Deelind and The Icefire

by Lance Dempster

  ‘The tree is beautiful but why is it all the way out here?’ said Deelind.

  ‘It’s where the leprechaun decided to put it.’

  ‘Leprechaun! Whatever next?’

  ‘There is a leprechaun. Just no one has seen him for a hundred years. He looks after the Money Tree for Princess Lee. The tree was in the village centre for a couple of hundred years until someone tried to steal his pot of gold. This made him so angry he moved the tree way out here. It is said that he has a bad temper and even longer memory. Not even Princess Lee can convince him to move back to the village,’ said Mug.

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t see him today, then,’ said Deelind.

  As they walked up to the tree, she filled Mug in on what had happened at the council meeting in the Great Hall where she had stood guard, while omitting the bit about the necklace. That was just between her and Zara.

  ‘I cannot believe that a Dragonknight would be a traitor. They are loyal to the point that they would take their own lives before giving into Blackthorn,’ said Mug.

  ‘Sergeant Sam sure acted strangely. I wonder why she wanted to get into the Great Hall so badly?’ Deelind said, more to herself than to Mug. They had reached the base of the Money Tree. Mug raised his hand and a small branch bent down with six single gold coins on it.

  ‘Just stretch your hand up,’ said Mug when he saw she was unsure what to do. Raising her hand, she flinched a little when the largest branch swung down to her, heavily laden with coins.

  ‘Blimey!’ gasped Mug. ‘You’re rich! How is that possible?’

  ‘I am not,’ she said firmly. ‘This is a mistake or another strange thing like the violet stream taking me to that old cottage. Anyway, I have no need for money.’

  ‘You could take some and buy some clothes for yourself. I know you must be fed up of the few items that Miss Tibi managed to find for you.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re not wrong. I think I will take six coins like you and no more. I’ll tell Princess Lee about this when she comes out of Oakman. Not a word to anyone else, please Mug. I don’t need any more attention. Let’s walk back and see if we can find the old hidden cottage,’ she said, already heading to the only path out of the clearing back into the forest.

  They were deep in discussion about Blackthorn and neither of them took any notice of where they were walking until the path abruptly ended. Without thinking, Deelind pushed through the bushes that blocked the path and stumbled straight into a clearing which consisted of a small island in the middle of a muddy pond.

  ‘Stop!’ Mug cried out. ‘Quick! Get out of there!’

  Deelind tried to push back onto the path but the thick, thorny bush held firm, blocking her way. A chilling scream echoed around her. Tendrils of fog curled around her feet and crept up her calves. Looking around her, she could see muddy bubbles popping on the pond surface.

  ‘What is going on? Things are getting weird here fast.’

  ‘I think you have stumbled upon the Prophets of Doom,’ said Mug’s faint voice, laced with concern. ‘I cannot come to you as only one person is allowed in at a time. They are the Prophets of Doom and will eat you if they can.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ groaned Deelind.

  ‘Told you we should have stayed in the bath,’ groused Zara, ‘but no, you had to get some breakfast.’

  ‘You forget, our body desperately needed food and you would have wallowed in that bath all day. It’s our day off, I wanted to get out and explore a bit. Although admittedly this adventure might have been a bit more than I was looking for,’ said Deelind. Zara snickered and cold wind danced playfully through her hair and over her neck, making her want to pull her non-existent jacket closer around her neck.

  ‘Anything else I should know?’ she asked Mug.

  ‘Well, we learnt about the Prophets of Doom at school. There are three talking heads which live in the pond. No one likes to go to it because it never ends well for those who visit it or get caught by it. Where one head will tell you a good prediction of your future, the second head will tell a bad prediction and the third seems only to talk nonsense. If someone falls into the pond they will be eaten by the heads.’

  ‘Hmm.’ That wasn’t too bad, she might be able to find out some useful information on Rudy, but she needed to follow some rules. Rule one, don’t fall into the pond. Rule two, don’t believe everything they say. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Interesting? Interesting!’ said Mug. ‘Are you crazy? These things are dangerous! Get out of there. Once they see you, they will not let you go until you have heard their prediction.’

