A Liaden Universe® Constellation: Volume Two

by Sharon Lee

The full morning brought a chill breeze carrying odors familiar and unfamiliar, this one becoming strong enough to flap the leaves and change the progress of the tree through the water. The wave action felt more pronounced, from time to time giving the tree a high end and a low.

  If the tree dreamed, it was not sharing.

  Stregalaar stretched, nibbled on a pod, and threw himself skyward, the shore invisible until he caught the wind and soared higher.

  It wasn’t until he gained more height that he saw his tree was part of a mass of stuff, its top branches now gathering in other flotsam. There were other smaller clumps about, but they all seemed to be moving in a wide curve, as if the river’s current reached this far and no further.

  Tree Gift or not, he knew he could not live only on pods, so he soared even higher, looking for likely schools of fish, or even perhaps some of the small seaflyers. That idea intrigued him, but then he looked down to the tree. The seaflyers, even at half his weight, were able defenders when alone and aggressive predators in groups. Perhaps this was not the time to test his skills thus. Perhaps the best choice would be small fish after all.

  * * *

  Foraging took longer than he had expected. The fish here were less relaxed than those closer to the shore, more alert to shadows. He was accustomed to keeping an eye on the spray to gauge surface winds, and had depended on the breaking waves to bring fish back to the surface. Lacking comfortable reference points, the simple act of fishing required more energey than he was used to.

  More, he found himself staying within easy sight of the Laar, concerned twice when he’d misunderstood its motion in the swirling current.

  There was also the inconvenient lack of nearby perch or rock on which to eat the prey at long-last captured. He could eat some of the smaller fish in flight, but others took a place to work and rend; and of the flotsam available, his tree was the most stable and the most familiar. He had always kept to Hargalaar’s rule about not filling the nest with fish bones, but this was problematic now.

  Lacking better options, he returned to the Laar to eat. After, he cleaned as well as he could, pushing the scraps over the edge of the nest and into the sea. The meager catch had taken the edge from his hunger, but he knew that soon he would be wanting a larger meal.

  His eyes were drawn to an unusual trunkside motion—something was pulling the scraps he had cleared below the surface of the water. This would bear watching: he surely didn’t want to attract pests or competitors!

  Returned to thoughts about the future, Stregalaar moved again to the dreamspot, closing his eyes against the distractions of outer sight.

  There was no muttering to be heard in the dreamplace, no visions, no voices. Rather, there was the feeling of being watched, a feeling akin to the one he’d had when faced with being accepted. The tree was aware of him, the way Hargalaar had known when he slept and when he woke.

  Concerned, he tried dreaming at the tree—

  “Laar, I would sleep in my nest!”

  For a moment, perhaps, a hum. A twitch of leaves.

  A small pod, bright green, beckoned, releasing a scent of fresh water and clean sweet juices.

  Branch-with-wings . . . Stregalaar straightened eagerly. The Laar spoke—but so faint! Almost, it seemed to be his own thought, a memory or—your nest is here. He settled his wings noisily. It was, after all, only a memory of what the tree had promised to provide when first he had arrived. Ever since he’d had a nest, and sweet pods, and a thing to do—to be the wings and the eyes of the Laar.

  What more did he need at the moment? The tree was providing a place to sleep and pods. What more could a dragon need—

  Reality he knew: in a while, he would need food. In a while again, he would need a place to sleep.

  In the meantime, the Laar needed what a tree always needed: a dragon to see to the tree’s environment as best he could. Were the fishes feeding on the branches as well as the scraps? Would Stregalaar need to eat in-flight and drop scraps randomly?

  Working with this dreamless and wordless message, the dragon snatched at the small ripe pod and took again to the air.

  * * *

  The air was clearer now, and the angle of light made it easier to see into the waves. Stregalaar noted that as he caught the wind and soared, tucking the thought away as he had tucked away the information that the long-eared nibblers expected danger from the ground or that root grubbers in a group would put up a dangerous fight.

  In this light, he could also see the debris from the land swirling into a pocket of current and moving on, the sand-rich water easily distinguishable from the green-blue of the greater ocean. Higher he soared, and finally he saw land, a misty edge on the horizon.

