
The Gentlemen snapped up straight, his face red and ugly, criss-crossed with white lines Jon-Joras had
not noticed before. “What son of a dirty crone marked that?” he cried. His rage did not surprise his men.
“Marky? Marky?”
An old—a shambling old chick-boy—whose incredibly acid-scarred hands testified to the contents of the
ugly can he carried, shook his head slowly and sadly, eyes cast down. It might have been over the
sorrow of a ruined grand-daughter.
“Not my stuff, Master Ae,” he said. “Nope. That’s a coarse, karchen stuff, very coarse, y‘ see. ” He
prodded it with a caricature of a finger. “See how deep it’s cut? I dunno a marky ’round here, ‘r north, ’r
south, who makes ‘r uses stuff like such. And look where he put ’n, too, the dirty son of a kar-chee’s
摘要：

AVRAMDAVIDSONhasbeenarespectedfigureinbothscience-fictionandmysterycirclesforadecadeormore.HehaswonboththeHugoawardforthebestscience-fictionshortstoryoftheyear,andtheEdgarawardforthebestmysterystory,andwaseditorofTheMagazineofFantasyandScienceFictionuntilturningtofull-timewriting.AceBookshasprevious...

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