  ‘But they might be able to help us with Blackthorn and finding Rudy.’

  ‘Change and fly out!’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, we can see you,’ came three voices from the muddy pond. Suddenly the bush around the edge stretched upwards, forming a domed cage over Deelind and the pond. A path wide enough for someone to walk on circled the pond. The bare mud island in the middle had all sorts of items lying on the ground, but more noticeable were the three heads sticking out of the muddy water. The heads were huge, humanoid and decaying. One head had black hair, one white and the other red. Their eyes were the same colour as their hair, and they had needle-sharp teeth. Each had deep purple tongues which continuously licked their faces. She shuddered. Mug was right. These creatures were dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

  ‘So, you seek our counsel, then, do you?’ said the white head, its purple tongue flicking over one eye.

  Deelind shuddered. ‘No, you trapped me in here.’

  ‘Tut-tut. Too late, little girl. Come closer, then, and let us see you,’ said the black head.

  Its large, black eyes seemed to bore right into her. Deelind quickly took a step back from the pond.

  ‘No one has been here for so long,’ said the white head. ‘So hungry,’ it moaned.

  The other two heads swivelled to the white head menacingly, purple tongues lashing out. ‘Hush or it will escape us,’ they hissed. ‘What is your prediction? Be quick.’

  Moaning, the white head said, ‘You will find that which has gone missing, hidden behind the dark shadow.’

  ‘Betrayal is around you. A servant of Blackthorn you will be!’ screamed the black head.

  ‘No!’ screamed Deelind. ‘I will never betray Princess Lee!’ Her heart was gripped with horror.

  ‘Stop Blackthorn, stop Blackthorn, stop Blackthorn!’ said the red head and then chanted:

  One pure feather of light.

  One pure feather of hope.

  The feather of light from a Princess now gone, in the back to injure. Delivered by the hand of an innocent who is sacrificed.

  The feather of hope from a newborn, in the heart to kill, by the hand of copper.

  The light will feed the hope and hope and light will win. But beware, if there is no hope the light will turn to dark and dark will feed fear. All is lost.

  Frightened, Deelind backed up against the bush wall and pushed hard into it, screaming, ‘Stop! Let me out now!’ The wall gave way and she fell backwards, knocking over Mug. She scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as she could, shivering and trembling. Still running, she went dragon and crashed her way up through the forest canopy.

  ‘No! You are not allowed to fly in the valley!’ Mug called out, but she couldn’t stop even if she had wanted to. She was badly shaken and being high up and far away from those heads seemed the only viable option. Her mind raced over the heads’ words and a kernel of dread rooted in her. No! No way was she going to betray Princess Lee.

  Feeling waves of reassurance and filled with the calm quiet after fresh snowfall, Deelind heard Zara say, ‘Remember rule two, don’t believe everything they say. They would have told us anything to get us to fall into the pond. Like that would have happened, featherlites are not clumsy. We could have burnt our way or, better still, incinerated their heads. I feel sorry for them. As predators go, they’re not that effective. It’s amazing they still exist.’

  Deelind huffed. Only Zara would
be more concerned about them as would-be predators than their predictions but maybe Zara was right. Deelind didn’t care what they said! Coming to that decision she allowed the motion of flying to soothe her and her mind began to calm. She remembered Mug’s words about flying in the valley. Having been at the Upper house every afternoon, she knew everyone was watching outwards and unlikely to have seen her.

  ‘Don’t worry, we were camouflaged while we flew over the forest. No one would have seen us,’ said Zara.

  ‘Camouflage. I forgot about that. How does that work?’

  ‘When we are dragon I can control when we can use it. When we are human it is much harder to use, and you have to control it. Pay no attention to those heads. We will make our own future.’

  Deelind was glad she had been strengthening her wing or she would have never made it this far. Taking extra care, she flew low over the forest looking for the hidden cottage.

  ‘Do you see that? The shimmer over that piece of forest?’ she asked Zara.

