by James Duvall
~The Seven Songs
Searching through the haze of her mind, Sapphire struggled to focus through the steady rhythm of a pounding headache. It beat on her skull like the horse's hooves clip-clopping down a cobblestone road.
They took the book. Need to get it back.
Something was missing. Sapphire's hand went to her chest where the familiar weight of the Dawn Shard now existed only as a sensation of profound absence. She searched the ground for it, but it was not to be found. Out of habit she reached for it again, only now realizing how reassuring it had been to have it there. It was a tangible connection to Dawn. Dawn, who was so far away. Dawn, who now by now must be thinking the worst. Sapphire held the blank spot for a moment, her claws gathering up a little fistful of white fur. She held it tight, shutting her eyes against the world and wishing and praying that he might somehow know she had survived.
Her eyes sank to a puddle at her feet. At some point it had begun to rain, and she was drenched through. “I'm sorry...” she said, imagining that he might be looking out through the water.
It took all of her strength to will herself to her feet against aching joints and sore muscles. Wounds cried out for relief. The Dawn Shard. Highest priority. Crisp rain water with the edge of winter ran down her back soothing her aches. She drank deep from a spout on the corner, lapping up the water before it could mingle with the mud and filth of the street.
The scent of fresh-baked bread found its way to her nose and drew her down the sidewalk. Her stomach felt empty, but not empty enough to risk being poisoned. Patiently she waited outside of the bakery, far enough from the door as to not attract attention. It was a different bakery than before, but it too had a sign entreating customers to not feed the dragons.
Human children were a godsend. Adult humans might deliver a poisoned treat by hand, but they would never place such a deadly snack into a child's hands. A small group appeared before long and entered the shop. Sapphire took up a position down the sidewalk and waited. Checking her appearance in a puddle she found she was a wreck. Mane disheveled and soaked, little cords of it dripped. Mud and blood stained her belly where she had slept. One of her satchels was badly torn, the aged leather discolored from something that had spilled. No time to worry about that.
The outing passed by, stopping at the corner to wait on a carriage. Sapphire approached slowly, feigning timidity lest she frighten the watchful mothers. One of the little boys saw her coming and he tugged on his mother's shirt.
“Mommy, can we feed it?” he asked, pointing at Sapphire.
Drat!
Sapphire tilted her ears back, licking her lips and giving the mother a piteous look.
“No,” the woman said, glancing Sapphire's direction just long enough to determine the luminarian was not diseased. Sapphire sank a little, cursing under her breath.
Evil hag.
The little boy tore off a bit of his bread, eyeing his mother. “Please?”
Stop asking!
The mother ignored him completely this time, much to Sapphire's delight. She had become engrossed in conversation with her friend, leaving the children relatively unattended. Quietly Sapphire approached, licking her muzzle again to let the children know that yes, this one was hungry! Feed her!
The little boy tossed the chunk of bread toward the eager luminarian. Sapphire caught it before it could hit the muddy ground and devoured it in a few bites. A soft coo from the appreciative dragon made the children giggle with delight. Okay, so maybe all humans weren't so bad. So long as they stayed about dragon size. Three more morsels came from the boy and his friends before the parents realized all of the food was being 'wasted' on Sapphire. Sapphire chattered pleasantly at the woman, grinning in victory.
“Thank you!” Sapphire sang, and hurried off.
Behind her she could hear the little boy arguing with his mother. “See? She said thank you! That means its okay! You said!”
Immediate needs met, Sapphire took stock of her situation. One satchel was ripped badly, beyond Sapphire's ability to repair it. Gingerly slipping a claw into the opening, she withdrew bits of broken glass that had once contained a colorful assortment of mists. She sighed. Those were expensive...
