by Oxford, Rain
“Dylan was able to control the water,” I said.
“Great. Then he should now be able to heal this tribe just like he did for Vaigda. But only this tribe for now. There is too much damage for you to heal at once.”
As Dylan sat down and started his thing, I shifted my eyes to watch and make sure the world’s magic didn’t hurt him. I could see the magic of the tribe respond cautiously to his magic. His energy didn’t even hesitate to take over, washing healing magic over everything. The scars disappeared slowly at first, then quicker until the space and time looked good as new.
Dylan slowed his energy flow until he could stop completely with no backlash. I shifted my eyes back as he opened his. “Did I get it all?” he asked, panting slightly. His breath was making puffs in the frigid air.
“Yes, you healed everything I can see.”
He wasn’t standing fully when Emrys shouted for me to catch him. Dylan’s eyes were closed and he was hitting the ice before Emrys could finish his warning. I caught Dylan’s arm before he slipped into the water. Sammy started struggling to get down, but as he was barefoot, I was not letting him anywhere near the ice.
“The gods have to stop doing this or give him a warning because they will give him a concussion.”
“That was poor timing on Tiamat’s part, I believe,” Emrys said.
* * *
Emrys picked Dylan up and we all went inside the ice castle. Sheltering us from the cold wind, it was actually warmer inside the walls of ice than out. Despite me continuously heating myself and Sammy, the ice did not threaten to melt. The castle was sparsely decorated with wooden and glass furniture, as well as lanterns. Emrys explained that the water tribe felt that it was impure to use anything other than water to survive, but it was also against their religion to reject gifts. As every tribe in the world relied on water to live, they received many gifts.
One such gift was a bed of furs, which Emrys laid Dylan on. It was very creepy how limp and lifeless Dylan was when the gods were talking to him. It was like the majority of his soul was missing, and only enough to keep him breathing and his heart beating remained.
“Is this a castle of some kind, or an average building?” I asked.
Emrys shrugged. “This is the normal structure for the water tribe. The people here come and go anywhere above the water and practice their water magic. It is similar to a large family in that they are all familiar and share everything. They are very territorial in the water, though. Underwater, they each have a large territory and will not let anyone enter, even a mate. Any socializing is done above the water. They are welcome to cross each other’s territory by creating a bridge above the water, but one foot in the waters of another’s home and they will have to fight for their life. This includes outsiders. Many have fallen because of their uneven footing on the ice and were eaten. That is why I said that Tiamat had poor timing, because in the water, even Dylan would be killed.
“What if you fell into Deona’s water?”
“Then I would have to either die or kill her.”
I really didn’t like this culture. As I was pondering this, Deona and another woman entered. No rooms in the building were divided by doors, so they entered silently. Deona carried a woven straw basket and I could smell the raw fish that it held. The other woman was similar in appearance, but had slightly darker hair and eyes and was marginally taller.
“This is my sister, Mayra.”
Mayra gave me a short bow and turned her full attention to Emrys. She gave him a greeting in her language, which sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. He returned the greeting but looked slightly uncomfortable. “Mayra is related to Deona only by their mother,” he said.
It made sense that Mayra was unrelated to Emrys when she settled up to his side and wrapped his arm around her. She was obviously unwelcome, but Emrys made no move to get away. He did have a very uncomfortable expression on his face, which she ignored.
Apparently, the women of the water got men by being extremely pushy. “Does it bother you that the women choose their mates here?” Deona asked me as I stared at the very unhappy Guardian.
“I guess not. Dylan’s girlfriend has her moments. Any woman does, I suppose.”
“Good,” she said. She set down the basket and grabbed my arm to pull me towards her, but instantly let go with a yelp of pain.
Her skin had felt like ice. Her hand was red as she shook it and held it close. Burns. My skin had burned hers on contact. I shrugged, not really feeling sorry for her. Just because Dylan liked his women pushy didn’t mean I did. “I guess we’re not compatible.”
