Sarah ceased her struggling and heard Mr. Creepy chortle from behind her. Steve had shown her exactly what to do in situations like this. Sarah took a deep breath. Here we go.
Sarah stomped down on Mr. Creepy’s right foot. Hard. He bellowed and she felt his arms go slack, although he hadn’t completely released her. She took a step to her left and rammed her right fist straight into Mr. Creepy’s groin. This caused him to double over in pain. His eyes bulged as both of his hands clutched his damaged anatomy. Sarah then twisted to her right, hooked her left hand behind Mr. Creepy’s neck, and then twisted back after planting her right hand on the small of his back.
Mr. Creepy was flung through the air and crashed heavily onto the ground. A hush fell over the crowd. A small child started to cry.
Smiling victoriously and running on an extreme adrenaline rush, Sarah turned to look at the thug holding Cora in place. As much as she didn’t want to reveal to the townsfolk that she was a teleporter there was no way she could let harm befall Cora. What should she do to her attacker? Well, she could –
A hand holding a damp cloth slapped over her mouth. Sarah took a breath to scream but instead she breathed in sweet, sickly fumes. Before she knew what was happening she had succumbed to the trichloromethane and passed out. One of the heavily muscled thugs slung her over his shoulder, much like one would do with a sack of flour, and walked away while another tucked the cloth he had doused with chloroform into his back pocket. Moments later Mr. Creepy, after regaining his feet, gave a dismissive wave to Cora and waited as the thug dropped her, unceremoniously, onto the grass covered ground. Mr. Creepy walked over to where Sarah’s unconscious form rested, slung over one of his henchmen’s shoulder. He grinned maliciously at the people staring at them and waited until, one by one, all the townsfolk dropped their gazes to the ground and kept it there. Whistling a merry tune, Mr. Creepy followed his henchmen towards a non-descript wagon waiting nearby.
“So why’s he want her so bad?” the thug carrying Sarah asked Mr. Creepy.
“I have no idea why the sheriff wants her. I don’t care, either.”
Chapter 12 – A Promise Kept
“Hold tight. It’ll wear off in just a moment. I’ll create a couple of fireballs for you, okay? That ought to warm you up. It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it? The first time it happened to me it shocked me senseless.” Seeing how the young girl had started shivering, he increased his own body temp by a few more degrees and waited for the dragon to break through the thick layer of clouds.
Everything had been going great. Perfect, actually. Every time Pryllan beat her wings the dwarf girl giggled with delight. Now, however, the dragon had decided she was going to show off a little and therefore rise higher into the sky. The first cloud they passed through coated them with a fine chilly mist. Steve shrugged it off as his jhorun compensated by increasing his core temperature. Aislinn, on the other hand, had gasped with shock and was rendered as still as a statue. Steve had to lean over to see for himself that she was alright.
“I have never felt anything like that before,” Aislinn whispered, after she had regained her composure.
“Really?”
The young dwarf girl craned her neck to look up and back at him. She gave him a disquieting look. “There aren’t many clouds underground.”
Steve snorted in disbelief and then chuckled. “Let me ask you something. Are all dwarves born with a healthy dose of sarcasm?”
Aislinn flashed him a smile and returned her attention to their steady ascent. The cloud bank they seemed to be stuck in stretched endlessly on. Higher and higher they rose as Pryllan valiantly tried to punch her way through the clouds. Bright sunshine temporarily blinded them. They had finally emerged from the thick bank of clouds. Steve blinked his eyes. He had, unfortunately, been directly facing the sun as they had emerged, so he naturally was seeing teeny tiny little spots everywhere. His eyes cleared and he looked around. His eyes widened. They had just broke through the clouds, which meant –
Steve threw an arm around Aislinn’s tiny waist and held her tight. With his other hand he gripped the large scale they were sitting on.
“What’s the matter?” Aislinn inquired. “Why are you alarmed?”
“Wait for it,” Steve quietly told her. “She’s gonna hit it right about…”
They were slammed backward, as though they had just been released by one of R’Tal’s huge catapults. They felt Pryllan grunt with concentration as she angled her wings first left and then right. Using her tail as a rudder she kept them level and pointed in the right direction as the powerful tailwinds picked them up like a child’s toy and flung them east.
“We’ve been up this high a few times,” Steve explained to the girl. “Once you can get high enough, and you clear the clouds, you can find some really strong winds that will pretty much carry you to the other side of the kingdom, all with minimal effort on Pryllan’s part to stay aloft. It comes in handy.”
“Which way are we heading?” Aislinn asked. She looked up at the overhead sun, which was almost directly ahead of them and looked back at Steve. “Are we flying east?”
Steve nodded. “Very good, Aislinn. That’s right. We’re heading east.”
“Why?”
“Umm, what?”
“Why are we heading east?”
“Why not?”
“That’s not an answer.”
Steve smiled. He was liking this dwarf underling more and more.
“It’s the answer I have to give.”
“Have you ever seen the sea, young dwarf?” Pryllan’s voice asked.
Aislinn fell silent.
Pryllan? A dwarf is generally afraid of the water. They can’t swim. They sink.
