Summer's Fall

by Carol E. Leever

  "The White Grove!" Shalonie clarified. "Mother, there are wood sprites living in those trees. You can't cut them down."

  "I don't recall giving wood sprites permission to move into my trees," Alisina replied. "They're certainly not paying rent. And beyond taking care of trees that are now in the way of my new carriage house, they have no practical use."

  "Wood sprites belong to the realm of faerie, Mother," Shalonie reminded her. "I think both Deldano Holds will have something to say about their abuse. The Deldanos are of faerie. They have a vested interest in the wood sprites' wellbeing."

  Alisina's eyes flashed with anger. "I have no interest in what the foreign Hold Lords have to say regarding my managing of my own land."

  "Hold Lord Bryon was born and raised in Melia. He is as Melian as the rest of us. And Hold Lord Beren's children are Nythira's children. They could have no older bloodline!" While Lady Nythira had been several years older than Shalonie, she had always been a dear friend, and her death had struck Shalonie extremely hard. She did not like hearing her mother so readily dismiss Nythira's young children.

  Alisina glared at her daughter. "Hold Lord Bryon's heritage is questionable at best as his mother was unmarried when she had him. And do not forget he spent several years living in Haze, that vile cesspool. Sometimes the vocabulary that comes out of that man's mouth is positively shocking. And Hold Lord Beren isn't Melian at all. Kharakhian and faerie. It turns my stomach to see him rule a Hold. Until his children are of age, that seat should remain empty!"

  "That is not the dragons' will, Mother," Shalonie stated, starting to shake. In such matters the Sundragons always had the final say, and even her mother would not speak out against them. "And I do not think they will take kindly to you cutting down the White Grove."

  "Then it is a good thing they will not learn of it," Alisina told her. "As I forbid you from telling any of the Deldanos my plans. Do not forget, Shalonie, I am the Hold Lord, not you. You will do as I say. And do not interfere again in my private purchases. It is not your place. Now, do you prefer to dress here, or shall I send the maids to your rooms?"

  "I don't have time to go to another function," Shalonie protested. "I told you, I have work to do! I need to finish the books, and I need to get to the library."

  "The library! You were there last week!" her mother howled. "You don't need to go again."

  "Mother, my work requires . . ."

  "Yes, yes, your little translations!" her mother huffed, waving her hand at the pile of papers on Shalonie's desk. "That is not work; that is a hobby! And as a Hold daughter you should have more appropriate hobbies. No one cares about dead languages! If there were anything important in any of your scrolls, the Hold Dragons would translate them for us. They do not need you."

  "The things I'm working on are tens of thousands of years old, maybe hundreds of thousands," Shalonie protested, trying to keep her voice down. "The only dragons that could possibly translate these would be the Ancients themselves."

  Her mother looked positively horrified at that. "Shalonie Tatharion! Please tell me you have not tried to seek an audience with the Ancients over such a ridiculous thing!"

  Outraged that her mother would even make that suggestion, Shalonie sputtered, "What! Of course not! I would never bother the Ancients!"

  "See that you don't!" Alisina declared and then turned on her heel and swept through the doors of the office. "I'll send the maids!" she announced. "And from now on, your access to the city library is rescinded!" She then reached out and pulled closed the office doors.

  Shalonie stared at the closed doors, amazed when she heard the distinctive sound of a key being turned in the lock. She locked me in!

  Stunned, Shalonie leaned back into the soft leather of her desk chair. It wasn't as if being locked inside bothered her — opening the doors wouldn't be difficult. But the idea that her mother could rescind her access to the library was unspeakably horrible. She might be the heir to the Hold, but her mother was still the current Hold Lord. If she ordered Shalonie banned from the library, the librarians would have no choice but to obey. As it was, she had to sneak into half the places she typically visited, simply because her mother had forbidden her. Every excursion she'd ever taken outside of Melia had been done secretly because she'd been forbidden from leaving the city. If Shalonie hadn't had access to the various transfer portals in Melia, she never would have gotten anywhere with any of her research.

