FSE

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Jaeghi mashed some pellets together with water drawn from the deep dungeon well as the kobolds watched him. "It's almost complete," the wingless cliff dragon said to the small group he could hear breathing and rustling in the darkness to his side. "Bring them." Fumbling around a seldom-used pouch for a candlestick, he set it on the small table he'd been allowed to use, and breathed on it gently until it lit.

He could see them well enough to count them now; perhaps forty of them, with twice as many eggs to mark. This would take a while. "Do you brew..." he paused, searching for the right word. "Do you ferment vegetables?"

"We do," said the one Jaeghi had mistaken for the chief. He had merely been the one to negotiate for the dragon's services. It had taken a while to convince the small negotiator that he was really a dragon; a cliff dragon would be believable but the kobolds expected one with wings.

A smaller kobold approached with a bowl that would serve as a good cup. Jaeghi drank, and frowned. "The humans...the five-finger-softskins, that is... have drinks you wouldn't believe. If you can acquire some, it would be worth it." He began painting the first of their eggs: a small dot, a larger semicircle for the mark of a clan, and then various symbols for luck.

He sniffed at the second small jar of dye, and held it over the candle briefly. From the look of the clan, some sort of illness was being passed around; that was something that could be helped. After adding a little warmth, the properties of the potion in the dye would come into full effect and seep through the eggshells.

Using a second brush, the wingless dragon painted a bit of a border to surround the symbols, and the first egg was finished. He glanced over his shoulder at the dozens of clan members, most of whom were clutching an egg in their small claw-like hands, and decided that he'd need at least one more candle before he'd be done.

He took another drink. "The Cold Sleeper has been taking many of you--especially your young," he said to the crowd, repeating what the negotiator had said of their clan. "This will ward him off, but his reach is long and nobody can deny those he's decided to touch. But his hand might be turned away by what I'm doing here."

They were silent. They trusted him with their future, their unhatched young, but there was not enough trust for them to speak with him. He finished the second egg, and patted the table with his stubby, blunt nails. "Just start piling them here, please." He leaned in and inspected the third egg, huffing gently over it, and felt like marking it slightly differently; the feeling approached him sometimes, and to be true to his fortunecasting craft, he followed those whims.

He also had an urge to break the silence, as the dozens of small, vaguely dragonish eyes staring at him was spoiling his mood. "I doubt you've seen an Egg Namer for over 150 years," he said to them as he finished up the third egg, which had an eye with a thick spiral emerging from it, eventually tapering off into an arrow point. "My esteemed predecessor, Mizah, would have been the last one to come here before I found my way through the winding mountain paths. The others wouldn't have enjoyed coming here.

"The mark of the Egg Naming Spirit was light on him, unlike me." He shrugged his shoulders with a touch of self-consciousness, making the scars on his back itch. "Mizah still had his wings, but his hind feet were without claws, and he was small. Not as small as you, but much smaller than me! Even with his wings, he'd fit through your tunnels easily."

"It's true," said a voice from somewhere in the crowd; an old, tired voice. "He was much smaller. There are paintings of him in our sacred chamber. When you are finished, I will put your image there, wingless dragon."

Jaeghi turned to spot the speaking kobold, but was unable to fix on who it was; the echoes, as well as the tightness of the crowd, made it difficult. No wonder their illness was moving around so swiftly between them. At least the next generation would be more resistant to it.

He put the fourth egg aside and drained the bowl. "More of this, please. Old Mizah; I never met him, of course. But he was legendary. It's too bad he never passed on his greatest secret, or we'd catch the Cold Sleeper instead of simply turning him aside, and put an end to him."

The bowl was refilled; the dragon picked up the fifth egg and started to tell them the story of the Mizah's Ownership Mark.

Now, the thing to remember about the symbols painted on these eggs is that they're not just for eggshells. Oh no! They work on other things too. Primarily, of course, they're used for warding off the forces of the universe that bring misfortune to those who hatch from the painted shells, or for attracting the positive forces of the world to those individuals; they can also act on other objects.

There was once a bent old crone who lived in a small hole on the outskirts of her colony. She grew herbs and tasty fungi and farmed some toads, but she never got to eat them because of a nearby stronghold of goblins. It wasn't the goblins that were the problem, really; it was the goblin brats. They would come to her hole and steal the toads and fungi and stomp on the herbs, and when she heard them she would run out and wail and cry, and try to summon the other kobolds to come to help her. But nobody ever came, and the goblin brats just laughed at her and sometimes threw rocks at her. This went on for several years. Everyone called her Old Misery.

But then one day a stranger came through those parts; a short dragon, not much bigger than an owlbear because his hind legs were stubby, passed that way. The goblins didn't know what to make of him, and they left him alone. The kobolds recognized him but didn't want anything to do with him, because they believed everything about him was trickery; they didn't listen when he explained he didn't need to be paid. So he was moving on, and he happened upon the old crone while she was running after the goblin brats.

"What I wouldn't give to keep them away from here," she said with a curse. She looked up at the dragon, and shook her head. "You hear me? I'd give anything."

The dragon, whose name was Mizah, said "I don't need anything but a meal. Did they take everything?"

She nodded, but the dragon opened up a sack he was carrying with him. Inside was some delicious food, the kind that the goblins sometimes had after raiding humans and elves and dwarves. It almost made her cry to smell it. "Prepare this," the dragon said. "We'll eat, and I think I'll be able to solve your problem."

She put the food near her fire, and the dragon began painting the rocky ground around the small garden and enclosure for the toads. He hummed and hissed to himself, sometimes smoking and sometimes breathing fire over the symbols he painted. He ground the paint away, sometimes repainting it and grinding again, and at last he stood.

