Simon

Two days later...

I hung my cloak at the peg by the door, then dropped into the tavern's chair with a heavy motion. The risk of sticking out and being noticed was still an uncomfortable one, especially since I was sure at least some of the villagers must have seen me sharing meals with Enola... but I didn't care about that at the moment. A visit back to Lakeshire might mean I drew attention, but it would also mean a decent chair to sit in, a decent meal I didn't have to cook myself, and most important of all... "Coffee, please."

The man at the simple counter nodded and slipped into the back room, only to return a few moments later with a steaming mug. He sat it down on my table, and I closed my eyes and leaned forward to savor the wonderful scent of a properly brewed cup of coffee.

Digging crystals out of the earth was much harder than it had any right to be. I had originally thought that it would be fairly easy, since they were right there on the walls of the tunnel, but boy had I been wrong. The things seemed to harden the rocks around them as they grew, so pulling one out meant a lot of chipping away with a pickaxe or chisel. A chunk of rock would eventually break free of the wall, and then it was a matter of cleaning the rock from the attached crystal. Without shattering the crystal, a task that was surprisingly more difficult than I had expected.

It was a good thing Enola had gotten me to negotiate down to thirty crystals a month. I was going to have to work hard to get that many by the deadline, and was certain I would have failed to get my original number of fifty. I might be able to make that next month, after getting a bit of practice and exercise, but I doubted the king and the mages would have been very happy about being shorted of the crystals they expected this first month.

I still needed to scrounge up a cart for the trip to Yellowseed, too. And I needed to figure out an arrangement for Smokey. The horse had absolutely refused to go into the tunnel, probably able to smell the grumpy dragon that lived inside it. So far it seemed other predators were just as deterred by Enola's presence as Smokey, and the horse had managed more or less okay by being tethered outside the caves while I worked... but that wouldn't last. Eventually it would rain, or a bear or other predator would get bold, and then there would be problems. It would also be easier if I could move into the caves properly, instead of sleeping outside in a tent to watch over the horse.

Right now the horse seemed like more trouble than he was worth, but I was sure he would be incredibly useful come the end of the month. The soldiers had left several crates packed with dried hay for me to pack the crystals into, which was at least one thing I wouldn't have to worry about, but there was no way I would be able to carry them all the way to Yellowstone without Smokey's help. So I was going to have to work something out.

And as if that wasn't enough, I had also received a letter back from Connor. So far most of the Wellsprings were waiting to see what else I learned before making any major decisions about joining the dragons... but Connor's letter had been quite clear that he wanted me to try and get a crystal for him. Since the letter must have been sent before I had worked out the arrangement with Enola, I assumed the Wellsprings didn't trust me now, and wanted a crystal as proof that my letters were telling the truth. So on top of everything else, I had to find a way to sneak an extra crystal away from Enola.

And on top of all the other problems, I still hadn't managed to make a decent cup of coffee. Enola had watched my attempts with her typical draconic disdain and, as I had predicted, been completely unwilling to give me any magical assistance. And trying to make coffee over a campfire was even more of a challenge than pulling those crystals out of the earth.

But I had managed to pull three crystals out of the tunnels. I was sore all over, and my chest was itching from the cheap cleaning spell I still wore, and it had been a challenge to walk to the village on legs that wanted nothing more than to give up and collapse out in the countryside... but I had gotten started. Two of the crystals were small, somewhere between the size of a finger and the size of my hand, but I had also pulled out a larger one the size of my arm. I was sore, but I was doing it.

I hadn't made any more progress on my true mission – any gratitude Enola might have felt for my help had been consumed in dealing with me as her new roommate, and she had been closed off and completely silent during our meals the last two days – but I had a feeling that would change soon. She had thawed some this morning and talked to me again. Mostly with insulting 'jokes' she made at my expense. But I still chose to count that as progress.

And now, at long last, I had a proper cup of coffee.

I was raising the steaming mug to take a sip when the tavern door opened again. I glanced up to see one of the villagers, and I frowned in suspicion. I recognized him as one of the customers who had been in the tavern when I had first arrived. He had been at a table with two other villagers, but he had left while the tavernkeep was getting the coffee. Why had he left, only to come back again?

The aroma of coffee taunted me while I watched him rejoin the two other villagers he had been with, but I held back from drinking any. That was incredibly suspicious behavior – people didn't just get up and leave in the middle of a meal, not for no reason. And the only reason I could think of involved my arrival in the tavern. Had he gone to warn someone about me? Was I in danger?

Had they figured out I was a Wellspring, somehow?

He hadn't looked in my direction at all since returning. Which... was also suspicious. It was like he was trying to ignore me on purpose. One of his companions glanced in my direction while telling a story, but didn't seem to pay me any attention beyond that.

I started to set the coffee back down, too worried to drink it. Best to just grab my cloak and leave, just in case...

