‘Sprained his wrist falling off that Down Rope,’ Kahly grimaced as she tied back her hair. Only a foolish Kuapoh ever fell off any rope.
‘Or he just prefers his own bed at this time of year, given how much earlier the sun rises,’ Jommen stated the truth. ‘Although he did fall quite bad, but then he had drunken quite a lot.’
Asaph laughed. ‘I told him to avoid Fire Wine after beer,’ he shook his head, ‘but Tillin always has to find out for himself. Besides, we all should be at home in case the Histanatarns come, they are far more deadly than goblins.’
They walked in silence, probably all thinking about the dreaded Histanatarns as Asaph was. The savage fish-like sea people plagued the Kuapoh’s shores, but their attacks were rare, maybe once a year, and if they came they would only brave the Abha Fey in their small boats in the calmest summer weather.
Coronos had told him that the Histanatarns also plagued the shores of Drax. Histanatarn, their island kingdom, existed in the north far to the west, and a little south of Drax. Draxians and Kuapoh were united through a common enemy, and both feared them for their viciousness in battle was unrivalled.
‘I think I’d rather do this goblin scouting than face the Histanatarns,’ Kahly shuddered. Asaph nodded. Jommen stayed silent.
Kahly was older than them both by five years and often recounted a particularly bad Histanatarn attack on their village when the others were too young to remember. Twenty-three members of their tribe; men, women, and children, had been taken or killed by the savage sea people. All Kuapoh agreed it was better to be killed than enslaved by them.
‘The shamans say they have been attacking our kinsfolk further down the coast the last few years, further than they ever have been,’ Kahly frowned. ‘It is said their boats are sped by magic that they did not have before. They never strike the same place twice, always keeping us wary. I fear our time is soon.’
‘We’ll be ready for them,’ Jommen said in a hard voice.
‘My father told me of their attacks on Draxian shores. If their boats can span the Abha Fey and navigate past the Shadowlands, then magic must spur them on,’ Asaph said. They fell silent again and a shared worry was mirrored in his friends’ faces.
‘Oh look,’ Kahly said, pointing up at a tree. ‘A Chukatan.’
Asaph spied the luminous yellow body of the bird amongst vines high up in the canopy. As if sensing Kahly’s pointing finger, it squawked once, and flopped into the air. Massive indigo coloured wings spread wide and the fruit-eater circled up and away over the treetops.
‘Well, there’s our good luck omen for the day,’ Jommen grinned at the rare sighting and their shared mood brightened.
They walked the long route around the perimeter of their homeland, a journey that would take half a day or so. As they walked, they chatted about the early summer weather and small things, but Asaph soon found his thoughts drifting and the others’ voices faded into a low background hum.
Though Jommen’s words were meant only in jest, they’d hit a sore point. He had no female companion and wasn’t looking likely to get anymore than friendship amongst the Kuapoh. Despite their good and mostly peaceful lives, they were very rigid in their social structures. They had found what worked, and stuck to it, no one wanted to stand out or be different. If it was working why change it? So their mentality went.
To Asaph’s sense of adventure and love of the unknown, he found such rigidity boring, stifling even. Was it the Draxian within him that longed for change, longed to explore the world? He thought it was. He would have broached the subject with Coronos if he weren’t so embarrassed by his singledom.
But if he was honest with himself it was more than that. He was further embarrassed when he realised the only woman he really wanted was the dark-haired girl in his dream. No other held his interest, no other could be what she was to him. Even though he doubted whether she really existed, nothing could change the fact that he’d always dreamed about her, even as a child too young to understand relationships. I’d prefer a made-up fantasy woman than someone real, he thought, and laughed aloud. The others looked at him, and he coughed.
‘Sorry, I was thinking of Tillin,’ he muttered.
The others grinned. ‘I doubt you’ve heard a word I’ve said.’ Kahly rolled her eyes.
‘I have, sort of,’ Asaph replied, racking his brains. ‘What was it?’ he asked meekly.
‘Honestly, I swear you have become more and more withdrawn and involved in your own thoughts these last few weeks. Anyway, I said let’s stop to eat by the river, the one with the little waterfall,’ she repeated.
