Dirt

by CC Hogan

Chapter 17 - Healing & Learning

  Family can be an unexpected experience, especially if your own experience is minimal to the point of non-existent. Mistry sat in the back of the cart sideways, her back rested on the sideboard. There were no seats in the little two-wheeler, so she sat on a pile of sacking usually used for kindling. Melini was driving and Silvi was on Mistry’s lap, playing with her fingers and talking non-stop. Mistry did not have the foggiest idea what the girl was chattering about, though she kept mentioning something about flying on her dragon, and Mistry was happy to let the chirping wash over her like a warm stream.

  Back up at the clearing, Farthing and Seb Dawfoot, aided by the mismatched dragon brothers, were clearing out the remainder of the camp and returning the forest to its natural simplicity. Seb was not just a forester, he was warden of this precious and valuable resource owned by all in the village. This was their firewood store, their charcoal store, the source of most of their building material, from the wooden frames of their houses to the stone cladding dug from the quarry in the middle of the forest, and it was their shelter from the winds and rains that blew down from the moors and the hills that surrounded them.

  “Thank you,” Mistry said to Melini, getting up on her knees and leaning on the backboard behind the little driving seat.

  “What for?” the woman asked. Melini was a little taller than Mistry, though not by much, fuller in figure, but only in her mid-twenties herself, a fair bit younger than Seb, Mistry guessed. But she was the mother of a small, talkative child and that moved her into a different generation; Mistry found herself warming to and looking up to the woman.

  “For everything, I suppose. We were losing up there; you came and changed that.”

  The woman chuckled. “You and Farthing were coping fine, Mistry, but if I have helped, then you are welcome to it. You are good people.”

  Mistry hoped she was. Her father had been a good person, a caring and clever man, quiet and hardworking. Her brothers were selfish and greedy, and had taken and never given back. Her mother had died when she was born and she had never known her. Her brothers blamed her for that. They were much older than Mistry, and her mother had had her when she was perhaps too old to have another child. The brothers had married and moved away when she was no older than Silvi and the little contact was unfriendly.

  “You live near the square?”

  “Just behind it close to these woods. It is my father’s house, and his father before that and is a rambling old building full of little corners and memories. I hope you like it.”

  “If it is warm and dry I will like it,” Mistry said with feeling.

  “Oh, warm it will be; my sisters will have seen to that.”

  “It is not just you, Seb and Silvi?”

  “Oh, it is far too big for that luxury. Our little village cannot expand easily because the valley is so steep, and we need most of the level ground for crops. It is common for families to stay together and just add rooms and floors and bits on the back to house everyone. Ours is not as mad as some. My parents died last winter and my two uncles and their families have moved to another village nearby to start a new smithy.”

  “I am sorry about your mum and dad,” Mistry said quietly.

  “And I about your father, Mistry. That was all very wrong.”

  The girl nodded and then changed the subject quickly. “So, who is there?”

  “My brother, who is older than I and is another blacksmith, many of the men in my family have that trade, and my twin sisters who are seventeen. You will like them, I think. They are very, umm, bouncy is a good word. I think Silvi is taking after them. Seb’s sister and her husband are often there, but they are away at the moment as they are traders and travel for several months at a time.”

  “My father and I were like that,” Mistry said.

  “Who looked after the farm when you were away?”

  “It is only two small fields up by the forest, so not much of a farm. I had to graze the goats on common land a lot of the time. Our cheeses and our cured meats were our real business. But our neighbours look after my goats and in return, they can take two each year to butcher and sell.” Mistry thought about how young Melini was. “Your parents were not very old?”

  “My mother was young still, though my father was older than she, as Seb is older than me. It was a hard winter last year and there was a lot of illness here. It took several people from the village.”

  Mistry didn’t know what to say and just put her hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  “Will you stay in my room, Mistry?” Silvi piped up. She had been busy trying to dig a knot out of the backboard of the cart, but had given up. Seb made solid carts and they could easily withstand poking from little girls.

  “Mistry will stay with Lina and Lena, Silvi, but I am sure she will come and tuck you in.”

  “Tell me what happens next in the story?”

  “I don’t know what happens next, Silvi,” Mistry said to the girl. “But when I find out, I will try my hardest to come back and tell you.”

  “Promise?”

  Mistry had spent half her life seeing promises go wrong. “I won’t promise, Silvi, because so many things might happen, but I will try very hard!” Silvi nodded and went back to the annoying knot.

  “Thank you,” Melini said. “That was very wise.”

  “It is not so many years since I was her,” the girl said. “I remember what being disappointed was like.”

  Melini laughed out loud. “Well, let’s try and make the next day or so a lot less disappointing. Starting with a hot meal. Lena is a wonderful cook!”

  “Are you sure about this?” The big forester looked very worried.

  “Of course I am sure,” Mab-Lotok said. “I am much bigger than my brother and it will be no trouble at all.”

  Mab-Tok watched the exchange with amusement and whispered to Farthing. “You, however, are walking. I could not go further than the length of this clearing with you on board.”

  “Am I really that much heavier than Weasel and Mistry?”

  “Yes. And longer.”

  “Oh.”

  “But what if I fall off?” Seb asked.

  Mab-Lotok thought it was just wrong that this big man had never had the chance to fly, and was on a mission to correct what he saw as a serious omission in his upbringing.

  “Impossible!” Mab-Lotok assured him. His brother coughed meaningfully. “Improbable,” the dragon corrected.

  The four had cleared the rest of the camp, making sure all the fires were extinguished and the ashes spread. Seb Dawfoot had taken his extra ropes, his huge canvas, and the large pot back to his shed, and Farthing had scoured the area for any leftovers that should be removed. Nothing more had been heard from the wyrms, though Mab-Tok and his brother had flown up to check around. All that was required now was to return to the village.

