the pool and let it drain out onto the bank. "I could make it rain in the desert." He chuckled ruefully. "I could make it snow in the desert. Then I lost my ring, you know. The ring's stones helped me true the tones, find the right rhythms-make the magic work. Without it, the Fascini king had no use for me anymore. And, like one of his family, he banished me from the court.
"So I took whatever work 1 could gel, and one day, I hired out to entertain a caravan of Mercantos before they were forbidden to cross here. We were hit by the Wyrvil on the way back from the mountains-and when I had nothing to give them, they took me prisoner. What could I do but sing, or lose my head? 1 sang. 1 was terrible; one of them, Yob, was impressed. Somehow, I had chosen his favorite drinking song as my debut and he thought it was a sign from the gods.
"They let me live. I stayed with his roving band for better than a year. When they finally ranged over to this oasis, I put them to sleep one night-for a couple of days-and escaped. Yob woke up and came after me, but the city guards drove him back. So he retreated, waited awhile, and then decided that I wasn't worth feeding all of the time anyway, and since he knew where I was, he could always arrange for his boys to sneak into the city at night and find me, drag me out here, or over to his regular camp, and make me sing for them whenever he wanted. Mostly weddings and funerals; same songs, you see." Og's voice trailed off into a quiet sob.
Claria had floated toward them and was listening intently.
"How did you lose your ring, Og?" she said softly.
Og sat up and brushed the tears out of his ears. "I gave it away. To Riolla."
Prince Maceo nearly choked as he tried to swallow a long draught of the fifth of his twelve regular medications.