The emberstones remained in her possession, perhaps dismissed as pretty rocks collected by a simple creature. For once that misconception had worked to Sapphire's advantage. She remembered the dark-haired man now. Yes, that's where they had taken her, to the dark-haired man. He was magic. Sapphire could sense it. He was not a good man. The moon flower samples had somehow survived. They had been in the other satchel, the bigger one with the books. Faralon's Journal was gone. He had taken that. What was his name? Skalde. That's what they called him. Why couldn't she remember?
The Arlorian focus was also gone but she could not remember Skalde taking it. She wished badly that she had it back. He had spoken to her. She tried to remember what they talked about but her now full belly swam with sickness. Motion. An apple tree. They had been here before; it was near Ruby's home. Sapphire scanned the empty playground. The rain had driven most of the humans inside. A luminarian perched in the apple tree watched her warily. Here on these foreign streets, Sapphire felt herself the outsider she knew they saw her as.
“Are you alright?”
Sapphire's lungs seized on the very air. She whirled in place, turning to face the sound of her brother's voice. Her heart trembled in her chest. Friendly orange eyes looked down at her from beneath a wild blue mane.
“Torch...?” she asked breathlessly, fearing to trust her very eyes.
“I am worried about you,” he said softly.
The world shimmered as her eyes filled with tears. “I-I'll be okay. I just need to get that book back, and my amulet. Dawn must be so worried. Torch. It's.. It's been so long. I... we thought...”
Torch turned away from her and looked into the distance. “You never leave the house. It's not healthy for a girl your age.”
“I... what?”
Sapphire padded around to his front and looked up at him with concern. “What are you talking about?”
She looked him in the eye, but Torch never broke his gaze off the distant horizon.
“Please, talk to me?” Sapphire asked in a quiet, desperate voice. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, but she passed through him as easily as an early morning fog.
“Well?” Torch asked, still looking into the distance. He turned away without any regard to his sister's presence, looking back toward the apple tree. A young cub stood there, sulking. She was white as the driven snow with short little horns and a mane as blue as the evening sky.
“I don't want to. They're mean. They said mom is a witch!” the cub complained.
Torch went to her side, nuzzling the dragon half his size. Sapphire went with him, staring in disbelief. She blinked her eyes, then shut them tight and shook her head. No. That wasn't right. She opened them again and the figure was still there. Her heart sank lower than it had ever felt when she realized he was not real.
“Why would they say that?” Torch asked.
Sapphire's throat dried up, her tongue a mouthful of sand. “Because...” she whispered in a raspy voice, devoid of strength. “Because her mane is so dark they think it looks purple.”
The little cub spoke. “Because she has purple in her mane, like the warp singers.”
Torched chuckled and nuzzled his little sister's temple. “That doesn't mean she's a witch! Silly cub. They're just afraid because of mother's magic. It brings attention to us, but it helps people. You should never be ashamed of your gifts, Sapphire.”
The vision vanished like the mists in morning light. Sapphire hung her head in silence, alone in the rain. She laid down in the muddy grass and felt her head begin to pound anew. Her moaning alerted the luminarian in the apple tree. She was only barely aware of him as he came to her side. This dragon was real; she could feel him nuzzling at her shoulder.
“Are you sick?”
Sapphire could he
ar his anxiety. He did not want to catch it. “Drank something bad.”
She knew it was true but couldn't remember how. Visions of vomiting mouthfuls of water glowing with mist paraded through her mind. She wretched up the bits of bread. “Sorry...”
“Come with me,” the drake said in a gentle voice. “We have shelter.”
Sapphire looked up at him, but could not force herself to smile. She followed him through the city in silence. Her wings drooped off her back and the world swayed beneath her like the deck of an airship in high winds. A cool, wet breeze picked up again, only now with the bite of cold from the coming evening. Rain started to fall anew, the drops small and thin, barely noticeable at first but quickly building into full, heavy drops that splattered thick against the pavement. Time passed in a haze, all of Sapphire's faculties focused on staying upright and keeping her eyes on a relatively stable spot on the ground in front of her.
