LITMIR.BIZ

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the words. Shall I say them?”

      “No. Let’s go home,” Adara said, shivering.

      “Baby!” said Orban. “You watch.” And he marched towards the bird, saying the words and swishing his sword in time to them.

      Nothing happened, because Orban got the words wrong. Nothing whatsoever would have happened, had not Adara, who hated Orban to look a fool, obligingly said the words right for him.

      A wave of cold air swept out of the hollow, making both children shiver. They were too horrified to move. The blackbird, after a frantic flutter of protest, dissolved into mist thicker and greyer than the haze around it. The mist swirled, and solidified into a shape much larger. It was the pale, scaly figure of a Dorig, right enough. It was crouched on one knee in the dip, staring towards them in horror, and holding in both hands a twisted green-gold collar not unlike Orban’s or Adara’s.

      “Now look what you’ve done!” Orban snarled at Adara. But, as he said it, he realised that the Dorig was not really very large. He had been told that Dorig usually stood head and shoulders above a grown man, but this one was probably only as high as his chin. It had a weak and spindly look too. It did not seem to have a weapon and, better still, Orban knew that those words, once spoken, would prevent the creature shifting shape until sundown. There was no chance of it turning into an adder or a wolf.

      Feeling very much better, Orban marched towards the dip, swinging his sword menacingly. The Dorig stood up, trembling, and backed away a few steps. It was rather smaller than Orban had thought. Orban began to feel brave. He scanned the thing contemptuously, and the collar flashing between its pale fingers caught his attention. It was a very fine one. Though it was the same horseshoe shape as Orban’s and made of the same green gold, it was twice the width and woven into delicate filigree patterns. Orban glimpsed words, animals and flowers in the pattern. And the knobs at either end, which in Orban’s collar were just plain bosses, seemed to be in the shape of owls’ heads on this one. Now Orban, only the day before, had been severely slapped for fooling about with a collar rather less fine. He knew the art of making this kind had been lost long ago. No wonder the Dorig was so frightened. He had caught it red-handed with a valuable antique.

      “What are you doing with that collar?” he demanded.

      The Dorig looked tremulously up at Orban’s face. Orban found its strange yellow eyes disgusting. “Only sunning it,” it said apologetically. “You have to sun gold, or it turns back to earth again.”

      “Nonsense,” said Orban. “I’ve never sunned mine in my life.”

      “You live more in the air than we do,” the Dorig pointed out.

      Orban shuddered, thinking of the way the Dorig skulked out their lives under stinking marsh-water. And they were cold blooded too, so of course they would have to sun any gold they stole. Ugh! “Where did you get that collar?” he said sternly.

      The Dorig seemed surprised that he should ask. “From my father, of course! Didn’t your father give you yours?”

      “Yes,” said Orban. “But my father’s Chief Og of Otmound.”

      “I expect he’s a very great man,” the Dorig said politely.

      Orban was almost too angry to speak. It was clear that this miserable, tremulous Dorig had never even heard of Og of Otmound. “My father,” he said, “is senior Chief on the Moor. And your father’s a thief. He stole that collar from somewhere.”

      “He didn’t – he had it made!” the Dorig said indignantly. “And he’s not a thief! He’s the King.”

      Orban stared. The Giants interrupted with another distant thump and rumble, but Orban’s mind took that in no more than it would take in what the Dorig had just said. If it was true, it meant that this wretched, skinny, scaly creature was more important than he was. And he knew that must be nonsense. “All Dorig are liars,” he explained to Adara.

      “I’m not!” the Dorig protested.

      Adara was in dread that Orban was going to make a fool of himself, as he so often did. “I’m sure he’s telling the truth, Orban,” she said. “Let’s go home now.”

      “He’s lying,” Orban insisted. “Dorig can’t work gold, so it must all be lies.”

      “No, you’re wrong. We have some very good goldsmiths,” said the Dorig. Seeing Adara was ready to believe this, it turned eagerly to her. “I watched them make this collar. They wove words in for Power, Riches and Truth. Is yours the same?”

      Adara, much impressed, fingered her own narrower, plainer collar. “Mine only has Safety. So does Orban’s.”

      Orban could not bear Adara to be impressed by anyone but himself. He refused to believe a word of it. “Don’t listen,” he said. “It’s just trying to make you believe it hasn’t stolen that collar.” Adara looked from Orban to the Dorig, troubled and undecided. Orban saw he had not impressed her. Very well. She must be made to see who was right. He held out his hand imperiously to the Dorig. “Come on. Hand it over.”

      The Dorig did not understand straight away. Then its yellow eyes widened and it backed away a step, clutching the collar to its thin chest. “But it’s mine! I told you!”

      “Orban, leave him be,” Adara said uncomfortably.

      By this time, Orban was beginning to see he might be making a fool of himself. It made him furiously angry, and all the more determined to impress Adara in spite of it. “Give me that collar,” he said to the Dorig. “Or I’ll kill you.” To prove that he could, he swung his new sword so that the air whistled. The Dorig flinched.

      “Run away,” Adara advised it urgently.

      Finding Adara now definitely on the side of the Dorig was the last straw to Orban. “Do, and I’ll catch you in two steps!” he told it. “Then I’ll kill you and take the collar anyway. So hand it over.”

      The Dorig knew its shorter legs were no match for Orban’s. It stood where it was, clutching the collar and shaking. “I haven’t even got a knife,” it said. “And you stopped me shifting shape till this evening.”

      “That was my fault. I’m sorry,” said Adara.

      “Shut up!” Orban snarled at her. He made a swift left-handed snatch at the collar. “Give me that!”

      The Dorig dodged. “I can’t!” it said desperately. “Tell him I can’t,” it said to Adara.

      “Orban, you know he can’t,” said Adara. “If it was yours, it could only be taken off your dead body.”

      This only made it clear to Orban that he would have to kill the creature. He had gone too far to turn back with dignity, and the knowledge maddened him further. Anyway, what business had the Dorig to imitate the customs of men? “I told you to shut up,” he said to Adara. “Besides, it’s only a stolen collar, and that’s not the same. Give it!” He advanced on the Dorig.

      It backed away from him, looking quite desperate. “Be careful! I’ll put a curse on the collar if you try. It won’t do you any good if you do get it.”

      Orban’s reply was to snatch at the collar again. The Dorig side-stepped, though only just in time. But it managed, in spite of its shaking fingers, to get the collar round its neck, making it much more difficult for Orban to grab. Then it began to curse. Adara marvelled, and even Orban was daunted, at the power and fluency of that curse. They had no idea Dorig knew words that way.

      In a shrill hasty voice, the creature laid it on the collar that the words woven in it should in future work against the owner, that Power should bring pain, Riches loss, Truth disaster, and ill-luck of all kinds follow the feet and cloud the mind of the possessor. Then it ran its pale fingers along the intricate twists and pattern of the design, bringing each part it touched to bear on the curse: fish for loss by water, animals for loss by land, flowers for death of

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