by A. Evermore
‘Let’s get somewhere safe where we can better tend our wounds. We have not yet eaten breakfast and I’m famished,’ Coronos said, holding his water flagon to her lips. She drank deeply.
‘There is a shallow cave in a sheltered cove not far from the temple. We could shelter there,’ Issa said, feeling sick but famished at the same time.
Asaph tried to set Issa on Duskar so he could support Coronos but she refused.
‘If my feet can no longer carry me then I may as well be dead,’ she protested.
‘But you are injured, worse than you know!’ Asaph replied. ‘Besides, if I hadn’t suggested it you would have sat on the horse anyway.’
‘I’m fine!’ she said and winced, feeling not fine at all.
‘Curse her,’ he grumbled under his breath. Coronos chuckled.
Asaph hoisted her into the air as gently as he could, ignoring her yelps, and plonked her on Duskar’s back. Duskar whickered and looked at her, as if delighted to have her on his back. She stopped moaning and instead sat there indignant. She smiled at Duskar and stroked his neck, suddenly relieved to not have to walk anywhere anyway.
Asaph smiled triumphantly and turned to help Coronos. His father looked terribly old and worn, there was deep anguish in his eyes. Asaph’s smile faded.
‘Is everything all right?’ Asaph asked, worry twisting his stomach. Is he badly injured?
Coronos just shook his head and remained silent.
‘Some food and rest will help everyone,’ Asaph smiled, trying to be reassuring though not feeling it. He held Coronos' arm and helped him walk as they followed Issa and Duskar. They walked in silence through the rubble and dead harpies and ravens down the road that became a path leading to the ocean. It began to drizzle again, dampening the mood further. Soon the earth became rain drenched sand as they neared the beach. A short walk to the left led them to the shallow cave that Issa had mentioned.
In the shallow cave they made a fire from a pile of dry wood that someone had collected there. Someone who was now most probably dead, Asaph thought sombrely. At least for them they wouldn’t be needing the wood anymore. From their packs they took strips of cloth and poultice and set about cleaning and wrapping each others’ wounds.
Issa’s were awful, the bloody claws of the harpies had sunk viciously deep and she couldn’t look at them without feeling faint. She looked pale and exhausted and her eyes were more luminous than they had ever been. But there was that small smile of triumph on her face. He felt it too. They had faced another enemy and survived. Just.
Once their wounds were bandaged they ate the food the karalanths had given them, devouring the bread, fruits, nuts, and honey in famished silence. Asaph thought about Celene as he ate. From the remains he had seen, Celene had been a nice place. The white sandy beaches reminded him of his home with the Kuapoh on the Uncharted Lands. He wondered how they were, and if he and Coronos were missed. They probably were, especially by The Fearsome Four goblin hunting party. Gurapoha missed Coronos for sure, who else would he be able to talk late in the night to? But Asaph didn’t want to return. Not now Issa was by his side.
Asaph was about to mention the Kuapoh to Coronos, hoping to lift the silence and speak of happier things, but the awful sorrow on Coronos' face caused the words on his lips to die silently. He looked at Issa, she was trying to clean the dried blood from her finger nails. She caught his eye and smiled weakly.
‘There used to be a wet room in Castle Elune, and a big iron bath. I long for a hot bath, the only thing that can really wash away this dirt,’ Issa reminisced mournfully.
‘The Kuapoh, our family on the Uncharted Lands, had no hot water but we used to visit the hot springs about an hour’s walk inland,’ Asaph replied, feeling very much like he would love to visit the springs right now. Especially with Issa. Naked of course.
‘I should like to visit it, one day,’ she smiled, wondering if that day would ever come.
‘The Kuapoh have no books or maps, everything is taken from memory. So my father, or rather, my adopted father…’ Asaph smiled warmly at Coronos, but he was lost deep in thought and staring into the fire, ‘…drew for me where the Isles of Kammy are. Apparently in Draxa, the capital of Drax, there were vast libraries filled with books, maps and scrolls. I guess they must all be gone now. But luckily, through the Orb of Air, the scriptures that were there were also recorded into the orb’s memory a long time ago. If Coronos can remember the book or the name of the author, we can access it through the orb.’
