Talismans

by Lisa Lowell

  He couldn't even think to ask the question when the third wave hit.

  * * *

  Raimi walked through the fog on the beach, gathering stones, faceting them and then scattering them again among the raw gems. The day seemed to drag as she listened to the thunder and rumble high above in the cloud cover. The dragons had taken Owailion from her just minutes after they had been married and she resented that even more than being shut out. She felt shielded out of every mind above her on the island and struggled with irritation at it. She knew better than to try to listen in to what was happening. This was for Owailion, not her. He was the pioneer here, but to her surprise, she did not like being alone that much anymore.

  To distract herself Raimi walked the entire island, looking for a place to set up a camp, like Owailion had suggested. The still lake waters did not call to her nearly as much as a river did, but she still sensed something here that stirred her curiosity. A demon of the lake, or perhaps a ghost lived in the water here and she thought about harnessing its presence. Owailion had once tried to explain the feeling of something 'going demon' and she wasn't sure that was what she felt here but it demanded her attention.

  And inspiration struck. Could she instead create a link to the presence inhabiting the lake to frighten diamond hunters away? Eventually people would come to this island and see all the diamonds and covet them. This lake and its island were sacred to the dragons and therefore she did not want it to be pillaged. She didn't sense anything physical that she could manipulate into a Talisman like Owailion had done, but Raimi carefully experimented with the tenuous contact and persuaded the spirit there to speak with her.

  She reached out and caressed the presence with her understanding of water. She sensed a massive dervish of power, throbbing within in the lake, waiting to swallow anything that strayed into the water. She tasted its ambivalent power and its rage at existing, without a purpose or structure, like a ghost stripped of its life but unable to move forward. Could she harness that? Recalling what Imzuli had taught her about linking this deep wishing magic to the Land itself, Raimi reached out to the ghost of the lake and washed it free of devious thoughts by imagining a river passing through the lake, scrubbing away the anger. Then she spoke with the presence and introduced herself.

  “I am a Wise One here in the Land. You are bound here, but I have a job for you. You must be the protector of this island. No humans may come here without knowing your anger. Shake the island and drive them off. Can you do that for me?” she asked as if she addressed a child.

  The ghost's reply felt more like a canine grin and wagging tail than an actual coherent answer. She sensed an eagerness to help, loyalty and devotion to her simply because of her notice. No one had ever sensed it here, waiting, swirling, tasting the silt and algae but nothing more. Now, since she had noticed, it would do her bidding. No one would walk the shores of the island of Ameloni without a threatening growl from the spirit of the lake. The ghost felt giddy at the opportunity to drive off all comers. Except her. It loved Raimi for asking, for noticing. That spirit would do anything for Raimi.

  “Well, don't drive off Owailion or the dragons either. They are safe to let inside. You will be the Guardian of the Lake?” Raimi asked carefully and felt another wiggle of delight from the presence and then it settled back down into the depths of the lake, swirling but with purpose now to await any call to duty.

  * * *

  Two days later Raimi was frantic with worry for Owailion. In her impatience she had turned thousands of gemstones into faceted, cut jewels. She paced the shores, watched the weather and worked a little on the parameters of a language spell but she could not concentrate enough to do it justice. She simply yearned for the end of the draconic interference and Owailion's return. The clouds had not lifted from the mountain top and she had not seen a single wing or tail in days. She knew Owailion lived, for she could sense a buzz of life but little else. The loneliness echoed in her head but every time she tried to touch his mind she felt gently but firmly pushed away, like an undertow. She could float and survive outside Owailion's mind but she would never make it past the inexorable tide around him.

  She had camped and set a bonfire in front of her in a hopeless attempt to burn through the winter that reflected her mood. She felt a storm coming, blowing away the pervasive fog but not the cloud cover over the dragons to shield their doings on the volcano's peak. Then at dusk, with the gloom of the storm about to break overhead, Raimi looked up from the mesmerizing fire and saw Owailion standing on the other side of the flames; a statue in her eye but a blistering, burning mind across her thoughts. She bolted to her feet and caught him before he fell face first into the flames.

