by GARY DARBY
I lie back down, staring up at the stars, my eyes wide open, my mind and heart racing. Did I actually hear Vay, or was it just a dream? Can she really see me and if she can, is there any place on Erdron I can go where she can’t find me?
My thoughts swirl round and round like evening fireflies. They’re all jumbled together like a child’s game of pick-up sticks.
But one in particular among the many keeps coming, unbidden and harsh, prodding and stabbing at me.
I try to push the idea away, but I can’t. Like a stalking cat that’s centered on its prey and nothing else, I can’t get my mind to focus on anything but this one harsh and grating impression.
Vay’s bloodlust is centered on me. She has never attacked the golden to kill. To capture, yes, but never to slay.
Somehow, we’ve evaded her claws up to now, but her fury and rage must surely grow with each passing moment that I’m still alive, and the golden is not in her grasp.
Now, with her power to destroy mounting day by day, is it just a matter of time before she butchers not only me but my companions as well?
Am I putting all of them in danger? The pain of that notion makes me squirm as I try to think through my dilemma.
I don’t have the right to place anyone in harm’s way, do I? What if because of me, little Scamper is killed, or Phigby—or Cara?
How could I face that knowing that I was the cause of their death?
What if I did leave the company? Would that make them any safer?
I once deemed that I would never leave my companions behind, that if I did it would be a cowardly act to save my own skin.
However, that was before I understood that like a bear to honey, I’m drawing Vay to us. I’m endangering the company by my very presence.
Curled up next to me and fast asleep is Scamper. His little nose quivers and for a moment his front paws move as if he’s furiously pawing at the ground.
A small smile plays across my face. He’s dreaming of digging up some tasty grubs or worms for breakfast, I think.
I reach out to stroke his soft furry coat. What have I done to him, bringing him along on this journey? Endangered his life, too?
Of course, he wouldn’t have stayed in Draconstead without me and as I recall he did insist on coming along. Still, he has a right to life, just as the others.
The golden lets out a little rumble in her sleep and twitches. Her scales rasp against the ground before she quietens and sinks into deep slumber.
And what to do about the golden? Maybe she and I should just leave the company. Without us two, Vay would certainly have no interest in the others, would she?
I can feel the gemstone pressing against my chest. Vay seems to want the jewel, too. Golden Wind won’t take it, I can’t give it back to Pengillstorr, it apparently won’t work for anyone else but me.
What if I dropped it into the depths of a river? That way no one could have it.
I think.
But to leave Scamper and Cara? I thought I had lost them once and I felt as if my spirit had drained right out of my body. I was lifeless, dead.
Did I want to feel that way again? No.
The ominous thought comes at me again, stronger. To protect them, I have to leave them.
I can’t sleep and I can’t shake the feeling so I decide to get up and walk even though my body is tired, worn out.
I slide to my feet and with my head down, begin to pace. I’m so engrossed in my dark dilemma that I hardly notice when I slip through a crack between two of the oblong rocks.
My feet seem to have a mind of their own and I’m just tagging along for the ride. But that’s all right as I really don’t want to think about anything but what to do about my quandry.
It seems that if I stay with the company, I’ll make things worse. Yet, if I leave the company I do the same thing.
I have no illusions of who or what I am. I’m no hero, no warrior like Helmar or Amil, able to hold off vicious Vargs with bow or ax. I’m not smart like Cara and Phigby, no born leader like Master Boren.
I’m just me and nothing else.
I let out a sigh. It all hinges around one question, whether I stay or go, will it make a difference?
Out of the darkness a hand grabs my arm.
I try to jump aside, but the grip is tight and hard. “Hooper!” Cara hisses. “What are you doing out here?”
“I, uh, well, I . . .” start to answer and stop. I instantly recognize a serious flaw in my walkabout. I haven’t watched where my feet were taking me.
I look around. Somehow, without me even knowing, I’ve ended up just inside the woodlands, next to one of the large oaken-like trees.
“Uh,” I mumble again. I can’t think of anything, of any excuse that would make sense.
Once, I was so hungry that I tried to snatch a piece of bread in the meal house when I thought the cooks weren’t watching. Marly caught me. It was the same then, too, I couldn’t explain my way out of my predicament.
However, unlike Marly, I highly doubt that Cara is going to beat me black and blue.
Cara brings her face close to mine. “Hooper,” she whispers, “you’re babbling. Stop before you wake everyone.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, “you startled me.”
“And well I should,” she retorts. “You’re on the wrong side of the dragons and out of camp. If I hadn’t recognized that gait of yours, I might have put an arrow in you.”
My assessment of Cara’s abilities as a camp guard go up several notches. The girl is not only aware of what’s outside the camp, she has her eyes on the inside of the camp, too.
On top of that, she could recognize me even in the pitch-black of the woods. A good thing too, because at this range, she wouldn’t have missed putting an arrow in me.
“Well?” Cara insists. “I’m listening.”
I wave a hand around, trying to think of something to say, but nothing comes out of my throat. Then, just as I start to squeak out, “I—” Cara claps her hand over my mouth.
