Talismans

by Lisa Lowell

  Owailion felt himself split three ways and could not react to all he abruptly knew he needed to face; a ship with a sorcerer aboard, someone just walking across where the Seal that had burst only moments before and most alarming, Raimi's severing from him.

  Unfortunately the decision was made for him. A wave of pure power launched at Owailion from the ship and he staggered back under the weight of it against his shields. In return he mounted a stronger invisible bubble of protection around himself and then straightened up. With a flick of thought Owailion snapped the anchor chain of the ship and bashed the hull against the finger island to which it had latched itself. The vessel began immediately breaking up but the magical attacks continued. The blasts split and this time fell upon the poor travelers who drove their cart across the beach toward Owailion.

  Desperately Owailion flung a haphazard shield around the wagon as well and began running toward the travelers. He didn't dare use more blatant magic around someone who was most likely just passing by, but each magical blow at the wagon sent up explosions of sand and grasses that surely alarmed them. Indeed the wagon pulled up and the passengers inside hopped down, trying to hide from the near misses. Owailion threw a wave of power at the finger island and noted that the ship had sunk by now and so the sorcerer must be on the island, protected behind a shield. He would have to destroy the island to distract the sorcerer.

  Owailion ducked behind the wagon to face the newcomers, a huge man, his lovely wife and two young boys who cowered behind their cart in terror. “Welcome to the Land,” Owailion said between tightly clenched teeth, trying not to shout over the explosions. Owailion could only hope they spoke his language. He did not want the sorcerer to overhear this exchange so he added a bubble of silence over the wagon.

  “You can call me Owailion. I've been waiting for you, I think. Your name wouldn't happen to be Gilead, would it?”

  The father of the family looked at him like he was being ridiculous, but another blast from the island made them all crouch again. “Yes, but how did you know?” the man replied under his breath. So the newest Wise One had not come to the Land in a miraculous arrival nor without his memory. Instead he came from a neighboring land with a family in tow. Owailion did not have time to consider the ramifications of that.

  Instead he pulled out the new Heart Stone. “I am a magician here in the Land and now so are you. Here, hold this,” and Owailion shoved the Heart Stone at the man's huge hands and then continued. “We're under attack from that island. I want you to wish that island ground down and eroded. Direct all your thoughts toward the base of that rock. I will take on the sorcerer. We must take him out together.”

  The entire little family gaped at Owailion's hurried explanation. Then another attack beat like a bell against the shield. Gilead was so tall, even on his knees he had to crouch to hide behind his wagon, but that decided him and he did as he was told. The newest Wise One squinted out at the island just off shore and wished the stone would disintegrate. A cry of alarm echoed over the water and Owailion saw someone who had been invisible reappear and fall like a wounded bird with a splash into the water. For his part Owailion snapped the sorcerer's neck before he hit the water. Abruptly all the attacks ended with that death and Owailion stood up, joined by the very rattled family.

  “Thank you for your help,” Owailion began, although his thoughts were skipping far away already, seeking Raimi.

  “I….I…what did I do?” Gilead asked as he too rose and dusted off his knees.

  Owailion felt a frantic pounding on his heart and wished he could teach this man what had happened but more urgently he needed to find Raimi. He could taste something wrong in the very air around him, like she had blocked him completely out of her thoughts. Owailion struggled to concentrate on what he was facing right at the moment. He looked over at Gilead.

  “You are magic, like I told you. Now, there is much I need to do to explain all of this but there is someone else who needs me more. I will be back as soon as possible. Why don't you and your family go over those dunes there and find some shelter. I will return as soon as I can.”

  And then without seeing if they would comply, Owailion disappeared, leaving more questions in his wake than anyone could hope to ask.

  * * *

  The snapping of the Seal thundered across the water and caused earthquakes all across the Land but locally it also masked the roar of approaching water in Raimi's ears. The damned up river now washed away the hillsides and flew off the plateau in a blinding storm, full of the debris eroded away from swamped hills and valleys. Hundreds of trees snapped under the muddy wave. No wonder Owailion lacked the inspiration to build a palace here. It would have been destroyed in her final act. A rock and mud wall of pure fury knocked Raimi down, burying her with Imzuli's corpse and washed a tsunami at the ship.

  But the sorcerer was prepared, Raimi realized. The ship crumbled beneath him but her Tormentor escaped unharmed, for she could still sense him from her tomb in the mud, although she was barely conscious and could not breathe or see in the thick mud she had washed over herself. She felt him walking through the debris toward her coming past the fallen Seal. He would command her to stay alive and she did not want to do that…not again. She had fought him to a draw but he still possessed her name. He had commanded her to kill her best friend and she had wounded the Land terribly at his command. Next she would be forced to fight Owailion. She would not endure it more. But the Tormentor had taught her one thing he had not intended; a way out.

  “Raimi,” she whispered to herself, thankful that she was already buried next to Imzuli, “die.”

  Chapter 24 – Eulogy

  Owailion felt her die. That was how he could find her. He spun through his mind, trying to locate the murky link that abruptly fell away. Raimi's demise hit him like a punch in the gut, blocking him with the wave of magic that had built up and then broke free like a tsunami. Owailion gasped and retched, seeking for the breath he had lost. He staggered toward Raimi mid-transition to a place he failed to recognize.

