Rising

by C B Samet

  As we climbed the rock, the scepter grew heavy in my grip, and I was relieved that I wouldn’t have the burden of lugging it back down again. Joshua carried a bioluminescent torch. It cast an eerie glow at the volcano cave’s entrance.

  We entered cautiously. A low rumbling reverberated through the walls. I had a disconcerting feeling, like we were walking through the belly of a great stone beast. And he was hungry.

  Reaching into my pocket I felt the comfort of my Che stone, which I had brought from my castle room. I withdrew it, letting the fierce red glow spill onto the walls around us. Unfortunately, that was not much better. Now, it felt and looked like we were inside a rumbling belly. I kept it out anyway and held the scepter cautiously in front of me.

  We wound our way through until we came to a dead end. Into the wall was carved an inlet where an iron rivulet lay. It was rusty and worn, a proper resting place for Malos’s weapon of destruction.

  I carefully placed the scepter down into its home for the next millennium. The volcano seemed to rumble faintly and then hissed a sigh. I looked around at the red walls one final time and then turned to Joshua.

  He pursed his lips and nodded. Taking his hand, I transported us back to my castle bedroom.

  While Joshua cleaned up and put on a clean shirt, I cleaned and oiled my boots. The seawater was going to ruin them if I didn’t take measures to protect them.

  We joined each other in bed and lay on the soft pillows in the safety of the castle walls. Tomorrow we would venture to the Misty Isle to find my mother. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all with the rising anticipation.

  Then I felt Joshua’s caress on my face, tracing down my neck, and then between my breasts. With a touch, he sent ripples of pleasure through me. Leaning over me, he kissed me and the whole world was distant, except his warm body and all the wonders it had to offer.

  The next day we packed food and water and extra clothing before crossing to Mulan. I had sent word to the Queen that the scepter had been returned, and that I had one more trip to make, but Joshua and I would be back in time for the wedding ceremony.

  We found Andi on the beach near the cave.

  “The scepter is returned?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Then let’s see if we can locate your mother.” He waded into the water less than a meter deep and instructed us on how to climb onto his back without pulling the delicate fin that rose up from his spine.

  When we were both seated on his back, I behind Joshua, he made his way further out to sea. He rose over the crest of some fairly robust waves to get us beyond the island’s reach.

  As we left Mulan behind, the volcano-warmed water turned a cool dark blue. We passed schools of fish visible just beneath the ocean’s surface. A score of dolphins swam beside us for some time, so close I could almost reach out and touch them.

  Traveling by serpent was vastly different than by boat. There was not the nauseating rocking of the boat along the waves. Instead, Andonius cut through the water’s surface with amazing fluidity. As we sat atop his still torso with the cool breeze on our face, Andi’s body worked fervently swimming beneath us. His legs and tail propelled us forward smoothly.

  I kept my arms wrapped around Joshua’s warm chest partly because of the calming effect being close to him had on me and partly because I thought I might be blown off if I let go of him.

  Over an hour had passed when Joshua called my name in a soft voice. I looked around him, wind whipping my hair back out of my face. A speck of green land preceded by a tan beach appeared up ahead. As we approached, the land spread across the horizon surrounded by aqua blue shallow shores. The water was tranquil with small lapping waves caressing the beach.

  We entered the shallow waters, and I could appreciate the temperature change as my feet felt the warmth. Nearer to the beach, Andi sagged into the sand, and we dismounted.

  Joshua walked our bags to shore. Turning to Andi, I became alarmed. “Are you ill?” I asked.

  His face looked weary, and his eyes were half closed. The iridescent glow of his scales had become pale and he appeared weak.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured me. “I can make it back. It just drains me to be so far from the volcano.”

  “Let me take you,” I implored. While he was still considering the pleasantry of not having to make the long swim back, I touched his shoulder and brought him back to the shore of Mulan.

  He sighed. “Thank you, Abigail.”

  “Thank you, Andi. I will see you again.” I touched his face lightly with my palm and then returned to Misty Isle.