  “Owailion?” she gasped and lowered him down to the ground. His eyes were closed and his skin chill against the back of her hand. She lifted one eyelid and his dark eyes, unresponsive to the blinding of the firelight, stared back at her. Carefully she reached out mentally to hear his thoughts, for he made absolutely no effort to shield his brain. But in doing so she found herself underwater at the bottom of a great well. It was a good thing she could breathe under water or she would have drowned.

  Instead Raimi pulled her mind free. “What have you done to him?” she asked of the invisible dragons and when they did not reply, she screamed it. “What have you done to him?!”

  Finally Mohan's gentle reply dripped with exhaustion and sincere love. “We have given all to him. We will now sleep. Farewell.”

  So they were leaving, finally going into hibernation. Raimi realized she was the last witness. It was hard to dredge up the proper emotion to acknowledge what she knew to be true. With the abrupt departure, the artificial clouds overhead lifted and made room for the storm that slammed into the mountainside and began burying her in snow like a curtain fell and the act was over. She would grieve for her lost friends later.

  Raimi instead clung to the need to tend to Owailion and be sure he recovered. His exhaustion made her ache and the very air around him shook with the mental weight of all he must have experienced. Without thinking about it Raimi conjured warm blankets and wrapped Owailion up like a baby. Then she tried to feed him some warm broth. He didn't actually respond to her but she was able to dribble a little in his mouth and he did not choke on it. Next she redirected the tent she had been using to set over her head and then banked the fire, all while holding him tight as he shivered and moaned in his exhausted sleep.

  All through the stormy night she held him, bathed his feverish face with cool water and whispered endearments. She dare not listen into the maelstrom that was his mind. The weather seemed to reflect his trials. Twice the tent almost blew away from over them but she held it firm with conjured river rocks and pure strength of will.

  At dawn the storm finally subsided into an eerie calm and Owailion fell into silent sleep as the winter's bite descended and the clear, bitter cold of a blue sky overhead penetrated the canvas. Raimi peeked out of the tent only once to look up at the snow covered slopes above her, completely bare of dragons. Then she allowed herself to rest as well, curled up against Owailion's exhausted body and they both slept at peace.

  Chapter 16 – To Name a Thief

  Sometime far later a caress woke Raimi. She felt warm and content, unwilling to open her eyes when she felt Owailion try to move a wayward strand of hair from her face. She opened her eyes at that thought and again almost drowned in the black of night in his eyes.

  “Some honeymoon,” he smiled down at her. The dark circles under his eyes spoke volumes toward his recovery still to come but his intense gaze insisted he was wholly with her now.

  “How would we know,” she replied. “I've not had one yet…though I'm waiting patiently.”

  They never left the tent that day, nor the next, for neither felt inclined to break the spell of Ameloni Island. Owailion needed to rest and to settle the weight of the world between his ears. The dragons left them alone and empty and while the humans had dozens of questions about what was happeni
ng in the Land, nothing urgent enough to interrupt them came to mind. Storms fell on them again, nearly burying the tent but this hardly bothered the lovers. If they were snowed in until spring it didn't disturb them in the least.

  As they lay back on the third day in the luxurious bed they had conjured within their tent Raimi finally garnered the nerve to ask what the dragons had done to him and Owailion seemed willing to reply.

  “They gave me the Memories of the Land. I didn't know this before but they feel everything the Land feels, like it is a living part of them and now I feel it too. No wonder they didn't need to have seen a place to be able to travel to it. I've felt it all; the birth of mountains, the slip of an avalanche down a slope, the formation and destruction of demons. I have lived it all. Do you realize that there have been many attempts to break through the Seal over the years and two actually succeeded for a time? Anything that is felt or touched in the Land I feel, like an itch, ache or burn in my own body.”

