by Resa Nelson
If a woman’s voice had whispered in a gust, Bee would have recognized the presence of the dragonslayer’s ghost.
But none of those things happened. Nothing unusual or unexpected happened.
“You’re already gone,” Bee said to the corpse below.
Bee considered her options.
She thought about the danger she sensed. What if she lied to Sven and told him the ghost claimed to have been murdered? And that Sven’s family would be next if he dared to leave Tower Island? Would that convince him to stay?
Staying would ease the danger.
Bee didn’t understand why staying would be safer than leaving. She simply sensed it and knew it to be true.
If I lie to Sven, I might save his life. Maybe even the lives of his wife and children.
But a sinking feeling reminded Bee of when she’d done such things in the past and everything had turned out wrong. She had a pitiful history of giving advice, and she didn’t want to bring about more pain to a family that had so recently suffered such a great deal of it by hearing that one son had murdered the other.
If I tell Sven the truth, he’ll leave. Maybe he’ll be safe.
Bee stood and walked toward the dock. When she came close enough to see the commotion ahead, she hurried.
The boy Drageen sat clutching his infant sister Astrid in his arms.
His grandmother Snip gripped Sven’s arm as he sank to his knees.
Bee ran to his side. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Sven croaked.
“He’s sick,” Snip said. “Help him!”
Bee directed Sven to lie on his back and then examined him. Placing the back of her hand against his forehead, she detected a fever. Studying his face, she noticed that since she’d seen him a short while ago, his eyes had gone bloodshot and his face had lost its color. She placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you back home in your bed. I’ll ask you some questions, and what you tell me will help me decide what I can do for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Sven said in a raspy breath. “But we need to leave—”
I was right. It’s more dangerous for him to leave Tower Island than to stay.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Bee said. “Not today.”
When she helped Snip lift Sven to his feet and walk, Bee looked up and noticed a dark figure at the top of the tower that appeared to be watching.
She squinted, trying to make out a familiar shape or mannerism.
But the figure backed away from the high tower wall and vanished.
CHAPTER 7
The boy Mandulane woke up with a start at the break of dawn.
Lying flat on his back, he trembled, not knowing where he was.
A dream woke me up.
Fleeting images from that dream ran through Mandulane’s head. A tall golden tower. An island. Traveling away from it on a boat.
Slowly, the shocking changes in his life came back.
His father had brought Mandulane and his mother to the Midlands, where people spoke her language.
Mandulane spoke both Midlander and Northlander, even though he looked nothing like a Northlander. He favored Midlanders in appearance. Midlanders like his mother.
The boy’s eyes began to adjust to the dim light until his surroundings became clear. He heard a soft snore and recognized the light weight of his mother’s arm across his chest. The straw on the palette on which they’d slept made his skin itch. Its dusty scent made his nose twitch.
Other images from his dream filled his head, this time even more fleeting.
A shop in the Midlander port city. An alchemist. Sitting on a wooden floor while that alchemist worked magic around him.
Forget. Mama told the alchemist to make me forget.
But forget … what?
Mandulane sneezed the itchy, twitchy scent of straw out of his nose.
His mother jolted awake.
“Good morning,” Mandulane said in Northlander.
Mama kissed the back of his head. “You can forget Northlander. You never need to speak it again.”
Forget.
Maybe that’s what Mama told the alchemist she wanted Mandulane to forget. He couldn’t remember.
Mandulane held onto her arm to keep it draped across his chest. He switched to speak in Midlander. “We live in the Midlands now.”
“Yes.” His mother’s voice took a curious tone. “We’ve always lived here.”
Mandulane giggled because he thought it was a jest. “No, we haven’t. If we always lived here, I’d never have learned any Northlander!”
His mother’s tone became even more peculiar. “Then where do you think we lived?”
Mandulane opened his mouth to answer, but the images that had swirled in his head when he first woke up began to slip away. He tried to catch them with his mind, but they eluded him.
Where else could we have lived?
Mandulane’s voice faltered. “I don’t know.”
His mother stretched and yawned. She sat up in bed and tousled Mandulane’s head. “It’s time to get up, sleepy boy. Today your father takes us to our new home.”
Hope and joy swelled in Mandulane’s chest. “Papa’s coming back?”
Memories of his Northlander father came rushing to the front of his mind. Mandulane remembered pining every time his father had gone absent and longing for attention when his father stayed at home. Wasn’t it just days ago that his father had abandoned them both, leaving his mother to rent this room in the tavern?
“Coming back?” His mother bustled out of bed and threw a dress on over her nightclothes. “Don’t be silly. How can your father come back when he never left?”
Mandulane sat up in bed and stared at her. His memories faltered again, making him doubt what he’d been so convinced of knowing mere seconds ago. “But he left us alone. It’s why we’re sleeping above the tavern.”
His mother pulled Mandulane out of bed and dressed him before he could protest. “You forget, that’s all.” She knelt to face him and held Mandulane firmly by the shoulders. “Your father is a cobbler. His mother died last week, and he has inherited her home, which is in a region that borders the Southlands.”