Issa listened in fascination. ‘Freydel, the wizard who taught me magic, said crystals had memories and could be used to store information. Orbs were the most powerful of all. The Isles of Kammy are much like the mainland of Frayon, only tiny and surrounded by sea. Like here but colder.’ She seemed about to say more, but stayed silent. It was a difficult question but he thought he’d ask anyway.
‘Is there a chance you might have any family left, any at all, on Frayon or elsewhere?’
She started to shake her head and then stopped. ‘It is possible but I think it’s unlikely. My father died before I was born and to protect me my real mother gave me to Fraya, my adopted mother. It is possible my real mother lives. She was a seer.’
Asaph considered this for a while, then spoke. ‘If you knew her last name perhaps we could search for her. All seers are trained on the Isle of Myrn, where they live, or at least that is what Cusap’anth said.’
Issa shook her head and looked down at the floor as if she had already considered such things. ‘The only last name I have is Kammy; the last name of my adopted mother, Fraya. Issalena Kammy,’ she said her full name aloud. Asaph liked the sound of it. ‘But even Kammy is not Fraya’s real name. She changed her old one to Kammy when she moved to the Isles. I cannot remember what she said her old name was. Fraya never told me my real mother’s name and I doubt she even knew herself.’ She fell silent for a moment and then asked, ‘Do you have a family name?’
The question caught Asaph off guard. He began to shake his head with a frown but then remembered something that Coronos had once said long ago.
‘It would have been Dragon Born,’ Coronos said, his eyes never leaving the fire as Issa and Asaph turned to look at him. ‘All those born of Dragon Lords are called Dragon Born. But since you have the gift you are called Dragon Lord, Asaph Dragon Lord, belonging to the family of Dragon Lords.
‘I was called Coronos Avernayis Dragon Rider, since that was the profession to which I was called. Before my time as a Dragon Rider I was simply Coronos Avernayis, after the name of a small coastal town in South East Drax. That is how things work in Drax, or at least it used too…’ Coronos trailed off and said no more, losing himself once more in his thoughts.
‘Asaph Dragon Lord,’ Issa said his name.
Asaph smiled, having only heard his full name spoken for the second time in his life, and never from her lips. Somehow it made him feel as if he actually had a place in the world. He was always an outsider with the Kuapoh, but now he felt his home was part of his name, his home was Drax. He glanced back at Coronos and sighed quietly, wondering what, if anything, he could do to help his father. When in this mood, Coronos was unreachable. Asaph changed the subject.
‘This place looks nice,’ he indicated about him, meaning Celene, ‘plentiful land, running rivers, clear seas and warm. Or at least it was before they came and destroyed everything.’
Issa nodded, her face unreadable, ‘I had just begun to consider it my new home. I was looking forward to seeing… the people here. I had even thought you and Coronos might like to live here. We could start a new life here, together.’
Asaph looked down into the flames of the fire, seeing the dashed hope on Issa’s face also dashed his own hope of ever finding peace, of ever leading a normal happy life. He gave up on trying to cheer anyone up, including himself.
‘It seems such a pleasant life is not meant for us,’ he said quietly and looked back at her. She gave a wry smile and nodded. Tears glistene
d in her eyes before she looked away to the entrance of the shallow cave where Duskar stood dozing. It had begun to rain harder.
Issa lay down on her pack and small blanket, watching the rain fall outside of the cave. Asaph busied himself cleaning his sword and then her sword and anything else that looked grubby, which was most things. Coronos continued to stare into the fire and Issa thought it best to leave him to his thoughts.
She began to think of Arla and wondered when she would return. She didn’t doubt the girl could look after herself, surviving Cirosa this long was no easy feat, but what if something had gone wrong? Worry for Arla kept her from thinking of Ely for a time but then, when the tiredness weakened her mind, thoughts of her friend plagued her. She traced the silver leaves entwined around her wrist, glinting in the firelight. Ely’s gift now made more precious with her death.
She felt eyes upon her and looked up, Coronos was staring at the bracelet as well. The realisation suddenly hit her and she sat up.
