Dragon Speaker

by Mugdan Elana A.

  For some reason, sadness tugged at Keriya’s heart. Was it for the dragons, who were trapped in a different world forever? Or was it for Shivnath, who was trapped in this world alone?

  “Was there anything else you wanted to ask?” Shivnath prompted in an ominously pleasant voice.

  Keriya was wise enough to shake her head. “No. I’m sorry I snooped around.”

  “I expected nothing less,” was the reply.

  Keriya left the treasure cavern with as much humility as she could muster, but couldn’t resist looking back one last time before entering the tunnel that led to the mossy grotto.

  Shivnath wasn’t paying attention to her. She was staring at the nest, her face half-bathed in shadow, a sad smile fading from her lips.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Find what is inside you, and you will find what will save you.”

  ~ Allentrian Proverb

  The next morning, Keriya found herself outside. Shivnath had placed them on the western face of Argos Moor, and Keriya suspected the god had tampered with Fletcher and Roxanne’s memories. Both had vague recollections of the snowstorm, but neither could say when it had happened. They didn’t know how they’d arrived on the far side of the mountains, yet they didn’t question their good fortune.

  “I think it’s altitude sickness,” Fletcher said as they began their descent. “I heard it can cause memory loss.”

  “Mm,” said Keriya, and left it at that.

  They were soon lost in a thick mist. Their path—such as it was—led through a narrow cave. When they emerged into the open once more, they met the edge of a cliff.

  There was no way to continue. The drop-off stretched into the murky brume as far as she could see.

  “Great,” said Roxanne. “A big old wasteland, just like the Elders always said.” She kicked a stone off the precipice. It hurtled downwards, swallowed by the silence of the mountains.

  “What do we do?” whispered Fletcher.

  His question burrowed into Keriya’s chest. Shivnath wouldn’t have lied about Allentria. It couldn’t be a wasteland. There was another world out there.

  All Keriya had to do was figure out how to reach it.

  “Let’s head south,” she suggested, gazing at the unforgiving wall of fog. “Maybe we’ll find a way down.”

  “Down to what?” Roxanne muttered, though she followed as Keriya picked her way along the lip of the cliff.

  On and on they walked, until nightfall halted their trek. While Fletcher and Roxanne succumbed to exhaustion, Keriya remained awake, contemplating the abyss.

  “Show me the way, Shivnath,” she murmured, lying back to gaze at the sky. The higher mists had thinned, allowing a few brave stars to peek through. A breeze meandered up the slope, sweeping the remaining clouds away.

  Eventually the heavens faded from black to purple to gold as the sun rose behind the mountains. Keriya still didn’t feel tired—she felt empty. She rolled onto her side to glare at her new nemesis, the chasm.

  “Fletcher,” she gasped, springing to her feet. “Fletch, get up!”

  Fletcher groaned behind her, complaining of too little sleep. There was a sharp intake of breath and she heard him scramble upright. He joined her, gawking at the slope below. Through the fading fog, a meadow of flowers was visible at the foot of Argos Moor, extending into the rolling foothills of an emerald valley. To the left, a verdant forest crawled across the horizon. And to the right . . .

  “Holy Shivnath,” said Roxanne, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

  “A village,” Fletcher breathed. “There are people here!”

  This was it. Allentria was real.

  Keriya felt as if she were coming to life all over again: the air was fresher, the sun was brighter, and the grass was greener than in Aeria. The world on this side of the mountains was a far better place to be.

  The three of them laughed and screamed. Now that the fog had lifted, Keriya spotted a place where they could safely descend. They proceeded to descend at a speed that wasn’t safe at all, careening toward the flower field, jumping from boulder to boulder in their haste to reach it. Finally they were out of those accursed stones.

  “My magic feels so strong here,” Roxanne exclaimed, flinging her arms wide and twirling in a spin. Her brown cheeks flushed with joy. She crouched amidst the blossoms to place her hands on the ground. A sapling burst forth beneath her fingers, stretching toward the sky.

