“Ami, supper is served,” Lin giggled, climbing under the shelter and lying next to her.
“Ok. I’ll be right there,” the girl replied, turning the page.
“You can finish tonight or tomorrow,” Rey called, hoping the pair would be quietly retreating to their hidden nest among the trees soon.
“I’m almost finished,” she insisted, using a stiff digit to hold her place. The light dim as the sun sank, it had become more difficult to make out the words, and she wished at the moment Kedoria had taken to the depths so she could use her hamar gem to light the passage.
A few minutes later, she had reached the end. Closing the tome, she sighed. There’s still hope. Pushing herself up, she climbed out and saw the group at the table had moved on to eating without her. Picking up her bowl from the rock in front of her, she served her dish and joined them, taking her customary seat on the end, across from her husband.
Down the length of their setting, the long benches had become a bit crowded with the addition of the gnomes. Arriving at that moment, Lamwen landed a few yards away and ambled over to his end, where he sat up straight and glared down at them. “We have new members,” he observed, his tone unreadable.
“Yes, the aid we were promised has finally arrived,” Amicia smiled, scooping bites in as her hunger came on full force. “Did you discover anything new this day?”
“I have been all across the south,” he reported. “The elves do indeed hold firm at Riran, but their grasp on the glen is not so formidable. They have taken over your old cabin and the meadow I used to occupy, but all south of that is still in the hands of the nymphs and satyrs. It would appear they are not giving it up without a fight.”
“Good,” Zaendra spat, her fists clenched as she pounded the table and shook their dinner bowls. “My people do not belong beneath the boot of the elves.”
“No one does,” Rey agreed, glancing at Animir.
“Did you meet any other dragons?” the Mate asked, helping himself to more water calmly.
“No. I fear they are too preoccupied with their infighting in the north to be aware that their kingdom falls in the south,” he growled. “At some point, I will have to return to Adiarwen and look for my allies among them.”
“Perhaps we can help with that,” Happy offered. “We are practiced at blending in and often go unseen or noticed when we visit places afar.”
“You can give him a shadow?” Amicia asked, surprised at the extent of their skill.
“That or a disguise,” Grumpy countered. “Either would do if he needs to walk among them.”
“We will discuss this further tomorrow then,” the dragon agreed, lying down to rest.
Glancing at the girl, Meena could see the troubled lines in her face. “Did you find anything useful in the story of your father?” she prodded.
“I don’t know,” Amicia’s voice quavered. “I am not certain that I am ready to speak of it.”
“Tell us what you can, love,” the Mate encouraged. “You can quit if it gets to be too much.”
Glancing over at him, she nodded, “Ok. I’ll start at the beginning, I guess. Some we have already heard, or different versions of it I think. Ziradon is near seven hundred years old. He has been the Supreme Dragon for near on five,” she added, neglecting to point out that he currently did not hold that title. “He had a close friend he named to be his advisor.”
“Gwirwen,” Rey guessed.
“Yes. About thirty years ago, not long in the life of a dragon, he took a new mate. He had not had one since his first died, along with their sons, during the great war. His new mate was called Kilawon, and he loved her very much. They had a hatchling… me. But she was killed in what appeared to be an accident shortly after,” Ami sniffed.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Lamwen dropped calmly.
“No,” Amicia shook her head, not looking at him. “It was meant to look like one, and many believed so, including my father. But the gnomes saw everything. Kilawon was murdered. Soon after, Ziradon was cornered by Gwirwen and some of his followers. They constructed the rock prison in which he is still held and locked him away there.”
Looking up, she glanced around at the members of their group, one by one. “They formed a ring around me, half a dozen of them, and forced me into this body while he watched. He was helpless to prevent it,” she sobbed, her chest heaving. “One of them carried me away to Nalen, and there is no mention of me again… at least not in that book.”
“We’ll find another,” Yimath offered.
