Shaking his head, the mage said, “I know women that would kill for that magic too.”
At her questioning look, he clarified, “Women with more wealth I have heard like to get dyes and change the color of their hair.” He noted the dress and added, “I think you are more of a real human woman than even Colbie and Tilana would care to admit, though Colbie said that you definitely are I suppose. You buy dresses and color your hair. If you start coloring your nails, I think that you would satisfy being a typical girl.” He laughed and the dragoness smiled though she didn’t understand his joke.
Looking at her finger nails, a light pink over all, they had white at the edge and appeared unbroken despite the battle of the night before. She held them up to the young man and asked, “These are the wrong color?”
He laughed and shook his head again. The barrier between his people and hers was wider than he would have thought to look at her. Then again, the previous day before they had seen Kel’lor change, they would have believed them to be two reasonably normal humans. “They’re the way nails look naturally, though I must say that yours look like someone took time to make them shine more than say someone digging in the dirt or something like that.”
Sighing, the mage realized that his worries after the fight concerning this girl were all gone. Her innocence and beauty made him want to protect her, though he had seen her fight as well as any mage and with more magical strength besides. If her story was true, it made her all the more sympathetic in his eyes. The compassion she had shown for the crag dog proved her warm hearted, though the strange use of its hide could make him wonder at that momentarily.
When Orlerin and Tilana exited the door to see where the others had gone, Cheleya smiled brighter and moved towards the falcon. “I have been working with mending my dress and think that I may be able to heal today. Is your shoulder still injured?”
Evan’s smile faded a little as he was ignored, but her question was still intriguing as well and proved that warmth she had once more.
Orlerin tried to move the shoulder that was still in a bit of a pain since the troll had flung him aside. Stone walls were more than his body could take when flung like a rag doll by such a beast. A particularly bad twinge from his shoulder told him that the sling he had taken to wearing wasn’t doing much to change the injury.
“It still hurts, yes.”
Tilana looked at him showing concern after he had been hiding the pain he felt from them all since the injury. It was his job as leader to appear strong, but the little che’ther girl had broken through his deception quite easily. More over, Cheleya was a healer, even though she was a novice at the magic.
Leading the others back inside, Cheleya asked the falcon to sit on a chair and lay her hands on the injured shoulder. After a moment of trying to feel the pains or otherwise feeling a way to heal, she asked, “Can you remove the shirt? Maybe I just need to make better contact.”
After removing his shirt, the girl noticed his bandaged forearm and looked sad. Appearing near to tears, Orlerin tried to ease the girl by saying, “It’s just a scratch. There’s nothing to cry over, Cheleya.”
Forcing a smile, the girl replied, “I am sorry. This body seems to feel emotions so much stronger than my che’ther body could. Perhaps I should start with the easier wound then?” she questioned and managed to get around his resistance again. The falcon wondered if her tears were simply a way to disarm him as much as a smile had the younger mage. He had seen her talking with Evantus and noticed how his bearing towards her had changed.
The novice healer tried to remove the bandage, but drying blood and perhaps the skin beneath had managed to bond to the wrap. Frowning at the resistance to her efforts, the girl noted the occasional pain on his face and wondered how a real healer would approach such a thing.
“We could get some water and soak the wrap to make it easier to remove, if you want?” Tilana offered knowing, as a human, how the body and bandages worked.
Cheleya nodded letting the wizard go get some water from the well outside. Evan stuck with them curious to see her heal. Colbie was awake and dressed, but sat on her cot looking a little pale. Despite the killing a battle mage might see, the falcon apparently couldn’t watch someone injured and bloody.
While Tilana was away, Cheleya closed her eyes touching the man’s injured arm. She felt with her magical senses for the point where flesh and cloth met. Like her use of alteration with her dresses, the girl thought that she felt both the bandages and the skin of his arm. Dried blood held the two together and her senses told her what was wrong with each inch. They also told her that the man was coating his true injuries with understatements of fact. She felt his shoulder and the pain coming from the nerves there as well as his bruised ribs. The cut on his arm should actually have been stitched since it was quite deep. The depth had helped pull the bandage’s cloth deeper making it almost impossible to remove. Cheleya feared that even using water would cause the falcon great pain in removal.
Like someone prodding and poking each strand of the cloth and loosening the hold of the dried blood, Cheleya made them move and separate. When Tilana returned with the water, she nearly dropped the small pot as the bandage simply fell away. As they watched, the nasty looking wound began to close up under Cheleya’s healing touch.
The sight of the wound made Tilana put the pot down quickly as she turned white beginning to feel faint. Kel’lor was quick to catch the earth wizard and sat her down on the cot he had vacated. She was white as a sheet and looked nearly ready to pass out. The words of Colbie and Kel’lor didn’t seem to reach her for nearly a minute before she recovered.
Evan watched both the healing and the reaction of Tilana to Orlerin’s bloody wound. He teased, “You know they say that most people can’t look at the wound of someone they love when they are injured. I guess that I don’t really like you enough, Orlerin.”