  Between the land and the Laar, much closer to the traveling tree than the misty land, was a mass of green and brown and beige. Stregalaar knew what islands were, but he couldn’t recall seeing this one earlier, though he might have missed it in the fog. He dipped a wing and started a long glide in that direction, sharp eyes unable to make sense of what he saw, until he realized that this was like the Laar’s progress through the waves, except much bigger. Where the branches, grasses, and flotsam that traveled with the Laar were barely twice the canopy in size, this mass was big enough for a dragon to land on, could he find a suitable spot amid the jumbled junk. And where the Laar’s shape could be picked out from its companions from a height, the large mass seemed random, like sticks on the sand on a stormtide morning. Too, there was a busyness—a motion around the thing that drew his hunter’s eyes without informing him.

  A wing flashed and that quickly, he had the pattern. It was a flock of seaflyers playing in the air near the large mass; their motion that had drawn his eye and confused him all at once. Stregalaar slowed his approach. Seaflyers . . . were risky. They seldom came to the beach, which was well for dragon and for seaflyer. While they could soar, most of their time was spent close to the surface of the water, from whence they could alight, float, and take off. Unlike dragons, they were comfortable diving for their food if need be. It was rare to find one solitary; they hunted, nested, and slept in flock. These, now that he could see them clearly, were wheeling and diving over the mass in a fashion far from random.

  Stregalaar let his wings work the air for altitude; he had no love for the seaflyers. Still, they were hunters, and what one hunter had found was of interest to another hunter.

  From his height, Stregalaar could see swarms of fish loitering in the current from the shore, and as he approached the large mass their numbers and variety increased. Was this concentration of prey what had excited—

  No, there!

  A flash of red stripe, a charge of green-gray, and then the surface of the mass was quiet again, but where the movement had taken place, the seaflyers retreated, circled, dived.

  The next motion came: a seaflyer skimming in from the ocean side zoomed toward some cavity within the floating junk, dipped with intent, but was torn from the air by—

  Dragons.

  Now the mass of flyers rose, and their numbers Stregalaar could not count. They swooped toward the large mass in waves, careful of the tattered body of the one who had come too close and so found them their target. Several flyers landed and faced their antagonists, who lunged from the morass with good effect.

  Dragons. Stregalaar saw them clearly now. Klenveer was one; Trunveer another. They stood on downed flyers and met the others with tooth and talon!

  From his height Stregalaar could see a group of cornered green-gray pressed amid a floating mass of branch and shattered trunks, some cowering, some standing in line to defend themselves and those younger yet.

  The line was fronted by Chenachyen, whose adult colors were coming on fast. A pair of flyers attempted to strike through to the young. Her beak caught one, and the second was ripped from the sky by Trunveer, who was up, wings beating the air, her huntmate . . .

  Klenveer—Klenveer was not looking good. He dragged a wing, his steps faltered, the second eyelid obscuring his
sight.

  Wings folded, Stregalaar chose a swarm of flyers swooping purposely toward Klenveer at low level, slid in behind them as they fell into attack formation, opened his sound tube, and whistled a challenge at full volume as he struck the trailing ones from behind with extended claws and collided heavily with three more before pulling up and away. He’d lost little speed, twisting now and skimming the top of the floating mat, striking at the bobbing heads of flyers attempting to land near the dragon lair.

  Now Trunveer screamed, her keening drawing echoes from the massed younglings. Stregalaar feared for her mate, but his charge sounded next, and he rose in full fury from the mass, his wing uninjured, willfully plunging into the mass of attackers, leaving falling, failing flyers in his wake.

  Stregalaar’s turn brought him into a group of the things. Some scattered but two raked his wings with beak and claw; he twisted hard and used the leverage of his weight and speed to knock one of them from the air. That one tumbled soundlessly while others took the time gained to reform a wedge of attack. He turned into it, intending to meet it head-on with his weight but Chenachyen’s scream of warning brought him to his senses and he pulled back so suddenly that he struck a flyer whose pounce was interrupted.

