by LeRoy Clary
He was correct in what he said. I didn’t feel like explaining I could “speak” over large distances just using my mind. I said, “Sir, there are things I cannot tell you, but I have not lied.”
He swung a backhand at me, not intending to strike me but to display his disbelief and disgust. No doubt, he’d treat me and those with me with less respect, and his tales would spread. There are times when a man, even the captain of a ship, needs to be gut-punched.
I smiled, which irritated him more. His mug was sitting in a ring cut in the wood to keep it from spilling or sliding in a storm. It gave me an idea.
I said, “As I said, there are things I cannot share with you. However, it appears you are almost out of drinking water.” I nodded at his mug. “May I?”
My finger lingered as he furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure out what I meant. When his eyes drifted to the mug again, I let the water flow.”
He grabbed my finger, completely unexpectedly, and startled me. The water shot out of the end and struck him in the face before I could shut it off.
He examined my hand, fingers, tips of my fingers, and finally released me. “What sort of trick is this?”
“I cannot share what is happening and have no explanation to offer you, only that I have not lied and there are things I cannot share with you. Believe me or not. Just do as your king commanded and deliver my group and depart. And keep your tales of us to yourself.” I spun and strode away, feeling the eyes of him and the helmsman on my back.
Rumors would fly. By both of them.
I didn’t really care. We would get off the ship in the morning and there would be no rumors of me lying—but there would be wilder even some unbelievable stories. Whoever heard of water flowing from a finger? I wondered if the Captain would drink it? If the situation was reversed, I wouldn’t.
The day was already getting warm when the two islands appeared on either side of the ship. The river mouth was directly ahead. There were two of them, as Anna had told me, and we sailed directly for the one on the right.
Thinking of Anna might have triggered her to call me because she entered my mind. *Damon?*
*We are at the mouth of the river.*
*I will wait on the shore and wave where you can get off and the ship can turn around.*
*What about Kendra?*
She paused, as she always did when she didn’t want to tell me something. *She climbed the mountain to be with the dragon.*
*Is that safe? Alone?*
*She thinks so.*
I could tell from her answer that she didn’t agree with Kendra. *We’ll be there as soon as possible.*
I walked some of the kinks out, using the rear of the ship to walk in a square circle of five steps in each direction. Bran came outside so I asked, “Feeling better?”
“Much. Did you do something to cure the stink of the ship?”
“I improved it.” There seemed nothing to add.
“Thank you. The rolling of the ship and the smell combined to make me sick. Do you think the captain knows we are about to leave the sea and sail up a river?”
“I hope so,” I laughed. “Have we told you anything about Kendra and Anna?”
“I thought we were just waiting for the army to assemble here so we can either sail or march to Dagger.”
“Kendra is my sister. Anna is—well, we haven’t exactly defined her role, but like you, she is one of us. She’s twelve, thirteen, maybe more. We don’t know.”
“They’re here alone?”
“Not exactly,” I hedged. Explaining to him should have been easier than to the captain, but there are times words fail. Having to explain a dragon that adores my sister is one of them.
Elizabeth ventured onto the deck and saved me for the time being. She sat beside us and shook a finger at me while grinning like a donkey. “You made the ship smell better.”
“I confess.”
“A new trick?”
“Yes. There may be more. I forget to consider using magic until there is a problem—and even then, I don’t realize what magic can do.” I noticed Bran hung on our every word. But as much as I thought him a thief, braggart, and conceited carriage driver, he’d warmed on me.
I noticed Elizabeth also spent time looking at him when he didn’t know it. Once, he had been busy with something that had his back turned, and I happened to peek at her. She looked at him, her face set. Then it melted and she smiled the same smile she used for puppies.
We sailed into the mouth of the river without a tree in sight. There were a few shrubs, cattails, and reeds at the shoreline on both sides, but no trees. It was either too hot or more likely the river flooded in the spring and ripped them from the ground.
The Captain refused to turn and look at us. His attention was on where the boat was going, but there was a stiffness in him that was not there yesterday. It was not how he looked at us. It was how he did not. As if he didn’t want to know any more about us.
Oh, he’d do the job assigned to him by his king, but he didn’t have to like it. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I was not out to make a friend of him, would probably never see him again, but his attitude was a warning of sorts. People who couldn’t perform magic didn’t like those who could. It was a fact of life as true as young girls grow into women.
What it meant to me was that I needed to conceal my powers, yet at the same time, I needed to use them in front of normal people. It only took one person to spread a tale or two about me before everyone knew. However, while the captain turned his back to me, Bran knew something of my powers, he knew they had saved his life in the castle, and he seemed more curious than judgmental.
The shores on both sides slipped past without a single house, shed, or plowed field. The bareness of the land was like what it had been after we’d crossed the lake. I snorted inwardly because it was exactly the same—only farther south.
Elizabeth said, “How long to reach them?”
“It’s a short, wide river and we can only travel half way, Anna said.”
“They’ll be waiting for us?”
“Anna will,” I agreed without mentioning my sister was with her dragon. But I understood the trepidation in her tone. I missed them too.
