Genereef sent for eight olissairn from the Tongues of Silver, two from each klatch, to assist in the manufacture and delivery of the towers. Soorararas returned to flying messages for Rampart. He would inform the group about developments inside his home klatch, while K'Pinkelek returned to Blaze to do the same. His first priority was to find out what deal Metookonsen struck with K'Fuur.
As for Jessnee, Orokolga, Shoroko, Melissa, and Olsurrodot, they signed up to crew a barge headed up the Bittersweet for Lisstear Lake with cargo to trade with Menagerie. Arriving unannounced with no official business at the home of the Browns would arouse suspicion; barge duty was the best cover they could arrange on short notice. Normally quaggas or fan-fans harnessed to the barge walked along a towpath beside the east bank of the river, but during migration the animals weren’t safe, so Claws were recruited. Melissa and Olsurrodot took turns towing from the air, alternating with Orokolga hauling the barge from the ground. When Orokolga wasn’t pulling, Shoroko gave her reading lessons, and they and Jessnee began studying the books recovered from the underground city. One described an ancient place in the Hearth Mountains east of Lisstear Lake that might hold answers. When Melissa, wasn’t pulling the barge, she went fishing.
They set out from Hammerside in mid-afternoon. The creaking wood and the slap of the water against the barge soothed Melissa’s tangled nerves. She leaned her head over the railing and stared at her reflection.
Olsurrodot eased into the spot next to her, trying not to capsize them. “Do you study your face hoping it will change, or to be comforted that it is a good face at which to look?”
“Has my course in contentment begun? Accepting a snout and pointy teeth seems an awfully large task for the first lesson.”
The ancient lissair made a prominent display of his smiling, pointy teeth. “Excellent. You ask for small steps and not large. Patience is an indispensable companion to contentment.” He dipped his tail into the river and scooped out a green shoot. He slit the plant open with a claw and plucked out a seed twice the size of a walnut, and twice as tough to crack. He waved the nut before his nose and inhaled. “The river smiles upon us.” He handed it to her.
Melissa sniffed it. “Surprising for a nut to have such a soothing aroma.”
“That is nothing. When it sprouts and grows and blooms, it is prized above all other plants. One frond sweetens a house for days.”
Melissa sniffed it again. “Meloah?”
“So rare. That rough husk holds a magnificent promise, but most of its kind falling to the ground remain seeds.”
“No one knows how to cultivate them?”
“Crack them, and they are good to eat, but they will not grow. Plant them, but they are hard as rock, with a secret gardeners don’t know.”
Melissa brought the meloah nut up to her eye. “I’m beginning to crack myself. I’d hoped that meant I would start to grow.”
Olsurrodot nodded. “The shell must crack, but there is more than one way to crack a shell.”
Melissa’s mother kept a garden, but Melissa had been too impatient, so her plants never thrived. Ironic, since she excelled at biology. From class she remembered seeds that only sprouted after a forest fire. I can’t waste my flame; they won’t let me drink liosh. She meditated on the seed, but the idea wouldn’t leave. So she opened her mouth and ever so carefully kissed it with a tiny tendril of fire. Nothing happened. She tried again, using more flame, then waited. After a minute, pop! The husk split and dozens of tiny seeds shot out. She clawed at the air fruitlessly, trying to catch them back, but the breeze snatched them and carried them over the water. She reached, and stretched, and reached some more. In the midst of her exertions, Melissa didn’t realize she was sitting still. She cupped the seeds in her paws and lifted them high. They wanted to be planted, and were particular about where. Above the highest part of the barge she raised them. Then above the highest tree along the banks. Then out of sight. All along she sat still. The seeds in her paws were not in her paws, but she was holding them. The seeds spread out in every direction, and she followed them all at once to the north and south and east and west. You go here. No, this way. And you go there. You follow that one. She spoke sternest to the unruly helicopters because they made her dizzy. Up to one current, down to another, seeking the level that would carry it where it needed to go. Oh, the falling, drifting, grazing, resting, and the soft tamp into the wet ground, by the well-watered spot in partial shade. When the planting was done, Melissa’s mind reeled in like a fishing rod, and she opened her eyes. Olsurrodot’s eyes were puzzled. Hers were radiant. “They made it. They will grow. Now the others call!”
