Dragon Talker (17 page)

Bernard had heard that tone before. Now wasn’t the time to push his brother. “I hear you. Fine, go to sleep, but when he turns us over to the wood monsters, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Chapter 26

Noticing that the quiver was not empty, Tadeus asked, “How did you do?”

Hental stood a little taller as he said, “I made it.” His shoulders drooped a little as he added, “though I was just a little bit closer than you were.”

“Good for you, Hental. And when I was your age, I would have come back with an empty quiver and get a thrashing from my tatush. You’ve got more discipline at your age than I did. I’m proud of you for that.” Hental stood tall at his father’s words.

“Warm up by the fire and I’ll tell you the rest of the story. Where was I?”

Lared was the first to answer, “The so-ge-an was making monsters as big as the village.”

“Oh yes, you have a good memory, Lared. So, the ocean…” Lared frowned as he realized he got the word wrong but smiled when his father winked at him. “has made these big monsters to fight the dragons, but no matter how big they were, they had to live in water. If one attacked Samora, she just froze it in place. If one attacked the green or red dragons, they steamed the water, chasing the fish away or cooking them on the spot! And the white dragon, well, they could never find that one. So all those big creatures just swam around looking for dragons, only to be cooked, clawed, steamed, and eaten by them.”

“The ocean was mad and worried. It knew it was losing. It realized it couldn’t beat the land physically, so it was going to have to outsmart it.”

“Like the woodsman and magician!” Hental added, referring to another story about how a village woodsman came across a powerful magician and had to outsmart him to save his village.

“That’s right, Hental. Water, though, had one advantage the woodsman didn’t - it was, is, huge!” Tadeus raised his voice and stretched out his arms as he said, “huge.” “It knew it couldn’t keep them totally separate, but it did realize it could keep most of the land away from the sky. Water is sneaky.”

“Like Henti,” Lared added.

Tadeus looked at Hental to keep him from hitting his brother, adding, “I think clever is a better description.”

“Yeah, I’m clever. You’re…” Hental tried to think of something clever. “…not.”

“So,” their father continued, “the water wanted to make sure it could watch over the land after it stopped fighting. It also saw how the green and red dragons turned the water into steam, sending it up into the sky to make clouds. It looked for the red and green dragons and started sending waves after them.

“The dragons fought back, blasting the water with fire, turning wave after wave into steam. The skies started to fill with clouds. The red and green dragons began to like fighting, and they kept going, even after the ocean stopped sending waves at them. They flew over the water, sending flames onto the surface just so they could fly through the warm steam.

“The ocean was happy. It now could float through the sky, watching over both the land and the sky. The land was happy, too, because it managed to push up an entire mountain range. The sky was happy because now it could talk to the land and it even liked sharing its space with the light clouds.”

“Before, though, the land and sky weren’t able to see everything. The sky only saw the water, not knowing the land existed, just as the land only saw the water, not knowing the sky existed. It didn’t take long for the sky and land to decide the ocean had to be punished for keeping them apart. They had won, they thought, so they thought they had the right to pay back the water for its treachery.

“What they didn’t know was that water can’t be controlled or blocked. Sure, you can contain it for a while, but it will always find a way out, over, or through. First, the land built massive mountains, forcing them high in the sky to keep the water out. The water just evaporated more and sent clouds over the mountains, raining on the other side.

“The sky tried to blow the clouds away, but the water went underground, moving through all the gaps and cracks that formed as the land pushed up rocks to make the mountains. Springs started popping up all over the land. Not only that, but the water made bigger clouds, denser clouds. Clouds so dense they boomed as the wind knocked them together. Lightning comes from these clashes, too.

“The three sides can never hold a peace very long. Some days, they get along, and that’s when we have beautiful days of clear skies. And when they don’t, well, we can tell how serious the fight is based on what is happening outside.

Hental crossed his arms and frowned. Tadeus noticed and asked, “Don’t like the story, Henti?”

“It’s okay, but there’s nothing about dying.”

“Hental, this is background. It’s like when grandpa would tell us about when he was a child before telling us what he really thought about what was happening that day. We’ll get there. But tell me, why the sudden interest in dying?”

