by T D Raufson
Dear Elaine,
As you receive this, some dire events have come about, and your assistance will be needed at my estate as soon as you can arrange to be there. My granddaughter, Melissa, needs your help and the contents of the box I have sent to you. I’m sorry that everything is in such a confused state. I was unable to organize this before I sent it to you. Be sure this is only delivered to my granddaughter at the enclosed address.
Please be discreet about this. I apologize that I will not be there to meet you as you have become a very faithful friend in a very short time. It is because of your faithful following of my writing, and something I sensed in you when we met, that you are needed. Please come as quickly as you can. Directions are enclosed. Always know that you are a special person and never doubt your abilities.
Thank You,
Helena.
What could she possibly mean? Did this have something to do with her next book or something else? What dire event was she speaking of? She considered herself an expert on the characters. Her friends considered her a true fan. Many of her conversations with Helena had not been about the books though. They had talked more about the dream she had after the convention. The image of the black dragon that had blasted her with fire just before she had awoken had terrified her and stayed with her even now.
Helena had told her it was just a dream, and then she had asked unending questions about who else was in it and where it happened. She had asked for descriptions of the colors and patterns of scales on the dragons. At first, Elaine couldn’t answer her, but Helena had pushed her and soon the details she needed were there in her memory. It was like no other dream she had ever had. As she thought back through the dream later, she remembered three other men who had helped her. Even as she thought about the letter, she felt herself back in the dream. Elaine experienced it all again, including the final blast of fire that made her jump from the bed, and drop the letter.
She flopped back onto the bed shaking. She was shivering even in her sweater. She smelled smoke and looked at the cardboard express box. A small flame flickered in the edge of one flap. She brushed her hand across it to extinguish it and tried to relax on the bed. It took a little while for her heart to stop pounding, and she lay there thinking about everything.
It all felt so very adult, and she didn’t feel all that old anymore. She thought about the recent stories in the news, and wondered how much of that was just a publicity stunt? There was no way dragons really existed. There was no way the magical beasts were walking the land of her engineer mother. She made up her mind and sat up on the bed.
She pulled an old backpack from her closet and started filling it with random stuff. Her mind was not on the packing. She had no idea how long she would be staying or what she would need, but she felt she had to get on the way. Her mother was downstairs working, and Elaine needed to be gone before she checked on her again. There was no way she could explain this trip away as part of the fan club. She couldn’t explain it at all.
The heroes in Helena’s books would never go into a situation unprepared; Elaine wouldn’t either. She started paying more attention to what she was packing. She grabbed her tablet and charger from the nightstand and slipped it into a space in the bag. She pulled a small plastic bag from her desk, slipped the envelope into it, and slipped both the bag and the leather box in between a pair of pants and her favorite sweatshirt.
By the time she had finished packing, she had calmed down. The temperature was back to normal. Standing at the dresser looking into the mirror, she tried for the sixth time to pack an old teddy bear into the backpack. The old threadbare toy had been her only confidant through years of heartache and disappointment.
“Lancelot, how am I going to get there? What tale do I tell the guardian so I can pass?” She flopped on the bed again, somewhat disappointed at her fearfulness.
She reviewed the letter she had already memorized, and felt the imperative request in the words. It didn’t matter what she told her mother, but she obviously couldn’t tell her the truth. It was only a couple of hours north. She successfully stuffed Lancelot into the backpack and threw it over her shoulder. Why did she have to tell her mother anything? She scribbled a note on her bedside notepad telling her mother she was going on a trip and that she didn’t know when she would be back. Unsure that the note would help she destroyed it then slipped out the door and ran down the stairs. At the front door, before she pulled it closed behind her, she casually shouted a destination to her mother.
“I’m going to the mall, be back in a while.” That would buy her a couple of hours.
She didn’t wait for the response, which she knew would be negative, but ran for the old Honda parked on the circular brick driveway, hoping it would make the two hour trip.
July 16 – 1500 EDT – Signal Mountain, Tennessee
Another spike of pain ripped through her head as Melissa struggled for the fourth time to read the first of her grandmother’s novels. She stopped counting how many times she had tried to read the same paragraph and shut the book with a snap that echoed through the library’s shroud of silence. With a gentle toss, she placed the irritating book onto the occasional table sitting between her and Charles.
He snickered at her and tried to keep his nose in his own book, but failed. She scowled over at him and then surrendered to her frustration and stared out into the back yard. Her mother had promised to be back that afternoon after she had spoken with Valdiest about the conclave. Kaliastrid was her only contact within the inner circle willing to share what she knew about what Nethliast was doing. Her mother was a willing spy, but a spy all the same.
“You’re trying too hard. Why don’t you concentrate on the here and now and I’ll try to dig up the sordid secrets of your dragon ancestry.” He patted the spine of the book he was completing.
