“Oh. Right,” Gerald said sheepishly. “Adventuring has never been my strong suit, you know. That was always Lila’s domain.”
“Lila?”
“My second mother’s daughter,” Gerald said.
“Your—oh, your twinling, you mean?”
“I don’t like that word,” Gerald explained. “We’re not twins. We’re no better than half-siblings, and probably less than that. Neither of us knows who our father was, of course, you know how all that works, complete secrecy to keep the father’s family out of the line of succession. But the way we look, I wouldn’t believe we have the same one. So she’s not even a blood relation, and she’s definitely not a twin. We’re no more related than any two children born at the same time to different mothers.”
“Yeah, okay, but by that logic your second mother—your mother’s wife, right?—she isn’t a blood relation, either. Why does she get the ‘mother’ designation, then?”
“Because she’s always treated me like family,” Gerald said quietly. “More so than my birth mother, frankly. While Lila’s never exactly treated me like a brother.”
“I’m sorry,” Omar said.
Gerald shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
“I haven’t always gotten along with my family, either,” Omar said. “But none of them ever locked me in a tower.”
“That’s the worst thing they ever did,” Gerald said. “It’s not like I was abused or anything. But Mother simply didn’t care and Mum was kind, but she always deferred to Mother… even though it was her kingdom, you know, originally. Mother married in. Mum was always the heir.”
Gerald smirked then and Omar raised a questioning eyebrow. “Oh, I was thinking about how much it’s always bothered me that I didn’t look like Mother, not the way my older sister did. Lila and James are carbon copies of Mum, and Vani is a carbon copy of Mother, and then there I was, not looking like either side of the family. It always made me feel like an imposter. I thought maybe that was why I didn’t fit, why I didn’t seem to get along with any of them.”
He shook his head. “Now I’m sounding whiny. But what I was smirking about is that Mother doesn’t look like anyone else in the entire kingdom! I look a lot more like a native Andinian than she does, at least, even if I don’t look much like my family. Mother’s blonde and pale and has icy blue eyes,” he explained. “Of course, it never bothered her that she doesn’t fit in. I think she likes it, actually. It makes her seem more imposing, I think, to stand out so much. And me, well, I would rather blend into the background.”
Omar gestured vaguely at himself. “Well, if we keep traveling together, you’ll blend in well enough. We’re not too dissimilar, and I look exactly like everyone else in Yevin, including both my parents. My father is Yevish, and my mother is from Grënick. Neighboring kingdoms, similar people. They look alike, and I and all my siblings look like them. But back to the point at hand. You’re saying you have no adventuring experience, and yet you’re determined to fly all over the Thousand Kingdoms on a dragon?” He shook his head with a mix of incredulity and admiration. “You’ll get plenty of experience, don’t you worry.”
“What about you?” Gerald asked. “I mean, how much adventuring have you done?”
“Prior to this?” Omar asked, making a vague, sweeping gesture. “Not all that much. I mean, I’ve traveled. I crossed the desert a few times with caravans. But in terms of independent adventuring, going out to prove my worth or anything like that…” he shrugged. “This rescue quest stuff was pretty much the start of my own career in adventures.”
“The blind leading the blind, then.”
The dragon cleared its throat loudly at that.
“The dragon leading the blind leading the blind,” Gerald amended with a smile.
“That’s better,” the dragon said. “We’re about an hour away now. Can you see it yet? I forget how your distance vision compares to mine.”
“Unfavorably, I’m sure,” Gerald said, but he obediently squinted into the distance. “I can’t see anything that looks like a swamp,” he said after a moment. “I just see the desert is about to stop.”
“It’s grasslands for quite a while after that,” Omar said. “Eventually the grassland turns into a marsh and then into a swamp. But I can’t see it either. I just know it’s there.”
“Humans,” the dragon muttered again. “I really don’t understand how you were designed so poorly.”
Omar shot Gerald a questioning look and Gerald smiled reassuringly. “It’s joking,” he mouthed at Omar. “Draconic humor.”
“Yes, well, we can’t all be dragons,” Gerald said aloud. “It’s a constant source of disappointment to us, never fear.”
The dragon swiveled its head around to fix Gerald with a huge golden eye. “I do believe you’re making fun of me,” it said.
“Who, me?” Gerald asked innocently. “Never.”
The dragon harrumphed but turned its head back toward the front. There was little danger of them crashing into anything at their height, even with the dragon’s momentary distraction, but Gerald felt better when the dragon was “watching the road”, as it were.
“Anyway,” it called back over its shoulder, “we’re getting close. So perhaps you should do some of that planning you mentioned before.”
Omar and Gerald exchanged guilty glances and settled down to it.
“So,” Gerald said, ticking points off on his fingers, “first we have to get through the swamp to Princess Elinore. Then, we have to disable the spells on the guardian’s collar and then remove the collar. We also want to disable the tracking spell on Elinore, although the dragon can do that, and can even do so from a distance. What else?”
“Well, what are you planning to do with Elinore?” Omar asked. “Are you trying to be stealthy about all this, or do you want to recruit her? Are we leaving her in the tower, sans guardian, or are we bringing her with us, or at least giving her a lift to some intermediate point?”
