Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (54 page)

DiNiya, for the briefest of moments, thought she felt something stir within her, burn within her. Looking at the older woman, she said, “I will.”

They talked for a time atop the tavern, with FiNaya bestowing her wisdom and experience on what DiNiya was and would be going through as a woman in the years to come.

DiNiya delighted at her constant reassurance that she was not as different as she believed and that she had much to look forward to in the next few years. Suddenly, the thought of starting a family did not seem so distant or unachievable. In fact, she even went as far as to imagine herself with a mate at her side, watching their children play in the fields of KaNar. It was a comforting and uplifting idea, but whenever she would turn to see her mate, they would always be a blur, shrouded in obscurity. Still, she knew what her heart was telling her, and she wondered if the unfocussed individual was so because of the uncertainty she knew resided in their heart; his heart.

Eventually, they made their way back downstairs and joined the others. DiNiya sat close to Rex, who smiled, before resting her hand on his. To her delight, he did not pull his away or flinch at her touch, but instead wrapped his fingers around hers and gave a light squeeze. DiNiya knew better than to read too much into this, for the act itself was more than likely out of friendly affection. Still, it was enough for her for the time being, and she allowed herself to be fulfilled in the moment.

The next day came and went, and once again the six of them found themselves enjoying the festival. They were back in the tavern, with Rex and EeNox marveling at the towering behemoths locked in fixed combat. “How many do you think he found?” asked EeNox, stepping next to Rex, who had not taken his eyes off them. “KyGahl, I mean?”

“Don’t know,” Rex replied with a shrug. “Couldn’t have been too many if no one has ever found any before.”

“That’s my point. Why now, and why not before?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Good idea. Hey, KyGahl!” EeNox shouted at the top of his lungs across the room, over to where KyGahl was conversing with NyRo and FyNasia. The tall man turned his head in surprise and stared in their direction. EeNox motioned him over with exuberance while Rex glared at the other boy.

“I meant ask him when you saw him,” he said angrily.

“And I did,” EeNox replied simply with a grin.

Rex snorted fire from his nostrils and shook his head, just as KyGahl strode over.

“Hello, you two,” the large man said. “I couldn’t help but notice that you wanted me for something.”

“We wanted to ask you something about the TyRanx you found,” EeNox said, motioning to the skeleton behind them.

“Certainly. Always happy to indulge inquiring minds.”

“How many did you find?”

“Just the one, I’m afraid. Although we made casts so we could put numerous skeletons on display all over the world.                        The real remains are kept in the archives of the Natural History Museum in the capital for study. This one here is really just for show, but we hope it will generate enough interest from the public to prompt the Guild to further indulge my madness,” he said, giving a wink to Rex, who smiled in turn.

“So where exactly did you find him?” Rex asked.

“About two hundred kilometers west of here, right on the coast. I have discovered countless fossils in that area due to some of the decaying rock formations, but what we found on that day was something new and special altogether.”

EeNox looked irritated. “Oh, come on! Don’t stop now for dramatic effect!”

KyGahl smiled. “Just pausing for breath, young one. In any case, what we appear to have found was some sort of burial site—or battlefield, most likely. We could tell because the soil in the whole area was filled with ash and mangled bone. But after some digging, we discovered this beauty. A mighty 10,000-year-old TyRanx queen.”

“So it’s female?”

“Indeed. We’re still trying to determine exactly how old she was when she died, but we think she was probably a young adult based on the rings we counted in a cross section of her femur. That, of course, would mean she could have still had some more growing to do.”

“You mean they could grow bigger than this?” EeNox asked in surprise as he gazed up at her. “Damn, that’s incredible. She’s already twice as big as VayRonx.”

“What about sexual dimorphism?” Rex asked curiously.

KyGahl smiled. “An excellent question. We are theorizing that the females may have grown larger than males, like with the TarBoranx and many other species of DyVorian.”

“Is that because they are closely related?”

