Salamander

Ash rains down on Tal Mallan slightly less frequently than water does, and on occasion they mix together and the grey, sticky rains happen.  To the north there are volcanoes and heavy geological activity, and though Tal Mallan sits on a peninsula, the sea between here and the mainland is not enough to prevent ash clouds blowing over and depositing their load.  The volcanoes were erupting today, and up in the sky, in the distance, the cloudbase had turned an angry orange, reflecting in the heavens the fires of the earth below.  Without a doubt it meant that we were in for another rain of ash in the next couple of days.
The guards were out in force in the streets in the first and second zones as well; in their dusty ochre and brown uniforms they blended in well with the walls of the houses.  They were walking around alert and bright-eyed, hands resting on the da they carried at all times, and their eyes scanning the streets for disturbances.
A sudden scream, cut off in the middle energised all of them, and they broke into a run, converging towards the place the scream had come from.  I was sat on a balcony three stories up, drinking cha and listening to the proprietor of this little café bore another patron with tales of his time as a scrimshaver, so at the sound of the scream I set my cup down on the little ceramic-tiled patio table and went to the balcony to look out.  From my vantage, I could see the salamander in the Square of the Third Soldier, and the char-grilled remains of the screamer.  I admired the guards then; if it were me I would be running as fast as I could away from the salamander, not towards it armed only with a knife.
The salamander was a kind of lizard, its skin ash grey and reportedly as tough as old leather.  Its eyes, and it had six, were spaced equally around its lumpen head and were glittering amber orbs with split pupils.  Below its eyes were pits, which few people knew about, which detected temperature and effectively allowed it a kind of thermal imaging, an ability to see without light.  Natural philosophers up at the university in the sixth zone hypothesized that in the volcanic caves being able to tell which way is hotter is important, especially when the difference is between intolerable and barely-tolerable.  It's mouth was still slightly open, and I could see a grey tongue flickering from side to side as it tasted the air.  It scrabbled for a moment on the cobbles, trying to dig a hole with powerful, spatulate feet, and then the first guard arrived.
The salamander turned its head alarmingly fast, and exhaled in the guard's direction.  A blast of scorching air hit her full on and her hands flew up in front of her face as she turned away, taking the brunt of it on her back.  Her uniform, padded and treated to withstand heat, still began to smoulder, and she collapsed to the cobbles and didn't stand up again.  While the salamander was doing that though, more guards had arrived, from several streets now.
The salamander's eyes prevented anyone from sneaking up on it, but now it was swinging its head heavily back and forth, trying to evaluate the danger and decide who to attack first.  The guards, now that they could see each other, advanced steadily, keeping pace and closing a human net around the creature.  When it finally chose and exhaled again, going for a young man directly in front of it, blocking the most direct escape, he was ready, ducking and turning, finally barely touched by the flame-hot air at all.  And as he did so, the rest charged, leaping in, stabbing with their das and ripping through the salamander's hide.  The blades, like skinning knives, had a hook at the end for ripping, and as the guards pulled away again strips of skin tore from the salamander like a banana opening.  Oily pink flesh glistened momentarily in the sunlight, then was covered over by a green ichor that oozed out and puddled on the cobbles.  The salamander howled and thrashed, its tail swinging wildly and crashing into a shop-front destroying benches holding tableware and scattering household goods everywhere.  It lowered its head, readying to charge, and the guards, moving almost as one, ran in again, leaping agilely, dodging the ooze even as the salamander shook, spattering it everywhere, and drove their das home once more.
The salamander roared again, hot breath playing over the first, luckless guard once more and its legs drove it forward anyway, but the damage done now was too great and at the fourth step its front legs buckled and it collapsed to the ground.  The guards, still wary, approached it from behind and quickly cut through the corded muscles in its back legs, ensuring that if it wasn't dead it wasn't going to get up and start again.  Then, and only then, I noted, did they attend to their fallen colleague.
And no-one paid any attention to the salamander's first victim, now a blackened effigy on the cobbles, amazingly untouched by the salamander's death throes or its ichorous blood.
I returned to my seat and sipped my tea.

