But had I been acting differently since then? I knew that the other students often regarded me strangely, like I was the one who had sprouted wings and flown around the monastery. Dorf hadn’t stopped asking me how I had done it, or what it felt like. I don’t know, was the honest answer. It just sort of happened, and what made the whole situation even stranger was that it wasn’t even me who was particularly close to Paxala. Olan and the others seemed to think that she was ‘my’ dragon - but she wasn’t. Wait until they find out that Char can hear Paxala in her own head. That will really freak them out, I thought.
Feodor was checking the other leather suits of the students around me when I looked up and, from their watchful and wary stares, I had to admit Feodor was right. The students did look at me as though I was something special, and I guess the way that I had sized up to Monk Olan only made it clear that I was beginning to act like it too.
I can’t afford to let it get to my head, I realized, as I reached down to pick up one of the wooden staves that we would be using for practice. My father, Malos Torvald, was still out there, injured, and my brothers Rubin and Rik were still seething from their defeat and my apparent treachery when I had flown the dragon against them. They were in danger, and they were also a threat.
I had never felt so conflicted in all of my life. Was I no longer a Son of Torvald now?
“Hey, Torvald,” sneered a voice, and I looked up to see Terence, the ruddy-haired son of Prince Griffith of the Southern Kingdom. He stood with Faldo and Archibald, his own little gang of henchmen amongst the Protectors. We didn’t get on, and he relished any opportunity to remind me that I was a Gypsy-blooded bastard. “Looks like you’re not so high and mighty after all, huh?” he sniggered, nodding to Feodor and the recent obvious dressing down and cuffed head that I had received. “Isn’t your dragon going to come save you?”
“Oh, shut up, Terence.” I rolled my eyes, and then rolled my shoulders as I practiced a few lunges and swings.
“Or what, you’ll set your dragon on me?” Terence said airily, to a peal of laughter from his fellows.
I bloody well should do, just to wipe that grin off your face. The thought of seeing Terence wet himself in fear if the mighty Crimson Red landed in the middle of the courtyard almost took away my bad mood. As did the realization that even just a month ago, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to think of such a thing, even if it wasn’t going to happen. Terence and the others knew as well as I did that, at first sight of dragon-flight, the dragon pipes would sound, driving Paxala away. The Abbot had stationed someone permanently up there, scanning the horizon for signs of what he termed ‘rogue dragons.’
I scuffed my feet on the floor, and practiced another thrust with my practice-stave.
CHAPTER 4
CHAR’S MISSION
I hurried down the spiraling stone steps bearing a heavy load of tomes and grimoires—a few of which would have to be chained to their shelves, so rare and valuable and new they were-- ready to return to the Monastery Library, housed in what must have been either old wine cellars or, more disgustingly, old catacombs. The air was dusty and my footsteps echoed as I made my way down to the low-ceilinged libraries where we Scribes and Mages were supposed to spend most of our time, reading, translating, transcribing, and studying at the long work tables set up between bookshelves. I would much rather be up on the mountain with Paxala – or even out there in the practice courtyard trading blows with Neill-- even though I couldn’t land a sword blow against a semi-trained student, it seemed!
But at least being down here gives me time to think, I agreed as I hit the bottom of the stairs at a run, and down the narrow stone corridor to the wooden doors. They were heavy as I pushed them open, but instead of the hushed silence of acres of books and ink housed in a complex maze-like network of high and wide wooden shelves, what met my ears were the muted whispers of students.
“Oh, hi,” I said to the small throng of students already waiting in the lantern-lit lobby area of the library, huddled beneath one of the stone arches that crisscrossed the room, and boxed in by the heavily laden shelves packed between the pillars.
“I’m sorry I’m late?” I tried, seeing a gaggle of pale faces looking back at me in alarm, only, it soon turned out that it wasn’t for me that they were alarmed. “Where’s the tutors?” I asked the congregation, getting shrugs and blank looks from most of them, until wide-eyed little Maxal Ganna, son of one of the most erudite Draconis Order monks who had ever lived, stepped forward, looking in almost every respect like a small bean or unsprouted seed.
