“You can do that?” Ashley gasped, startled by the idea.
“Yes,” replied Snowden, confidently.
A few minutes later, the two were outside the cave. It would be dark in another hour or so. Snowden bent down and lowered his head nearly to the ground. After a moment, Ashley managed to pull herself up until she was situated on the dragon’s neck. She found several ridges she could use to hold on to him.
“I’m ready,” she told Snowden, feeling excited about the prospect of flying with the dragon.
“Hold tight,” Snowden commanded as he beat his wings and rose suddenly up into the cold mountain air.
Snowden flew low just over the treetops. He was very careful not to make any sudden turns or movements. This was something he had always dreamed of doing with Cathy. However, Ashley was very special also. She was a good choice to experience the first flight on a dragon.
Ashley was filled with excitement as they flew down the slope of the mountain. She felt exhilarated as the cold air hit her in the face, but she scarcely noticed it. She was flying on a dragon! Looking down, she saw the ground passing by very quickly. In what seemed like no time she saw the small clearing where she had left Spirit.
Snowden banked slightly and came in for a smooth landing. Lowering his head, Ashley slid easily off the dragon.
“That was wonderful!” spoke Ashley excitedly, gazing into Snowden’s eyes. “Thank you!”
“I must return now,” Snowden spoke in Ashley’s mind. “Come back soon.”
Ashley reached out and patted the dragon on his neck. “I will,” she replied. “When it gets warmer and the rest of the snow melts, I will return.”
Ashley watched as the dragon took to the air and vanished quickly from sight. Sighing deeply and still feeling the thrilling effects of flying, she walked through the trees to where she had left Spirit. Her horse was waiting impatiently for her, stomping the ground nervously. The nearness of the dragon had obviously frightened him.
“Don’t be afraid, Spirit,” spoke Ashley soothingly as she petted her horse on the neck. “It was only a dragon.”
Chapter Ten
Ashley was standing in a small green meadow, several miles from her home. She was surrounded by ankle deep grass, and she could hear birds twittering in the nearby trees. It was a clear day with very few clouds in the sky. In her hands, she held her diary, which contained the numerous spells she had written down. These were the spells Snowden had imprinted in her mind.
It was now late spring and much warmer. Looking toward Beaver Mountain, much of the snow from earlier in the spring had melted. Only the summit was still covered in the white stuff, but the rest of the towering mountain was clear. In the distance, she could hear a newborn calf hollering for its mother. It was a gorgeous day to be outside. Her thoughts turned to the last few months.
After she returned from her visit with Snowden, she found her family already home from Plainview. When asked by her father where she had been, Ashley replied that she had ridden out to the new barn to check on the stock. She told her father she had gotten bored sitting around the house and had decided to do something useful. Her father had only nodded and not questioned her further.
Once she returned from Beaver Mountain, Ashley spent days in her room writing down all the newly acquired knowledge she had received from Snowden. She now had two very thick diaries full of intricate spells and methods to use for sorcery. As before, she found that writing the spells and information down made her newfound knowledge easier to understand. She was still in awe at the lifestyle of the early sorcerers beneath Firestorm Mountain. It saddened her deeply to realize all that had been lost in the Worldfire. Compared to that ancient time, the world she lived in now was extremely primitive and would probably stay that way for quite some time.
Spirit was tied to a small tree in the meadow by a long lead rope. The horse was grazing in the lush grass, not paying any attention to Ashley. The saddle had been loosened and Spirit was enjoying the freedom away from the barn.
Ashley gazed toward the sky above the mountains. For several days she had pondered doing this spell. It was quite powerful and would be a good gauge as to how far she had come with her sorcery. She had been hesitant since this would be by far the most powerful spell she had ever attempted. Everything she had been taught warned her to be cautious when enacting the stronger spells.
Looking down at the diary in her hands, Ashley read over the spell once more. This was one to control the weather. If it worked right, she would create a small thunderstorm above the distant mountains. This was something that no one in her family could do. Her father could occasionally create an extremely small rain shower. Weather spells were difficult and took a lot of power. The only sorcerer in the valley that could currently create a significant storm was Edward.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over and placed the diary in one of her saddlebags. She talked soothingly to Spirit for a moment, not wanting to spook her horse with what she was about to do.
Walking several steps away from Spirit, Ashley took a deep breath. She began moving her right hand in the gestures needed to connect the energy lines into the necessary pattern to create the storm. With her left hand, she grasped her light blue amulet.
Closing her eyes, she visualized the spell and what she wanted it to do. She spoke several words of power, which further strengthened the matrix the energy lines were forming. She could sense the growing power of the energy lines as the spell became complete. Releasing a deep breath, she commanded the spell to create a storm and to bring rain. In her mind, she could see the completed pattern. Opening her eyes, she cast the spell into the air above the mountains. She held her breath waiting to see what happened.
It seemed to grow darker above the mountains, and then a small cloud began to form. It began to grow and expand rapidly. More clouds began to form until the sky above the mountains was covered. The clouds grew larger, darker, and more menacing. Within minutes, lightning began to flash, and a distant rumbling could be heard coming from the growing storm. A few scattered raindrops began to fall upon the slopes of the mountains.
