by T.A. Barron
“Woojaja lika see me do do do tricksies? Me lovey do tricksies! Woojaja woojaja woojaaa?”
The bat-thing seemed so enthusiastic that Tamwyn couldn’t help but smile. “So,” he whispered, “you like to do tricks, do you? Great, but not right now. I’m trying to finish cooking.”
“Ooee ooee ooee, manny man! I can doosy do most excellent tricksies.”
“Fine, fine. But not now. My stew—”
“Stewey gooey. Watchy watch, too! Please?” The batlike creature twisted his whole head upside down. “Pleeeeeasey please? Oh, manny man, pleeeeease?”
Tamwyn glanced down at the pot, which was simmering nicely. And smelling better by the minute. “Oh, all right then. Just one trick. But be quick about it.”
Instantly, the creature’s green glow swelled brighter. He flapped hard, took off, and started zipping around Tamwyn’s head in an erratic pattern. Once he did an aerial roll and twirl combined—which would have been perfect except that his wing clipped Tamwyn’s nose. Suddenly Tamwyn sneezed, spraying the creature, who spun out of control and landed with a splat right in the stew pot.
“Owwy wow, hot!” screeched the little beast, leaping straight out of the pot to land on the ground. He flapped hard to shake some globs of hot stew off his wings, then spun around to curse the pot. “You ucky mucky poopy pile!”
“Ah, well, sorry about that.” Tamwyn tried his best not to laugh out loud. “But my stew’s for eating, not for landing. Anyway, you did great up till then. What a trick!”
“It’s lotsy better,” the bat-thing said glumly, “when manny man no sneezy-goo all over me.”
“Right, I’m sure.” Tamwyn reached over to stir the stew again.
But the wacky little fellow flew up and landed on his forearm. “You really like me tricksies? Telly me truth.”
“Yes, yes,” he replied. “I liked them. Now let me work.”
The green eyes brightened again. “Goody good good! Then me doosy do some more!”
“No,” he pleaded.
“Butsy but, me do do better now. No more sneezy-goo.”
Tamwyn sighed heavily. “All right, how about this? You do tricks, just over there—and I’ll keep on cooking right here. That way I can watch you, but we’ll have no more sneezy-goo.”
“And no more poopy pile,” added the little beast.
“Right,” agreed Tamwyn. “So do you like this plan?”
The bat-creature rubbed his face with the edge of his wing. “Mmm . . . no! Me me no likey plan.” His little mouth opened in a yawn. “Me me too sleepy now for doing tricksies.”
Tamwyn shook his head. “Fine then. You go nap someplace, and I’ll finish cooking.”
“Nappy nap? Goody idea! Oh yessa ya ya ya. Meya Battygad, see? Battygad like nappy naps.”
With that, the furry fellow tottered over to a thick bunch of grass, lay down, and wrapped himself inside his wing. From under the leathery blanket came a muffled yawn, and a small voice. “Nice and softy warm here, ya ya ya.”
The young man just had to grin. Looking down at his newfound friend, he said, “Battygad, is it? More like a batty lad, if you ask me! Yes, Batty Lad—whatever you really are, that’s a perfect name for you.”
Tamwyn gave the stew a stir, tasted it, and added a pinch more garlic grass. Then, as it simmered over the fire, he glanced up at the stars.
So many of them . . . like luminous fields that stretched on and on forever. Even with one star less than he was accustomed to seeing, the night sky shone brilliantly. There was Pegasus, soaring with outstretched wings, flying like an eagle. Or, he thought suddenly, an eagleman.
A slight movement, barely a wink of light, caught his attention. It came from another constellation, a row of six stars not far above the horizon: the Wizard’s Staff. But now only five stars gleamed there.
Another star had gone dark.
17 • Hoofprints
Tamwyn added a few more bay leaves to the stew, as well as the last of the bark strips, and stirred some more. But his thoughts were not on the pot below him so much as the night sky above him.
What was going on with the stars? What did it all mean?
Using a spare spoon, he nudged the glowing coals of his cooking fire. A pair of sparks flew up, then winked out, just as those two stars had done.