Bran went for food and brought back hard bread and three empty mugs. That’s all the captain had set out for us. I appreciated his lack of words in not having a water barrel handy and didn’t believe it was an accident. I casually gathered moisture from the river and filled the mugs to the brims. Instead of water from the surface, I reached to the bottom where it was coolest. He didn’t have to turn around to know.
Elizabeth said she’d go below and gather our things. They were soon placed on the deck, out of the way, and she paced, tapped her left foot, and pursed her lips. Her eyes were on the river bank ahead.
Near midmorning, a small figure on the shore waved and shouted. The captain turned the ship to where she stood. A small boat was lowered, a crewman helped load our things inside, and we climbed a rope ladder down a few steps.
I looked back more than once. The ship held its place due to the rudder and effective use of the sails. I suppose the captain was too busy to look our way. Hopefully, if we needed another ship, it wouldn’t be that one.
Anna was hopping from foot to foot, and as the rowboat got closer, she called our names and finally couldn’t contain herself. She ran into the shallow water and grabbed the boat and pulled it to her.
We got out, hugged while standing in water ankle-deep, and carried our things to shore. I turned to thank the crewman, but he was busy rowing for his ship, the boat almost skimming the top of the water from his regular strokes. I raised and hand in salute.
Nobody returned it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The campsite was beside a small stream that flowed down from the side of the mountain. A tarp held up by three poles provided shade. Their few things were underneath. We exchanged hugs and upon seeing her, much of the pent-up anxiety dissipated. Seeing Kendra wo
uld help even more.
We sat our things on the ground. Before unpacking, Elizabeth said to me, “Let’s go find that sister of yours.”
*Who is the beautiful man with you?* Anna asked.
Anna was growing up faster than I liked. Her choice of words took me by surprise, although it shouldn’t have. She was at the age where she was beginning to notice men. Out loud, I said, “Anna, I want you to meet Honest Bran. He is a hero of his king and our friend. He knows all about us.”
She stepped in front of him and reached out to shake his hand in a more than a friendly greeting. He flashed an irritating smile and too many white teeth. She lost the ability to speak. If I had to guess, her knees were weak, and her face flushed.
I said, “Anna, can you take us to Kendra?”
She leaped to obey and told Bran that he might want to walk next to her, so he didn’t trip or get lost. She didn’t repeat the offer for Elizabeth or me.
With a wink in my direction, Bran fawned, “Would it be okay if you held my hand so you can steady me?”
Just like that, Anna had her first crush on a man. I couldn’t help myself from teasing her. *Anna, would you like me to give you another alphabet letter or two? We can work on them together as we walk.*
*Do you want me to come back there and punch you on your arm?*
She couldn’t have said anything nicer. The only other people to do that to me were Elizabeth and my sister. We struggled behind, glad to use our legs again after a day confined on the ship. Although we climbed the side of a mountain, there was no doubt we were in the Brownlands. A stunted shrub or two clung to waterless life. The rocks were dark gray, porous, and had sharp edges.
We didn’t climb directly up the side of the mountain, but a circuitous route that wound around the base, always climbing, but not so fast that our legs revolted. There was little talking. We stopped several times to rest and drink. Anna remained at Bran’s side, giggling and laughing at the least little comment. He didn’t seem to mind, and while twice her age, he may have liked the attention.
As we climbed, the view became endless. As we rounded a quarter of the way around the base, there was a switchback that turned us the other way. We climbed a steeper grade before reaching another switchback and walked in our original direction again. The walls of the mountain rose steeper, at times becoming cliffs.
Anna took us to a rocky break in a cliff where we had to climb using all fours. We went over and around boulders until reaching a shelf of solid rock about two-thirds of the way to the top. On that shelf, looking off to the Brownlands far below sat the dragon. Beside it sat my sister.
She leaped to her feet and ran to us. We ran to meet her—all but Bran. He remained behind, near the slot on the cliffs, his eyes as wide as those on anyone I’d ever seen. I remembered we had never mentioned the dragon to him. Only that we were going to find my sister.
I didn’t blame him for the reaction or being scared. When sitting, Kendra was no taller than the dragon’s foot. Besides that, the dragon had turned and stared at us, and who can tell what a dragon is going to do? Especially when sitting on an egg.
It squatted and never rose, but its attention never flinched away from us. After we settled down, I sat on the ledge and looked out at nothing. There were no houses, roads, rivers, lakes, or anything else that was not flat, dry, and brown.
The parched air smelled dusty—but it usually did. Now it was overridden by several distinct scents of rot and worse. Below us, on a lower shelf, were the remains of a dozen or more animals that had been eaten by the dragon and the bones, some skin, and other offal contributed to the smell.
That was not all. Behind the dragon stood a pile of dragon manure taller than me. I’m not one to judge, but if ever asked I will swear it is the foulest smelling thing in creation. The breeze came from the desert directly into our faces and carried away much of the smell, but that only helped a little.
We finally coaxed Bran to join us.
“She’s sitting on an egg?” I asked.
Kendra grinned. “Four. Maybe five.”
