Dragonmancer

by Simon Archer

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t bring me here first when I fell from the portal,” I told her. “I never would’ve left!”

  “I know that feeling,” she replied, chuckling. “How about we get you a little closer look?”

  “Absolutely!” I agreed. We made our way down the small hill and onto the first boulder. A group of seven dragons met us, and they stared at us as they parted to let us through. Several of them stretched their necks forward to nip at Deyla’s clothing, which made her laugh as she patted them on the head.

  “What happens if they miss your clothes?” I asked, noticing the tears they left in the sheer material hanging from her leather bustier.

  “I get to add another scar to my collection,” she laughed. “They always feel bad when that happens, but I really don’t mind.” I immediately moved my eyes over her body and, for the first time, noticed several scars. They had healed, and we’re the same color as the rest of her skin, so they didn’t stand out.

  “Wow, sounds like a mildly painful profession,” I joked as we continued walking. The dragons towered over us, creating a sort of arch for us to pass through. The chirping and clicking got louder and faster as we walked by them.

  “You are quite the topic of conversation right now,” she said, looking up at me.

  “Ahh, yes. I forgot that you can hear what they are thinking.” I craned my neck up to see the dragons’ faces and marveled at their different forms.

  “Stop!” Deyla yelled suddenly. I whipped my head back down and saw that I’d nearly stepped off a ledge. I halted and took a few steps backward.

  “Guess I should pay attention to what is in front of me a little more,” I said, laughing at myself.

  The dragon closest to us hurried over and laid down next to Deyla. The creature was gorgeous, dark green with black legs and wingtips. She stretched her wing out and bridged the gap between the boulder we were on and the next one over. Deyla hopped up and proceeded to walk across her wing with me following her. We crossed the crevice between rocks and jumped down. Deyla rubbed the dragon’s wingtip before turning away, which seemed to make the creature giddy with happiness as she retracted her wing.

  “They sure love you, don’t they?” I voiced my observation.

  “Not as much as I love them. We argue about it sometimes,” Deyla replied, smiling. She was truly in her element and seemed more relaxed than I’d ever seen her.

  She led me across the second rock, and we crossed to a third, the largest, with the help of yet another dragon. The third boulder had so many dragons on it. It was difficult to see between them. Deyla turned to me and held her arms out wide.

  “Your dragon will be here,” she told me, spinning in a slow circle. My heart leapt with excitement. I looked around, admiring each creature my eyes landed on.

  “How do I pick just one? They are all so beautiful,” I asked, truly concerned suddenly.

  “In your case, you will most likely feel it,” she answered.

  “Feel what?” I wasn’t sure what to pay attention to.

  “A connection that is different from the one you have with the others. Take your time with them. Pet them. You’ll know.” She walked to a few smaller rocks a few feet away that were arranged in a circle and had a tiny pool of water in the middle. A dragon who was near her ran over and sat on the stone that was slightly elevated on her left. The creature looked supremely excited.

  I watched for a moment, wondering why she was so happy, but it became clear when Deyla dipped a soft cloth into the water and started washing the dragon. Several dragons instantly began rubbing up against her. As massive as they were, they were careful not to knock her over. I turned away to begin my search.

  The dragon nearest me peered down through dark green eyes. She lowered her snout, and I reached my hand up to touch her. She had a calm about her that I felt instantly when we connected. She was energetic and happy as well. There was something missing, however, as far as a true desire to claim her as my own. I gave her a rub between the eyes and turned to the dragon beside her.

  The new beast was bright red with white eyes. She had straight wings and a large clover-shaped spike on the end of her tail. She made a show of stretching her wings as I approached. I touched her muscled leg and got an immediate sense of pride from her. She curled her tail around me and gave me a gentle squeeze before letting me go. I stepped back and smiled at her. She was extremely powerful in both personality, and physique, but once again, the connection I felt I needed wasn’t there.

  I found that to be the case for the next two hours, and with the next thirty dragons I introduced myself to. They were all different types, colors, and each had a unique set of characteristics that I could feel by touching them. Yet none of them were just quite right. I got to the point where I was beginning to feel as though I was leading them on collectively because I could tell how excited they all were at the possibility of becoming my personal dragon. Yet I could choose none of them. I returned to Deyla and sat beside her, deciding to take a quick break.

  “I’m not having much luck,” I told her, discouraged. “Does it normally take people this long to find their dragon?”

  “It took me seven days,” she replied seriously. My mouth dropped open.

  “Seven days? That’s a really long time!” I had no idea it could take more than an hour, let alone a week.

  “You must take into consideration that I have a different connection with the dragons. The average Ponathian will spend an average of one to two hours looking,” she informed me. “You could take longer.” She shrugged. “We will just have to find out.” She was relaxing back against the rock as though she was sitting on her throne, and perhaps she was.

  “Alright, I’d better get back to it in that case,” I said, standing. I reemerged myself into the sea of dragons around me and began meeting new ones.