  “Stop! You’ll waste all your energy,” Fletcher gasped, but Roxanne had already created an apple tree as tall as herself, its limbs dotted with small, ripe fruits.

  “I hardly felt a thing,” she said, gazing at her creation in awe. She grinned at Fletcher. “Go on, you do something!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” he stammered. “I’m not as strong as you, and—”

  “Try it,” she insisted. “It’s amazing. Like my lungs were coated with soot all my life and now . . . now I’ve taken my first real breath.”

  Fletcher glanced at Keriya, but even she, with no magic, had succumbed to the intoxicating delight of being in Allentria. Beaming, she nodded her encouragement.

  His nose wrinkled in concentration. After a few moments, his face relaxed and his eyes widened.

  “Huh,” he said, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

  “See?” said Roxanne.

  “I wouldn’t say my magic feels much stronger, but I do feel better. Far better than I ever felt in Aeria.”

  These revelations were overshadowed by the fact that there was food to be had, and the three of them converged on the apples. Chewing contentedly, Keriya breathed in the mingled scent of sweet flowers and fresh mountain air and turned to take in the view.

  She choked on a bite of apple. There, trundling along a dirt path in the distance, was a man. He sat at the prow of a covered wagon pulled by a large, spindly-legged animal.

  “Look!” she cried, pointing. Fletcher and Roxanne did so and their eyes went wide—Fletcher’s with apprehension, Roxanne’s with excitement. Keriya was surprised to find she wasn’t afraid. In fact, she was thrilled at the prospect of meeting an Allentrian.

  “Hey,” she cried, running toward him and waving her arms. The animal flattened its ears to its skull and brayed as she approached.

  “Whoa, Winni!” The man quieted the animal and rounded on Keriya. “What the blood do you think you’re doin’?”

  He had a frock of wild, dark hair that hung to his shoulders and one sharp, blue eye. A black patch tied around his head. The material of his clothes was like nothing in Aeria. He wore a long vest over a dirty white shirt, and his loose pants were bunched over knee-high boots.

  “Trying to attack honest, unsuspecting folks and rob them of their derlei?” His accent was odd, and his gruff, no-nonsense voice held a hint of command.

  “Uh . . . no,” said Keriya, as her friends joined her.

  “You lot scroungers, then? You’re awful far from city traffic. Ain’t able to beg for much all the way out here.”

  “No,” Keriya repeated, raising a brow. “I was wondering . . .” But she hadn’t been wondering anything. She had just wanted to speak to a real, live Allentrian.

  Suddenly it hit her. “Maybe we could come with you? South, if you’re going that way?”

  “Hmph! I’ll give you a ride as long as you can pay. Where you headed?”

  “South.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” he said snidely. “What town?”

  Keriya bit her lip, wracking her brain to remember what Shivnath had told her about finding Necrovar. “The Fironem?”

  She noticed Fletcher and Roxanne cast suspicious looks in her direction.

  “Hah! I ain’t goin’ that far. I can get you to Senteir for five silver derlei each. Reckon you can hitch a ride downstate from there with a trader or merchant or whatnot. They’ll all be in town for t
he solstice festival, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Keriya, though she’d hardly understood a word he said.

  “So, you got names?” he asked, glaring around at them.

  “Roxanne Fleuridae.”

  “Fletcher Earengale. Pleased to meet you, Elder.”

  “Elder? Whaddya think I am, a bleedin’ elf?” The man turned his eye on Keriya. “What about you?”

  “Keriya Na—” She cut herself off. Here, she didn’t have to be nameless. Nobody knew her past and she was free to create her own future. The words from Shivnath’s book swam back to her.

  “Keriya Soulstar,” she said firmly.

  Roxanne snorted and Fletcher scrunched his nose. Keriya’s cheeks flushed, but she held her head high. ‘Soulstar’ sounded right to her, like it had to the book’s unknown author.

  “Soulstar? What the blood is that? You even from the Smarlands?” The man didn’t wait for her to answer. “Look, I got places to be. You want a ride or not?”

  “Yes,” Keriya said hastily.