Gerald hesitated. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t suppose there’s any real way we can free the guardian without her noticing, so I guess there’s no need for secrecy. We can explain the whole situation and let her decide if she wants to participate or not. If not… as long as she’s not hostile to the idea, we can leave her be.”
“And if she is hostile to the idea?” Omar persisted.
“Dragon?” Gerald called.
“Yes?”
“How much of a magician are you, exactly? Can you devise your own spells, I mean, or only perform them?”
“I’ve never been too good at creating my own spells,” the dragon admitted. “However, I’ve come across a great many in my time and I never forget an incantation. Your cousin is quite innovative, and that two-way writing spell of his is something I’ve never seen before. But I’m well versed in all of the classics. Why, what did you have in mind?”
“Well… It might be rather, um, unethical…” Gerald hemmed, fiddling nervously with the harness. “But I was thinking perhaps…maybe we could…if you don’t think it’s too problematic—”
“Oh, just spit it out already!” Omar exclaimed. “Come on, it’s not like you’re planning to murder her or anything. After all, we wouldn’t need magic for that.”
“Of course not!” Gerald snapped. “No, I was thinking more of silencing her. But not to the extreme your collar took it!” he hastily assured the dragon. “I don’t want to render her entirely mute. Just…mute on this particular topic. So she couldn’t tell anyone who we are or what we did.”
“It would actually be much easier to render her entirely mute,” the dragon said thoughtfully. “Not that I’m condoning that, mind. It was a singularly unpleasant experience.”
“Is that a no, then?” Gerald asked.
“Well, the more nuance a spell has, the more difficult it is. However…I think I know something that might work. It’s a secret-keeping spell that needs to be modified with the key words. It will block communication sur
rounding those key words. Of course, with enough creativity, it can be gotten around. But it should serve for the short term.”
“Excellent,” Gerald said with relief. “That sounds like exactly the thing.”
“We’re going about your list backward, though,” Omar pointed out. “There’s still getting through the swamp to consider. And I think I see it now.”
Gerald leaned over to peer around the dragon’s head, and in the distance, he could see the grassland turning to marsh and then swamp.
“I’ll fly in as close as I can,” the dragon said. “But there aren’t going to be many suitable landing places. We may have to walk a good distance.”
“And a ‘good’ distance in the Burning Swamp is really a bad distance,” Omar said.
“Just get us as close as you can,” Gerald said. “We can improvise once we’re on the ground. The dragon’s presence should keep most of the wildlife away, don’t you think? So we’ll just have to watch out for natural hazards.”
“‘Just’,” Omar said gloomily.
“I’m sure we can manage between the three of us.”
“There’s no time like the present to find out,” the dragon said cheerfully. Flying over the largely featureless desert had warped Gerald’s perception of how quickly they were moving. Now that the terrain had more variety and more landmarks, the ground seemed to be moving past them at a rate of speed all out of proportion to the dragon’s slow wingbeats. They were already over the marshier part of the grassland and shrubs and water-loving trees were beginning to emerge. The ground cover grew thicker and thicker and the atmosphere took on a decidedly ominous aura. Trickles of smoke rose up from trees and visibility steadily declined as they flew further over the swamp.
The dragon began to circle, losing altitude in a lazy spiral. As they got closer to the trees, Omar held his arm up in a futile attempt to protect his eyes from the smoke and Gerald started coughing.
“Hold on!” the dragon called, and then it plunged through the trees. The branches buffeted at Gerald and Omar, but the harness kept them firmly attached to the dragon’s back.
Then, with a thoroughly unpleasant squelching sound, the dragon touched down into the mud.
“Ah,” it sighed. “That’s nice. Very warm.”
“I hope your supplies are waterproof,” Omar said to Gerald, looking at the morass the dragon had landed in. Their drop to ground level had at least brought them below the haze of smoke, and they could see and breath with a degree of normality.
“Oh,” the dragon said, looking down at its belly. “Oops.”
“Let’s worry about that later,” Gerald said. “Which way to the tower?”
“North by northeast,” the dragon replied.
Gerald looked at the compass tied to his wrist. “Let’s go, then.”
“How?” Omar asked.
They took in the scenery. All they could see was water and mud, and thin, spindly trees stretching up the sky. The trees were thin and poorly leafed, but the smoke blocked out most of the afternoon light, leaving only dim, gloomy illumination. The only brightness was provided by periodic belches of sparks and flame that appeared at random from the muck and murk.
“Maybe we should stay on the dragon,” Gerald suggested. “You can walk through this, can’t you?” he asked it.
“For now. Not if the trees get much closer together. But I think it’s too hot for you two to get down and wade here,” it said, prodding at the mud with a foreleg. “You’re right; you should stay on my back for now.”
It angled itself north by northeast and began trudging through the swamp. The intermittent bursts of fire didn’t bother it at all, nor did the temperature of the water, which was lightly steaming.
