:Keep flying,: Wylan told Josef. :Fly as long as the wyvern will let me.:
:Safe.: the wyvern said in her mind.
:For now,: she said to the other form. :Just help me get farther away from them, all right?:
It didn’t answer, but it also didn’t retreat.
Her wound wasn’t as bad in human form as she had anticipated.
“What were you thinking?” Millie crouched before her, her hands turning her arm this way and that, studying the small hole through the back. “Never mind. I don’t care.”
“I couldn’t think,” Wylan said anyway. “The wyvern took complete control.”
“Couldn’t think, or didn’t want to?” The healer murmured. “Hold still.”
:You will learn better control in time,: Josef spoke into her mind.
The green fog surrounded Millie again. Wylan wanted to draw back. She’d seen what that cloud had done to the wraiths, and she didn’t want it touching her. The only thing that kept her from pulling away from Millie was the thought that the black woman wouldn’t actually harm her…she wasn’t that mad at her, was she?
The green power flowed from Millie’s hand and wreathed Wylan’s upper arm. It was warm to the touch, and she could feel it seep into the wound, tingling as it went. The wound stung and tickled at the same time. She didn’t know if the hiss that escaped her lips was from trying not to laugh, or trying not to cry out.
Millie leaned back, taking her hands from Wylan and the green power faded.
“Good enough for you to try to run off again.”
It was more than good enough. There wasn’t a single trace of the wound left on her arm.
That night was less interesting than the night before. The dragons that had been present since the moment they’d started their journey were absent and Wylan wondered if they’d finally left them alone, or if they refused to fly this close to the wraiths. There could be something to learn from the wraiths if the dragons were keeping clear of them and they’d managed to take down so many of them and harvest their scales.
Geffrey took a long time to fall asleep, even pressed between their bodies to stay warm and safe. When he did sleep, he was plagued by nightmares that flowed from his mind and into her own. She didn’t want to see the images that came from him, to know how the wraiths had beat him, cut him, doused him in water while he slept just to get the wyvern to burst free.
Not that the wyvern could do much, he was a yellow, which meant his powers lay in the realm of the mind. Wylan was sure there’d be a lot he could do once he was trained, but being so young she wasn’t sure. In wyvern form, he was too small to do much damage, little bigger than a medium sized dog. None of that mattered when it came to scales—they were just as potent as a full-grown wyvern’s.
When most of his scales had been plucked, the wraiths turned to his blood for their fix.
:Shut your mind to him,: Josef said. :Touch the wyvern soul imagine the scales surrounding you, that will shield you.:
Wylan did as she was told, and while her shielding wasn’t as strong as she’d like, it blocked out most of his dreams.
There weren’t any wraiths or scales when she woke, but there was a dead salamander and a smiling Josef, his nose only inches from hers. She cried out and jumped, which only made him laugh.
Millie startled awake, and Geffrey bounded out from between the women. He stared at Josef, who was still laughing, but didn’t seem to want to run. After a moment of seeing where the uproar had come from, the boy giggled and relaxed.
“Millie, dear friend, I’m not carrying that one back to Darubai, just so you know.” He pointed at the boy.
But if they thought they’d be able to fly the rest of the way to Darubai, the dragons didn’t agree. Sometime in the night they’d started circling again. Tension flooded back into every muscle in her body. She wished the dragons would just attack and get it over with.
Wylan tore into her breakfast, sharing a portion with Geffrey. When they were done, Josef knelt to the ground to call the water forth so they could clean up. Wylan waited, salamander blood coating her hands and running down her chin. She was anxious to clean up, but Josef’s face scrunched up in concern, and his hand dug deeper into the ground.
“Maybe there isn’t any water close by?” Wylan asked when she realized he wasn’t able to call any.
Josef frowned. “Maybe. Normally I can feel it though, but I can’t right now.”
“What does that mean?” Wylan asked.
Geffrey touched the healing bruise on Josef’s head, and Josef flinched away. “It’s that,” the boy said. “Did you get hurt?”
“When we were looking for Wylan, but it was just a club from a weak wraith,” Josef shrugged it off.
“Didn’t Millie heal you?” Wylan asked.
Josef nodded. “It’s still healing.”
“But I can see it,” Geffrey said. “It did something to your mind. There’s strange colors where it should be a solid aura.”
Josef’s frown deepened. “I will have Millie look at it. For now, clean up as best you can with the sand.”
Wylan did as she was told, but there was a greater fear in her than how they would clean up. They’d ran out of water from their canteens days ago, and hadn’t bothered to fill them up because Josef was with them. Without Josef being able to use his powers…
Millie returned from hunting while Wylan was using the bathroom. When she returned, Millie was already dressed and bent over Josef, directing her healing energy into his mind. Geffrey knelt beside her, his own hands on Josef’s wound. There was a mix of his yellow energy and Millie’s green before it seeped into Josef’s skin.
Millie sat back on her heels and surveyed the job. “It will take time,” she groused. “We have to look for another source of water and we need to find it fast.”
“There’s caves not far away,” Wylan said, pointing toward the mountains a ways away from where they’d been held by the wraiths.
“How do we know that the wraiths aren’t there?” Millie wondered.
