The Beginning

by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  Jaax took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Is everyone ready?” he asked.

  The other three dragons nodded and Jaax climbed to the edge of the precipice. This one was even steeper than the cliff top he’d slept on earlier that day.

  “May Ethoes grant us another successful night,” he said solemnly.

  The four dragons quietly mumbled an ancient blessing in their own dialect of Kruelt. On Jaax’s signal they launched themselves off the mountain, their giant reptilian bodies invisible against the black of night.

  Don’t worry Jahrra, Jaax thought as they crossed over the Oribiy River, the moonlight sparking off its surface far below, I’ll stop them, I won’t let them find you.

  As the miles fled by, Jaax found his thoughts returning to his nightmare once again. He felt so helpless in that world, unable to move, unable to shout out a warning to Jahrra, unable to confront the demon who attacked her. But he wouldn’t let that world become reality; he wouldn’t allow his nightmare to take form in the world of the living. He would fight, fight to the death if he had to in order to keep Jahrra safe. With a renewed vigor, Jaax set his teeth and felt the flames building deep in his chest as the weak firelight of a large camp came into view. Someday he would defeat the Crimson King, but tonight he would simply delay him.

  -Chapter One-

  Advice from a Mystic

  “Jahrra! Be careful, that plant–”

  “ARRGGGHHH!”

  Jahrra released the stubborn weed the second it spewed a noxious cloud of gas into her face. She fell to the ground and immediately started coughing, waving at the green mist in an attempt to rid herself of the horrible smell.

  “I was going to say, ‘that plant is called Bog’s Breath for a reason.’”

  Jahrra glared up at Denaeh, her youthful expression showing amusement. She had her sleeves rolled up and her face was shaded by a wide straw hat. Dirt and mud covered her hands and forearms, but she didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

  “You could have warned me before hand,” Jahrra grumbled as the awful odor of Bog’s Breath finally floated away.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot, until I saw you tugging away at it. You have to be cautious of the leaves. If you press them too hard the sack underneath will burst, and well, you know what happens then.”

  It was obvious that Denaeh was trying very hard not to laugh. Jahrra sighed and stood up, brushing herself off in the process. It’d been months since the strange Mystic had helped her frighten Eydeth and Ellysian, and she was determined to make it up to her, even if it meant weeding a garden that was full of gas-spewing plants.

  Jahrra gave her newest friend a weak smile and got back to work, tugging and yanking a little more cautiously now. As she pulled on stubborn weeds and listened to the sound of fog dew dripping to the forest floor, Jahrra thought about her summer. Now that it was nearly over, she would be starting school again and facing the evil twins once more.

  A grin suddenly split Jahrra’s face. Earlier that spring she’d been dared to enter the dreaded Belloughs of the Black Swamp in the Wreing Florenn to find the terrible witch that lived there. Despite the rumored dangers and her own fear, Jahrra had done it, all to win back her favorite retreat, Lake Ossar. The horrible Resai twins had taken a sudden interest in the lake and in doing so had forced Jahrra and her two best friends, Gieaun and Scede, to find another place to hide from them. When Eydeth had challenged Jahrra to enter the Black Swamp, she’d made a deal with him: he and his sister had to stay away from Lake Ossar for good. The only hitch had been that Jahrra needed to prove she had found the witch, and until she discovered the Mystic Denaeh, she had no idea how she was going to prove it. In the end, the Mystic pretended to chase Jahrra out of the forest, terrifying all of her waiting classmates in the process. Eydeth and Ellysian hadn’t bothered her since.

  “Drat!”

  Jahrra jerked her hand back and drew her palm to her mouth to subdue the new wound. She loved to help Denaeh with her chores, but the Mystic had a knack for growing strange and sometimes painful plants.

  The Mystic looked up from her corner of the garden and smiled.

  “Don’t worry, that one isn’t poisonous.”

  Jahrra glowered at her, the edge of her hand still in her mouth. The day after Jahrra had met the Mystic Archedenaeh, she had been given a warning about the strange woman. At least she thought it was a warning. Gieaun and Scede were suspicious, naturally, and cautioned Jahrra to stay away from her new acquaintance.

