by LeRoy Clary
The compliment would have been more inspiring if she had not slightly stressed the word, man. She had not answered my question, either. She sat down on a large outcrop and closed her eyes in concentration.
The dragon blinked several times in succession and settled down to sit with its belly on the ground as it watched her. Again, it struck me how awkward and ungainly dragons are when on the ground.
“Waystone,” she muttered loud enough for me to hear over the soft wind. “Way. Which way? Going a long way? Directions carved in stone?”
I said, breaking her rambling, “That’s what I always thought. A stone that told which way to go. A signpost, but larger.”
She gave me the look of disappointment that erased her earlier compliment. “Which way to go, you think it means that? However, in Crestfallen, you are already at the upper end of the kingdom, with a ring of impassable mountains directly behind. There is only one direction you can go: Down the mountain on the same road we took. You don’t need a Waystone to know you have to go down from there, or that you have reached the end of the road if you’re going the other way.”
Trying to redeem myself, I added, “The rock it’s made of is the same kind as here, not the same as that around our home. That always struck me as odd that the one at home didn’t match the surrounding rock.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is the exact same color, not like the usual brown rock at Crestfallen. Smooth like it, too. I wish I’d have felt the one at home to see if it’s also warm.”
The idle comment brought her to her feet as her face flushed.
“What is it?” My eyes searched for more Wyverns attacking as my hand reached for my sword.
“Snow. It always melts first around the Waystone at home, leaving a clear circle. I had dismissed it, but you just reminded me. In spring, travelers pitch their tents near it to keep warm, and so they don’t sleep on snow.”
“The sun warms the rock during the day, and it gives off heat until after dark. Simple to explain,” I told her as if I knew what I was talking about. Besides, I’d heard that explanation once when others discussed the Waystone at Crestfallen.
She began to pace the open area, walking almost to the dragon without even seeing it, then back again. “Maybe. What if I told you it does the same thing in deep winter, and when there has been no sun for days? It still melts the snow near it.”
“Is that true?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know for sure, but I intend to find out. This stone was warmer than the air early in the morning. That was before the sun came up. Warmth uses energy. Or magic. There is another thought about Waystones that is going around and around in my head. Waystone. Like two different words. We know what stone is. It’s the material they are made of. Way, in Waystone, may be the key, something different than we’ve considered.”
“That’s understandable, so far. What else? Besides, I don’t yet see why that is important.”
She grinned. “Directions. What if way does not mean directions as we always assumed, like a signpost. What if way means a method, as in telling me the way to build this? Or like going away. Or way over there.”
She paused and waited for me to catch up. My mind took in what she began and carried to a better conclusion. “A way is also a road, or a track, or pathway. A place to travel upon.”
Kendra inhaled deeply and said, “So, a Waystone could be a way to travel from one place to another?”
“It could be,” I told her, expecting another of our arguments to begin, so I spoke quickly, “But if it meant road, it would just say so. Be a lot easier. Same with a signpost. Each would be different because of providing directions to different places.”
“I believe you’re exactly right.”
“Why?” the statement had me speechless. She hadn’t even attempted to contradict or correct me.
She came and sat with her knees almost touching mine as she leaned closer and spoke intently, “I heard a child’s story one time. A mage needed information that could only be found far away across the sea where a great battle raged. A day later, the mage returned from his solitary ‘meditation’ with the information of the battle, and he swore it was correct. A month later it was confirmed when a ship arrived with the truth from the battle across the sea, but the mage had already disappeared, never to be seen again.”
I considered it. There were too many truths to ignore in her children’s story. “That sounds more like a factual event that was passed on as a child’s story to conceal it.”
She smiled. “It does. What better way to discredit a story than to turn it into a fairytale?”
We’d accomplished the climb, found an egg we didn’t know what to do with, fought at the side of a dragon against Wyverns, and perhaps decoded one of the mysteries of the Waystones. Not a bad start before midday. Common sense said to stop there, but one or two small things niggled at the back of my mind. “Kendra, remember those four small stones piled up on the stairs?”
“Of course.”
“Any vibration, even a small puff of wind would have knocked them down.”
“Go on,” she said in a leading sort of way that told me she was getting more interested.
“The little depressions in the steps from all the feet walking on them held water. None of it was cloudy, and there was enough dirt to make mud in several places. No footprints were in the mud. No person climbed those stairs before us this morning.”
She finished for me, “But something piled those stones within the last day.”
“Are we being watched again?”
As if in answer, a faint blue light winked into existence before us. The light shimmered and formed into the outlined shape of a woman in a long dress. We’d encountered her before and called her the Blue Woman, but before either of us spoke, the light faded and disappeared. In the distance, it sounded like the tinkling of laughter amid the breaking of glass coming from far down the mountainside, but it may have been my imagination.