  Three additional hours passed, and I still had not found my dragon. I hadn’t expected the process to be that long, but in addition to that, I hadn’t realized how much energy the process would take. I was getting a little run down when I joined Deyla at her rock once more. She had curled herself into a ball and was napping when I got there. She looked like a warrior-angel, sleeping like that. I took a deep breath and spurred myself on. There was no reason to wake her. I found myself hoping she had pleasant dreams, and then an idea occurred to me.

  I walked several paces away into a new group of dragons and closed my eyes. Instantly, the image of a dragon silhouette popped into my mind. It was very similar to Prenna’s shape and perched on its hind legs with its wings folded behind it. I focused on the image, and it began to change. First, she got slightly smaller, and the wings changed shape when she outstretched them. Instead of the front portion being scalloped, as Prenna’s were, she had one bend just after her shoulder, and they swooped out in a sharp angle, ending in a razor pointed tip. Then they angled back, widening. There was a spike joint, and then they sloped inward towards her body. They were perfect.

  The next thing to change on the image was the head. She had a beak-like snout that widened into powerful jaws and had a winged mane at the back where her head met her neck. Two spike-horns rose up out of her crown, and she had a curved spike at the end of her nose as well. The image spun slowly as though on a turntable in my mind. The dragon was facing away from me, and I could see the tail morph into an arrow-head shape with claws at all three corners. By the time the image had completely rotated, it had stopped changing, but it was still just a silhouette.

  I opened my eyes and peered around me. There were ten dragons in my direct line of sight. None of them looked like the creature in my mind. I took a few steps forward, and the creatures begin to move out of my way. One-by-one, they parted, making a path for me. That is when I felt something new. Swirling energy built under my feet.

  At first, it was so faint I barely noticed it, but it quickly got stronger. With each step I took, the more the buzz moved up my ankles and into my legs, stopping just below the kn
ee. Before long, it was as though the energy was controlling where I stepped. I turned to my left for no real reason other than to follow the strange energy.

  Two blue, regal dragons stood in front of me. Both had their wings outstretched and overlapped, blocking any view behind them. I paused, waiting for them to part the way the others had. They stayed still, however. After a minute of awkwardly staring at them, I moved forward, stretching my arms wide apart so that I could touch both of them at once.

  Upon contact, I felt their excitement, but it was different from the excitement I felt from the other dragons. It wasn’t that they were hoping to become my dragon. They had a secret they wanted to share with me. They curled their necks down until their heads were on either side of mine. Then they slowly parted their wings and separated their bodies until I could see behind them.

  Standing before me was a dragon silhouette that perfectly matched the one I’d pictured. The sun was behind her, making her form a mere shadow. She was facing me, and as I walked to the side to get around her and out of the shadows, she slowly rotated to keep me and her line of sight. She stretched out her wings as she did so.

  When we’d rotated around each other to the point where the sun was to the side of us, her color began to show. It first became clear at the tip of her wing and slowly became visible towards her body. It was like she was being painted right there in front of me. Her wing tip was deep purple, almost black, but the color lightened towards her body. Then, a rich shade of royal purple covered the whole of her body. Then the light began to creep across her chest and face, and a beam shone out at me. It was reflecting off a brilliant gold that spanned from her chin, to her chest, and continued to cover her entire underbelly. Her horns matched the brilliant gold on her chest, and it accented her winged-mane as well. The combination was breathtaking.

  She had her eyes closed as we moved until both of us finally stopped when we had completely treated positions, and she was fully in the view of the light. The energy in my legs was getting stronger and more ‘restless’ as she stood up, wings still outstretched, and lowered her head directly in front of me. As though I was not in control of myself, I reached out my hand and held it in her path, closing my eyes as well. Her chin came to rest gently on my palm, and a lightning bolt of energy shot through the both of us, and our eyes flew open and locked.

  The glow from her bright green orbs pulled me in, and I was suddenly weightless. The exhilaration, power, hope, and protectiveness we both felt coursed between us in waves of pressing emotion as we connected. The vibration from every cell in her being radiated to me, and mine to her as we stared at each other. Then she slowly lowered herself to lay down, wings still spread, and blinked. Power coursing through me, I ran towards her wing, my hand gliding down the side of her smoothly scaled neck. When I reached it, I tucked my hand in the crook of her wing and effortlessly swung up onto her.

  The moment I drape my legs on either side of her and talk to my feet under front of her wings, she stood and, in one smooth motion, flapped her wings and launched off the rock. Holding tight to the sides of her neck, we raised up into the air more as one being than two. When we were high enough to see over the whole of Dragon rock, she gently turned, and we flew in a slow circle. When I wanted her to dip, she dipped. When I wanted her to speed up, she sped up. I barely had to think, and she’d know what I wanted. I’d never known that I was incomplete before being high in the air on her back and feeling more whole than I knew possible.

  We circled above the rocks, wind surrounding us, as our connection deepened. The lightning energy calmed to a sensation of unstoppable power coursing through both of us before it was time to land. We centered ourselves over the rock we’d launched from, and she hovered us lower until her feet gently touched down. She sat on her haunches, wings spread proudly as the other dragons gathered around us, rubbing up against her.

  They congratulated her, and her pride soared. Then the others backed up, and she laid down, tucking one wing behind her. I stood and walked down her outstretched wing, bent over to anchor my hand in the crook, and jumped to the ground.