He turned to the small, furry creature who lay on the grass, wrapped in a leathery wing. What sort of beast was Batty Lad? Part bat, part something else... with those glowing green eyes, bright as sparks themselves? Well, whatever he was, he was certainly sound asleep.
Tamwyn pushed the coals together into a mound under the pot. They would keep the stew warm for a good twenty minutes—all the stew needed.
And all that he needed, as well, to do something that never failed to clear his head when he felt troubled. It was something that he’d been wanting to do all day, even before he’d seen the Wizard’s Staff. No—all week.
Run.
Just run.
He peered down the knoll and gave a wave to Fairlyn, whose boughs were entwined with those of the old beech. “Would you mind stirring for a while?”
The tall maryth regarded him solemnly, light from the evening stars in her eyes. Though her opinion of Tamwyn had clearly softened since the incident with the worms, she still treated everyone but Llynia with a certain aloofness. After a moment, though, she withdrew her boughs from the beech and bent her trunk in a nod.
Tamwyn smiled. As Fairlyn climbed up the knoll, he trotted down. At the bottom of the slope he leaped over a toppled trunk and started to run up a long, rock-strewn valley. His bare feet thumped the ground at first, then struck more softly as he picked up speed. Cool night air rushed over his face and pushed his hair behind his shoulders. He loped through a stretch of tall grasses, as dry as thatch but sweet as barley, that swished against his leggings. And jumped over a tightly woven spider’s web, glittering in the starlight.
Tamwyn’s legs churned harder as he ran up a steep rise. He felt his heart pumping, his breath surging, with every stride. When he reached the crest, he slowed just a bit, and saw that he was running at the same speed as a fluffy white seed caught by the wind. With a gust, the wind picked up speed; so did Tamwyn. All three of them—the seed, the man, and the wind—raced ahead. They flew along, moving as one, flowing smoothly over the land.
Now he belonged to the wind.
Tamwyn ran even faster. He jumped the mound of a badger’s den, and then veered to avoid a family of ptarmigan out for an evening stroll. As he took a high bound to clear a boulder, he thought of the tales he’d heard bards sing about the deer people—a clan in Lost Fincayra who could change themselves into deer whenever they wished.
Amazing! What a thrill . . . They could be strolling one moment as men and women—then leaping the next as stags and does. According to the tales, the one great love of Merlin’s life, Hallia, was herself a deer woman. And though their child, the famous explorer Krystallus, couldn’t shift into a deer, the bards always held out hope that some later descendant might bear the magical blood.
I hope so, thought Tamwyn as he loped along, following a dry streambed. I do hope so! Then the deer people from Merlin’s old world might exist again . . . right here in Avalon.
He pursed his lips thoughtfully, even as he jumped to the other side of the streambed to catch the scent of a juniper bush, its twisted boughs dotted with tiny blue berries. But for that to be true, Krystallus must have had a child. And though he’d heard many stories about the fearless explorer from his mother, from villagers, and from wandering bards—stories that told how Krystallus became the first person ever to find portals to all Seven Realms, the only man to reach the Great Hall of the Heartwood and return alive, the first human to dare to visit the flamelons after the War of Storms—none of those stories said anything about Krystallus fathering a child.
A scrawny little bird shot out of the sky and barely missed Tamwyn’s nose. He wrenched aside, almost stepping in a marmot’s hole. Then he stopped
and turned to the bird, who had spun around and started to dive at him again.
What are you doing, you fool bird? Just as he threw his arms up to protect his face, he caught a glimpse of gleaming green eyes and batlike wings—and realized that this wasn’t a bird after all.
“Batty Lad! You could have warned me!”
The flying creature veered sharply and landed on Tamwyn’s forearm, his furry belly heaving with exhaustion. “Me do do come to warn manny man. Oh yessa ya ya ya! Bigga warning. Terribibble danger!”
Tamwyn, who was panting just as heavily, fixed his gaze on Batty Lad’s eerie green pupils. “What danger?”
“Not to you, manny man. To others, yessa ya ya ya.” He lifted his wings to cover his small face and cupped ears. “Ooee ooee . . . itsa bad, terribibble bad.”
“What?” Tamwyn raised his forearm so that his nose almost touched the babbling creature’s. “Tell me who’s in danger. And from what.”