‘Sounds good, I’m starving,’ Asaph agreed.
Spurred on by their bellies, they picked up the pace. As they’d been expecting, they encountered no goblins on the way, not even on the rocks before the river where they were most likely to be seen. Still, the hungry party moved cautiously as they neared, hugging the wall and keeping low, their footfalls making no sound. A rabbit in hiding bolted from cover and was joined by a younger one before both disappeared. The startled party relaxed.
They settled beside the small swift flowing river and filled their canisters with the clear water. Up ahead the waterfall splashed down rocks, creating a fine mist dancing with rainbows in the sunlight. They opened their packs, and tucked into their brunch of honeyed nuts and filled breads.
After they had eaten Asaph disappeared off to relieve himself. He had just started to make his way back when, as he adjusted his sword belt, his hand brushed across his mother’s ring in his pocket. All at once the Recollection opened like a book in his mind and he saw a great wooden door. He felt the dragon within stir. Then the door that appeared in his mind somehow projected before him and materialised.
He stopped dead in his tracks and gawped at the thick walnut door in front of him. It was maybe ten feet tall and over three feet wide. Carved on it was a dragon’s head about the size of a horse’s head. Its snout was longer than his arm and protruded impossibly out. The whole thing seemed to be expertly carved out of one block. The detail on the dragon was profound, with small slender horns dotted up its snout, and long thin ears. Its big, slitted eyes were half-lidded and completely serene, benevolent even. Fangs hooked over the bottom lip, and every patch of skin was carefully etched in scales. If it had not been all wood, he would have thought the dragon was alive.
Was it real? He blinked several times, but the door remained. He sidled towards it. What if it opened? Where did it go? Or was something awful going to come through it? His raised hand hesitated at the last thought. He could see no handle or keyhole, nothing to suggest it was a door at all other than being big and made of wood. It could just as easily be a decorative panel. But somehow he knew it was a door, though he could not recall where it led. He tried to search the Recollection, but the memories wouldn’t budge as if it were stuck on the page with the dragon door.
He touched the nose and jumped, somehow expecting his hand to pass right through. It was solid and smooth and warm in the sunlight. He traced the snout up to the door itself, marvelling at the exquisite workmanship. He pushed on it, but there was no budging it, it may as well have been made of solid rock. He ran behind it, half expecting something to be there, but there was only green grass and the smooth back of the door. He looked around, but nothing else had changed, the river still tinkled, the birds still sang, and a little way a way he heard the others chatting.
‘Hey,’ he called out after a moment, wondering if he should or not. ‘Hey, you guys, come look at this. It’s…. it’s bizarre.’ Indistinct voices returned. He turned to go and get them, glancing back one last time at the walnut door as he rounded the bushes to where they were. They were strapping on their packs and adjusting their weapons. They looked nervous.
‘Relax,’ Asaph raised his hands. ‘No goblins, just something very strange. Come and look,’ he said and grabbed his pack. But as soon as he said it he felt the Recollection snap shut in his mind. He darted round the corner with the others
following behind.
‘Oh no. It’s gone.’
‘What’s gone?’ Jommen and Kahly replied in unison.
‘There was a… there was a door…’ Asaph trailed off, looking all about him as if it had somehow moved, but not even the grass was flattened where it had been. His friends sighed and folded their arms. Kahly raised her eyebrow, clearly not amused.
‘There was a door, a great big fat wooden door, right here, I swear it,’ Asaph said, feeling his face grow hot. ‘I’m… I’m not lying,’ he huffed and stood tall with hands on hips.
‘Well, where is it then?’ Jommen laughed, clearly enjoying this.
‘Right here,’ Asaph pointed at the ground, realising how silly this looked to them. ‘It appeared out of nowhere, I don’t know what it was or where it came from, but it was here and solid, and it had a… dragon on it,’ his shoulders slumped as the others laughed loudly.
‘That’s a good one, ‘Zzzzaph,’ Kahly said. ‘Dragons don’t even exist.’