  Owailion arrived on a flooded beach against a bay fouled with debris from an inundation. Behind him, farther up the beach he did not recognize a thing, even from in the Memories. Snapped trees and a dirty new river cut sharp, slow paths through the mud, oozing like a snake and forming swamps farther inland. Which river was this? He could not think. A large mud covered bulge marred the uniform flatness of the floodplain. He started to run to the shape but he wasn't thinking straight. He had to find Raimi and she wasn't here.

  A blast of light threw him back into one of the streams and Owailion blacked out briefly but frenzied terror drove him back into awareness and he struggled back to his feet to face this new assault. Where was Raimi? “Raimi!” he called into the echoing silence of an absent mind as an unknown sorcerer waded out of the sluggish surf toward him.

  “She's mine, Owailion,” the Tormenter taunted.

  For one perplexing moment Owailion could not understand how any human could be so evil to not even understand the grief he had caused. Owailion wanted to become a dragon; massive and fire-breathing to roast this enemy into oblivion. Perhaps one day he would manage it, but the fire he could handle. Giving in to his temper, Owailion drew on the Memories and launched a fireball at the sorcerer. Owailion lifted his enemy up into the sky, shooting him straight up, beyond the clouds, beyond the air. Pure rage held the flame in existence even after the oxygen to feed it burned away. When Owailion sensed the magician's shield finally pop and the fire pushed through, he dropped the monster and let him plummet to earth.

  Before the sorcerer's cinders landed Owailion waded toward the mound on the shore and using magic he swept away the waist deep mud. He found the dragon's hide almost unrecognizable and he lifted the whole mass free and sea water out of the ocean to wash her clean. It was Imzuli.

  “Tethimzuliel?” he called, hoping the dragon was just asleep again, but he felt the same empty hollow without even a flicker of acknowledgement. “Where is Rai
mi?” he asked the corpse in his insane desperation.

  Still no answer. Finally, covered in mud and barely able to move, some glimmer of logic managed to drip into Owailion's mind. You have magic. Use it. He stopped struggling and began scanning the mud-field with a magical eye, seeking for something specific.

  He found Raimi's body face down completely buried in the shallow surf where the tide slowly washed her clean. How could she have drowned, he wondered? She's the Queen of Rivers. She cannot drown. Owailion's mind rattled through half formed thoughts with no effort to make sense of what might have happened. Instead he sat in the water and cradled Raimi's pale graceful body until night fell overhead. He wept and railed for hours, alone, oh so alone.

  Dawn came before Owailion thought of something more to do. The tide threatened to take them both out to sea and he might have welcomed that except he didn't know how to die with her. So instead he resolutely carried Raimi up the shore and approximately where her palace might have been, he buried her on a newly formed island. He also placed Imzuli's body next to her and then wondered what to do next. He attempted some kind of ceremony as the sun rose but he could think of only one thing to say. “Under the eyes of God I will always love you and cleave to you alone for eternity.”

  For once the oath, swearing again their wedding vows, did not change his appearance. He still stood up to his knees in mud, unrecognizable with it drying all over him.

  The rest of the day he sat in chilled misery, unwilling to leave the swamp or clean himself up, manage a fire or food; nothing. Perhaps he would become one with the marsh as well. But eventually he remembered the Talismans he carried with him and pulled them into existence. He simply stared at them with a kind of fear. He wanted to forget his grief and the pipes would help but he didn't want to risk forgetting Raimi. The two were bound together in his mind. He wanted to forget that she was gone and the pipes could not help there. The pipes could never make him forget his love.

  Next he speculated about using the bowl. The idea occurred to him finally that she had given him the bowl to see the past as almost her last act. This Talisman, he feared as well. He did not want to see Raimi's struggle. Would the actuality be worse than what his imagination had dredged up? But if he was going to live forever, he might need to do more than sit in the mud for a few thousand years. Owailion thought carefully about his request of the bowl, filled it with water that wasn't murky with the continued silting of the Lara River and then whispered, “Show me how Raimi came to be here and died.”

  The vision began at Imzuli's cavern in Jonjonel and fortunately he was able to hear the mental commands of the Tormenter or he would have assumed the worst of the white dragon. Instead Owailion watched as Imzuli tried to protect her friend and then when the ultimatum came, he knew exactly why Raimi had decided the way she had. She had set aside her Heart Stone in case it prevented her from dying. She would not be the means of bringing more destruction on her loved ones or the Land. She would never choose; the impossible choice.

  Indeed Raimi's curse had followed her to the Land and what she touched had been ruined…even his heart, Owailion thought bitterly. Thankfully her last thoughts had been of him and she had sent him the Talisman so he would know how much she loved him. It was her parting gift to him. She had not wanted to leave him but her duty had demanded it. She had pioneered forward without him.

  Owailion sat through another night, drying mud all over him, and thought about all he had seen and knew that if he had been presented with the same dilemma he would have done the exact same thing. So that was why God had not provided him with his name at his 'hatching'. Owailion probably would have taken the easy way out of his eternal life if this was to be his fate; alone forever. He could not be angry at Raimi. She had been wise and that he did not want to forget.