  Chenachyen was rising now, and the startled flyer whose interception had been interrupted squawked away from her.

  Wings grabbing air, Stregalaar rose, circled, and rose again, watching the seaflyers who now confronted four dragons in the air, three low and one high. The noise was tremendous; Klenveer’s whistle an amazement as he swooped upon wounded flyers, and the flyers, wounded or not, screamed challenges and threats, the young dragons adding what they could . . .

  A scan of the sky showed none of the flyers above him: with his wingspan and speed, it was hard for them to outfly him. The ones lower were no longer crowding the dragons, content instead to circle and scream, staying well-back from Klenveer, so much so that Trunveer took one out of the air who had overlooked her path.

  Stregalaar circled, trying not to overfly the crowd of seaflyers, who seemed to be weary of the altercation. The flyers withdrew to the leading seaside of the matted debris while he continued his orbits, and Trunveer settled alertly near the younger as Chenachyen and Klenveer used the oncoming breeze to hover over the landside edge protectively.

  Satisfied with the stand-off for the moment, Stregalaar locked his wings and rose, taking time to glance at the aching spots in his wings. There were wide scratches and a touch of blood, but no tear in the membrane itself as far as he could see or feel. Better, his talons had taken no damage; a broken or missing claw being a hazard he could ill afford in these strange and dangerous skies.

  A whistle from below. Chenachyen was slowly rising to his altitude, doing her best as well not to approach the flyers. She was aided by something he’d barely noticed in the excitement of the battle: the wind had changed direction, and now the breeze was tending landward.

  Chenachyen whistled again, this time indicating a wing survey . . .

  Good; they would both look the other over, then, though her sure flying appeared to mask no injuries.

  She rose past him, circling slowly, hovering while he peeled hard landward and soared above, then expertly lifted wingtips to circle above and below her, seeing no sign of tear or blood.

  He took a closer look then, swooping till their wingtips nearly met.

  “Why?” he clicked. “Trunveer and Klenveer? You, here?”

  “The fear. The Laar was gone. You were gone and then the trees shook again. Veer lost leaf and nest branch, Chyen’s roots shook until it was cast aside, broken on the broken ground. Some of the saplings stood—and then the water!”

  They circled, breeze rippling their alignment; they switched wingtips and went on.

  “Pauveer flew at the sea, as if to fight the waves . . . but he’d seen Veer carried off. The younglings followed, the Tree Masters followed. There was another shake and more water. We flew and landed where we could.”

  “So you follow the trees?”

  She peeled away at that, wingtips fluttering unreadably, then slowly returned.

  “Veer is wood without dream. Chyen is gone to pieces. If the trees live, it is in the few saplings. We would return to the grove and live there with the saplings, coaxing, hoping roots of one of the elders still live to recover, so the trees do not lose themselves.”

  It was his turn to let the wind-ripple move him away.

  “But that is not done—why?”

  “The younglings . . . ” she began, and then flexed claws with meaning. “The younglings were too tired to fly back, in that light, so we slept and ate and rested, and waited for the badly injured to die. Then the seaflyers came, accusing and fighting and abusing the dying. I stood as brood watcher while Trunveer and Klenveer kept them away. At morning light we meant to return to the grove. They came, as you found us.”

  “New light, to the grove,” Stregalaar said, wingtips quivering. “I will guard with you then, until new light. The young cannot fly against these.”

  He swooped then, as if diving toward the seaflyers; and from below came Klenveer’s screech as he rose, also heading toward the flock.

  Almost as one the seaflyers lofted, filling the air with imprecations and boasts, heading down the coast, late-risers streaming behind the front, some few, braver than the rest, turned toward Stregalaar, whose course was now to follow, Chenachyen comfortably at his side—and the flyers turned and joined their brethren, swooping so low over the ocean that even a dragon might have a hard time choosing a target.

  The while, Chenachyen clicked her beak, while Stregalaar’s whistle echoed behind them.

