Of Gods, Trees, and a Sapling: Dragonlinked Chronicles Volume 4

by Adolfo Garza Jr.

  “Those contain the parts of a boring machine.”

  Chanté looked to the right, toward the voice, then caught himself. “What was that, Quillan?”

  “Oh. Sorry. Elizabeth asked a question.”

  Chanté pressed his lips together.

  Nantli flew through the portal.

  Quillan’s voice came through again. “They’re made of steel. Careful, though, they’re very—”

  Metal clanging and a yell drowned out his voice.

  Chanté raised his hand to the ear-piece. “Quillan?”

  “Shit! I need some help here!”

  Quillan’s shout was loud enough to hurt.

  Nantli turned her head. What is wrong?

  We have to go back. Hurry!

  She banked around so quickly, Chanté had to grab the handholds to keep his seat.

  What was going on at the workshop?

  Once through, he quickly shut the portal. The saddlery! That entrance is closest to the smith rooms.

  Nantli barked and beat her wings.

  Chanté leapt off before she’d fully touched down. Feet pounding, he raced down the hallway. What had happened? Was he injured?

  He ran in the door.

  Quillan was crouched over Elizabeth, who was panting and groaning, lips pulled back in a grimace. Next to her, two large metal rods sat gleaming on the floor.

  “Quillan, what happened?”

  The look on his face!

  “It’s my fault. The steel rods fell on her. I think one broke her leg.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Elizabeth grunted out the words. “I’m an idiot is all. And it is definitely broken.”

  Chanté stared. It had to be broken. The bottom half of a leg did not normally have an angle to it.

  Quillan leaned toward the door and yelled. “Has someone summoned medical help?”

  Chanté’s ear rang with how loud Quillan’s voice came from the ear-piece. He quickly removed the riding cap and grabbed the ear-piece.

  What happened? Was it Quillan?

  No. Elizabeth has been injured. He unsnapped his riding mask, removed the mouth-piece, and after deactivating the pieces, pocketed them.

  How?

  Something heavy fell on her leg and broke it.

  A man appeared in the doorway and looked in. “I sent for help!”

  Quillan nodded and turned to Elizabeth. “I am so sorry.” His hands clenched and un-clenched. He moved them toward the leg, then pulled them back. He looked up at her. “I was so focused on the test that I wasn’t paying attention to what you were doing.”

  “Your focus can be irksome,” she said through gritted teeth, “but I told you. This wasn’t your fault.”

  Chanté watched them. From the easy way she spoke to Quillan, even with her injury, and the panicked way he was reacting to that injury, it was plain that there was something between them.

  Elizabeth grunted and moaned and Quillan cursed the medical staff’s slowness.

  A kind of acceptance washed over Chanté. He felt detached, floating, like a leaf in the wind. Chanté took a breath and let it out. So be it.

  He stepped over and knelt next to Elizabeth. “Let’s see what we can do while we wait.”

  Quillan looked at him. “What? O–Okay.”

  Chanté looked at her bent leg. “In Healing Craft lessons, Gregor taught us about setting bones, right? You cast the anesthetic ward and I’ll put up the viewer.”

  “Gods, of course. I should have at least done that to help with the pain. I’m such an idiot!”

  He put a hand on Quillan’s shoulder. “Enough. Calm your thoughts and cast the ward.”

  Quillan stared at him a moment, then nodded.

  Elizabeth muttered, “And hurry up. My leg hurts like all hells.”

  Quillan pressed his lips together and a pulse of magic came from him.

  The tension went out of Elizabeth’s body and she let out a quiet breath.

  Chanté cast his own spell and a ghostly image of her leg floated before them. Studying it, he said, “They’re clean breaks, so setting the bones should be simple.”

  He turned to Quillan. “Ready?”

  Quillan nodded. “Might as well finally put our Healing Craft training to use, right?”

  “Wait.” Elizabeth looked a little worried. “You two have never actually set bones before?”