She grinned at his comment without looking at him. It had been over two weeks since they had started researching together, and she knew as much now as she had when she started.
“Okay, let’s try this again. Heliantra, my grandmother, dragon adviser to King Wilhelm of Swabia, has moved into the castle and is helping negotiate a mining treaty with a dwarven lord.” Her mind protested, and she closed her eyes against the pain.
“Correct, and your mother is here. Why does she insist on flying between your estate and her own?”
Melissa watched her mother settle onto the back patio and then transform into her human form. Everything she did was graceful with a power that came with age and years of being the Queen of the Dragons.
“It’s not safe for her or you.”
Melissa rolled her eyes at him. “She’s coming up to join us. I hope she has news of the conclave. They are trying to be discrete and stay in human form, but we need to fly occasionally, otherwise we will grow ill. I would prefer to be in my dragon form as well; I’m like this for you and to protect the rest of the world.”
“Just like your grandmother?” He held up the book to her, and she shrugged. “I’m just used to, and prefer, this form.”
“And, you’re not as afraid of me in this form either.”
“When’s your father coming back?”
“Valdiest will be there until the conclave is over. By now, they’ve probably brought in the rest of the men. Kaliastrid will have news, like I said.”
The doors to the library below them opened. Her mother walked in and started up the steps.
“Why do you insist on staying on the second floor? That’s a long walk to have your mother make.”
“I know you’re ancient, mother, but I think you can make it.” Melissa looked over her shoulder with a smile.
“My dear, have you told this young man how old you are?”
“Mother!”
Kaliastrid grinned at the win. “Anyway, what are you finding in those rotten novels?” She motioned at the stack of them on the table as she joined them.
“You still haven’t read them have you?”
“And neither have you. N
o, I felt she was doing our families and all dragons a disservice by writing them. They make my head hurt anyway.”
Kaliastrid bowed slightly as Melissa looked at her for the first time since she arrived. Melissa nodded an acceptance of the honor out of familiarity, still not sure why she deserved it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charles note the deference. Kaliastrid wore a long green dress with black highlights that matched her shoulder length hair. Charles’ attention moved from the formalities to her appearance, and he nodded approval and stared a little longer than professional or personal courtesy allowed. Melissa could understand why; her mother was beautiful. Since she had emerged as a dragon, many of the telltale signs of aging had vanished from her mother’s face and hands. She was wearing a slightly modernized version of the courtly dress Melissa had seen in the paintings around the estate. Her skin glowed in the afternoon sun, and she looked even younger than she had the day after they had emerged.
I don’t see you taking a form where you look older. Her own mind chided her. She ignored the gentle reminder that dragons controlled how they looked in their human form, to a point.
“She was writing our history,” Melissa commented, “the true history.”
“Really? How do you know it’s all accurate and not just her own mangled memory, or what she pieced together from her favorite texts?”
“I don’t, but everything I can remember matches. With Charles’ help I’ve started a timeline, when I can stand it,” she said reaching up to massage throbbing temples.
“So, what does she write about your father and me?”
“I have no idea. I can’t get through the first one. As far as I can tell she hasn’t written anything about you.”
“How far along are you, then?”
“Three books are time-lined with rough dates, thanks to Charles. He’s nice enough to tell me what he finds while I wince and whine. It’s a slow process. I’m trying to match it with memories while someone’s mining gold in my head.” She pointed at the table of old books to their right. “There’s nothing in the old texts to support this, but all we have are translations and supposition. I hate to say it, but the archeologists and historians are way off. There’s a lost history they don’t even see.”
“Or... we’re nuts,.” Kaliastrid joked. “Humans were just beginning to understand what we and other magical races had known for years. I’m not surprised there’s nothing in the history books. Historically, we vanished at the beginning of their dark ages.”
“Along with everything else magical.”
Kaliastrid nodded and uncrossed her arms. “Maybe I shouldn’t judge those novels so harshly. My human ideas have mingled with my older ways, and I’m having a hard time separating them.”
“Like you told me, you can’t eliminate your human actions because they’re still yours. You just don’t have the hundreds of years of memories to go with them.”
Kaliastrid grinned at her. “She picked her replacement well. You are young, but you will grow into the position.”
“What are you talking about?” Charles asked.
“I’m not sure really. I know, somehow, that Heliantra was not the same as me. She had a position of power that required respect, but I can’t remember what it was. I just remember how to treat her because it was bred into me.”
“And Melissa has taken her place?”
“Yes. Of that I have no doubt.”
“Why?” Charles asked before Melissa could.
“Her color. When she emerged it changed. She’s metallic now.” Her mother answered the question as if everyone should know the answer, yet Melissa had never thought about her own color. She had never caught the fact that in all of her memories she was red, not copper.
“She has always been red with that wonderful black striping. You got that from me, you know. Anyway, your color changed while we were trapped in human form to that beautiful bronze and copper color.”