  “Come on,” Farthing said to Mab-Tok. “It is getting dark and though Seb says the trail is easy to follow, I don’t want to be stuck in the forest at night. Besides, I am starving. Those two can either sort themselves out or trot along behind.” He walked off down the trail, Mab-Tok walking slowly alongside, his wings tucked neatly back and his hands held thoughtfully together in front of him.

  “I really hope Fren-Eirol is going to be alright. I think I have done everything I could.”

  Farthing had not heard the small dragon sound uncertain before. “What will happen when she arrives at this place in the mountains?”

  “The Abbey? The Draig Wen will look after her. They know more about dragons than any dragon does.”

  “What are they? They didn’t seem to have wings.”

  “Yes, they are flightless, though they are dragons. Actually, they are more than just another dragon; the females have a close kinship with the black dragons and it is said some are their mates.” Farthing skidded to a halt.

  “You are joking!”

>   “It is why they are sometimes known as White Wives. I am not sure if the term works well here. Their society is completely different from any other dragon species.”

  “Wives? But the black dragons are huge and the whites are tiny, how do they?”

  “White Dragons sometimes produce an unfertilised egg, Farthing, and this is then fertilised by the Draig Mynyth Dun. They are the only species that does this as the rest of us do not lay eggs. It is not an issue and hasn’t even happened in my lifetime. Can we skip over that part?”

  “Oh.”

  “Sen-Liana knows more than most since she, unusually, can communicate with the Black Dragons to a limited degree. They don’t have an oral language. Even so, Sen-Liana, after all these centuries, still finds them a puzzle. However, to your first question, the whites are very skilled and if anyone can fix Fren-Eirol, they can, I hope.”

  “Why are you so worried, Mab-Tok?”

  “It is not the wound, Farthing, it’s the wing. It is broken terribly, but it is also dislocated right at the spine. I have never heard of damage like that being repaired. The muscles around that joint are so incredibly strong. It would be difficult to repair on me, and I am far smaller than she is.”

  “This is not your fault, and Sen-Liana seemed confident.”

  “I know and I hope she is right, but she and Weasel are very, very similar, Farthing. They both mess up regularly.”

  “She will be alright, Mab-Tok. I am sure.”

  “She’s my hero, you know,” Mab-Tok said quietly.

  “Fren-Eirol?”

  “Of course. I am younger than she is, and I was brought up on the tales of all the things she and her Bren and Weasel did to try and balance the relationships between all the mixed up species on Dirt. You humans live such a short time and these things are ancient history to you, but to dragons, they are very important. Even Weasel is seen by some as a bit of a hero.”

  “Not the saddle bit.”

  “Not that bit, no.”

  The quiet of the evening was shattered by a frightened yell followed by a huge, embarrassed laugh.

  “I guess your brother won the argument,” said Farthing with a grin.

  Bell-Sendinar called out to his brother with a long, mournful note as he circled the Abbey. On his back lay Fren-Eirol, pain coursing through her body, her mind drifting in and out of consciousness. Bell-Sarinar lifted his head and sounded a reply, then jumped into the air and sailed to the rear of the Abbey where the old walled gardens lay, guiding his brother to land gently on the rich grass tended by the Draig Wen.

  Weasel raised his head at the first call, his mind swimming with confusion from the ancient words of the book. He shook away the malaise and ran from his mother’s rooms. The chatty Draig Wen who had first greeted him, took him by the hand.

  “Come,” she said in her light, simple way, and they ran through the ancient building into the ruined garden as Bell-Sendinar landed. The white dragons swarmed off his back, grabbed the ropes and gently slid the sea dragon down his wing and onto the grass. Weasel rushed to Fren-Eirol and put his arms around her head.

  “Ir yrmr, Fren-Eirol, ir yrmr.” I am here, I am here.

  “Chr yrmin. Ir n fal,” I am glad you are here, she told him in the language of the dragons, her voice weak and faint. Sen-Liana walked up behind her son and put her hand gently on his shoulder.

  “Come, Eafa. The white dragons will care for her and heal her. We have much to talk about.” She leant down and took his hand, raised him to his feet and led him to the Abbey kitchens just through the door from the garden. It was warmed by a large fire, and two women worked at the hearth making bread on the stones. Sen-Liana took a coffee pot, kept gently warm on the edge of the fire, and poured two earthenware mugs of the dark brew, sweetening it with honey. She told Weasel to sit on an old rocking chair by the fire and sat on a stool opposite him.

  “When this was an Abbey to the Church of the True, the Abbot would sit here and talk to the children of the cooks and the servants, telling them incredible stories of other world, lands and peoples. The monks built this place out of the ruins of another, older building, but they left a thousand years ago, I think.” She looked into the eyes of her son, estranged from her for many lifetimes, her connection to him stretched so thin that it was less than a thread. “What have you learned, Eafa?”

  Weasel sipped the coffee and looked up at her. “That you were afraid for me.”

  “Good. Then you know the truth. Do you know why?”

  “Because if you stayed, then I would not have been able to hide who I am and would have been killed. At least, that is what the book leads me to think.”

  “Then you have learned the most important thing.”

  “I have not been ignorant of who I am, mother. I knew I was not just a finder or just a speaker or just a healer. And I am a wave talker.”

  “And that you are not, my son.”

  “But I have the skill.”

  “No, you have none of the skills you describe.”

  Weasel frowned. “You used to do this to me when I was young. You would twist things around and complicate things and make conversations impossible. Do you know what that is like for a ten-year-old boy who just wants to kick around in the dirt?”