“Indeed, from the same family, to be exact. We suspected as much due to historical descriptions, but now that we have actual fossil evidence, we can see that they were indeed part of the same evolutionary lineage, with one probably having broken off from the other.”

“Now there’s a thought,” said EeNox. “Still, which one came first, I wonder?”

“It’s difficult to say,” explained KyGahl. “With so little information available to us, we can only speculate. Still, her discovery is a promising start, and I believe that if we keep searching, we will find more TyRanx buried out there, just waiting for the light of the sun to shine upon them once again.”

“Maybe someday I will help you,” Rex said.

“A day sooner than you think, perhaps,” KyGahl said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’re old enough to start specializing in a trade. I imagine EeNox here has already decided what he wants to do.”

The other boy groaned. “Please, not you too. My father keeps trying to force me to come to a decision about ‘what I want to do with my life’ and all of that.”

“He’s merely showing his concern,” KyGahl said. “Any parent would.”

“I realize that, but it’s an enormous amount of pressure.”

KyGahl just laughed, taking both boys by surprise. “You think you know pressure? You should have seen my parents. They practically forced me into the family trade. I spent my entire youth hearing them tell me how I was destined for greatness and that my destiny was written long before I came into being. Now that’s an enormous amount of pressure, especially when you are only three years old.”

“Wow, I had no idea,” said EeNox, feeling more than a little dumbfounded. “I didn’t realize that there was so much pressure to get into the Science Guild. Were they paleontologists too?”

“No, they were more the stay-at-home type,” he replied, smiling to himself. “I suppose you could say I was the adventurous one in the family, wanting to discover what had not been previously known.”

“How did they take you not following in their footsteps?” Rex asked.

“At first they were concerned that I was making the biggest mistake of my life,” he grinned. “But in time they came to see that I could do more to bring honor and respect to my clan by following what my flame was telling me to do—venture forward into the unknown.”

“Funny you should word it like that.”

“Oh?”

“Moving forward, I mean. It’s just that as a paleontologist, your work is all about the past.”

“A fair point. However, if there is one thing I’ve learned through my work, it’s that time is a spiral, not a fixed direction, and so we must look to the past for clues on what may lay ahead. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I need to get back to making the rounds. It would seem my work is never truly done these days.”

They both nodded in turn and watched him resume walking around the room, saying hello and smiling broadly at everyone he spoke to, almost as if he himself was on display. Rex took in the man’s words, giving them serious thought. The idea of the past not necessarily being behind him was an interesting one. Then again, it should have been obvious given the world he now inhabited. Everything about it seemed to be made from bygone ages, and yet here it was in the present. “Hey, EeNox,” he said, turning to the other boy. “I just remembered something. That boy you talked to last night, the young one. Didn’t you say he was your informant?”

“KenSito, and informant would be implying far too much.”

“Point is he’s the one who keeps you in the know, right?”

“I guess, but I already know what you’re going to ask me next, and unfortunately the answer is no. He couldn’t tell me where they were holding the CeraVora.”

“I see. So where does that lead the investigation?”

“Dead in the water, quite frankly,” EeNox replied with a sigh. “It seems that VayRonx probably already had him moved down to the capital. Most likely a while ago. I assumed that all the secrecy surrounding him was to conceal where they were holding him, but now it looks like it was a simple case of out of sight, out of mind.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Do I?” he replied, looking somewhat surprised before returning to his look of defeat. “I suppose I am in a way. I’m not happy because of what happened, but for better or worse it was nice to be at the center of it so I could maybe do something about it for once.”

“I thought you didn’t like getting involved. You seem to prefer staying on the fringes of everything.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Rex smiled. “Oh, I’m not arguing with you on that. My point is that I thought you would rather just leave this to your father and VayRonx.”

“I know, and you’re right, but all I ever hear from them is how I need to step up and start taking on more responsibility. You know, that old song.”

“You’re lucky to have so many people believe in you.”

“Hey, I’m not the only one. KyGahl gave you quite the vote of confidence a moment ago. I wouldn’t take that lightly.”

