Dragon's Rise

by Lou Hoffmann

  Having returned to his imposing human form, Tiro addressed Zhevi quietly. “I have spoken to L’Aria, and she has agreed to help these people get to the Sisterhold. To do that, she has to be human. She is afraid, and she will also be vulnerable during the transformation, if it proceeds like her change to otter form did. I have assured her I will stay by her until it’s done, and we will go to a place where she has privacy. We should be back by dawn, and then I will explain my plan to you and our guests. Please, stay by them in my stead, and help them as much as you can if something is needed.”

  Zhevi felt willing but a little overwhelmed at the request, and perhaps it showed.

  “I would not ask you to do this if I did not know without doubt you are capable. Simply be yourself, Zhevi.”

  Zhevi nodded, and within the space of the next breath, Tiro was gone. He truly didn’t think he could sleep, what with the responsibility and all that was going on. But after he checked on the horses and walked carefully through the wolves and wights to be sure everything seemed okay, he lay down on his blankets, his back to the fallen log, and watched the water spill over the rocks, glittering in moonlight.

  When he woke up, the red rocks of Embers Falls had just begun to glow with the sunrise, and Tiro and L’Aria stood on the rocks at the top, waiting for the day. L’Aria looked tired, but when she caught sight of him as he approached, she smiled. She pulled him into an enthusiastic hug as he stepped up beside her, and when he glanced apprehensively at her father, Tiro rolled his eyes and turned away, hiding a smile. Then, Zhevi threw his arms around L’Aria and hugged her tight, and he didn’t stop until Tiro politely coughed.

  “Greetings,” Eldos said, climbing up the rocks to stand with them.

  “I again introduce you to my daughter, L’Aria Tira,” Tiro said after they’d all returned the wight’s salutations. “She has endured a difficult transformation in order to help you make your way to the Sisterhold, according to your purpose. She will take you by a network of caves and tunnels most in the Sunlands have long forgotten.”

  “Ah! We will be out of the sun, out of the heat, then?”

  “Yes, the caves follow waterways, and remain cooled year around. You will need to be aboveground for short distances in order to take the quickest way to your destination, but it should be possible for you to travel those parts of your journey at night. You should be no more than two days, two nights on the trail. As for Zhevi and I, we must make better haste, and we will take the horses and be in the Sunlands by tomorrow morning. We’ll prepare for your arrival.”

  “I thank you on behalf of my small band of travelers. Because of you, all of you, we may hope to survive and bring help back to the clans.”

  “For my daughter and I, Eldos, you and your people are but another part of our song. All of the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms of Ethra are essential to her well-being. We do what we can for you, and for the greatest good of all, for in the song, as my daughter said to me, is the preservation of the world.”

  Chapter Five: L’Aria Sings in the Heart of the World

  L’ARIA SANG as she led the cairnwights and their glacier wolves through tunnels and galleries no feet but hers and Tiro’s had trod for centuries. Before the Portals of Naught came into use, these ways had been heavily traveled, for they offered not only refuge from the elements, but a refuge into magic. As if they were the veins in the body of the world herself, they carried a steady flow of Ethra’s life force—the remarkable energy that fueled her existence and manifested as the magic so prevalent in her people and her histories.

  L’Aria sensed a sadness in the heart of the world, though, a quiet failing. Frequently, she walked in the water at the edge of the streams they followed in order to keep the world’s illness from draining her own spirit. The wights and wolves seemed unaffected and that was good. But though the water helped L’Aria stay focused and held grief for Ethra at bay, something strange and troubling was happening in those underground streams—as if the eddies she waded through were eddies not only in water but in time.

  Yes, that was it. And she could feel herself changing, as if every time she passed through one of these time-swirls she aged, or rather matured. It didn’t upset her—she received it like a gift. It felt as if Ethra’s waters and the stream of time conspired to give her back the growth she had lost in her long sleep.