“It worked,” spoke Ashley, gazing in awe at the rapidly building storm.
Looking down at her amulet, she was startled to see it glowing brightly, even in the daylight. She felt a momentary wave of dizziness pass over her. After a moment, it passed.
In some way, she still felt attached to the storm. It was almost as if she were the storm. Perhaps because her sorcery had created it, she was still connected to it. Closing her eyes again, she imagined herself hurling lightning bolts at the mountains. Gusts of wind blew in whatever direction she commanded. Raindrops were turned into hailstones that pelted the slopes, soon covering them in a shallow veil of white. Opening her eyes, Ashley was shocked to see the ferocity of the storm she had created. In amazement, she saw that some of the slopes of the mountains were indeed covered in white. The size and ferocity of the storm was starting to frighten her.
In near panic, she hurriedly created another spell, which was supposed to dissipate the storm. Finishing the new spell, she hurled it at the rapidly approaching storm. The storm only gradually began to weaken. It would reach her before it finished falling apart.
“I screwed up,” spoke Ashley, feeling the cold wind from the storm beginning to blow across the meadow. Even Spirit was watching the storm as if sensing that it wasn’t natural.
She hadn’t believed in her wildest imagination that she would be able to create a storm of such magnitude. While it did show her the power she could wield, it also reminded her that she still had much to learn. Sorcery could be extremely dangerous if used improperly.
Turning, she ran over to Spirit, hoping she could beat the approaching storm home. Spirit was standing nervously, eyeing Ashley. It was obvious the horse didn’t like the approaching storm.
Tightening the saddle and untying the lead rope, she quickly mounted Spirit. Riding at a fast gallop, she pushed Spirit along the path toward h
ome, but a sudden splattering of raindrops indicated they weren’t going to make it. Behind her, thunder rumbled ominously. She was almost to the barn when the heavy cold rain struck, instantly soaking her.
Reaching the barn, she dismounted and quickly led Spirit inside. She spent a few minutes wiping Spirit down and drying off her saddle and other gear. Stepping over to the open door of the barn that led to the house, she gazed out at the falling rain. It was really coming down.
“It’s raining pretty hard, isn’t it?” a voice spoke from behind her.
Startled, Ashley turned around to see her father standing there with his arms folded across his chest. He must have been in another part of the barn; she hadn’t noticed his presence.
“Yes, it is,” stammered Ashley, finding it hard to gaze into her father’s eyes. “I got caught out in the rain.”
“So I see,” her father said, glancing at Ashley’s wet clothes and then outside at the heavy rain. “That sure is a strange storm. I don’t ever recall seeing one build up that quickly.”
“It came down from the mountains,” explained Ashley, turning away from her father’s questioning eyes.
“I guess that might explain it,” replied Harmon, nodding his head.
They stood together in the door watching the rain. Several times thunder roared as lightning bolts struck nearby trees. The storm just wasn’t dissipating as fast as Ashley had hoped. After a few more minutes, the rain finally began to lessen and eventually came to a stop.
“Run up to the house and get out of those wet clothes,” her father ordered. “We don’t want you to catch a cold. I’ll check on Spirit and make sure he’s okay in his stall. You get inside the house.”
“Yes, sir,” Ashley replied, relieved to get away from her father.
A few minute later, she was back in her room. Her mother had given Ashley a quick but stern lecture about getting so wet and being out in the storm. Stephen had wandered out of his room after hearing the noise, and had broke into a big grin at seeing his disheveled sister. After changing out of her wet clothes, Ashley sat down on her bed. With a frown, she noticed there was something hard underneath the blankets. Standing back up, she pulled back the blankets and saw a book. Picking it up, she gazed at it in surprise. It was another sorcery book!
Ashley walked over to her dresser and sat down. Opening the book, she gazed at the first few pages. “Who is doing this?” she said aloud, feeling confused. This book contained more spells but also contained a lot of information about amulets.
Ashley laid the book down and tried to think. Someone in her family obviously knew about her sorcery. It couldn’t be Stephen; her brother was horrible when it came to keeping secrets. That left either her mother or her father. Somehow, she couldn’t see her mother going into her husband’s study and removing these sorcery books for Ashley. That left her father. If her father suspected or knew about her sorcery, then why hadn’t he said something? None of this made any sense. She would just have to watch more closely. She had to find out who knew about her sorcery. Opening the sorcery book once more, she began reading about amulets. In just a few moments, she found herself completely involved in her reading.
-
Up on Beaver Mountain, Snowden had gone outside the entrance to the cave. The storm had aroused his curiosity. He wondered if Ashley had been responsible. The young human girl was certainly powerful enough; he’d sensed that in her mind.
The dragon launched himself up into the air and slowly circled the summit of the mountain. It had been a long time, but Snowden felt he needed to fly to the north of the valley. Some inner sense was telling the dragon that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. Beating his wings powerfully, Snowden flew to the west side of the mountains where he wouldn’t be visible to the valley’s human inhabitants. From the western slopes, as far as Snowden could see was nothing but desolate, blighted land. There were only a few scattered sparse pockets of unhealthy green.
