A hundred yards farther on, he saw a tree at the edge of the forest laden with yellow fruit. His stomach noticed, and it growled like a bear. His first food in . . . what? A day? Two? He did not waste time counting but scrambled to the tree. Several oblong fruits lay on the ground underneath. They were larger than his hands, but each one he picked up had soft brownish spots or pits excavated by insects.
Dax saw a dead limb nearby he could use to poke down fruit from the tree. When he picked up the branch, something moved under his grip. A sharp pain lanced his thumb, and he dropped the branch. A small black insect dropped to the ground and scuttled away under the leaf clutter. He looked at his thumb. It was turning red, and a small black bit of something had lodged in his skin. He plucked out the barb with his fingernails. His thumb throbbed, but got no worse. He would survive.
Careful this time, he prodded the branch with his foot before he picked it up again. The stick was long enough to reach the lowest fruits. He knocked down three, but hesitated. Were they good to eat? He tried a nibble. Sweet, and sharply tart. His mouth did not burn, so he tried another bite. His mouth watered, and his hunger demanded more. He forced himself to wait another minute to make sure his stomach did not reject his first bites. Finally satisfied it was safe to eat, he tore into the tasty, pulpy flesh. With a pent-up appetite, he ate all three in a rush.
Juice trickled down his chin, and he wiped it off with his sleeve. Or what was left of his sleeve anyway. His hands stung where the juice touched his open wounds, but after the aching burn of salt water, it was a minor irritation. The fruits had a large pit in the center, but the meaty pulp took the edge off his hunger. Looking around, he spotted two other fruit trees and decided he was not going to go hungry—at least for as long as the fruit was in season.
Safe in the shade of the trees and with his hunger satisfied, he thought about his situation. Where was he? Were there any settlements on this island? After moment, he shrugged. When he did, his pack squished and reminded him of its presence. Dax took the pack off his shoulders and opened it. This time he emptied the pack out and inspected everything carefully. He looked at the soggy mess of his preserved meat. Could he dry it out again? There was food on the island, and after the fruit he had eaten, the meat certainly did not look attractive. He laid it atop a rock in the sun to dry—just in case.
The few clothes in his pack were soaked—again. He went back to the pool and took another long drink of water. Once he was full, he rinsed his clothes in the water and spread them on bushes in the sun to dry. The egg? He inspected it carefully, but it appeared none the worse for its recent treatment. Warm and comforting, it reassured him to hold it in his hands. He laid it in the warm sand at his feet. His hands ached from all the activity, so he soaked them again. He knew he needed to explore the island, but that would have to wait. Exhausted, but with a full stomach, he found a shady spot under a tree. He ate another fruit, and with the egg beside him, he went to sleep.
#
Later in the afternoon, Dax awoke and felt better. He was still in the shade, but the day’s warmth had soaked into his bones. He ate and drank a little more. His muscles were stiff and sore, and he had tender bruises here and there. With his tumble in the surf this morning, he was lucky it was not worse. He had slept, but he was still weary. It took twice as much energy to get to his feet as it should have. He stretched his arms back and forth a few times to limber up. His sunburned skin tingled when he moved. The raw patches on his hands ached, but they did not hurt—unless he used them.
At least his clothes were dry. Awkwardly careful of his painful hands, Dax put everything back in his dry pack. He looked up and down the beach and decided to trust his earlier decision. He headed south, the same way he had been going. Above the wave line the sand was very soft. He sank in to his ankles with each step. Walking was more work than it should have been. Down on the firm, wet sand near the water, the going was easier, but he still tired quickly. He wanted to sit down and rest, but the day would not last forever. He wanted shelter for the night.
Around the next curve in the beach, the ridge behind the shoreline dropped away ahead. There was an inlet from the sea. As he walked on, he saw that the inlet was a major channel leading into a large natural harbor. The channel reached into the interior of the island, where rolling hills were covered with vegetation that looked cultivated. It might have been farmland, except there were no borders or divisions between fields. One type of vegetation wandered up next to another, and the borders meandered off over the land without any type of regular pattern.