  She hoped it might make her transition to otter and back easier. Maybe with time she’d be able to change quickly and painlessly like her father. As it was, her shift had been torture, and all through the long process she had been defenseless. She explained to Eldos that while she might be decent at catching fish as a human, if they wanted much to eat, they’d better fish for their own food, because she wasn’t going to go through the change simply to feed them. It would take time from their travels and, honestly, it wasn’t worth the pain and the risk. If she couldn’t make the change successfully, or if something harmed her while she couldn’t defend herself, they would have no guide, and she doubted they’d be able to find the way on their own.

  About four hours or so into their trip, Eldos asked her to halt the next time they found a place where fish might be plentiful. She took them about a quarter mile out of the way to an underground lake. The water teemed with fish—both the ordinary kind that had ended up there by accident and the pale, blind fish that only ever lived underground. Without fuel for fire, they cleaned their fish carefully and ate them raw—L’Aria too, though she supplemented it with bread, cheese, and sausage Zhevi had given her from his supplies. It wasn’t much, but she offered to share it with her charges as they sat on the hard-packed ground at the lakeshore. They accepted small bits of sausage but wanted nothing to do with bread or cheese. They seemed appalled that she would eat those things, and that made L’Aria laugh.

  It felt good. There had been too little to laugh about in recent days.

  She led them back to the main passage and kept them going for another few hours, then judged they’d gone far enough that if they wanted to travel at night for the overland segment of the trail—necessary because of a centuries-old cave-in—they should stop and rest where they were first. They stopped where two streams came together to form a wider river, one of the tributaries tumbling down from high above and plunging into the sluggish stream that meandered listlessly to meet it. Fish from the aboveground streams ended up in the cave, so the people ate again—ate well—before they slept.

  L’Aria slept too, but she woke before the others and ducked into the stream, making her Portal with a song so she could check for danger aboveground before leading them out. She found the tracks of dawn cats and smelled their lingering musk on the air. They’re on the move, she thought, for it wasn’t a place they were known to inhabit. She tried to decide if that made them more or less of a danger, but in the end decided it didn’t matter. Dawn cats would hesitate to attack so large a party unless they were quite numerous, but such things had happened, and the wolves they had with them, though dangerous, were too few to save them from a large gathering of dawn cats. The wights only carried short knives, utensils rather than weapons, and she only had her song. Still, dawn cats never attacked before dawn, and she planned to have the wights and wolves back underground well before that.

  As it happened, something must have maddened or confused the cats, because almost from the beginning of the wights’ aboveground sojourn, the animals stalked them, following behind, snarling and occasionally lunging as if to attack. The wolves snarled and snapped right back, and maybe that helped because during the first several hours, while L’Aria led the wights over unmarked fields, the cats didn’t attack.

  Suddenly, a bitter, violent snarl sounded through the night, and two of the cats ran at one of the smaller wights, attempting to hamstring their target before the wolves could stop them. Their sudden motion startled L’Aria, whose brain kept reciting the “fact” that “dawn cats don’t attack until dawn.” By the time she beat back the paralysis of surprised fear, whatever help her
song could have been, it was no longer needed. The wolves had torn the throat from one of the attacking cats, and the second one had fled, bleeding, into the distant line of trees.

  Though the remaining cats quieted after that, they still followed, and L’Aria knew that if the party was not underground before dawn, they would not all survive. So she hurried her charges along despite the wails of pain coming from one of the wights.

  “One of her wolves was bitten,” Eldos explained. “Even as far north as our home is, we know dawn cat venom is deadly.”

  L’Aria sang her heart out then, clinging to Tiro’s stone for strength but nevertheless exhausting herself in an effort to sing for everything at once—haste and the favor of time, safety, healing for the wolf, and comfort for the grieving wight.

  For her, the rest of their journey through the night fled by in a series of half-formed impressions with her song constantly in the forefront of her mind, but in the end, they made it safely. They followed a narrow trail into some rocky hills, and just as the predawn hush fell over the world, they ducked into a cave that narrowed into a tunnel leading back down to the underground passageways.

