by Simon Archer
“Wait a minute,” I interjected. “You said they were missing. How do you know they drowned?”
“They were missing from their scheduled activities.” The woman I hadn’t met yet piped up. “That is when we put together that each had gone to the river. I flew over the area, but the riverbank is empty.”
“Are you Heather?” I asked her.
The woman was nearly as tall as Aron but contrasted her greatly. I assumed she was Heather. Her skin was milky white, and she had blonde hair flowing down over her generously curvaceous body.
“Yes,” she answered bluntly. Gale cleared her throat to get Heather’s attention.
“Aron may not have filled you in yet, but I would like to introduce you to our Dragonmancer, Blake Masters. We haven’t even had time to present him yet.” Gale stared at Heather while the information sank in. Heather looked at me, her expression softer now.
“It’s nice to meet you. Now I understand why everybody needs you here,” she told me.
“It’s nice to meet you as well, aside from the circumstances,” I replied. “What is next? We need to get to the river right away, it sounds like.”
“Exactly,” Gale answered, once again hanging her head with sorrow. I knew there was something I hadn’t been told by the level of concern and anxiety in the room. Sadness, I would expect, but there was a sort of fear present as well. I turned to Aron, who I felt was a straight-shooter.
“Tell me why this is more than just a sad accident,” I demanded.
“Okay.” She nodded quickly. “It is a very real sign that the realm’s health is declining even faster than we expected. There’s no way those women shouldn’t be able to navigate even the fastest rapids in the area they visited.” She had new respect in her eyes as she spoke, making it apparent Gale had already informed her of my status.
“Maybe I can help,” I started, glancing at Gale. I turned my forearm to be in her view. She gazed at it for a moment and then looked at her own.
“That may work, at least a little,” she replied. Deyla, Aron, and Heather stared at us, obviously questioning what we were talking about. I turned to the three of them.
“I can grant you all the ability to level up on skills and talents,” I told them, showing them my arm. “These circles will appear on your arm. When you accomplish a difficult task, or learn something significant, two symbols will appear. You can then choose from them to enhance the skills they represent. Then the circle will fill in, either by a darker shade, or in some cases, it completely fills with black. I believe that means that you’ve mastered the skill.”
All three women immediately began rubbing their forearms, contemplating the option. Deyla looked up at me first.
“Yes, please do. If it means we have a better chance of finding their bodies, and of not becoming bodies ourselves, I’m in,” Deyla proclaimed loudly, looking to influence Aron and Heathers’ decisions.
The head of the Warriors, and that of the Witnesses glanced at each other and held their arms out.
“Let’s do it and hurry. We have to leave as soon as possible.” Heather spoke for both of them.
“Okay.” Without hesitation, I took hold of each of their arms. “You can level up.”
They both stared at their arms blankly for several moments before surprise flashed in their eyes. Just as Gale’s ability had shown, each woman developed a small circle on her wrist. Once the circle was complete, I let go of them and turned to Deyla. She held her hand out to me. Taking hold of it, I repeated myself.
“You can level up.” We both stood still and watched her arm until her circle appeared.
“That was slightly warm,” she commented, looking at Aron and Heather, who nodded their agreement.
“Alright, let’s go. You four head out, and I’ll get the rest of these Warriors and Witnesses on their way,” Gale interjected. I’d nearly blocked out the other women in the room during our conversation. “We will meet you at the river.”
Without another word, Deyla, Aron, Heather, and I left the room and returned to our dragons.
“The river isn’t far. Follow us,” Deyla instructed as we mounted up. Our dragons could feel the stress we carried with us and were more alert and stiffer than normal. I reached down and patted Victoria on her side.
“One more ride without a harness, if you don’t mind,” I told her. I should have gotten a riding apparatus at the Academy, but there was no time now.
Victoria bucked her head up happily in response as she stood up. Aron and Allie, Deyla and Prenna, and Heather with her dragon were all ready to fly as well. We left the ground in a massive burst of wind as all four dragons simultaneously flapped their wings, lifting us off the ground.
16
While the flight to the river was short, it gave me the first glimpse of the surrounding land that I had truly paid attention to since I fell through the portal.
Blues, greens, and violet-colored foliage covered the rolling hills, making them seem fuzzy with life. The sun bounced off small creeks of teal fluid cutting their way through the landscape at a lazy pace. Patches of different types of trees clumped together randomly and were so full of leaves that the ground wasn’t visible beneath.
The protectiveness I felt over Blenwise was quickly turning to love as its beauty sunk in. Just before we reached the river, we flew over a field of wildflowers that were so pungent, the scent reached me high in the sky above and smelled of freshness and new life.
Once the river was in view, we began our descent. Victoria and I landed last, following the others. We landed a short way from the riverbank in an open area. It surprised me that there wasn’t a dragon circle nearby as I hadn’t seen anyone land a dragon anywhere other than in a specified circle.
I joined the women as the dragons wandered off through the grass, exploring. The four of us only made it to the riverbank before the Warriors and Witnesses, accompanied by Gale, began to arrive. Soon, thirty of us stood on the bank, gazing silently out at the rapids before us.