Rex just shrugged his shoulders. “A part of me feels he was just being nice.”

“Are you serious?” EeNox gasped. “Do you have any idea how rarely he takes on an apprentice, not to mention the amount of requests he gets every year from young scholars?”

“If he’s such a hot commodity, then why does he have so few students? Why even consider me?”

“Honestly, no one really knows. He just turns most, if not all of them, down every year. Only when he sees someone he finds special does he agree to take them on as an apprentice. To this day he has only taken seven, when the rest of his colleagues have had at least several dozen under their wing by now. It’s something to consider, that’s all I’m saying.”

Rex began to give the idea of studying to become a paleontologist more and more serious thought. What it would be like to travel EeNara in search of fossils. The thought brought a warm feeling to his heart and a smile to his face. Still, could he really just leave KaNar and everything he had only just come to know? The mountain tribe had begun to feel like home, and the people like his family. But were they really? Did he truly belong, or was he simply allowing himself to be lured into a false sense of comfort, fooled by his own innocent desire to be part of something? It was a difficult question, made even harder by its elusive answer. Furthermore, there was DiNiya, the girl who was still pulling him from the pit of darkness that he was in danger of being swallowed up in. Indeed, he had not had another episode in some time. The strange white-eyed phantom and the monstrous beast that haunted his mind, that would come and go all the while filling him with fear and confusion, had been silent for cycles, causing him to wonder if they had ever been real at all, or if they were just products of his subconscious trying to piece back together his shattered mind.

Regardless of what they were, their hold over him seemed to wane the more he was around DiNiya. With her by his side, he felt lighter, like he was walking slightly above the ground. It was a strange sensation, but all he knew was that the idea of not seeing her every day stirred up old feelings of anger and resentment. Feelings he himself did not fully understand but knew he did not want to fall back into. Not after making so much progress. “Maybe one day I’ll take him up on his offer,” he said at last. “But for now, I’m content with just being here with all of you.”

“Aww,” EeNox mused as he gave him a big hug. “Who knew our Rex was all warm and soft at heart?”

“Hey! Stop that,” Rex growled as he tried to pry the other boy’s arms off. “Get off!”

Later, after deciding that they finally needed a small break from all the excitement, they made their way out into KaNar’s rolling fields. The night air was filled with the now distant sounds of song and celebration, and the aroma of the food tents could be smelled even from this distance.

“It’s so nice out tonight,” DiNiya said as she sat down. “Not like last year when we had that bad cold snap.”

“I remember,” her brother replied. “We lost half the crop because of it. All that hard work for nothing.”

“TemBol was furious,” she laughed. “I don’t think anyone dared to look him in the eye for the next two cycles.”

“Sounds like a lot of complaining for just a little cold,” LyCora said. “I prefer it myself.”

“Ooh, me too,” AnaSaya chimed in. “I wish it was this cold back home this time of year.”

“Well, if you think we’re complaining, then you should hear the people down in the capital,” ShinGaru mused. “They hate anything below sixty degrees. Not to mention you have the ones who come from the Southern Continent. I personally don’t care for it all that much.”

Rex looked around then tilted his head up. High above was the now familiar but still breathtaking EeNarin night sky. Spreading his arms out, he allowed himself to fall back and hit the ground with a thud that surprised everyone but failed to faze him. “It’s beautiful,” he said at last. “Any of you ever just find yourself…staring up at it all?”

They all turned their heads to the sky before slowly lowering themselves into the grass, where they all lay with their heads together and their bodies radiating outward in a circle. In silence they lay, their eyes drinking in the celestial glow shining above them.

“It really is pretty,” DiNiya said after a long stretch of silence. “You see it your whole life and get used to it after a while.”

“I wonder if that will happen with me?” Rex wondered aloud.

“Not likely,” said EeNox. “Nothing ever gets ordinary with you. You have a way of keeping things…interesting and new.” Rex smiled.