At the mouth of the channel, a pale spire rose from a rocky outcrop at the point where the inlet met the sea. The spire was as high as a tall tree, but the long, slim needle tapered to a point at the top. Dax squinted as the spire shimmered in and out of view. What was he seeing? The more he tried to look at the spire, the more it seemed to slide in and out of his vision. He could not look directly at it. What was it? It was not a natural object. He had never seen anything like it. He touched the featureless, pale surface. It was smooth as metal, yet not cold to the touch. No marks or irregularities scarred the surface, but his eyes kept slipping off to the side when he tried to examine it closely. Across the channel, there was a twin spire . . . at least he thought there was. His eyes would not focus on that one either.
Solid as a rock, smooth as glass, and hard to look at, the spires were a mystery. Dax was curious. Unfortunately, the more he examined them, the more his head hurt. Weary as he was, he decided there was nothing to see worth making his head hurt so badly. Other than the spires, everything else on the island had been perfectly ordinary—at least along the shoreline. He looked toward the interior and the strange vegetation. Someone must have put the spires there, and if there were people on the island, they most likely lived around the sheltered harbor. His legs were heavy, but he trudged up the waterway toward the center of the island.
Chapter 16
The critthato were in season, and Styr Sumarlidi-do-Fenrir had a basketful. He was one of the few who sought out the wild fruits where they grew along the great channel and out on the shoreline of the island. The rest of the Kotkel were content to harvest fruit from the meticulously tended trees bordering the communal critthato grove. Those trees bore lush fruit, but in Styr’s judgment the wild trees gave their fruit a special untamed, piquant flavor that produced an interestingly unexpected harmony in the banquet of existence. Therefore, he willingly made the long walk down the great channel toward the sea.
Few of his fellow accompanists in the great song ventured out of their hidden sanctuary for any reason these days. Most Kotkel were truly happy only when they were a part of a gathering singing the Song of Life. Maybe he was a throwback to an earlier day when Kotkel sailed the oceans of the world and even, some sang in the descant of the dreams of elder days, through the cold oceans between the worlds.
The settling’s harmony song faded away as Styr walked down the channel toward the sea. Every time he came this way, he noticed so much of the world around him. The flavors and aromas of wild, untended life filled him with fresh joy and enthusiasm. He always sang so much more vibrantly when he returned. Sometimes his neighbors gently chided his ardor as distracting from their own carefully cultivated harmonies.
Styr stopped, jarred by an unexpected movement ahead. Was that a tataluelhe? Yes, there it was coming around the boundary row of anise bustlebush, the last swirl of darkly emerald green fluting on both sides of the channel. Startled, he stood and stared. What was it doing walking along the channel? How had it gotten past the flèches? Had they stopped working?
Exasperated by the unwanted intrusion into the island’s settled and ordered world, Styr stood waiting until the creature saw him. Although they looked similar to Kotkel, tataluelhe were bigger and coarser-featured. Styr had met them before, the last time when he had accompanied old Jarnsaxa-Sinniali-en-Carralle to the Havens at the end of the archipelago—the place the tataluelhe called Butterock. This one coming toward h
im, however, was not as large and lumbering as most. Its clothes were ragged and tattered—thoroughly disreputable even by tataluelhe standards.
“Hold there,” he commanded in Common when the creature had approached close enough to hear. “Unless you have business with the Kotkel, you must leave.”
The tataluelhe walked too close before it stopped—much too close to be polite. It set down a bag it carried and stared at him. Styr sighed. Maybe the thing could not understand him. He had not used the Common tongue much lately. “Can you understand me?” he asked, speaking slowly.
The tataluelhe nodded. “Yes,” it said. “I’m lost. Can you help me?”
“Lost? You most certainly are. How did you get past the flèches?”
“Flèches? What is that?”
