Mystic Dragon

by Jason Denzel

  What if he passed the plague on to Sitting Mother? Enough people had died already. He could never again be near people or civilization so long as he carried the plague like he did now. A Saint like Sitting Mother was his only hope. Surely, if she became sick she would have the means to heal herself. He was hoping, after all, that she would eradicate the disease within him entirely.

  He adjusted his packs and continued on. The summit greeted him with fierce winds. He could almost hear voices in the gale. To his surprise, he found a large cluster of bushes at the top. A mountain goat with massive curved horns stood on a nearby rock, staring at him. Sim paid it no attention. He was here, and it was time to find Sitting Mother. He walked toward the southeast edge of the wide summit, looking for her. Rounding a boulder, he found her.

  There was no mistaking the figure he’d seen earlier and whom he’d traveled so far to find. Sim set his onkai onto the ground and set his packs down.

  Sitting Mother—the Saint he’d traveled so far to see—was a pile of rocks. They’d been stacked carefully on top of one another to resemble the shape of a woman sitting cross-legged. Several bits of torn cloth were pinched together between the top stones to give the semblance of hair. Flecks of faded white paint had been traced across the stones’ surfaces, but the runes or drawings had long ago been weathered away.

  A tide of emotions surged within Sim, but he remained frozen on the outside. He stared at the pile of rocks for long minutes. Swiko had been wrong. No. She’d lied. Sitting Mother wasn’t a person. It was probably just a superstition created by a filthy dirt farmer. There was no Saint here, no great Mystic who could cure disease. He’d been such a dunder. During his childhood, even the High Mystic of Moth hadn’t been able to cure the plague. The traveling Mystic who’d come to Oakspring had been unable to do anything except let his brother die along with half the village. Why had he believed a crazy story about a Saint living on a cliffside who would solve his problems?

  There was nothing left to do. Nowhere left to go. Rochella had been wrong. Some roads truly came to a dead end. He was no ranger. He was just a plague-infested commoner who’d lost everything and could never be around people again.

  He screamed. His anguish reverberated off the distant mountains and filled the valley. He screamed again until his lungs gave out, then howled again.

  Rage boiled in his veins. He tore one of his onkai blades from its walking sheath and swung it with all his might at the stack of rocks that was supposedly Sitting Mother. The pile shattered. He screamed again. He kicked the rocks, scattering them. He threw some off the cliff. He hurled one at the mountain goat. He cursed and spit, and finally, exhausted, collapsed onto the ground.

  His chest heaved like a set of blacksmith’s bellows, heating his anger, and boiling away any other emotions.

  “Mystics and false Saints,” he said through gritted teeth. “I follow my own lead. I reject the Myst.”

  When the sun crested to its highest point, Sim gathered his possessions and descended the mountain without looking back.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE OLD WORLD

  Faintly glowing leaves from Fayün brushed against Pomella as she emerged from the Mystwood thicket onto the thin path leading north. She slipped past the unusual plants, hardly noting their strangeness anymore as Crow Tallin approached.

  The sun had long ago lowered itself toward the horizon, bathing what little of the sky she could see in pink and lavender hues. Finally out on an open trail once more, Pomella paused to stretch her back. She lifted her hair off the back of her neck, trying to cool herself down. Despite the late hour, the sun’s furious heat lingered as if it refused to spare the world.

  Hector and Ena emerged from the thick tree line behind her. They swirled in a high arc above Pomella’s head as if they, too, relished the idea of being in an open space.

  “Time to find Vlenar,” Pomella said to them, looking north along the trail.

  She set out, thankful for her Mystic staff as a walking aid. Her feet were already sore and it was a long way to the velten in the Ironlow Mountains.

  A rush of excitement suddenly emanated from her hummingbirds. Pomella’s heart leaped as she sensed, through her familiars, a pair of familiar presences. Sim and Vivianna waited on the trail ahead of her. Vivianna sat, legs crossed, serene as ice, on a stool of grass and dirt she’d conjured, while Sim stood a short distance away from her, gazing at Pomella through distant eyes.

  “Where’s Vlenar?” Pomella asked Vivianna.