  ‘Yes,’ said Zara, her tone speculative, ‘it shields that bit of forest from sight. It is a magic similar to our camouflage. I think that is why we can see it. Others would just see more forest. I think we’ve found the hidden cottage. When you were walking towards the cottage the first time, you encountered that thick mist that most would have turned away from but, because you heard something, you pushed through. That mist is probably part of the same magic encouraging others to turn away from this area.’

  ‘Mug just said that no one can fly in this valley, so the chances of anyone seeing the cottage from above would be slim. Let’s go look. I remember from last time that the clearing in front of the cottage is big enough for a featherlite to land.’

  Tilting her body, she glided towards the shimmer. On penetrating the magical barrier, silvery white sparks sizzled and snapped along her snout, and down her back all the way to the tips of her tail and wings.

  ‘That didn’t really hurt us,’ noted Zara, ‘it was just a little zing because it’s linked to our camouflage magic, but it definitely would have stung and disabled others. They would have had to turn away from here to escape the pain. Whoever put this up definitely didn’t want anyone near here.’

  Seeing the clearing directly below her, Deelind landed smoothly with the cottage in front of her. Too big as a dragon, she went human so that she could explore inside the cottage. Unlike her experience at the cottage attack, she could now transform back and forth while retaining her human belongings and had been doing so all summer when training. Lucy had said in their first training session that she didn’t need to worry about landing up naked after transforming anymore, and the conversation had moved on before she could ask why.

  ‘That is the magic,’ said Zara, following Deelind’s thoughts. ‘Our bond magic is growing and when your human form melds inwards it absorbs your human items. In the beginning the bond was still too young to meet all the needs of transformation.’

  ‘Elp!’ she cried out in horror. She dug in her bag for him and gently pulled him out, hoping he was okay. On seeing his happy face, she bent over in relief, holding her hand over heart. ‘Oh, thank goodness. You’re fine. I thought the worst when I realised you had done the transformation with me. I got quite a scare!’ Elp touched her cheek, his eyes full of reassurance.

  ‘He is fine,’ said Zara. ‘He is magical and not affected by the transforming.’

  Deelind popped her Elpling onto her shoulder and moved into the shell of the cottage. It made her feel sad yet oddly comforted seeing the same cottage she had grown up in, in the middle of the strange new world she now had to live in. Perhaps she should fix it up and use it as a hideaway.

  ‘First, I would need to fix the roof.’

  ‘What needs a roof?’ asked Elp.

  ‘This cottage,’ she said. ‘I am going to fix it up as a place to get away from everything. Clearly no one comes here and with the magical shield in place no one is likely to find it either.’

  ‘If you go to Growing Tree Houses at school you can learn how to grow a roof,’ said Elp.

  Hearing a noise, she looked up at the walls to where the roof should have been and saw the army of Elps that had chased her the last time she was here. Some were standing on the top of the wall with their thorn arrows ready to fire, while others stood in the window aiming thorns at her.

  ‘Go dragon and I can eat them in one move,’ Zara suggested lazily as thick, soft flakes fell to the ground.

  ‘I don’t think eating sticks will be all that tasty,’ Deelind said, wrinkling her nose, ‘and we can’t transform here, we’ll end up flattening the cottage, but you have given me an idea. I do think a demonstration of our might is needed. I have no wish to be on the sharp end of those thorns again.’

  Zara grunted, unimpressed. ‘We’d just burn them. Remember you aren’t alone anymore. Last time you had the choker on. This time you don’t. The battle is ours.’ Deelind felt Zara’s predatorial smile.

  Putting Elp and her bag onto the floor, she turned slowly and addressed the Elps, ‘I need to show you something, but it is not safe here inside this cottage. We must go outside into the clearing.

  A snap of Elps huddled together in heated discussion. Then, at a signal from an Elp within the snap, the Elps in the cottage doorway peeled away, allowing Deelind to pass. As soon as she was in the clearing, she went dragon. She turned in a tight circle looking at the Elps and then went human. The Elps immediately dropped to their knees.

  ‘Forgive us, my lady,’ said an Elp who had stepped forward. ‘We were told to chase everyone away from here and it has been so many years now since we have seen a Dragonknight.’