  Joshua was waiting for me near the tree line. “There’s a trail here,” he announced. I caught up to him and grabbed my pack, slinging it over my shoulder.

  The trail was narrow, but well kept. Signs of life were everywhere. We saw lush green trees and birds were singing. Monkeys could be heard rustling in the trees. Hopefully human life existed here, too. The Muglik were not the only bipeds different from humans. The Hunjus south of the Optato desert were taller and stronger than most men and violent when commanded to be. Other continents had other species. Bellos had the Priori, a smaller, frailer creature with greater intelligence than humans. There were the Soi, a green-skinned clan that farmed the marshes of Sallos. The point being, Joshua and I didn’t know who or what else lived on this island. I was ready at an instant to transport us if we were attacked.

  After several kilometers, the trees thinned and then we passed into an opening.

  A village!

  There were rows of huts with rock bases and walls of wood topped with roofs of thick leaves. Small fires permeated different areas in the camp. People milled about, hanging herbs to dry, sewing, weaving and cooking. The scene was serene.

  “Survivors!” an old woman exclaimed.

  A murmuring passed through the town. “Survivors. Survivors have come.”

  The old woman left her pottery and hurried up to us. She half hugged us, half shook us with delight. A crowd gathered around us and I began to feel disconcerted by their excited engulfment of Joshua and me. We were surrounded by fifty or so people—men, women, and even children.

  “Calm, everyone, calm,” a woman’s voice called. “You will frighten our new company.” She made her way through the crowd to us.

  She wore a long cream-colored dress with sandals and had flowing dark hair streaked with gray around her face. Her skin was tan and she had soft, delicate crow’s-feet around her eyes.

  I dropped my bag in disbelief. “Mom,” I gasped.

  Her broad, round smile turned into a look of confusion, then dis- belief. As she stared at me, her astonished expression turned into some- thing of mingled pain and happiness.

  “Mother Moon,” she half cried, reaching for me. “Abbey. My sweet Abbey.” She pulled me to her and we hugged. She smelled like jasmine on a warm summer day. I recalled long lost memories—my tiny child’s body curled in her arms in our worn green lounge, splashing through puddles on a rainy summer afternoon with the scent of honeysuckle in the air, and clutching a warm cup of marmalade in front of a crackling fire as she tucked a dark strand of hair behind my ear, kissed my fore- head and said, “You’ll feel better soon, Abbey.”

  Pulling away, she smoothed the hair out of my face and looked at me again as though to confirm that it really was me.

  I half smiled while tears were welling up in my eyes.

  “A miracle,” she sighed, disbelief still in her expression.

  An alarmed young voice spoke. “Mom, who is this?”

  I blinked away tears and took a step back. To my mother’s left I saw a lean child of seven or eight with long brown hair. I couldn’t be sure if she was a he or he was a she. The child wore a long, thin tunic and shorts with hair neatly combed trailing past small, broad shoulders. The hair framed tanned skin and wide, curious brown eyes. Next to the child stood a tall, thick man. The child clung close to the man’s leg, in need of comfort and unsure of the situation. There was familiarity i
n those child’s eyes.

  I took a step back and swallowed. I saw the three of them together—man, woman and child. The child was the right age for it all to make sense. I lost my mom when I was twelve, and I was now twenty- one. She would have had time to make it to the island, join the community here, grieve the loss of my father, and start a new family.

  The vision of the three of them danced before my eyes. I took an- other step back, bumping into Joshua. He steadied me with hands on my biceps. My rock.

  Looking around at the villagers, I saw faces of welcome, intrigue and pity. They were not the faces of stranded, desperate people longing to get home. They were content. They were a family. I had come expecting to rescue my mom, but she was here on a paradise island with a new family.

  I looked back at her eyes, now filled with a mixture of sadness, worry and fear. I looked to her mate’s eyes. They were green and pleasant, filled with a sense of distant loss and present pity. Pity, sadness, worry, fear: these were not the reactions I was hoping to see on the faces of the people I encountered. I looked back at Joshua. He gave me a reassuring smile and squeezed my arms with his hands.