  “He’s up further ahead,” Vivianna said. “Not far.”

  Pomella peered at Sim. As before, a rush of emotions surged through her, but she suppressed them. Now wasn’t the time to sort that out. “I wasn’t expecting you to come,” she said.

  Sim shrugged. He carried two straight walking sticks, one in each hand. Each wooden staff had been carved with intricate designs of some kind and had woven beads and feathers hanging from it. Pomella found herself wondering what the staffs were and how he’d come by them. Like the rest of Sim’s recent past, they eluded her.

  “This is where I need to be,” he said simply, and Pomella could tell from his tone that that was all she’d get from him on the matter.

  Movement on the opposite side of the path caught Pomella’s attention and she found herself once more surprised.

  Lal sat on a patch of dry grass twirling his wide-brimmed straw hat in his hand. He smiled when he saw her, and immediately it was as if a weight was lifted from Pomella’s shoulders. He wore his red Crow Tallin robes atop a pair of sandals, which seemed to be his unspoken way of saying he supported her.

  Pomella bowed in front of him. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” she said, before adding, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “It’s been long time since I traveled,” Lal said. “Good chance for us to talk. Thought you could use the company.”

  Pomella glanced at their growing party. “All we need is Broon,” she said.

  “Broon too lazy,” Lal quipped. “He stayed to guard Kelt Apar.”

  Pomella breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  “And look, Pomella,” he said, grinning and pointing to some flowers growing beside him. They were wild lilies, ripe in their summer season.

  Pomella shook her head in amusement. “You love those little flowers, don’t you?”

  Lal shrugged. “None grow in Qin. I saw them for first time when I came to Moth, many years ago. I like their simplicity. They sleep in winter. Bloom in summer. Harder the winter, brighter the bloom.”

  Pomella sighed. Her encounter with Mantepis, and what he’d revealed, rang in her mind. “Grandmaster,” she began, “we should talk about—”

  “Later, Pomella,” Lal said, standing up. “There will be time.”

  Pomella nodded, letting it go. Somehow, it was easier to do that in Lal’s presence. “OK,” she said. “Let’s find Vlenar. He’s probably ready to drag us by the necks to this velten.”

  They found Vlenar farther up the trail as full night enveloped them. He’d prepared a camp for them and smoothly adapted to the larger-than-expected party size. They set out the next morning and traveled through the Mystwood for three days in relative silence, which suited Pomella just fine. Each of her traveling companions seemed content to keep to themselves for the most part. Vlenar ranged ahead, guiding them up along the foothills of the Ironlow Mountains. Sim lingered behind, keeping close enough to assist if needed, but otherwise out of earshot. At first, Vivianna, Pomella, and Lal took turns riding Quercus, but eventually the younger women let Lal ride him nearly all the time because otherwise they had to stop and let him rest.

  Every day, they saw fay animals running across their path, or floating in the air before them, or soaring high overhead. Pomella marveled at them all, especially as the fay they encountered grew larger or more spectacular to behold. Near sunset of the first day on the road, an enormous flock of what must’ve been tens of thousands of tiny fay birds flew overhead, heading west, toward the o
cean. They were too distant for Pomella to make out their features clearly, but each flapped their wings with a steady rhythm. Despite their size and number, they had the steady straight motion of geese flying in formation, only clustered in a massive cloud of silvery fog. As the birds passed overhead, Pomella wondered whether they flew toward lands in the human realm, or Fayün.

  In the late afternoon of the second day the forest opened up, revealing Sentry just ahead to the north. Pomella’s gaze was drawn beyond the town toward a looming mountain farther ahead. MagBreckan was not as large as the mighty MagDoon, but its jagged summit seemed even more intimidating than its larger cousin to the south. Pomella had grown up gazing at that peak. She’d never walked MagBreckan’s slopes, but nonetheless, the mountain seemed like home.

  Rather than leading them to Sentry, Vlenar cut to the east, into the foothills. The Ironlow Mountains loomed before them, rising toward the sky and covered in an eternal blanket of evergreen pines and oak and ash.

  “What you think of those mountains, Pomella?”