  “Isn't that overwhelming?” she asked as she tried to mask the concern in her voice.

  “Frequently, yes…at least at first. Imagine if you had to remember every moment the mechanics of how to walk and concentrate on it or you'd fall over. That's how this feels. It takes time and I'm getting better at it but I still need to concentrate on what I'm sensing or I will be lost under the weight of it all. An entire library of information is hard to carry around in your head. Don't ask me to do too many things at once. I can't find anything in my head because there's too much through which to sort.”

  Raimi smiled at the suggestion. “I'll only ask you to love me. Is that too much?”

  “Never,” he replied playfully and ran his hand down her back, making her think of water flowing. Then he continued. “I can tap into different things now and again; pick and choose whatever floats to the surface. Like right now there are four people on the south western border, exploring for a way to get inside, though they aren't sorcerers and have no hope. Do you realize Zema has grown another hand width? They're big enough now for me to see that they don't bear the markings. I'm sure somewhere rattling around in my head is a Memory of the writing on the original stones and I might be able to read them if I can just locate them in my head.”

  “But you do have them?” Raimi asked curiously, lifting herself onto her elbow to look into his well-deep eyes. “Are they in our language?”

  “It's strange. I can't yet find the actual text in the Memory, just the realization that it is there somewhere. I know that it is an introduction to each of the sixteen Wise Ones; their affinities, weaknesses and some prophesies of what will happen, especially in their training, before they are …Seated? I guess that's the word I'd use. We should call them Seeking while a Wise One is still looking for his or her Talismans and learning how to be a magician. And Seated once they've accomplished that goal.”

  Raimi shuddered and leaned up to look him in the eye. “You said something about prophesies of what will happen…like their future? That's dangerous isn't it? Seeing the future has not been helpful to us,” Raimi declared, reminding him of the awful visions from her Talisman.

  “How is any of the Memory helpful? It might as well be Mohan's puzzle rock again. It just is,” Owailion commented, and then changed the subject. “Mohan claimed that the thief was almost certainly one of the dragons in the conclave, but if that is so, that might be the one thing withheld from the Memories. Besides, I'm at a loss with what I am supposed to do with a dragon who is also a thief. It's not like I can throw a sleeping dragon into exile like they would.”

  Raimi laid back down to comfort him. “I thought you said that it was dragon business. Mohan didn't want to bring a bad reputation to their human interactions.”

  “It became human business the moment they gave me the Memories and stewardship over the Land. I believe the rune stones were sold, and the transaction took place outside the Seal.”

  Raimi's brow furrowed. “Sold? For what? The dragons have…had no need for money.”

  Owailion sighed with a growing distress in his voice. “Would you sell the stones in exchange for time to not be asleep? If one of the dragons did not want to go into hibernation, they could easily have asked an outlander sorcerer to help them stay awake. It would be easy enough, even with a Heart Stone, to simply pretend to go to sleep and with just two Wise Ones in this great big Land we would hardly notice if they remained active. But while it would be a makeable bargain, how could a dragon be sure the sorcerer would not betray them?”

  Raimi nodded understanding but then added, “Or that there are people who would make such a bargain. The dragons are…were so honest and straightforward, it would never occur to them that anyone would be so false. Do you think you could be able to learn who did it?” She felt chilled at the thought of any of the dragons seeking a deal to avoid a fate they did not like. It seemed so outside their thought process.

  Owailion shrugged. “I could probably sift through the Memories until I discovered which one, but again, what would I do with that? I can't throw them in prison. They're far too powerful and sleeping is already a type of exile.”

  Raimi thought about it and then remembered something Imzuli had taught her early on. “Name magic. You know all the dragon's names now don't you?”

  Owailion nodded uncomfortably. “If I can pronounce them. What does that have to do with the price of the rune stones?” he asked guardedly.

  “Imzuli told me that if you know someone's true name then you can command that person- dragon or human-to do anything. They might fight it but in the end, even dragons have to obey you. You could wake them to ask questions if need be.”