Sammy giggled.
“A dragon child and a water tribe? Deona, did you expect that to work?” Emrys asked.
“I did not know he was made from fire,” she argued.
I dug into the baby bag to find Sammy’s shoes and then let him down when they were on. He was so excited to get down, he ran around in a circle. Then he stopped, frowned, and held up his arms. I started to lean down when I remembered we were trying to get him to talk.
He got it, but said something garbled. It didn’t quite sound like baby garble, but it was definitely not English or Sudo.
“What is that?” I asked him.
He frowned and shook his head.
“He has learned the Enochian language, the language of the gods. I would teach him not to speak it if I were you; there is a lot of magic in it,” Emrys said.
I would have to talk to Dylan about it later. “English, Sammy.”
“I want up. Too cold,” he said, not in English but in Sudo.
I sighed; Vivian was going to beat me with a stick when she found her bilingual baby refusing to speak English. I picked him up and he kicked off his shoes. I guess he was telling me not to put him back down. He smiled when I frowned with disapproval.
Emrys used magic to treat Deona’s hand, then she left to prepare dinner for us. When Mayra tried to get personal with Emrys, he hurriedly explained that he had to do something and left. Mayra looked from me to Dylan.
“He already has a permanent companion,” I told her when she stared too long at him. Of course, she couldn’t understand me.
Then Sammy said something obviously in the water tribe’s language. This was going to cause problems.
The woman made a scoffing sound and smirked. She took step closer to him, but before I could put up a defense for him, Sammy beat me to it. I felt the draw of energy in him as water was pulled out of thin air. Faster than she could react, the baby had the water wrapped around her, and he used it to slam her against the wall. The ice wall cracked.
“My dada!” he screamed in English. The woman slid to the floor, unconscious. “Dada, wake up!” he demanded.
Dylan’s eyes opened, but he looked more confused than anything.
“What did Tiamat say?” I asked.
“It started out normal enough. She said that Edward was alive, found, and safe on Duran. Sounds like he’s been through the ringer and needs a break, but the gods have apparently turned their ire off of him. Now Tiamat and I are the only ones they are arguing about. But when it was time to wake up, it became more like a dream. It was really scattered and I saw discussions we had a long time ago. I had glimpses of living back on Earth, some on Duran… I also saw a teenager who seemed really important. I have no idea, because I never saw him before, but I think it was Sammy as a teenager,” he said.
Sammy looked at Dylan with wide eyes as if he had said he saw Sammy as a purple draxuni.
“Then I heard Sammy yelling and that woke me up. What upset him so badly?” he asked. I pointed to Mayra. He glanced at her and shrugged. “Whatever she did, I bet she deserved it. Hey, do we get dinner? I’m starving.”
We found Emrys and Deona, who said that dinner was ready and we could eat. The dinner table was made of wood, but it was frozen over like it had been there a long time. Trays of fish were set out, all of it raw. Other men and women milled about the table, all who were barefoot and wore clo
thes of blue in shades from nearly white to nearly black. The most conservative attire included dresses that went nearly to the knees and had no sleeves. Emrys was the exception, as he wore boots and his clothes covered him conservatively.
We sat down and were served plates of raw fish. I didn’t hesitate to use my fire to cook my fish. When I reached for Dylan’s, he brushed my hand away.
“I can cook my own fish. I don’t know what dragon-fried fish tastes like and don’t want to know.”
“We are not calling it that,” I demanded, turning away. I remembered how quickly Sammy learned to control water. “Wait!” He stopped and waited for me to explain, but Emrys didn’t. Emrys used his energy to create fire, which he used to cook his fish.
My fire was different than the fire normal wizards used, but the magic that Dylan and Emrys used could be learned. Sammy giggled as Emrys’s fish blackened. As quickly as if it were natural, Dylan’s fish caught on fire. All the people of the water tribe froze in fright, but the fire on the fish instantly went out.
