Quests Volume Two

by Barbara G. Tarn

  Still puzzled – mostly by Keneith's sudden quiet – Raykim followed her inside the cavern.

  ***

  Keneith was happy his cousin was finally adult – although he relapsed as soon as they found the Fajrulo female and her offspring. Raykim hadn't wrestled with elephants yet, but obviously a small dragon with wings like his was something else.

  Of course Clawicon knew nothing of Bluestar. She hadn't sounded hostile, as if she knew both of them well, or at least she knew they weren't threatening. And then she'd morphed into someone from Keneith's long lost past, taking his breath away.

  Kristine! He followed the blonde inside the cavern, relishing her hourglass body. His first woman. And he'd thought she was Human. How little he knew about his blood back then.

  Barely out of Kelvia and still struggling with the school of magic of Xendaria, she had found him, mostly. She had told him the school couldn't teach him much, but he was too stubborn to accept the word of a young Human so-called witch.

  If only he had known she was actually a full-blooded Fajrulo in Human form! But how could he know? He wasn't aware of his mother's true nature, he only knew she had some magical blood.

  And he was a horny teenager as well, so she had taken care of his sexual education, and then she had vanished. Not really breaking his heart, but it had been very disappointing.

  The cavern was big enough for a Fajrulo and her cub. There were smaller caves around the main one, so Kristine pointed at them for her guests. Actually, Bloodfire was learning to sleep on his own in a smaller cave, so she suggested each of them took a different "room" and stayed out of her way.

  Kristine still had her claw necklace, like so many years ago. Now Keneith understood it was a testimony of her Fajrulo name, Clawicon. He really needed to talk to her, but not with his cousin listening in. Or the cub.

  She seemed to have the same need, since she said, "Now boys, have fun. Mommy needs to talk with Father here."

  "He's my elder cousin, not my father!" Raykim snapped.

  "Is he? My, we have a lot to catch up on, then," she replied, smiling a never forgotten smile.

  Keneith wondered if she still saw him as he used to be. He certainly wasn't a teenager anymore, even though he didn't look his age.

  "When did you meet him?" Raykim asked.

  "A long time ago," she answered, still staring at Keneith. "He was twenty and trying to fit into a Human school of magic."

  Keneith smiled at the memory. "Xendaria. And you passed yourself off as a witch, except that your youthful face didn't fool anyone."

  "It fooled whoever it needed to fool," she replied with an impish smile. "I did have customers, you know?"

  "I have always wondered how you or Starblazer can pull it off."

  "Not only Humans can do illusionistic tricks." She winked. "Now, Raykim, the rest of this conversation is private. Do you mind looking after Bloodfire?"

  Raykim glared at her. "Aren't we supposedly both cubs?"

  "I believe you're actually adult, being half-Sila," she replied. "Before I teach you shape shifting, I'd like you to befriend my son."

  Raykim sighed and turned towards Bloodfire. The cub's expression was so eager that even Keneith was ready to go and play with the red dragon. The big obsidian eyes seemed to want to hypnotize Raykim who smiled despite himself.

  "He has the same puppy look you have when you badly want something," Keneith teased. "Now you know why I can't deny you anything when you make that face!"

  Raykim guffawed and shook his head. "Can the children play outside?" he asked.

  "Bloodfire, show him your bath tub," Kristine said.

  The cub promptly jumped to his feet and headed out of the cavern, turning to check that Raykim was following. Kristine watched them go with her fists on her hips, then smiled and turned to Keneith again.

  "Come and sit with me," she said. "And make yourself at home."

  He put down his travel bag and sat with her on a couple of plush cushions she used when in Human form. If she had treasure, it was hidden. There was some Human furniture in that corner of the cavern, but not much. Since it was her nursery lair, she obviously didn't have many Human things here.

  "I'm sorry I don't have Human drinks to offer, but if you're thirsty, there is water in this cave system."

  Keneith cleared his throat. "Actually, I think I'll need that. Where do I get some?"