  Chanté looked at her. “We’ve had a great deal of practice doing this on bison haunches.” He slid her skirt up a bit and grabbed her leg directly below the knee to steady it. “Go ahead, Quillan.”

  Elizabeth’s gulp was audible.

  Quillan grabbed hold just above the ankle, glanced at Elizabeth with a look of apology, and pulled.

  Even her scream was pretty.

  Chanté scowled, annoyed at himself, and turned to the ghostly image of the internal viewer.

  It took a couple of attempts—Elizabeth used a few words Chanté did not know—but finally, the bones looked aligned. He nodded and stood. “Done.”

  Elizabeth glared at Quillan. “Your pain ward leaves much to be desired.”

  “Sorry,” Quillan said.

  “It isn’t meant to stop all pain,” Chanté said, “merely to lessen it.”

  The people from the infirmary arrived moments later.

  “Good work,” the medic said, eyes on the viewer image. He turned to Quillan. “We’ll take care of her from here.”

  Chanté ended the viewing spell, and Quillan got to his feet.

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said. She looked at Chanté. “Both of you.” She tiled her head and the side of her mouth lifted in a little smile. “Even so . . .” She turned to Quillan. “Don’t forget what we talked about.”

  Quillan frowned. “Right.”

  Chanté glanced from him to her. What did she mean by that?

  After they carried her away, he turned to Quillan and stared at him, brows drawn together.

  Quillan fidgeted. He fingered a strange device on the left side of his face that Chanté hadn’t really noticed before in all the excitement.

  “What’s that?” He pointed to the thin metal arm.

  It wasn’t until after he asked that he recognized the mouth-piece on the end of the arm. The metal rod extended down from the side of a leather cap Quillan wore, and was positioned in such a way as to hold the mouth-piece, a rectangular contrivance about the size of a craft pin, just to the side of Quillan’s mouth.

  “As I don’t use a riding cap,” Quillan said, “I cobbled this together to hold the communication set I’m using.”

  “I see.”

  Quillan looked around the room—anywhere but at Chanté. It seemed he didn’t wish to speak of whatever Elizabeth’s partings words were about.

  They’d been talking before he arrived, it seemed. Was it about him? About them? About—

  Chanté grunted at his own presumption. What made him think he had a claim on anything Quillan did? Whatever they’d spoken of was between them. He had no right to get in the middle.

  He retrieved the ear-piece and mouth-piece from his pocket and placed them on the worktable. “Well, at least the test was a success.”

  “It was?”

  “Absolutely. We were able to speak to each other from my ledge, and from Caer Baronel.”

  Quillan blinked. “From Caer Baronel?”

  “After we went through the portal to the Caer, I heard you yell for help. I got scared, thinking you’d been hurt.”

  “Oh.” Quillan had an expression Chanté didn’t recognize. It was something like sadness, but a little different.

  “I was so worried, we turned around and came right back. But I did hear you quite clearly.”

  “I–I see.” The sadness was a little worse.

  Were feelings contagious? Chanté thought they might be because he felt bad now, too. “I, ah, do have some suggestions to improve them.”

  “Suggestions?”

  “Yes. You were very loud a few times. Is there a way for the person
using these to adjust how powerful the voices coming through are?”

  “Adjust it?” Quillan tugged his ear. “Hmm. That’s a good idea. It would also be good to have the device itself do automatic adjusting. Some people speak loudly, some softly. I can have the ear-piece raise up the quiet voices and lower the thundering ones to an equal loudness. Any adjustments made by the person using the devices would adjust that equalized loudness up or down.”

  Chanté raised his brows. “That would actually be perfect.”

  Quillan nodded and a very faint smile curved his lips. “What else?”

  It wasn’t much of one, but the fact that he was smiling again made Chanté very happy. “If there are, say, twenty people all using devices, I can imagine that them all talking over each other could be a problem. Especially if half of them are working toward a different goal than the other half.”

  Quillan nodded. “I’ve thought of that issue. I think it might be best if there are multiple, I’m calling them channels for now, that can be selected from.”

  “Channels?”