  A gentle knock at the door startled Shalonie. She looked up, guessing it was probably the maids her mother had threatened to send. But the voice coming from the other side of the heavy wooden doors was most definitely not a maid's.

  "Lady Shalonie, may I enter?" The sonorous voice belonged to their Hold Dragon, Lord Geryon Lir Drathos.

  Shalonie leaped to her feet, grabbing a piece of chalk from her desk blotter. "One moment, Lord Geryon!" she cried out and raced toward the doors. With swift, sure motions of the chalk, she drew a sigil upon the doorframe, and instantly the lock clicked. She yanked open the doors immediately, inclining her head to the Sundragon.

  Lord Geryon had been the Tatharion Hold Dragon for centuries. He was one of the Hold Dragons who spent the majority of his time in human form. Tall and fair, with the golden hair all the Sundragons possessed, he had eyes of the purest amethyst. The jeweled eyes of the dragons were the one of the first things that marked them as inhuman, as did the faint markings of golden scales along their hairline and the sides of their faces. Though beautiful and elegant, their features were unusually angular — not unlike those of the elves. But it was their movement more than anything that marked them most as dragons. They were prone to unnatural stillness, and when they did move, the movements were sharp and precise in a way that seemed almost mechanical — as if despite the human forms they occasionally wore, they were still the enormous scaled beasts that ruled the sky.

  "I heard raised voices," Geryon told her, his tone deep and sympathetic. "Are you all right?" If Geryon had been anywhere in the Hold during her conversation with her mother, he'd heard more than simply raised voices. The dragons' senses were acute in the extreme.

  "The same old arguments," she said, feeling more hurt than she had allowed herself to realize in the heat of the argument. For the majority of Shalonie's life, Geryon had acted more as a father to her than her own father, Shalandor. How her mother and Shalandor had ever come to be married, she couldn't imagine. Her father had spent the majority of his life wandering from one adventure to another. It was his stories, usually told in long letters written to her in ancient languages she had to work to translate, that told of exploring old ruins and organizing archaeological digs in haunted lands, that had sparked Shalonie's desire to travel. But while Shalandor thought nothing of abandoning his duty to Melia, Shalonie could not. It had been their Hold Dragon Geryon who had taught her about her duty to the land and Hold, and it was because of him that she performed the duties her mother regularly abandoned.

  "I came for the books." Geryon's gaze flicked briefly toward her desk where the finance records lay. "I saw your . . . accountant leave."

  She winced apologetically, a pained expression creeping across her face unbidden. "Please allow me to correct the numbers first," she told him. It's not fair to Geryon to make him fix all the mistakes. She knew other Holds were not run with such thoughtful draconic consideration — there were even a few Hold Dragons who never took human form; certainly they didn't check and correct accounting ledgers. Yesterday all of them had been pointedly reminded of the dragons' true purpose to their land — guardians, and Melia's main defense against invasion.

  Geryon smiled, familiar with the prickly relationship between Shalonie and her mother. "Stenic is still not adding the numbers correctly, is he?"

  "He was very brave yesterday, but honestly!" Shalonie let her exasperation fly. "The man trained to be a baker. Why mother insisted he take over his father's job as Hold accountant I will never know. He is ill-suited to the position. I actually think th
ere is something in his brain that makes him transpose numbers. He's a good man. But numbers are not what he excels at."

  "Your mother is a firm believer in tradition — to her detriment." The translucent membrane of Geryon's inner lids stretched across his amethyst eyes in a slow reptilian blink. "It was fortunate that Stenic was here to aid you."

  "I told him how grateful I am for his help." Shalonie considered. "He is a valuable member of the Hold . . ."

  Shalonie appreciated that Melian society was founded on ancient traditions, their devotion to their guardian dragons the most sacred tradition of all. But she found blind adherence to any law unbearable. "If anything, yesterday earned him the right to do what will make him most happy. I'm all for tradition when it makes sense, but a tradition that forces a child to follow in a parent's footsteps when so ill-suited to it, makes no sense."

