by Reilyn Hardy
The bushes rustled at my side and I jumped. It startled me so much, the clamp flew out in front of me and snapped shut. When I went to get it, something stepped in front of me, stopping me from moving any further.
It had long, slender green legs with feet that were facing the wrong way. Pupil-less mookaite eyes that were too big for its small, misshaped head and a thin, eggshell colored beak with pink stains. The beak was long — it could probably poke right through my body with ease. The tip was sharp and a darkest red. It had retractable claws on its small hands, that didn’t seem much bigger than my palms. Its body was shaped like an eggplant, with only its torso covered in thick black hair. This must have been a Skinharvester Drake.
It faced the sky, and made a clicking sound in its throat, and turned back to me. I was frozen in my seat. I couldn’t move. I had never seen anything like it.
It paced back and forth on its backwards feet, watching me, and then it jumped forward.
I made a run for it like the old woman told me to.
When I peered behind me, the Skinharvester Drake had multiplied. There were several now, dozens even, chasing me as I ran.
I ran faster.
I could feel blisters forming on my feet, I think it made them chase me more. The blood I left in the mud. I ran as fast as my feet would carry me, and before I could stop myself, I ran straight into a pond that was hidden deep in the forest.
Poking my head out of the water, I watched the Skinharvesters surround me, but none of them dared to enter the pond.
A lot of creatures were afraid of water, a lot of them were afraid of Beinyth.
They watched me with their beady eyes, and they waited for me to get out. I wasn’t going to. If they weren’t going to go into the pond to get to me, I wasn’t going to leave it.
The water was the clearest I had ever seen, I could see right through it, like I was looking through glass. The only cloudiness was from me and the mud I had tracked into it. Once it settled, it was crystal clear. There was only one thing, I couldn’t see the bottom. It just got darker.
I turned around in the pond and my attention was drawn to the wall it sat in front of.
There were unusual carvings into the black mountain side, faces and bodies which had been covered and dried. They were all lined up beside each other, but I think I was seeing things. It wouldn’t be the first time. There couldn’t be bodies in a mountain side. I had to be seeing things. I was doing that a lot lately, Mithlonde probably wasn’t any different.
The Skinharvester Drakes eventually lost interest in me the longer I stayed in the water. A massive creature came running through to chase the remaining ones away, it resembled a boar, only it was far too big to be a boar.
I got out of the water and went to get a better look at the wall.
I moved a few vines with my hand, and the closer I was, the more they looked like people. A chill came over me and I turned around. I walked back through the forest and away from the pond. I wanted to forget about it. I had to find the trap.
I wasn’t going to return to her a failure.
But a Skinharvester was waiting for me. It eyed my every movement as I got closer, standing in the way of me and my trap. My clothes were dripping wet, and I probably smelled all human again, so I crouched to the ground and got out of the wind.
Then it came running.
I tucked my head down, and rolled on the ground. Twisting my body, I turned back to face it and used my fist to smash the beak of the Skinharvester into the bark of a tree, and scampered to get my trap. I had to reset it.
My hands were trembling, and I couldn’t get the crank to latch. It kept slipping from my fingers. I was getting frustrated and my hands only shook more.
Calm down, Art.
I was trying, but not hard enough.
I took a deep breath and I tried again. I cranked the lever back and managed to latch it that time. The clamp opened and I held it in front of me with the back of it up against my body. When I turned around, the Skinharvester was gone — but its beak was still stuck in the trunk of the tree.
“Their beaks come off,” I sighed. I readjusted my grip on the iron trap. “Good to know.”
I slowly got to my feet but remained crouching low to the ground, holding the trap out in front of me. It was hard to balance and I kept nearly falling forward, but if I leaned too far back, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from going down that way.
I backed up against the tree once more, right beside the beak of the Skinharvester. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell it looked like now since the beak took up most of its face. Maybe it was harmless. I observed the beak stuck into the wood, noticing the lack of blood present around the edges. It didn’t rip from its face, it was removable, like a mask.
I was so distracted by the beak, that I almost didn’t hear it above me. I glanced up and saw it clawing down the length of the trunk. Its face was flat. Circle mouth, no lips, there was just a hole in the front of its face, just beneath its large eyes. With rows and rows of tiny, sharp teeth.
I slid my body to the side and shoved the clamp where I had been sitting, and it snapped shut right on the head of the Skinharvester, splashing me with various bodily fluids I didn’t want to think about. I wiped my face with my sleeve and crawled back over to the tree. I yanked the beak out of the bark and got up, dragging the twitching creature back to the old woman’s hole in the hill.
I caught one.
* * * * *
“Where’s the beak?” She asked, feeling along the edges of the clamp.
I put it down on the table beside the body of the Skinharvester.
“It came off.”
“Amazing.” She clasped her hands around it. She felt through every inch of the beak, seeing it with the touch of her fingers.
“What is?” I asked.
“They never take their beaks off.”
“Is that bad? I knocked it into a tree.”
She shook her head.