The door opened again while I was still digging for coins to pay for the coffee, and I tried to act natural. Another man walked through the door – a villager from the looks of his clothes, though one I couldn't remember seeing before – and I tensed as he came right up to my table.

It was still early in the afternoon, and the tavern was practically deserted. Only one other table was occupied – the one with the three villagers – so there were plenty of other seats available. My hand relaxed around the coins I had been gathering from my coin purse, and moved carefully up to the hilt of the simple dagger I had hidden in my sleeve. If this was a trap, I would have to strike quickly and make a run for it...

"Hey. Mind if I join you?"

My first thought was to tell him yes, I did mind, and that he should go away... but my second thought was that I had been hanging around surly dragons too much. "Sure, have a seat." He hadn't attacked me, which meant there was still a chance I could talk my way out of this. And if I couldn't, it would be easier to run if he was sitting down too.

"Thanks." The villager sat down, then held his hand out to me. "I'm Henry."

'Henry' – I just had to assume he was telling the truth about his name – was an older man, maybe in his forties or fifties, though it was hard to tell with the villagers here. The hard work and poor conditions tended to make them look older. His clothes looked worn and frayed enough to fit in with that of the other villagers, and he had that weathered look that spoke to long hours toiling in the sun. He could have been a mage using a spell to look like the villagers... or he could have just been a villager I hadn't run into yet. Even as small as Lakeshire was, I doubted I had seen everyone yet.

I let go of the hidden dagger and made sure my shields were as strong as I could make them, then shook Henry's hand. "Simon."

If Henry had noticed anything odd about my handshake – such as an incredible source of magical power he could tap into – he didn't show it. He glanced down at my coffee, then motioned for a drink from the tavernkeep. Henry didn't actually say anything when he placed the order... which helped me relax. That meant he was a regular with a regular order, and not some mage out searching for Wellsprings.

Henry turned back to look at me with a guarded expression. "A few of us have seen you around these past few weeks. With the dragon. Are you bothering her?"

Constantly, I thought, but I just shook my head. "We're on friendly enough terms, I think." I frowned suddenly. When I had first asked about Enola, none of the villagers had seemed to know anything about her – not even that she was a 'she'. But Henry had known that. "Why? What's it to you if I am?"

Henry's expression darkened. "We've worked hard to build lives in Lakeshire, Simon. We don't take kindly to the idea of somebody coming along and provoking a dragon into a rampage that destroys everything we've built."

Which was a fair concern. "I'm just here to learn about her, that's all. I don't want her going on a rampage any more than you do." I forced myself to take a drink from the cooling coffee – it would help Henry to relax a little if he thought I was calm – and tried to remember what I had been saying. The first proper sip of coffee in weeks. Yum.

Oh, right. My cover story. "A lot of people have never seen a dragon before, and don't know anything about them. I'm sending letters back home with stories about Enola. It's the closest a lot of them will ever get to meeting a dragon."

Something flickered in Henry's eyes. "Enola?"

"The dragon." I frowned, before it sunk in. "You didn't know her name?"

Henry shook his head. He gave a nod of thanks as the tavernkeep sat a frothy drink down at the table, then looked back at me. "First time I've heard it. She likes her privacy. We don't bother her, she doesn't bother us. We don't exactly stop by for dinner and pester her with questions."

"Mm." I ignored the not-so-subtle reference to what I had been doing, then glanced at the other villagers. "It almost sounds like you're trying to protect her. Not what I would have expected – most of the people here seem to want her gone. From what I heard, you've even written letters to the king to try and get her chased off."

A short laugh came from across the table, and Henry shook his head again. "Ha. You've been talking with Jack. He's a bit too imaginative for life as a farmer, and likes coming up with wild ideas about the dragon – with Enola – but that's just him. He wouldn't actually try anything, and it's less trouble to have him rambling about the dragon than getting restless and stirring up trouble with other villagers, so we let him have his fun."

Henry took a drink from his mug, then relaxed in his chair. "But yes, you could say we're trying to protect her. Every now and then some fool gets it in their head that she's sitting on some pile of treasure, and that if they can just sneak in quickly enough, they'll be rich. Sometimes it's treasure hunters from a city hoping to strike it big, sometimes it's a child with too much time on their hands who thinks the treasure will let them escape our little village and start their future in the easy life of a city. They never manage to find anything but trouble."

The man's eyes hardened a little as he looked back at me. "That wouldn't be what brought you to our village, would it?"

I thought back to the meager collection of coins that had made up Enola's treasure pile and shook my head. "No. The last thing I'm interested in is taking anything from her."

Henry frowned as he watched me, but he nodded. "Good." He paused to take another drink, then motioned at the other tables. "Jack had been rambling lately about how the king was going to 'rid us of the dragon for good'. Send soldiers and mages down here to drive her off. And I did hear that a group of soldiers showed up to drive her off... only to leave later the same day. Which Jack has been furious over. Says the dragon bewitched them all, and will be coming for us next." The older man grinned, but I noticed a cautious look in his eye. "I don't suppose you had anything to do with that?"