Wharfhaven

Elkie came to Wharfhaven on a passenger boat.  The money she'd found in the house when her grandmother had died paid for passage in a stateroom, which sounded far grander than it had turned out to be.  The walls were thin and her neighbours were noisy, but she had a proper bed, and a desk at which to write and to look through the trinket-box that she'd found at the back of her grandmother's closet.  She'd been thinking about complaining to the Captain when she took a wrong turn and chanced upon the standard accommodation: a large room where families and men staked out small patches of deck to themselves, laid blankets over it, and then sat there looking hunted and hostile in case anyone tried to take any of their space.  Children cried, screamed, ran around, and from time to time went to the toilet in the corner.  The smell was noisome and the noise was deafening.  Elkie had gone back to her stateroom and appreciated it for the first time.
When they landed she waited in the stateroom for the other passengers to disembark first.  She knew little of Wharfhaven; it was a coastal town where the fishing was good and the fishermen highly praised in the city.  There were cliffs, there were seagulls, and somewhere there was a Magister.  She looked out of her porthole, which chanced to be looking inland, and found she could see the cliffs.  Above them wheeled seagulls, dancing on the thermals and calling to one another with harsh, guttural cries.  'If only the Magister is as easy to find,' she thought.  On the quayside she could see the passengers coming off, milling around in small groups as they got in each other's way.  Cases and chests were stacked around them by the handlers, a group of men paid by the passengers or the Captain to unload luggage.  They were rugged, tall and heavily muscled, with tousled thick hair that cascaded down their necks and hung down to their waists, tied loosely back with cords.  They lifted chests that Elkie was sure she'd never even be able to budge as though they were empty, or made of paper.  Now and then one might grunt, or two might lift an end of a particularly large chest between them, but otherwise they worked silently and swiftly.
"Are you paying for the return voyage already then?"  Captain Jerriss had opened her door without bothering to knock and was leaning against the doorjamb.  His smile was mostly hidden by his thick, brown beard, but his eyes still twinkled as he spoke.
"No," she said, sighing a little as she did.  "I have business here."
"I'll be back in six months," said Jerriss.  "If your business is done by then you can always come by and purchase passage with me again."
"I might," she said, meeting his eyes and surprising herself by meaning it.  "Certainly I'll look for you when my business is done."
Jerriss hauled himself from the doorway, and gestured with a hand.  "Would you need a hand with your luggage?  Or would you prefer to be carried ashore by the handlers?"
For a moment she entertained the notion of being picked up by broad, strong arms and carried down the gangplank like a china doll, but she pushed it firmly from her mind.  "Thank-you, Captain," she said, perhaps just a little stiffly.  "Only my luggage needs carrying."
He looked past her and saw her travelling bag and the miserably small chest that all her belongings still only half-filled.  "If that's all you have I'll save you the cost," he said.  She left the room, and he stepped in to pick up her bags himself and bring them after her.
"Should a Captain be seen to be carrying my bags?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder.  Captain Jerriss was carrying them as though they were no weight at all.
"The crew will think I'm sweet on you," he said.  "And that won't hurt my reputation at all."
'Will it hurt mine, I wonder,' she thought, but she said nothing, and concentrated on climbing the narrow stairs to the main deck, and then leading the way across the gangplank.  There were a couple of whistles, which she ignored, and then she'd stopped slightly to one side of the path and Captain Jerriss placed her bag and chest down beside her.
"You've been here before," she started.
"This is part of my regular trading route, yes," said Jerriss.  He didn't sound contemptuous, but she still realised that she'd been gauche.
"Yes," she said, smiling, lowering her eyes.  "Do you know of the Magister?"
"Hah, everyone knows of the Magister," said Jerriss.  "If you mean, do I know him, then no, I've never had the pleasure of his company.  He buys and sells through factors."
"These factors–"
"Will be here this afternoon, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.  I don't think any of them would be able to introduce you to the Magister."
"Why not?"
"They do business with him, they don't sit down over a cup of chai and chat about the weather and women," said Jerriss.  "Most of them won't have met him either, they'll simply put goods where they're told, and the Magister's own men will collect them and make payment."
"This all seems a little complicated," said Elkie.  "Is all business like this?"
"Yes."
There was silence, and then Jerriss saluted her.  "I shall be getting back to my ship now.  Enjoy your stay in Wharfhaven."
She watched him walk away, heading back to the ship, and then looked down at her bags.  She needed somewhere to stay while she looked for the Magister, and she needed somewhere that wasn't filled with the other passengers from the ship.