“No reason.” Hental looked away from his father.

Agardia walked over and knelt by Hental. She gave Tadeus the look that let him know she was taking over. “Henti, dear,” she said as she stroked his hair, “what is it? What’s got your guts churning?”

Hental looked up at his mother, “They are churning, Momma.”

“There’s a lot going on - foxes in the coop, the…dragon incident. Is that it?”

“Kinda.”

“Hmmmm.” Agardia kept stroking his hair. “What else is it kinda?”

“Selma.”

“Selma?”

“Yea. She’s going to die. She says it’s time to quit.”

“Oh honey, she has been here a long time.” She noticed a tear running down Hental’s cheek. She looked at Tadeus and motioned towards Hental. He joined them. “It’s okay to cry Hental. We all feel sad when people die.”

“Do you…would you….?”

His father prompted Hental, “Would we what, Henti?”

His parents had to strain to hear him whisper, “Quit?”

Both Tadeus and Agardia said simultaneously, “Oh Henti.” The Agardia continued, “We’d never quit Henti. You’re our boy, Henti, and we want to spend a thousand thousand days with you.”

Hental looked up at his parents, “Really?”

Tadeus answered this time, “Of course. You, Yuri, Lared, and little Natalia mean the world to us. We’re not going anywhere.”

“But…” His voice dropped back to a whisper, “the wolf.” Both of his parents leaned in as he said, even more quietly, “it was just walking around and I killed it.”

Both parents looked at each other, not sure what to say but knowing their boy was hurting. They put their arms around him and held him. After a while, Agardia murmured, “Oh baby. I’m so sorry you had to experience that.

Tadeus added, “Sometimes, son, death is like that. A dragon, a fox, a bad sickness, but your mother and I are not planning on going anywhere.”

Hental looked up, “But you might.”

“Hental,” his father said sternly, “you are right, but that’s not in our plans. And how much do we love you?”

“A thousand times a thousand.”

“Straight from the dragon’s mouth, son, straight from the dragon’s mouth. So say one of us dies unexpectedly, do you think there is any where our love won’t find a way to be with you, to comfort you?”

Hental thought about that for a moment. “No.” He wiped the tears from his cheek, and raising his voice from the earlier whispers added, “You two can do anything. You just shot a fox in the dark from forever away, and mom can make anything taste good. And take any pain away!”

“That’s right.” Tadeus grabbed Lared, who had woken up at the crying and had taking all of this in. “And the same goes for you, Little Man.” He tickled Lared’s stomach causing him to laugh uncontrollably.

“Now, Hental, I think you’re ready to hear the rest of the story. What do you think?”

Chapter 27

Xeron awoke in a bedroom of Perante’s castle. A fire burned in the fireplace, though it looked like it would need some more wood soon to keep going. The room was nearly 12 feet high, which was odd. Odder still, the window openings were at the very top of the wall. Two foot tall slits by roughly 8 inches ran across the upper wall opposite the doorway. His dog was lying at the foot of the bed. He leaned up and patted him on the head. “What’s going on, Tail Biter?” Waking up in bed had him confused.
Was this some dream
, he wondered? Then he felt the recent scar on his hand and knew it all had happened.

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” he said. “And where were you when I needed you?”

Tail Biter lowered his head. “Don’t do that,” Xeron chastised, “we’ll figure out what happened and I’ll get you some more protection. How nice of Perante to leave a fire for me.”

Just then, a servant came in, excusing herself as she added two more logs to the fire. “Is there anything I could do for you, sir?”

“Well, I am incredibly hungry. What time of day is it?”

“It is late evening, sir.” She kept her head down in deference to his position as a mage.

“Then a late supper seems appropriate. Bring something for this wretched mutt, too, but not a bone. He’s had enough of them lately.”

“Yes, sir.”

She started to leave, but Xeron stopped her, asking, “How long have I been in this bed?”

She answered, “Six days,” and quickly left the room.

Xeron thought about getting out of bed, but he was still incredibly tired. His dog was still looking up at him from the bottom of the bed. “Knock it off,” he commanded lightly. Tail Biter’s tail started wagging at his lighter tone. “Come here. Let me check you for ticks. I don’t trust him or this castle.”