Melissa leapt from the barge; only by rapidly shifting his weight did Olsurrodot keep the vessel afloat. She flew to tree and field, shrub and thicket, plucking fruits and nuts, berries and cones. She heard their secret names. Gagglenuss and kamblinbriar, semsum weed and walloroak tree, aliosha and sweet rallis flower. Each called for a different color flame or no flame at all, and she obeyed. Her body returned to the barge, but her guiding, mental hand propelled them hundreds of lisstai in every direction. When finished, Melissa curled up below the setting sun. All her seeds were safe, and the rare native plants prized by the Lissai had been sown throughout the district. Whatever happened, there would be a harvest that year.
* * *
Shoroko busied himself helping Jessnee construct another fractioning tower, which Olsurrodot dubbed an oshtukamat. They would donate it to the Hands of Pentown, on the eastern shore of Lisstear Lake, a few hundred lisstai from West Menagerie Heights. Pure liosh should appease the Browns and afford Melissa’s team the opportunity to search the ruins with a minimum of fuss.
Shoroko tried not to stare, but Melissa’s magical display of seed scattering mesmerized him. The other Hands were ecstatically pointing and gawking and nearly running the barge aground. It had the opposite effect on Shoroko. The happier she got being a Claw, the more miserable he became being a Hand. They tell her she can’t switch back and she accepts it? Like that? So much for love. Thedarra’s fixated on Callyglip now. What’s the point.
He resolved to think about the mission, and only the mission. If he couldn’t have love, he’d win honor for himself and his family and set the world right. But the more he imagined the glory victory would bring, the riches and banquets and speeches, and being the youngest ever appointed elder, the more he imagined the prize for which he’d trade that applause: Melissa. He’d make himself so heroic and so irresistible that she’d go mad with desire to become a woman again. He would make her miserable so they could be happy together.
When the little Lissai show-off settled into her nap all cozy and compassed by her powerful tail, protected by her razor-sharp claws, blanketed by the fastest wings on Kibota, he watched – and despaired. His head sunk to his chest and he closed his eyes. You will never need rescuing again. No one is your equal or ever can be. When Shoroko opened his eyes, Melissa was staring at him.
“Shoroko, what’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. He walked away, to stop himself from speaking, but the tender eyes drilling holes in his back spun him around. Shoroko thrust his arm forward and pointed. “You. You are what’s wrong. Got a problem? Need help? No! You just acquire new impossibilities for every occasion.” He folded his arms and scowled at revealing so much.
She gave him such a look, filled with reassurance and affection and sadness and any second tears might flow and the way her mane rippled in the breeze and the moonlight glistened in her vast eyes…
He turned his back on her again. Her warm breath tickled his neck.
Melissa answered with a voice softer than the silk of the fireworm. “Friends can do many things beside daring rescues to show how they feel. Not every damsel has to be in distress to be loved. Besides, I can’t do everything. Saving this world will take…”
Shoroko did not want his anger snuffed like a candle. He snatched a lump of metal lying on the deck. “You can’t do everything? I
don’t believe you! You could become a Hand again if you wanted to! But no, you won’t do that because you’re on a divine, self-sacrificing mission, yet every other miracle is acceptable.” Shoroko hefted the lump and tossed it up and down in his hand. Then his temper overruled his sanity and he hurled the ingot straight at Melissa’s snout.
* * *
Melissa had no time to reflect on what she could or couldn’t or shouldn’t or wouldn’t do. She blinked her eyes and winced, anticipating an awful welt on her tender nose. When she opened her eyes, they shared the same look of amazement as Shoroko’s, and the eyes of everyone else on board. Before her batting lashes hovered a spinning hunk of metal, suspended a hair’s breadth from her teeth.
Thud. It dropped to the deck.