"The food's been ready for an hour," Old Misery said. "I ate most of it myself!"

"But not all of it," Mizah said, and pulled more from his sack. "Warm this up, and use up the rest of your herbs for me, and let me tell you a secret."

She did as he asked her, and when he began to eat she said "What is the secret?"

"I've marked your garden and your toad farm," Mizah said. "The world now knows they belong to you, except for those too stupid to know the ways of the world. When they try to take something from you, they won't be able to let go of it, and it will stay exactly where it belongs. They'll be stuck unless you come and tell them they can go. Anything that is yours in your little cave here will only leave unless you give your permission."

Old Misery did something she hadn't done in a long time: she laughed. "I'll believe it when I see it," she said. The dragon left, but Old Misery didn't forget a word he said.

Sure enough, in less than a week she was gnawing on bones when she heard goblin brats crying and screaming outside her hole. She came out and saw two with their hands stuck on toads, which continued to hop around and forced them to jump with them, and one with his hands grasping some mushrooms.

She cackled and laughed so much that her kin, who usually ignored her cries for justice and help, came running and saw the goblins. Some of the goblin brats' kin came and begged Old Misery to let them go.

"All right," she said. "If you give me enough food to last me through the next three weeks, and treasures to wear and keep, I'll let them go."

They didn't have much of a choice, because the brats were screaming and crying so hard that nobody would get any peace until they were released. Once the goblins brought everything that she had asked for, she let them go.

Old Misery went through the fine things and food that the goblins had given to her in less than a week! But now that she could keep the things she grew and cultivated to herself, she survived.

One day another visitor came past the colony. He wasn't a kobold, he wasn't a goblin; he wasn't a human. He looked like an elf. "I am the Cold Sleeper," he would say, and then he would grab a hold of a kobold's shoulder or neck, and yank really hard. Their spirits would come flying out of their bodies and would disappear inside the Cold Sleeper's cloak. The body would fall, shivering, and wouldn't wake up again. "I have been sent to put an end to all kobolds and I will walk back and forth across, above and below the face of the earth until this is done," he said.

Various healers, magicians and wizards followed the Cold Sleeper, and made great claims and promises. Some sold charms and devices that they claimed would keep the Cold Sleeper's hand from fastening onto a kobold's spirit. They made great fortunes from selling these things, though most of them were as useful as an orc ear.

Well, the Cold Sleeper made his way to Old Misery's house. "I am the Cold Sleeper," he called to her. "I'm here to fasten my hands on you!"

"I'm old, so I always feel cold and sleepy already," said Old Misery. "And you! Roaming the earth, above it and below it, to take all of us kobolds with you! You know, that's more work than anyone could do, since every new moon's time there's another dozen of us. Why don't you rest for a while, I'll make you something to eat."

The Cold Sleeper agreed, and bowed low to enter Old Misery's home. He laid himself down across her bed, and fell asleep. He was so tall that his feet hung out off the end of the bed.

Old Misery spread her thick blanket across the Cold Sleeper, and tucked him in tight. She then said "Now blanket! Don't you move, not at all! That's where you belong, on the bed." She then fired up some coals and put them into a shovel, and then held them under the Cold Sleeper's feet.

"I'm on fire! I'm burning!" The Cold Sleeper tried to get up out of bed, but he couldn't move the blanket because Old Misery had told it that it belonged on the bed, and Mizah's Ownership Mark made everything stay exactly where it belonged. No matter how the Cold Sleeper struggled, he couldn't free himself from under the blanket. "Let me go!"

"Not on my life," said Old Misery. "I'll just have to get a new bed. You're staying there."

So kobolds stopped passing on, because the Cold Sleeper was trapped inside of Old Misery's hole. All of the healers, magicians and wizards came to Old Misery's house and said "Old one, you're costing us a fortune! Don't you know that without the Cold Sleeper, we can't make a living? Please, let him go!"

"Give me all of your treasures and money," Old Misery said. "Then I'll think about it."

They gave her everything that they had on them; Old Misery sent them back again and again until she was sure she got everything out of them that she could (of course, nobody can trick a wizard out of EVERYTHING that he owns).

"I've thought about it," she said. "The answer is no!"

Then all of the undertakers and death stew shamans came to her and said "We too are suffering-without the Cold Sleeper, we can't make our living! And there's been no death stew since you caught him. Let him go!"

"Give me all your treasures and money," Old Misery said. "Then I'll think about it some more." She was more forgiving for them, since they were her own kind. "Now I'll do it," she said.

She went inside, and using a hot iron, she drew one of the signs that she had seen Mizah draw while she prepared his dinner. "You'll remember me," she said. "Don't ever come back here! And leave the other kobolds alone."

"I cannot," said the Cold Sleeper. "I must take them all."

"You won't take me!" Old Misery laughed. "If you have to take the others, don't take them all at once. Let them live for a while."

"I'll do it. Let me go!"

Old Misery took hold of the blanket and said "Now, I'll fold you up and put you away!" The blanket instantly came off of the Cold Sleeper, who ran away as fast as his burned feet would carry him.

Jaeghi finished the last egg on the table, adding a little stripe around the thickest part of the shell. "That old kobold is still alive! I know her, I was there a few years ago. And that's why painting the mark can help; nobody would forget an experience like that, not even the Cold Sleeper.

"Then paint all of them," said a voice in the crowd. A set of new faces paraded past; the brood was only half done, apparently.

Jaeghi cracked his knuckles and winced. "I'm going to need more paint," he said.