  The old woman looked down. “You do not need to remind me of the mother that I could never be; not to any of you. I have relearned and relived all the moments I got wrong a thousand times a thousand over the centuries, Eafa.”

  Weasel shrugged. “So, tell me why do I not have the skills I so obviously do have?”

  “A finder,” she began, “is a person who can trace signals and tracks through our world to find an object. A wave talker is someone that finds paths through currents and can sense their movement. You know all the others. All of these we call lesser magicians for some archaic reason, but really there is no relationship between them at all. They are not collectively magicians, but different people with different skills, just like a carpenter and a blacksmith. The only relationship they have is that they are good with their hands and happen to be human, but it is not an extension of something mystical they have in common. You are not one of these magicians. You are not someone with a particular skill like being dexterous that you can use in a limited way.”

  “But I can do those things!”

  “Wait, I am explaining, son.” Sen-Liana sighed. She could be formidable, she supposed, but tonight she was just old and tired, and her legs hurt. “Your ability is different. You have power over the fabric of our world. You can look through it and feel it beat and breathe and live. Can you find something over water?”

  “Sometimes. It’s hard.”

  “No finder can do that; none of them. It is impossible. It would be no more possible than it would be for a bear hunter to track a bear the other side of a lake. There is nothing to look for as the water washes away all signs for both the hunter and the finder. You can do it because you are not using the finding skill; you don’t have it to use. You achieve the same thing but in a different way. When you arrived, you called to Bell-Sarinar and he heard you. No speaker could do that. Black dragons do not have the empathetic sense that red dragons or sea dragons do; they communicate in an entirely different way.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Exactly, and yet you did it anyway, in the same way that you would find something or someone or make your way through sea currents. Mab-Tok told me how you closed the dragon’s wound and your own wound.”

  “Ah, I am not good at healing,” he said defensively.

  “Mab-Tok is one of the best healers there is, anywhere. Only the white dragons who heal are better. And yet neither he nor they could do what you did, because you didn’t use a healing skill. You achieved it in exactly the same way as you find something or look for sea currents, or speak or any other skill you think you have. By the way, doing it to yourself was plain stupid. You only hav
e one skill, Eafa, a strange and unique skill, but with it, you can do just about anything. It is what I have called a True Magician.”

  Weasel tried to absorb all of what he was being told. It was what was in the book, but in there it was wrapped up in maddening riddles and philosophical discussion and so many styles and languages and other rubbish that he just did not need. There was one thing that had been clear and that was on a piece of paper tucked into the back of the book. A family tree; his family tree. But he was not on it.

  “I am not my father’s son,” he said.

  “No, you are not.” Sen-Liana looked at him carefully. “Does that surprise you?”

  Weasel bit his bottom lip, a childish expression he had never quite managed to lose. “Not really. I didn’t fit in with anyone.”

  Sen-Liana laughed. It was a warm laugh that took Weasel by surprise. His memories of his mother were pretty much cold. “I don’t think that had anything to do with blood ties, Eafa, more that you really could be an awkward little bugger!” She looked at him and put her hand on his knee. “No, Eafa, you are your own man, neither like your adopted father or your real father.”

  “Who was he? Is he?” After everything else he had read, it was too much to suppose that anyone was actually dead. His mother was still here and a thousand years old.

  “When you were born, he died. That always seems to happen with the True ones.”

  Weasel blinked. “So, if I had a child?”

  “If the child born is a True Magician, it would signal your end too, but it is complicated and I have not unravelled it fully. First, your father. You have heard the stories of the mighty magicians that ruled arrogantly with kings and queens over Dirt?”

  “Yes, the bards love those tales to this day. How much truth is in them?”

  “Almost none, to be honest. But the name Dierren is real.”

  “What, the great dancer who rode a dragon to the moons and set the eastern forest on fire?”

  “Well, he didn’t actually do any of those things, since they are impossible, but he was your father.”

  “What? Mother, those stories are ancient. I mean, they are all but written on stone tablets!”

  “Yes, he was a bit older than me, it is true. All right, a lot older. Fun, though.” She dimpled, then remembered how stupid that looked when you were grey and over a thousand years old.

  Weasel stood, poured himself another coffee and looked out of the window over the garden. The Draig Wen had erected a tent over Fren-Eirol, had lit fires and were covering her with great mats woven from grass. She probably was better in their care than his, he thought.

  “Why are you telling me all this? I don’t understand why I need to know.”

  “Because one day you are going to suddenly want to have a child and that need will all but consume you.”

  “Why?”

  “A True Magician has to produce a True Magician. It is built in. It is part of the deal, instinctive, inevitable. It is a need so great that it wears you out and pulls you apart. But to produce a True Magician you have to mate with the opposite; a particular person who has everything you are missing. It is like two pieces in a jigsaw. I am one of such people and I gave birth to you. That is my lot. I cannot do that again. One day, you will need someone like me, and that person may be very hard to find.”

  Weasel looked around the room, his mother’s house. It was warm in a way that his own home as a child had never been. It was welcoming too, and even his mother was welcoming. He had no such memories from childhood; he had always been the outsider, always looking for something, to be fulfilled by something. For many, many years, in the company of Mab-Aneirin and then with Fren-Eirol he had felt fulfilled, and was with people who understood him and shared his needs. That had been missing since he had taken himself off to be on his own. Now, for the last few weeks, he had felt his old self again. Somehow, the idea that he would not have a child seemed neither here nor there.

  “I have always felt closer to dragons than to people. It seems to be a running gag that I do not understand others, especially humans. Dragons I get, though.”