It had been many long centuries since the ancient Worldfire, but the land had been so devastated that even now it wouldn’t support life. Snowden knew that if he flew farther west that this desolate land eventually turned into a desert. Turning to the north, Snowden flew up high toward the sun and stretched his wings. Catching the rising thermals, he glided as he scanned the desolate landscape below for whatever was bothering him.
For hours, the dragon flew toward the north. Once past where the humans lived, Snowden flew closer to the coast. Below him were more ruins and no signs of life. He was just about to turn back when he picked up a familiar scent in the air. The last time he had detected this scent was back in the green valley across the great ocean. It was the scent of another dragon. It was Braxam, the brown dragon!
Snowden felt confused. Since he had followed Gilmreth back to this land, he had never found any signs of another dragon. For nearly an hour, Snowden circled the area. The scent wasn’t recent, but sometime in the past, Braxam had been here.
Finally giving up, Snowden turned and began flying back toward his lair. He would arrive just after dark. After sensing the other dragon, Snowden knew he would have to begin regular patrols again. Once a week he would have to venture out and search the surrounding countryside. Snowden’s long years of deep sleep and isolation were coming to an end.
-
Ashley was in her room when she heard a horse neigh loudly outside. She didn’t recognize the sound of it. Putting up her sorcery book, she opened the door to her room and walked down the hallway. She could hear voices talking in subdued tones ahead of her. Entering the kitchen, she saw her Uncle Mark and Mason.
“Hi, Ashley,” Mason said, smiling and walking over to his cousin. “It’s been a while.”
“Hello, Mason,” Ashley replied with a friendly smile. Mason and she had always gotten along exceptionally well. “It’s already dark outside; what are you and Uncle Mark doing out?”
“That’s what my father is getting ready to tell yours. It’s not good news.”
The two young people looked at their parents. Katrina was sitting at the long kitchen table with Harmon and Mark standing on the other side; neither looked happy. They listened to what the adults were saying.
“The Sorensons wouldn’t let Alfred trade with New Haven?” Harmon was saying in disbelief. “Did they say why?”
“Oh, they were going to let him trade all right,” replied Mark, shaking his head poignantly. “The only problem was they wanted twenty percent of his trade goods to go to New Haven and another twenty percent to pass back through.”
“That’s robbery,” Harmon said between clenched teeth. His eyes took on a dark look of frustration. “What did Alfred do?”
“He turned around and came back. As soon as he got back to Plainview, he came over to see me. I get the impression he expects us to do something about this situation.”
A heavy frown crossed Harmon’s face. “What can we do? If we try to confront the Sorensons, the trouble is only going to get worse. They might be hoping we try to do something.”
“They may just be looking for an excuse to move against our side of the valley,” responded Mark, nodding his head in agreement. He had already thought about this.
“So what do we do?” asked Katrina, looking at the two men. She didn’t like where this situation was heading. She was concerned for the safety of her family. “Alfred has to do some trading with Glendon and New Haven; we don’t produce everything we need. Between all four villages we can get by, but we all need each other.”
“The Sorensons know that,” Harmon replied in a serious tone, gazing at his wife. Turning back to Mark, he continued. “Next time Alfred is ready to go to Glendon, one of us needs to go with him.”
“Do you think that will do any good?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know, but we need to try talking to the Sorensons one more time before this gets out of hand.”
“I don’t think it will do any good,” replied Mark, leaning against the table and putting his hands down on i
ts top. “I’m afraid they want trouble.”
“I suspect you’re right,” responded Harmon, letting out a heavy sigh of exasperation. “But we owe it to the people of our valley to try once more.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Mason whispered to Ashley as they listened to their parents.
“Neither do I,” commented Ashley, wondering who was going to accompany Alfred to Glendon. She had a worrisome feeling that it would be her father.
“Let’s go outside where we can talk,” suggested Mason, gesturing toward the door.
The two went outside and sat down on the steps. The night was still warm, and the stars were shining brightly up in the night sky.
“I’m really worried about all of this,” confessed Mason, looking down toward the barn. He knew that Stephen was in the barn milking two of the cows; Uncle Harmon had mentioned that earlier.
“So am I,” Ashley replied. “How is your sorcery training coming?”
“I’m getting there,” Mason responded with a weak grin. “I have been practicing with Justin quite a lot. It seems to be helping.”
Ashley nodded. Justin was her other cousin. He was Uncle Robert’s son and was sixteen.
“How is Stephen doing with his training?” Mason asked curiously.
“Fine,” Ashley replied. “He practices every day. Todd showed Stephen a lot when he was here.”
Mason was quiet for a moment. “I get the impression you like this Todd.”
“Todd’s a good person,” responded Ashley, defensively. “He’s not like the other Sorensons.”
“I hope you’re right, Ashley,” Mark commented with a trace of doubt in his voice. “I hope he’s not anything like Edward is reported to be.”
“Edward,” Ashley spoke, her voice betraying her worry. “Edward is going to be a big problem when he gets older.”
“From what I understand, he already is,” Mason said, rising to his feet. “I think I’ll go down to the barn and check on Stephen.”
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