“Everybodya ya ya!” shrieked Batty Lad. “Froma the dragon!”
Tamwyn didn’t wait to hear any more. A dragon, at their camp? He dropped Batty Lad into the pocket of his tunic, turned, and started to run—this time even faster than before. Faster than he could remember running in his life. Faster than the wind.
His legs a blur, he sped back down the valley. He zipped past rocks, shrubs, and gullies, leaping over anything in his path. All he could hear was a whoosh of air in his ears . . . and the growing sound of shouts from the camp.
He came hurtling down the last slope. Just when he reached the small pool of water at the base of the knoll, he slammed his feet to a halt. There, stretched across the knoll, was a dragon.
Just then the dragon shifted its massive body. As it turned away from the now-empty pot of stew that its long green tongue had been probing, Tamwyn could see that its enormous head—three times as large as that of a horse—was completely armored with yellow and blue scales except for a scarlet bump between its eyes. That bump, he knew, meant that this dragon was still young. That still didn’t make it small, though: Each of its eyes, brighter than fire coals, were as big as Tamwyn’s own head. Hundreds of dagger-sharp teeth glistened in its gaping jaws. Its huge reptilian body stretched all the way down the knoll, the barbed point of its tail crushing the branches of the beech tree that Elli had sat under not long before.
On the dragon’s back lay a pair of immense, bony wings. Thick blue veins ran through them like swollen rivers. Unfolded, the wings could have covered the entire knoll. But even retracted they were as large as the sails made by the water elves of Caer Serella, whose legendary ships had traversed all the seas of Waterroot. Tamwyn gulped at the difference between these huge, leathery wings and the delicate ones that bore little Batty Lad.
The dragon didn’t seem to notice Tamwyn at all. And it seemed equally oblivious to Elli and Nuic, who were beating on its tail with sticks to get it to leave the camp. Nor did it seem to mind Henni, who had climbed the beech tree and was gleefully trying to seat himself on the barbed tail to catch a ride.
Instead, as the dragon turned, it caught sight of Llynia, who had climbed onto a boulder near the top of the knoll. She was angrily shouting commands at the beast while shaking her fists and stomping her feet. Undeterred, the young dragon started to stretch its scaly neck toward the priestess.
Fairlyn lunged between them. The elm spirit, who smelled of smoky dragon breath, stood firmly in front of Llynia and waved her boughs wildly. Although the dragon was, fortunately, still too young to breathe fire, it simply jerked its massive head sideways and sent Fairlyn tumbling down the slope.
As its toothy snout neared Llynia, she suddenly stopped shouting. A look of terror came over her face. Even her green chin went several shades paler.
The jaws opened—not all the way, but just wide enough to nip off the head of this irksome little creature on the boulder. The dragon’s tongue flicked across its black lips and rows of teeth. Llynia stood frozen with fear.
“No! Stop!” cried Elli, dropping her stick and beating her fists furiously against the armored tail.
Wider the jaws opened. And wider. Hundreds of pointed teeth, trailing shreds of meat and gobs of mucus, glistened. The dragon’s mouth started to close over Llynia’s head.
A high, wailing shriek pierced the air. The dragon suddenly halted. As the shriek grew louder, its fiery eyes narrowed down to mere slits. Then, all at once, it retracted its neck, brushing Llynia’s cheek with its tongue.
The dragon drew its enormous wings tight onto its back. Turning toward the sound, which came from somewhere up the rocky valley, it bellowed its own version of the cry in return. At the same time, it dug huge curved claws into the ground and pushed hard. Chunks of dirt and rock flew into the air. The dragon slid forward, then charged down the side of the knoll and into the valley.
No one spoke for several seconds. Fairlyn, cradling two broken arms, hobbled back up the slope as the color slowly returned to Llynia’s face. Elli stared after the departed beast, amazed and puzzled. Henni shook his head in disappointment because he’d missed his chance for a ride on a dragon’s tail. Nuic, though, was looking straight at Tamwyn, whose hands were cupped around his mouth.
“How did you do that?” demanded the old sprite. His color had shifted from deep red to a pulsing yellow.