Maxal Ganna was also, like me, a Mage in training, and also like me, was always getting lumped in with the Scribes when there weren’t any special Mage meditations and exercises to perform
“The Abbot came and took them away,” Maxal said in his ever-serious, grave voice. I don’t think I had ever seen that boy crack so much as a smile. “But he left us with more work to do.”
There was a collective groan from the rest of the students – about thirty of us in all perhaps. We’d been having a lot of ‘chores’ these last few months, which had so far meant cleaning, shelving, picking vegetables, tending the garden, cleaning equipment, and of course, feeding the dragons. One of the few exciting jobs left was hauling up the big sacks of meat to the top of the crater and throwing them down to each group of dragons, starting with Zaxx the Golden, of course.
“Why do we have to do more chores?” It seemed that the rounded Dorf, who had barely seemed to recover from this morning’s adventures, seemed fed up with them. “If it’s more mopping and sweeping, I swear I will scream…” he said with a sigh, although I knew that meek-mannered Dorf Lesser would do no such thing.
It’s since the battle, and Paxala. I knew. The monks didn’t know what to do with us. Were we all troublemakers? Should they expel us? Or could we be an asset to them?
“Oh, this one doesn’t seem too bad, Dorf,” Maxal ameliorated, pointing to where there were more stacks of books and scrolls on one of the nearby tables. “The Abbot said we had to shelve all of those in their correct places in the Library, to keep us out of mischief.”
He did, did he? I wandered over to deposit the books on the tables, actually glad that I didn’t have to run into the Abbot. I hated to be near him, now that I knew he chose dragons to be killed for no good reason. “What are they about?” I looked at the first cover of the top book, seeing that it was made out of some fine-scaled material, and inset with gems. When I flicked open the cover it was written in strange hatch marks and squiggles that I couldn’t read.
“Are they new?” Dorf said, looking considerably brighter at the prospect of handling new books. He had a thing for books and maps.
“Yeah, new in today I think.” Maxal was the first to join me at the table, opening the covers of a few to show pages full of strange languages, or else woodcut images of dragons and wyrms from long ago. “I think they are from the south, the furthest south, where the dragons are wild?”
That made sense, I thought. The Draconis Order was the world’s repository for information on dragons, and they collected works from all across the Three Kingdoms to add to their collections. And beyond, it seemed.
“We have wild dragons up north as well,” I pointed out. No one seemed too eager to be doing a study of them, I wanted to say, probably because our midnight blue and purple wild dragons were much smaller than the Middle Kingdom dragons, more vicious than the Greens, and almost as fast as the Blues.
“I think that there must be wild dragons everywhere,” Maxal said, suddenly interested in the new line of inquiry. “It might only be in the Middle Kingdom where the dragons have become able to uh…” his voice suddenly trailed off as he looked warily at me.
“Able to be ridden?” I raised an eyebrow. Was Maxal thinking of Neill and Paxala? “Or do you mean almost tamed?” I added with a bit of a growl to my voice. Paxala was not a domesticated dragon, not in my eyes – and neither should any of those dragons in the crater be!
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“No – I didn’t mean that at all,” Maxal said quickly, looking concerned. “It’s just, my father and my uncles – they were all Draconis Order too, you know – they always told me that dragons shouldn’t be touched, should only be approached at by the ordained monks…” His words petered off as he saw me glaring at him.
“And I’m not good enough, is that it?” I said, not full-blown furious, but annoyed at the backward attitudes that the very monks who were supposed to be studying these noble creatures harbored.
“No, I mean, of course not,” Maxal blabbered. He really hadn’t meant to cause offense, I could see. He had grown up in a very sheltered environment. “All I mean is that Neill is the first person to ride a dragon, and it’s unheard of. It goes against everything that my father taught me,” he said, and I was about to tell him surely that was a good thing, when we were rudely interrupted.