  Lal’s sudden question surprised Pomella. They’d been hiking in silence the entire day. Vlenar was ahead of them somewhere, out of sight.

  “They’re beautiful,” Pomella said.

  “What else?”

  Pomella considered the peaks before her. They were a regular part of Moth, and therefore had been ever present in her life.

  “They dominate the land,” Pomella said. “They’re strong, unyielding, and mysterious.”

  “Ah,” Lal said. “You say mountains are just another part of Moth? Dominant part, but still just a feature of land. Think deeper.”

  Pomella considered it as they walked. Her Mystic staff tapped the ground with each step taken. She took her time pondering Lal’s question, knowing he didn’t need an immediate answer.

  “Mountains are eternal,” Pomella said. “Like the Myst, they exist before our lives began, and will live long after us.”

  Lal nodded. “They live much longer than us, yes, but they not eternal. Mountains change. Grow. Collapse. We cannot see it, but if you live very, very long life—thousands of lives—you see it.”

  Pomella frowned. How could a person live a thousand lifetimes? She wondered how Lal could know this. And she wondered, too, what he was getting at. If mountains did change over time, then they were like all living things. It was strange to think of them as alive, as if she and Lal were walking upon an actual creature.

  “The mountains are the land,” Pomella said as the answer came to her. “There’s no separation between them and the island. Moth is a land of mountains.”

  Lal smiled. “Yes, Pomella. So, too, is our relationship with the Myst, and with all other things. Every person. Every tree. Every fabric of cloth.” He plucked at his shirt for emphasis, then tapped the center of his forehead. “Every thought or feeling. They are all the island. When you see past our separateness, the Deep part of the Myst opens. That is where I teach you to go.”

  Pomella considered all this. It was difficult to not see herself as separate from the rest of the world. She could grasp the concept that maybe, on some mystical level, she wasn’t different from her shoes or the nearby trees, but what about less tangible aspects of her life? How were emotions like affection, love, frustration, and anger one and the same? It was one thing to think about it, and another to grab it with your hand and understand it in a real and solid way.

  She thought, too, of the conflicting parts of her life. Lal wanted her to sit in her cabin every day and meditate on the Myst while, at the same time, she felt a need to be out in the world, helping people. There were Unclaimed living in filth, being scooped up into slavery by the Shadefox, as well as commoners requiring assistance to improve their lot in life. How could she ignore those needs when she had the ability to help? Try as she might, she didn’t know how to reconcile those separate worlds of her life. They were as opposite from each other as was this world and Fayün.

  Pomella opened her mouth to ask Lal about these topics, but Vivianna’s voice stopped her short. “Pomella,” she said, “you should see this.”

  Pomella followed Vivianna’s gaze and saw a handful of figures walking toward them. She frowned. Apparently, their traveling party was multiplying once more.

  * * *

  Shevia forced herself to express a calm outward appearance as her brothers led her toward the commoner Mystic Pomella and her group. Yarina’s student, whose name Shevia had learned was Vivianna, stood beside a brown gelding, clutching her Mystic staff and watching Shevia with an uncertain expression. The ranger Sim stood waiting farther up the road with the laghart.

  Tevon glanced at Shevia and shook his head. It had taken some convincing to get him and Typhos to agree to escort her from Kelt Apar. Even Tibron had shown more reluctance than she had expected.

  “You are not a petulant child!” Tevon had snapped when she approached him the evening after completing her visions for the High Mystics. “You are a Mystic!”

  “Yes,” she had said. “And so you will obey me.”

  “I … we”—he gestured to Typos and Tibron—“obey High Mystic Bhairatonix. As do you.”

  “I will deal with Bhairatonix,” Shevia had said. “I am leaving tonight, without his knowledge or consent. You can remain here, and face his wrath in the morning, or come with me and have my protection.”

  The vision of the twisted-serpent banner fluttering above the dying lagharts still called to her. Sitting Mother wanted her to go there. To learn, to discover the truth, to find her.

  “You offer us protection?” Tevon had sneered. “You are just—”

  “Do not make me prove your ignorance, Brother.”

