~Harriet Tubman
Riiele
“Your cavern?” Daxon asked, confused. Yes, sometimes. It is where I live right now and where I have lived off and on for many, many years… The voice trailed off, leaving Dax wondering how many years this strange dragon had been right below his home without anyone knowing. Not that the dragon seemed exactly dangerous, but it did seem to give off a volatile vibe. He didn’t feel particularly threatened by Riiele, he had been around dragons for as long as he could remember, and dragons that were much larger than the one he was currently standing before, but he was sure there was more to this dragon than was immediately apparent, and he was positive without exactly knowing why that the dragon was far from helpless despite its small size.
“Well, it was nice to meet you Riiele,” Dax said after minutes passed without the dragon speaking or even moving. He started walking towards the exit once again, thinking of all the questions he wanted to ask Borl and Sikir. He hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when he had to pull up short to avoid running into the purple dwarf dragon that was once more standing in front of him, unmoving. You read the book. The other man, he came to read the book many years ago. The woman brought him. They think they know a great truth, I heard them speaking of it. But they know only a partial truth and a small part of a large story.
“You read the book?” Dax asked, feeling stupid as soon as the question left his mouth. The dragon didn’t have hands so he was sure turning pages in the book would have presented a problem. Almost as if reading his mind, Riiele stared at him for a moment with what Dax assumed was a bemused expression even though it was hard to tell on a dragon’s face, especially a dragon that didn’t really have any pupils. No, I haven’t read the book. I was here when the woman read it, and I was here when she brought the man to read it. I heard them speaking of what was in it. He looked across the water at the swirling globe. Besides, I have little need to read the book. I was present for most of what is contained therein, although I, too, have no idea what a ‘January’ or a ‘Kentucky’ is.
“You met the person who wrote that?” Dax asked, gesturing toward the book now safely put away in the chest under the burlap sacks. Yes, he said, his eyes darkening to a blue flame. I met her. She arrived from a small tunnel on the other side of this cavern across the water. I watched her emerge and look around with the most interesting expression on her face, like she had never seen a cavern before. I could tell she was tired and she looked half starved. She huddled in a small little niche and slept almost a full glow cycle.
“Glow cycle?” Dax asked.
Yes, a glow cycle. Down here we don’t measure time in relation to the sun. If you were to look closely at the walls and ceiling of this cavern you would see a light green film of algae coating them. Once it gets thick enough the glow worm pupae will emerge from the water and feed on these algae. You can track their progress, as well as their growth, by this. When they emerge they are tiny and glow a very faint yellow color. As they eat, they grow rapidly, and will then turn a brighter yellow, orange, red, crimson, and so on, until they make their way up the cavern wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. When they finally reach the other side, they will be bright green and will slip back into the water to lay more eggs. Then the cycle will repeat itself. One glow cycle is the time it takes the baby glow worms to change from one color to the next.
Dax filed this information away for later use, already wondering exactly how long the entire transformation from pupae to glow worm took and making plans to measure it in days, hours, and minutes in the near future. He glanced around the cavern, briefly noting the glow worms were currently right above the water on the ceiling and were a vivid rose color.
Anyway, Riiele continued, I found the human interesting as I said before, and while she slept, I went and picked her some dragon fruits from the surface and left them lying beside her little cave. When she awoke, she ate the fruit, and then she looked around trying to find her benefactor. I remained hidden from her for several more days, bringing her food at least once a day, but she had a different smell to her than the few humans I had encountered before, so I took my time and studied her. After a few days I realized it wasn’t really her smell that was so different, but the smell she brought with her, in her hair and the strange clothes she wore. It smelled of… otherness.
Finally, I decided to take the form of a human and approach her. She was suspicious of me, but eventually I won her over and befriended her. We spent many marvelous nights together, exploring and learning about each other. After two generations of glow worms had come and gone, I made ready to leave to other mountain ranges, and that is when things went horribly wrong.
“Wait, hold on a second, you can transform into a human?” Dax asked. Yes, Riiele said, I am very unlike the dragons on the surface. When my ancestors left the sunlight behind they became almost a part of the earth itself. The mountains share their strength with us. The stones speak to us of hidden minerals and jewels. Time has very little meaning to any dragon, but we are, perhaps, the longest lived of even our kind. All things return to the earth, and from the earth we have gained the ability to shape-shift into almost anything we have seen or the earth remembers.
Dax pondered his answer for a moment before asking, “So why didn’t you approach me as a human?”