  "Not all would agree with you," Geryon replied mildly.

  Shalonie looked up, searching his face to determine if she was being chastised. His jeweled eyes seemed more amused than reprimanding.

  "But you agree with me?" she responded, fairly confident in her belief. "I've wondered about something for a long time now. You've never been vocal about it . . . but you like the Deldanos."

  He inclined his head fractionally. "Most of us do," he agreed. "They have been a refreshing change to the leadership of Melia. The Deldano children are likely to usher us into a new age. Beren's two eldest, Chant and Tess, have already had several standoffs with Lord Sive, and have come out the victors — that they can do that before reaching their majority, is impressive indeed."

  Shalonie chuckled, knowing that Beren's twin Melian children, though only ten years old, were forces to be reckoned with. The days Beren let the two of them take his seat at the Hold Council were some of the most enjoyable meetings she'd ever been to. Unpredictable to be certain.

  "I know lowering the magical barrier that protected Melia from the rest of the world was controversial," Shalonie said, mentally lining up the course to her real question. "But the dragons were right. Melia needed new blood. And it isn't only the Deldanos. They brought the Daenoths, the Corsairs and Machellis with them. The foreigners may bring a whole host of new dangers to our land, but they are powerful allies. 7's actions are a perfect example."

  Geryon's eyes flicked to the open window. "We could not have stopped the Widow Maker without him."

  True shock ran through Shalonie, making her body tingle from her scalp to her fingertips. Is he admitting the fallibility of the Sundragons?

  "Sooner or later those dangers would have come to our shores regardless, considering the other issues with the barrier." The moment the words left her mouth, she saw that she had said too much.

  Lord Geryon froze, the unnatural stillness coming over him.

  Shalonie counted her thundering heart beats. One, manticore. Two, manticore. Three, manticore.

  Geryon's head turned slowly, his movement more draconic than human. A flickering light burned deep in his jeweled eyes, reminiscent of the fire the dragons were known to breathe. "Other issues?" he asked, measured.

  She paled and placed her right hand over her heart in apology. "I'm sorry." She inclined her head to him. "I'm not supposed to know about that. I shouldn't have said anything. I have not shared it with anyone else."

  He held her gaze. "Shared what?" he pressed.

  There was no lying to a dragon. Not only would it be the height of disrespect — something Melians instinctively avoided — but the dragons' senses were so perceptive, they could see and hear and smell a lie. Deception was pointless, and Shalonie made no attempt to prevaricate. "I know the barrier was failing," she said and cleared her throat gently. That's also why you have made no mention of putting it back up even considering the threat of the Widow Maker.

  Something shifted in Geryon's gaze. He did not seem angry or upset. He looked mostly puzzled and perhaps a little intrigued. "How?"

  "The Cypher Runes," she informed him. "It's what I've been studying."

  He drew his golden eyebrows together in a frown. "The portal runes?" he clarified.

  "Yes, but they're not merely portal runes," she said.

  Melia was home to ancient transfer portals that could transport a person safely from one location to another instantaneously. To date she and 7 Daenoth, working together, were the only people to successfully build a new portal since the originals were crafted centuries ago. Despite her youth, Shalonie was considered one of the foremost experts on portals, and her accomplishment of creating the new portal in the Daenoth home was counted a marvel among Melians and dragons alike.

  "The Cypher Runes can be used for other things — perhaps everything," she explained, pointing toward the sigil she'd drawn on the doorframe.

  Geryon turned to study the chalk mark, reaching out to touch the firmly drawn lines. "Did she lock you in?" he inquired curiously.

  Shalonie laughed at that. "Yes, I believe I'm being held captive for the sake of another luncheon in the Garden."

  He cocked his head to one side. "And you unlocked it with this sigil, not an opening spell?"

  "Yes, it's a Cypher Rune," she replied. "Just like the portal runes, just like the marks on the barrier stones."