“There’s no way of knowing,” Josef said. “But we can be cautious.”
“Tell that one,” Millie said, glancing toward Wylan.
Wylan let it go.
“Wylan kicked butt with those wraiths!” Geffrey said. “I’m sure she could take care of whatever’s in that cave and get us water.”
Wylan blushed to the roots of her black hair.
“Oh, we had some fun with wraiths, huh?” Josef asked. Wylan had almost forgotten that he’d taken off before she’d done her job with the wraiths.
“Yea,” Geffrey said. “She kicked their butts!”
“There were butts you kicked, and I wasn’t around to see it?” Josef asked. “Jealous!”
“Well, less butt kicking and more chomping, tearing, and mayhem.”
“That’s the red spirit.” Josef cuffed her shoulder and smiled. “How did they taste?”
“Yuck,” Wylan said.
“That bad, huh?” Josef asked.
“Like unwashed feet,” Wylan said.
“You have much experience with feet?” Josef asked.
Wylan’s blush intensified.
They pressed on, and by the time the sun was rising high above the dunes, they neared the entrance of the cave.
“I don’t see any scales,” Josef said, surveying the ground outside the cave. “I don’t see any footprints either. If it’s been in use, it hasn’t been for a while now.”
“Just be careful,” Millie said, following close behind him.
Wylan brought up the rear, but when they entered the cave, they found it was, in fact, not empty.
The two women that stood before them could be nothing other than elves. They were tall, slender women with silken hair tucked behind pointed ears and dotted with flowers. Their eyes were large and alien in color, like something she’d see in the night sky rather than something she’d see in any human. With a chill, Wylan realized their eyes had no whites, and no pupils that c
ould be seen. She hoped it was a trick of the low light in the dank cave.
Their clothes weren’t made of leaves, as she’d been told in books, but instead they wore free flowing trousers and tunics in soft, earthly brown colors. Their arms were adorned with chains of silver, twists of leather, and large bangles that looked like wood.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the blond elf to the right said. Her eyes shown black in the darkness of the cave. That wasn’t what made them strange, however, but the purple swirl of color that seemed to glow from the blackness of her eyes reminded Wylan of the Great Above. She wondered, briefly, if this elf had some tie to the spirit world. “Humans, from Darubai, we welcome you?”
They both bowed, their arms outstretched. Despite all of their adornments, the elves made no sound.
“How’d you know?” Millie asked, her grip tightening around Kira.
“We’ve been watching you,” the dark-haired elf said. Her eyes were orange, mottled with flecks of blue. “We were told you’d come.”
“Who knew we were coming?” Millie asked.
“Yea, we didn’t even know we were coming,” Josef mumbled.
“You need water,” the blond said, motioning to the trickle of water that drizzled down the stone at the back of the cave to puddle in a large reservoir on the floor. “And we need your help.”
Elves were rumored to be magical creatures, gifted in earthen magic. Was this cave one of their own, where they gathered water? But that didn’t make sense. Elves lived in the mountains where it was green and full of life…and dragons. What need would they have of a water cave…unless.
“You did this to him,” Wylan accused, stepping forward. She felt Lissandra answer her anger with a burst of her own. Fire was ready to draw, but she didn’t channel it then. She did let her hand slip to the hilt of her sword, however. It was a motion the elves noted, but didn’t take action against the threat. “You’re the reason Josef is having issues with his water magic.”
Millie arched an eyebrow at Wylan and nodded. She turned back to the elves. “What is the meaning of this? We help you or we die of thirst?”
The elves folded their hands before them and only stared at Millie. They were still as stone.
:Beware,: Lissandra said. :I sense a trap.:
:Oh, we’ve moved into the realm of full sentences again?: Wylan asked. :What kind of trap?:
:This smells of dragon magic.:
:Noted.: Wylan turned her focus to Josef. :Lissa senses dragon magic about them.:
:Dalrin too,: Josef said. :I’m sure Millie senses it as well.:
Geffrey stirred beside Wylan.
“It was an extreme action, I agree.” The dark-haired elf said. “Not all of us were in agreement with ensnaring you as such, but the deed is done, and the only way to undo it is to agree to help us.”
“I am Alisar,” the blond said.
“And I’m Tensinar,” the dark-haired elf said.
“I really don’t care about your names,” Millie said. “What is the task you require of us?”
“You’re going to go through with it?” Wylan asked, incredulously.
“What choice do we have?” Millie shot back at her. “When an elf wants something, they get it.” She turned back to Alisar and Tensinar. “Am I right in assuming we either take the deal and get Josef healed, or we die here and now?”
The elves didn’t speak.
“Right,” Millie said. “What is it you require of us?”
“Follow,” Alisar said.
“Be careful,” Wylan whispered to Millie as the elves turned to the back wall and placed their hands in specific spots along the rough surface. Millie stiffened at Wylan’s words, but she nodded anyway.
The wall slid back and away with a rumble that Wylan could feel deep within the earth. When the wall had opened, she saw a winding tunnel that led up. Along the upward tunnel torches flickered to life.