The Seven Riders

The librarian who hated me lifted the Letters of the Eidolon Queen from its bed of crushed velvet with great care, and carried it over to my desk as though he were carrying a sleeping child.  He set it down, placing it precisely and squaring the corners.  Then he moved some lever or armature set into the back of the desk and the book's far end lifted up to an angle of thirty degrees or so, an ideal pitch for reading.  He regarded me for long seconds, his hazel eyes seeming faintly luminous in the shadows of his eye sockets, and then laid a hand very gently on the cover of the book.
"Be very wary with her, Mr. Debraun," he said.  "The gentleman on the wall brought her here, and she is... restless still."
With that he left, taking slow, measured steps across the thick golden carpet, opening the door silently and closing it behind him equally quietly.  I looked up at the portrait on the wall once more, the reason why this was called the Derleth reading room, and shuddered.  The implication of the librarian's words was clear to me.


*
Later than evening, as I sat in the Bar of the Seven Riders, I had two glasses in front of me: one of Psaltrum and one of Deinore.  Psaltrum was a fortified wine made two hundred miles south of Crécy and usually brought up via mule train, across inhospitable desert scrublands and broken hills that occasionally hid salt-basins and ghost-mines.  Deinore, served in a much smaller glass, was made from pressing the must of the local grapes and fermenting what was left with a botrytis yeast.  The yield was small, hence the serving size, and was something of an acquired taste.  Both were more expensive that I could normally afford, but I needed my nerves settling.
"Debraun!"  Henrix was the first of our crew after me to arrive, and as he did so he spied the glasses in front of me.  His eyebrows rose fractionally, and he hove to the bar without saying another word.  Only when he'd returned with a glass of port for us both did he sit down and look around him, checking habitually that no-one was listening in.
"You were admitted?"
I nodded.  I hadn't spoken since I'd thanked the librarian and left.
"You saw... well, you saw why it's called the Derleth reading room."
I nodded, and couldn't help but shudder a little, no matter that I tried hard to suppress it.  Henrix nodded, and I realised he'd been looking for just that reaction.
"What did you think of the egg?" he asked next, and he looked hungry.  Finally I had reason to speak again.
"I never saw an egg," I said.  "There was very little ornamentation in there."
"Well done," he breathed.  "You have been admitted.  Damn, but you're doing well."
"What do you mean?" I said.  Now that I was speaking again it felt like I'd spent a lifetime in silence.  I needed to hear voices around me.
"I... well, I was crying when I came out; took me two days to dry up and talk to normal people again.  Constant, he's the one with the obsession with the Librum Nox, he was shaking like an Aspen tree and wouldn't see anyone for a week.  You look like you've been on a date with the Lords of Hell, but you're talking, you're drinking... you're doing well."
"I don't feel like I'm doing well," I said.  "The book was–"


*
The book was haunted.  It was probably the wrong word for it, but there was something about the book that there isn't about ordinary books.  When I touched its cover it was warm, and if I left my fingers there I began to feel a pulse.  It wasn't mine, I checked, holding two fingers firmly at my wrist and feeling my pulse there completely out of time with the one from the book.  I almost stood up then and left.  But I only needed a few references to complete my paper and so I told myself that this was a trick of library, a mean-spirited little antic played by the librarians to keep up the reputation of the place.  I opened the book.
I would have been happier if it had howled, or if blood had spilled from its pages and flooded across the desk, or even if demons had leapt down from secret hiding places in the walls and stabbed me with pins and tridents.  All of those things would have made sense, in a way, they'd all be easier to deal with.  Instead.  Instead a voice started reading the letters to me, a soft, feminine voice that sounded as though it had been trained to read.  There were stress and intonation patterns that suggested the owner of the voice was used to giving orders, to being understood.  And the things it was saying... they were just the words on the page.
At first.
When I turned the first page the voice paused, and then said 'Wait.  There is text missing.'  I froze, my fingers still holding the corner of the page, feeling that dreadful pulse begin anew at my fingertips.  'Curse Aloysius,' said the voice.  'I shall have him skinned when I find him, and his skin shall be used to record the missing text.'  Then it started reading words that weren't present on the page, words that fit with everything I'd read previously and added a whole new dimension to what had been recorded.  I let the page fall at last and scrambled for the paper and pens in the drawer so that I could write down what was being said.