“Told you so.” Shoroko unfolded his arms and walked away.
“Rrrrrrr!” Melissa channeled her exasperation and launched into the air to get far away from her sulking suitor. Half the crew got an unexpected bath, while she soared, with loops and dives and great shows of slapping her tail against the water. When she exhausted her foul emotions, she glided over the river, watching ripples reflect the moon’s soft gleam. She drilled in with her telescopic vision, following the waves wherever they roamed, just because she could. I am a Claw, and I will be proud of it! No farm boy is going to make me feel ashamed of what I can do. As she followed the rippling, one spot was different. It had bubbles. Fish? Dinner! She flapped, rose high and plunged. Splash! Down she swam, forgetting Lissai can’t swim and doing it anyways. The reeds along the bottom parted to reveal the source of the bubbles. It was no fish. They issued from a noxious fissure in the rock, accompanied by an agonizing moan. Out of breath, Melissa pushed off and strained to reach the surface, with rapid undulating motions from her tail. Gasp! She gulped air and spotted the barge. “Orokolga! I need you!”
Without hesitation, the golden dragon leapt from the barge, dousing the other half of the crew with her splash.
“Follow the bubbles,” said a madly dog-paddling Melissa. “Something is stuck. See if you can dig it out.”
Orokolga dove, while Melissa struggled to reach the bank and dry her wings. Shoroko looked over the edge of the barge, saw the bubbles from below and ran to Jessnee. He found flexible tubing and handed one end to a crewman. “Hold this. Keep it above the water. Someone needs air.” Then he dove in and swam down, holding the other end of the tubing.
The captain yelled, “Drop anchor!”
The minutes dragged on. A stain of brown spread over the spot where Orokolga and Shoroko entered the water. Jessnee got his medical kit ready and they prepared a spot on the deck to receive a wounded person. The small stream of bubbles swelled into a roiling, putrid cauldron.
Shoroko surfaced and crawled back to the barge. “Get ropes!”
The Hands secured several ropes to the barge and tossed the lines to him. He dove again. A minute later he resurfaced, gasping. “Pull! Get Olsurrodot on one line. It’s a Claw!”
They heaved until the submerged Claw broke free and rose to the surface.
“One, two, three, pull!”
Melissa flew over from the riverbank. When the Claw broke the surface, she swooped in, latched onto the ropes and with her added momentum, flung the unconscious Claw up onto the barge. Blood leaked from deep lacerations covering his body. They cleaned his wounds with the bilge pumps and Jessnee dressed them with bandages. “His pulse is weak. Hurry.”
Melissa landed on the deck and stood aside while the others worked. She had no blue flame left. Spent, empty, useless. I don’t care what you think, farm boy. You charged in where I couldn’t. Impossibilities. She spat out the river grass stuck in her teeth onto the deck. From Jessnee’s quiet intensity and deliberate speed, she knew they were losing him. So much death, and me the doctor. Let him die and find his peace. She stared at her impotent claws, looked away at the dark shapes of trees swaying along the bank, anything to avoid seeing another whom she tried to rescue meet his inevitable fate. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a fluttering. The Claw’s twitching tail testified to a fight he was not ready to surrender. She reached over to touch it and comfort a dying dragon. Her paw dislodged a chunk of mud, the moon reemerged from behind a cloud, and silver from above kissed silver down below. Melissa went dizzy and staggered. Help! We need help! Will you help us! Then Melissa cried out loud, “Help us, you with the hidden name!”
The inner voice replied. My gift is always near.
Melissa stared at the moon. Nothing. Then she felt her way through the sky. Up, up, and around in spirals, spinning outwards, until… A seed. It was not one she’d sent out. No, this seed was sent to her. She reeled it in with her mind, out of the spider web where it had been caught, over a field, past the last tree and over the water. Closer, closer, until it hovered there before the moon. Lazily the fuzzy seed danced back and forth as it descended. When it drifted within reach…
Melissa sneezed. Then she got the hiccups. Then she inhaled the seed. She was mortified. She shoved her claw up her nostril to coax it out, which earned her many disapproving looks. Shoroko shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand. Before she could think of another way to get it out, the moisture in her nasal passage made the seed germinate. No, no, please don’t be a magic bean! I’ll be ripped to shreds!