  “As in channels of water. You can imagine that all the people using a channel are paddling individual boats. Too many boats in there and it gets hard for any of them to get anywhere, so you split the people up into different channels. In your example, the first half of the people can use channel one, and those people would only hear transmissions from others in channel one. The second half would move to another channel, say, channel two.”

  Chanté chuckled. “You have been thinking about this.”

  Quillan smiled and shrugged. “I have, though I don’t have a practical solution for the channels quite yet. Anything else?”

  “In the final design, will the activation stud be easily accessible? That way a person could turn off the device if they’re having a conversation that doesn’t need to be sent to the other devices.”

  Quillan sighed. “In case they’re talking about tool crates instead of testing communication devices?”

  Chanté twisted his lips. “Mayhap.”

  Quillan walked to the worktable and sat on a stool. He pulled a sheet of paper over and began writing on it. “Two studs, I think.”

  “Two?”

  “The stud on the mouth-piece would only activate and deactivate transmission from you. That way, even should you not wish to transmit your voice, receiving can remain activated allowing you to hear anything important that might get transmitted by someone else. The second stud, on the ear-piece, would activate and deactivate receiving. If you’re trying to take a nap, for instance, and your riding cap is anywhere nearby . . .”

  “Ah, yes.” He sat on the stool next to Quillan’s. “Well, those are all the suggestions I have so far.”

  “Alright.”

  A few minutes passed as Quillan continued to write. Finally, he set the pencil down and gathered the sheets of paper, setting them aside.

  He drummed his fingers on the worktable a few times before he looked up. “I’d like to keep working with you on getting used to riding a dragon, if that’s okay.”

  Chanté smiled. “Of course!”

  “That’s, ah, what Elizabeth and I talked about. She told me I should continue working with you on that. I can’t learn first-hand what dragonlinked need during flight if I’m never up there, after all.”

  Chanté’s smile faded. That strange expression was back on Quillan’s face.

  What is wrong?

  I’m not sure. Quillan wants to keep learning to ride on you.

  Is that not good news?

  It is. Even so, Chanté felt as he sometimes had when dealing with his sister. Was this some kind of trap?

  + + + + +

  Why did you wish to come here? This is not part of our route.

  I know, Huemac. But as we’re down here already for Delcimaar, this is only a short side-trip. I want to see if Mother has learned anything. Besides which, we’re done with our official patrol. This is our spare time.

  True enough.

  Doronal smiled as the big dragon’s rumble vibrated through the saddle.

  His family’s country estate spread far and wide below. It was more land than even Lord Baronel’s holdings in the North. Vineyards covered about a quarter of it on one side of the main house all the way to a line of hills, orchards covered another quarter, and the rest was unspoiled forest and fields of grass.

  Take us down near the barn.

  As you say. Huemac banked to the side and headed for the main house.

  After Fillion’s recaps of what transpired with the robbery and what they’d learned, Millinith had asked for a meeting with Master Gella. Doronal had been more than a little pleased that she’d asked him to attend, as well. The implications of what was learned at the meeting, however, did not please him at all. The fact that the armored wagon robbery was undertaken by the same people that were spreading those rumors about the High Lady—the same people who’d instigated the riots—pointed to some kind of larger undertaking, the purpose of which remained unclear.

  Doronal dismounted then patted Huemac on the shoulder. I’ll return after speaking with my mother.

  After a chirp, the dusty red dragon curled up on the ground.

  Doronal stared at Huemac a moment. He had to restrain himself from jogging over and hugging the big beast. He wasn’t a child anymore, after all. A fact his mother used to constantly remind him of while he was a youth . . . and beyond.

  Huemac let out a huffing laugh. His large eyes, fixed on Doronal, sparkled in the mid-day light. Your memories of Lady Erindia indicate that she was quite fond of you, despite her words.

  Indeed. With a chuckle, Doronal turned and made his way to the main house.

  The country estate was where his mother spent the summers. Actually, when he was younger, they also spent a few winter seasons here, as well. Sledding down snow-covered hills had been one of his favorite pastimes.

