Cascet of souls

CHAPTER 10. Teus

TEUS crouched at the end of the alley across from Crab Quay, hiding from the older boys who’d been picking on him. Squatting with his chin on his knobby knees, he was drawing in the dirt with a bit of broken crockery when a shadow fell across the mouth of the alley. He looked up to find a strange-looking character regarding him. He was a young fellow on a crutch with a bandaged foot and a patch over one eye. The ragged yellow hair sticking out under his hat looked dirty, as did his face and hands. He had on a long tunic with a rope for a belt and carried a lumpy sack over his shoulder.

Teus jumped to his feet, aware that he was trapped. But the stranger stayed where he was as he said, “Boy, I am lost, I think. Can you tell me how to get to the Sea Serpent tavern?”

“The Serpent?” Teus squeezed one eye shut, trying to think of how to tell the man all the twists and turns. There was something funny about the way the man spoke. You heard all kinds of accents here in the Lower City, but he’d never heard this one. “It’s a ways off.” He pointed. “That way.”

The man gave him an embarrassed smile. “Maybe you could show me? I’m not used to a big city like this. I’ve been lost all morning and my friends must be wondering where I am. I’m afraid they’ll sail without me. I can pay you a bit for your trouble.” He took a silver penny from his purse and held it up for Teus to see.

Eyeing the money hungrily, Teus still hesitated. The Serpent was on the edge of a neighborhood worse than this one,

but the man did look worried, and friendly, too, and he clearly wasn’t from here. Maybe he’d tell him where he was from. Teus liked to hear about foreign places. He was going to sea as a cabin boy when he was old enough, to see them for himself. Anywhere but this stinking slum would be fine.

He glanced up at the sun. There was plenty of daylight left; if he hurried and ran all the way back, he’d be home in no time, his mother none the wiser. He could tell her he’d found the penny and she’d be happy. “Come on, then.”

As he’d hoped, the young man was glad to talk, hopping along spryly on his crutch. He was from somewhere up north, in the Ironheart Mountains. Teus had never heard of those and was a little disappointed when the man told him you couldn’t sail there.

“But you might want to go anyway,” the fellow said, “if you want to see dragons.”

The boy’s eyes went wide. “Dragons! Really? You seen ’em?”

“Seen ’em? I’ve eaten ’em,” the young man replied proudly. “Little ones, anyway. The big ones are too dangerous to hunt, but the little ones are tasty.”

Teus was skeptical but he wanted to hear more and they were nearly to the Serpent already. “I never heard of any dragons in Skala. Not for years and years.”

“Where I’m from is a long way from Skala, lad. And there are dragons there. I can prove it.” He stopped and rummaged in his sack, then pulled out a little leather pouch. “Hold out your hand.”

Teus did and the man poured out half a dozen little white teeth on his palm, no longer than the end of his little finger.

“Dragon teeth,” he told the boy. “They’re good protection from bad luck.” He pulled a tiny cloth bag on a string from the neck of his tunic. “See? I wear one all the time, to keep me safe traveling.”

“Really?” That would be a good thing for a sailor to have.

The man smiled. “You like them, eh? Maybe we can make a trade.”

“Like what?” Teus didn’t have anything in the world worth a dragon’s tooth.

The man looked down at the teeth and shrugged. “I like these. You give me something you like for one of them, and it’s a fair trade.”

“I have a toy horse back home.”

“No time to go back. Do you have something on you now?”

Teus’s heart sank. He did. He’d found a little penknife in the street in front of one of the countinghouses in Merchant Street last year. It had only half a blade, but what was left still cut and the sides of it were made of bone with designs carved in. It was a special treasure, really, though nothing compared with a dragon’s tooth!

He reached into his purse and held it out.

The man acted as if Teus had offered him a sack of gold. “Oh, that’s fine, isn’t it? That’s a beauty!” He smiled down into the boy’s eyes as he took it and flipped the knife like a coin. “For this you may have two of the dragon’s teeth. Take the ones you like best.”

Teus was going to miss the knife, and since the man seemed so happy with it, he took the two biggest.

He ran all the way home, clutching the teeth in one hand and the penny in the other. His mother was sitting in the sun in front of their tenement, braiding candlewick to sell in the marketplace.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he came to a halt, puffing. “Are them boys after you again?”

“No, Ma, I’s just helping someone get to-to Gull Quay and I wanted to show you what he traded me!”

“Traded you? For what?”

“My broken knife.” Teus unclenched his fist and showed her. “Look! Dragon’s teeth, from baby ones.”

His mother looked, then shook her head and went back to her braiding. “Teus, you looby. Them’s the eyeteeth of a cat.”