“Never mind,” Dorf burst in, seizing the first couple of books. “I wonder what they say? How do we know where to shelve them?”
“We’ll have to look at the pictures of those in any language we can translate, and try to work it out from there,” Maxal said, looking glad for the distraction. He was a nice kid actually, but he was too eager to believe in the words of the monks and their books. But Dorf liked him, and Dorf didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body.
So began our long morning of shelving. Maxal became our unofficial tutor as he spoke more languages than any of us, and he helped us find the secret affiliations and associations of each book. I picked up a tome called ’Remedyes for Dragonnes’ and wandered off into the large area, looking for the nearest names to this author, Azur Laird.
I was quite happy in my task actually, managing to forget for a little while what Wurgan had said to me as I wandered the peaceful aisles of the Library. I didn’t have to think about the weapons and wars of the Three Kingdoms, or of the secret plans that my father wanted me to take part in. I could see why Dorf liked it down here. There were no homicidal monks, tyrant-dragons, or bloodthirsty soldiers anywhere in sight. I had just found the book’s place next to the other dragon remedies and herbologies, when Maxal Ganna appeared again, silent and watchful.
“Maxal,” I greeted him. “If it is about earlier, then don’t worry. I was just tired and irritable. I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
“No, you were right,” Maxal said. “The Middle Kingdom dragons shouldn’t be tame, but they are easier to approach than any of the other dragons. That, uh, is actually why I wanted to talk to you. It’s about the Abbot,” he said carefully, looking behind him to make sure that he wasn’t being followed.
“What is it?” I said. “Is it about Mage classes?” Another thing that had stopped since the battle where the Abbot’s nightly meditation study sessions with us Mage students. Maxal was one of the best magical students here, it seemed, and so like me must be wondering what was happening.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” Maxal said. “But when I got here early for class, I found the Abbot and some of the other tutors delivering the books there, and then the Abbot told me that we were to be doing shelving today.”
“Okay…” it all sounded fairly boring so far, I thought.
“But then I overheard the Abbot saying to the others that the meeting was about to begin and that he didn’t want anyone to be late. It seemed a special meeting, something important for the future of the monastery perhaps?” Maxal looked up at me with worried, large eyes. It was then that I knew that Maxal really was on my side, along with Dorf and the others. Maybe he had seen the way that the Abbot and the other monks had treated me for being half mountain-folk (and a woman, at that)! Or perhaps he had seen the way that I cared for Paxala and…
“They went towards the gemstones section,” Maxal said, pointing to a part of the Library that I rarely ever visited. (What use have I got of rocks?) “If you hurry, and are quiet you might be able to find out what they are talking about. Just follow the lanterns.”
“Oh, by the skies, thank you, Maxal.” I nodded, shoving Azur Laird’s Remedyes into the boy’s hands as I wove through the aisles and shelves quickly.
As Maxal suggested, I followed the murky radiance of the glass-shuttered lanterns hanging at the sides of the Library shelves. Their use was limited due to the threat of fire, so if there were any lit, then it was a sure sign a monk had passed this way.
The sounds of the students filing, scuffling, laughing, and whispering faded into a low murmur behind me as I jogged, thankful that I had worn my soft-soled leather shoes today, and not my boots. I went so far I began to think I had been mistaken, or gone past where Maxal had intended. There was almost no sound, and I could not even say for certain if this deep into the stacks I were even still in the same catacombs as the rest of the Library.
How long have the Draconis Order been collecting knowledge down here? I thought, shocked at the enormity of what they had accomplished. There must be something in all of these shelves that would tell us more about the dragons, and how to bond with them, I thought, just as I heard a murmur.
“…I am telling you, it cannot be done!” a loud and angry male voice said. It was followed by a hissed voice that I couldn’t make out, and the shuffling of feet. The meeting was near. I hunkered down, creeping across the aisle to get closer until I knelt in a dark, unlit aisle apparently behind where the Abbot was having his meeting.
