The Broken Knife

Cleanup would take days, even with every available member of the tribe working at it, but explanations took far less time. Once Gaoda handed Ren’s note to the exhausted but triumphant Lignan, the chief easily extended them an invitation to rest in the Graybelly den. She also sent runners back up the stairs to let Ren know matters had been resolved, but that she would need to send warriors to take the Ironclaw non-combatants in hand after their tribe’s defeat.

After that, Lignan, Kaz’s party, and most of the injured kobolds made their way back to the main den, and a great quantity of fast but filling foods were prepared. Kaz received his gladly, but the humans stared at theirs with dismay.

“Kaz? What is this?” Lianhua held up a skewer containing chunks of meat interspersed with hunks of fungus, moss, and jiyun grubs, one of Kaz’s favorites.

He pointed out each piece. “The fungus is probably Kobold’s Ear, which is common on these levels, but it might also be toufa, which is pretty good if you peel it properly. I think the meat is fuergar, and the moss is jiao. It’s spicy, so it’s fine if you throw it away. The bugs are jiyun, and they’re really good. The outside turns crispy when you cook it, but the inside liquifies, so they pop when you bite into them, and they’re just a little bit poisonous, so they make your mouth tingle.”

The humans all turned varying shades of green, except for Chi Yincang, who bit into one of the roasted insects and chewed expressionlessly. Raff, Gaoda, and Lianhua all declared that Kaz was welcome to their jiyun, which confused but pleased him. Gaoda wasn’t inclined to be generous, so the gesture made Kaz think slightly better of the human.

Once the party had eaten as much of the food as they wanted, which didn’t seem like nearly enough to Kaz, who was starving after the long day and small lunch, Kaz took the leftovers and stuffed them into his pack. Seeing this, Lianhua stood, patting herself free of crumbs and dust.

“It’s time for your next lesson, Kaz,” she said briskly, and Kaz scrambled to his feet as well.

Gaoda looked displeased, but acquiesced more easily this time, and soon Lianhua and Kaz were safely inside the hut Lignan had assigned to her. The chief had been generous, and each human had their own hut, though she hadn’t been quite sure what to do with a lone pup of another tribe. He should never have been allowed to stay overnight at all, and he certainly didn’t rate his own hut, even if he was traveling with the humans. Lianhua had attempted to convince Gaoda that Kaz could sleep with her, but Raff had been forced to make room for their kobold guide instead. For now, however, Kaz and Lianhua could use her hut for a private lesson.

As soon as the stretched leather door fell shut behind them, Lianhua settled to the ground in the center of the hut and pulled her chalk from her pouch. Leaning forward, she sketched out a rune, then tapped it, muttering a word. Kaz blinked into his special vision, and saw a dome of light spring up around them, merging with the taut leather walls of the hut.

“There,” Lianhua said, “now we can talk without being disturbed.”

Kaz sat down across from her, studying the rune. “Why didn’t you do that last time?”

She smiled. “Someone who’s sensitive to ki will know I used some. Gaoda would have been suspicious if I did it last time, but this time he’ll assume I don’t want the other kobolds to overhear us.”

He nodded, his finger hovering over the soft white lines. “Could I… do this?”

Looking thoughtful, Lianhua tapped her finger on her chin. “I don’t know. You do have a core, which is very strange for a male, but maybe male kobolds from the Deep have cores, if rarely? I don’t know that anyone has ever studied the matter.”

She looked like she might wander off into one of what Gaoda called her ‘scholarly fugues’, so Kaz prodded her with another question. “Having a core means someone can use runes?”

She shook her head. “It means they have access to ki, not that they can use it. A lot more goes into cultivation than just being able to touch the essence of the universe.” She shook her head sharply. “But, more importantly, you should let out your little friend.”

