Dreamwater (2 page)

“He let Syrana die,” I whispered. “He cared naught for her, did not stand up to protect her, did not take her place. I want revenge.”

“Ah.” His breath sighed out; a smile curved his thin lips. Beyond, the Fairy Court sat along the table, their fey animals riding on their shoulders, on their heads. A tall elven man was strumming a lute. The notes glided on the air, crystal jingling bells.

Jonder squeezed my hand. “Revenge, eh? Then I was wrong. We don’t want the same.” He shrugged. Even his speech had changed, his voice, his tone. A master of disguise. “I don’t want revenge, though it would be sweet, after the vicious attacks on my people, the whole drake nation, and the unjust slaughter of innocents by your people. The elves have been avenging your bride’s death on us ever since the attack. But, as I said, I don’t want revenge. I want only justice and truth.”

Bewildered, I stared.
Justice? Innocents?
Anger bloomed in my belly, rose like a flame, till it filled me up. I held my dagger out to keep him far from me, because I yearned to kill him, and that would draw others’ attention. A really bad time for this.

His eyes flickered over my dagger, clearly dismissing it.

“Melekarth damn you, drake, your kind did kill Syrana,” I breathed. “One of your kind did attack us, riding on your great lizard, and in the mayhem killed her. You are guilty. And I will execute you for it.”

He turned to look at the King, as if he did not fear I’d do it. “Guilty? One of us attacked. Not all of us have to pay for one drake’s moment of madness. Besides.” His jaw clenched. “Our drake didn’t kill the elven bride.”

His words rolled on my mind, refused to sink in, and when they did, they dropped like stones to my core.

“You mean she is somewhere, alive?” Hope threatened to make my knees buckle. I took a deep breath.

“Oh yes, alive.” He tapped his knife blade on his thigh. “Very much so.”

“Why… how…” Words deserted me. I glanced again at the King. He sat, head cocked to the side, listening to the music. Around his neck he wore a pendant with a single black stone. Syrana’s pendant. The sight of it made me angry again.

The humans bustled around, though slow as if wading through mud. Glamour affected them so.

“Were you in love with her, fairy boy?”

This time the dagger fell from my fingers, and I bent to retrieve it. My mind filled with white noise. “How did you know I am no girl?”

“The way you caught my knife before, the way you carried those heavy trays, the way you move.” He chuckled. “You’re good, but then I’m good too.”

I let my hair fall to hide my eyes. “After Syrana was gone, King Esh sent me away. He did not even deign to face me. Just gave the order and I was thrown out of the Fairy Court like a mangy dog.” I felt again that bitterness that had filled me, that had almost killed me. “I am sure now he knew Syrana had given herself to me, that she loved me more than him. She did love me more!”

He nodded. “Calm down, boy.”

“He did not even let me see her body.” My heart twisted again in pain. “Not even that.”

“Get a hold of yourself. I told you, she’s not dead.” He smacked my arm. “Your power is leaking all over the place.”

I tried to rein in the Glamour magic, but I had kept it in check too long. It blared out of me like a war song, breaking plates and strewing food on the floors. Shards flew, struck my skin, glanced off and hit the walls and ceiling.

The music stopped. Every face, elven or human, turned to me. Too late to sneak behind the King, to hold him on my dagger’s point and ask for answers.

In one movement, I tore off my skirts and bodice, remaining in my undergarments – plain, woolen leggings. I kicked off the clogs. The Glamour rose around me like mist. The royal born among us Elves used it all the time. I had not used mine in over a year. It swirled around me, turned my undergarments to silver-plated armor, turned my dagger into a longsword, turned my socks into tall boots, the cap on my head into a helmet with swan’s feathers.

“I challenge you, King Esh,” I said and advanced. “You did not protect Syrana, you hid behind her like the coward you are when the drake attacked the wedding party, and so let her die. You never loved Syrana, not like I did. You sent me away without a reason or a proper trial, to be an exile in far away lands. I challenge you, for you cannot right these wrongs. I challenge you to pay for your deeds.”

He rose from the table, mantle shimmering around him like a silken cloud, long hair fluttering, as dark and long as hers was.

Just like Syrana’s.

I lost my last vestiges of control. With a howl, I sent the magic through my silver blade and it caught him in the chest. He staggered backward and raised his hands. The room darkened, wavered, and pitched like a ship on rough sea. The King of the Elves wielded more magic than I, and I did not try to strip it off him, for male on male magic could obliterate the inn and everyone in it. I sent my magic chasing his around, like a cat after the snake’s tail, trying to distract him enough to approach more. His magic could snap me like a twig.