  Never losing contact with her, I walked to her head, my hand under her chin once again, my forehead to hers. As we closed our eyes, the happiness flowed between us. We both took a deep breath and let it out slowly before backing apart and looking at each other. I slid my hand around and rubbed her head right between her eyes before lifting it away. She sat up proudly, and I turned to stand next to her as we presented ourselves to the other dragons.

  The noise was almost deafening as every dragon in the area chirped, roared, and cackled. They scratched the rocks beneath them and hopped around happily. I felt like I’d grown a foot from the pride welling up inside me as I stood beside her. When the noise finally started to soften, the dragons directly in front of us parted, and Deyla walked through. She was beaming with joy as she made her way to me.

  “You’ll need to give her a name,” she whispered, fairly loud enough for me to hear. I looked up at my dragon and smiled even bigger than I already was.

  “Victoria is her name,” I said without hesitation. Victoria looked at me and nudged me with her snout in agreement. Deyla turned to the other dragons, raised her hands high in the air, and called out.

  “Victoria!” The noise level rose once again as the dragons cheered in their own unique way. Deyla turned back, smiling wide.

  “Congratulations, Blake.” She rubbed Victoria’s underside. “You too, beautiful,” she told the dragon. Victoria fluffed her wings with pride.

  “I’ve never experienced anything that significant in my life,” I told Deyla.

  “Good luck ever doing it again.” Nodding, she looped her arm through mine. “Now that you’ve found her, it is time for the two of you to go back to the Academy.”

  “She’ll stay there with me? Where?” I hadn’t thought about living arrangements for her.

  “She will live with the Academy Dragon. Only Dragonmancer dragons are allowed to do so. Once we get back, Gale will have your riding apparatus made for you by the Academy Witnesses,” Deyla answered.

  “Won’t she miss all her friends here?” I was instantly worried.

  “That’s not how it works for them. This is the highest honor she could have bestowed on her.”

  Deyla tugged on my arm, and we walked through a sea of parting dragons, with Victoria following us. We moved up to the Dragon circle on top of the hill where Prenna was waiting.

  Deyla turned to me, running her hand down my arm, taking me by the hand. Her touch left shivers in its trail.

  “The two of you are welcome to visit anytime.” She turned to go to Prenna, and I couldn’t help but smile in her wake. As we each mounted our respective dragons, I got the distinct impression that Deyla didn’t tend to extend open invitations to just anyone.

  15

  Deyla and I touched down on the dragon circle by the Academy and dismounted our dragons. It surprised me to see Allie, Aron’s dragon, and a few others there as well. Victoria and Prenna laid down and curled up with each other in preparation for a nap as we headed for the entrance.

  “It’s time for you to meet Heather,” Deyla told me when we reached the door.

  “Who is Heather?” I asked as we walked in, and the door closed behind us.

  “She is the leader of the Witnesses,” she replied. “One of the dragons at the circle was hers.”

  “Ah,” I said as Deyla led me directly to the Reflection room, now buzzing with activity.

  Aron, Gale, and several other women I hadn’t met yet were sitting at the tables, and a few were pacing around. Anxiety thickened the air. I felt rather than saw Deyla stiffen beside me.

  “We didn’t know where you two had gotten off to,” Gale said, rushing to us as relief washed over her worried face.

  “I was choosing my dragon,” I said even though she already knew that. “Guess it took longer than I thought it would.” I shrugged.

  “Aron flew out there to get you, but
you had already left,” Gale replied as she grabbed both of us by the hands and pulled us into the room.

  “We went on the south route to get here,” Deyla told her. “Aron usually sticks to the north. That is probably why we missed each other. Has it happened again?”

  As the two women spoke, I whipped my head to look at Deyla. She was staring at Gale intently.

  “Yes,” Gale replied, hanging her head.

  “Has what happened again?” I demanded to know. It was obviously something terrible.

  When we reached the front of the room, all eyes turned to me. Gale put her hand up to the room.

  “Give me a minute to fill them in,” she spoke loudly. The echo I’ve experienced in the room before had disappeared. Pressing angst and flat voices were all that was present. Gale turned to Deyla and me with a hushed voice. “Three more girls are missing from the river.”

  “Missing? What girls? And what do you mean, more?” The protectiveness I’d felt the day before after interacting with the Living History journal flooded over me. Deyla put her hand on my arm gently.

  “On occasion, there will be horribly unfortunate drownings at our river. We use the water to relax, we collect it for certain spells, and we appreciate its beauty. The drownings have been getting more frequent of late, though,” Deyla informed me.

  “It’s even more frustrating this time,” Gale added. “The girls were three of our strongest swimmers.”

  Deyla turned her head as two women walked up to us. One of them was Aron, and I had a notion that the other was Heather. Deyla was horrified.

  “Selena, Ann, and Geraldine?” she asked Aron. Aron nodded slowly, sadness flashing across her eyes.

  “Selena? As in the Selena we were with before?” I asked Gale quickly.

  “Yes,” she answered me. “We need to get to the river right away, and hopefully, we are able to recover their bodies before they are swept too far downstream. That way, they can have a proper burial service.”