  That drew his attention back toward her, his eyes filled with curiosity despite his body's unnatural stillness. "You believe it is the marks upon the stones that created the barriers and not dragon song?" He did not sound upset by the idea, just baffled.

  "Yes . . . I mean no!" She shook her head. "It is the dragon song and the magic you pour into it that activates the stones, but the sigils direct the power. That's how I knew they were failing. The sigils are wrong."

  "The barrier stones have stood for thousands of years, unchanged," Geryon informed her. His tone was not a denial of her words, but it was obvious he wanted more of an explanation.

  "They weren't wrong — not thousands of years ago. But they are now," Shalonie replied. "Magic isn't static, it changes, it evolves. And the sigils would have had to change and evolve with it, in order to keep the outside world at bay. It would be my guess that the original sigils likely weren't even carved into stone. Trees would have been more practical as they would have changed and grown over the years and required the runes be constantly adjusted."

  Geryon's eyes widened fractionally. "The original barrier foci were carved into trees," he admitted. "But that was thousands of years ago. You could not have known this. They were eventually carved into stone to make it more permanent."

  She had suspected as much. "Which means the original understanding of the marks had already been lost. They were not meant to be immutable. Not unless you were attempting to seal off a dead world — which was never the intention of the barrier. Magic was meant to flow freely back and forth — otherwise Melia and everyone inside the land would have died."

  He inclined his head. "It was one of the reasons we took down the barrier. We felt things had become too static, too unchanging. Melia needed new life, needed change. And the barrier had been failing for decades, perhaps even centuries. We were not certain how much longer we could maintain it. It seemed every year we were pouring more and more magic into it — had it not been for Lord Sylvan, the barrier would have fallen long ago. His spells alone sustained it — and to do so he had to constantly craft new spells, each more powerful than the last. But the one thing we could never discern was why they were failing. We assumed the fault lay in us, in our magic, or in the stones themselves. Do you mean to say it is in the marks upon the stones?"

  "Yes," Shalonie replied, amazed that the dragons had been dealing with this issue for perhaps centuries without any guidance, or any hope of success beyond their own stubborn nature and exceptional gifts of magic.

  "It's a language, an ancient language, and very complex," she told him, moving toward her desk and pulling out a notebook from her secret stash. She opened it and showed him the many pages she'd filled with sigils and runes of all types. "When I was studying the transf
er portals I started to recognize patterns, and I started to realize I had seen similar marks in other places: my father's journals, books, scrolls, old ruins — from all over the world, and from other realms. But they're not simply a language — the runes form mathematical equations, complex equations that control how magic interacts with them. I've only started understanding how they all go together, how these equations are written and balanced. Which is when I realized that the runes on the barrier stones are out of balance with the rest of the world."

  He stared at her with wonder.

  Shalonie shifted self-consciously.

  "And you can fix them? Balance them?"

  "No." She shook her head, alarmed that perhaps she'd inadvertently claimed some knowledge she did not possess. "I don't know nearly enough yet," she said feverishly, speaking faster and faster. "I've only just started piecing this together. I was able to build the new transfer portal because I had numerous working portals to compare it to. But the understanding of the runes themselves has been lost for eons. I think this language is likely hundreds of thousands of years old, maybe even millions of years old. I don't even have a complete understanding of the basic alphabet of the runes, let alone a working vocabulary."

  "But you are pursuing proof of this theory?" he asked, holding up her thick notebook.

  She nodded. "Trying to anyway," she admitted. "It hasn't been easy."

  "What do you need?"

  She considered the seriousness of his simple question. "I need to find more runes. I need a complete alphabet." She interrupted herself as ideas exploded in her head. "I suspect there may be hundreds if not thousands of characters in the language. I need to understand how the equations are formed. I need to see other examples of runes working. I understand how the Melian portals work fairly well, but I need to see other portals in other lands, portals that have nothing to do with Melia, portals that use different magic systems so that I can compare them to see what makes ours different. Plain and simple, I need more information."