“Blake,” Gale said as she made her way to my side and looked up at me. “We’ll begin diving shifts now.” She pointed at the river. “Half of us will swim to the other side. Once they are there, they will swim this way while we swim towards their side. That way, we can blanket the entire river with multiple sets of eyes to make sure we don’t miss… anything.”
She was standing strong, but her voice indicated her sadness at the prospect of pulling the bodies of her loved ones out of the river. I admired the system she explained but hated that they had to have a system like that at all.
“There’s no way to, oh, I don’t know… magically hold our breath longer so we can stay down longer?” I asked her. She shook her head.
“That’s biological magic that no one has practiced long enough to perfect. As you can imagine, you would have to practice it on living beings, and if things go wrong…” She shrugged as I got her point.
The image of a spell gone wrong floated through my mind, turning a Warrior into a goat or something. Just then, fifteen of the women on the bank dove into the river and began their swim to the other side. As I watched, I noticed a bit of fog hovering over the far bank, and an idea formed.
“Can I try something before we weave our way down the river?” I asked Gale, just as she was approaching the edge.
“What are you thinking?” she inquired, raising a brow at me.
“Well, if I can turn sticks into trees, and back into sticks…?” I stared at her, knowing that her answer didn’t really matter. I was going to try my idea, regardless.
“Have at it,” she replied, surprising me because I’d expected some resistance.
“Keep them from diving back in for a second, will you?” I said, as I looked upriver.
“Okay,” she said with a nod.
While Gale held up movement from the Warriors and Witnesses, I found a place where the bank jutted out into the river slightly and made my way to it. When I got there, I walked as far out as possible and looke
d both ways up and down the river.
I knelt down and scooped up a handful of the cold, rushing water in front of me and let it flow through my fingers, back into the river. I stood up, closed my eyes, and held my dripping hands out in front of me. I envisioned the animals in the river either getting to shore, or swimming quickly downriver a good distance. Then I pictured the water in the river slowly evaporating up towards my hands, creating a fog at first, then a cloud. I saw the riverbed in my mind as it dried up, and the cloud lifted further in the air, as though I was holding it in my hands. My arms felt wet and cold suddenly, so I opened my eyes.
Everything I’d seen, I’d made happen. A massive cloud floated just above my head, and I’d extended my arms upward without realizing it. Gasps of disbelief echoed from the riverbank as the women present witnessed the transformation of the river. It was a little strange because water still flowed on either side of the cloud I’d created because, of course, I hadn’t actually stopped the river from flowing, just changed the state in which it flowed over this particular spot.
Gale wasted no time.
“Search!” she yelled out, and everybody there ran out into the riverbed.
The bottom of the flowing cloud extended down some ways, so they had to crouch slightly to get a clear view. I held the cloud, re-envisioning its form intentionally every few minutes while the search continued.
Echoes called out from the riverbank over and over, saying that nothing was to find. I don’t know how much time passed as I stood there, making sure the cloud held its form, but after a while, my arms started to feel heavy. The fatigue began to spread to my shoulders and back before I realized that it was getting more intense as it spread.
“Out of the river!” I yelled as loud as I could, which wasn’t nearly as loud as I would’ve liked. “Get out of the river!”
I was losing my grip on the transformation as my body felt more and more weighed down. Women scrambled up the riverbank as they repeated my instructions, making certain nobody was left behind. The cloud began to rain into the riverbed as the exhaustion traveled to my legs. I strained to keep up the vision in my mind, but if I closed my eyes for too long, I knew I would pass out.
Finally, I heard Deyla’s voice screaming towards me.
“Everyone is out!”
The moment her words made it to my ears, I let my arms fall, and the cloud changed back into water instantly. The water fell into the river with a thundering crash as I stumbled backward, unable to stay standing any longer.
I had no control over my muscles as they had reached failure. I caught a glimpse of something unusual just as my eyes closed, and I couldn’t open them. It took too much effort. I felt myself falling backward and knew I’d be hitting the ground any moment, with no way to prevent it. As the pressing darkness of a forced sleep closed in on my mind, I felt something push up against my back just before I was to hit the ground. My body slowed as someone gently laid it on the ground. Then I passed out.
When I blinked my eyes open, I saw two faces. One was Deyla’s, and the other belonged to Victoria.
My vision was clear, but sound started filtering in my ears slowly. What started as hushed whispers turned into worried chatter all around me. I lay there noticing, for some reason, how beautiful Deyla and Victoria both were. Finally, my mind started speeding up, and I recalled what I was doing there when the scent of the river hit me. I tried to sit up, but Aron and Gale appeared above me, and all three women made it clear that I was to remain lying down.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, my voice sounding harsh and unused.
“Only a minute,” Deyla answered. “A very scary minute.”
I tried to sit up again, this time making it to my elbows and looking around. I was very happy to know I could control my limbs again.
“I saw something before I fell,” I said, thoughts moving faster and faster.
“You exhausted yourself. That was a massive amount of magic you performed,” Aron piped up.
“I saw something, I promise you,” I insisted.