  “I’m...” I began, turning to look at the child. I hesitated and then knelt in front of him. I decided he was a him. “I’m your sister, Abigail, but you can call me Abbey.” I smiled. I crossed my hands and then extended them in a Caballus greeting, not knowing if he would recognize the specific greeting, but certain he would at least recognize that it was a greeting. It was less intrusive than the Ballik greeting, though part of me did want to reach out and hug him to me.

  His small face changed from a confused, concerned furrow to a broad smile. He was still confused, but more bemused than worried now. He mimicked my hand gestures and then gripped mine.

  “That’s a strong grip you have,” I commented.

  His smile widened more.

  I nodded my head back toward Joshua, releasing the boy’s hands. “This is Joshua. He’s got a strong grip too, but don’t let that scare you.”

  He looked up at Joshua, craning his head back to take in Joshua’s tall figure. Then, he looked back at me, still kneeling before him.

  “I’m Trad,” he said. Then, he looked back at Joshua with a flat expression. “I’m not afraid.”

  I’m a little afraid, I thought. What if my mom doesn’t want to leave her new home? She seemed to be some type of leader here, and she had a family. I had a family. I had another brother. Mother Moon, I was going to have to tell her about Paul at some point.

  I pushed the thought away and stood. I hugged myself and shivered a little. Then I managed a smile.

  “We have a lot of catching up to do,” I said as casually as I could.

  “Of course,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “But there is time. Let’s rest and have a meal first. You must be exhausted and hungry.”

  That would be the logical conclusion if I had been a normal ship- wrecked victim of Mulan. Since I was a star traveler, my taxing journey was interrupted with a warm shower, clean clothes, a solid meal and sipping coconut milk on the beach.

  “Can we take a walk instead?” I asked.

  “Certainly.” She nodded.

  She let her arm fall from my shoulder, then gestured to Trad’s father. “This is Bellok,” she began.

  There was a trace of hesitation, as though she wasn’t sure if she should tell me he was her husband, her mate, her companion. I had already surmised as much, but perhaps she still feared some horrid reaction on my part. She was happy and safe and had a family and was alive. My mother was alive! I was ecstatic with excitement. Anyone who was part of her life was welcome in my life, too.

  “He was a prince in the province of Bellamy on Bellos—or so he likes to tell me, since such a thing cannot be proven or refuted—” she added in a playful voice audible to Bellok, “and has called this island home for twenty-five years now. He was shipwrecked on Mulan while traveling to Crithos on a diplomatic journey.”

  I tried to imagine a young Bellok standing at the helm of a ship as it cut through the glassy ocean waters. He looked to storm clouds ahead, thinking of his kingdom to come, not knowing he would soon be a castaway and lose all to which he was entitled.

  In twenty-five years’ time, he may not even have a family awaiting his return. Now, he had the look of a content laborer, one who was cheerful with his current family and didn’t dwell on what was lost in a past life.

  He hesitated somewhat as he offered a hug. I stepped into the big man’s arms.

  “Any man who has kept my mother safe and happy is family to me,” I said into his ear. He hugged hard but brief, like Vonik.

  I stepped away and back to Joshua’s side. “This is Joshua Colt, my husband.” I know, it was supposed to be a secret until our official ceremony at the Queen’s castle, but I hadn’t seen my mother in nine years and wasn’t going to begin our new relationship with a lie.

  “Married!” my mom exclaimed with surprise and delight in her voice. She hugged Joshua without waiting for his permission. He returned the embrace.

  “It is a pleasure meeting you, Nadine Cross. Abbey shared many fond memories of the mother she had lost.”

  She ended the hug and took a sharp breath in, holding my hand and Joshua’s hand in one of her own. “Married and shipwrecked!” She shook her head in disbelief. “Let us take that walk,” she said, releasing Joshua’s hand.

