by C. K. Rieke
Her head dropped to his shoulder, and shortly after he heard the delicate sounds of sleep come from the girl.
Midway through the day, the sun loomed high overhead, and even in the ‘cooler’ months of Wendren, the heat of the sun crept through their hoods and Kera shifted on Veranor’s back, trying to shake off the uncomfortablity growing from being on his warm back. She released her arms from around his neck and fell back to her feet. Her shoulders sunk as she walked next to him.
In this stretch of the desert due south of Voru, the region known as Barra, hard dirt stretched out far and wide between the high dunes in the distance. Small patches of dry grass and dead shrubs spotted the ground. Fresh, green cacti were scattered around sparsely, and weren’t plump with water, but stale and sinewy. Veranor knew that they were about to enter into the area of the Arr, known to him as the Divine Triangle, the area that was cornered by the three Great Cities. This would be where the gods had their most influence, and most control.
After another thirty minutes, Veranor spotted a green cactus, thick at the bottom and shooting out into three ‘branches’, each with a collection of three to six bulbous cactus leaves. At the top of each was a three-petaled flower of red and white. He went over with his dagger and went to carving each cactus branch apart and removing the prickly spikes. First, he removed the skin from one and hastily handed it to Kera in slices, who eagerly plopped it into her mouth and chewed. It was bitter and smelled of aloe, but she groaned in ecstasy, even having a new thin layer of moisture in her mouth. Then he placed one in his mouth, he bit down on the cactus, letting its warm juices flow down his dry throat.
“Thank you,” she said, her mouth full of the white flesh of the cactus.
They both sat next to the plant, as Veranor continued to dissect the entirety of the cactus, placing each smooth piece into his pack for later.
“What we need are some Ioxi,” she said. “I don’t know how you expect to carry me across the desert, even you are going to get too tired to go on.”
“I don’t want to dampen your spirits,” he said, “but even with a full caravan of wagons and well-fed Ioxi . . . we wouldn’t make it in time. We have to find another way.”
“What other way is there? Besides the magic of the gods themselves?”
“Herradax would be the only way I can think,” he said.
“But I haven’t seen her in days, and I don’t know if she is strong enough to carry me, or if she would even let me.”
“She seems to know you as her queen, if you will,” he said. “She killed that oncoming attack of Reevins back there. Surely she only did that because they were after us—and you. Perhaps you should try to call her, and you’ll have to go on by yourself, as much as I dislike that decision. Go ahead, try.”
Kera called out the dragon’s name into the air. Once, then again louder, and a third time. The name of Herradax echoed slightly in the silent desert, only the sound of the wind was heard between each call. They both eagerly looked up to the sky for the gray dragon with the three red stripes that had grown quickly between each time they’d last seen her.
Nothing.
A flock of birds long-necked flew in from the west, flying in a V-formation.
“You know what else flies high in the sky?” she asked him.
He turned to her with a curious gaze.
“The elders used to have a myth they’d tell me about when I was young, just a story to get me to fall asleep. It was a story of an animal that lived long ago, back when the dragons lived. But it died when they did. It was never seen again, but in the Age of Orn, it was told to have the slender body of a lion with silky, black fur and white, angelic albatross wings. It was a creature of magic called the Aridon. The elders told me there was only one way to call the Aridon. It was an ancient tune, forgotten long ago. I don’t know how this would help at all, but I’ve been thinking about that tale the last couple of days.” She looked up to see Veranor hold a strange expression on his face, with his brow furrowed and his lips slightly apart. His eyes fixed heavily on hers. “Have you heard the tale?”
“I—I know it,” he said.
“Oh,” Kera said. “You’ve heard of the Aridon?”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “It hadn’t occurred to me, it’s an old tale that has been slowly forgotten over the ages. But you were right, they were last said to be alive when the dragons were here in these lands. It’s as slim a chance as finding a fish with feathers, but I know it . . . I know the tune . . .”
“You . . . you do?” Kera asked. “How . . . how could you know it?”
“In the Book of the Unknown in Voru, there is a tune called Operum Vanti Aridon. There was no specific note that it summoned the Aridon, but what other tune would call them? And I was never able to test its merit, as the creature has been extinct for such a long time. I believe I can create the tune . . .”
“Then do it,” Kera said.
Veranor rose at once, and rummaged around the bushes. “Help me find some sort of reed, or hollow plant. We’ve got to create a wind that can carry a pitch.”
Kera rose and searched the area as well for a plant to create a flute-like instrument with. Kera knew what to look for, as her people had been making instruments for themselves for generations. Pushing her way through heaps of brown plants, at the center of one a few minutes later, she found an outshoot of four reed-like sticks, one of them appeared to be without cracks, and was long enough to carve out perhaps enough holes to carry a tune. She pulled her dagger out with a ringing sound and slit the reed at its base. She quickly ran it over to Veranor who took it.