  Owailion's expression grew more troubled. “Mohan never told me of this name magic…though he implied names held power. That's also probably hid here somewhere in the Memories. And he certainly knew the names of all the dragons, yet he did not use that knowledge on the others to discover the thief. Perhaps there is a reason. It sounds as if name magic takes away free will. It would be evil…against the Heart Stone. You cannot take another person's free will away without it being an act of evil.”

  “Not if what you asked of them was not evil in the first place. Ask me…command me to do something. Let's see if it works. Something I would not do without a command but is not evil,” she challenged.

  Owailion's mind, left open for her to read, muttered at her about this disturbing new form of magic, and he sat up to concentrate. He deliberately explored the Memories and soon recognized that Mohan had not shared this with him because it was just that; name magic was disturbing if misused and less than pure even if not evil. Owailion didn't know his own true name so he was never going to be in danger of being manipulated with name magic, but Raimi, coming to the Land with her name intact, that did not bode well for her. They had done nothing to protect her name and had even shared it with all the dragons at conclave.

  “Raimi…” he could think of only one thing he could command her to do that would fit to test the name magic. He conjured a simple wedge of red cabbage. “I know you don't like it but eat this.”

  She shook her head, warily eyeing the cabbage; not her favorite. “No, you've got to be more forceful and tie my name to it.”

  He still didn't like it but Owailion tried again with slightly more conviction. “Raimi, eat this cabbage.”

  Her eyes grew wide and she snatched the slice of vegetable from his hand and began gnawing on it as if she were starving. “Raimi, stop!” he called in alarm.

  “Blech!” she gasped. “Oh, that was horrible,” Raimi dropped the offending vegetable.

  “The cabbage or the name magic?”

  “Both,” she shook her head and made the awful cabbage disappear. “It feels like you have no choice. I didn't think, oh, goody, cabbage. I didn't think at all. I didn't even feel as if you were commanding me. That's …that's…”

  “Evil, like I said. The Heart Stone didn't block me but it still feels terribly wrong to use it even in a benign sense. Mohan didn't teach
me about name magic for a reason. A Wise One should not use it.”

  Raimi nodded, now more thoughtfully. “I agree, but what if it is used against us? All the dragons know my name and it would be wrong to strip it from them now even if we could figure out how,” she pointed out. “What are we going to do?”

  Owailion shifted uncomfortably and looked over at his wife, trying to find a way to ease her fear while dissipating his own. “We must find out who sold those stones. We'll talk to any of the dragons who are awake. They can't all have gone to sleep in an instant. And I'll take the time to think through these Memories and see if I can identify who took the rune stones. If they would sell the stones, they might be willing to use your name. Finally, we need to give you another name, something less dangerous. When other humans come like we foresaw, you'll be safer that way.”

  “It will be a lie,” she pointed out the obvious. “Wise Ones can't lie.”

  “Hello, you may call me Owailion,” he replied simply even though he didn't know what his real name might have been. “It is what you can honestly say.”

  Raimi sighed and he could hear her trepidation well as resolve. “Well, if that's the best we can hope for, we should start investigating soon. I have no doubt it will get difficult to find any dragon awake soon.”

  A week later he had to admit that Raimi was right. Every mind Owailion touched among the dragons was profoundly asleep and he still wasn't comfortable with using name magic to awaken them. He did this exploring work sitting in the center of the foyer of the nearly completed palace at Paleone. He wasn't concentrating on the palace itself. He left that to Raimi who worked on the gardens, despite it being winter. Instead he was wandering through the Memories, assessing how the complete knowledge of a thousand-year-old dragon could possibly be rolling around in his head and how he could manage to pull one thought, one idea, one act out of all that time. He decided to focus on the one dragon that had expressed dislike of humans in the first place; Ruseval. The green dragon seemed the most likely candidate to want to take the rune stones, but what was his motive?