“So, I didn’t cast the spell?”
Her mother paused and looked at her. Charles watched her as well. She could tell Kaliastrid wanted to tell her she hadn’t. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember anything about the end. No one I have talked to does, except you. You think you did, though.” She paused and turned a queen’s sad and gentle eyes on her. “I can’t tell you any differently. I wish I could.” Kalisatrid had learned long ago how to remain regal while suffering. The pain Melissa knew was ripping through her mind while she tried to tease a memory out of the tangle appeared as a tremor in her eye.
Charles looked down at his watch. “Would either of you like something to eat? I’m not used to your new schedules, so, I can’t be sure when you’re hungry. I need a snack. Can I get you something, a drink perhaps?”
“No, thank you, and you need to stop doing that,” Melissa chided.
“That, Miss, is what you pay me for.”
“I don’t want a butler. I prefer it when you work with me not for me.”
“Yes, but you’re still paying me.” He stood from the chair, set his book aside and turned toward the stairs. “I get paid the same for reading as I do for fetching, and I’ve done it since I was a small boy. Would you like anything, Ma’am?” He turned to look at Kaliastrid.
“Yes, I would love some wine.”
Charles nodded and walked down the stairs. As he walked away her mother turned to look at her. “Your father is concerned about the conclave.”
“What? Why? What’s happened?”
“He won’t tell me anything is wrong, but I can tell from his voice.”
“You’re not connected to his mind?”
“Not over this great a distance. He found some stones in the stuff passed down to us. He remembered using them from before, surprisingly. We’re using them to talk—well, share thoughts—every night. I hate the way they eliminate my actual connection to his mind, though. I lose any sense of his emotions, but it is the most efficient way for us to speak.”
“Mother, I need to know what’s happening. I should be there. I need to know what’s happening to other dragons. I can’t answer what this is all about and keep Nethliast from taking on humanity from here.”
“At one time you could.”
Melissa looked at her mother, who looked like she had just stumbled onto a stack of gems hidden in a corner somewhere.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there is something missing that gave you power to speak to the dragons, like the matched gems your father and I use only stronger, deeper.” This time the attempt to recover the memory took its toll, and Kaliastrid slumped against the railing next to Melissa’s chair.
Melissa stood up and guided her mother into her own chair.
“Enough of that for now. Tell me what Nethliast is up to. Why is father worried?”
“They’re still in conclave, but Lung Wy Li has left.”
“And that matters?”
“You are having problems with your memory.” She grinned at the private joke that was becoming very common among dragons. “Wy Li is the highest ranking Emperor Dragon. He’s the equivalent of your father in Asia. Truthfully his queen is the power, but he is the figurehead to the male fighters.”
“Mother, I can’t do this. I don’t know what you do, and I’m too young.”
“Listen, child. You can try that on your father, he’ll probably agree and help you give up, but Heliantra believed in you. She passed this on to you. Any number of males would love to be where you stand, but they can’t. I believe in you, because you’ve found a way to bridge what we don’t know with what we do.” She pointed at the books. “Make something of it. You’ll gain their trust. You shouldn’t have to work so hard at it, but that is what Heliantra saw in you. They will follow you. You just need answers. I wanted to bring the other females here to see you because they, like I, were trained to respect you on sight. They’d have no question if they saw you, but their fractured memories and human loyalty to their mates has clouded their dragon strength.”
M
elissa looked at her mother. The faith and advice had never been there as she grew up as a human child. Those most recent memories held the most power. A tear formed and rolled down her cheek.
“Stop that. You’re letting those human emotions surface again. I remember you when you were just a hatchling.” No matter what Kaliastrid was saying, she was standing up and reaching to hug the human daughter she had pushed away. Melissa felt the fear she couldn’t explain pour out of her eyes. “Now, that’s enough of that. We can figure this out.” She stroked her hair gently. Melissa remembered a glimpse of her mother from her ancient memories. She had been more supportive then, but never emotional. Melissa controlled her emotions and stepped away from the shoulder she wanted to stay on. Her mother selected a copy of the first book on the stack and ran a thumb through it. She kept it and looked back at her daughter.
“Why don’t the other females believe you when you tell them about my color?”
“It’s instinctive. They won’t react to me telling them. They’ll have to see it, and, we can’t talk about it without everyone getting raging migraines. Normally you would reach out to our minds.”
“I can only do that with you.”
“That’s not true. All dragons can communicate over short distances through their minds.”
“So how do I speak to them all the way you just described?”
“I don’t know.” Her hand was on her temple as she sat back into the chair with the book.
“How long will the conclave last?” Changing the subject to avoid the headaches, Melissa moved over to another chair and sat down.
“They’ve pulled in the lower ranks to talk about the details. If we hope to avoid conflict, we only have a few days.”
Melissa pointed toward the stack of books and papers. “Then we will fail.”