Tamwyn lowered his hands. “Oh, it’s just a call I picked up . . . almost two years ago. When I tracked a family of dragons—not the biggest sort, more like the wyverns from the western caves. I watched them for almost a week.”
“You?” interrupted Elli. She gazed at the clumsy porter, who wore matching black eyes. “You made that cry?”
Tamwyn shrugged. “It’s not hard, really.”
“What is it?” she asked. “Some sort of battle cry?”
He grinned slightly. “Not exactly.”
“The cry of a predator, then? Something that scared it off?”
“Scared it, yes. Enough that it won’t be coming back here anytime soon. But not a predator.”
She stared at him, her face full of doubt.
One of his hands reached into his pocket to stroke Batty Lad’s furry head. “It’s the call of a mother dragon. I heard it often during that week. Means something like: Get your scaly tail over here right now or I’ll eat your innards for supper.”
“How affectionate,” grumbled Nuic, still watching Tamwyn curiously. “But you haven’t answered my question. How did you do it?”
“Well,” he began. “I wrap my fingers like this, then place them over—”
“No, no, you idiot!” Now Nuic’s yellow color had veins of red running through it. “Not how did you make the sound. How did you project the sound?”
Tamwyn’s brow crinkled. “It’s just a trick, something I figured out when . . . well, when I had nothing better to do.” He shrugged. “Which is fairly often.”
“It’s not just a trick,” admonished Nuic. He waved his tiny arms. “It’s an illusion. Not a bad one, either, for a mindless beginner.”
Elli, who was just starting to ask another question, caught herself. Could it be? Her crusty old maryth had just said something rather close to a compliment. And to that idiot Tamwyn of all people! A mistake, surely. Or maybe one of Nuic’s games.
She stepped a bit closer to the young man, her feet crunching on the stubby grass. “Just how,” she asked skeptically, “do you know that’s what the cry means? It’s dragon language, after all.”
Again Tamwyn shrugged. From his point of view, she might just as well have asked him how he breathed. “I don’t know. It’s just another trick, I guess. Something I learned . . .”
“When you had nothing better to do,” finished Nuic. Though he sounded grumpy again, there was a strange, uncertain expression on his face.
Tamwyn’s gaze moved to the empty pot of stew on the knoll. “Guess I should start another supper, or we won’t be eating before the middle of the night.”
“Eating?”
All eyes turned to the hoola
h sitting in the beech tree. Henni nodded vigorously. “Now that’s a language I can understand! Hoohoohoo, hehe, hoohoo.”
Tamwyn just shook his head. He started toward the food supplies, half of which had been swallowed by the hungry young dragon. Then, just to be sure they were now safe, he checked over his shoulder at the valley where the dragon had run off . . . and where he himself had run freely not long before.
There was no sign of the dragon. All that remained was the path of flattened soil and crushed rocks where it had dragged its enormous bulk over the ground. Nearby, in the rim of mud at the edge of the small pool, Tamwyn saw his own footprints from when he’d started his run up the valley.
And then he saw something else. Something that made his heart freeze.
There, embedded in the mud, were the prints from his swift run back to camp. Or at least that was what they should have been. Tamwyn stared at them in disbelief. For these prints were different. Much different.
They were the hoofprints of a stag.
18 • Absolutely
Finally, Brionna neared the canyon rim. Though her legs shook from the strain of her long climb, she didn’t even pause before starting up the last redrock cliff. Higher she moved, and higher, like a squirrel on a tree trunk. Just below the top, she wrapped her hand around a protruding knob and lifted herself up enough to throw her leg over. With a final grunt of effort, she rolled onto the rim at last.
She lay there, flat on her back, gasping for air. With every breath, puffs of red dust rose off her tattered robe. This was the first rest she’d taken since leaving the sorcerer with the pale hands several hours ago.
Before she sat up, she let herself imagine her beloved Woodroot—the forest of endless greenery that she’d now see again. Rich and lively it was, full of verdant groves, sweet-smelling fruits, uncounted creatures, and alluring pathways. Seeing it again would surely restore her soul after those three tortured days on the sorcerer’s dam. For while she and Granda had been stolen away from Woodroot, bound and blindfolded, part of them could never leave those fragrant forest paths.