  She gave him a flask and pointed him to a side tunnel. It was very short and after a bend it ended in another cave, smaller, darker, but with flowing water in it. It cascaded down the rocks like a fountain and probably left through an invisible well. Keneith drank and then filled the flask before going back to the main cave.

  The Fajrulo was still in Human form and had rearranged the furniture like the house she'd had in Xendaria. He sat by her side again, unsure where to start from.

  "I see your real nature is no longer a mystery to you," she said.

  "Eventually I met the Genn who told me everything I needed to know," he answered.

  "You were so oblivious of any Magical Race, that I thought it useless to tell you." She sighed, then she smiled. "Besides, you didn't trust me as a witch, therefore I just kept my mouth shut. You were a cute, fiery, wild half-blood so oblivious of yourself I enjoyed watching you making a mess around you. And if you never did anything really bad, it's because I was controlling you."

  "You mean you controlled my energy?" he asked, puzzled. "You sort of channeled it?"

  "Yes..." She slowly bobbed her head, amused.

  "How?"

  "By making you my lover."

  Keneith looked away for a moment.

  "So that was part of... what? My stealth education?"

  She laughed. "Sort of."

  "Why did you vanish, then? I mean, I know you don't fall in love, but..."

  "Well, after four years of great fun, you finally managed to impregnate me, so I left to have the baby," she answered. "I know, I should have told you, but we're very secretive when it comes to laying eggs. That's because when we have mating flights we certainly don't want our mate to know where we're having the cubs."

  Keneith stared wide-eyed at her. "You had my baby?"

  "Yes. She was completely Human, so I thought I'd take her to her father and let him raise her, except you were gone from Xendaria and I had no idea of where you'd gone. Nobody knew. Apparently you left in anger and left no friends behind."

  Keneith scoffed. "The school wasn't working, my lover was gone, what could keep me in Xendaria anyway?"

  "True." She grinned. "And you're half-Fajrulo, you don't like to stay in the same place for long."

  "At the time I thought you had broken my heart."

  "I had broken your pride. We have plenty of that." She caressed him. "You have become a fine man, Keneith. But you obviously haven't found a woman to spend your life with."

  "I had a couple of calls." He shrugged. "Wouldn't have lasted, probably."

  She looked sad. "Probably not. Your daughter died of old age in Xendaria, surrounded by her grandchildren. She actually taught at the school of magic for some time, until she realized her magic was nothing like Human magic and had to quit."

  "So who raised her?" Keneith asked.

  "Her stepfather. I had other admirers besides you." She flashed a smile at him. "When I came back with her and you weren't there, many offered to marry me. So I picked the least ugly and then faked my death a few years later. He was convinced she was his daughter, by the way."

  "So you had more than one lover at the time. How do you know it was mine?"

  "Her blood, Keneith. You were the only half-blood I had at the time."

  "And how did you fake your death?"

  "An explosion in my workshop. I changed face and left. The fire left charred remains of the house and no body to bury, but he got over it. So did your daughter. I think she had a happy life."

  "I knew I had some offspring, but I never bothered finding out about them," he said.

  "
And now you're stuck with your younger cousin," she teased. "I'm sorry I can't help you find your mother, but I'll do my best to give Raykim some badly needed Fajrulo education!"

  ***

  Raykim enjoyed Clawicon's lessons, although he was distracted by what seemed to be going on between her and Keneith. Apparently she had seduced him in Human form almost a century earlier and even had a daughter with him. Raykim wasn't sure of their current relationship, but he decided it was none of his business.

  He needed to concentrate to learn shape shifting, even more than Bloodfire did. Probably because he had mixed blood, or because he was learning later in life, it seemed hard to actually shift body parts and most of all to make his wings vanish.

  Bloodfire played with his appearance with more ease. The first shift turned him into a copy of Raykim, but with green hair and wings, and black eyes.

  "No, Bloodfire, don't copy Raykim, he doesn't look Human," Clawicon chided. "Try to look like Keneith instead. You too, Raykim."

  Raykim concentrated on his cousin's features and saw him scoff.

  "Great, but can you please look like someone else?" Keneith said. "You make me feel doomed."