I felt the King’s power flare, pull tight like a skein of wool thread as I closed the distance, and I threw my sword like a spear. It flew true, loaded with death.

The King raised a hand and stopped it in mid-air, just as my magic became entangled with his, trapped, melded. I hissed. This should not be happening, not with male Glamour. The blade of the sword quivered.

Then the drake’s cold magic rose, frosting the air, solidifying the magic threads. They criss-crossed space like golden rays, like strings one could strum.

With an abrupt raising of his hand, the drake broke them, smothered the magic, and with them, the Glamour shield.

My sword thudded into the King’s chest. His Glamour trembled and thinned, began to flake like the oils on an old painting. His mouth opened wide to scream. The elven princesses shrieked. The floor shook. The Glamour weakened, shivered, withdrew.

The drake rose behind the King, and moved his hand as if drawing aside a curtain. The drake magic swirled, a dash of earth and a stroke of lighting, and the King’s Glamour dissolved and dissipated in the air.

Melekarth!
I took a step forth, then another, until my knees gave way and I fell.
No. No, my eyes are lying.

“Observe.” The drake’s voice dripped like warm water. “See the truth. Here is your bride.”

I stared into Syrana’s lovely face and wanted to howl with rage and grief and joy.
She is alive!
The drake was right. She was there all along, hidden behind the King’s persona. No drake had killed her, no drake had stolen her.

Syrana had lied to us all. But more importantly, she had lied to me.

Without the drake’s magic, his ability to dissolve the royal Glamour, I’d never have known. I’d have remained in the illusion of her death forever.

“Indra,” she whispered, and I am not sure anyone heard but I.

“So that is why you were going to the Forest of Ydes, Queen Syrana. To obtain more power, to continue fooling everyone,” said the drake. He moved back, glanced at me with his glittering eyes. “She knew that sooner or later, like now, an Elf with strong Glamour magic might sniff her out.” He turned to the elves who stared, claws coming out on their white hands, fangs protruding now from their lovely mouths. “I’m not the one who needs to be punished. The drake nation has been punished enough already through your military excursions in our territories. I’ve only showed you what’s real.”

The Fairy Court approached her with hesitation, hands held out as if to feel the truth. The white foxes sniffed at the hems of her robes. The silver sword blade was still embedded in her chest, the gilded hilt quivering.

“She will not die,” they whispered. “Silver cannot kill her. But it will leave a scar.”

“She will suffer for deceiving the Fairy Court,” said an elf of the High Council, a red-haired one I had not noticed before. “She shall weep.”

“Where is King Esh?” Still kneeling, my head spinning, I forced the jagged words out. “What did you do to him, Syrana? Why did you do this?”

Her clear eyes found me, struck my heart with new pain. “I would never marry him,” she said in that quiet voice of hers. “I did not love him and he did not love me. He was a cruel man. When the drake attacked, I saw my chance and took it. Would you not have done the same in my place?”

I lowered my head over my hands. I found her and lost her in one breath. “You had him killed? You sent…” My voice broke, and I straightened, my grief lost to anger. “You sent me away. Why?”

She inclined her head, her hands smoothing her robes as she knelt on the floor, the long table at her back. She never touched the sword that transfixed her. “I feared you would know the truth, had you stayed. You are, after all, a prince among us. You are powerful.”

I shook my head.
Powerful
. All this time, pining and hurting, avoiding the use of my Glamour, drowning in despair. My sword would not kill her, but it would leave a scar.

Not as deep as mine, though.

The Fairy Court gathered tightly around her, weaving like a wall of thorns and roses high and low, hands and feathers and animal muzzles, all gleaming eyes fixed on me. Golden shackles appeared on Syrana’s hands, golden chains around her white ankles. She was bound and her power broken.

“You only thought of yourself,” I said and trembled. “I loved you, and you sent me to wander the world in exile, my heart broken because I thought you dead. I fed on hatred and sorrow, slept on thoughts of revenge. And all the while you lived and ruled and did not think I loved you enough to keep your secret.”

“You would not understand.” She kept her gaze fixed on me, even as the Fairy Court tittered. “You are a man. I took a chance to change the elven world. You may have heard of these changes while in exile. Elven women have the right now to pray in our temples together with the men, to wear the sacred blue color, to own their own houses. I am satisfied. I do not know what you wanted—”

“I wanted you!” But I had been blind to so much, I saw that now. “I wanted
you
,” I repeated, softly.