  ‘I am a featherlite not a Dragonknight, and please call me Deelind. My title is not Lady,’ she said, feeling uncomfortable with being treated like royalty. ‘Who told you to do this?’ she asked as she headed back into the cottage to fetch the Elpling and her bag.

  ‘A princess of course, she had the copper hair. She said we were to guard this place, chase everyone away from it and look after the graveyard,’ said the Elp. He waved his tiny hand and all the other Elps slipped away as quietly as they had come.

  ‘Princess who?’

  ‘I do not know, my lady.’

  ‘Who lived here?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said the Elp. ‘The princess brought us here from the Elder Elp Tree. The cottage was empty.’

  ‘Tell him to fix the cottage up,’ whispered her Elp in her ear. Deelind felt Zara do a double take. A sudden wind whipped up the thick snowflakes.

  ‘What is it, Zara?’ looking around her for signs of danger.

  ‘Look at our Elp. Look closely and tell me what you see. He’s always had more leaves than his fellow Elps, and they’ve always stuck out in different directions that I didn’t really take notice of until now.’

  ‘Elp, please come and sit on my hand for a moment,’ Deelind asked. Elp hopped to her hand, a curious look on his face. Deelind felt her eyebrows shoot up. How could they have not seen it?

  ‘Zara, he appears to have grown a tail. His leaves along his back are lined up like little spines, and the two leaves spread out on each side of his body resemble wings. He looks like an Elp version of a dragon!’

  ‘That’s what I see, too. It must have been such a gradual process that it was easily overlooked.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s more startling. That he looks like a dragon or that he’s grown a tail!’ She felt Zara’s bemused agreement.

  Catching her Elp’s eyes, Deelind said, ‘Zara has just noticed something. Do you realise that your body has shaped itself to look like a mini-dragon?’

  Her Elp nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, I’ve been working on it for a long time. I’m so pleased you noticed. I like having more leaves and growing them differently. I’ve settled on this one because it feels more me. I am Elp to a featherlite, it seems fitting. Do you and Zara like it?’

  ‘We love it,’ said Deelind, feeling Zara’s clear vote on the matter, ‘it su
its you wonderfully.’

  ‘That’s it!’ said Zara. ‘I know what to call him. He’s free-spirited, courageous, loyal and he has a dragon hoard. I even said to you sometime ago that he has the heart of a dragon. We shall call him Dreki. It means ‘little dragon’ in Dragon.

  ‘He is our little dragon of an Elp,’ said Deelind, feeling protective and deep affection for the Elpling. ‘It couldn’t be more perfect.’

  Looking at her Elpling, she felt her eyes soften. ‘Elp, we have decided on your name. Zara has suggested the name ‘Dreki’ which means ‘little dragon’ in the dragon language. She says that you have a heart of a dragon and it is a noble name for such a courageous Elp. Do you like it?’

  ‘I love it and I’m so honoured!’ said Dreki, his chest puffing up in pride and his expression shining with happiness. Delighted in Dreki’s response, Zara’s pleasure washed over her. Just as Deelind high-fived Dreki with her little finger, a movement nearby caught her eye. Bending down towards the Elp standing by her feet, she said, ‘What is your name and your position here?’

  ‘I am Branch Leader Elp Leo,’ said the Elp, ‘and Dreki is not a name for an Elp, even for a young green one like that. I am not sure why they allowed him to be picked in the first place.’

  ‘Elps like their names to begin with Elp and then their first name,’ Dreki whispered into her ear, ‘but I like mine being just Dreki. I was never picked or shaken off. The wind broke me off early in my growth. I think my new name fits me just fine.’

  Ignoring Elp Leo’s opinions on Dreki, she said, ‘Elp Leo, please could you ask all your Elps to fix up the cottage?’ Elp Leo just stood there and looked at her.

  ‘You need to give him an order, not ask him,’ whispered Dreki.

  Deelind rolled her eyes and told Elp Leo to clean up the inside of the cottage, put on a new roof, replace the doors and windows, and tidy up the garden. The garden reminded Deelind about the graveyard, so she went outside to look. Picking up Dreki, she was about to write the names on the gravestones in her notebook when she saw his pencil lead was broken.