*
"She spoke to you?" Henrix's voice was awed.  "The Eidolon Queen?"
"Someone, someone spoke to me," I said.  I gestured to the barman, and held up the glass of port.  I really wanted more Psaltrum, but I knew I couldn't afford to keep drinking it.  "Someone who knew what was missing from the book."
"Do you believe her?"  Henrix gripped the table so hard that his fingers were turning white.
"I think I have to," I said.  "She told me who the Seven Riders are."
The barman laid the port down on the table; I noticed he'd doubled the measure for both of us.
"No-one knows who the Seven Riders are," he said.  "It's just a name, one of those historical things.  Nothing special."
I let him go before I looked at Henrix and toasted him with the new glass of port.  "Eight people know who the Seven Riders are," I said.  "And I don't know why she told me."

Dragonbride

"I won't put it on!  I won't wear it!  Get away from me!"  Smaragd flailed her arms around, slapping maids away from her as she tried to get away from them, and they tried to get her to put her wedding clothes on.  She caught one maid a glancing blow to the cheek-bone and she stumbled back, tripping over her own feet and landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.  Smaragd gave a cheer of triumph, flinging her arms up and knocking another maid's attempt to get a veil on her head to the ground.  Then someone or something, she didn't see what, cannoned into the back of her legs and toppled her as well.  She landed by the first fallen maid, and then ten maids all jumped on her at once.
They hauled her off the floor and tied her hands and feet to the four posts at the corners of the bed, and worked hard and steadily, untying only one limb at a time as they pulled clothes on and pushed them into place, never letting her get free or thrash around enough to damage the clothes.  As her throat finally grew hoarse from her screaming, swearing and shouting and her volume decreased, the Queen appeared in the doorway of her room.
"Not dead then?" she said.  Without waiting for an answer she walked in and sat down on a couch by the window.  The couch was essentially a long bench with a few cushions laid on it for comfort, but other than the bed and the wardrobe was the only furniture in the room.  "With the noise you've been making I'd assumed that your father had sent to down to Cole to see reason."  Cole was the torturer, executioner, and manicurist.  No-one had dared asked him why he provided nail-care as an additional service, though many of the maids took advantage of it.
"I hate you!" said Smaragd, trying to spit despite facing the ceiling and only succeeding in covering her own face in slightly-greenish spittle.
"You appear to hate everybody today," said the Queen.  "Which makes a pleasant change from loathing us, rejecting us, and ignoring us.  We feel privileged."
"You're marrying me to a dragon!  I'm supposed to be grateful?"
"I'm not marrying you to anybody," said the Queen.  "Your father made a rather curious deal regarding your future when you were just a baby, and before you say anything, that's just traditional for royalty.  If it had gone another way you'd be marrying Baron Harald, and he's over seventy."
"At least he's human!"
"That's one way of looking at it," said the Queen.  "Though not a very practical one.  Harald would definitely want a wedding night."
"The dragon might want one too!"
"Really?  Do you honestly believe that dragons want humans for that?  Oh well, if that's what you think...."
"Well, what else would the dragon want me for?"  Smaragd was almost dressed now and was physically exhausted from the struggle.  The maids didn't look much better off.
"Food?" The Queen stared out of the window thoughtfully.  "Decoration?  Perhaps a princess would go well on a hoard of gold.  Barter, maybe?  Going to another human domain and offering up the princess in return for something?"
"Those are all horrible!"
"And sex with dragons isn't?  My, I can see that all this fight is just a pretence then!"
"Is she ready?" The King walked into the chamber and found his daughter sprawled on the bed in her wedding dress, looking tired and red-eyed.  "My, I'm sure the wedding night is still some hours away, darling, mmm, you probably don't have to be, mmm, ready for that quite yet."
"See!  See!  He thinks I'll be having sex with the dragon!"
"No, dear, he just thinks that all young women think of is sex," said the Queen, wishing that her husband were a little more interested in it.  He seemed to prefer telling stories of sex he'd had as a young man to actually trying it out any more.
"The dragon is downstairs," said the King.  "Come along now."
Smaragd had to be forced down the stairs and into the courtyard by all ten maids, with the Queen following behind.  In the courtyard was an enormous blue dragon with a wing span that was easily as long as the banqueting hall and a tail that was longer still.  With her was another, smaller dragon that was turquoise and kept shuffling its feel and curling and uncurling its tail.
"Dragon!" called the King.  "I am keeping my side of the bargain!  Here is my daughter, for your son to marry!"
The dragon tilted her head slightly to one side and squinted at the King.  He stood there feeling nervous, wondering what was coming.
"Son?" The dragon's voice was whispery yet loud, like being caught in an articulate hurricane.  "This is my daughter."
"Oh?" The King thought about this for a few moments, and then said, "But the marriage... the... well, the..."
"The sex?" The dragon pulled its lips back from its huge triangular teeth and blew smoke from its nostrils.  This was, the Queen realised, dragon laughter.  "How would dragons and human have sex?"
"Well, I imagine it's easier if they're both lesbians," said the King, apparently thinking hard about this.  "Much easier than any other way I should imagine.  Do dragons have particularly hot tongues?"
"Dragon marriage is not like human marriage!  It is not some antiquated ritual designed to increase the power of a lazy, unworking caste of mystical layabouts!  Dragon marriage has significance, it bonds souls together.  It is used to form alliances and forge futures."
"Sounds like human marriage to me," said the Queen quietly, unaware that dragon's have excellent hearing.  "Except maybe for the souls bit."
The dragon did its smoke-snorting laugh again.  "Perhaps," it said.  "However, given the size difference  I think we shall forgo the sex part of human marriage and stick to the dragon parts."
"Unlucky, my dear," said the King to Smaragd, who stared at him in utter disbelief.
"You think I'm a lesbian?" she managed, though it was clearly hard for her to speak.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he thought you were a lemon," said the Queen quietly, quite aware of how deaf her husband was.  "Still, looks like you've got your wish: your father can still marry you off to someone human now."
"He thought I was a lesbian?"
"I would expect he still thinks you're a lesbian," said the Queen.  "Expect to be introduced to lots of eligible princesses from now on."