“Sammy, you burned my fish,” Dylan scolded. Sammy reached over and tried to take it, but Dylan blocked him. “I’m still going to eat it. I’m hungry.” Even as he said it, he had taken a set of chopsticks out of his bag and was breaking off a small portion for Sammy. Someone passed the baby a plate. Dylan handed me another set of chopsticks so that we could both give him some of our food. However, he wanted his own chopsticks. Dylan tried to teach him, but the tiny child did not have enough motor control to handle them. “If you eat that with your hands, then I will get you your own chopsticks when we go to Earth.”
“Why are we going back to Earth?” I asked.
“Because I haven’t healed it. Maybe this time we can land in Japan. They have training chopsticks that are shorter so babies can use them.”
“So does Duran.”
“Of course it does; Duran is second cousin to Japan.”
I noticed how everyone was trying not to stare at us as they all ate their raw fish with their hands… bones and all. After we were done eating, Emrys told them we were moving on. The people, thankful that Dylan healed their magic, offered us a basket of fish in ice. I told Dylan that it was against their religion to reject gifts, so we accepted it.
The trip back to land on the flying disk was made worse by the knowledge that if we fell in the water, we would immediately be eaten. I breathed easier when we finally made it to land.
“We can make it to the land tribe before the sun goes down and sleep there,” Emyrs said.
The sun was getting very low in the sky, so I figured either we were close, or the sunset lasted longer here than on Duran. “Is there a fire tribe?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Can we sleep there tomorrow?” I nagged. Dylan rolled his eyes. “What?”
“Some of us aren’t part dragon and don’t want to sleep in a hundred and fifteen degrees,” he argued. I had to think back to when he was talking about temperatures. I gave up.
Humans had three different degree systems and Dylan alternated between two of them. It was too hard to keep up with. On Duran, temperature was used in science and cooking. Outside of that, things were hot, warm, cool, cold, or freezing.
“I’m not part dragon,” I argued.
“Where’s your little dragon tattoo today?” he asked. I ignored him, as I already knew it was on my left wrist.
It took more than two hours of hiking to make it to the other tribe. I was huffing and puffing and finally knew what Dylan had felt when he first came to Duran. It didn’t help that I was carrying Sammy. Dylan was faring no better.
Dylan suddenly remembered something he had in the baby bag, and pulled out a bottle of water. “This has to last us until we get back to Earth or Duran, so drink sparingly,” he said. The plastic bottle had English written all over it.
I drank a sip and made a face. “That’s not clean.”
“Because Vivian only ever buys mineral water. I know it’s gross, but it’s safe. Normally I could filter the minerals out, but you know my powers aren’t working right and I don’t want to tempt fate by tampering with it using my god-magic.” Dylan filled a cup with a lid and handed it to Sammy, but the baby pouted pathetically.
“Apple, Dada.”
“I don’t have any apple-juice, honey, only water,” Dylan said.
He looked at me and held up the cup.
“Apple-goose, Mama?”
“I don’t even know what it is. I don’t have anything.” Normally when a baby was denied, he cried, but Sammy understood. He didn’t look happy, but he drank his water without crying.
We came to an end of the regular forest, where the ground gave way to swamp, but out of the murky water grew huge trees. Everywhere, there were wooden bridges and decks. Deep into the majestic trees were simple buildings; what looked like homes and stores and everything in between.
“Motto, onegai,” Sammy said, holding up his empty cup.
I looked at Emrys, but the Guardian shrugged. “I know not what he said.”
Sammy frowned. “No…” He held it back up with a smile as he remembered the words. “More, please.”
Dylan’s eyes were wide, but he handed me the water bottle. I refilled the cup, emptying the bottle.
“Say, xièxiè,” Dylan said.
The word was completely foreign to me. This time I was looking directly at Sammy. When Dylan said the foreign word, Sammy’s eyes glowed with a bright purple light for just a moment before they returned to normal.