  I looked at Joshua, who smiled. He reached down and took my free hand. With a kiss on the back of my hand, he said, “I’ll be fine. I’ll be here when you get back. Take your time.”

  How did he always know the perfect words of reassurance?

  Then, holding my mother’s hand, we walked toward the beach.

  We were silent at first. I didn’t know where to start—college, Queen’s servant, Champion, wife.

  “Are you upset?” she asked tenderly.

  I looked at her and then the trail ahead. “Upset because you found happiness and built a new family when you’d lost the one you had? No, I am not upset about that at all.”

  “Upset that you are stranded here?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not exactly.” I probably should have clarified by saying, “I’m not exactly stranded,” because I think she thought I meant, “I’m not exactly upset.”

  “How were you shipwrecked?”

  “Hah!” My voice cracked slightly under the weight of irony. “Returning the scepter to Mulan of all things.”

  “Oh,” she said, either surprised by my outburst, my quest or both.

  “Seemed like something the Champion should be responsible for,” I added with a smirk.

  She let go of my hand and turned toward me. “The Champion? Abigail, you are the Champion?”

  I kept walking, wanting to get beachside for some odd reason. “Am or was. Not sure how that works exactly. Once the job is done, is one forever the Champion? Or am I now the former Champion, ex-Cham- pion, bygone Champion?”

  “That’s amazing,” she marveled, ignoring my babbling. “So, Malos is back on Mulan, confined for another thousand years.” Then, she added faintly, “But it hadn’t even been a thousand years.”

  I could see the opening to the beach in the distance.

  “That must have been very difficult,” she added. “Every Champion takes a journey first, a self-discovery. Though I don’t think they usually involve drinking the Aqua Santos.”

  I shot her a look. I guess there was no disguising my unnaturally blue eyes. My mother had been a world traveler before her exile; she was worldly enough to know what my eyes meant.

  “And,” she struggled, “and my little girl in battle.” She shook her head as though shaking away images.

  I was sure she would not have liked that image. Her daughter on the battlefield covered in blood and soot with one mangled arm, half-dead from a lightning bolt, and taking some measure of pleasure in revenge.

  “The Swallowers killed Paul,” I blurted. “Malos killed Paul.” I spun around and
hugged my mom.

  “Oh, Abbey. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “He was finance minister. And he knew. He knew I was the next Champion, long before I did. And he protected me. Ever since you and Dad disappeared, he protected me.” I was talking in fast, pressure speech. “He died very early in the invasion. He didn’t even have a chance to fight.”

  Hot, angry tears streaked down my cheeks.

  She stroked my hair. “Thank Mother Moon Malos is gone. The world is safe. Paul died helping to achieve that miracle.”

  I pulled away, wiping my face with my sleeve and sniffling. I felt like the twelve-year-old girl my mother had left behind.

  “You both lost so much and sacrificed so much. I’m sorry your reward is to be stranded on Misty Isle.”

  I shook my head, walking toward the beach again. “My reward is getting to see you again, getting to meet the rest of my family, and starting a new one with Joshua.

  “Besides,” I shrugged, “I’m not exactly stranded.”

  She looked at me quizzically.

  I raised my hand and showed her the star on my palm. With careful inspection, she looked at it, touched it and then traced it.

  “It’s some type of tattoo?” she finally said.

  I nodded. I was pleased she didn’t already know what it was. I had grown a little tired of everyone knowing things before I did.

  “It’s a Traveler’s Star,” I explained. But rather than using words to describe its purpose, I simply vanished and reappeared on the beach. My mother was still staring where I had been.

  “Over here!” I shouted and waved an arm.

  She looked up, then came walking hurriedly toward me. “That’s amazing,” she remarked. “How far can you travel?”

  “I can go anywhere I can see or anywhere I have been before or anywhere someone with me has been.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So you can go home? From here? Just as fast?”

  I nodded. “I can go and I can take people and things with me. Well, the bigger the cargo, the harder it is.” I thought about all of that coconut milk.