The way was dull and boring. Stone twisted up in a spiral through the mountain path. The floor was smooth, whether from heavy use or if it had been formed that way, Wylan didn’t know. She wondered if elf magic could convince stone to smooth itself, or if they’d have to do it manually.
Elves were tricksters, Wylan knew that before meeting this pair, but she hadn’t considered that they would be dangerous tricksters. In the stories, they often played pranks on unsuspecting humans, but those pranks had never led to the hero’s demise.
Wylan kept a firm eye on Geffrey, who walked before her, his eyes glancing from wall to wall. It was halfway up before Wylan noticed what he was looking at—images and text scrawled over the walls, and though she couldn’t read the blocky text, Wylan got the sense from images that she was seeing the history of the elves.
Images of trees were prevalent along the walls, and if what Wylan was seeing was true, it showed the elves originating from the trees—not like they came from the forests, but as if they were birthed directly from trees themselves. It could explain their powers of nature, but Wylan found it hard to believe that a tree could give birth to a creature of flesh and blood.
Unless they’re not flesh and blood. Wylan had read in stories that the flesh of elves was hard as stone, and that their blood was thick and ran like amber from their wounds. Could they actually be extensions of the earth, or was that all part of the allure of stories?
Before she had time to contemplate, the tunnel opened wide, and the walls were speckled with green lichen. More surprising than the stories she saw on the walls, or the speculation of elven anatomy was the visage of green before her. She’d tried to picture forests when she read of them in stories, but seeing them was a kind of magic she could never have imagined.
More than the sight of all the green, the bright blooms of flowers, and the rough brown of bark was the smell that came with it.
Fresh, that’s all Wylan could think to describe the air. It was fresh and sweet and moist along her skin. The warmth was a different kind than she’d felt in the desert. It clung to her skin, penetrated her clothes, and stuck to her hair. She took a deep breath of the sweet air and for the first time smelled flowers like none she’d ever seen in the desert below.
Around her, her companions were taken in by the sight too. They turned and looked about them, their eyes wide with awe, their mouths open to taste the air. She felt the ground beneath her boots, and it was soft and firm in a way the desert could never be. She tugged her boots off, and sunk her blistered feet into the cool, velveteen grass. The aches of her travel seemed to ebb from her feet, easing cramps she hadn’t realized she had.
The wind stirred through the trees, and Wylan opened her arms wide to feel the breeze envelope her completely. The sound of the wind was like music. It didn’t howl as it normally did over the dunes, and she didn’t have to squint to keep sand from her eyes. No, the wind was accompanied by the rustling sound of leaves as they danced among tree branches. It was as if the trees were alive and communing with one another.
Alisar and Tensinar allowed them a moment to revel in the feel of the elven home before they broke the silence.
“Welcome to High Haven,” Alisar said.
“Home to one of the ten tribes of elves and dwarves,” Tensinar said.
“There are dwarves here too?” Geffrey asked, his mouth hanging open.
Alisar nodded, her hair shinning like honey in the golden light of the sun. As the locks of her hair shifted in the breeze, Wylan could see that thin vines held the violet flowers in place among the locks of hair.
“You live together?” Wylan asked, for a moment forgetting all of the warning she’d felt in the cave below.
“Humans often think we are at odds with one another,” Tensinar said. “That’s a lie. We have no strife with dwarves. We are brethren of the earth. The magic they work on steal and stone is of the physical kind, while ours isn’t.”
“Though it’s not likely you’ll see any while you’re here,” Alisar said. “They tend to stick to their mines and their forges, only com
ing out for special occasions or on solstice days.”
Millie allowed herself another few moments to stare at the wonder around her before she turned back to their captors. “What is the nature of your request?”
“One of our tribemates has fallen ill,” Alisar said. “An illness like one we’ve never faced.”
“Magic,” Tensinar said.
“But there’s magic all around you,” Wylan pointed out. “Aren’t you beings of magic?”
Alisar was shaking her head before Wylan could finish. “This is human magic. Elf magic is of nature, this is much more esoteric than that.”
“So someone used magic to make her sick?” Wylan asked.
Alisar shook her head. “This isn’t an illness caused from outside magic, but instead, a magic that she was born with and is just now coming to the surface.”
“And there’s no way for us to teach her,” Tensinar said. “We’ve placed her in a deep sleep for the time being, but she needs mental wards and she needs training.”
“A wizard,” Josef breathed. He turned to Wylan, “Guess what Baba Yaga told you is coming true. Strange powers, indeed.”
Wylan nodded, frowning at the elves.
Millie spoke up, “And if we heal her, you will release your restriction on Josef?”
Alisar shook her head. “No. You must ward her mind, and then take her to Darubai where she can learn.”
“You may recall that the last of the wizards died out long ago,” Millie said.
“Yes,” Tensinar said. “It was a sad day indeed.” She spoke as if she’d witnessed it. “But there are libraries in Darubai, and there are yellow wyverns who can channel the ghosts of long dead wizards, aren’t there?”
Millie frowned, but nodded.
“That is all she needs. A teacher, and books,” Alisar said. “We elves learn fast, and Leaghan Windstar was very good at teaching herself many complex things before she was taken by the magic.”
Dragon Plagued: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 2) Page 12