‘You knew her didn’t you,’ Issa said, breaking the silence. Asaph stopped cleaning her sword and stared at his father. Coronos did not break his gaze upon the bracelet and took so long to answer she thought he would not.
‘I did,’ he sighed eventually and took out his long pipe from a sack. Tapping out any old ash he then refilled it with lintel weed, took a small smouldering stick from the fire and puffed on the pipe until it was smoking. Only when he had placed the stick back in the fire did he say any more.
‘I had not seen her for nearly thirty years, certainly not since we fled Drax. It was really her mother I knew well,’ he looked far away into the past, his eyes filled with sadness, ‘and that was her bracelet,’ he said indicating to the silver leaves on her wrist. ‘It symbolises the Tree of Life, and is a thing of beauty and of healing power. I know these things because I watched her make it and, with the Orb of Air, I helped her enchant it.’
Issa’s mouth fell open and the look on Asaph’s face said he was as surprised too.
‘Ely gave it to me as a gift... I refused to take it but she insisted,’ Issa explained. ‘She told me only that her mother was a gifted healer priestess and that she wanted another with the gift to have it.’
‘I know,’ Coronos said with a knowing smile. ‘I have seen it on your wrist before and recognised it instantly. It gave me hope that I would…’ he trailed off, hesitated for a moment as if wondering what to say, and then continued. ‘Her mother was called Harianna and she and I were lovers once.’
Issa and Asaph looked at each other again, startled, and then back at Coronos. He looked back at them amused.
‘What’s wrong? Am I too old to have loved?’ But the amusement swiftly left and his face darkened once more. ‘As a high priestess and healer she was required to travel all of known Maioria, to visit the Goddess’s Temples and teach her healing to others as she went. No matter what the danger, as a healer in a time of war her skills were very much needed.
‘I met her when she came to Drax. I was a soldier in the Draxian army. To me she was beautiful. Fair and regal with deep blue eyes like the sky. I couldn’t stop looking at her until she scowled at me for staring,’ he laughed, ‘but our love was fated. Though we shared our nights together, our days were spent apart because of our commitments. My position as second in command to the King and Queen of Drax during the war against the Maphraxies, and her duties healing the sick and injured made our lives impossible. We were sorely needed and were oath bound to honour those duties. Though we loved each other deeply, and every moment we could find we spent together, in the end we could not be together.
‘Eventually the Temple called her elsewhere. The years passed and then we were brought together again. Those times when we were together were the happiest years of my life. Again we were called apart and after a year or so I received a letter from her telling me she had given birth to a beautiful child, our daughter. I wrote a letter in response, that I would visit her in her new home on the Isle of Celene as soon as I could leave the King and Queen’s side.
‘It would be two years before the relentless attacks of the Maphraxies would wane just enough for me to visit her. For one wonderful month I spent my time here with Harianna and little Ely. I got to know our beautiful precious daughter,’ Coronos' face was unreadable, he was lost in the past.
Issa held back the tears that welled within her. Tears would not change anything, tears would not bring Ely back. She thought it ironic, then, that she knew more about Ely’s parents than about her own.
‘The years passed and Harianna died, as people do. Sadly they do not live as long as Draxians,’ he said, a tear made its way down his wrinkled face and he wiped it away in surprise, ‘time does not heal everything,’ he said softly, ‘not everything, Hari.’ He sighed and wafted his hand, ‘Anyway, all this happened so long ago and many, many, lives have been lost in this unending war. Now little Ely has been taken by them too. I had only one last wish to see her again, alive.’
‘I am sorry. I wish I could have stopped this,’ Issa said.
‘We all do,’ Coronos breathed.
‘Zanufey spoke to me,’ Issa dared to admit the goddess spoke to her. She never really talked about it to anyone, but now it seemed important. ‘We can all find peace knowing that she is free from here and on her journey back into the light,’ Issa said quietly, blinking back tears.
Coronos swallowed and gave a sad smile, ‘I wish I could have known the woman she became,’ he sighed and then swiftly changed the subject. ‘We should try to get some sleep, more sorrow will only exhaust us further and we sorely need our strength. We must leave as soon as dawn breaks. It is not safe here.’