Spot of tea

"A spot of tea, vicar?"
"Where?"
"Just there, on your... trousers."  Colin winked.
"Oh my, that won't do!  What will the other parishioners think?"
"Well vicar, I do have a washing machine.  I mean, the wife has a washing machine."
"What a jolly good idea; I'll just slip them off and if you could pop them in there for a cycle–"
"CUT!"
Miss Snippett stared aghast at her class of seven-year-olds, who were supposed to be performing a scene from A Man for all Seasons, and were apparently about to start undressing.  Not that she felt there was anything to get excited about there, but she was aware that the parents who would be attending the Spring Play might get a little excited by it.  And not in the applauding frantically and writing to the headmaster to recommend her way, either.
"What is going on?  I left you with Act two, scene three to rehearse, and although Thomas More was deeply religious, I don't believe he could have been a vicar.  Especially since the play deals with the events that led Henry VIII to found his own church."
"Er, we couldn't understand the words, miss," said Colin, looking angelically unrepentant.  Miss Snippet, who'd found his with a different copy of Hustler every time he'd had a tea-break when she was using them as navvies to build a school garden, was not deceived.
"And?"
"So there was this other script that was easier to follow, miss."
"And where did this script come from?"
"There miss."  He pointed, and several other children in the class nodded, suggesting that he might be telling the truth.  She looked where he was pointing, and frowned.  It was Miss Flebbers desk.
Miss Flebbers had joined the staff just after the nativity play, when the headmaster was keen to hire people who clearly weren't related to him, or looked like they were likely to drink copiously and then catch fire in front of the parents.  She was broad, tee-total, claimed to be vegan and allegedly went and built houses for homeless people on her weekends.  She wore wellies to school which she didn't always remember to change out of, and she had her own teabags in the staffroom that smelled like mildew.  Miss Snippet had been instantly suspicious of her, and had spent the first few days spreading the rumour that she didn't build houses for homeless people, but instead built houses out of homeless people, until Miss Davenport told her that she felt that she wasn't really giving the newcomer a chance.
Miss Snippet held her hand out for the script, and George, who was playing the vicar, surrendered it.  It was a handwritten manuscript and when Miss Snippet turned the page to see what happened after the vicar took his trousers off she dropped the manuscript in surprise.
"How much of this did you read?" she asked, hurriedly picking the manuscript back up again.
"Just the pages you saw, miss," said Colin.  She suspected he was lying, but she wanted to believe the lie.  Except that she couldn't resist asking: "And why aren't you playing the vicar, Colin?  I thought you liked to have roles with titles?"
His silence, the very faint hint of a flush to his cheeks told her that he was well aware of what the vicar was about to invite in just a couple of pages time, just as the look of bewilderment on George's face suggested he'd been in for a surprise.
"Right," she said.  "I don't think this is appropriate for your parents, but a Man for All Seasons is, so we will return to rehearsing that.  Colin, you may hand out the correct scripts and we shall start from the top.  That is, the start of the scene."
She walked over to Miss Flebbers's desk as she spoke, intending to put the manuscript back.  When she opened the desk though, she saw that the manuscript was one of at least eight, and paused for a moment.  She flicked to the back of the manuscript she was holding.  It certainly looked complete, so perhaps Miss Flebbers wouldn't notice it missing for a few days.
She closed the desk and shoved the manuscript into her handbag.  She really ought to know what kind of woman she was dealing with here.
"Right, children," she said.  "Action!"