  “It is not surprising,” Sen-Liana said. “There is a strong bond between the True Magician and dragons that dates back many millennia. It is almost something in the blood though I do not understand it. It is common to all of them and to their mates, whichever way around that is.”

  “Have there been many female True Magicians?”

  “Yes, from what I can discover, though there have not been many of either over the millennia. I have spent years researching all this, but I have discovered frustratingly little. My entire knowledge is written in that small book.”

  “Why is there so little?”

  His mother smiled. “I feel there should be some wonderful mystical explanation, Eafa; some great prophecy hidden in the tower of a library on the mythical third continent, perhaps. But in reality, it seems like they have all been really bad at writing stuff down.” Weasel actually looked a bit embarrassed. As far as he could remember, he had never written anything of importance anywhere, unless it was one of his indecipherable notes. “Perhaps that is not such a bad thing,” his mother added.

  “What I don’t understand,” Weasel said, “is why there should be only one of us? Why are there not huge tribes of us somewhere? My skills, my skill, feels very natural. It does not feel mystical or that it breaks any rule of nature. To me, it feels a lot more real and logical than the beliefs in gods, which I have never subscribed to. It is not fantastical in any way. Mostly, it is not even very useful. I might be able to slow down someone’s urgent need for air so they can fly high on a dragon, but when they get hungry, I can only solve that by cooking them something to eat. I can’t click my fingers and magic up a four-course meal complete with servants and silver cutlery.”

  His mother laughed. “And you never will be able to! Some things in that book will help you with your skill; just understanding what you are doing will mean it will be more useful. But you will not be more powerful, just more adept. As to why only one? Well, I have a theory.”

  “And that is?”

  “Accident. I think there was one person once who somehow had your skill. They met, by chance, another who had the matching skills. Your father and me sort of thing. They had a child, but the process of begetting that child was something the existing magician could not survive. When I became pregnant, your father was already getting ill. He slowly declined and became weaker, and he died about a month before you were born. Understand he was terribly old and had had the yearning, the need to have a child, for a long time. I don’t believe it is the birth that magically ends the life of the father or mother, I think it is the yearning that is the problem; it is like an illness that eventually kills you. Whatever the process, the result is there is only one True Magician for most of the time.”

  “And one … what is the matching half?”

  “There seems to be nothing about that. They are just called the Mate, which is not very flattering, to be honest. Mates all have a small amount of ability and also live for many years. I don’t think the number of mates is limited, it is just they are so few and far between. And since there is no way of knowing in advance who they are going to be, the chance of meeting one is almost zero. Maybe this is why we all need to be so long-lived, to increase the chance of meeting.”

  “So, I might find a mate one day.”

  “If you don’t I suppose there will be no more True Magicians. And then there is the yearning. Your father suffered from it for years before he found me and it made his life very difficult. Sadly, for him, he had no association with the black dragons that I know of and they seem to understand this need in some way, and perhaps can help. Eafa, this is part of why I sent Mab-Tok to find you. It was important you learned all this.”

  Weasel shook his head. He was far more worried about his old friend lying wounded in the garden t
han any guesswork as to who he was. It seemed too mystical, too ambiguous and very unimportant. Yes, he was intrigued. Intrigued enough to know that his long-lost mother had made some huge mistakes in her understanding somewhere along the line. This idea of a True Magician was simply wrong, and much of what he had read in the book made no sense at all. He knew it in his gut, and it angered him.

  “I am … I don’t know what I am meant to do with this, these ideas. They are crazy. I feel I want to just forget it all. I see no advantage in anything I have learned, other than the long-term possibility that I might get this yearning thing, and need to pop over to the nearest Draig Mynyth Dun and ask for some therapy. Nice to know, but not life changing.”

  “How have you stayed alive, Eafa?”

  “Luck, mostly. I get a lot of it.”

  “Glad you think so. Pity it is not true, however.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, apart from the observation that no one is that lucky, the real reason is that your abilities have probably kept you out of more trouble than you think. You see or feel trouble coming. It is not infallible, as your recent wound proves, but you can do it and survive the attempts. Look, I need to make one thing clear. There is a difference between who you are and what the bards called a Greater Magician. Those are just people who have more than one talent, they are not you. So, now you know who you are, by the time you have learned more, you will be better able to stay out of trouble without relying on your so-called luck, just in case it runs out.”

  “Why do you care, mother?” Weasel snapped. “And don’t say it is motherly love because you never showed any of that when I was a child.”

  His mother looked a little hurt, but she did not contradict him. “Because, belatedly, I have found out that it is my job. Dierren’s mother Eorinna was the True one, and he was brought up by his father. Like you, family life did not suit him and he went his own way in the world, but his father was always in the background. He had Dierren’s back for over a thousand years until he himself died, and everything thing Dierren knew about himself, his abilities and how to use them was from his father. That book has been only part written by me. It was also written by Dierren’s father and the mate of the previous True; each one adding a bit.

  “When I found it, it looked like a family scrapbook, and the older bits were nearly illegible. I have that still and I will show it to you one day. But I didn’t have the book when I should have had it because Dierren had forgotten about it. He was nearly three thousand years old and the yearning had left holes in his memory. I didn’t know I was meant to be there for you and didn’t know what my role was. All I knew is that I might expose you and put you at risk, so I left. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. Fifteen years ago, I found the book, and then realised that I had abandoned you to a terrible fate. I didn’t know how to contact you, where you were or if you would want to see me. I wasn’t even very sure if you were still alive. So, I patiently transcribed the entire book, thinking I might find you and get it to you anonymously. I sent out messages, one with Mab-Tok, to keep a look out for you. I have done much research over the years, even before I found the book, and it is all here upstairs in the library. As I have learned more, I have realised that the book itself is not enough. I need to take up my role, even if it is only to have this conversation. Perhaps I might even be able to find your mate for you one day.”