The elder falcon smiled at him grimly, knowing that the younger man had drawn some of the bite from his words by putting the scenario of love on him instead. His eyes had watched Tilana in Kel’lor’s care with no worries over what was happening to him. He cared for her as much as she did him. Evantus and Colbie weren’t stupid, so they had figured out the closeness of their relationship. Working together so close for so long, they couldn’t hide it at all apparently.
“I’m sure I will survive that revelation about our relationship, Evan,” he replied trying to roll with the younger man’s sense of humor.
As they watched, the skin began to knit together and by the time she was done, Orlerin could neither feel the pain nor see the faintest sign of the wound. It was like it had never happened at all.
“That went well,” Cheleya stated distractedly and he guessed that she was moving her attention to his damaged shoulder and ribs.
She frowned a little more, but as he sat he could see the dark bruises lightening and the pain slowly shrunk until it faded away completely. Sitting back, Cheleya looked a little pale as well and tired.
The girl looked at Orlerin and nearly pleaded, “Could I have something to eat and drink? Healing is much harder than I thought.”
It was Evan who leaped up to pass her a canteen of water and then hurried to grab some travel bread and dried meat. He knew that using up a lot of magical energy needed to be replaced and food was the best recovery tool a wizard had.
His reaction to her need half surprised Orlerin after the mage’s strong resistance to the two from Mar’kal only hours before, but he supposed that the girl continued to prove her genuine motives. He moved his arm and shoulder and thought that for a novice, the dragoness was a very good healer.
Cheleya had needed a little time to recover, but while she had, the girl asked a favor that made her blush with embarrassment for having to ask. “I was wondering if your friend, Veras, left any spare clothes that I might have. I hate to ask and I sense that perhaps my timing is inappropriate as well.”
It was Colbie who answered first, “Even if he does, he was muc
h larger than you. I guess that you could try to wear his shirt for a dress, but if it falls off I am going to have to remind you about modesty again.”
Smiling at the mage, Cheleya shook her head, “I believe that I begin to understand and will not take off my dresses in front of Evan and Orlerin again.”
Colbie looked ready to argue that point, especially when Kel’lor was also male, but Orlerin had nodded and replied, “I don’t know what good it will do you like, Colbie said, but the clothing is fine. Take only clothing, since some of the other pieces need to be returned to our headquarters.”
Moving with the dragoness, Colbie opened the pack and began pulling out three of the brown tunics with black highlights for his order and two pants obviously too long for her to wear without rolling up the cuffs. There were gloves and stockings as well. Even a set of long underwear, the last of which Cheleya took as well.
She had Kel’lor separate the pants, since the front and back were two pieces sewn together. The cloth was long on her as they had said and, if the pants had been left as they were, the girl doubted that her hips could have held the waistline up at all.
Taking one of the halves, Cheleya slid the piece under her blue dress trying to maintain the modesty that Colbie desired. It made what she was about to do harder, but the dragon mage called upon her magical senses and made do. The cloth shifted and moved as if she were weaving parts into place or cutting away in others only to reuse those pieces elsewhere. When she was finished, the girl hiked up her dress revealing a brown skirt fitted to her hips and coming to just above the knee.
She removed the back of a shirt but left the sleeves and front, then ordered the men to turn as she removed her blue dress. Colbie seemed to approve of her taking command of the men, but frowned as Kel’lor continued to watch the spectacle as the girl stuck her arms into the sleeves. The women and gargoyle watched in awe as the cloth seemed to flow and tie around her frame, the sleeves tightened and shortened as extra length from the sleeves somehow found its way to help fill in the back.
When she had finished with both pieces, the new blouse was cut a little short revealing a bit of her flat stomach above the skirt. While the pieces looked good to Colbie and Tilana, one thing didn’t meet Cheleya’s taste. She began to move her hands as if trying to smooth wrinkles free of the pieces, but each swipe seemed to pull the color in streaks. She played and played with the material and shortly the brown and black blouse became a light red verging on pink while the skirt turned blue.
Her control of the alteration magic had made the dragoness a perfect tailor. All she needed was material to start out using and she could manipulate it to become anything.
Colbie shook her head and admitted, “I have no idea how you did that, but that was amazing.”
Orlerin was equally impressed, but he stood and said, “Well, I don’t know if she plans to make an entire wardrobe, but we shouldn’t just sit here all day. It’s time to go back to Televal and make our report.
“You two are welcome to travel with us if you wish.”
Smiling at the invitation, Cheleya looked at Kel’lor who shrugged. “If we go to this Televal, do you think that we can still make it to Hala in time for the tournament?”
Shrugging, Orlerin answered, “We can make Televal in two days if we hurry just a little. Once you’re there, we can see about getting horses and then it should take you a little less than a week to get to Hala.”
“Then we will travel with you,” the girl said giving a pretty smile.
Before they left, Cheleya had an idea. Borrowing a sword from Evantus, the dragoness had Kel’lor cut the wings from one of the dead shrikes. They hadn’t buried them and were unsure if the beasts deserved such treatment, but during the night no scavengers had come to pick at the dead creatures.
Laying the sword beside one of the wings, the magician concentrated her alteration spell on the black feathers and bone. Her mind shifted and coerced the parts of the wing towards a different shape. In minutes, the bones became the hilt of a sword while a blade formed from the razor sharp feathers of the shrike. It was black like the original wing and the handle was wrapped in her vision of leather.