Oh. I thought she might be interested in seeing a body of water larger than any she has ever seen before.
Pryllan’s right wing dipped low and she started to turn.
What are you doing? Don’t turn around now. Aislinn will know something’s up.
Something is up. I don’t want to frighten the poor child.
Just keep the aerobatics to a minimum and we’ll be fine.
Are you insinuating I am a reckless flyer?
Not at all.
Pryllan hesitated.
Do I become so in the future?
Not really, no.
Not really? What does that mean?
Steve sighed.
From time to time you’ve been known to take a few risks.
I find that difficult to believe.
I know you do.
You are a strange human.
I know that, too.
“So can you tell me how we met?” Pryllan inquired, using her normal voice so that Aislinn would feel included.
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you without jeopardizing something in the future.”
“How would that impact your wellbeing in the future?”
“What if I change something by telling you of our first encounter and that influences your decisions from now on? You might end up doing something else that day besides finding me and saving my life.”
“I saved your life during our very first encounter?”
“Damn. That one slipped out. Yes, you did.”
“Fear not,” the dragon complacently told him. “The passage of time has a way of righting itself if something goes wrong. Some things were just meant to be.”
Steve looked up from where he and Aislinn had been staring at the soft blanket of clouds far beneath them and saw that Pryllan had bent her neck around to look him in the eye.
“I wish I had your certainty. Okay, let’s see. I had been kidnapped and had managed to free myself. However, I was in a strange country wandering aimlessly by myself. I was lost. Anyone who knows me would attest to the lousy navigational skills I possess. Anyway, Kahvel had told you about my predicament and enlisted your aid to find me. You’re the one who did.”
Aislinn twisted around in her seat and gave him an appraising stare. “How cou
ld someone kidnap you? You’re too big.”
“Someone snuck up behind me and conked me over the head,” Steve recalled as he absentmindedly rubbed the back of his head. “When I awoke I was tied up in the back of a wagon. I freed myself and then foolishly set off on my own to try and find Sarah.”
“Is she your wife?” the girl wanted to know.
Steve nodded. “Right. No one could find me nor did I have any chance of finding my way back. Kahvel, that’s Pryllan’s mate, was supposed to be our guide and I know he felt bad about losing me under his watch so he enlisted Pryllan’s help to try and locate me just as quickly as possible.”
“That was nice of her.”
“I thought so then, too.”
“I must have known who you were,” Pryllan said more to herself than anyone. “I must have remembered our meeting from this time. Why else would I willingly volunteer to look for a human?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you were being nice?”
Pryllan shook her massive head, as though she had just swallowed something and had not cared for the taste.
“Rinbok Intherer has said, repeatedly, that we weren’t to trust humans and to keep our distance from them. I only now begin to realize just how misguided his preconception of all humans can be.”
Feeling a kink develop in his left knee, Steve stretched out his leg for a few moments. Aislinn also fidgeted within his grasp. She was trying to sit up straighter and pull the blankets her parents had wrapped around her off. Steve tapped her on the shoulder.
“What are you doing? Is everything okay?”
Aislinn pulled the outermost blanket from her shoulders and folded it into a square. She braced herself against Steve’s left arm and lifted herself up a few inches, sliding the makeshift cushion into place as soon as it had enough room. Twisting around Aislinn laid a hand on Steve’s chest. She stared up at him in awe.
“You are warm. Very warm.”
“My wife tells me that all the time,” Steve told her, with a smile.
Can you feel the child’s heartbeat?
Surprised that Pryllan had switched back to communicating telepathically, Steve hesitated before looking at the dragon’s distant head. At the same time Pryllan turned her neck to the left and gave them each a quick glance to make sure they were okay.
I could if I held my fingers up to her throat, Steve wryly thought to the dragon. I might have a difficult time explaining that one. Why do you ask?
It grows stronger. The child’s health is returning.
Has the shachar been created?
It has. I felt it form the moment she was placed on my back.
I’m sorry for getting you into this mess, my friend.
And I trust you will get me out of it.
I will. I don’t know how, but I will.
I believe you.
“Do you think we’re far enough away from the valley now? I’m sure Aislinn would love to see what’s below us.”
Pryllan turned her head until she was staring at the two riders on her back.
“How did you know I was trying to avoid the valley?”
“Please. That’s an easy one. You want to make sure we’re not seen by any other dragons so Mr. Grumpypants doesn’t learn what we’re doing.”
Aislinn let out a soft giggle. Pryllan gave them a throaty chuckle.
“We should be far enough away to avoid detection. Let us begin our descent.”
“Will everyone please raise your seatbacks into the upright and most uncomfortable position and lock your tray tables into place?”
“What was that?” Aislinn asked.
“I do not understand your meaning,” Pryllan added.
Steve shook his head. “Oh, forget it. It was just a joke.”
Sensing her riders might like a thrill, Pryllan tucked her wings close to her body and bulleted straight down. She punched through the thin layer of clouds so hard that it created a sizeable hole in the clouds that rapidly expanded in size. All Steve could do was hold on as Pryllan plummeted ever closer to the ground. Or water, as was the case for them.