“Quiet!” she whispers. “Something is moving toward us.”
I turn in the direction she’s staring. She whips her bow up, an arrow already notched in the string. A dark shape slowly moves next to the trees.
Pulling at Cara, we both begin to sidestep away from whatever thing is gliding towards us.
I have only one thought. It’s Vay. In my stupidity of wandering around and not staying inside the camp, I’ve drawn her to us and now this monstrous evil is moving closer and closer.
Then, a tiny shaft of moon glow splits the trees illuminating our threat.
It’s the golden.
She ponderously strides toward us until she’s a few arm’s lengths away and stops.
I shake my head and sputter at her, “That’s the second time you’ve done that. You’ve got to stop scaring the wits out of me!”
“Doing what?” Cara questions. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Not you,” I snort, “the golden. She did the same thing to me just after we escaped from the barn. Came out of the dark like some blob of—well, like something or other. I almost shot her with an arrow, too.”
The golden turns her gaze from Cara to me before she settles down on her rear legs. She blinks several times; her eyes seem to be studying me, as if seeking an unspoken answer.
“Going somewhere, Hooper?” she asks.
I just stand there. I don’t have any more of a response for her than I did for Cara. “Uh, restless legs, restless mind. I needed to go for a walk.”
“What?” Cara says. She peers at me with an intense questioning expression. “Hooper, I didn’t ask you anything.”
Uh oh. Now I’ve done it; I spoke to the golden in front of one of the others. And not just anyone, it had to be Cara.
The girl who is as tenacious in finding the answer to a mystery as Scamper is digging out a king-size hole just to get one worm.
“I—I,” I stammer, “I was just saying to you that I had restless legs, I needed to�
��”
“No,” Cara abruptly states. “You didn’t say that to me. You said it to Golden Wind. You spoke directly to her.”
She cocks her head to one side and peers at me with narrowed eyes. “You were talking to a dragon, Hooper, and it was as if you were having an actual conversation between the two of you.
“I heard her do the ‘clacking’ that dragons use around each other and you answered.”
“What?” I chortle and sputter. “Cara, the lack of sleep is getting to you. You’re imagining things. Besides, you speak to your dragon all the time.”
“Uh huh,” Cara replies calmly enough but her voice drips with supicion.
“But that’s different. It wasn’t what you said—it was how you said it. As if she could understand you and you were explaining something to her.”
“That’s just plain silly,” I answer. “She’s a dragon. Of course, she can’t understand what I’m saying. Any more than I can understand her dragon, uh, clacks, and snorts and squeaks and chirps, and all the other sounds dragons make.”
I am really making a mess of things.
From her expression, I can tell Cara is not buying into my explanation. I feel like I’m caught in a vise, squeezing me tighter and tighter until I’m going to explode and reveal to Cara my ability to talk with Golden Wind.
Cara stares at me and then peers at the golden. Golden Wind is sitting with an expectant, almost amused expression on her face. I think she’s enjoying my discomfort.
Immensely—and not lifting a talon to help me out, either.
“No,” Cara speaks slowly as if she’s musing over something in her mind, trying to solve a puzzle that’s been placed before her.
“No, I don’t think so,” she declares in a confident tone. She takes a step closer to me, peers deep into my eyes, then turns, and stares at the golden.
“I’ve heard you muttering things to her before. I thought you were just being Hooper, but now I’m beginning to wonder if that’s really so anymore.”
The golden gazes at me and cocks her head to one side. “Well, Hooper, what are you going to do now?”
I do my best to ignore her as if she hadn’t said a thing.
Cara’s eyes flick from me to the golden and back again. “She just did it again, didn’t she?” she insists. “She just spoke to you, and you understood what she said.”
She puts her face so close that our noses are almost touching, her eyes locked on mine. “I’m right, aren’t I?” she demands.
I pull back a little and do my best to put on a jovial air as I wave a hand dismissively. “Cara, your mind is loopy from no sleep. That’s it; you must be so exhausted that your mind is playing tricks on you, and this is some dream you’re having.
“Why don’t I do the remainder of your guard duty for you so that you can get some sleep?”
She punches me in the shoulder. Hard. “Ow!” I grumble, rubbing at my new black and blue spot.
“Hooper,” she huffs, “if this is a dream, then why did you just yelp after I punched you and why is your shoulder hurting?”
“Because it must be a nightmare,” I mutter, still rubbing my bruised arm. “A really bad one.”
“And it’s going to get worse,” she answers and points a finger straight at my nose. “Hooper, you tell me the truth, or . . . or so help me I’ll never speak to you again.”
My arm smarts so I rub it some more. I never realized how hard a girl could punch, especially Cara. I always considered her slight of build, but now I know she’s been hiding hard muscle under her thick tunic.
Poor Helmar, if he ever gets in a fight with her, he’s coming away with a bloodied nose.
I, on the other hand, if I ever got in a tussle with her, would come away with several things broken, and not just my nose.
“Never speaking to me again I can handle,” I mumble. “Just don’t hit me again.”
“Oh, really?” she answers with a hard glare. “You never want me to speak to you again?”