He knew by the look in her eyes that she really just wanted to study the dragon, but she was right, so he tugged at the strap that tied his pack closed. Once again, the moment there was enough room, the creature’s narrow head poked out through the opening. Seeing Kaz, it hissed angrily, though that anger was somewhat diluted by the crumbs and smears of grease on its snout.

“I know, I know,” he murmured, reaching in to give it a surface on which to climb. It did so promptly, once again returning to its perch on his shoulder, where it nipped his ear with needle-like teeth. He yipped in pain, then growled at it. It looked thoroughly unrepentant.

Lianhua giggled. “I wouldn’t like being stuffed in a bag all day, either. I think I may have figured out a solution, though.” She reached into the pouch at her waist, pulling out a pair of gleaming gold rings, which she held up, turning them so he could see the runes glittering along their interior surface.

“These are disguise rings. My grandfather gave them to me before we left. They swap the appearance of the two beings wearing them. My attendant, Yingtao, and I were both supposed to carry one. The idea was that if someone attacked us with the intention of kidnapping me, we would trade places, so she would be taken instead.” Her lips pinched. “I took them both back as soon as we were out of sight of the city. Yingtao is barely at mid-Refining, while I’m early Foundation. She’d never be able to escape, even if the kidnappers didn’t realize what had happened and kill her immediately.”

Kaz stared at the rings, but couldn’t help asking, “Where is she now?”

Lianhua sighed. “She became very ill shortly before we started up the mountain. Fortunately, Raff knew a good healer, but no matter what he did, he could only maintain her condition, not cure her completely. The healer said he would continue to study her illness and try to formulate a remedy, but we were forced to pay for her treatment and leave her behind. We’ll pick her up on the way back.”

Kaz nodded. That was better than he’d feared. “So now you have the rings. How does that help Li, though?”

Lianhua looked startled, then pleased. “You named the dragon after me?”

He opened his mouth to deny it, then closed it again. Why did it matter if he had or hadn’t, so long as believing he had made her happy?

Smiling, Lianhua handed Kaz the rings. “Place one ring on Li, and the other on some less-conspicuous creature. Once its appearance has changed, we’ll claim it’s your pet, and you can keep it out of the pack. Since the dragon likes to sit on your shoulder, you should probably pick something small enough that Gaoda won’t question it.”

Kaz’s mind immediately turned to the baby fuergar that kobold pups occasionally tried to bring home, but he shook his head, trying to give her back the rings. “Won’t Gaoda and the others be able to tell it’s a false appearance? Besides, these will never stay on the dragon. Even if I could get one on its leg, it’d just get too small as the beast grew.”

Moving faster than Kaz could without feeding power into his hands, Lianhua took the rings from Kaz’s outstretched hand, slipping one onto his finger, and one onto her own. Instantly, the human female shrank, growing dense blue fur, a tail, and ears. Kaz stared at ‘himself’, shocked, then raised his own hand, turning it so he could examine the pale, furless skin. A feeling of deep revulsion came over him, and he tried to yank the ring off, but it was stuck fast.

Lianhua pulled off her own ring, instantly transforming back into her human shape, and held the innocent-seeming golden circle up. “I have the master ring. After all, we wouldn’t want the sacrificial pawn to be able to save themselves by revealing the truth, would we?” She laughed bitterly, and reached out, tugging off Kaz’s ring as well.

“The rings were made by a Formation-level artisan. No one under that level can see through it, and Gaoda is only early Foundation, like me. They resize themselves according to the wearer’s needs, and they also carry both a minor protection and a minor regeneration function. The runes only work so long as both bearers are alive, so keeping the servant healthy makes sure the master has plenty of time to flee.” She set the rings back in Kaz’s hand, closing his fingers around them.

“Put the servant ring on a small beast next time we stumble across some. The ring will help the beast survive at least long enough for us to reach the Deep, and possibly much longer, especially if you do it soon, while the threats it may face should be easily repelled by the ring. Meanwhile, you’ll become the first kobold to ever have a pet.”