But now she was dead to me, and I was not sure anymore if I was alive. The courtiers bowed and curtsied to me. I was Prince Indra, next in line to the throne, but I did not care.

“Have I your word, Fairy Court,” asked the drake, walking to stand before Syrana, “that you will leave the drakes to live in peace from now on?”

The red-haired elf stepped forth again. “You have our word, drake. Syrana will be punished for killing King Esh, and your kind will not be harmed again.”

Syrana would be punished. Melekarth, I had come to avenge her, and I destroyed her instead.

“Good.” The drake turned to me. “Come,” he beckoned, “let us go.”

I stood there, an elven prince with no purpose, no desire to live or act. “Go where?” I asked, not caring.

“Find another inn to sit and drink.” Jonder gripped my arm.

“I cannot just leave.”

“Yes, you can.” His grip tightened. “Listen. I did what I came to do. The truth is in the open. My people won’t be hunted by the Elves anymore. And you, you did what you came to do. You killed the King,” he shrugged, “or found out about his death, and brought the bride you loved back from the dead.”

That almost brought me to my knees and I was glad for his grip that kept me standing. Syrana was staring at me, her gaze a knife between my eyes. “Because of me, she will be punished.”

Syrana smiled, but her eyes were sad. “You really do love me, do you not, Indra?”

“You never believed me.” And that broke me all over again.

“Come.” Jonder tugged at my sleeve. “Now is the time to drink and forget about truth and justice for a while, for they are harsh things, too harsh for sanity.”

I nodded, my vision blurry. He pulled me away. I staggered. I tried to turn back, see her face one more time, but he hauled me outside, into the cold night air. The stars were bright, the village quiet. Stardust glimmered on the street, where the Fairy Court had passed.

Pain seared my chest. My eyes burned. A star fell in a glowing arc. “Our people will meet and sign new treaties.” I closed my eyes. “King Esh is dead.”
Oh Melekarth, so is she also to me
. “I swear it, drake, when I become king, I will change lots of things.”

Jonder nodded, a small smile on his lips, slipping back into his old man persona. “Well, I’ll certainly drink to that, fairy boy.” His eyes glinted. “Lead on!”

But my heart was heavy. I hesitated. “Do you think she ever loved me?”

He took a long time to answer, but when he did he was still smiling. “She didn’t kill you when she had the chance, did she? Love stayed her hand.”

World of Shells

First published in Encounters Magazine, October issue 2010

“G
one?” Jun frowned and adjusted his shell armor yet again. Damn, but it had become too small too fast, clamping around his back and shoulders. “Gone where?”

Sunia glanced up, a weary look on her face. “Look, I wouldn’t have asked you if I could go myself and fetch Aima. But what about them?” She gestured at the four smaller children, mock-fighting on the floor of the cave, the colorful armors they wore clanking against each other. “You are the oldest of the Stray Clan, Jun.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask for it.” To be the oldest, responsible for the younger ones.

Then again Sunia had always been like a mother to him. He’d do anything for her.

He avoided her bright gaze and stared at the cracked bowls stacked on a rock shelf. “Where is she?”

“I wish I knew. At the pond, perhaps. She might be in danger, she’s so small. Will you go, Jun?”

The pond. At dusk
. Like most of the dangers of the dunes, water lizards were more likely to appear as day began or ended to hunt. The bird attacks intensified then too, though birds seemed to follow their own schedule.

Aima was a good soul and shouldn’t be left to perish, to join Queen Elvereth’s army of the dead.

He nodded.

Sunia reached out and surprised him with a hug. Her body trembled, her voice quavered. ‘Thanks.’ Her relief was palpable.

“It’s all right.” He pulled back, feeling heat climb up his neck. Hugs were for children, and he was practically a man. He hoped nobody had seen it. “You said it. I’m the oldest.”

He turned quickly and stepped outside the rock shelter. He stole a look at the sky and swallowed a groan. Almost dusk. Damn Aima and her stupid escapades. Yet she had never stayed out so late before.

Jun adjusted his armor again, wincing as it chafed against the welts it had caused on his upper arms and his back. He had glued a patch on his left shoulder where the armor had split. It still held.

He shook his head to clear it, and his dark hair whipped his face.
Right
. No two ways about it.
Got to find Aima
.

He strode down the well-worn, winding path toward the pond.

The dunes crawled with Shell People returning to their dens in the shelters that formed black mouths in the vertical rock surface. The tide of clickety-click sounds washed over Jun along with the rustling of the rushes in the timid breeze.