“The Southlands?” Mandulane said. “That’s very far away.”
“Yes, it’s very far away. Your father needed a few days to sell his home here in the city and make arrangements for us to travel. No one could be living in his home while he did all that, so he put us up here.” His mother spoke with conviction and concluded with a big smile.
“His home,” Mandulane said. “You said his home. Not our home.”
The conviction on his mother’s face faltered but only for a brief moment. “Did I? Well, of course, I meant our home. It’s where you’ve spent your whole life, my silly boy!”
Mandulane remembered the sharp scent of sea air, the pitch of a ship in the waves that made it hard to walk across its deck, and a fleeting glimpse of a tall gold tower on an island growing more distant by the moment.
I haven’t lived my life in one place. I’ve lived in other places. I know it.
Mandulane liked it better when his mother looked confident. He didn’t like it when his protests made the look on her face change.
He didn’t know why she was pretending so hard, but Mandulane decided that whatever the reason, it must be important to her.
He decided to pretend, too.
“This room isn’t like our home,” Mandulane said. “It doesn’t look anything like the house where we lived.”
His mother smiled in relief, and that made Mandulane feel calmer. He decided that whatever his mother wanted and wherever she took him, Mandulane would be happy and safe as long as he was with Mama and Papa.
After straightening up the room to look the same as when they first found it, his mother gathered up their few belongings. She led Mandulane downstairs to the tavern room, where they had a bit of cheese and bread for breakfast. Afterwards, they marched through the streets until
they arrived at a simple and small home near the end of the main thoroughfare.
Mandulane didn’t recognize this part of the city and clung to his mother’s skirts to make sure he wouldn’t lose sight of her.
The door of the home opened, and a Midlander man not quite as tall as Mama stepped outside. He shut the door and locked it. He grinned at Mandulane and spoke in Midlander.
“Where are we?” Mandulane frowned and decided he didn’t like this part of the city. “Where’s Papa?”
His mother grinned so wide that Mandulane believed he could see every tooth in her head. “Your papa’s right here, silly boy!” Still grinning, she cast a furtive glance at the man.
“I want my papa,” Mandulane said.
The Midlander man leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. He looked into Mandulane’s eyes. “I am your Papa. You are my son.”
Mandulane trembled and pulled his mother’s skirt around him as if hiding under his bed sheets.
It isn’t true! I never saw that man before. Why does he say he’s my papa?
And why is Mama pretending that he’s always been my papa?
Mandulane shivered at the sensation of the man’s hand on his arm. It took all the will Mandulane could muster to keep from whimpering.
“Change is hard,” the Midlander man said. “Moving to a new home is hard. But we have each other. I will protect you.”
The stranger’s words startled Mandulane so much that he forgot to be afraid. He eased his mother’s skirt away from his face just enough to look at the strange man’s face.
Mandulane saw a face weathered by the sun and creased with wrinkles. Like Mandulane, the stranger had dark hair and eyes.
Mama said, “And as long as we have each other, isn’t that really all we need?”
She knelt by Mandulane’s side and kissed his cheek. She paused and whispered in his ear. “He’s a good man and will be a good father. He’s the father you should have had. The one you deserve.”
For the first time today, Mandulane believed her.
When he strained to remember his Northlander father, Mandulane felt disappointment and sadness wash through him.
How could it be wrong to let go of that sadness and disappointment?
Another memory lit up inside Mandulane’s mind. Once more, he remembered the alchemist telling him to forget. But he also remembered the alchemist telling his mother how things had gone wrong.
Mandulane had gone snooping through the shelves of alchemy ingredients and spilled some by accident. The alchemist had scrambled to contain the damage he’d caused. She’d warned the spell she meant to cast—the one meant to make Mandulane forget—would be contaminated and the results couldn’t be guaranteed.
There might be unintended consequences.
Mandulane didn’t want to think about the consequences. He’d made a mistake. A simple mistake while doing something he knew he shouldn’t be doing.
He realized that if he let go of his memory of his Northlander father and the island with the golden tower that he could forget his mistake and the alchemist’s words about the unintended consequences.
Mandulane reached out and touched the strange man’s face. “I remember now,” Mandulane said. “When do we go to our new home, Papa?”
CHAPTER 8
That same morning, the dragonslayer Seph met with a handful of his fellow dragonslayers in the Red Bird tavern in the Midlander port city. With his son sequestered away safely in a room upstairs, Seph focused on the task at hand.
The dragonslayers occupied a small corner of the tavern. Although Seph knew none of them well, he trusted each one.
I trusted Skallagrim. Look how that turned out. He killed his own brother and then died from the effort.
For a moment, Seph forgot that all dragonslayers were trained to study people’s faces and read the meaning of the expressions that crossed over them.
“Forget Skallagrim,” said a dragonslayer with eyes so milky that most people mistook him for being blind when they first encountered him. “What’s done is done.”
“He’s right,” said a beefy dragonslayer who chewed on a piece of tack as if it were a straw in his mouth. “Skallagrim is dead. Frandulane is dead. Our brethren have sailed to the Northlands to carry on their regular dragon routes, and we’re left behind to search for Frandulane’s boy.”