The drake's shelter was a hay loft over a stable in the poorer part of town, where a stablemaster might tolerate dragons in his hay loft. This was laziness, not charity, Sapphire felt. Twice she had to stop on the stairs and just breathe, letting the world settle and her empty stomach stop swirling. Even while sickened, no, especially while sickened, it was important to know where one could rest without being discovered or attacked. That meant knowing where the safe places were and why they were safe.
The smell of old hay and fresh-cut cedar was refreshing, the musk of mildew carried away by the evening breeze and replaced with the coolness of wet, rain-soaked sky. It reminded her of home. Better times, living in the attic space over an apothecary that found Amethyst's healing abilities an interesting field of study. She was, for all intents and purposes, his luminarian counterpart. Home was safe because the alchemist that ran the apothecary cared more about healing than about who was being healed. The stable, Sapphire concluded, was more than she could hope for in an unfamiliar place and she was grateful for it.
The drake situated Sapphire on a heap of old hay with a few shreds of cloth as a blanket. His mate watched curiously, and Sapphire could hear them discussing her in hushed whispers. On a better day she would've forced herself to work out what the voices were saying. Instead she let her head rest on the edge of the nest and stared out into the rain. Somewhere out there was the Dawn Shard. Somewhere out there was Dawn...
“I could make a new one with the focus,” she murmured to herself. That was gone too.
“Do you want to see a trick?” Torch's familiar voice asked. Sapphire turned her head a little to see her brother's familiar sky blue pelt. His bright orange eyes shone out from beneath his dark mane like polished copper coins, glinting in the sun. A little white and blue cub scurried up to him, bouncing up and down and flapping little wings scarcely large enough to glide.
“I do! I do!”
Torch lifted a paw to little Sapphire's head and ruffled her namesake mane. With a peek over his shoulder he checked for their parents and found them distracted with preparing dinner. A flick of his paw sent three little bobs of light skittering across the floor like shooting stars. They snapped like firecrackers and the lights went out.
“Wow!”
Almost immediately his mother's irate call followed. “Torch!”
Torch grimaced. He motioned quietly for Sapphire to keep her mouth shut. Amethyst and Flint charged into the back of the loft, both looking very cross. Amethyst breathed a sigh of relief, while her mate shook his head in frustration.
“You have to be more responsible than this,” Flint admonished. “Sapphire looks up to you. We cannot be practicing magic in the apothecary's attic. If you woke him up he will be sore with us and if you keep it up he'll turn us out on the streets.”
Torch grumbled disconsolately and avoided his father's gaze.
“What was that?” Flint demanded, his tail curling in sharp lashes.
“I don't like living off a human's good graces,” Torch answered, his golden eyes sparking with defiance. “We should be like the luminarians used to be. On our own. Out there in the world. Not scrimping for scraps. We're not vermin. I am a dragon! I want to live like one.”
“We are very blessed here,” Amethyst said. She had the same cool tones as her son, with a darker mane that seemed tinged with purple in the dark of the attic.
“I know,” Torch grumbled, looking down at his paws. “I just want to do something, something meaningful. Like the warp singers.”
Flint groaned, head tilting back til he was staring at the ceiling, or would be if his eyes were not closed. He rubbed them tiredly. “Seven take those stories. Your mother is a fine healer and does a lot for the community. If you want to do something meaningful you should be studying with her, not out gallivanting around Cahen with your friends all hours of the day.”
The shadows argued for a while longer, their observer drifting in and out of consciousness as her nausea ebbed and flowed like the tides. Late in the night she saw Torch at the window, looking out the stars. They would be the same stars here as in the loft in Cahen. She wanted to go to him, but her legs would not answer her call.
“Are the warp singers really just stories...?” little Sapphire asked, sounding very genuine in her concern. Torch looked back at her with a sorrowful look which the younger her did not understand.
“Just because there are stories about something, doesn't mean it isn't real,” he said, quietly coming to her bedside. The cub climbed up onto the edge of her heap of rags and pawed at her brother's nose.
“So are they?” she asked. “Are they real?”