They passed him by, men, women and children in black, white, grey, blue shell armors, dashes of green, spirals on the shoulders and helms with sharp projections on their elbows and swirls of yellow on the tailbones.

A light grey young man, his armor dusted with brilliant green rays, waved at him. Bless Ras, properly called Stone Grey; he was not as arrogant as his clan warranted. Trust him to ignore the social rules and greet a member of the Stray Clan as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

He waved back and trudged in the opposite direction, toward the pond, heart already thumping.

Jun ducked underneath a low branch and jumped over a hole in the ground. He rounded a bend of the trail and halted, fell a step back, peeking between the blades of a grass plant.

A fight.

Jun’s hooks rose on his backbone, grasping his armor tighter with excitement. The Shell people had found an empty armor, and just his size from the looks of it. Remnants of an old battle, the shell armors had been used to near depletion, but from time to time another one turned up, pushed up to the surface of the earth by worms and moles.

The welts from the friction of the armor on his arms, shoulders and back all but drove Jun crazy. The idea of having one that actually fit pulled him forward. Aima would be fine for a while longer, had to be. This was a chance not likely to come up again soon.

A great one, a Spiked One, stood at the side, and Jun paused and eyed him warily, but he seemed to be keeping out of the fight.

Jun ran headlong into the broil, smashing into others, blows and curses falling on him. He returned them with equal fierceness, pushing into the eye of the fight. He let out an ululating cry and dove into the melee, raining punches and kicks.

A blow landed on his shoulder and he heard a crack. Cursing he felt for the patch there.
Gone
. Second hand armor, crappy patch.
Lizardshit
.

All the more reason to win this new armor. He had to take it now, before anyone hooked it on.

With a cry of rage he pushed and dragged a black-and-white one off a green and took his place, then reached with both hands and pulled himself beside the empty armor. He punched a blue in the face, crushing its nose. Blood spurted across Jun's chest. A grey launched herself at him. He cartwheeled to the side and successfully avoided her. He landed behind the empty armor, grunted as he fell on one knee, straightened painfully and fought his way around.

Damn
. They were all younger than he was, their faces still bearing the dots of childhood, though just as tall and wide as he was. Living in the Stray Clan was not easy, no protectors, no providers of food. He was too small for his age.

Growling, he tripped up an oncoming dark blue and elbowed hard another coming from behind. Between the tangle of limbs and the spurting blood, the empty Shell armor loomed magnificent, sky-blue with streaks of grass green and marigold yellow.

Beautiful.

The hooks on his backbone clenched again in anticipation. He fought the urge to throw his armor off him and fight unrestrained for the new one.

Bad idea.

He turned and bent, taking the brunt of a tall white on the right forearm, and replied with a kick that knocked her off her feet.

Lightning pain streaked through his left shoulder. He stumbled and fell to his knees. Something sharp had pierced his flesh.

Impossible. The armor protects me
. He shook his head, tried to unclench his jaw, and remembered the broken patch. His armor was useless.

Grinding his teeth, he pitched forward onto his belly, freeing himself with a cry. Blood trickled down his back and chest. He rose unsteadily and turned to see the Spiked One looking down at him, the great spikes on his elbow dripping with Jun’s blood. The Spiked One smirked.

“This isn’t your fight!” Jun yelled. “The armor doesn’t fit you. You can’t fight on behalf of another!”

The fight ceased for a moment. Seeing his chance, Jun lunged at the empty armor, taking hold of it. For a moment, it was his.

The Spiked One grabbed and pulled him off, throwing him to the ground. Jun sprawled in the dust, his breath knocked out of him. Through blurry eyes he saw the Spiked One drag a youngling forward, an immaculate white with dark dots on his helm. From the Spiked One’s clan for sure, Jun thought grimacing as he tried to pull himself upright. Damn him.

Now he watched as the youngling shed his white armor and hooks flexed like fingers from the vertebrae on his pale back. No scars, no ribs sticking out. A protected one.

Jun stood hunched over, panting, feeling light-headed.

The Spiked One raised the sky-blue armor and placed it over the young one’s head, fitting it over the shoulders and back, and the hooks clicked as they slid into place and attached themselves.

The crowd, bloodied and covered in dust, began to disperse.

Jun straightened, pain stabbing through his shoulder.

“You,” said the Spiked One in a grating voice, turning to him. Jun watched transfixed the Spiked One’s helm bristling with white shafts, the enormous spiked shoulder pads, the stern face. “You, nameless, should know better than to challenge worthy ones for an armor.”

Oh, for Elvereth’s sake!
“I’m not nameless. I have a name, it’s Jun!”

