by Hank Quense

"Shush. The rings are adapting themselves to my style of leadersh--"

The log ignited into a pillar of flames, setting fire to a ceiling beam. Frido grabbed a pot of tea and threw the liquid at the blaze, extinguishing part of the fire and drenching Mamzer. Dementia grabbed a towel and beat out the rest of the flames.

Frido coughed from the stink of burning wood and scalded tea. "You almost burned down my home," he snarled at Mamzer who stood with his head thrown back as if examining the ceiling.

"Nonsense. This beam is hardly scorched."

"Why're you standin' like that?" Gimlet asked.

"I have a nose bleed."

"Any more testing gets done outside," Frido said. "And we don't have much time. My bailiff told me the construction crews are close to the Shore border."

Mamzer spent the next day experimenting. Despite the loss of blood, he persevered through eight configurations. In the last, he built a peg board to resemble the wall in Wygga's cave. The ensuing explosion brought the Shore fire wagon rushing to Frido's house.

At last, a weary, pale Mamzer dumped the rings on Frido's kitchen table and announced, "Without the owner's manual, I'm stymied. I can't build the proper configuration."

"Without the rings, we can't follow our plan to use magic to stop the yuks," Dementia said.

"To stop yuks, you need dwarfs, not magic," Gimlet said. "How many yuks are there?"

"My bailiff says about eighty."

Gimlet bit his lip and pulled his beard. "How many fingers of ten?"

"Eight," Frido replied.

"Hmm. It'll take me about two hours to hack through that many. I gotta negotiate with 'em before the battle."

"Whatever for?" Dementia cocked her head and looked at the dwarf.

"I'll be needin' a potty break. All that red stuff drippin' and sloshin' around works just like water, you know."

Frido ignored Gimlet's battle plans. The fate of his Shore depended upon the two opposite powers balancing each other. Both advocated unacceptable conditions and Frido had hoped to negotiate a compromise position. Without the rings, the Shore was at the mercy of the money-grubbing Freddie Mac.

His musings were interrupted by a sound from the door. When he opened it, his heart jumped into his throat. Wygga stuck her gray-whiskered snout through the opening. Her breath stank of coal. Tongues of flame licked her lips and tendrils of smoke drifted upward. "Well. The whole gang of thieves."

"Flee!" Mamzer screamed. "Flee for your lives." The wizard jumped out of his chair. "Er, Frido? Where's the back door?"

Frido groaned. As if the situation wasn't bad enough, now he faced an angry dragon looking for retribution. If he was lucky, only his house would get burned down.

"Stop yelling," Wygga said to Mamzer. "I came for my rings. If I get them back, I'll let everyone live."

"Might as well give them back," Mamzer said, "we can't use them."

"Of course you can't," Wygga said. "You need the entire set before you can use them. One would think a wizard would know that before he stole them."

Frido's eyebrows shot up and, suddenly, he couldn't get enough air. Possibly, the answer to the Shore's problems blocked his doorway. He counted to ten to calm his nerves, cleared his throat and said, "If you had all five rings, would you know how to use them?"

"Certainly. Alas, I can't find a black ring to complete the set. I'm sure it's been destroyed."

Frido gestured to the others to stop muttering. "What would you do if you found the fifth ring?"

"First, I'd fix my rheumatism and my arthritis. Then I'd move my den to someplace warmer. That cave under the mountain never gets warm no matter how much coal I burn in the fireplace."

Frido walked to the table, picked up the black ring and held it over his head for Wygga to see. "Perhaps we can do a deal."

Frido hoped he had found the necessary ingredient to bring the opposite forces back into balance. Trusting a dragon was risky, but Wygga couldn't make the situation worse than it already was.

Some of the insects on the Shore-shrub fell into the water.

Frido, his three companions and Wygga, each carrying one of the rings, set out the next morning. Mild weather and blue sky would have made for a pleasant walk except Frido was too nervous and depressed to notice the weather. If Freddie Mac or Mamzer won the day, his Shore would lose. A stalemate between the antagonists was his only hope.

A half-mile from the river border of the Shore, they heard the thud of axes. The smell of wood smoke drifted along on a mild breeze. From the crest of a rise that overlooked the river, they saw a mob of yuks working on the road. Large cauldrons of black stew bubbled over fires and emitted an acrid stench. Freddie Mac roared orders and Fannie Mae, wearing a red wig, flirted with the workers.

"We better assemble the rings," Wygga said. She twisted the yellow one and it clicked open. Mamzer gawked at it. Wygga looped the yellow ring through the blue and back rings and snapped it shut. Instantly, the three rings formed a ridig structure. The dragon opened the green ring, looped it through both the black and red rings and closed it. The rings now formed a solid, two-rowed configuration. She handed it back to Mamzer and said, "After you use it, I'll take it apart and carry it back to my den."

"Now you see why I needed the owner's manual," Mamzer said to Frido.

Frido snorted.