“Even so. We like this not, yet if we fail to deliver on schedule, the Worm will exert itself and undermine our foundations and melt our platinum ore and we shall be finished as smiths. We are smithy elves, highly specialized; it took us a long time to work up to platinum and become proficient with it. We can not go back to mere gold, even if other tribes had not already filled in that specialty. We must maintain our present level, or become as nothing. My people would sooner go out in sunlight.”
“So thou dost need that dragon eliminated,” Stile concluded.
“For that I believe my people would abate their disquietous murmurings about the loan of the Flute.”
“Even so,” Stile said warily. “This is a large dragon?”
“Enormous.”
“Breathes fire?”
“Twenty-foot jets from each nostril.”
“Armored?”
“Stainless steel overlapping scales. Five-inch claws. Six-inch teeth. Lightning bolts from eyes.”
“Temperament?”
“Aggressive.”
“Resistive to magic?”
“Extremely. The Worm beds in Phazite, so has developed a considerable immunity.”
“I wonder what it was like in its prime?” Stile mused.
“No matter. In its prime it needed not the tribute of our kind.”
“But if the Platinum Flute were employed—“
“The magic of the Flute be stronger than the anti-magic of the Worm.”
“Then it is possible that an Adept carrying the Flute could dispatch the creature.”
“Possible. But hardly probable. The Worm cannot be abolished by magic alone.”
“Well, I’d be willing to make the attempt.”
“Nayl” the Lady Blue cried. “Few dragons hast thou encountered; thou knowest not their nature. Accept not this perilous mission!”
“I would not borrow a thing of value without giving service in return,” Stile said. “But if I could borrow the Flute to brace the Worm, thereafter I would feel justified in borrowing it for one task of mine own. There might be other uses I could make of it besides matching a unicorn stallion, until I locate the one for whom the Flute be intended.”
“Thou meanest to brace the Worm?” the Elder asked.
“At least to make the attempt. If I fail to dispatch it, I will return the Flute immediately to thee, if I remain able to do so.”
“Nay!” the Lady cried again. “This is too high a price to risk, for the mere postponement of the breeding of one mare. She is mine oath-friend, yet—“
“For that trifle thou dost this?” the Elder demanded, abruptly suspicious. “Thou dost risk thy life against the Worm, and thy pride against the Stallion, for ... ?”
“She is a very special mare, also mine oath-friend,” Stile said stiffly, not wanting to admit that things had pyramided somewhat.
“I fear my people will not support this,” the Elder said. “They will fear thou wouldst borrow the Flute merely to abscond with it, facing no Worm. Who would stop thee, armed with it?”
Both Stile and the Lady reacted with anger. “My Lord Blue does not cheat!” she flared. “I thought we had already made proof of this. Again will I stand hostage to that.”
“Nay,” Stile said, touched by her loyalty, though he knew it was the honor of the Blue Demesnes she was protecting rather than himself. “Thou’rt no hostage.”
The Elder’s canny gaze passed from one to another. “Yet perhaps this would do, this time. Let the Lady be my guest, here, for a few hours; do we care if others assume she be security for this loan of the Flute? Methinks no man would leave his love to be sacrificed to a dragon. If the Worm be slain, thy mettle is proved, and the loan is good.”
“The Lady is not my—“ Stile started, then reconsidered.
It was a matter he preferred not to discuss here. Also, he would be operating on an extremely tenuous footing if he denied his love for her. He would not permit her to be fed to the dragon, whatever her feeling for him.
“Others be not aware of that,” the Elder said, delicately skirting the issue. “Few know that the Lord of the Blue Demesnes has changed. Let her remain with me, and none of my people will hold thy motive in suspicion. She will not be ill-treated.” He glanced at the Lady. “Dost thou perchance play chess?”
“Perchance,” she agreed, smiling.
Stile realized that the Elder had proffered a viable compromise. It was a way to suppress the objections of the Mound Folk, without really threatening the Lady. Certainly Stile was not about to take her with him to meet the dragon!
“Do thou keep the harmonica during mine absence,” Stile said to the Lady, handing her the instrument. “This time I must use the Flute.”
“I like this not,” she said grimly. But she took the harmonica. If Stile did not return, she would at least retain this memento of her husband.