  Weasel was now genuinely angry. “So, you have now plonked yourself back into my life because you feel guilty for forgetting to help me over the last thousand years. Let alone the first ten or so when I could really have done with it.” There was too much emotion in the room; too much that Weasel was simply not prepared to confront either with forgiveness or anger. He walked over to the large kitchen table and put down his mug carefully. “I need to see my friend,” he said quietly, and left the kitchen.

  Along from the village square, over the small wooden bridge that spanned the sparkling stream as it made its way deeper into the valley, and up a short, but steep path, was a grass terrace that looked over the village of Sarn-Tailin. Centuries before, it had been the site of a great house, once the seat of some local baron, which had first succumbed to fire, then fallen into ruin, and finally had been absorbed stone by stone into the fabric of other village buildings. The family had already departed the valley and with no other claims on the land, it had become a common space used for small local festivities. Today it was being used for a very exclusive party of one little girl, one relatively small dragon, a young cart pusher, a cheesemaker and two lively twin girls.

  The relatively small dragon was sitting and wondering about the dignity of having a very young girl sat high on his neck tying ribbons around his horns, and the two golden-haired, bouncy twins were attempting to discover how far they could tease the young man before he eventually, and hopefully, chased them into the forest.

  Mistry sat with her chin on her knees wondering how she was managing to feel both scared for her future and happily relaxed at the same time. Tomorrow, they would head to the mountains on the backs of the dragons, a two-day trip that would end with her finding out the fate of Fren-Eirol. Melini had been very clear about pushing that worry out of her mind as much as possible. The sea dragon was in the best of hands, the woman felt, and their own part in the dragon’s fate was now done. Whatever happened would not be changed by fretting. It was difficult, though. Fren-Eirol had looked so damaged and vulnerable on the back of the huge black dragon, very different from the great beast who had, just days before, dispatched a marauding tundra bear, and sent a vicious slaver to his death.

  Melini was making her way up the steep path, carrying a large, cloth-covered basket, and Mistry trotted down to meet her, grabbing half of the handle to share the weight between them as they made their way up the few stone steps, the only remaining evidence of the old house.

  “Cured pork and fresh bread and jars of pickles from last year’s gourds,” Melini announced. “And some of your father’s beers. Not for you Silvi!” The small girl pushed her lip out and pulled one of Mab-Tok’s pointed ears in annoyance. “And he is not a stuffed toy, dear, so stop decorating him, slide down and come have your lunch.” The girl slid down the dragons back, bending every one of his fins all the way to his tail. Lena and Lina gave up baiting Farthing, who came over to Mistry and whispered in her ear.

  “Help?”

  “Your fault for being pretty, Johnson, so don’t look for me to dig you out of that particular mess.”

  “Will daddy and his dragon be coming for lunch?” Silvi asked. Seb had announced earlier he wanted to check on the fires in the high forest to make sure they were fully out, though the heavy rain in the early hours had probably soaked them through.

  “No dear, and it is not his dragon. Dragons are not pets they are people.” Melini grinned at Mab-Tok. “Not that I am any sort of expert; she is not the only one who has never met a dragon before, and now I have met, well, a lot of them!”

  “Well, as long as you don’t also use us as climbing frames, it will be fine.”

  Melini looked a little guilty. “Oh, I am sorry, Mab-Tok, she does that to everyone.”

  “Do not apologise,” the dragon said, trying to shake life into his battered ears. “It is a new experience; that is all.” He left the ribbons in place, however, as he laid back on the grass by the trees and dozed.

  Mistry had been slow to get to sleep the night before, despite her exhaustion, and had welcomed the constant, gentle beating of the rain on the roof, something she had always enjoyed in her own small attic room at her farm. She had slept on a spare cot in the twin’s room up in the attic, while Farthing had shared with Denno, their brother. Mab-Tok and Mab-Lotok, though smaller than most dragons, were far too big for the house and had bunked in the hayloft above the old stable where they kept the workhorses. Their snoring had kept Silvi awake, she had claimed, with no evidence.

/>   Seb had decided, after his initial reluctance the day before, that flying was the best thing he had ever experienced, and Mab-Lotok had volunteered to fly the big man up to the high forest and to scout around the moors. Seb had been concerned at breakfast that the disappearance of a couple of people over the years might be attributed to the wyrms. Whatever, he would meet with other members of the village that evening to tell them of the events, and the two dragons said they would support his story and give any other information they could.

  Silvi was proving to be a different issue. She had spent the morning running around telling everyone she met how she was going to get to fly on her dragon, meaning Fren-Eirol, and had become anxious the sea dragon had not turned up to fulfil what she saw as a promise, even though none such had been made. Mistry hoped she would be able to tell Fren-Eirol more about this little girl; she would love it.

  “How long will it take you to get to the mountains?” Melini had sat next to Farthing and Mistry. She had worried about both of them the night before. They had been running on a seemingly never-ending charge of energy, but after the evening meal, the two had flagged to the point of looking seriously ill. To her relief, both looked better in the morning, though she suspected that their sleep had been restless.

  “Mab-Tok says it will take a couple of days,” Farthing explained. “There are more villages between here and there, and we will need to stop at one of them since we do not have any of our camping gear. It would be too heavy for the dragons anyway.”

  “Even Mab-Tok is the same size as our carthorse,” Melini pointed out.

  “But your carthorse doesn’t have to fly.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t looked at it that way. Once you get to the Black Hills, is it far?”