“Not at all, just unusual. Unlikely, especially one with absolutely no damage, not that I can feel.” She was still running her hand along the smooth top. “It must have been really hungry. Skinharvester beaks are rare.” She handed it back to me. “Keep it, might come in handy.”
I looked down at the pink-stained white beak in my hands and stuffed it into my bag.
“Thanks,” I said, and she started to prepare her meal.
“I’m Nannu.” She introduced herself and turned her head toward me, bowing it slightly. “Ya have my respect.” I smiled, but I didn’t know what to say. I bowed my head in return. Whether or not she could see me, it was the respectful thing to do.
“Friends call me Mae,” I told her. I didn’t say that my name was Mae, just that it was what I was called. Truth was, I felt disconnected from Maestri of Newacre. I had come so far from there that I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.
Are you sorry? For what you’ve become?
Rhiannon’s words still haunted me.
For living a lie?
I was different now, things were different now. Everything was different. I didn’t know if I liked it but I knew I didn’t like what I had to lose to get there.
What else was I going to lose?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
the obsidian inferno
A few days passed, my body ached less. The bruise on my side was fading. The urgency I had of getting that stone to King Solomon was fading too.
I hunted Skinharvesters for Nannu and she repaid me by letting me stay there, feeding me meat prepared in ways I never tasted in my life — with seasoning and herbs I couldn’t identify, and my favorite, she’d tell me stories when our bellies were full.
I didn’t want to leave Mithlonde, I didn’t want to leave Nannu. I wasn’t sure anymore that I wanted to return to Aridete. What would I be returning to? My best friend was probably dead and as for Rhiannon, maybe she was never really a friend of mine to begin with. Vampires and werewolves were enemies by nature and I should’
ve known better.
Jace’s death was as much my fault as it was hers. I didn’t care about the games they played when he was younger. I didn’t care that they knew each other in the past.
People changed.
They changed sides.
Maybe Rhiannon was a good person before. Maybe she really did care about Jace once when he was a child. But he wasn’t yet a werewolf then. Maybe that made a bigger difference than any of us realized or wanted to believe.
Maybe she didn’t care anymore.
* * * * *
It was really hard to sleep at night when my mind was plaguing me with horrible truths and memories I was desperately trying to forget. I slid out of my hole in the dirt wall. Nannu had dug it out for me while I was hunting, it was a place for me to sleep.
I grabbed my bag and dug through what I had left from my journey — what had made it with me.
It was in really bad shape; beaten, dirtied, torn and falling apart, but I couldn’t get rid of it. It reminded me of home. I might not really feel like Maestri anymore, but Newacre was still my home for the longest part of my life. Being here with Nannu reminded me of that. It reminded me of Weylan and my life with him, when things were simple and safe. When I wasn’t on some quest for the land of dragons with a stupid stone.
There was still a few candles in there, and the books from Edgewick. I took out the one with the dragon on the front, and returned the crumpled first page back into it. The rip mended itself and I open the hollowed book.
The red stone glowed now, brightly, that it nearly blinded me in the darkness of Nannu’s home. I fumbled with the book and it almost slid out of my hands. When I tried to close it, something fell out.
I picked up the strange looking medallion, it was a pocket watch, with three connecting spirals engraved onto the front — the triskelion.
“It’s not easy to blind a dragon.”
I looked up to see Nannu standing there, leaning against her walking stick.
Her voice was calmer than it usually was. It was quieter, and not nearly as eccentric as I was used to. I dropped my hands into my lap, over the book.
“What happened?” I asked, only just realizing that she had never told me.
She took a seat and placed one hand over the other at the very top of her cane.
“There were rebels — my kind. With suspicion that something was very wrong with King Solomon. They no longer wanted to follow him. There was strange anger in his eyes, and looking into them was like looking into a dark abyss. He did unforgivable things, and my kind, they tried to fight for their freedom.”
I didn’t think I wanted to know anymore. My stomach was doing flips. But she kept talking, and I wanted her to stop.
“I was at the front. I was great once —” she smiled. “Not always a stringy haired old woman unable to feed herself. I was magnificent. Ya should’ve seen me. But my kind — our eyes are everything.”
I closed mine.
“He captured me, tortured me. Out on the platform of penitence, ya plagued with guilts that aren’t all ya own. While my own mind tormented me, he anchored the sails of my wings with boulders, moved by the ground dwellers. With the hooks of his wings, red and heated like iron over fire, he blinded me. He did it as a warning to my kind, they would meet the same fate. He would steal their fire. So they fell back. They returned under his command, only it wasn’t good enough. He had no forgiveness left in him and he slaughtered them all.”
“What is your kind?” I asked.
“The Obsidian Inferno,” she smiled weakly. “Among the largest dragons, we were mostly peaceful but could incinerate with a balanced gaze. We could see the emotions of others like a fog that covets their bodies.” Her smile faded suddenly. “I am nothing without my eyes, I am nothing without my kind.”
I frowned.