  In the deep cavern, the group fished and ate and rested, but even then L’Aria did not rest. Sitting with the wight and his mortally wounded wolf, she sang her throat raw. Her song sent gratitude and comfort to the brave and strangely beautiful glacier wolf until it passed from the world of the living. Then, she sang a song of comfort to the partner wolf and their wight until both of them slept. She collapsed then, and slept a troubled sleep of snarling teeth and claws and poisoned minds.

  She awoke soon, unrefreshed, and roused Eldos, explaining they needed to be on their way if they wanted to take the next overland section at night. “It’s easier,” she said. “Shorter. But it’s through open fields just like last night, and there’s no cover from the sun.”

  Eldos set about waking the still tired-looking wights, but came back after a time to explain that the wight whose wolf had died refused to leave yet. “She wants to bury her wolf properly. There are plenty of rocks nearby, from where the tunnel collapsed in on itself. She will make a cairn, and she won’t leave this spot until that task is done, even if we leave without her.”

  So L’Aria went to help, and then the other wights came also to lend their hands. The wolf was buried and sent off with words L’Aria didn’t understand, and—an hour after she’d awoken—they got on their way. She pushed them harder to make up time, not stopping for rest until they were at the place where they once again would exit the caves. The trek through the caverns had been uneventful, and their time aboveground passed uneventfully, as well. It wasn’t until they’d descended once again to the tunnels, dined on fish and rested briefly, then started on their way again, that strange things began to happen.

  They were close to the Sisterhold now, and would be there within a couple hours, probably. If L’Aria’s estimation was correct, they’d arrive right around breakfast time at the manor. She started to really look forward to that. Even though she now knew she might spend some days as an otter, she was thinking she never wanted to eat another fish after this trip. Feeling some safety in being near the Hold, she let her song fall away and continued on in silence, daydreaming about pancakes and blueberries and hot tea and bacon and….

  Someone was coming toward them in the tunnel. She strained her eyes, which were quite good even in the dark, to see who it might be. Odd, she thought, because nobody used these tunnels other than she and her father. No matter how she peered ahead, she couldn’t get a clear idea of who was coming as they drew closer. A shadow hung about the figure—a shadow somehow thicker than the darkness of the tunnel itself.

  She turned to Eldos, who walked just behind her and to one side. “I can’t see who that is coming toward us.”

  He peered ahead, and then said, “I… what do you mean?”

  He didn’t see the person at all, and judging from the lack of interest from the other wights and even the wolves, neither did anyone else.

  L’Aria began to sing, keeping her voice low, but putting all the protective strength of her magic behind it. Though she was the only one who saw this person, or apparition, she worried that the wights would be the target of whatever evil it intended. It remained shrouded in shadow and indistinct to her eyes even as she came face-to-face with it, but there was a horror about it that spoke of violent death. She stood before it, letting the wights and wolves pass, and sent her song directly into its face. It seemed to cringe, but for a time it stood its ground, even lashing out at her with an insubstantial but loathsome arm. She flinched away, but then reached out to touch Tiro’s stone to the arm. The figure howled, shrinking back into itself until it could no longer be seen. When everyone had safely passed, she jogged to catch up to the front, relieved to have gotten past the apparition.

  Once again she started thinking about the Sisterhold. She looked forward to seeing Zhevi again, and Luccan too, and even Han. And she wondered if there were still strawberries in the kitchen garden, and she thought a nice hot bath would be nice….

  And up ahead stood another ghostly figure. She repeated her actions of the time before, and this time it worked equally well—or better, even, as she didn’t wait for it to attack before she used Tiro’s stone to neutralize it. Twice more, before they reached the end of their underground trail, she met such a thing and kept her charges safe from it. Her song and the stone worked so well, by the time she dealt with the last one it was almost boring, if tiring.