“I don’t think so,” Ami sighed. “We have the story. What we need is to find the spell. You said both were recorded in the tomes of the libraries, correct?”
“Yes, there are many spells hidden in the texts,” the gnome agreed.
“Then tomorrow we begin our search for those. We need a transfiguration spell. I’m certain that is how they did it, but the chant was not recorded in this record that we have found,” she determined.
A heavy silence settled over the group in light of what she had discovered. Feeling the weight of it, Rey soothed, “It was a good discovery, love.”
“Yes, it was a start,” she agreed, stirring the remainder of her broth.
“Well, it’s been a long day,” Piers observed loudly. “We should clean up and get to bed. It sounds like it will be another tomorrow.”
Without argument, the group disbanded, washing their dishes and putting them away. Then, the gnomes disappeared into their new home under the forest floor. The dragon curled between his giant rocks, which still felt warm after collecting the heat of the sun all day, and the rest took to their bunks under the leaned roofs that sheltered them.
“Will we sleep here tonight?” Rey asked, hoping to tempt her with their secret spot.
“Aye,” she agreed in a tired voice. “Lie with me tonight and hold me as I slumber,” she practically begged. Reading the words, she had lived them, and her heart ached with the love and loss her father had suffered.
Curling up behind her as she faced the wall, Rey didn’t argue. His arm resting comfortably over her waist, he thought of the night he had found her in just such a position with Piers at their camp in Riran, ages ago. Shoving his nose into her hair, he breathed in the scent of her and sighed, happy to have whatever he could get.
His mind wandering, he thought about their current home such as it was, there in the valley. A beautiful place in its own way, it had turned out far safer than they could have imagined. Most of the marsh was considered a wasteland by outsiders, and the dragons seemed to have no reason to visit or even fly over it. As Lamwen had informed them, the dragons meet with the gnomes on the northern edge, between the forest and Adiarwen. If they need to go south, they fly over the mountains, leaving this one patch of land as a safe refuge for them.
Smiling into her mass of curls, he almost wished they would never find the spell she was looking for. If she never regained her dragon form, they might remain there forever, hidden in the valley between the dwarf mountain that hid Asomanee and the gnome lands of Falconmarsh, lost in their own little world.
Give Me Wings
Lying between his rocks, his eyes narrow slits, Lamwen watched as Amicia and Rey returned from their secret hideaway in the first light of day. Kaliwyn, the dragon groaned to himself as his chest burned. The light catching her golden locks as she disappeared behind her shelter, he sighed.
“You had a pleasant evening, I trust,” he reached into her thoughts.
“Shh,” she rebuked, grinning to herself as they stretched out to pretend they had been there all along.
In the weeks that they had been living as husband and wife, it had almost become a game of sorts. Either the couple would stay out after everyone had turned in or lie down early and then sneak away once the others had fallen asleep. Armed with a blanket and no more most of the time, they would secrete away to the place where they had spent their first night together and slip back into their bed at the camp before anyone should notice.<
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Everyone knew, of course, especially the dragon, as he could observe all from his nest at their camp. In addition, he had spotted the small collection of water once while flying over it and had landed in the clearing to snoop around. Catching the scent of the lovers, he had abandoned it quickly, as the thought of them together tore his heart with rage.
The others had also observed their odd behavior, giving them clues that they enjoyed their private times together. If it helped the couple to think their love making a secret, the rest were willing to let them believe so, at any rate.
Rolling over at the sound of her giggle, Lamwen stared at the sky, watching as it grew pale before it shifted to actual blue. Part of him wanted to leap into the air and put as much distance between them as he could. The rest told him it was of no consequence; she was married to the mortal and should do her part as his wife. Besides, if they are to be torn from each other before our war is ended, I will get my chance to claim her for my own. And if he didn’t, it was simply never meant to be.
Making it to his feet, he observed that Meena had risen, and their breakfast would soon be at hand. Lumbering around the rest of their camp to his end of their table, he growled, “We should see some progress soon, or I’m afraid all will be lost, with nothing left to fight for.”