Sammy smiled. “Xièxiè nǐ, māmā,” the child said.
“What does that mean?” I asked Dylan.
“Arigato!” Sammy declared.
“It means that we’d better watch what we say because he can learn any language magically,” Dylan said. He looked like he needed to sit down. “Vivian’s going to kill us. He couldn’t even talk before and know he can fluently speak six languages. I don’t even know how he learned Japanese, and ‘xièxiè’ is the only Chinese word I know.”
“How does someone learn a language magically?” I asked. Let alone a baby.
“Dragon!” the baby screamed with delight.
We looked ahead to the city, where a crowd had formed in one particular tree. They were waving a burning statue of a creature that did actually resemble Blood. I wondered what had happened to our poor dragon after the demon attack.
“They are calling to the fire tribe for assistance. Every month or so, they need more fire.”
“How do they run out of fire?” Dylan asked.
Emrys gave him a look. “They use it all up.”
“Can’t they just spread the fire?”
“Of course not. Only a fire-user can create or spread fire,” he said, as if that made any sense. Dylan and I both sighed; this was going to be weirder than the water tribe. “They will continue this ritual until a fire-user answers by sending a ball of fire into the air.”
I pulled the fire from inside and shot it over the swamp, making sure that it would go out before burning anything. We could hear the people cheer and they stopped waving the statue. The trek was an easy one with the network of bridges and wooden steps. Unlike in the water tribe, the air was very pleasant.
The people greeted us warmly as we passed, on our way to the platform that Emrys said was the tribe’s meeting place. A young man, a few years older than Dylan in appearance, stepped forward. He had green eyes and medium brown hair that matched the forest. His clothes were a mixture of browns and greens, as were those of everyone else here, and he wore brown fur boots. Despite their friendliness, parents held the many children back.
“This is my only son of the land tribe, Yaden.”
Yaden gave us a short bow. “Welcome to the land tribe. You are from Duran?”
“Yes,” Dylan answered.
“Which one of you is a fire-user?” He asked.
“We both are, actually. Wizards on Duran learn more than one type of magic. But he knows fire better than I,” Dylan said.
“Then please let us make your stay comfortable. We have very little fire to offer comfort, but we have water and shelter.”
“Yaden is too shy to directly ask for help,” Emrys said to his son’s embarrassment.
“I already volunteered it. Where do you need fire?” I asked.
People brought lanterns forward, but on every one, the fire was miniscule and just about dead. I took one of the metal lanterns and found that while it had a hollow container underneath the flame, it was empty.
“This is a kerosene lantern. An Earth invention. It needs fuel,” Dylan said. I had never heard of that particular kind of lantern, but I got the idea.
“Yes, they are. I brought one to Malta. The land tribe was able to re-create it, and the fire tribe was able to light it, but we did not know what goes inside.”
“How did you keep the wick lit without fuel?” Dylan asked.
“Fire here is not like yours on Duran or Earth; it doesn’t naturally go out until it is all used up.” Emrys said.
“But what about my fire? Will it go out?”
“Only if that is your intention. Dragon fire could last for months here.”
I lit the wick, just like I had so many times in my life, but this time I made sure to will it to last as long as possible. There was another cheer when the lamp instantly burned brightly. Others brought their lamps forward and I spent a long time lighting them; there were so many.
When all of the lamps were lit, Emrys led us to a small cabin for the night. Inside was little more than two beds and some storage cabinets. Still, it was warm and felt sturdy enough that it wouldn’t collapse.
I was settling a blanket in a wicker basket when Yaden came in with a wooden tray of fruit and bread. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said.
Sammy’s eyes lit up with joy.
Dylan held up the basket of fish, in which the ice hadn’t even begun to melt. “We have some fish, but more than we could ever eat. You can have it, if you like fish,” he said.
Yaden looked at the basket like it was full of gold. “We have no fish here; we only eat what our land grows and what we hunt. Fish is a great treat that the water tribe sometimes brings with them.”