“That’s not a name for a Shell,” said the Spiked One, “and you know it.”

Jun glared at him, remembering the Shell's name: Noon Sky White.

“And this thing you are wearing in the stead of an armor,” continued Noon Sky White, “is an embarrassment to us all.”

Jun instinctively drew back, but the Spiked One towered over him and, grabbing Jun’s half-torn armor, pulled it apart. With a sickening crunch, it tore more, exposing his injured shoulder.

Noon Sky White snorted. “As I said, a disgrace. You are a disgrace. I’ve never seen you dune-side at this time before. Seems your cowardice finally gave way to a death wish. Good decision.”

Jun pulled at the pieces of his armor, mind running through ideas of how to put it back together. Without it he was as good as dead.

“Greet the birds for me,” Noon Sky White tossed over his shoulder as he turned to go shelter-side.

Jun clenched his fists. “Lizards’ innards!” He started as his shell armor ripped further, cracks going all the way down to his tailbone. His hooks were already disconnecting, withdrawing, giving up. He stared at the pieces blindly for a moment, then threw them down in disgust and stomped on them.

He bent over, hands braced on his knees, and breathed deeply.

He was done for.

When he looked up again, he saw evening had turned a deep blue and a full moon silvered the dunes.

Jun slapped his forehead. “Aima!”

He took off toward the pond, parting the shoulder-high grass as he passed. Long streaks of fiery pain radiated from his left shoulder down his arm and back, slowing him down.

Running at dusk without a carapace
.
How stupid that is?
Vulnerable and exposed, like a new-born, he ran beneath the watchful sky.

Serves you right
, he scolded himself.
You shouldn’t have stopped, shouldn’t have become involved in that fight when you saw the Spiked One and his friends. You know they are trouble.

He bit his lip.

The ground crunched beneath his light steps and wavelets whispered on the sandy shore. Drawing sharp intakes of breath that hurt his chest, he stood on top of a dune and peered around. His eyes flitted over the glassy surface of the water to the dark shapes of bushes and gnarled trees that grew nearby. The moon framed everything in silver.

No sign of Aima.

“Shades and shinks.” He jogged down to the shore, eyes darting, checking every hollow and every shadow that could be hiding Aima.

Nothing.

A thin scream rang. Jun froze. A moment later he gathered his wits and climbed the next dune. A small bay. He dashed down, spraying sand all around.

A water lizard stretched there in all its terrible beauty, metallic brown with stripes of bright yellow and red.

The lizard had someone in its mouth.

Please let it not be Aima.

Jun rushed toward the lizard. It paid him no heed as he came on yelling, brandishing a rock he had gathered on his way. It didn’t even move when he threw the stone and struck the beast right over the eye.

The lizard ground its jaws. Its victim screamed, then fell quiet.

Jun forgot how to breathe. The lizard blinked its huge yellow eyes, then spun around, blinding Jun with a torrent of wet sand, and dove back into the pond.

Jun wiped at his eyes and cursed at fading ripples that told where the lizard and his victim had gone. Moisture kept leaking from his eyes.

Had it been Aima? Was she now gone forever?
My fault. I took too long
.

He pressed his lips together and turned to go, a weight on his chest making each breath a struggle.

A blue glimmer on the sand caught his gaze. He stared in disbelief. It was the sky-blue armor he had fought for and lost. The lizard had eaten the young one, but spat out the armor.

Not Aima. It hadn’t been Aima.

Joy filled him, stronger than a fever, and his whole body shook.

On wobbly legs he walked to the armor and picked it up, turned it this way and that. Its spiral patterns of green and yellow shone in the moonlight, the tiny spikes on the shoulders gleamed like blades.

Long scratches ran down one side, but it was otherwise intact.

He had known it was too large for the youngling. His hooks had surely been too small to connect properly.

He pulled it on. He had known it would fit perfectly, but he could not contain the sigh of pleasure that escaped him as the armor hugged his body. It fell flawlessly around him, like a second skin over his body’s contours, like a caress. His back hooks grappled and secured it into place.

He threw back his head and released a cry of pure joy. His hands smoothed over the arm sheathes, the relief of lines on the helm. All his. His arms and legs were already taking on the colors and patterns, turning blue.

A whimper drew his attention away from himself. He walked over to the next dune and stood gaping.

A great one, a white Spiked One, cowered there.  Jun would know those armor patterns anywhere.

 “Noon Sky White?” Jun’s voice squeaked and he coughed to clear it. “What are you doing—”