“What did you see?” Gale gave in and asked.
“The riverbank, on the other side, just at the end of where I lifted the water, something was off,” I tried to explain. The image wasn’t too clear in my mind, but it seemed extremely urgent. I pushed myself up to sitting and looked around. Warriors and Witnesses surrounded me, though, and couldn’t see through their legs.
“Move over,” I croaked at them, lifting my arms to motion at them to part. Slowly, they moved aside, clearing my view of the river. My eyes scanned the opposite riverbank until I found what I was looking for.
“There! That bush over there. It’s broken, but the broken part is under the water now. The dirt looked strange over there as well. Something isn’t right about it.” I pointed a hand towards where I was looking, and all eyes present looked at the riverbank.
“I’ll go check it out,” Aron said without hesitation. She walked away quickly, and Deyla followed. Heather joined them, along with a few other women, and they all dove in the river. It had returned to its normal pace, but the splashdown had stirred up a lot of dirt, so the water was muddy.
“I need to stand up,” I told Gale.
Victoria, who hadn’t moved from her position hovering over me, lowered her face and pushed her snout up under one of my arms.
“Looks like you’ll have help to do so,” Gale said. She grinned a little as she patted Victoria.
My dragon lifted as I hung onto her and made it to my feet. I turned to her once I was standing and put my forehead to hers. The moment we connected, her energy flowed into me. I felt her waning worry, and her relief from when I woke up.
What was strongest, however, was strength. My body buzzed as it regained the strength it had lost, as though Victoria was gifting me some of her magic. I didn’t realize, until that moment, that dragons had magic. I lifted my head and looked into her eyes, thanking her. Then I walked to her leg, as she watched, and put my hand on her upper quarter.
I closed my eyes and whispered, “You leveled up.”
I stepped back and was pleased to see a large circle begin to form on her leg. Hers was gold and matched the color of her underbelly. It must’ve felt odd to her as it formed because she started licking it. A few moments later, she looked back to me, the circle completely filled in with gold, and jerked her head in happiness. I turned to Gale and smiled.
“Guess we know that dragons can level up too,” I said, happily. “I have no idea what that means for them yet, being that she obviously didn’t choose a skill, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”
“Yes, perhaps right after you get the information you are about to receive,” Gale said, pointing at my forearm. Looking down, the third circle on my arm showed two symbols. One was a water droplet, and the other was a dragon with a person riding it.
“I’m thinking water,” I told Gale. “That way, this collapse shit doesn’t happen again.”
“Hopefully not,” she agreed. I ran my hand over the water droplet symbol. As with the fire one, it slowly spread as the other disappeared. Soon it had spread to the edges of the circle and, shortly after that, pressed in on itself until the entire circle was black. A wave of knowledge flooded into my mind about all the different ways one used water in magic, and how it responded to transformational acts like the one I’d performed. The images that flew through my mind at warp speed fascinated me, imbedding themselves in my memory, until the flood slowed and finally stopped.
“That took longer than the fire did,” Gale observed when I’d blinked and returned to my normal state.
“A lot more is done with water than fire, I just learned,” I replied.
“Hell, I could’ve told you that,” she said. Both of us heard splashing at the riverbank nearby at the same time and turned. Deyla, Heather, and Aron were running towards us, and the looks on their faces made it very clear they weren’t bringing good news.
17
“What did you find
?” I asked as they ran up to us.
“There was a struggle over there.” Aron pointed back to the riverbank once she stopped. “Something pushed around the dirt, as if someone tried to cover something up. The bush, like you said, is busted up. The surrounding grasses and flowers were trampled, but obviously, someone attempted to push them upright again. Something bad happened there. The area stretches back away from the river bank a good twenty feet, but then it just stops, and everything looks normal.” She was flustered and very angry.
I looked at Gale, a question forming that I had a feeling nobody had asked before.
“Have you ever found the body of anyone who has drowned here over the years?” I glanced from Gale, to Deyla, to Aron. The look in each of their eyes gave me the same answer before any of them spoke.
“No, we haven’t,” Heather piped up. “The river is swift here, and our women are rather independent, so they often will disappear for hours before we realize they are actually missing. The instances are all in the journal. Some disappeared for almost a full day without suspicion because of the duties they perform.”
“Each drowning is in the Living History journal?” I looked at Gale.
“Yes,” she said plainly. I turned and headed towards Victoria, who had only wandered a few yards away.
“Take me back to the book,” I called over my shoulder.
Gale nodded once and turned to the other women. I heard them talking briefly, outlining what they would each do to get the rest of the Warriors and Witnesses that had joined in on the search home.
I tuned them out. I was pushing down a fit of anger that was threatening to well up inside me. I didn’t know that the girls hadn’t drowned yet, so I shouldn’t have been so worked up. However, I was certain that once I got to the book, I would confirm my suspicion that not a single one of the women that had gone missing over the years, presumed drowned, had actually drowned.
I hopped on Victoria and was in the air within seconds. I knew my way back to the Academy, so I didn’t bother to wait for the others. I would only need Gale to make the journal appear once I got there, and I knew she would be on her way.