You are not a human. You are as much a part of Daegonlot as I am and, besides, you have been around dragons for as long as you can remember. You would not be unduly afraid. The girl, however, I somehow knew she had never seen a dragon, and the earth whispered to me that she didn’t believe in any sort of magic. And, what are dragons if not magic embodied?
Dax nodded to show he both understood and for him to continue his story. Riiele continued, his eyes once again changing colors, this time to an agitated orange color. The day I made ready to leave I did not go to see the human girl. The trip would be long so I wanted to rest up and not spend energy on maintaining my human guise. She was distraught. First she waited patiently for me at our usual meeting spot by the shore of the lake. When I didn’t show she started yelling my name and looking for me. It was impossible to sleep, so I finally slipped back into my human disguise and went to her. I was irritated that she had been so noisy and upset. She tried to tell me she was ‘in love’ with me, but I didn’t understand what she meant.
I tried to explain to her that I was a dragon and we did not mate as humans do, for long periods of time or for life. That would be silly. Dragons live exceptionally long lives, and as I mentioned before, none so long as my kind. I was kind to her, I helped her, I spent time with her and she interested me, but I was moving on to other places she could not follow. I thought she understood. She sat there, gently rocking back and forth and nodding as I spoke to her. Right before I stood to leave she asked me one question: “Is there a way to the surface?”
I carved a way to the surface through the rock and went back to get her. I showed her the way out. Never once was I in any form except for human when I interacted with her. And now that I think of it, she never really told me a lot about the place she came from, no matter how many times I asked. After showing her the way to the surface, I left her and traveled on to other places within the earth. For years, I didn’t even think of her. Once again he glanced across the water at the swirling orb on its little island. And then that happened, he said, still staring at the globe.
“The globe?” Dax asked. “Do you know what it is?” Riiele looked back at him, his eyes dimming to a muted amethyst once again. Not exactly, no. I have my suspicions, but I don’t know for sure. That is why I spoke with you. The human girl, the one who wrote that journal, the one I met so many years ago, she is the one known as Jessa Dragonheart. Whatever she did so many years ago after we parted company is an abomination of nature. When I returned to this cavern again, centuries after meeting her here and watching her emerge, I found this globe. I have studied it as much as I can for I dare not get too close to it. It is an evil thing, a thing that sho
uld never have been able to exist, and yet it does. You, Child of the Myste, you must find out how to set this right. You must find out how to destroy the Dragon Globe.
“Me?” Dax said. “What makes you think I could do that? I don’t know anything about the globe. Why can’t you go out there and… I don’t know, blast it or something?” And almost as an afterthought, “And why did you call me child of the mist?”
Riiele studied him intently, his eyes whirling through a host of different colors. You don’t know of the Myste? Before Daxon could even answer, he went on, Nevermind, I don’t have much more time. I can feel that thing pulling at me the longer I stay here and I can almost feel it summoning her. Go, child, find the Myste. Find her and a way to undo what has been done. Only then can Daegonlot become whole again.
“Where should I star…?” he asked, but there was no one there. Riiele had just disappeared. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he caught a slight movement, and when he turned his head that way he was shocked to see a flaming eye inside the stone of the cavern wall wink at him, then it, too, was gone. He waited a few minutes to see if he would see anything else or if Riiele had anything more to say, but time stretched out and there were no more glowing eyes in the stone wall and the dragon did not reappear.
Daxon slowly made his way back through the cavern and up the winding staircase, pondering everything he had read in the journal and heard from Riiele. If the dragon were to be believed, then the person who wrote that journal was Jessa Dragonheart, before she had been known by that name. It seemed as if she came from another world through some sort of hidden tunnel and ended up here, on Daegonlot. But if that were true, how did she end up becoming the hero of the dragonriders? Dax didn’t know the answer to that question, but he was reasonably sure it had something to do with the globe of swirling colors. He wasn’t convinced the globe should be destroyed, he didn’t even know what the globe did after all, but he did want to find out more about it.
Just before he reached the top of the staircase he remembered something else the dragon said that bothered him. He had told Dax to find her and undo what had been done. Who exactly was he talking about? Surely not Jessa Dragonheart. According to the legends she had lived over six hundred years ago. No one lived that long, not even the dwarves or elves, and surely not any humans.
Shaking his head Dax closed up the secret staircase and pushed the barrel back into place with an effort, then went off in search of Borl and Sikir.
Chapter 5
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Dragon Orb (Dragons of Daegonlot, Book One) Page 4