“You are not nothing,” I said. She didn’t turn to me. “Nannu, you have courage that inspires me,” I continued as I got to my feet, still clutching onto the pocket watch. “You let me stay here. You told me stories, you treated me with kindness. You trusted me, even though you had no reason to. My own blood brought war amongst your kind, turned you against each other — took away your eyes — and you trusted me anyway.”
“Ya just a boy —”
“I am just a boy, Nannu, and I wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for you.”
“But ya leaving now, aren’t ya.”
“I don’t want to.”
I liked it here and I wanted to stay, but this was a fantasy.
I didn’t come all this way to hide.
“You were there for your kind and you didn’t go down without a fight. I have to have the same courage. I can stay here, and continue to catch Skinharvesters until there aren’t any left,” I force myself to laugh. “But I’d be acting out of cowardice. I’ve been acting out of cowardice. I’ve been hiding, Nannu. All those years ago, you wouldn’t have been hiding, and you wouldn’t have let me hide with you.”
Her eyes began to water and she reached out for me. I took her hand with my free one. She squeezed my fingers tightly.
“Ya have bravery I never had, Mae.”
I shook my head. I wished I was brave. I wished I was doing this out of bravery. I wished I was doing this because I was strong.
I wasn’t. I was far from all of those things.
“I’m not brave,” I said. “I’m scared to death. I’m scared of everything. But fear is a killer. It’s done enough damage and I won’t let it get to me. I won’t die being afraid.”
She nodded and kissed the back of my hand.
“He needs ya, ya know. Apollo.”
I frowned again.
“Do you know where he is? Is he here?” I asked.
She shook her head and her hand slipped from mine.
“But I hope ya find him soon, before it’s too late.”
“You saw him, didn’t you? That’s why you called me Apollo.”
She turned away from me for a few seconds, then nodded slowly.
“King Solomon’s hooks, they were coated with something unnatural; from the undead. Apollo was the last thing I saw before the darkness. His face, dark gray eyes. His blood, the last thing I remember smelling — not even my own. But the platform of penitence, it does things to ya. It’s an evil, the Reaper gave it to us. Never go there, Mae.”
I frowned a little more and got to my feet. I didn’t know what any of that meant. I didn’t even know what exactly the platform of penitence was, but the more she spoke, the more I knew I couldn’t stay there with her.
I clutched onto the pocket watch tighter.
“Can you show me where you found me?” I asked and she nodded.
“I think ya will do great things,” she said and got up. She steadied herself with her cane. Nannu pressed her long, boney finger to my chest just over my heart. “As long as ya stay true to no one but yaself.”
I packed up my things, and we left.
* * * * *
It came as a surprise to me that the forest in which she lived was only a small part of the Iron Realm of Mithlonde — but it didn’t surprise me that it was also the most beautiful part.
When she led me back to where she found me, the castle stood clear, even under the pale yellow sky, shining under the light of the black moon. I had asked Nannu about the sky once, and she told me it changed when Mithlonde was moved from Aridete. She had long since forgotten what a blue sky looked like, what falling rain felt like.
It saddened me to know she’d never see a blue sky again, but she told me that her memories of it were something she’d hold onto forever.
At least the air was cleaner there.
The forest was the dampest place in the entire realm, at least from what I could see. The rest was as dry as a desert. So dry that most of the homes were stories below ground, dug deep into the earth so they could dig out their homes and it would dry under the sun, like constructed mud, solid as a rock, aside from the dwelling of the dragon king, whose castle w
as built into the side of a mountain.
It wasn’t far at all from where I stood.
I found the tree I carved the letters into, and it was still stained with my blood. Nannu pulled on my shoulder to make me bend down toward her and she kissed me on my forehead. She tapped my chest again, just over my heart, and nodded before leaving. She didn’t say anything else and I just smiled while she pushed her way back through the forest all on her own.
I turned to the structure which sticking out of the steep, jagged-edged rocky mountain. I wrapped my hand around the Skinharvester beak that hung around my neck. Nannu had made it into a necklace for me. The first time I caught a Skinharvester was the only time I didn’t break the beak. Go figure I wouldn’t get that lucky again.
My other hand gripped the material of my bag, the strap too damaged to be able to hold the weight of its contents. I was fully prepared to go into the castle with everything I had, but it didn’t seem wise in case I’d need a quick getaway.
I dropped to my knees and started to dig a hole for my bag while I tried to come up with ways of getting into the castle. It wasn’t far from where I was, I could walk, but what were the chances I’d be able to get in through the front door? I took off the beak from around my neck and threw it into my bag. I ripped off what was left of the broken strap and lifted my shirt so I could tie it around my body. I tucked the stone into it, so it was pressing up against me, and I moved a little to make sure it would stay in place. I got to my feet and dropped my bag into the hole.
When I start kicking dirt over it to conceal it a little, I noticed a charm of Thirondel had fallen out. Maybe I didn’t have to break into the castle after all.
According to Miko, Thirondel charms could take you almost anywhere as long as you have a clear idea of where you wanted to go. I reached down to pick up the marble and looked back at the castle. I knew where I wanted to go, but I had only seen these used once when Jace had done it in Edgewick, and we had gone to a town, not a specific area — or into a building.