  “We’re in business. If you wanna go to Senteir it’ll be nine silver derlei each, a bargain if ever I heard one. I’m bendin’ over backward helping you, but that’s the sort of fellow I am. C’mon, get in. Don’t dawdle.”

  Fletcher cast Keriya a sidelong glance as they approached the man.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Nothing. I like the new name.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he assured her with a small smile.

  Keriya grinned. “Thanks,” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers.

  The Allentrian was chattering away in the background, but he stopped as soon as Keriya clambered into the wagon. He stared at her, flipping up his eyepatch to reveal a second clear blue eye. Too late, she remembered the color of her own eyes. He opened his mouth and she tensed, preparing for the worst.

  “Forgot my manners,” he said, extending a grubby hand. “The name’s Skyriver. Cezon Skyriver.”

  Keriya stared at the proffered hand. Was this a strange Allentrian way of saying hello? It didn’t seem like a condemnation, which was what she’d been expecting. She held her own hand out, mimicking the way he held his. He huffed in exasperation.

  “Never mind. Now, where’d you say you were from?”

  “We’re from Aeria,” said Fletcher.

  Cezon let out a bark of laughter which he quickly turned into a cough. “Well, we’d best be off. That’ll be fourteen silver derlei each.” He patted the seat next to him, inviting them to join him. “So . . . Aeria, eh? What’s it like over there?”

  They told Cezon about the Elders, the customs and ceremonies, the dark spirits of the Felwood, the healing waters of Lake Sanara, and Shivnath’s Mountains. It was the mountains he was most interested in. According to Cezon, no one had crossed them in living memory.

  That sun passed in a whirlwind of wonder. In answer to Keriya’s incessant questions, Cezon irritably told them about Allentria—everything from the intricacies of the Imperial government to the geography of the Smarlands.

  At night the moon shone bright and full. To Keriya’s surprise, a second moon rose with it. In Aeria the mountains had hidden it, for it hovered low on the western horizon. Cezon explained that the bigger satellite—the one they’d grown up with—was called the Oldmoon, and the smaller one was called the Bloodmoon because of its ghostly red hue.

  The following day brought more wonders. Farmlands and forests rolled past, simple yet awe-inspiring. These trees weren’t so different from the ones back home, but they were infinitely more beautiful because they were Allentrian trees.

  “Look!” Cezon’s voice cracked through the peaceful silence of the sunset. “I’ll reckon you Aerians”—he said the word somewhat derisively, Keriya thought—“ain’t never seen a proper Allentrian city before.” They crested a hill and Cezon spread his hands before him. “This is Senteir.”

  A town sprawled across the valley below. It was smaller than Aeria, but what it lacked in size it made up for in grandeur. Colorful lights flickered in the windows of tall buildings silhouetted against the blazing sky. To the south, the sunset turned a shimmering lake into a pool of molten fire.

  “We’ll stay the night at The Olde Dragyn. Favorite inn of mine.”

  “What’s in it?” Fletcher asked.

  “No, an inn. Oh, don’t play stupider than you look. I know you got inns and such where you’re from.”

  The three of them shook their heads blankly.

  “Think they come from bloody Aeria,” Cezon muttered. “You won’t have Allentrian money anyway, which is a dead sodding giveaway. I’ll have to lend you some.” Given his tone, it sounded like he’d rather be melted by drachvold acid. Money was people’s way of determining importance, and it was also their means of survival—and Cezon had grown very upset when he discovered the Aerians didn’t have any. The villagers had bartered for whatever they needed or made things themselves.

  Cezon twitched Winni’s reins and she set off, clip-clopping toward Senteir. By the time they reached the town, Cezon had explained what an inn was.

  “And you’re to stay in the inn while we’re here. Don’t go out. Don’t talk to anyone. And you,” he snapped, pointing at Keriya, “don’t look at anyone with them eyes, neither.”

  Keriya bristled with indignation but privately conceded that this was good advice.

  “Here we are,” he announced, pulling Winni to a stop in front of a cozy-looking building. It had a wooden sign that sported a painted green dragon. Cezon hopped off the wagon and whistled sharply, and a boy in an overlarge tunic rushed out from a side alley.