Smaragd

"Darling, what's the matter now?"  The Queen was trying to sound interested, but actually she was just irritated.  Teenage daughters were a lot more trouble that she'd expected, and it wasn't even as if the wretched child were her daughter.  Just part of the baggage of marriage, it seemed, like a husband thirty years older than her who preferred reminiscing about sex to actually having any, a duty to appear to the general public far more often than was good for her, and having to re-learn all the etiquette she'd managed to ignore at finishing school.
"I hate my name!" Smaragd, the King's eldest daughter, was having a tantrum.  She beat her fists on the bed, and kicked the bedposts making the canopy above sway dramatically.  "It's a stupid name!  Why did you call me it?"
"Don't ask me," said the Queen, her own frustrations rising to the surface.  "Ask your father."
"Mmm, ask me, mmm, what?" The King, attempting to hide from the Court Magister who wanted more solomonic decrees from him, came into his daughter's bedroom.  He sat down on the bed, narrowly missing sitting on her head, and then looked down for her.
"What's the mmm-matter, dear?  Aren't you well?"
"I hate my name!" yelled Smaragd.  "I hate, hate, hate it!"
"She wants to know why she's called Smaragd," said the Queen, sighing just a tiny little bit to herself.  "I think it's lovely," she lied.  "It means Emerald, you know."
"And we didn't, mmm, have a lot of mmm, choice, either."
Silence greeted this pronouncement, and the King looked a little surprised.  "Has it, mmm, really been so long?  Oh, mmm, that could be a problem-mmm soon then."
More silence, this time with both women in the room staring at him in what he suspected was not adoration or respect.
"We had a com-mmm-petition to name you, mmm," he said, thinking his way back through his memories.  "We were, mmm, fighting a rather depressing war at the time you see. Mmm.  Mmhmm.  Back then there were Svingotts to the south of us, and they were mmm, aggressive.  Every mmm, two or three years mmm, they'd start another mmm fight.  And that would escalate, mmm, into a war.  It was mmm, exhausting.  So I decided, mmm, that we needed to crush them-mmm absolutely.  So we had an mmm, competition to name you.  Whoever provided me with the best mmm increase in army size mmm won the right to name you."
"I think I remember the Svingotts," said the Queen.  "Very... virile men as I recall."  She smiled, unnoticed by the other two.
"You let someone else pick my name?  I could have been called anything!"
"Well, not really, mmm.  There were only three Barons at the mmm time who could raise armies mmm, so you'd have been named by one of mmm, them.  And they would all want mmm my favour."
"So you liked Smaragd?"  Smaragd couldn't have looked any more aghast or appalled.
"Not really.  But like I said, I didn't have mmm-much choice."
"Which Baron won the naming right then?" asked the Queen.  "It can't have been Harald, he'd have named her Haradette or something like that."
"That's worse!"  Smaragd hurled a cushion at the Queen, who caught it and threw it back.
"Um.  None of them," said the King.  More silence and stares met that announcement, so he reluctantly continued.
"A dragon turned up and offered its services.  It pointed out that it effectively gave mmm-me air-power and mmm, trebled my effective army size.  Mmm.  It won straight-away."
"You named me after a dragon?"  Smaragd's face had gone pale white with shock.  "That's so uncool!"
"Umm. Not quite. Umm.  We named you the name the dragon wanted, hmmm, wanted to be the name of the person mmm its son married."
"Wuh?" said Smaragd, not believing her ears.
"You betrothed her to a dragon and named her so that the dragon would marry her?" said the Queen, who was a lot quicker on the uptake.
"Umm.  Yes," said the King deciding that the Court Magister was far preferable to the screaming that was now issuing from his daughter's mouth.