She stabs the end of her finger right up to the tip of my nose. “Are you going to tell me the truth or not? And don’t you dare threaten to turn me into a Stinkbean Bush again.”
I take a deep breath. Right now, between Cara and the golden, neither of them ever speaking to me again just might be a good thing, it would certainly be less painful.
The golden returns my gaze, and I swear that she’s really enjoying my distress. I can also see that she’s not going to help me. I’ve got to get out of this predicament on my own.
Letting out a sound that’s almost a copy of one of Scamper’s growls, I say, “I’m not saying anything more, and that’s all there is to it.
“You’re overly tired and hearing and seeing things in the dark that aren’t actually there. Now, do you want me to finish the rest of your night guard or not?”
Cara glowers at me and stomps her foot. “Not!” she snaps and starts to whirl away.
Spinning back, she orders in a commanding voice, “Hooper, get the golden back into camp, and that goes for you, too. Now.”
She stands there, waiting for me to comply. With an accepting nod, I wave a hand at Golden Wind.
“C’mon, it’s back to camp for both of us before Cara forgets we’re on the same side and puts an arrow up your nose and one in my rump.”
I lead the golden back to camp. Once she’s settled, I make sure that no one, especially Cara is in earshot and fiercely whisper to her, “Thanks a lot, now Cara is beyond furious at me.
“It’ll probably be a hundred seasons or more before she ever speaks to me again. What were you doing out there anyway?”
The golden lowers her head and murmurs, “A better question is what were you doing out there? You were thinking of leaving, weren’t you Hooper?”
“Leaving, staying,” I stammer, “who knows what I was thinking?”
She stares at me, and I can see in her eyes that she knows as well as I what I was pondering. How she knows, I have no idea, but she does.
“All right, all right,” I mumble. “Yes, I was thinking of leaving.”
She justs sits and stares, waiting for me to explain.
“That’s right,” I grumble. “You know, running off, getting out of here, leaving it all behind. But I was also considering what it meant if I stayed too.”
“Why?” the golden asks.
I don’t answer, I just stare at the ground. I really don’t want to explain to her why I felt the need to leave.
“I see,” the golden answers. “You thought to protect us.”
The golden brings her head until she’s at eye level with me. “You assumed that if you left, Vay wouldn’t trouble the company and they would be safer than they are now. Is that it?”
She’s done it again. She knows. How does she do that?
I have no idea but it causes me to bristle that she always seems know what’s going on in my head.
“If you know the answers already, why do you keep asking me questions? Just pose the question to yourself, and then answer. Save a lot of time that way, you know.”
She rumbles low in her throat. “No, Hooper, I don’t know all the answers, but I do know that what you were trying to do was very noble, but very wrong.
“You don’t understand. Vay is not only after you, she badly wants me, too, and most likely the others.”
I snap my head up at her comment, and my eyebrows furrow together. “I know she wants you, and I know she wants me dead, but why would she want any of the rest of the company?”
She lets out a little sigh. “Hooper,” she begins, “Vay knows that the longer you and I are together, the stronger we become.
“Apart, we grow weaker. It is the same with our company.”
She raises her head to look at our sleeping comrades. “If we can get past that which divides us, then we too will become stronger.
“I can assure you that it was not happenstance that this comradeship was brought together, nor the others who will become a part of us.”
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br /> I blink in surprise. “You mean there will be more that join us?”
“Oh yes, Hooper, and each will add unique gifts, just as those who are here now add their unique talents, knowledge, and strength.
“Vay knows this, and she also knows that there is great power in our unity and our single-mindedness to defeat her.
“Each of us in this company is in danger, Hooper, and if we leave, they may well be in even greater danger.”
“You said if we leave. What you mean is that if I left, you would go too.”
The golden raises her head to gaze at the pale light of the setting moons that slants through the woodland. “I would have to go, Hooper, for as you are tied to the gemstone, so am I.”
She swings her head down so that we’re once again eye to eye. “So, would you have Cara and the others face Vay without us?”
I’m not sure how to respond to her. I didn’t realize that Vay wanted to destroy the whole group.
I assumed she was only after me, and I certainly didn’t understand that Vay had evil intentions toward Cara, or her father, or the rest of our little company.
“I’m not sure I see why the others are a threat to her,” I return.
“But I do understand that she wants me dead and you her captive. Me, because I’m the Gem Guardian, and apparently the jewel has powers that for the moment can hold her back.
“But why does she want you? What do you have that she needs so badly?”
The golden stares at me for a long moment, as if she’s considering just how to answer my question.
“Let’s just say,” she slowly explains, “that for now, she does not have all the keys she needs to unlock the full measure of her vile powers.”
She glances sideways at those that sleep. “As far as our companions are concerned, just remember that they are already in grave danger, Hooper, and not just from Vay.
“Prince Aster and the Wilders know that both you and I are with Master Boren and the others. You see, even if we left them behind, the prince would hunt them down just to find out what they know, what they have seen regarding you and me.”
Golden Wind pauses before saying, “He will use the Wilders to do his bidding. They will carry out the search, and they will destroy any and all that come between them and that which they seek.”