  “She’s too odd, Jahrra! She could be anyone at all!” Gieaun had said.

  Scede merely nodded grimly in his usual, quiet fashion.

  Because of her friends’ apprehension, Jahrra hadn’t told Hroombra about Denaeh. Master Hroombra would never approve of any of this, Jahrra reminded herself. She glanced about the misty Belloughs deep within the dreaded Wreing Florenn and imagined what the great Korli dragon, huddled over his manuscripts, would say if he knew where she was just now.

  Jahrra shivered and dashed the thought from her mind. She hated keeping secrets from her guardian, but all too often she found it necessary. Since Hroombra knew nothing of her new acquaintance, the warning about the Mystic hadn’t come from him, nor had it come from Phrym, her loyal semequin. No, it had come from someone she had only met in her dreams. Someone who was more of a stranger to her than Denaeh, but more familiar to her than anyone else she knew. He had shown up, shrouded in his green cloak, drawing her away from the unicorn she had followed to the Belloughs of the Black Swamp in her dream world.

  For a few days Jahrra considered heeding her cloaked stranger’s silent warning, but in the end she decided that Denaeh was too intriguing a person to ignore. Besides, Jahrra reassured herself, I owe her my thanks for dealing with the evil twins.

  Jahrra pulled her sleeve down over her wounded hand and attacked the spiny weed with a renewed vigor. With a terrible ripping sound it finally pulled free from the rich soil and joined the pile of other strange debris. Jahrra sighed and searched for a new enemy to tackle, secretly dreading the end of the week.

  “Why so quiet?” Denaeh finally asked, running her forearm across her brow.

  Jahrra looked up and blinked. Denaeh was much closer than she had realized. She sighed again and grumbled, “School starts next week.”

  “Is that all?” Denaeh answered, laughter dancing in her amber eyes.

  “You know what that means!” Jahrra snapped, standing up and brushing away an annoying wisp of hair that had escaped its braid. “Eydeth and Ellysian. I can avoid them during the summer, but once school starts . . .”

  Jahrra donned a disgusted face and shivered.

  “Come now, they wouldn’t dare mess with the girl who faced the Witch of the Wreing and survived to tell the tale!” Denaeh hunched over and wiggled her fingers.

  Jahrra couldn’t help but smile. She did have that wonderful memory to dwell on, but something told her it wouldn’t work forever.

  Before she bent down to pull at another weed, she mumbled in Denaeh’s direction, “You don’t know the evil twins.”

  ***

  Ignoring Eydeth and Ellysian at the beginning of the school year was easy at first. With the combined effects of Viornen’s and Yaraa’s training, the recollection of her escape from the Witch of the Wreing still circulating the school ground, and the somewhat therapeutic visits to the Black Swamp, Jahrra wondered if she was safe from the twins’ jibes for good. But of course their cold silence was only temporary. A mere few weeks into the school year the twins started spreading stories of what really happened in the Wreing Florenn. They claimed that Jahrra invented her adventure story because they’d invented the evil Witch-Hag of the Black Swamp, and that their father and uncles had hunted in that swamp for ages without seeing hide or hair of such a creature.

  When several of their classmates wondered about the terrifying woman who had come screaming out of the forest after Jahrra, Ellysian had a ready excuse.

  “That was probably one of
her friends from that mud hole! I bet she paid them to dress up and howl like that, though I have no idea what she could have paid them with!” Ellysian had crooned menacingly.

  Far too angry to speak, Jahrra had simply clenched her fists and stalked to the other side of the schoolyard to fume. Eydeth and Ellysian were on her last nerve, and she didn’t know how much more she could stand. Stupid, she thought, how could I be so stupid to think that they’d actually leave me alone after this?

  “The most dangerous thing you could’ve seen in there was a mosquito or two!” Eydeth cackled, half bent over, his face contorted and his cheeks streaming with tears. “I bet you ran in terror when you saw them! Is that why you and your mud-hole friend came screaming out of the woods?”