“Good morning, Lamwen,” the older woman chuckled, not joining in his grumbling. “We make the progress we can,” she added as she stoked the fire and filled their pot with water for mash.
A short time later, once their bellies had been filled and plans made, Amicia and Yimath set to work scouring the libraries while the others trained for the fight. Each member of their group had learned a great deal from their new masters, as the ossci were excellent teachers. Animir had become comfortable with transposition as well as the use of the orb. Meena’s powers had more than doubled, and she could travel across the continent alone at will.
Even Amicia had learned the charm and disappeared as soon as the dishes were done in search of fresh texts to decipher. Arriving in a library, she paused at the dust-covered shelves, grumbling to herself, “Great. No one has been here in a while.” Starting at the bottom and roaming backwards, as had become her custom, she selected a few and then transported them to their table in the morning sun. Deciding to have tea while she perused them, she set the kettle and then brushed out her hair, giving it a twist into a bun to let the air to her neck as she sat in the semi-shade that protected the table during the day.
A short time later, the gnome arrived with a few books of her own. Together, they sat turning pages in near silence, broken only by the occasional gasp or groan, until Amicia suddenly squealed, “Oh sweet Eriden, I have found it!”
“What? Let me see!” the shorter blonde commanded.
Scurrying over the top of the table, Yimath stood on the bench next to her, peering down at the passage. Pinching her bottom lip between her fingers and thumb, she squeezed it playfully as she absorbed the rendering until she gasped, “You’re right. I believe this is it.”
Tapping the page, the gnome looked around wildly, then suggested, “We need to bring everyone together.”
“They’ll be in for our dinner soon enough,” Amicia advised.
“All right, I suppose it can wait a few more hours. Let’s return the rest of these where we found them, but place this one somewhere safe,” she advised, plucking a long blade of grass and tucking it between the pages with a small end hanging out to mark the location.
Taking the text, Ami removed as much dust as she could and hid it beneath the blanket on her bed, then returned to help with the re-shelving of the rest. She wasn’t sure what order they had been stored in, but she was always careful to put them back exactly where she had found them.
Her excitement hard to contain by the time they had their stew on to boil and the group gathered, she thought she might explode. Taking seats upon the stones around their fire, Rey could see the enthusiasm in her clear green eyes when he finally observed, “I believe my wife has a story for us tonight!”
“Have I ever,” she beamed. “We have found the transformation spell!” she screamed.
Lamwen had arrived early that eve and taken to his bed to rest until the meal. He didn’t actually eat with them, as he hunted his kill and devoured it away from them out of courtesy. During their breakfast and dinner, he would merely sit at the end of the table and listen, giving his advice when called for. Hearing her announcement, he pivoted his ears to hear better but otherwise did not move. His heart pounding inside his chest, he dared not hope his dream might actually come true.
“What’s more,” the girl continued, “I believe we will be able to use it to turn anyone who wants to be into a dragon!”
Instantly, the beast’s optimism sank. Does she intend for the mortal to become a creature of the air?
“What does that mean, exactly?” Piers asked the question, concern in his voice.
“Well, I’m only guessing from what the text says, but it does not appear that you have to have been something to become it. As I was forced to take this form, you or Rey, or any of you could be turned into a dragon,” she chortled.
“For how long?” Reynard joined in, his face drawn into a scowl. “Would it be permanent, or only temporary, like Lamwen’s disguises. I mean, would it be real?”
“I think he is asking if we could fly,” the Mate chuckled, equally interested in the prospect. “A dragon who can’t take to the air would be of little use to us.”
“Surely you aren’t considering this,” Meena gasped in dismay. “Toying with transformations is risky, at best. What if you were to be stuck that way?”
Piers shook his head at her words, thinking of Oldrilin and her constant fears of being trapped somehow, but held his tongue, only giving her a shrug.