Torch looked back toward the window. “I think they are. I don't think the Night Warden can guard the night all on his own. He'd have to have help, right?”
Little Sapphire shrugged her wings at him. “Maybe when we're grown, we'll be warp singers? Like Mom?”
“Mom's not a warp singer, silly cub.” Torch ruffled little Sapphire's mane. “And you like the sun. Don't you think you'd miss it?”
The cub's eyes went wide with horror. “I don't want to miss the sun!”
“Shh! Shh!” Torch admonished, waving his paws at her. “You'll wake Mom and Dad.”
Sapphire nodded quietly. “But I don't have to disappear in the day, right?” she asked in a bare whisper.
Torch grinned. “Of course not, silly cub.”
“Tell me a story?”
Torch settled down on his belly on the dusty floorboards. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Well, which story do you want to hear? The one about where the warp singers came from? How the shard walls came to be? Perhaps I can tell you about the Seven Wardens? I think you'd like the Grove Keeper. He has little sprites that remind me of you.”
“I want to know how you learned magic!”
Torch blinked in surprise. “A story about me?”
The little cub nodded excitedly at her brother, her little head bobbing up and down as her eyes stayed fixed on him.
“Erhm, well, mom taught me. She's why we're of the Nightsong flight. We have the most magic of all the flights from Cahen all the way down to the Brimwold!”
Sapphire, both young and grown, curled up with brimming blue eyes watching the story begin and fading to dreams while her brother spoke of his adventures. Eventually Amethyst returned and pulled a blanket over her cubs. She sat with them a while, lightly stroking the top of Torch's head. He had fallen asleep without finishing his story. Little Sapphire had stirred, her chin resting on her paws so she could look out at the stars.
“Hi mom,” the little cub said contritely. She was not supposed to have the window open at night. It invited trouble, Amethyst would say. Tonight Amethyst quietly pulled the shutters and softly hummed to her cubs. It was a song Sapphire had heard many times before, but this would be the first time it came to the young cub's mindful ears.
Sleep my precious daughter, take thee thy rest,
and fear not the da-ark night skies.
For I'll be your candle on the dark road ahead,
and I'll be your la
ntern when the stars have all fled.
I'll be your lighthouse on the stormy night sea
and I'll be your moonlight on a dark winter's eve.
Sleep my weary daughter, take thee thy rest,
and fear not the dark road ahead.
For I'll be a warm heart, when the winter winds blow,
and I'll be the sunrise on your land of white snow.
I'll be your north star when fate's borne you far
and I'll be here praying, wherever you are
Sleep now precious daughter, and take thee thy rest,
Sleep now precious daughter, and know you are blessed.
Chapter 17
The Cripple
Mistwood, Isla Merindi, Pendric Shard
Three nights from the completion of our journey into Magash, I was awakened by smoke and screaming and found our caravan was under attack by bandits. There were so many, I knew that we would all surely die. Then there was a great roar, and the wind blew with the force of its howl. I saw him then, standing on a hillside, a dark figure, violet by the moonlight, with the body of a dragon and the visage of a wolf, and his howl struck fear into the hearts of us all.
Testimony taken from a witness upon his arrival in Magash, A large number of bandits were found dead upon the road, of wounds inflicted by claws as big as a mountain dragon's.
“Timothy, it is getting very near the twilight hour,” Aebyn warned. He landed neatly in front of Timothy, flaring his wings to bleed momentum before dropping to all four paws with an impact like a romping lion on hard earth. Timothy had to take Aebyn's word for it, he could barely see the light through the canopy and that had been fading since they had left the mistweaver's manor.
Timothy checked his watch and gave the bottle of lantern oil a shake to feel how much was left. “We're going to have to go back soon,” he said. “Is there time to go up again?”
Aebyn looked up at the trees and frowned at him. “It would do no good. The canopy is too thick and the mists have begun to rise. Even if he built a fire, the trees already seem filled with smoke from above.”