This conversation had a frustratingly large number of questions and so far no answers. “The flèches are the guardian towers,” Styr said and waved his hand up and down as if drawing a picture. “They hide our land—supposedly—from unwanted intrusions.” He looked pointedly at the tataluelhe. “How did you get past them?”
“Are the flèches those tall, pointed things at the entrance to this channel?”
“Yes, of course. They are supposed to turn, uh, human eyes away. They have been our protection for many centuries. If they no longer work, our harmony could be at an end.”
The tataluelhe paused a moment before it replied. “Well, they were doing something. They made my head hurt to look at them.”
“Well, the only ones who can see the truth of our island are the dragon-bound,” Styr snapped. That observation gave him a thought. “Are you dragon-bound? If you are, is your dragon here too? If so, we will wish to communicate with it. Please summon it.”
“Dragon-bound?” The tataluelhe reached up as if to scratch his head and winced. Styr noticed its hands were raw and bleeding. Curious, he looked closer. The poor thing appeared to be injured. Through rents and tears in its garments, he saw its skin was cut and bruised.
After some thought, the tataluelhe replied. “I . . . I guess I’m dragon-bound. Herne said it was likely. I don’t have a dragon. All I have is an egg. . .” It sat down heavily on the packed sand of the path. “I can’t stand up right now. Could you help me?”
Styr looked at the poor thing, and his exasperation faded. This tataluelhe looked to be a young one who had been hurt. Tataluelhe or no, he felt sorry for the creature. “I will try. Do you require food or water?” he offered.
“I would greatly appreciate both, but I also would like to find a shelter for the night.”
Styr offered his water bag, and the tataluelhe drank greedily. He also gave it a critthato from his basket, and that disappeared rapidly as well. When it had finished eating, it looked up at him. “Thank you very much, kind sir. May I ask your name so I can thank you properly?”
Styr smiled to himself. This one at least had manners. Styr recited his sobriquet and family association but did not include his formal designation in the Song of Life or any of his honorifics. Not only were they private among the Kotkel, they would not mean anything to an outsider.
The young one, for Styr clearly saw it lacked the features of a mature tataluelhe, repeated his name carefully until Styr nodded acceptance. It stood up, bowed, and made a formal thank you that was faintly, if quaintly, correct.
Amused, Styr decided that if the young one wanted to be formal, he should respond in turn. “And do you in turn have a name?”
“Leith, honorable sir. Please call me Leith,” the tataluelhe replied and graciously bowed again.
Styr nodded. “Are you feeling better now, Leith?” He gestured to the path. “Could you walk on farther to Maha Gramah? That’s our settling.” He offered it his arm. “We really must talk to Seigneur Marny. If you have a dragon’s egg, we must see to it. Yes, Marny is definitely the one we need to talk to.”
Styr let the tataluelhe lean on him for support. He knew it would change the harmony if he brought this outsider into the village, but the creature needed help. Besides, he thought with amusement, some of those discomforted by his own occasional less-than-euphonic contributions to the Song of Life would certainly enjoy building a new contra melody to include this tataluelhe in the great song.
Chapter 17
There was indeed a community at the end of the channel. When Dax had spotted the first signs of habitation, he had the disturbing thought this might be Zodas’s pirate harbor. Lost and desperate as he was, he had continued on cautiously. Soon he had glimpsed a small figure on the path. A Kotkel! It had to be. This was no pirates’ lair. Several of Evnissyen’s lessons had described the Kotkel, but no one he knew had ever seen one of the legendary race. His tutor had never seen one. Had his father?
The Kotkel, Styr, had called the community a settling and named it Maha Gramah. From the way Styr spoke the name Maha Gramah, it meant something more than just a place name. The whole encounter was confusing. At one moment Styr would be speaking perfectly good Common, but then he would use words and ideas that had no meaning. Dax was thickheaded with exhaustion. As he staggered along with help from Styr, he decided maybe the conversation would make sense later.