  "You're not dying tomorrow," Clawicon commented with a chuckle. She was in Human form during her lesson, but she was female, and both Raykim and Bloodfire needed a male model. "Raykim, you've met more Humans than Bloodfire, can you think of someone else?"

  Raykim wasn't even sure he had managed to look like his cousin. But looking behind his back, he saw his wings were gone. That was the first step towards looking Human.

  "Come on, Raykim," Keneith encouraged him. "Bloodfire is copying you. Make yourself look like someone else you know, I don't know, from the Lakeshian court? Not Vijay, though, please..."

  Raykim pondered and remembered his first interactions with Humans – well, with Human-looking Humans who were actually half-bloods. His first friend, elder brother, nice person was probably long dead by now, but his face was still vivid in his mind. He changed his eye-color to turquoise, his hair color to brown, adjusted the body shape and looked expectantly at Keneith.

  "Hinrik! Excellent!" Keneith grinned.

  Raykim beamed and looked at Bloodfire who had mirrored his shape-shifting. Hinrik indeed.

  Since Bloodfire copied him, Raykim thought to look like Mahesh and Manish or Daruka and Dahana, the princes of Amrendra. At least nobody would be surprised to see the identical twins again.

  "And what should we call you?" Keneith asked, amused. "Rahul and Rohit?"

  "I'm sure they already have their own twins," Raykim replied. "I wonder what they called them!"

  And then he lost control and resumed his natural form. His wings popped out again and since he had moved, one crashed into a rock, making him wince.

  "Yes, I know, control takes time," Clawicon said as Bloodfire blurred back into dragon form.

  "We have all the time in the world," Keneith said.

  Raykim smiled, grateful that his cousin was willing to stay in the Fajrulo lair. Might be because he had a history with Clawicon, but Raykim didn't care. There were so many things to learn from a pure-blood, surely even Keneith could become even more powerful as a magic user...

  CHAPTER TEN

  Time flew by as Keneith and Raykim finally had some interaction with a Fajrulo. Keneith didn't mind playing father to Kristine's son. Sometimes they even shared the bed, like they had done years ago. But Keneith made sure he didn't impregnate her again. The story of his dead daughter was enough to make him want to avoid any breeding for the time being.

  Clawicon also came back one day with bad news. She had heard of another half-blood – the daughter Skywise had left at the head of the Queendom of Maadre had been killed by her people who accused her of excessive cruelty.

  Amazonia had been oblivious of her half-blood nature, but she had turned into dragon form before being slain. Her "daughters" had been sick of her seemingly eternal life and obvious contempt for men. They might be secondary citizens with no rights in the Queendom, but Amazonia had become too much of a sadist even in the eyes of her own subjects.

  Human sacrifices of young men were performed every year, and usually whoever was taken to her apartment didn't come out alive. She used them to breed and killed or humiliated or raped them, which didn't sit well with her descendants claiming the throne. Thus the reign of the first queen had come to an abrupt and violent end.

  Clawicon had met Starblazer who had told her of her other half-sister's demise. Which was a good cautionary tale for both cousins. Humans might be weaker than Fajrulo, but when there were many of them, they could kill one. Especially half-bloods, who had a much smaller dragon form.

  "Yes, even you could probably have dragon form if threatened badly enough," she told Keneith. "But you'll never be as big as me, only as much as Bloodfire. And since you won't know how to use your wings, you could be killed by an angry mob of Humans."

  Just like an elephant with wings that can't use them. He wondered if he should learn to shift shape too, but he decided not to. Playing with fire balls and his fire energy was enough, controlling it took its toll already without adding fancy shape-shifting abilities.

  "Are there dwarves in these mountains?" he asked Kristine one day.

  "No, they're a northern race and don't have towns south of the Central Massif," she answered. "There are Genn, though, in case you want to meet them."

  "Might be good for Raykim, since he has pointed ears!"

  But Raykim hated the cavern and would rather be outside, so they ended up never meeting the local Genn community.

  Raykim learned to shift shape and hold the Human form long enough to pass himself off as a Human – much like Bloodfire. So after twenty-five years in the mountains, the three of them were ready to leave Kristine Clawicon to her own business.