  So finally after three days mourning and feeling numb he acted at last. Owailion buried the bowl and pipes right beside Raimi's body. Then, remembering his duty, he washed himself up a bit in the fresher water up stream and then returned to Gilead and his family on the far side of the continent.

  Epilogue

  “Mohan? Mohanzelechnekhi? Can you hear me?” Owailion waited the requisite time to allow his friend to respond. If anything the dragon felt farther away than ever. Human fear of the gold dragon's reaction to all Owailion's failures made each moment seem that much more torturous. He dreaded this conversation but he had to do it.

  “Owailion?” the golden dragon sounded a little bewildered but answered clearly.

  “Yes, it is me. I have some…some bad news. Imzuli is dead…and so is Raimi.” He said it in a rush, trying to get it out before he broke down yet again. Owailion expected Mohan's shields to slam up so that he could think and grieve privately, but to his surprise that was not the case.

  “I wondered why she had come so early,” Mohan commented. “She isn't making much sense right now and I cannot get her to talk about what happened just yet.”

  “Wait, Imzuli is with you?”

  “Of course,” Mohan sounded earnest and perfectly sane as he said this. “She was going to be the next one to come anyway, but not for another hundred years or so. We will all eventually leave the Land and come here…wherever here is. We are sleeping through the trip, but I have not arrived just yet so I do not know. And, having no body she's going to have to make do with me for company for a while.”

  “The dragons…. are leaving the Land, not sleeping here?”

  “Oh, there will be dragons in the Land sleeping for a long while more. As I said, only one every century will leave but usually they will come with their body. Since you have given a few of them a Talisman as a responsibility, those will be the last to leave. Perhaps by the time all the Wise Ones are in place, we will have all taken our leave of you. I still do not know the full purpose of the Sleep but we all must move on.”

  Owailion had little energy for this new wondrous news. “I…I…I was just so afraid to tell you that your daughter had been killed in defense of Raimi. Tell her thank you for me.”

  “I will, and I am sorry about Raimi. Perhaps it was unwise to not warn you of name magic earlier. But it will be all good with time.”

  Human anger came far too easily to Owailion now with his grief and he struggled to control his tone. “Good with time?” he queried, trying to keep the cynicism out of his voice.

  “Yes, I told you that Wise Ones cannot truly die, didn't I?” asked Mohan*. “If not, I am sorry that not everything had been taught that should have been.*”

  Owailion strained to hold his raw emotions in check. “Explain to me how the Wise Ones cannot die when I have just buried her body.”

  Mohan, on the other hand, grew gentler with his grieving friend. “A Wise One's spirit is no different than a dragon's. We are both bound to the Land and that duty holds till the end of time. Her spirit cannot leave the Land and eventually, after your duties are fulfilled, you will find a way to bring her back. It is a promise.”

  “After my duties are fulfilled?” Owailion almost snapped, biting his tongue.

  “After the Land is Sealed again and you have done all you have been sworn to do…including building her palace. You are the leader of the Wise Ones and you must oversee the Age of Man. Then the Land will be protected by your magic and you may then find her spirit again and join her with a body and be with her again. But you must be patient. That is your weakness, Owailion. Patience. Your time will come. The path is clear and when it is not clear, it will be straight.”

  Owailion heard those words, the echo of God's promise back after he had first hatched. He dare not be angry in his grief anymore. He might fall from grace and become unworthy of being a Wise One. He would not find Raimi again if he fell into his grief. Slowly Owailion forced himself to be civil. “Thank you, my friend. I will try to remember that. Farewell.”

  And as he felt the last connection to his friend fade, he sighed. How many ties would be severed from his heart? Owailion looked out across the barren peaks and then
up into the sky above the mountain, as if someone other than God could hear him. “I will find you, my love, one day, for you are my Talisman.”

  We hope you enjoyed reading Talismans. If you have a moment, please leave us a review - even if it's a short one. We want to hear from you.

  The story continues in Ley Lines.

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  Best regards,

  Lisa Lowell and the Creativia Team

  About the Author

  Lisa Lowell was born in 1967 into a large family full of hands-on artists, in southern Oregon. In an effort to avoid conflict, her art of choice was always writing, something both grandmothers taught her. She started with poetry at six on her grandmother's ancient manual typewriter. By her teens she moved on to pen and paper and produced gloomy, angst-ridden fantasy during adolescence. Her mother claims that Lisa shut the door and never came out until she left for university. During this time she felt compelled to draw illustrations throughout the margins that helped supplement her neglect of adjectives and consistent story lines.

  A much appreciated English teacher, Mrs. Segetti, collected these moody musings and sent them in to scholarship foundations. Lisa got a scholarship for that rather poor writing, escaped Oregon and went to university. While she loved her family, her only requirement in a school was anywhere too far away to come home on weekends. She got as far as Idaho, Utah and then even Washington D.C. before she truly launched. She traveled to Sweden (Göteborg, Lund and Sundsvall) for a year and a half during college where she also reconnected with her heritage.