“I don’t think that they would be,” Yimath explained. “The spell is very straight forward. The original story we found of Ziradon said that it took half a dozen of them to force Kaliwyn into her human body, but I don’t believe it would have taken nearly so many if she had been willing to go.”
“You think she could transform on her own?” Lamwen asked, speaking for the first time. Staring at the girl, he scarcely breathed at the thought of her as a dragon once more.
Glaring at him, Reynard felt the tickle at the base of his skull. She won’t be Amicia anymore. His lungs tight, he shifted the gaze to her, noting that her smile faded when their eyes met. “Looks like you have some decisions to make,” he observed quietly. Or we both do, he added to himself.
“We all do,” the Mate agreed, also somber. “But first, we need more details. How many of us do we need to perform the shift, and how long does it last? Those are two very good questions, and once we get past those, I have at least a dozen more.”
Shaking her head, Meena stood and stirred the pot. Swallowing, she observed, hardly above a whisper, “I believe our meal is ready.”
Each taking a bowl, they moved to the table, but Piers had not missed her troubled demeanor. Catching her by the arm before she could sit, he smiled down into her clear brown eyes, noting the flecks of green within them. “Ah, love. If you do not wish me to take to the skies, just say it. I will decline the offer flatly if you have any doubts.”
“Have any doubts,” she mimicked with a chuckle. “I’m terrified of the prospect, but the choice is not mine to make.” Meeting his gaze squarely, she offered a faint smile. “What kind of wife would deny her husband the chance to fly?”
Moved by her words, he dropped his mouth to hers, tasting her sending his heart wild. “I’ll be careful,” he whispered, as if his choice had already been made.
Taking their seats, they joined the others as happy discussion had begun all the way around as they enjoyed their meal. Hayt and Zaendra were both pleased at the prospect of helping Amicia, but neither of them cared to join her. Animir, likewise, had no desire to find out what it would be like to take to the air or breathe fire, either one.
Oldrilin appear
ed frightened at the prospect of any being transformed, much less herself. “What if I get stuck that way?” she pouted, earning a chuckle from the rest and a knowing glance from the Mate.
“I think you should stick to the fish,” Amicia agreed in a teasing manner. Her eyes fixed on Rey, she awaited his final choice. Part of her hoped he would choose to try it, but then again if he did, she wasn’t convinced he would want to stay that way. He is a man after all, not a dragon!
Coming around to his normal place at the end of the table, Lamwen had gained control of his emotions and was prepared to stand as the voice of reason. “If any would care to hear my opinion, I should be happy to share,” he announced, sitting back on his haunches and waiting for them to be quiet.
When they had done so, he continued, “I feel that Kaliwyn should definitely be restored. That is a given,” he began. “As to the rest, I believe it would be unwise to transform any of those native to Eriden. This spell you have found is very old magic. It is not a common practice, and I fear it is something that should not be meddled with lightly.”
Looks of concern passing between them, Piers asked, “What of us?”
Lifting his chin, the dragon conceded, “If you or Rey choose to come over to this side, I dare say it can’t be any worse than Kaliwyn taking to yours. But you should be prepared. We may not be able to change her back, and if you become one of us, you may be trapped to it as well.”
“Exactly,” Meena clipped, her chin dimpled. “I could not…” she began, her voice fading as she realized it was not right for her to interfere. “I mean, I would be deeply saddened if you were to become trapped,” she managed.
“No doubt,” Piers laughed. “But I want to try it. I never said I wanted to live that way.”
“Then we will start with Amicia. If we can return her to dragon form, we can try us,” Rey agreed, his eagerness growing at the prospect.
“When?” Lamwen demanded.
“No time like the present,” Piers observed, scooping his bites quickly. “Let’s finish the meal and give it a try before the sun is completely gone,” he commanded, glancing up at the fading light. The conversation abruptly ended, the group devoured their bowls, as each felt eager to see what would become of their efforts.
Dragon of Eriden - The Complete Collection Page 84