Aislinn was shrieking with delight. Her eyes were alive with wonder she clutched Steve’s arm with both of hers. In spite of their current predicament, Steve felt a sense of shock overwhelm him. Aislinn was gripping with a strength she simply didn’t have an hour ago. Was her health returning to her that quickly?
Several hundred feet above the surface of the water Pryllan snapped her wings open and arrested their fall. A split second later she was cruising along just as easily as she had been prior to their sudden drop from the sky. Steve cleared his throat and tapped the nearest scale to get Pryllan’s attention.
“Give us a little bit of a warning before you do that again, okay?”
“Is there a problem?”
“I’m told dragons don’t like anyone peeing on them.”
“That is correct. It… Have you –”
“No, I haven’t,” Steve assured her with a laugh. “Although I don’t think it would have taken much more, let me tell you.”
“My most profound apologies.”
“Nuh-uh. No you don’t. No apologizing.”
Aislinn sat up and flung the last blanket off of her as if it had been the most uncomfortable item of clothing she had ever touched.
“That was so much fun! Let’s do that again! Everyone must love dragons!”
“I think one rapid descent will be quite enough,” Pryllan told the underling.
“You’re right, of course,” Aislinn added, surprising them by switching gears faster than anyone could follow. “Look at all the water! It’s everywhere!”
“You do know that dwarves are supposed to be afraid of water, don’t you?” Steve asked, giving Aislinn a friendly nudge on her shoulder.
“Because we can’t swim? If we need to cross the water then we’ll just find another way to do it. I’ll bet we could build something that could carry us across.”
Steve bit his lip. “Like a boat?”
Aislinn beamed her delight up at him.
“Yes! You’re smart, for a human. We could build boats that can carry us across the surface. That way no one would have to get wet.”
“Why would a dwarf need to cross the water?” Steve hesitantly asked, afraid of what he’d hear for an answer.
“Why, to get to the other side, silly!”
Steve groaned and Pryllan chuckled.
Aislinn effortlessly rose to her feet and, while holding Steve’s arm, cautiously peered over the side of Pryllan’s body to see what was directly beneath them. It didn’t work. Pryllan was just too massive.
“A moment, if you please,” the dragon told them. “I will help.”
Steve held on to Aislinn’s arm while Pryllan simultaneously banked left. Once she was executing a flawless left turn, and with the dwarf girl stretching out as much as she was able, they could see the dark blue choppy waters of the sea.
“There’s so much water,” Aislinn softly murmured. “Does it have a name?”
“The Sea of Koralis, as the humans call it,” Pryllan told her.
“That isn’t the first time I’ve heard a dragon say, ‘as the humans call it’,” Steve casually remarked as he looked over at Pryllan’s head. It didn’t matter. The dragon wasn’t watching him. “What do you call it if you don’t use the names the humans gave it?”
“Wyverians do not have the same foibles as the humans,” Pryllan answered as she righted herself and continued east. “We do not see the need to name every stream we discover, or each mountain peak we have nested upon.”
“How do you keep track of what’s what? What if you wanted to find a particular section of a river, or maybe a specific mountaintop again? How would you do it?”
“I would use the Collective. We see, we share, we know.”
Steve grunted. He couldn’t fault that logic.
“Your way is more efficient.”
“There’s less chance of forgetting a name,” Pryllan agreed.
“What comes first? The dragon or the egg? I’d say ‘dragon’ ‘cause you need a dragon to lay the egg.”
“But doesn’t the egg hatch a dragon? Wouldn’t that qualify as coming first?”
“I, er, hey Pryllan, care to help me out?”
Pryllan turned her long graceful neck to peer at the dwarf girl. She wisely avoided the question.
“How are you feeling, young one?”
Aislinn smiled at Pryllan with a tenderness Steve didn’t know a child could possess.
“Better than I have ever felt my entire life. I am content.”
She sure doesn’t sound like a kid.
She seems wise for her age, Pryllan agreed.
I’ve heard that children with terminal illnesses have a tendency to act and behave like adults.
“You have been healed, young Aislinn,” Pryllan gently told her.
“Your father told you what was going to happen, right?” Steve hesitantly asked. “He told you about the life debt?”
Aislinn turned her inquisitive eyes on Steve and gazed thoughtfully at him.
“I heard him say something about it but I am still confused as to what it is.”
“A life debt, or shachar as it is known to wyverians, comes from ancient times,” Pryllan patiently explained. She banked to her right and began to head back towards the distant shore. “Way back before the time of our oldest elders we dragons were given powerful jhorun. We –”
“Hold up,” Steve interrupted as he raised a hand. “I seem to recall asking you before if dragons had any type of jhorun and I do remember you clearly telling me you didn’t.”
“Dragons don’t use jhorun,” Aislinn piped up as she stared first at Steve and then over at Pryllan’s head.
“Not in the conventional sense, no,” Pryllan admitted. A wind had picked up and was trying to push them down towards the surface of the sea. Pryllan beat her wings a few times to gain altitude. “The humans have incorrectly defined jhorun as a mystical force within themselves that gives them the ability to do a certain task. They believe, incorrectly, that only humans have this ‘gift’.”
A Portal for Your Thoughts Page 28