Kaz was still uncertain, but he noticed the dragon edging its way down his arm, its eyes locked on his hand. Its little forked tongue flickered in and out, as if it could taste the rings.

“Which is the master, and which the servant?” he asked, shifting the rings to his other hand as the dragon started pushing its nose against the crease of his fist, trying to get at the rings inside. It hissed at him distractedly, but scurried back up his arm so it could cross his shoulders and try to reach the rings again.

“Oh!” Lianhua’s face pinkened. “Of course you can’t tell.” She waited as he shifted the rings back to the original hand, prompting another hiss from the dragon. As Kaz held his hand out, she pointed at one of the rings. “This is the mas-”

The dragon launched itself at the rings, leaping from Kaz’s left forearm to his right hand, where it snatched the master ring up with its mouth and promptly tried to swallow it. This apparently didn’t count as ‘wearing’ it, because the small creature began to choke, giving Kaz enough time to pry its mouth open and fish the ring from its throat with a claw.

“No!” he barked at the dragon, who glared at him with eyes that were mostly silvery-white, with barely any gold or black visible.

Holding up the ring, Kaz slid his finger through, then took the ring off again. The dragon tilted its head to one side, gold color flooding its eyes, and held out one of its legs. Carefully, Kaz slipped the ring on, and it shrank until it nestled snugly against the dragonling’s soft, scaly skin.

The dragon made a sound that was something like a high-pitched rumble, and Lianhua gasped.

“Dragons can purr!” she exclaimed. “I’m certain no one ever knew that before. Oh, I’m going to be able to write the best treatise on dragons ever. I can already tell you ten things everyone from Wen Cuifen to Han Mei got wrong!”

The dragon was holding up its other foreleg, looking from the remaining ring and back to Kaz. He tucked the circle of metal into a pouch tied to his belt.

“That one is going on a fuergar as soon as I get a chance,” he told Li, who hissed at him. He shook his head at the dragonling. “If you ever want to get out of my pack, that’s how it’s going to be.”

The pale gold head tilted one way, then the other, as if weighing the options, then the little ribcage heaved in a sigh as the dragonling climbed back up to his shoulder.

Lianhua shook her head. “I’ve read old scrolls that claimed dragons were intelligent, but the ones that come to ravage our lands are rarely smart enough to tell a poisoned sheep from a healthy one. Certainly, none of them have shown signs of understanding spoken language.” Her lips twitched to one side. “Not that the people who meet them usually say much after the screaming starts.”

Kaz turned his head to look at the dragon, which was now sitting on his shoulder, its foreleg raised so it could admire its new jewelry. It certainly seemed to know what he said, and he thought back to when it first hatched. It had truly been like a wild animal then, and just like a pup who tried to catch a fuergar, he had been bitten. That had all changed, however, after he cleaned out its energy channels, and his eyes narrowed as he remembered the strange black tendrils that had clogged the power node in its forehead.

Reaching out, Kaz picked up Lianhua’s chalk from where it lay beside the rune she’d drawn. Carefully, he sketched out the symbol he thought he’d seen as his and the dragon’s merged cycle had pushed the blackness from its body. It was wobbly, and he thought some of the trailing parts had probably been attached at one point, but he didn’t know how.

“Do you know what this says?” he asked.

Lianhua looked at it, tilting her head much like the dragon had. “It looks like a couple of different runes written on top of each other.” Her fingers traced a few lines, smearing them away, and she held out her hand for the chalk. Kaz gave it to her, and she redrew the smudged lines next to the original ones.

Touching the new rune, she said, “I don’t know what this one says. If it closed here and here,” she touched two of the dangling lines, “it might be ‘fish’. If it was open here,” another spot, “it could be ‘honey’, or maybe ‘slurp’.” She laughed. “Honestly, there are a dozen things I could see in it, if I tried.”

“This one, though.” She looked back at the first rune. “It’s an archaic form, but I’m pretty sure it says ‘silence.’”