  Bloodfire actually left his mother's lair first. Raykim and Keneith stayed a little longer only because they had blood that tended to grow more than fond of others. They both thought they'd miss the wise Fajrulo female in both her forms. And she might like their mixed blood more than anything else, but she had obviously had enough of company.

  Thus Raykim grabbed Keneith under his armpits again and took him down from the mountains. They headed south once more, and then entered the Kingdom of Arquon, where a king-god who never showed his face to his subjects reigned.

  They arrived at the capital, Zarquon. They reached the royal palace first when they emerged from the jungle. Plain walls enclosed spaces, with pointed arches on the main doors and most windows. Columns and turrets made the overall shape less square, and glazed or painted tiles gave some color to the white stones.

  The palace didn't have defensive walls around it, but it was separated from the town of Zarquon by a flat plain and a river. Nobody could approach it unseen, and Raykim was wearing Hinrik's face again, which somehow jarred Keneith.

  "I hope they will be impressed by my eye-color," Raykim said as they approached the main door, knowing the sentinels had already warned the king-god of the arrival of two lone travelers.

  "Why don't you keep your own eye-color?" Keneith replied. "There are no wolves around here."

  "Oh? You think I'd look great?" Raykim's eyes turned from turquoise to their usual yellow, making a strange contrast on Hinrik's face.

  "You know, you should try to find a look that doesn't match anyone we know," Keneith said. "Or at least anyone I know. I mean, if I could choose how to be built and my skin color and all that stuff, I wouldn't take on someone else's look!"

  "Mmm." Raykim nodded, thoughtful.

  "Just don't do it in front of Humans," Keneith warned, seeing some metamorphosis on Raykim's face. He still had the wide shoulders and narrow hips of Hinrik, but the face looked less Hinrik than before.

  "I'll stick to this for now," Raykim said at last. He had settled on himself, but with black hair, round ears and no wings. It probably tired him less to change only a few things. He had to keep up the mask for hours on end, after
all.

  By then they had crossed the expanse from the jungle to the palace walls and reached the guards outside the main gate. Keneith introduced himself as a northern wizard with his apprentice, and the guards waved him in.

  A chamberlain waited for them beyond the inner courtyard on the door of the palace itself. He listened to the introductions again, then led them to the guests' apartments. He'd let the king know about the foreign magicians.

  Raykim didn't look upset at the thought of sharing the guest room with his cousin. It was a two-room apartment, with a third as a bath chamber that Raykim probably wouldn't use much. He looked around with curiosity and kept the form he had chosen.

  "We will have to see if you can keep it even under stress... or under passion," Keneith said, amused. "Most young Fajrulo get busted when they lose control of their Human form in stressful or passionate situations."

  "I'm not a young Fajrulo," Raykim replied. "I'm eighty-five, which for a Sila is quite old."

  Keneith had turned a hundred in Kristine Clawicon's lair. He had considered keeping her for life, even though she was a few centuries older than him, but she had made it clear that she didn't want any ties. With anyone. She was probably already forging her new life in some southern kingdom – or maybe in the north, who knew. She could fly anywhere she wanted.

  She had taught him more Fajrulo tricks, and how to tap into Fire's energy both for protection and attack. So here he was, the most powerful magic user of the southern kingdom, and he couldn't show off all his true gifts. Especially not in front of a king-god.

  Kushan had been destined to the temple service when his brother Suresh had abdicated in his favor. Thus Kushan had become king. He had even married his brother's wife, who had given him five surviving children, with the heir, Suresh, being thirteen already.

  Now Kushan II had to cover his face in public and when he went to the temple in town, but in the palace he was free to show it, especially to his most trusted counselors. He had hoped they were healers, since his health was failing already, but he was content to know they were magic users. He had some trouble in his kingdom. Amazons pillaged his coast, which had almost cost his nephew – Tarun of Lakeshi – his life only a month earlier. And then there was a sect of people who refused to worship him. They lived mostly away from the rest of the kingdom, secluded in caves somewhere in what must be Mount Flora – even though that wasn't the name Humans gave it – but they still bothered Kushan.