  This earned a healthy rumble of laughter from some of the students, but not as many as usual, and Jahrra couldn’t help but be a little happy for this bit of fortune. The twins were still on the hunt, but it seemed that their pack was getting tired of chasing down the same old prey. By the middle of fall, however, the majority of the class, except for Gieaun and Scede and a few others, were convinced that Jahrra was the liar Eydeth claimed her to be.

  Jahrra would’ve accepted their continued abuse with some dignity if it hadn’t been for one thing: Eydeth and Ellysian had gone back on their word about staying away from Lake Ossar. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede had enjoyed a few weeks of freedom at the lake after the success of her venture into the swamp, but then, out of the blue, the twins suddenly started showing up at the lake once again.

  “What are you doing here!?” Jahrra had demanded angrily of her two mortal enemies. “You are not supposed to be here! We had a deal!”

  It was the second weekend after the start of school and Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede had been craving an escape to the lake.

  “We don’t have to keep promises to liars,” Eydeth had sniffed, dangerously quiet as he stood his ground.

  “Now move out of the way, we have more important things to do than talk to worthless Nesnans!” Ellysian spat, sweeping past Jahrra in a flurry of the layers of skirts she always wore.

  Jahrra was livid, and if it hadn’t been for Gieaun and Scede holding her back, she would’ve tackled Ellysian and practiced a few of her newly learned attack moves on her.

  “I’ll get you back for this someday!” she screamed in rage as the twins and their friends marched away sniggering.

  “Jahrra! Calm down, there’s nothing we can do!” Gieaun hissed, trying very hard not to bolt after Ellysian herself.

  Scede had been so angry he couldn’t move from where he stood for several minutes.

  “I’ll find a way to get rid of them if it kills me!” Jahrra seethed as the three friends left the lake.

  Jahrra could feel herself burning with anger as she recalled the memory. That had been over a month ago, and it was now the middle of autumn. Soon it would be winter, and soon she would have a few weeks away from the twins. Free time for going to the lake and watching the winter birds, Jahrra thought sadly, shivering with annoyance as she remembered her one place of sanctuary was no longer safe. Well, maybe not my only place of sanctuary, she thought with a wry grin. She was presently stretched out on a great sagging, moss-covered oak branch, her arms folded under her chin, watching Denaeh tend to some of her plants and mushrooms. It was a foggy, quiet fall day similar to the late summer day when she had last been to the Belloughs before the start of school. The familiar smell of sluggish smoke tinged the air and she kicked her legs lazily, the hanging dry moss from the branch above brushing her feet.

  Even deep in the Black Swamp, where normally one would be on their guard, Jahrra couldn’t help but feel comfortable and at ease. The forest was enveloped in a great blanket of fog, but everywhere within this deaf silence echoed the small sounds of moisture collecting and slapping leaves as the water droplets fell to the forest floor. Both near and far the sounds of the dripping condensation sang in unison with the quiet crackle of Denaeh’s fire. The small noises of the tiny creatures searching out the driest spot to rest in the underbrush only added to the secretive atmosphere.

  The silence only enhanced Jahrra’s other senses as she continued to brood over her latest debacle with the twins. How? How do they keep getting away with it!? How do they keep winning even when I beat them?

  Jahrra had been so lost in thought that she failed to notice Denaeh smiling up at her.

  “Don’t let it bother you so much,” she said aloud, shocking Jahrra back into the present world. “It happened months ago. Besides, are you sorry that you accepted their dare?”

  Again, she’d managed to read Jahrra’s mind. This statement, if given by Hroombra, or worse, Jaax, would have raised Jahrra’s hackles and turned her pale gray-blue eyes deep cobalt. But coming from Denaeh it made perfect sense. Besides, she’d been listening to Jahrra’s thoughts again, and one couldn’t be angry with someone who had that kind of power.

  “I’m not saying that I’m disappointed,” Jahrra proclaimed. “I wouldn’t have met you if I’d backed down. But those two always seem to lure me into their trap, and no matter what, no matter how many times I succeed, I never can win. I just wish for once I could get back at them, not just for a few weeks, but for good. I’m still angry at them for trying to kill me on Solsticetide!”

  Denaeh merely nodded and smiled, still bent over her precious mushrooms. She hadn’t seen the young girl since the week before school had started and at that time Jahrra was still pleased with the results of their combined act to bring the dreaded swamp witch to life.