“Mandulane,” Seph said. “The boy’s name is Mandulane.”
The milky-eyed slayer shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be that great of an effort. I say we spend the day asking around. If no one’s seen him, why continue the search?”
Seph heard the sharpness in his voice too late. “Because Madam Po said we have to help him. If we don’t, the boy will become a demon.”
Another dragonslayer chuckled. “What? He’ll turn into some kind of monster? Breathing fire and such?”
“It’s a term,” Seph said. “What Madam Po means is that if we don’t help, the boy’s worst possible nature will rise to the surface. He’ll become a dangerous man.”
The milky-eyed slayer didn’t appear impressed. “We encounter dangerous men all the time. Brigands and such.”
“It’s not just about us,” Seph said. “It’s about the damage Mandulane is capable of doing to all of the world if we don’t help him now.”
The beefy slayer shifted the tack from one side of his mouth to the other. “All of the world? Or just the Far East?”
Seph felt his jaw tighten with tension. “All the world.”
A gawky slayer with long limbs spoke up. “Why do anything more than a quick sweep of the city?” His plump and dewy face made him look younger than 20, probably fresh out of dragonslayer training and assigned to cover the Midlands for his first year of duty. “After all, we’re none beholding to a demon queller from the Far East. What has she got to do with the Midlands?”
Seph’s teeth ground against each other. “Madam Po has plenty to do with us. You’re too young to know. She spent many years at Bellesguard when Benzel of the Wolf taught sword lessons there. Madam Po might as well be one of us.”
“Maybe in your day,” the young dragonslayer said.
None of them know Madam Po the way I do. They don’t understand how important her advice is. How do I make it clear to them?
Staring at the few dragonslayers sitting with him at the table, Seph realized his predicament. Seph chose to stay in the Midlands during dragon season in order to look after his son while Bruni worked her route in the Northlands. They were both seasoned and experienced dragonslayers who were well qualified to handle dragons.
These men are back-ups. They’re either too young or haven’t yet mastered the skills to walk their own route with success.
In essence, the men sitting with Seph were the lowest of the lot and didn’t appear to have the wherewithal to recognize it. These dragonslayers seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they were only good enough to be considered as replacements in the rare event of a dragonslayer’s death.
If they’d had the courage to recognize their own limitations, they would acknowledge Seph’s experience and listen to his opinions instead of rejecting them.
Seph attempted to spell the situation out for the other dragonslayers. “Madam Po has the power of portents. She can see bits and pieces of the future.”
“Bits and pieces?” the youngest dragonslayer said. “How can that help? If you can’t see the whole picture, there’s no way to understand it.”
“What Madam Po sees is enough to understand the whole picture.” Seph worked at being patient. “If she says Mandulane will become a demon if we fail to intervene, then you can be certain the future is dismal.”
The beefy dragonslayer sucked on the piece of tack in his mouth. “No reason why we can’t find an agreeable answer. Frandulane died in Gott, but I wager his widow and child are somewhere here in the Midlands. No one has seen them in Gott.”
“We don’t know that,” Seph said. “They came here from Tower Island, but Frandulane could
have left them in any port.”
“It’s possible,” said the milky-eyed dragonslayer. “But that doesn’t mean that’s what happened. The odds are that they all came here, and then Frandulane headed up to Gott.”
“So, we search the city, like I said before,” the gawky dragonslayer said. He swept his arm across the table. “Between the four of us, it shouldn’t take that long.”
“Could take a day,” the beefy dragonslayer said. “Two at the most.”
At times like this, Seph wished he were walking his own route in the Northlands once more. Now he could see why these three dragonslayers were relegated to the Midlands during dragon season, ready to act just in case a stray dragon had missed the annual migration from the Southlands up to the Northlands.
They have no sense. Not a one of them.
Stray dragons were rare, but they almost always passed through this port city on their way to the Northlands. For that reason, the dragonslayers who stayed behind often lived here.
All they want to do is prance around and enjoy the attention that being a dragonslayer brings them. They enjoy the way women look at them and the way men entreat them to tell stories of dragons—stories they’ve heard from others like me but pretend those stories are their own.
Seph remembered his dragonslayer training, which had taught him how to choose his fights.
This argument with these bottom-of-the-barrel dragonslayers gained him nothing.
They’re right about one thing. It’s easy to search the city, so we might as well do it. But then let them stay here in the city. I’ll travel the Midlands myself and take my boy with me.
“Fine,” Seph said. “Let’s talk about how to split up the city, and we’ll each take a section to search.”
CHAPTER 9
“I can’t tell what’s wrong with him,” the alchemist Bee said. She sat on the dock next to Sven’s flattened figure. She palmed his forehead again. “He acted perfectly fine when I talked to him earlier this morning.”
Grandmama Snip paced around them. Her eyes looked wild and she spoke as if bargaining with the gods. “Let nothing happen to Sven. You let my brother Benzel die. You let our sons die. You let our friend Bruni perish this morning. I’ll do anything if you let Sven live.”