I wasn't sure what the right answer to that was. I had assumed the villagers were all like Jack, and would be upset to learn I had stopped Enola from being chased off... but that didn't seem to be the case. If anything, Henry seemed to be trying to keep her safe from annoying strangers. And...

A quick glance to the other table confirmed I had the attention of the rest of the villagers. They weren't openly staring, but they had stopped telling the story they had been in the middle of, and they were all leaning in ways that just happened to keep me in the corner of their eyes. Even the tavernkeep was wiping down a portion of the counter that gave him a good view of me.

I tried to think of a lie they would accept... but I had no idea what they wanted to hear. Best to just stick to the truth, then, or as close to it as I could come. "Something like that."

"Oh? How so?" Henry's voice was calm, but it was obvious he – and the rest of the villages – wanted the full story.

"I offered the soldiers what they had come for. Enola's lair has some magical crystals in it, and the king wanted them. Enola didn't want people messing around in her lair. I helped come up with a compromise – I mine the crystals instead. Enola doesn't have to leave, or worry about any strangers other than myself, and the king gets the crystals he wanted." The still-steaming mug of coffee taunted me with its smell, but I ignored it while I watched the reactions of my eavesdroppers.

Some of the tension seemed to drain out of the room. The villagers at the other tables started drinking from their own cups again, and the person who had been speaking before cleared his throat and started the story up again. Henry gave me a half-nod and closed his eyes a little. "Thanks for that. We actually like having her around."

Now that was strange. Most villages would be nervous about a dragon hanging around, and none of the villagers had said anything like that when I had first talked to them. That could have just been from the normal suspicion of a stranger, but... "Really? Why's that?"

Henry hesitated and took another look at me. "Where are you from, Simon?"

"Emerson." I wasn't, but that was the typical cover for a Wellspring. It was a large enough city that it wouldn't be unusual for us to be strangers to somebody who was actually from Emerson, if we had the bad luck to run into one when we were lying about where we had come from.

"Really?" Henry's face lit up a little. "My parents were from there."

I struggled to try and remember everything I knew about the city. I had actually never been to Emerson...

"That was probably before your time though. They moved here before I was born." Henry took another drink from his cup, and I felt some of my still-sore muscles relax with relief. "Lakeshire isn't like Emerson. No soldiers, no fancy mages with spells to protect us. No walls. Nothing like what Emerson has to fight off bandits with." Henry paused. "Or to fight off naga with."

That made me frown. Enola had told me that a naga sorceress had cursed the lake, and that she was fighting against that spell. I had been pretty sure there was more to that story than Enola had shared, but hadn't been interested in it enough to pry – I had other things I needed to learn instead, and it didn't seem worth annoying Enola over when it was already hard enough to get answers out of her. But if the villagers knew something about it... "Naga? Have they been a problem here?"

"Not in the past thirty years. When Enola first started living here."

Something in Henry's voice told me there was a lot more to that story he wasn't telling. "But they were a problem before that?"

Henry nodded slowly, just looking down at his drink. "Yeah." He was quiet for a long moment. I noticed the other villagers had turned away from us, and their conversation had gotten louder. Finally, Henry looked back up at me. "I was a child the last time naga came out of the lake to raid us. I remember hiding up in the trees for several days, hoping the naga wouldn't find us. I remember when dragons finally came and told us it was safe again. And I remember learning that both my parents had been killed by the naga, and that I was an orphan."

I looked down at the mug of coffee before me. That kind of story wasn't exactly common, but it wasn't as rare as it should be. Most people knew somebody who had lost friends or family to a naga attack – Katerina herself had been orphaned by naga, from what I could remember, and I knew she wasn't the only Wellspring to have lost loved ones like that.

"And I remember when a pink dragon moved into the caves I used to play in as a boy, out at the edge of the forest... and how the naga never bothered us after that. That's why we're glad to have Enola around. With her here, nobody else needs to have memories like the ones I have. We wouldn't be happy to hear somebody drove her off. So... thank you for helping her. If there's anything you need, or that we can do to help her, just let us know."

Well. That hadn't gone at all like I had expected, but I wasn't going to complain about the pleasant surprise. I nodded back at Henry. "Actually, I did come by for a reason. I have a horse that I can't really take proper care of while digging up crystals, and I need a cart of some kind to carry the crystals to town in. I know you don't have much here, and I'd feel bad just taking something as useful as a cart from you – but I have a tent I don't need anymore, and some coins. If somebody would be willing to take care of Smokey until I need him for the trip to Yellowseed, and if you have a cart or wagon you'd be willing to part with, I'd be happy to trade for it."

A grin came over Henry's face, and he glanced at the other table, where the rest of the villagers were watching us again. "You're not wrong about us not having much... but still, I think we'll be able to find something."