CHAPTER FOUR
K endra and I took the time to search all around what had been the floor of the cave searching for more information, even to the point of making the dragon move out of the way so we could search where she had been resting. We found evidence of the mages’ previous habitation in the forms of scraps of food, bowls, three individual shoes which seemed an odd number, several robes, and a winch for raising things up from the city below on the plain. Mages had probably spent extensive time up there caring for the dragon, feeding and watering it, and perhaps studying it. One of them had probably been here all the time, to care for the dragon in case it required assistance, food, water, or sedation.
What we did not find, was anything pointing to a visitor in the last day, or since the dragon had escaped. As strange as it might sound when speaking of it in the future, I’d have rather had an irate mage leap out at us from hiding and throw a few lightning bolts our way than the unknowns we faced. The feeling of being watched was persistent and upsetting.
The dragon stood. Its head crooked to look at me, then it turned away. Its body tensed. I asked, “Kendra, have you . . .?”
She ignored me. She had halted in her search and tilted her head as if listening to something far away, a sound at the very edge of perception, similar to the action of the dragon. Worse, she also tensed, ready to fight.
My ears heard nothing. My eyes found no danger. But the two of them might be listening with more than their ears. They might hear it in their minds—or some other sense they had developed. Kendra hadn’t yet shared all she knew of her new powers—mostly because she didn’t completely understand what had happened to her. Three or four days ago, she had laughed at the mere mention of being called a Dragon Tamer. Neither of us had even believed a true-dragon existed a month ago, and we’d only seen perhaps three Wyverns in our lives, all within the last ten days.
The changes to her had come so fast, so unexpectedly, we hadn’t had time to think about them, let alone talk about them intelligently
. We were both feeling our way. I said more intensely, “Kendra?”
She turned to me, obviously distracted.
“What’s happening?”
She shook her head in dismissal and her eyes glazed over again. She stumbled and fell to her knees.
“What is it?” I demanded. The dragon fell heavily to its side, mimicking my sister’s distress.
She sobbed, “Mocking. Voices are laughing and sneering, full of contempt.”
“What are they saying?”
“Not words. Feelings.” She closed her eyes and her face twisted as if in pain. She managed to raise herself to her feet with my arm for support. Her fingers curled into fists. She shouted, “No!”
The dragon also stumbled to its feet, threw its head back and roared as if in extreme pain and in support of my sister.
Kendra backed away from me, ignoring the rubble underfoot as she went closer to the dragon that stood, wild-eyed and panting as if it had just climbed all the stairs to our location. Kendra walked right up under its chin and reached her arm high. The dragon lowered her head until her chin touched Kendra’s hand, then the dragon whimpered like a lost puppy as tears flowed down Kendra’s cheeks.
It was clear they had shared a mental experience that didn’t include me, so I stepped aside and waited. The dragon backed away, careful not to step on Kendra, then it moved to the edge of the ledge and gracefully spread her wings. Instead of powering off as she had earlier, she simply stepped forward and allowed the air to fill her wings as she fell into the air. When she took her first powerful stroke, it was almost lazy in appearance, but already she looked smaller as she rapidly pulled away.
I peered all around the sky for any Wyverns to battle and found none. “What are the two of you so upset about?”
“The egg.” She seemed to have shrunk, as did her brief response. Her head hung low, her eyes so angry they almost glowed. “It’s gone.”
My puzzlement must have shown in my confused expression. She jabbed a finger at the stone tub, or incubator, but stood her ground as if afraid to look inside. My listless feet carried me there. Inside was nothing but bare rock, rounded in shape at the bottom to fit the shape of the egg that had once occupied it. Bewildered, I asked, “How?”
Kendra said, “They took it while we fought the Wyverns. More than one of the mages worked together to accomplish it, but all involved were mages, and they distracted us. They knew we killed three of them in the last two days, and the one in Andover we left and allowed to return to his home refuses to respond to them. He’s keeping his word to us in that, and still in the city, but they are angry with him, and us.”
“How can you know all that?
“The dragon shared it.”
There had to be more to her answer, but what she’d said confused me. “They took the egg? While we were here fighting? And we didn’t see anything?”
She started mumbling again, with me only catching a word here and there. Finally, she said as she contradicted herself, “Dragons don’t talk.”
I interrupted her morose and rambling talk with what concerned me more. “What do you mean, the mages took it? They appeared here on this mountaintop and carried it off in their arms?” One question seemed to lead to another. She hadn’t had time to answer any of them.
She said, “We were right about Waystones. They are not signposts, but routes and ways to travel from one Waystone to another. The mages came here and took the egg and to upset the dragon. They told it they will hatch it when they have a new stronghold built we cannot breach. It was taken via the Waystones to a secret place to hide it from us. Then, they will chain it and raise the new hatchling and use its essence to return here and defeat the king of Dire. One of them thanked us because this dragon is old, and her essence has weakened. Now they have a new start.”
“They’re taunting us. Trying to anger us so we’ll make mistakes.” A new thought rushed to mind. “Can people who are not mages travel on, or in Waystones? Not just pass conversations over distances?”
She finally shook off the mental cobwebs and said, “I suppose so. I don’t know how, or anybody that knows the method to do it. It is old magic, I think. We’ve lost so much knowledge over the generations. With the egg gone and as I think more about it, there is the story that confirms at least one mage has traveled that way recently. What else can we conclude?”