  “You had the lake for a while, did you not? And you and Gieaun and Scede alone have the satisfaction of seeing the twins’ faces and hearing their screams when I chased you from the trees. They can claim you lied all they want, but they were petrified.”

  “I know,” Jahrra huffed, “but I just wish there was a way to get them to leave us alone.”

  Denaeh stood up from her crouching position, black crumbs of soil tumbling off the front of her stained apron. She pressed her hands against her lower back and stretched, gazing off into the distance as if doing so would clear her mind.

  She stood that way for several minutes before she spoke, “I don’t usually partake in revenge because I believe that everything will one day come back to haunt you, even if those you are casting your vengeance upon have been deserving their comeuppance for quite some time. But I like you Jahrra, you remind me of what it truly means to be youthful, and these two children have stepped far over the boundaries of what should be tolerated. So I shall help you this one time in developing a plot to disrupt the evil twins, as you so claim them.”

  Jahrra’s head shot up, her cheek prickling after having left behind its mossy pillow. She hadn’t thought that Denaeh would ever propose such a thing. The Mystic was grinning up at the young girl underneath a halo of fire-red hair, a look of mischief soon replacing the look of calm composure on her youthful face.

  “Now,” said Denaeh clasping her hands together in a gesture suggesting she was about to clean an untidy room, much less plot revenge, “you’ll have to attack them in a place that is in your territory. Now when I say your territory, I mean a place that is comfortable and well known by you. For instance.”

  Denaeh cocked her head so one side of her face was exposed to Jahrra. “Lake Ossar . . ?”

  Jahrra snorted. “Oh, they go out there as often as they can now. But Gieaun and Scede and I know it far better than they do.”

  Jahrra sat up now and rested her elbows on her knees, allowing her legs to dangle freely. Denaeh stood there, her left arm supporting the elbow of the arm whose hand was now thrust under her chin. Jahrra couldn’t make out her expression; her face was downturned.

  “And how deep is this lake?” Denaeh continued.

  “Probably only twenty feet at the most in the center,” Jahrra answered blankly, sitting up a little straighter and returning her focus on Denaeh.

  “And what sorts of animals live in this lake?” the Mystic asked casu
ally, waving her free hand around as if trying to extend the smoky scent of burning incense.

  “Oh, nothing more dangerous than large trout and bass, frogs and tadpoles, turtles, and some water bugs. Leeches, maybe.”

  Jahrra counted the creatures off on her fingers, then after a few moments of silence, she chuckled and sat up fully on the large limb.

  The Mystic finally raised her head.

  “What is it?” she asked, looking truly confused since the first time Jahrra had met her.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about what else might live in the lake, and I remembered some stories Gieaun’s and Scede’s father used to tell us.”

  “What kinds of stories?” Denaeh pressed on, casualty still cloaking her voice.

  “Just stories to scare us. Stories about a lake monster. They’re harmless, but they sure scared me when I was younger.”

  A glint of mischief flared within the Mystic’s eyes, turning them for just a second from clear golden honey to living, burning sunlight. She smiled ever so slightly.

  “A lake monster, huh?” she said composedly.

  “Yeah, just legends to tell over a campfire really,” Jahrra answered lazily, letting her shoulders slouch under the weight of the fog.

  Denaeh paused for a moment, and Jahrra sensed that she was thinking carefully.

  “So, there’s no way that the lake is fathoms deep in the center, and it is in no way possible that a hideous creature lives at the lake’s bottom and comes up every so often to feed upon whatever disturbs the surface?”

  Jahrra stared down at Denaeh with a furrowed brow. Then, as the realization of what the Mystic was getting at set in, she smiled broadly, both hands set firmly on the mossy perch on either side of her. The silent sounds of the foggy wood were soon filled with the enchanting laughter of the two women, one very young and one very old.

  -Chapter Two-

  The Plan

  Jahrra told Gieaun and Scede the very next day of the plan she and Denaeh had concocted. She rightfully gave the Mystic most of the credit, seeing as it really had been her idea. Gieaun giggled with glee and Scede took on the same impish grin that Jahrra herself had held the day before.