Ticks were magic spells or tricks mages put on each other’s dogs. They could be simple spells to keep track of where the animal went, thus telling where the mage was, too. They could also be more dangerous, siphoning off the dog’s life force or any protective spells the dog’s owner may have placed on the dog.

The first tracing spell was easy to find, so easy that it was obviously only the beginning. “What is he up to?” “You, Tail Biter, are covered in ticks.” After removing three, the most difficult to find being the one hidden in the tips of Tail Biter’s claws, he found that there were also three siphoning spells, but none had been activated.
This is ridiculous
, he thought.
With this many spells…he’s keeping me busy.

“Let’s go,” he said as he jumped out of bed. Tail Biter was right behind him. “I think we will stop reacting to Perante and start acting for ourselves.” He was tired and thought about using one of the energy spells he had on Tail Biter, but he didn’t want to give Perante, who he knew would be paying attention to this kind of thing, any more information about how he was feeling and what kind of power he had in reserve.

Stepping into the hallway, Xeron froze in place. He expected to see typical Perante hallway, complete with the purple tapestries Perante liked to have hanging seemingly everywhere. Instead, Xeron saw a window as he stepped outside the room, and the view was not of Perantium. Obviously, in his long sleep, Perante had moved him somewhere else.

“That son of a dragon!” Xeron was just as mad at himself as he was at Perante. “So much for the need for stealth. Come here you dizzy mutt. At least there’s one thing you can be useful for.” At his command, Tail Biter hunched down and half-crawled, half-walked forward.

At the site of his dog’s submissiveness, Xeron chastised, “Come here you little whelp. Since when have I beat you?” He shook his head. “I swear.” Tail Biter stood up a little straighter and walked up to Xeron. Xeron put a hand on each side of Tail Biter’s head, and cast a visioning spell.

An image, all in different grays, formed in his mind. In it, he saw the courtyard at Perante’s castle. He also saw a bone sticking between two paws, Tail Biter’s paws. He saw Perante pause in his approach, which made Xeron smile. He could imagine his dog growling at Perante. The next moment, he saw a gray sky. Angry, he assumed Perante had knocked Biter over with a spell.
I really do hate that man
, he thought.

The next thing he saw was the inside of a coach and himself. Tail Biter was awake and watching him. Xeron waited to see if he would get a glimpse of the trail, but his dog would not leave his side, which meant all he was going to see for a while was himself. Pulling his attention away from the vision, he asked, “Seriously, why do I keep you around?”

The next thing he saw was the door to the carriage open. A man had a rope at the end of a pole and forced it over the dog’s head before pulling it out into the open. “Well,” he reconsidered, “at least you were obviously causing them some trouble.” Xeron ended the connection. He hadn’t learned anything of value, but it was worth a try.

All this took place while he was standing in the hallway. As he looked up and down the empty hall, he thought,
that was dumb. Stand around exposed connected to the mind of a dog. I need to start thinking. And planning
. He went back into the room to look for anything usefull.

The first thing he did is walk around the room. He took all the candles in the room and put them on a blanket. He also grabbed an iron poker near the fireplace. When in trouble, his first instinct would be for a magical solution, but it didn’t hurt to have some iron around, either as a tool or a weapon. There was a large, smoked mirror above the fireplace. He used the poker to break off the bottom corner. It gave him three fist sized pieces, after he broke off the more jagged edges. Mirrors where useful in many ways for a mage.

He tore strips off the blanket and wrapped each mirror for safe keeping. Tail Biter alerted him to the servants return. He was standing beside the bed as she returned with a platter of food, which she placed on the table in the corner of the room. If she noticed the broken glass, she didn’t acknowledge it. This suggested to Xeron that she was a simple servant, more concerned about staying unnoticed than noticing anything herself.

Xeron nodded his head, “Thank you for the food.”

“You’re welcome, sir. Food for your canine is in the wooden bowl. If there is anything else I can get you, just pull the lanyard here and I will return.” She pointed to a braided rope hanging next to the door. Xeron figured it was attached to a bell wherever the servants were located.