  * * *

  Pauveer was among the younglings, a well-cleaned bloody patch on one wing. He ducked his head when Stregalaar hovered and then dropped to the damp tree trunk near him, speaking to the youngsters: “Stregalaar Tree Master was first to lose his tree to the world, but it was not from lack of watching nor lack of courage. His Laar was the first guardian against the sea, and those of the sea respect him.”

  Klenveer whuffed and turned his back on this, but he said nothing to dismiss Pauveer’s story.

  Stregalaar clicked his beak, and let Trunveer know his intentions.

  “Chenachyen says you return to the grove on morning light. I will help guard until the young are airborne.”

  Trunveer walked down the trunk of the dead tree.

  “Not to the grove again? You might find a tree to groom for your offspring’s nest, you know.”

  He whistled a negative, and again.

  “Pauveer, who has no tree, will not fight you for Chenachyen, who has no tree.” Trunveer continued.

  Stregalaar flapped his wings, resettled.

  “The grove guarded me until I grew. I will guard these so you may return them to the grove.”

  Trunveer flapped once, turned away.

  “It happens.”

  * * *

  The mass was noisy in the night, with wood squealing against wood, complaining younglings full of complaint at the world, even the foam of the sea hissing as waves passed under and around them. Stregalaar felt for the dream source and found none here. These trees were no more, their presence, necessities, and dreams fled elsewhere.

  He did as he said he would: acted as guard. He noticed nothing untoward, excepting the lack of presence. He slept between moments, the slow twirl of the tree raft permitting him to close one eye and hood the other, using the sighting of a new star through the second eyelid as a mark to wake, to move about and be aware, then to return to contemplation.

  It was during a period of contemplation that he dreamed after all, a dream of his own tree, Laar, pushed by tide and wind into some unfamiliar cove, a dream of the Laar growing into the side of a hill and of him, Stregalaar, carrying pods to mountains as tall as he could fly.

  There came a flash of night fire in the sky, then to wake him, and he settled his wings, wondering how he dared dream for a tree.

 
In the morning, he guarded as well, this time from overhead, while Chenachyen helped feed the youngest and Trunveer, Klenveer, and Pauveer gathered the rest together.

  Eventually, Pauveer was airborne, gaining height by circling the matted vegetation just once, and heading slowly back toward the old land and what the sea might have left of the grove. Behind him, the dozen of others rose, gathered their direction, with Trunveer in their midst and Klenveer high behind them.

  Chenachyen’s flight was not so straight line as the others, and she eventually rose to his height over the empty flotsam.

  “There will be need for guards at the grove,” she offered gently as they soared, wingtip to wingtip in a slow turn.

  “The Laar yet lives,” he replied. “I can hear a hum now, from here.”

  He felt good, nearly giddy.

  “I go. It is where I sleep.”

  He wheeled then, quite confidently, knowing the dragons were well on their way.

  * * *

  He’d heard the hum, and followed it, knowing long before he arrived there were no seaflyers there.

  There were a pair of new pods and new leaves bursting out of the wood; already the nest branch was changing in some way he couldn’t name: was it taller? Did it leave him a firmer perch at the new top?

  He jumped to the perch, tested it, and then jumped down.

  Chenachyen’s approach was silent, and neat. Talon briefly skittered on wood, and she was beside him.

  Nearly as soon as she landed, the quiescent tree stirred, bringing the leaves of several branches to full hum. Then, perched as he was steps from the dreaming place, Stregalaar was surprised to feel the full Tree Dream arrive, unbidden.

  Grove seed, Laar is become the grove that moves, and the season is in change. Elsewhere may be fine soil and settled rocks, with good water unending. Elsewhere may be rocks and drought, else the world is fishes and salt. The grove has long spread, and now must spread again.

  Laar seeks a proper rooting for generations of trees and for generations of branches-with-wings. Stregalaar seeks a strong Laar and a long flight. Wing of Chyen, Chyen dreams no more. Chyen’s seed pods are no more. Laar’s trunk is not splintered, Laar’s branches still receive sap. Seasons move; Laar and Stregalaar move. New seasons will bring new growth. Stregalaar sees you. Laar sees you. This nest sees you. Chenachyen you may rest here, Chenalaar, you may move with this nest. There will be pods for you.