They had walked a long way, but when Dax asked, Styr said they had been in the settling for some time now. No other Kotkel were on the path along the inlet, but the farther they went, the more elaborate the plantings in among the hedgerows became. Side paths intersected the path they followed, and here and there he saw a sprinkling of white cottages that looked like large, puffball mushrooms. Maybe the term settling meant something like a garden?
Closer to the harbor, Dax glimpsed an occasional Kotkel in the distance. He had never seen anything like the settling. A growing sound added to the strangeness. At first it was just a suggestion of a whisper on the wind, but individual tones became more distinct the farther they walked. It could have been a song, except it did not have a real melody like tunes the minstrels sang at the castle. Unusual harmonies and cadences confused his ears. Some of the tones had inflections as if they were words. Dax was so tired that he let the sound flow over and past him. He had to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other.
Styr had said they were going to see someone called Seigneur Marny, and seigneur sounded like a title—mayor? But they did not go directly there. As they walked, or rather, as Dax hobbled along begging for frequent stops, Styr suggested they go to see Figgeir instead of Marny. Figgeir’s full name was long and complicated, but Styr used the words “physician to all creatures” in his description of her role in the settling. It was only later Dax figured out why Styr had taken him to a veterinarian. By the time they got there, Dax was practically out on his feet.
Figgeir’s dwelling was small and round, and it sat on the ground like a white bubble with a flattened bottom. The door was ordinary enough, although Kotkel in size, but the windows were bubbles of clear crystal set into the walls. A Kotkel answered the door at Styr’s knock, and Styr spoke a greeting in a strange language. Dax stared blankly into the doorway until Styr shifted into Common and gestured toward him. “He says his name is Leith,” Styr said. He turned to Dax and said, “Leith, this is Figgeir.”
Dax focused his attention on the other Kotkel, Figgeir. She gestured for him to step inside. He blinked as his brain finally caught up. This was the doctor. “Thank you,” he mumbled to Styr, and he stepped through the door. The room inside was as white as the outside. It was a fair-sized space containing a number of benches laden with bottles, bags, and equipage of all sorts. A small desk sat under one of the windows, with a more ordinary-looking table nearby.
Figgeir guided him to a chair. “Sit here while I evaluate you, Leith.”
Dax dropped down onto the chair and looked at the doctor. In a daze of exhaustion, he just sat and let her examine him from top to bottom, probing into every orifice. Dax was so tired that he was oblivious to most of what Doctor Figgeir did, but her last little procedure got his attention. She placed an object on the pad of his little finger. A
sharp poke made him jump. When Figgeir took the object away, he could not see a mark. He looked up her, but she was busy examining the end of the object that had nipped him. “Excuse me, ma’am.” Dax had to stop to clear his throat. “What was that?”
“I needed a sample of your flesh,” she said without looking up. Finally she looked at Dax. “That completes the preliminary examination.” She looked him over once more and glanced at the instrument in her hand. “You are tired,” she announced, “and it will take time before I have the information I need to proceed.” She went to one of the benches and came back with a small cup of liquid. “Drink this. It will help. You will sleep, and while you are asleep, I will treat you.”
Dax did not hesitate and swallowed the drink. It was tasteless but creamy on his tongue. He handed her back the cup. Suddenly he thought of Mathilde and her poisoned milk, but in the next moment, his logy thoughts caught up. What Figgeir had said was the truth. She would help him. He relaxed, and the pulse of dragon anger died before it could bloom.
Figgeir showed him to a small, adjoining room. It had a window but no furnishings except a built-in bed with storage below. For the moment, that was all the furnishing Dax needed. He stuffed his pack underneath and fell onto the bed.
#
The next day, or at least Dax assumed it was the next day, he awoke with the sun in his eyes and an appetite in his belly. He had been dreaming of Anna. The dream faded out of his memory as he opened his eyes, but he remembered they had been running up a hill together. They had been happy . . . and together. He sighed. The dream was gone, and he had to face the day. Alone.
King's Exile: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 1 Page 25