Issa was dragged up from a deep sleep born of magical exhaustion to the nudging of her sore shoulder. Duskar snorted in her ear.
‘Duskar stop,’ she groaned, and slipped back into sleep. He nibbled her ear and she laughed but couldn’t open her heavy eyes. She heard the others shifting at the sound of her voice. Issa looked up blearily into Duskar’s big brown eyes. She groaned and stretched, feeling the sore need for more sleep. ‘It can’t be time to go, I’ve only been asleep five minutes.’
The embers of the fire gave off a small amount of light. The barest hint of grey came from the cave entrance, speaking of the coming dawn. Ehka had found a perch in the rock just before the entrance and still slept. The rain had thankfully stopped.
‘Do you want some food?’ Issa sat up and rummaged in her pack. She pulled out an apple, took a bite, and then gave the rest to him. He took it and munched on it noisily.
She stood up slowly wincing from her fresh wounds and aches that overlaid her old ones. If this is what getting old is like, I hope I die young. She smiled at the thought, she appeared to have chosen the right profession in order to die young.
Coronos and Asaph sat up looking tired and sorely wanting, as she did, a lot more sleep. Issa hugged her shoulders, feeling danger like a feather brushing past. Duskar lifted his head and twitched nervously, the raven was awake and looking outside the cave. The men also felt it and were quickly on their feet. They all stuffed bread and water down their throats as they packed away their few belongings and stamped out the fire.
‘I’m thinking we should rendezvous with the karalanths once we are back on the mainland and head straight for the city port of Corsolon,’ Coronos said, as they left the cave. ‘We can buy horses for Asaph and I and maybe even some armour. But perhaps we’d better get to Carvon for that, where it is possible I still have a friend or two there that can help us. Newcomers buying armour in a city might not go down too well with the locals.’
Issa and Asaph nodded, glad for Coronos' good memory and, hopefully, any old acquaintances he might still have. The air was thick with fog from the rain over night. Blessedly concealing them from any eyes watching overhead. Still they were keen to be as far away from this place.
‘Are you both all right to ride?’ Asaph asked. Coronos nodded as he pulled his cloak closer around him.
I
ssa knew Asaph meant on his back and felt herself pale but nodded anyway. He touched the bandages about her shoulders and waist. There was no blood on them which meant the bleeding had finally stemmed some time in the night. She shifted shyly from his touch but let him pull them aside a little to see. His face turned to shock and he began to pull them loose. She felt the blood rush back to her face and he gave a wicked grin.
‘By Feygriene’s fire they heal quick. Look, there are only red slashes where great welts had been,’ he said in astonishment, gently touching the skin on her stomach and shoulders. His touch made her skin tingle.
‘A healer’s bracelet, the Tree of Life is no myth,’ Coronos said over his shoulder.
Asaph’s fingers lingered on her stomach causing butterflies to flutter in her belly. She pulled away.
‘Does it hurt?’ he asked worriedly.
‘No, it’s fine. I’m glad it heals quickly. Here on Celene I think the bracelet’s power is stronger, and maybe Ely’s spirit is close…’ she said touching the silver leaves. ‘My ability to use the Flow has not healed at all though.’
‘The Tree of Life,’ Asaph said thoughtfully, ‘though I doubt it will stop you getting killed. You’ll need a dragon for that,’ he winked.
‘Really,’ Issa said and put her hands on her hips expectantly.
He only smiled at her more, ‘I’ll try to protect you whether or not you want me to.’
Suddenly a great rumble within the earth shook the ground and probably the entire island. Everyone staggered for balance gasping in alarm. Duskar stomped his feet and the raven flew squawking into the air.
‘We should go,’ Issa said, but they were already running away from the cliffs and the rocks that began to fall and crash to the ground.
Quick as a flash and without really much thought Asaph shifted into his dragon form. After the harpies and general stress of everything he was really on edge, and that seemed to make the dragon awaken much quicker - if it had ever slept at all since they had arrived here - taking him by surprise. The dragon fear spread swiftly. Duskar bolted immediately. The raven did a u-turn in midair and flew back into the cave. Coronos dropped and then fell over the rope harness he was carrying. All Issa could do was stand frozen to the ground like before.