I felt my mouth open in surprise. Kendra reached under my chin and pushed my mouth closed. I said, “Will they hatch?”
“I think so.”
That would make as many as six dragons in the world. If half were female, the number of eggs in the future would be three times as many. And all might be female.
Kendra said, “That’s not all.”
She placed a hand on my knee to make sure I paid total attention as if that wasn’t always the case. “What else?”
“Baby dragons learn to fly quickly.”
“That’s nice,” I told her, not understanding the implied meaning of what she meant at all. There was more to whatever she was trying to tell me, I felt sure.
Instead of addressing me, she stood and looked at the others, an almost sad smile on her face. She spoke softer than usual, “Anna, will you take Bran down to our camp and make food and prepare places for us to sleep tonight?”
Anna stood and looked at Bran and said, “I think she’s trying to get rid of us.”
That only left Kendra, Elizabeth, and I. The original three of us.
*I’m right, aren’t I? You want to be alone?* Anna protested in my mind as she started down the trail.
*I’ll let you know what we discuss. You are being forced to entertain our new friend. Enjoy yourself.*
“Stop talking to Anna. Like we can’t see what’s happening between you two,” Kendra said as she motioned for Elizabeth to come closer. “Your eyes go blank and the next thing that happens is Anna laughs.”
We sat in a three-cornered circle if that is possible.
My sister had called the meeting between us, and Elizabeth and I sat and waited for her to begin. The dragon snorted and she ordered it to be quiet and not interrupt. I looked under the dragon for evidence of the eggs and saw none. Like many birds and reptiles, she hadn’t built a nest but sat on the eggs with the soft underside of her belly.
The dragon hadn’t moved since we arrived, and I wouldn’t want to be the one that made her. However, for what seemed the first time in a month, the three of us were alone—together. Sure, we were sitting on a mountain top with a dragon at our side, but it was again just the three of us.
Kendra appeared almost sad, in a wistful sort of way. Her eyes watered but she fought the tears back.
“What is it?” Elizabeth coaxed.
Kendra said, “It’s just me feeling melancholy. About the three of us, I guess.”
“About what?” I asked. “We have a war to plan and you’re thinking about the good old days?”
She looked at me in surprise, then shifted to Elizabeth. “You don’t know? Neither of you? You haven’t figured this out?”
Elizabeth and I exchanged stupefied looks.
Kendra sighed as she shrugged her shoulders slightly. “It’s over. It’s all over.”
Elizabeth said gently as if trying to soothe a small child, “Start at the beginning and tell us all about what you’re thinking.”
I wished we could move away from the pile of dragon excrement and then have the conversation. I tried scenting it and failed. Then, turned back to the others and tried to concentrate.
Kendra drew in one of those long, ragged sobs I’d heard other women use, but never her. She steeled herself, eyes streaming tears, and said, “You have an army arriving here to protect us and fight the Young Mage?”
“Three of them,” I said proudly.
“We only need a few days of safety, but better to have too many than not enough, huh?”
Elizabeth and I waited her out this time.
She said, “The little ones will fly away a few days after hatching. Dragons on the ground are helpless to anything hungry, even rats and such will rush in and snatch a bite or two. They are safe in the air and only nest at night in the same place rarely, so they don’t attract wolves, rats, dogs, and other predators.”
“Baby dragons can fly that soon?” My tone
relayed my disbelief.
Kendra said, “Most songbirds fly after about fifteen days of emerging from the egg. Others take more time. Some less. And there are some that fly sooner. There’s a bird called a Maleo that flies right after hatching, the very same day. That does not mean baby dragons fly the same day but after a few. They are not ready to cross seas, but they can gain the air and every day after that grow stronger. So, three or four days to learn to fly is not so unusual.”
I said, “When those eggs hatch, there will be four of five dragons up here? All flying off this ledge and returning to it as they learn? I can see why a ledge is important.”
“Not for long,” she said. “A few days after that, they are ready to leave. We’ll be doing that together. We’ll go off, never staying on one mountain too long.”
“You can’t fly,” Elizabeth said.
“Momma will carry me cradled in her claws.”
That got my back up. It was just like her to make plans for us without asking us. Elizabeth was as upset as me, but I spoke first, “When were you going to tell us what we’re doing? We might have other plans.”
“I wasn’t inviting you.” Her chin rested on her chest and more tears flowed.
Her words were like a punch in the stomach. At first, I didn’t comprehend what they meant, then realized she intended to leave without us. My temper was building. I fought to hold it in check.
Kendra said earnestly, “You two really haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”
We shook our heads in unison.
“We won. Everything. Don’t you see?”
I didn’t.
Kendra threw her head back and laughed. Then she faced us again. “It’s all about the eggs. It always was. The Waystones were only tools, but the eggs powered them. The Waystone in Malawi is already dead, another at the pass between Vin and Trager was dying. There are more losing power every day, not all of it, not yet. But there was a cycle that coincided with my dragon. No more Waystones could be erected because the only dragon in existence could only supply the eggs for the Waystones they already had.”