Slightly longer than Evan’s sword, the black blade felt a bit lighter, but as the girl swung it, she thought that she had come close to a true weapon like the Staronen’s sword. Handing it to the battle mage, the girl asked, “I am not trained to the sword. How does this feel to you?”
His forehead frowned a little noting the weight. His steel weighed about five pounds and the black blade felt perhaps half of that. He tested the weapon for feel and found that it did have a good balance. Being lighter, the battle mage could swing the weapon faster than his heavier blade, but he wasn’t sure of the strength.
Finding a small tree about six inches thick at about four feet up, Evantus swung with maybe half his strength and was surprised that the blade cut into the bark easily. With the merest twist, the man pulled the weapon free and drew back for a death blow style strike. Angling from above making the cut even harder, they were all amazed as the black blade sliced through closer to eight inches of tree with a single clean stroke.
“Sharp,” Evantus stated, “and pretty strong as well.”
Nodding, the dragoness decided, “If we have time, I can make more of them. I figured if their wings could cut through rock, I could make them into good blades.”
Impressed by the weapon, Orlerin looked to the heavens noting the sun rising to nearly halfway up the sky. “If you want to make it to Hala in your time frame, then we will need to get a move on. That is a nice weapon, but it’s up to you.”
Kel’lor waved the worry away. “Cheleya has her dragon wing magic back and I can carry her if it fails. Why don’t you four go on ahead and we can catch up to you.”
Cheleya nodded as she was already working on the next sword.
Evan readied to place the sword back on the ground, but the girl waved the blade away with her left hand while the right maintained contact with the second wing. “Take it. I will make more anyway.”
Surprised by the gift, the battle mage thanked her before joining the other three already starting to walk south. He left his sword for her to use again and hurried away.
After the second blade had taken shape, Kel’lor asked the dragoness, “Are you sure that you want to continue with these humans? I could fly you to Hala without them.”
The girl gestured to the next shrike’s wings implying Kel’lor could cut them free for the next weapons. She answered as he used the newest blade and found that it cut easier than the steel blade of Staron, “We are safer with them and I can learn more about being human. If I can offend so few with my actions here, how much more dangerous can that become in a city of thousands? Besides I kind of like getting to know these people. They seem trustworthy to me.”
He frowned as he stood back from the severed wings musing, “It is odd that they can change their opinions of us so quickly though. When we arrived they were unsure, but then you helped their sick girl.”
“Colbie,” the dragoness said with a smile for her new friend.
Ignoring her sentimentality, he continued, “Then they see me as a mar’goyn’lya and they begin to fear what you may be as well. Now they befriend us once more and offer to take us to their home.
“Is this just a human trait to change on a whim?”
Smiling at her friend, Cheleya replied with a giggle, “Not every race can be made from stone and set in their ways because of it.”
“We are not made of stone,” he said with another frown. “Mar’goyn’lya prefer to think things through and when we commit to a cause we stay with it. These humans and their emotions are just too chaotic. Can we trust them? Look how we trusted Malaketh and he betrayed us all and tried to kill you.”
The name darkened the girl’s mood and she replied before starting her next black blade, “Evil seeks to deceive in other races too. There have been evil mar’goyn’lya and che’ther in the past. Our ancest
ors dealt with them as they do all evil. Eventually Malaketh’s misdeeds will come to light and we will be exonerated. Until then, we need to get to Hala and find sympathetic wizards that can break whatever curse he put on me. If you find that you can’t continue with me, I would still understand. This was never your burden to bear.”
Sighing, Kel’lor looked at the little human girl and knew that he could never abandon his friend. She was like family to him and as they had already discussed, once a mar’goyn’lya committed to a cause, he continued on to the end. “I will come and protect you to my last breath, little sister, and you know that. I go where you go and I bear no burden other than that.”
Standing up, Cheleya was moved to hug the gargoyle, which was strange since she could never remember hugging anyone. Che’ther were hardly made for such embraces after all and, as a human, the girl had no one that had ever hugged her to show her how to do it. Surprising both of them, the little blond haired girl was a natural at that too.
Chapter 10- Hidden Stones
Morning was coming to an end and the sun stood high above the battle mages as they hurried along retracing their steps towards home, when two winged figures flew in from the north. Having walked for a few hours at a brisk pace, Orlerin called a halt to have lunch while Cheleya distributed her gifts.
The dragoness had spent extra time working not only on the nine black blades, but also ten scabbards created from the fallen tree at the cabin. She had made more than she needed to outfit them all, but Cheleya had a feeling that such blades could be useful in other ways in the future. Such components to make them were unlikely to come along again, so the dragoness being both practical and frugal had used up every wing.
Tilana had waved off the weapon offered to her. The earth wizard had no weapons’ skills as such. Her magic was all that she needed and her friends the battle mages could protect her to use it. Cheleya was slightly disappointed that she couldn’t give her a gift as well, but the dark haired wizard had been very gracious making the dragoness like the quiet woman even more.
Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) Page 12