  The back door opened as he was climbing the short flight of steps.

  “I thought I heard a dragon landing.”

  He smiled. “Hello, Mother.”

  A quick embrace, and she said, “I must say, it is nice to see you more often. You have to give Huemac my thanks for that.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  She looked beyond him, searchingly. “No Millinith?”

  “Not today.”

  “Hmm. Have you had lunch?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Perfect. Come. Let’s eat.”

  He glanced back at Huemac. My apologies. Mother wishes to have lunch with me. This will take longer than I anticipated.

  I do not mind. It smells nice here and the sun is warm.

  Incidentally, she wants to thank you for allowing me to visit her more often.

  Lady Erindia does not need to thank me for wanting to fly places with you. It is fun.

  Yes. Yes, it is.

  He did not speak of his reason for coming here during their delicious lunch. It was now over, however, and they enjoyed coffee.

  He took a sip. “I still don’t understand what could be gained by spreading those slanderous rumors about the High Lady in Stronghold.”

  “Oh, they’re not just being spread in Stronghold. There are grumblings in Delcimaar, as well.”

  He set the cup down. “What did your contacts learn?”

  “To be sure, the grumblings are nowhere near as loud or commonplace as in Stronghold, but there are whispers and ill-intentioned rumors being spread here, too.”

  “For what purpose? Is this shadowy group attempting to undermine her authority?”

  “Undermine? She’s done nothing that could be even remotely considered gross misconduct, and even then, it would take a full unanimous vote to replace her. No, her authority in regard to her powers is absolute while she is the High Lady.”

  He nodded. “Mmm, yes.” That being the case, what would be gained by making her look bad?

  How can that woman be made to look bad by the actions of others?

  She is the
leader of the nation. If the country is falling apart, or at least is perceived to be, many will assume it is due to her poor leadership.

  Falling apart?

  The most common complaints the criers in Stronghold shout out have to do with the poor economy, the lack of job openings, rising nahual attacks, and the fact that National Transportation was shut down, leaving even more people without work.

  I understand about the nahual, but are the other things bad as well?

  Indeed, and not only because so many cannot afford to support themselves. Even those with jobs worry that they may soon lose them. The riots in Stronghold are evidence of the people’s fear. Fear that was fanned into flames by the criers’ speeches.

  He drew his brows together. An idea hovered on the edge of his being able to grasp it. Something to do with the rumors. “What kinds of things are being whispered in Delcimaar?”

  “One of the whispers has to do with the equine flu, surprisingly enough. Though it has to do more with how such a thing could have happened under High Lady Hasana’s watch and the fact that Delcimaar actually escaped unscathed.”

  “So, those whispers focus on the negative aspects of that event, rather than the fact that the coordinated actions of several people and organizations prevented it from being worse.”

  “Yes. And the fact that the High Lady was the one who requested assistance from the mail delivery and shipping industries, which was instrumental in halting the spread of the flu, seems to have slipped the rumor-mongers’ minds.”

  Doronal frowned. The idea yet hovered beyond his reach. Taking another sip of coffee, he said, “What else is being spread?”

  “Some wonder why the High Lady isn’t doing more to assist those burdened by the recent drought south of Delcimaar.”

  “Ah, yes. Wine prices are higher due to the reduced production from vineyards there.”

  “A fact that has actually helped sales of our wines.” She took a sip of coffee. As she set the cup down, her brows drew together. “You still follow viticulture news?”

  He fiddled with his cup. “It is a large part of the family business. And though I didn’t venture into it . . .” He shrugged.

  She smiled. “I see.”

  He cleared his throat. “Any other rumors or grumblings?”

  “There are whispers that High Lady Hasana has left the city for places unknown. They say her coach and retinue haven’t been seen in a few days. Where has she gone? Will she attended the Delcimaar Summer Festival as every High Lady or High Lord has for centuries? And if she doesn’t, does that point to her breaking with other traditions? Is it wise to change the way things have been done for so long? Will those changes lead the nation into more bad times?”