  “I don’t really know,” Farthing said between bites of the still warm bread. Melini or Lena baked something at every spare moment they could find, and he was amazed her family were not all as round as balls. Quite the contrary, he considered, thinking about her twin sisters, then pushed that idle thought back into its box. “I know it is a hard flight through narrow passes, and Mab-Tok is keen to get there as early as possible so we do not journey in the pitch-dark. Mab-Lotok’s night vision is not as good as his, I gather.”

  “Well, the two of you can rest well tonight as it sounds like it will be a hard couple of days, and I don’t know what happens after that.” She looked carefully at Mistry.

  “Home,” the girl said. “If I still have one.”

  Farthing put his arm around her. “Whatever happens at your farm, you have a home,” he told her. “That was my promise. Do you want to know what it is like?” She looked up at him and nodded, and Melini smiled and just listened. “Rusty and me, we live in a part of Wead-Wodder called The Wealle. It is high up on a ridge, and from our window we can see the whole town and even the Prelate’s Island where Rusty works, and right out to sea. It is very different from here because we don’t have much rain. Well, that is not entirely accurate; in the rainy season, we have a lot of it, but in the dry season it is rare. Up on our ridge it gets dusty, but is nice and dry; no offence, Melini.”

  “I could do with dry, Johnson.”

  “We live on the first floor of a very shaky five-storey building that is held up with big wooden beams stretching across the street. When I was little, my mother would get angry with me because I would climb out onto the beams with other kids. Anyway, we have just two rooms, not very big, and a small storage larder. The main room is where we cook, eat and where I sleep. We have lots of old clay pots stacked up on shelves, and rugs and mats everywhere. There is a small table with three chairs (I broke the other one), and a tiny fire where we cook when we can afford wood. The window is really big and goes right down to the floor. My father nailed on a little ledge so we can sit on the window sill and have somewhere to put our feet. Rusty sometimes spends all evening there when it is warm, listening to the sounds coming up from the town.”

  Mistry leant against him with her eyes closed, listening to his description and imagining this place that might be her home one day.

  “The other room is our parent’s old room and is where Rusty sleeps and where you will sleep too. We use it to store our clothes, and I have nailed together cupboards with drawers and doors all the way up to the ceiling. We don’t have much, so there is loads of space in them for your clothes. The sleeping pallet takes up nearly the whole floor. The room is only a couple of paces both ways, and Rusty has it covered with rugs and blankets. When we were young, and we lost our parents, Hetty, who you will meet, had this thing about us getting cold. So every time she found an old quilt or rug someone was throwing out, she would get Barkles, her husband, to rescue it and she would fix it up. She is a seamstress and really good. Our little home is overflowing with bedding! The two of you would be able to sleep in there and never find each other, I reckon.” He grinned broadly. When Rusty went to bed, she just disappeared beneath the covers. “The only other room is our tiny little storeroom, just a cupboard really, where we keep anything that might get in the way, and our bags of beans in pots.”

  Farthing frowned. “Mistry, my sister and I, you know, we are really poor. What I have just told you is all we have, and it is really, really small. Lina and Lena’s room is bigger than our whole apartment. We wash in a small tub in the main room that we store hanging on the wall, trying not to look at each other, and there is a privy down on the ground floor which everyone in the building uses, and we take turns to wash out. But all our neighbours, all of us poor, are really proud. The buildings are falling down, and the town officials never come to see us or even admit we are there half the time, but we keep The Wealle patched up, painted, clean and bright. Everything is painted white or a bright colour, not very well, but we do our best, and the roads are clean and people treat each other decent. This is as poor as it gets, you need to know that, and after rent and food, we rarely have any money for ourselves. Most of the time if I have a beer, it is because Barkles has given me a bottle.”

  Melini looked down at the ground. Her people in this village had only what they grew or bartered for. No one had much in the way of coin, and it could be tough sometimes. But none of them lived as Farthing described. He had told her about all his recipes for beans over dinner the previous night, to laughter from the twins and some surprisingly rude comments from Silvi. She now realised that beans were probably what he and his sister lived on for most of the year. The young woman, a mother, but only a few years older than Farthing, gently took his arm and put her head on his shoulder to hide a tear as she read beyond his words into the real, desperate world of big town poverty. Mistry, however, smiled.

  “My father and I have two tiny fields against the forest wall, and a cottage between them. In one, we keep my goats and In the other the occasional pig for curing. I graze the goats up the hill on the common land. We have a shed divided in two. I make cheese in one half and my father cured his meat in the other. Our cottage is just one room, bigger than your apartment, and we sleep in the attic, climbing up ladders. We have never had a proper bath, but our privy was all our own!” She giggled. “Your home sounds like it is meant for young people, not old parents; I think I will love it!”

  “Well, it is not meant to be that, but yes, it is. My sister has made it that way. She is hardworking, clever and strong as an ox, but she is little and silly too. Remind you of anyone?” Mistry had the good grace to blush. Melini took a deep breath, and left to find her young daughter for one of those necessary hugs.

  Weasel was sitting on the ground leaning against the sleeping Fren-Eirol. Her wound had been bound again, was clean and holding properly, and the small white dragons had fed her with herbs and large buckets of spicy smelling water. She was now lying peacefully, her breathing steady and even. Her wing, however, was another issue, and though he had asked, he had yet to find out how it could be repaired, if indeed it could. The idea of a sea dragon un
able to fly was intolerable, and it worried him sick.