“But look at this,” said a voice. It was Rothan, a monk who I had seen helping Feodor out occasionally. Tall, grey-brown haired, with a deeply lined and wrinkled face. “The explorer Versi—”
“Versi was a fool,” spat the voice of Abbot Ansall himself. I froze. “A vain, spoilt child who probably made up what he saw to keep the old queen’s grandfather giving him money!” The Abbot spoke as if he had known this ‘explorer Versi’ fellow even though the old Queen Delia had died a long time ago, and certainly her grandfather had too.
I held my breath as I eased myself forward, scanning the bookshelves for a gap. I found a glow of light coming through from the other side of the shelf beyond, and carefully moved one of the books to peer through the crack it left, into a small ‘study plaza’ beyond. This one had a central wooden table and the familiar wooden benches, but the monks gathered there were too important to sit. Instead, they stood around the shelves or else leaned over the table (as Rothan and the Abbot Ansall were doing), pointing and gesturing at passages in books and scrolls. I tried to count how many were there, but the angle of my peephole made it almost impossible to see. I guessed there were at least seven or ten of the fully ordained monks, but I only recognized Rothan, the Abbot, and Olan. I bit my lip, breathing shallowly and slowly as I watched and listened.
“Maybe so,” Rothan continued. “But the explorer Versi clearly states here that he observed tribal children in the far south on the backs of dragons, until the dragons reached maturity. So it can be done. Humans can ride dragons.”
I knew it! I had to stop myself from gasping out loud. What was happening between me and Paxala was natural. It was a bonding that had been happening between dragons and humans for centuries! Surely the Abbot would have known about this before, I thought. Why wasn’t he overjoyed at the news? Why wasn’t he trying to teach the students how to approach the dragons?
“And what else happens when the dragons of the furthest south reach maturity? The ones known as Great Lizards, are they not?” the Abbot spat.
Rothan blinked, rifling through the book pages. “The explorer Versi doesn’t say…”
“No, he doesn’t. Because he never studied the Great Lizards of the furthest deserts, did he? Nor did he ever see them? But here,” --the Abbot slapped a sheath of heavy parchments on the floor most filled with odd squiggles and curls-- “in here are some of the written accounts taken from an oral tradition of stories of the furthest tribes. They tell of how the Great Lizards started hunting when they reached maturity. And that they hunted humans.” The Abbot sighed.
“You see? I knew it – the boy and t
he Crimson Red are freaks. Anomalies. It cannot be replicated,” one of the older monks, the first speaker, said. I had to bite my lip to stop my anger from spilling out in a shout. Neill and Paxala weren’t freaks. They were special.
“Perhaps,” the Abbot said measuredly, walking across my peephole of light and into full view. The Abbot Ansall was an almost skeletal, tall man dressed in the finest black robes of his office, with a wiry beard and a bald head under a black skullcap. He tapped the explorer’s account with the black and ivory-handled cane that he always carried with him, his icy-blue eyes narrowing as he stared at Rothan.
“Whatever you may think of Versi’s brave exploits, the man was a fool. I am the only one here who has communed with the Great Zaxx the Mighty, and it is from Zaxx himself which my knowledge comes. Zaxx is ancient. Perhaps the oldest. He knew the family of Great Lizards, he knew what they did. They farmed humans. They befriended these backward desert tribes, letting their children play together with their hatchlings and when time came for the young hatchlings to learn how to eat – then what do you think happened?”
I closed my eyes at the horror. It was the sort of thing that cruel Zaxx would do, to play along with being friends, only to turn and eat anyone weaker when the mood took him. The horror of what the Abbot was saying was almost too much, and I had to look away. But Paxala wouldn’t do that. Paxala couldn’t do that! The affection and friendship we shared was real, I knew it, and through the bond that I had with her, I could feel her thoughts and feelings for me, as fierce and as loving as a sister.
Dragon Dreams (The First Dragon Rider Book 2) Page 4