Asaph felt as if he had taken a blow to the stomach. He was surprised at how the harmless silly comment caught him, but it struck him to the core of his being. Through the tumult of emotions, he managed to force a smile and even a chuckle spluttered from his lips.
‘I must be seeing things, maybe it was fairy magic,’ his own voice seemed to come from far away. They laughed and carried on walking.
In a daze, Asaph followed his chatting friends into the trees. That was the heart of it, wasn’t it? They were right. Dragons don’t even exist, not anymore. They are gone. Everything and all that I am is gone. Even if he could return, there was nothing there for him. But there was nothing here for him, either. He belonged nowhere and to nothing.
If he had been alone the cracks snaking across his veneer of forced smiles and feigned laughter would have splintered him apart. The part of him that laughed and joked along whilst they walked, kept the other part of him from shattering. A desperate, all-consuming homesickness swelled in his belly ready to explode. He had to be alone, who knew what the dragon form might do. He had to find solace. He racked his brain for an excuse to escape.
‘Oh, I forgot,’ Asaph stopped short, suddenly remembering the sweet smelling herb Coronos added to his lintel weed. ‘Father wanted some greynight for his pipe. I’ll see if I can find some in the usual place, I shan’t be long.’ He turned and loped back up the path before the others could say they would come too.
‘Something is really up with him lately.’ Asaph’s sensitive hearing picked up Kahly’s voice, followed by a murmur of agreement from Jommen. But Asaph, once out of sight, darted off the path into the thick forest and didn’t stop until the trees crowded around him.
Asaph skidded to a stop, closed his eyes, and sunk back against a tree trunk with a sigh. His heart raced with more than exertion. Helpless frustration and the burden of his dragon secret weighed him down to the ground. The dragon within stirred restlessly. He had kept it bound by silent lock and key, but he knew it was a wild creature and it would not be bound forever. Keeping it locked up was making him sick, physically and mentally.
‘I have to get away from here,’ he hissed, clasping his palms to his temples and trying to rub the ache in his mind. ‘What does the dragon door mean?’ he asked aloud. ‘Am I going mad?’ No answer came.
He dropped his hands with a sigh and tried willing the dragon door to reappear, but nothing happened. There were no answers to his questions, not any of them; who was the girl in his dreams, what was the dragon door, what could he do with the dragon inside that was trying to tear him apart, how he was ever going to leave and find his place in the world?
He sunk down to squatting, arms resting on knees. If I stay here I will go mad. He had to try to return to the Old World. I don’t care if I die trying. I’ll only die of insanity if I stay anyway. He chuckled at the thought. Who ever thought of dying of insanity?
His eyes fell upon the familiar spread of tiny dusky-grey flowers spreading like a blanket over the roots and earth. Their petals were closed during the day, but at night they sprung open, giving them their name “greynight”. He stared at them for a long while. He should tell Coronos about the dragon within. He should always have told him. He shuddered, the thought of telling his father his secret was somehow worse than facing goblins.
As he fumbled for his pocketknife, his hand brushed the ring again, but no door came. Instead, her face flashed in his mind. He closed his eyes to keep the vision there and vivid.
‘What is it I am supposed to do, Mother?’ he whispered. ‘Why aren’t you here?’ His hand settled on his pocketknife and the vision disappeared without any answers. With a sigh he reached down to the flowers and chopped away at the wiry stems.
‘It is a gentle hand that harvests the best.’
He jumped up and spun around at Coronos’ voice. The older man eyed him peculiarly as he leant on his staff. His pale grey cloak was flung back over his shoulders and there was perspiration on his face. Asaph felt his cheeks grow hot, feeling like a guilty child and hoping Coronos hadn’t heard him speaking. Asaph looked at the squashed leaves in his palm apologetically.
‘Yes, I’m careless. My mind is… on other things,’ he mumbled. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, I fancied a walk,’ Coronos replied and came to stand beside him. ‘I felt all cooped up and stuffy, and next door’s children were driving me mad.’ Asaph rolled his eyes with a nod. ‘I thought you would forget the greynight, since you seem preoccupied of late, and then I bumped into your friends who told me you had run back to get it.