  “You were right; you do associate with dragons better than with humans.” Sen-Liana looked tired. She was using a stick and Weasel raised an eyebrow. “Oh, this? Most of the time I am fine, but when I get tired, my knees like to remind me how stupidly old I am. May I?” She pointed to the coir mat next to Weasel. He shrugged and she sat down, crossing her legs carefully.

  “If you are here to tell me more about myself, mother, I am not sure I want to hear it.”

  “I thought that would be the case. No, I came to give you something.” She took from her coat a small box, opened it, and brought out a very simple metal pendant on a chain. It was a dragon sitting down with its head held high on a long neck. It was made of copper, just stamped out, and then the details scratched into the surface. Sen-Liana handed it over to her son.

  “What is this? Some magic emblem of who I am?” He didn’t think it looked anything significant and it was poor quality.

  “No, nothing like that. It is what Dierren gave me when we first met. I think his father made it for him when he was a child, and he wore it all those years. He used to have to make the markings clearer every time they wore smooth. I suspect it looked a lot more handsome when his father had made it originally.” Weasel looked at it again. She was right, it had been cared for in all its simplicity. “He never said it was for you or anything so dramatic, but I think he meant that it should be one day. You never knew him, and after all these years I doubt I can bring him to life for you in simple words, but maybe this does the job in its own way; sweeps away some of those myths the bards love to share.” She stood up, leaning heavily on her stick. “There is fresh stew and bread in the kitchen. I will have one of the girls bring you out a bowl and some blankets. You should stay with Fren-Eirol tonight. I think both of you need that.” She smiled softly and started to leave the tent.

  “When did you become so caring, mother?” her son asked.

  “I am not sure, dear,” she said with a hint of irritation. “When did you?” And she left to find her bed.

  A party was the last thing he had expected. Farthing had thought that he, Seb and Denno would share a couple of beers at the local inn, and then it would be to bed and then back on their journey. Instead, it appeared that the contents of The Lost Man, including its beer barrels, had moved into Seb’s barn and everyone was invited.

  “Well, lad,” Seb explained, “it’s not a party as such, it’s a meet so we can discuss the problem of Tailin Moor. But we always reckon that if we have gone to the trouble of getting people together, it would be mean not to add a keg or two of beer into the mix.”

  “And the musical instruments?”

  “Really? Oh, those. Well, some people have no sense of timing, lad. Must have been an oversight!” He winked furiously, which from such a big man Farthing found scary. Melini walked up to Farthing, put her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. She had already had a beer, purely for practice, of course, and seemed to have the same tolerance as Mistry.

  “You know, Farthing, Mistry is very lucky. You think me and my sisters can get to adopt you as a brother too?”

  Farthing wasn’t sure whether Lena and Lina had the idea of a brother in mind, and he was getting less sure about Melini. He blushed and looked over to Denno for help.

  “Leave me out of this, Farthing,” the tall blacksmith called over from where he was tapping the second keg. “My sisters have charms that would see even your wyrms running for the mountains!” Mistry came over and rescued her new brother and dragged him away.

  “They ain’t the only ones,” Farthing told her. “Any more of this hugging business and I will be off tonight and running all the way to the bloody Black Hills!”

  “What, you gone off hugging, Farthing? Even me?” She grinned broadly.

  “You been at that ale with Melini?”

  “Might have been…” Farthing rolled his eyes. “Oh, you love it, admit it!” Mistry chided him, and she gave him a firm kiss on the cheek, just so he knew that on the adopted brother stakes, she had first claim.

  The party that wasn't one did not start immediately. First, there actually was some serious discussion about the Moors. Seb and Mab-Lotok had scouted most of Tailin Moor during the day and had taken a look at the old house in the middle. No one had been there for years and it was now overgrown, they said, but it was interesting that there was a moat dug deeply all the way around and they suspected the family had also had problems with the wyrms, meaning they were not new to the moor. They had also dropped into the other two villages that were closest to the moor, and a couple of their village elders had ridden over for the party and meeting.

  Farthing was asked to say what had happened, including the wyrm’s reaction to both Mistry and to Fren-Eirol. Mab-Tok added the little he knew. Mab-Lotok said he would try and find out more from any older dragons, and he would return to the village. The discussion turned more sombre when an elder from another village told of a mother and daughter who were herbalists that had disappeared up near the moor ten seasons earlier. It seemed that they were related to the old man and he looked quite upset. Seb put his large, strong hand on the fellow's shoulder.

  “We have been living in the shadow of Tailin Moor for many years,” Seb told them. “And partly through chance and partly through the habit of not having business up there, we have been living in ignorance. But Jecken’s story shows that our luck has not been as rich as we may have thought, and we here in Sarn-Tailin believe we may have a couple of other sad cases from years back that might need to be accounted for. I haven’t seen these wyrm for myself, but I saw the wound they inflicted on these good people’s friend. I can tell you all it was twice the length of my whole arm and so deep I would have put my hand in up to my elbow.”

  “How big is this dragon then?” a villager asked. Dragons close up were a new experience for the people of all three villages, but they weren’t ignorant of them, and Mab-Tok and Mab-Lotok were attracting a lot of attention.

  “She would be hard-pressed to fit in this barn, Liefen,” Seb answered the farmer who had broached the question. “I only saw her lying down sorely injured, and we hope she is recovering from that now, but she is a great and powerful person, and that wyrm near brought her to her death.”

  Mistry shivered at the memory, and Lina and Lena put their arms around her.

  “Is there anything much we can do?” Several of the men echoed the question.