“How did they expect anyone to rescue her?” Omar asked quietly. “I mean, a desert is one thing. You take some water, buy a camel or a horse, no problem. All you have to worry about is the guardian. But this… I have the uncomfortable feeling the guardian is going to be the easiest part of this trip.”
“Yeah,” Gerald said. “I know what you mean.” The hair on the back of his neck was standing up and he had the uncomfortable feeling they were being watched. “You’re not going to take off suddenly, are you?” he asked the dragon, raising his voice only enough to get its attention.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” the dragon replied calmly. “This is not good ground to launch from. Why?”
“I think Omar and I should undo our harnesses,” Gerald said. “It feels like we might need to be able to move in a hurry.”
He put his words into action even as he was saying them. Within minutes, he and Omar were able to move freely over the dragon’s back. Its walking gait was not as smooth as its flight, though, so they largely stayed where they were. Neither one wanted to get bounced off into the steaming water and mud.
“I almost wish Lila were here,” Gerald muttered. At Omar’s raised eyebrow, he explained, “If nothing else, she’s quite handy with a sword.”
“So am I,” Omar replied. “And other edged weapons.” He showed his knives again; Gerald had nearly forgotten they were there and startled again at the reveal.
“What exactly were you planning to do to the guardian?” Omar asked curiously. “They’re there to fight and be fought, you know.”
The dragon rumbled grumpily at that and Omar patted its scales in apology. “Or at least that’s what we’re told,” he said soothingly.
“I was on the other side of the equation, remember?” Gerald said. “I wasn’t supposed to—or intending to—fight anyone. I have a chisel to change the spells carved into the collar. I don’t have an arsenal.”
“It’s only a small arsenal,” Omar said soothingly. “And I have a feeling you’re going to be happy I have it before the day’s done.”
That remark sent Gerald’s gaze back out into the gloom. He wracked his brain, trying to remember all the dangers of the swamp. Snakes and fearsome meat-eating lizards, giant boars and will-o’-the-wisps, although the dragon should keep most of those away…and Omar’s knives wouldn’t do much against those it wouldn’t. A dagger wouldn’t harm the malevolent fire spirits that drove travelers into the depths.
Gerald shuddered as he thought of them and then screamed as the water two feet to their left abruptly erupted into a boiling column with the strong impression of teeth behind it. Omar had his wrist knives released and in his hands before the hot water even landed on Gerald’s skin, and the dragon whipped its head around in time to knock the snarling lizard back into the marsh. It roared at the lizard, a ferocious, echoing sound, and a few drops of fire burst from its lips. The lizard hastily turned tail and slipped away, and Gerald tried to remember how to breathe.
“All right back there?” the dragon asked. It still had drops of flames dripping from its snout.
“Y-ye-yes,” Gerald stammered.
Omar patted his shoulder reassuringly but didn’t resheath his knives. Gerald was torn between wanting to close his eyes and ignore everything else that might come their way and being completely unwilling to close his eyes even long enough to blink, for fear of what else might come out of the depths or the dark.
In the end, fear won. He kept his eyes peeled and scanned the water and the trees obsessively.
“I don’t think another lizard is going to try that,” Omar said softly. “The dragon is still dripping fire.”
“Fire is not exactly an unknown threat here,” Gerald muttered back. But he nevertheless found himself reassured almost in spite of himself.
“The water is getting shallower,” the dragon reported.
“Makes sense,” Omar said. “The trees are getting thicker. We’re getting more ground.”
“That means we’re going to have to get down,” Gerald pointed out. “If there’s not enough room for the dragon to get through.”
But the dragon said, “No. I don’t believe this is the most hospitable environment for humans. If I cannot fit between the trees, I will clear a space.”
And so they forged ahead.
The sounds of splashing turned to squelching as the mud to water ratio steadily increased, but other than the noise caused by the dragon’s passage, and the crackling of burning twigs and leaves, the swamp was eerily silent.
“Why is it so quiet?” Gerald hissed.
Omar gave him a look. “Do you really want me to answer that?” he asked.
“No,” Gerald admitted. He knew what the silence meant: something was watching them. Something whose attention the rest of the wildlife didn’t want to attract.
Gerald’s heart rate ratcheted steadily upward until it felt like it was going to beat its way right out of his chest. It thumped hard enough that it was actually painful and he rubbed at it absently. He was sure he was going to have a heart attack or at least a panic attack if something didn’t happen soon to break the tension.
But there was nothing to be seen in the gloom.
“Next time we’re bringing lanterns,” Gerald muttered.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, lights flickered on all around them. Small balls of fire appeared all around them, in front, to both sides, above, and behind; they were on the ground and in the trees and Gerald stopped breathing when they appeared. Omar tightened his grip on his knives. The dragon slowed and then stopped altogether.
“Don’t follow them,” Gerald moaned, convinced they were will-o’-the-wisps there to lead them all to their doom.
But then the flames all rose up as one and they saw they were nothing more than ordinary—albeit small—torches, which were now being held high enough to illuminate their bearers instead of hiding them.
Gerald blinked and blinked again, but the scene didn’t change. Standing all around them with their torches held aloft were…squirrels?
Royal Rescue Page 9