  Tibron scratched the back of his head. “Are you sure about this, Shay-Shay?” There had been a softness in his voice that managed to pierce Shevia’s guards and touch on her affection for him. “I know you may be unhappy in his service, but what you’re suggesting would endanger us all, and possibly our family back home.”

  “The High Mystic scares me no longer. And for the rest, this is why I offer a choice.”

  Tibron’s eyes had searched Shevia’s for a long moment before he nodded. “I’ll go.”

  “You are a fool,” Tevon had sneered.

  “You said it yourself,” Tibron had said. “We are a family. Our sister requires our help. This is why we left home.”

  “Your weakness will get us killed,” Tevon had said.

  “I trust our sister,” Tibron had said, and it was settled.

  As Shevia approached the party, she saw the one called Grandmaster Faywong standing behind their horse, wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He was from Qin, which intrigued her, but he did not carry a Mystic staff. He watched her with a neutral expression, and Shevia found herself unable to meet his gaze.

  “We didn’t expect to have more company!” Pomella called. “Did the High Mystics send you?”

  Tevon threw Shevia a hard glare.

  “We came of our own choice,” Shevia said. “Great danger lurks at the velten. I believe you could use my assistance.”

  Pomella and Vivianna exchanged looks. Shevia knew she did not sound convincing, but she was not about to justify her presence to these Mystics.

  “We welcome your assistance,” Vivianna said.

  They set out, together in name only, with each group keeping to themselves. Faywong rode the gelding, but he kept his eyes closed most of the time. At first Shevia thought he was sleeping, but then she realized he was actually meditating. She tried to discern the Myst around him, but she sensed nothing. Perhaps he was, as Bhairatonix had suggested at the Crow Tallin ceremony, powerless.

  That evening, he proved her wrong.

  The entire party sat around a campfire that Vlenar had built when a cluster of fay snakes slithered into their camp. They emerged from the darkness, at least twenty of them, each glowing with a silver light. Tevon jumped to his feet, reaching for his sword, but the old man held up a hand to stall him.

  The snakes slip
ped around Shevia’s feet and came to rest beside Faywong. They raised their heads and flicked their tongues. Shevia watched with curiosity as Faywong remained at ease. One of the snakes lowered its head as if bowing to him. As it did so, every other snake present bowed its head in unison.

  Faywong considered them for a moment, then slipped onto the ground and tilted his ear toward them. The silver snake in front flicked its tongue into his ear. It did so repeatedly until he eased himself back to his sitting position. He reached out and stroked the snake on its head with his finger. If it had been possible, Shevia would’ve sworn the the snake smiled as it misted away. One by one the snakes came forward, each one licking Faywong’s ears in exchange for a touch on the head that sent it away in a dissolution of silvery smoke.

  “What was that about?” Pomella asked after the last snake vanished.

  “They come for blessing,” Faywong said with his familiar Qina accent. “Serpents, reptiles, other similar creatures greatly drawn to the Myst. They more attuned to it than most others.”

  Shevia itched to pull her traveling cloak tighter around her shoulders to hide her serpent tattoo. She knew some of the others had seen it before, and she felt exposed.

  “Other creatures?” Pomella said.

  An unexpected tinge of jealousy crept through Shevia. She liked Faywong, and wondered why he’d taken a commoner as his apprentice.

  “Likkke laghartttsss,” Vlenar said, reaching over the fire to drizzle a pinch of spice across their meal of assorted vegetables. If there was humor or bitterness in his comment, Shevia couldn’t tell.

  “Yes,” Faywong said. “Lagharts very powerful with Myst. Said to be descended from powerful beings, now long lost.”

  “Dragonssss!” Vlenar hissed. The fire hissed as the spices fell upon it, emphasizing the word.

  Shevia’s spine tingled with energy. She’d never heard that word before but immediately knew what the laghart spoke of. She forced herself to not move, or even breathe, for fear of revealing herself.

  “Mystic tradition says dragons once dominated the Old World,” Faywong said. “Kings and Queens of Fire. They made war with themselves, tearing world asunder, resulting in creation of human realm and Fayün. That led to their extinction. Humans and lagharts all that left afterward.”