  The underground trail ended in a long slow climb up a curving passage like a ramp, and then they stepped out into morning in the shade of the orchard. Some Guard personnel had been posted there to wait for them—Tiro had prepared the way as he’d said—and L’Aria let them take charge of the wights and wolves. For her part, she called up the last of her energy and took off at a jog for the manor.

  She smelled bacon—for real this time.

  Chapter Six: Tea, Oranges, and the State of Thurlock’s Heart

  LUCKY STARTLED awake to find himself riding behind Thurlock on Sherah, Zefrehl following close without benefit of a lead. What woke him was feeling like he was going to fall off, but he only leaned so far before something stopped him. It didn’t take much for him to figure out Thurlock had both him and Zef secured with some sort of magic. For a few minutes he played around with it, deliberately trying to fall to one side or the other and letting the spell catch him.

  “I should just let you fall!” Thurlock finally said. “Does it not occur to you that it takes some effort on my part to keep you in the saddle using magic? Do you not think perhaps it’s using up my energy, and you should quickly offer to provide relief by getting off my horse and onto your own and begin riding under your own power?”

  Lucky thought about it, and said, “I guess not, no. At least it doesn’t seem to be putting much of a strain on you. But sure. Stop this horse and I’ll ride Zef. Kind of hot for riding double, anyway.”

  Thurlock stopped Sherah, and Zef dutifully stopped too, and Lucky wandered off to the bushes on the side of the road. “Right back,” he said.

  When he came back, he found Thurlock had dismounted too and had the reins of both horses in his hands. As soon as he saw Lucky returning, he dropped Sherah’s reins—she’d follow on her own—and led Zefrehl along as he crossed the narrow gully on the side of the road and passed into a cornfield. “Come on,” he said, looking back at Luccan over the tops of the corn tassels. “Don’t stand there in the middle of the road.”

  “You’re trespassing.”

  “It won’t matter. There’s no law against crossing property in the Sunlands, unless you do damage. We won’t harm the crop, and the farmers are used to it. People leave the road to get to a good place to rest whenever they need to. Right now, I figure we need to, and that green line running down the hill over there means there’s both shade and some sort of stream. Pick up your feet, now, and let’s get through here before something else happens.”

>   True to his word, Thurlock kept as much as possible to the spaces left empty for access to the crop rows, so they did very little damage to the farmer’s hard work. They didn’t speak much as they went along, but once, after they’d been walking maybe fifteen minutes and were halfway across the field on the way to the hill, Thurlock cleared his throat before making a confession.

  “Well, you’re right, actually. Keeping you on the horse and Zefrehl following along didn’t draw much energy. But worrying about you was a bit of stress.”

  Not knowing what else to say, Lucky mumbled a “sorry.”

  Thurlock only grunted in response.

  About halfway up the hill, they stopped at a place where the land leveled out alongside a wider stretch of the brook that tumbled down the hill. Lucky liked the place. It felt peaceful, and that was something he could appreciate, these days. And he thought of the brook as merry and musical and other such words, and even though he thought those words belonged in nursery rhymes and bad poetry, he felt happy when he took off his sandals and plunked his overheated feet into the cool water.

  Thurlock, meanwhile, kindled a magical fire and heated water for tea. When it boiled, he asked Lucky if he would like a cup. To his own surprise, Lucky said yes. Thurlock served it to him sweetened with the flavor of honey, though Lucky didn’t think they actually had any honey with them. Along with the tea, they had mandarin oranges, something Thurlock always had on his table back in Valley City, but which Lucky hadn’t seen any of in Ethra. Lucky almost asked him about the fruit, but Thurlock was very quiet, and the look in his sea-gray eyes spoke of distant thoughts.

  Lucky tried to be personable and present so that if Thurlock wanted to talk, he would know Lucky was listening. Honestly it felt strange and a little worrisome being with Thurlock when he didn’t seem to be there at all in spirit. Finally, he coughed quietly and asked, “Thurlock, sir, did I do something wrong? I mean, with that wagon and all?”