  “For the moment, I doubt there is, except we must keep the women and any female, be that goat or pig or dog, a long way away from that Moor. Over here on our side, the forest and the tree roots seem to be an impenetrable barrier to them, and you over in Sarn-Linton have the crags between you and the moor. You over in Sarn-Appton are probably the most vulnerable,” he said to the old man who had lost relatives. “For the moment, stay clear, and maybe we should get some tree planting done there. I have a near ton of good saplings I can dig up and bring over, but that will do little in the short term.” Seb turned to Mab-Lotok. “I think we will be interested in anything you can find out from your people. Now we know what is up there, it will nag at us I reckon till we find some way to set our minds easy.” The others murmured in agreement.

  “I have several I can ask,” Mab-Lotok replied. “And Fren-Eirol herself may know more. She is quite a store of knowledge and older than we.”

  “How old are you then?” someone called out.

  “My brother and I are twins, like the girls there,” Mab-Tok told them. “But we are young yet, only two hundred and eighty-five.” There was a stunned silence. The villagers may know of dragons, but it seemed they knew almost nothing about them.

  “Well, how old is this other dragon then?”

  Seb gave the man a hard look. “Put it this way, Penton, I won’t ask you how old your wife is, and you and I will both get to see the morning. Now multiply that up to a
dragon the size of this building!” The laugh that filled the barn broke the sombre mood. Once it had calmed a little. Melini jumped up onto a table holding Silvi on her hip.

  “Now that is enough about big wyrms with teeth. We have guests here who have a long and hard journey ahead of them, and Baxter at the inn has these two kegs that he don’t want back till they are empty. Shall we give him a hand?” The cheer drew the meeting to a close and the party started in earnest followed by the twins kidnapping Farthing as fast as they could for a dance. Mistry watched them twist and spin into the centre of the barn, a little put out, as the music kicked in.

  “I don’t suppose you dance, do you?” Denno, the big blacksmith looked down at Mistry.

  “I can try,” she said with a grin.

  “Well, that is probably better than I will do. Come on then!”

  It took several songs and far too many kisses and hugs for Farthing to escape the attentions of the twins and their older sister, and he eventually managed to sit down at a table next to Seb and Denno. Mistry had been danced to near falling by half the young men in the village, and was now sitting on a pile of bales hugging Silvi, who had long since fallen asleep, the wyrm’s tooth now hung around the little girl’s neck on a braided chord. The music had taken on a lazier air and some of the farmers, the early risers, had already left for their beds.

  “You people fit in here well, lad,” Seb told him.

  Farthing smiled, sipping a fresh pot of the addictive local brew. “We have had a crazy journey, Seb, but you are the second lot of people I have met who have opened my eyes to a fair and pleasant world I didn’t know existed.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, lad, it is a hard life up in these valleys. Come winter, it closes down with the snow for two months and more, and we have nothing but ourselves. No traders or travellers can get near the place, and we survive on what we grew in the summer. But my Melini told me about your life back over in the Prelates, and you have it hard, son. Real hard. If you and that girl ever need a family, you come knocking. We won’t turn you away.” The big man held his big hand out to Farthing. “Deal?”

  Farthing smiled. “Deal,” he said, taking the hand. He knew he could so easily live this life; make a home here away from the dirt of Redust. But even as he thought about it, in his heart, he knew he belonged back in his own town with Barkles and Hetty, Geezen and Truck and even old Fennerpop and Sally with her Virtues. He would never forget these warm, generous people of Sarn-Tailin, and he would try everything to come and see them again. Bringing his sister Rusty to meet them would be the perfect bonus.

  “You will find her, you know,” Seb said, almost reading his mind. “I’ve seen you and that girl and your strange friends, and I told my wife that if anyone could find your sister and the other girl, then you could.”

  Farthing drained his pot and stretched. “You know, for the first time since she was taken, even after so many things going wrong, I am actually beginning to think we can. Don’t ask me why, cos I really don’t know, but that is what I think.”

  The barn cleared quickly once the music stopped, and since everyone took away what they had brought with them, within half an hour it was just a barn again, albeit with three very annoyed looking horses who had had their quiet evening ruined. It was two hours before midnight which was late for many of them, and Mab-Tok wanted to leave before dawn. Farthing and Mistry decided that they would sleep in the barn so that they could leave as quickly as possible in the morning, and they said their farewells to the family. Farthing had to suffer more kisses from the twins, which were proving to be less and less sisterly until their older sister chased them away so she could claim her own hug.

  “Take care, Farthing and look after that girl. You are doing something very important by taking her in, by sharing your small home with her. I cannot think of many young men or even older ones who would do so.”

  “I couldn’t bear to leave her, Melini. I owe her so much. Fren-Eirol was not the only hero of the tale, Mistry was too.”

  “Well, when you have your sister safe, you all return on the back of that beautiful sea dragon, and you can tell me it all. We can cry and laugh together and make it all right again.”

  Farthing hugged her tightly. “You are good people, both of you. And you have given us a bit of your strength I think. Thank you.”

  The twins came rushing over dragging Mistry between them.

  “So, when you have finished with him,” Lena was saying. “Can we have him?”

  “Sisters!” Melini told them sternly. “Bed! Now!”

  “Yes, Mama Melini,” they said in unison, then, dropping their tiring double act, they gave both Farthing and Misty a hug and left, looking more worried than happy. Melini and Seb followed quickly carrying the sleeping Silvi, and Farthing and Mistry made their way up to the loft where the two dragons were already asleep.

  A little later, Melini lay by her husband, listening to the gentle wind blowing through the trees. It was not raining, for a change, and it looked like it would be clear, even bright the next day.

  “You were talking to Mab-Lotok today, Seb,” she whispered. “How dangerous is all this going to be?”

  The big man sighed and stroked her hair. “Honestly, girl? They are going to be lucky to survive.” Melini nodded, then buried her face in his chest and wept.