She danced about, sneezing and coughing and threatening to undo Jessnee’s careful ministrations. Roots shot down her throat and spread into every corner of her body.
Every seed must die before it can change. Are you ready to be changed?
“No!” shouted Melissa.
I thought not. The presence receded and Melissa heard it no more that day.
The knowledge that she’d refused what was asked of her forced huge sobs from her mouth. Her mom had been ready to die of leukemia, and she hated her for it. Did mom’s books and prayers heal her? Did the phony peace fix her poisoned blood? Did the one she trusted over her daughter’s Harvard medical degree show up? Mom, couldn’t you have at least given me a chance?
Melissa turned to the Silver Lissai lying on the deck and prepared to say ‘I’m sorry’, yet words didn’t issue from her mouth, but blue flame. Torrents of relief cascaded over the deck and swirled about, before separating into tiny eddies that shot forward and came to rest on each wound. They sank deeply into tissue and bone, until restful sleep came over the figure on the deck.
Olsurrodot leaned close, sniffed, and washed filth from the sleeping face. “Mirrorwing has fought his way back from Nehenoth.” He looked at Melissa. “Hope flies again in Kibota. Now it is you who teach me contentment. I will take the next shift at towing, for now I have the strength of ten.”
Chapter 24: The Holding Pens
April 14th. Noon. Pentown on Lisstear Lake.
The barge passed through the ancient locks at Wing Falls at midnight and continued up the Bittersweet until it reached Lisstear Lake near dawn. The captain remarked that in all his years he’d never made the trip in better time. On the lake, they caught a good wind, raised sail and continued east until the docks of Pentown appeared in the distance, and beyond, the snowy caps of the Hearth Mountains.
Melissa stood beside Mirrorwing, watching for signs of distress. At last, his eyes fluttered. “Olsurrodot, Orokolga,” said Melissa. “He wakes.”
Mirrorwing blinked many times. “The sun! The light of the sun!” He closed them again and purred. “I hear water lapping, how sweet the song. I feel warmth and not cold. I smell my own kind, and not dark, empty spaces. Whom may I thank for cutting me free from my prison?”
“Shoroko of Agotaras Springs, Lord Mirrorwing,” said the captain. “And Orokolga of…”
“Of the empty spaces,” said Orokolga, “along with Councilor Jessnee and the able captain and crew of this barge.”
“Lissai?” said Mirrorwing.
“I count them as worthy members of my crew,” said the captain. “Olsurrodot of Rampart and Melissa of…”
“Of many places,” said Melissa.
“Open your eyes and see,” said Orokolga. She held her breath and stood absolutely still. This Claw had been with Silverthorn. Had he tidings of her love?
Mirrorwing eased himself into a standing position, raised his right paw to screen the light, and opened his eyes. Instantly he fell down and stretched out his arms. “Twice saved by gold! The giver of blessings visits me again.”
“Kilgain?” said Orokolga. “You have seen my husband?” The Golden Dragon leaned forward so much she nearly fell over.
“When our provisions ran out, Kilgain…” Mirrorwing stared down at the deck, unable to speak. “Were it not for him, we’d all have perished. As it is, only two dozen of us remain.”
“Lord Silverthorn?” said Melissa.
Mirrorwing rose from his abasement and faced Melissa, only to fall prostrate again. “Honorable Hlissak, I did not recognize you. Yes, your Silverthorn lives.”
“He is not mine, for I am not White Talon.”
“What? But your armband…”
“White Talon has left, in search of Silverthorn. I have taken her place, and her body, just as she has taken mine, the body of a Hand from the other world. This world is plunged into crisis. Tell us what you know, for we are determined to rescue Silverthorn, Kilgain and their companions, else civil war may break out.”
A Most Refined Dragon Page 24