  “Put the wagon in the barn,” said Cezon, flipping him a copper derlei coin. “And make sure Winni don’t get stabled all sweaty and hungry-like.”

  “Yes, Sir Leafwhit,” said the boy, bobbing his head and pocketing the money. Cezon swept inside and the Aerians hastened to follow him.

  A swell of music hit Keriya’s ears as she pushed the front door open. She froze open-mouthed, her senses overwhelmed.

  The inn was packed with people sitting around wooden tables, talking and laughing. In the corner, a man played a merry tune on a strange instrument. The savory scents in the air held a pleasant hint of spice. Everything was fresh and new and magical. Keriya’s nerves tingled with warmth as she took it all in.

  Cezon approached a bar stretching along the left side of the room. People sat before it on tall chairs and offered their mugs to serving girls for drinks. He waved, catching the eye of a rotund aproned man behind the counter.

  “Sir Leafwhit,” the man exclaimed, offering his hand. Cezon grasped it and shook up and down. Apparently, public physical contact wasn’t illegal here. Judging by the behavior of the inn patrons, it seemed to be celebrated. “The usual?”

  “No, Master Treeskon. I got company. My cousins from Oseri, traveling to be apprenticed. We’ll be needing two rooms.”

  “Make that three. I’m not sharing a room with him.” Roxanne pointed at Fletcher. “Or you,” she added, glaring at Cezon.

  “You’ll share a room and you’ll be grateful you’re gettin’ that much,” said Cezon.

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, miss. Three rooms it is, and they’ll be the best that money can buy,” Master Treeskon promised. Cezon groaned and gnashed his teeth, but Treeskon chose not to notice. “Names?” he inquired, opening a ledger beside him.

  “This is Ava Cloudmeadow,” Cezon said before anyone could speak, indicating Keriya. “And these are Armena and Joni Leafshield.” He pointed to Roxanne and Fletcher.

  “You’ll find your rooms on the second floor, first three doors on your right,” said Treeskon. “Enjoy your stay. Have a couple drinks!”

  “I think not,” Cezon said frostily. “They have no money. Come, children.” He stalked across the bustling
room, the Aerians trailing after him.

  “Why’d you change our names?” said Keriya.

  “Shh!” Cezon glanced around. No one was paying attention to them, but he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Your names don’t sound Allentrian, that’s why. If people find out you ain’t from here, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.”

  “Why?”

  “Never you mind about that,” he said, stopping at the foot of a spiral staircase. “Now, I’m late for a meeting, so go upstairs and stay outta sight.” He didn’t wait for them to answer before slipping past the stairs into a darkened hall.

  The moment he was gone, Roxanne went to the nearest empty table. A serving girl appeared at once to speak to her.

  “Hey, wait for me!” said Fletcher. “Come on, Keriya.”

  Keriya hesitated. She wanted to explore the fascinating world of Allentria, but she was growing twitchy among so many people. Senteir was more diverse than Aeria, but she still stood out like a wolfcat in a sheep pen. Cezon’s comment about her eyes had made her especially self-conscious.

  “I’ll be along in a bit,” she said, withdrawing.

  Keeping her back to the wall, Keriya sidled around the common room, observing its occupants. Allentria was bursting with magic. The lanterns held glowing, coal-like crystals that shone with a steady radiance through some sort of translucent stone. Colorful liquid flowed from faucets behind the bar at the merest twist of a lever. Men and women mingled easily, without a thought to modesty. It was nothing like the stuffy, strict, and staid environment in Aeria.

  Emboldened by that realization, Keriya lifted her chin and returned to Fletcher and Roxanne, determined that she should enjoy herself. When she reached their table, she was surprised to see two young men with them.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her brows drawing together.

  “They’re our new friends,” Fletcher said in a slurred voice, looking up from a large mug filled with a frothy drink. “This is excellent, Keriya, try some!”

  “Nice to meet you,” said one man, offering his hand to Keriya. Behind him, Roxanne mouthed the words ‘take it.’