‘You know you are not the only one that feels restless, Asaph.’ Coronos looked off into the forest, his face pensive. ‘There are changes coming, it troubles me…’ he trailed off.
‘Yes, Father, I feel it too, a terrible restlessness deep inside. It’s the… it’s the…’ dragon within. But he couldn’t say it. ‘It’s in the wind.’ His shoulders slumped and he felt sick to his stomach. The secret bound him tightly and would not let him speak the truth.
‘Yes, it is,’ Coronos agreed as his grey eyes settled upon him.
‘I do not belong here,’ Asaph said quietly, desperately trying to stop tears filling his eyes. ‘I know I have to leave someday, maybe sooner than later. I have to try to return to the Old World, or die trying.’
To his shock, Coronos nodded and did not disagree as he always did.
‘Our homeland calls to us,’ Coronos said. ‘But such a journey I vowed never to repeat. The Great Goddess only knows how far the Shadowlands have spread…’ he trailed off, his eyes looking into the past.
‘We have to try,’ Asaph pleaded, feeling excited at the thought. ‘Please let us try.’
‘How do we try?’ Coronos said, his seriousness washing away Asaph’s excitement, ‘The Kuapoh do not sail, their boats are for the shallow reef and rivers. It’s a fool’s thought to build our own ship.’
Asaph was silent for a moment, he hadn’t really thought much about how it could be done, only that it must. ‘We’ll find a way. We could try to build a big boat, maybe you could remember what the one you came on looked like and we could draw it.’
Coronos snorted. ‘Fool boy. Building a ship takes even a skilled boat-maker many years with hundreds of people involved.’
Asaph took a deep breath, overwhelmed by the impossible logic of their task. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he murmured, but the world shrank again and the thought of never being able to leave settled upon him like chains.
Coronos’ frown softened into a half-smile and he spoke less chidingly as if sensing his pain. ‘We can always talk about it, of course. We can always try.’
Asaph reached down and carefully cut a few more stems of greynight. Then the two men ambled back home, speaking only of what the day had brought them and the birds and animals they had seen. He kicked himself for missing his chance to tell Coronos his long-kept secret, but he vowed to try again when the time felt right. He didn’t need to mention the mysterious d
ragon door, feeling foolish enough after his friends’ laughter.
That night sleep was a long time in coming as he obsessed about the dragon door and how on earth they were ever going to build a boat big and strong enough to carry them across Maioria’s most treacherous ocean.
Eventually, he slipped into torturous dreams in which he made a boat and sailed upon a calm ocean under blue skies. But a raging storm whipped up out of nowhere and the waters frothed dark and murky. An incessant maddening wail rang out louder than the howling wind and pierced his soul. Through the waves, a white monster ploughed and careened into his boat. It raised its bulbous head, coal black eyes and a great red maw lined with hundreds of shining teeth grinned up at him.
Chapter 10
The Colour Of Magic
A stream of sunlight poured through the open trap door, illuminating the gloom of the underground storage room. Issa stretched and watched the dust and tiny flies dance in the light, feeling as though she had slept a thousand years and could sleep a thousand more. Breakfast was only a few steps away, and now her basic survival needs were met, she could think on other things.
She should make a shrine for Ma, somewhere on their hill above the destroyed orchard where the sun still shone and the wind blew. She’d not had a chance to grieve or even time to say a prayer. But she could not return there, the thought of it made her tremble. She could never return, and neither could she stay here on a desolate island. But there was plenty of food, and people would come eventually, wouldn’t they?
“All gone…” she remembered that soft whisper. But the being made of light had been a dream, hadn’t it?
She sat up. It had felt real at the time. Was everyone gone? Could it be true? Could all the islands have suffered the same terrible fate? She would never hear another voice again if she remained here, for who would come? Mainlanders went to the larger eastern islands and rarely came to Bigger Kammy, and rarer still to Little Kammy unless by accident. By the time a ship ever chanced these shores she would have long died of old age.
Night Goddess (The Goddess Prophecies Book 1) Page 9