Arranging a meeting

The flame from the lighter was a bright, tungsten white and leaped nearly eight inches into the air.  He had held the lighter what I'd considered a ridiculously long way below his cigar, and now I understood why.  The flame played across the end, tickling the tightly-rolled leaves, warming them with a lethal embrace, and when he snapped the cap down on the lighter there was a tiny red glow indicating that ignition had been successful.
He put the lighter in a pocket, flicking his wrist casually so as to cause his sleeve to slide back down over his watch.  I'd not asked about it, but only because I was an amateur horologist and had recognised it immediately.  It had sold at auction four months previously for eighty-five thousand, which people like me considered to be a bargain.  Even though I didn't have eighty-five anythings.
"You're looking for advice?" he said, his voice deep and amused-sounding.  "Did you think that my only advice might be that you ask someone else?"
"Oh no," I said.  "I'm not looking for advice, I'm offering advice."
He eyebrows knit together, his forehead wrinkled.  "Why would I want to listen to your advice?"  He lifted a wine glass, and I knew that the nearly colourless liquid in there cost more to buy per bottle than my tuxedo had to rent.  He sniffed the wine briefly and sipped from it.  He was still watching me, he hadn't turned away yet.
"It's about your watch," I said.  "You might not want to listen to it, but the best advice is usually something we don't want to hear."
He sipped his wine again, and scratched his left temple.  Then the glass was placed down on the table and he leaned forward from his seat a little.  I could smell the fragrant tobacco of his cigar as he returned it to his mouth, could hear the crackle of the smouldering leaves as he inhaled.  "There is a smoking lounge here called the Abattoir," he said.  His hand dipped into an inside pocket and he produced a white rectangle of card.  "Find it, show the steward at the door this card, and you'll be allowed in.  I'll be along in about twenty minutes."
I took his card and walked away from the table while he turned to a woman who had been oohing and aahing over baby photos with an ugly couple and laid a possessive hand on her shoulder.  She turned her head slightly and smiled, and then I lost sight of them as a waiter crossed between us carrying a salver of terrines.
The Abattoir.  Not what I'd have called a smoking room, and perhaps a little sinister for the name of a place to be invited to by an important man with more money than Croesus.  I looked at the card and it was blank, on both sides.  I rubbed it experimentally with my thumb and felt the weave of the paper.  It was expensive, and it looked like it kept secrets as well.
I had to ask directions to the Abattoir eventually and the waiter who directed me looked me up and down twice before he asked me to repeat what I was looking for.  "I'm a jeweller," I said, "I've been asked by a client to meet them there."  He didn't look like he believed me but he pointed me to a lift and told me to press button -2.  The lift seemed ordinary enough, but nothing seemed to happen when I pressed button -2.  I was wondering if I'd pressed it hard enough and if I should press it again when the doors suddenly closed and the lift descended smoothly.  The doors opened again after maybe ten seconds, and I found myself looking at a man in a steward's white jacket who was carrying a very large, serious-looking knife.  I recognised it after a moment as a machete.  Without a word, I offered the business card and the steward glowered at me.  He took it after a few seconds of intimidation, and turned away from me.
When he turned back he looked less ferocious, but no more friendly.  He gestured with the machete, and I quickly left the lift and went down a short corridor to a steel door set into a plain white wall.  The door opened at a touch, and revealed only a rectangle of darkness beyond it.
"You should turn the lights on first," said a deep voice behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to find the man I was to meet walking towards me.  "The Abattoir isn't the kind of smoking room you'd like to be surprised by."