“What story? I don’t know of it.”
“It is a rumor. Was a rumor, years ago. A mage knew of a battle and the outcome long before ships from across the sea brought word of it.”
Her answers gave me some relief. I’d actually heard a similar story but considered it a child’s tale. Climbing into the tub near my feet and traveling anywhere didn’t appeal in the least, even if that was the correct method to use. Perhaps standing close was good enough. I backed off a few steps just in case. “What now?”
“We’ve found out more than we hoped at this place, although there is much we don’t understand, and there are new puzzles. We should go feed and water our horses and ride to meet Princess Elizabeth and tell her all we’ve found. Then, we will decide our future.”
We started our descent on the stairs, and almost immediately, I tripped and nearly fell face first. The uneven steps again made walking without examining each step impossible. A single mistake and we’d tumble headlong down the stone steps and kill ourselves. There was no railing. In fear, I turned backward and crabbed down, using my hands as well as my feet. While thinking of how silly I looked, Kendra stumbled and fell into me. If she had been there without me, or descending below me on the stairs, she would still be tumbling. Without a word, she turned and copied my awkward descent.
We watched the stairs below us through our legs as we crawled down, pausing only at the landings. We hardly talked, and if we did, there is no memory of the conversations. That does not mean my mind was idle. No, the things we’d discovered, like a heavy meal, required time to digest.
Our hands became raw from the stone steps. At the bottom, our horses waited. Kendra had said we were going back to the inn where the redheaded girl waited for me, but we were almost within sight of Andover, and the road that would take us home. Only a missing bridge over a raging river prevented us from traveling a much longer route. On that road somewhere, we could expect to find Princess Elizabeth traveling to meet us, and with her would be an army ready to defeat those we’d already killed or caused to flee the kingdom. There was nobody left to fight in Dire.
Kendra pointed out the obvious, “The bridge is out, so we can’t cross the river here.”
Her dragon had knocked the bridge down, and I wanted to remind her of that as any brother might with his sister but held my tongue. For various reasons, the destruction of the bridge caused me no end of anger. Now, we would have to ride all the way back to the City Gate of the Port of Mercia and retrace our progress on the other side of the river until we reached the road we could now almost see in the distance.
On impulse, I said, “I don’t like Andover, you know.”
“Nothing good has ever happened to us there,” she agreed. “However, the mage we ordered to wait there for ten full days is still waiting. He is a solid blip in my mind. There is a question we need to ask him.”
“Which is?”
“Why is everyone going to Kondor?”
“Did you see a blip in your mind when a mage came to steal the egg?”
“No, but I was distracted by fighting the Wyverns, as the mage probably intended. It may have been there for a short time, but I didn’t notice in the heat of battle.”
Again, she was distracted even as she spoke, and with Alexis under me, we rode at a steady pace. Kendra rode one of the finest horses from the king’s stable, so it managed to keep up with Alexis. My mind slowed, thoughts strayed, and my eyelids closed from being tired, both from the climb and last night at the inn. The late night, or early morning, was catching up to me. In a perverse way, turning back along the road to Andover instead of returning to the Bl
ue Bear Inn satisfied me. The girl at the inn would think me a complete dullard if she saw me in my present state of mind.
When we arrived at the City Gate, Avery again stood there in the same place, leaning against the same gray stones as if he knew precisely when we would arrive. Today he wore coarse brown trousers, a thick tan shirt, and heavy boots, so he was almost unrecognizable in the mix of others dressed the same. Yes, they were the boots of the sort common workmen wear on the job, not those of the Heir Apparent’s chief servant. His hand held a floppy hat with a wide sloping brim to shunt away water, the same as sailors wear. At another time I’d have decided the Royals were having a themed ball where they all wore peasant clothing.
“Avery,” I greeted him solemnly, as his political games required me to initiate the conversation since he believed he held the higher position of rank. I wouldn’t mention his clothing—unless the right circumstances arose.
He said, “Damon. Kendra. Will you do me a courtesy?”
“Of course,” I lied. Nobody fully agrees to a task until they know what it is.
“When you find and speak to Princess Elizabeth, have a message carried to the Heir Apparent that my plans have changed. I’ve booked passage to the kingdom of Kondor, so when you arrive there, inquire after my whereabouts, and of course, I will leave word where to find me.”
“Why are you going?” Kendra asked, accepting his statement without surprise.
He tilted his head a little to the side as if to better hear her question. He said, “To lay the groundwork for you, of course. Plus, there is some royal business to attend, and an old friend who may need my help. Now, I hate to rush off, but my ship is almost ready to sail, so my time is up.” He turned and walked swiftly down the road in the direction of the ship’s masts, looking for all the world like a common traveler.
We turned our mounts away from the port and the ships. We let them set their own pace as we rode knee to knee, ignoring the other traffic on the road as we passed them by in both directions. As long as we didn’t slow, we’d arrive in Andover well before dark.