After the first hole was carved, without looking up at her, he asked, “Did the elders tell you the other part of the story of the Aridons?”
“Other part?” she asked. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t know there was another part.”
He continued carving out the second hole in the reed. “The part they left out is trickier than just playing a handful of notes to attract the Aridon. Once it comes, or they come, they are vicious predators, and they seek to kill those that call them. To reign an Aridon into submission, you must mount one and caress its neck three times. But they are quick, with sharp teeth and claws that are ready to tear skin from bone.”
Kera paused in thought, scratching her cheek. “Well, once, and in the rare chance, they come, we will just have to figure that part out. I don’t see another way forward. Do you?”
Veranor grunted, moving on to carving out the third hole. “This is almost certainly not going to work, but no, I don’t see another way forward.”
“Then let's hope we get attacked by some Aridons soon,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Is it ready?” Kera asked as she jittered up and down, her shoes clicking on the hard-stone floor of the desert.
Veranor inspected the reed that now resembled a poor man’s flute. Eight holes lined the top of the dry, smooth brown reed; it held a slight shimmer in the sunlight. Veranor checked each hole, then lifted the end of the reed up to his lips. Yet, before he did he looked at Kera with as serious a gaze as she’d ever seen from the already serious man.
“There is almost no way this is going to produce anything but a handful of slightly off-key notes,” he said, “but if something does come . . . If the Aridon has returned to the Arr, you stay behind me. No matter what happens.”
She returned his gaze with a startling glare and nodded. He then lifted the reed to his lips and blew. It was a hollowed, airy sound with a slightly high-pitched tone. He then placed his index finger on the first hole, and a clearer tone emitted from the wind instrument, one that Kera recognized. She watched with eager anticipation.
Veranor lowered the reed, and carved at the section at the mouth-end of the flute, then blew the freshly carved pieces from it, and raised it back up to his lips. He blew again, this time a clear tone came. And as he moved his fingers up and down on the holes a mélange of melodies rose into the normally stale desert air. It
was the first instrument Kera had heard in months. She was surprised Veranor was so adept at creating music.
“I haven’t played it yet,” he said, lowering the flute. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said. “I must admit, though, I’m scared.”
“Just stay behind me.” And with that he raised the reed and blew once more, then he closed his eyes, and as his fingers rose and fell to the wind in an elegant pattern, a beautiful sequence of notes created a tune that was both enchanting and old. It was a tune that hadn’t been played on the sands in generations. Kera was fixated on the way he played the reed, and she found it difficult to look away. There was something about the melody that took every bit of her attention. It was intoxicating.
Veranor’s eyes remained closed as he played, as it seemed it took every bit of his own focus to play the song. Time faded and the scene around Veranor darkened, it was similar to the warm feeling of dazing off to sleep after a warm meal. The song danced through her and she felt her body relax, her hands fell to her sides and she felt a calming serenity.
Even Veranor seemed to be swaying back and forth as he played the song, his eyes still closed and his fingers moving majestically along the smooth reed. The two of them were in a dance of sorts to the tune as they moved back and forth. Something broke the bright sunlight in half behind Veranor’s closed eyelids, and his eyes shot open. Kera saw this and the terror returned to her, looking into the panicked eyes of the commander.
Veranor rose and grabbed Kera by the arms, his grip was so tight the girl was jerked toward him before she even knew what was going on, but she quickly found out. Veranor tossed her to the sand behind him, where she fell to her side. Kera lay on the sand, looking up at Veranor as he unsheathed his sword, its metal reflecting in the sunlight. Then the sky above him turned black. It was a slender, long black with bright white wings like that of an angel.
“Stay down!” Veranor yelled.
The Aridon had flown just over the commander and Kera, it was so close they could smell the musty aroma of the beast. She rose and watched as the black body of the lion shot through the air at an unnatural speed, but just as quickly it came back toward them with its white-feathered wings outstretched. Veranor rushed in between Kera and the Aridon, with his sword held with both hands at his side, in a defensive position.
The Aridon didn’t fly past but let its black-furred feet fall to the desert floor, with its long claws easily tearing into the hard ground. Its eyes were wild, as feral as any beast’s eyes they’d ever seen, save for Herradax’s. It let out a low growl as its eyes fixated on the sword at the commander’s side. He moved the sword from his side to hold it out directly in front of him, with its sharp tip aimed directly at the winged creature that moved silently toward them.
“You will obey my command,” Veranor said, moving the sword back to his side. “I summoned you here for our aid. This girl here, she is the reason you have been—”
But the Aridon let out a roar that silenced the commander and made Kera cover her ears. It was indeed the roar of a lion, but so loud it might shatter glass and send all alive to hear it running for cover.
“This girl, she is the reason you have been resurrected to the sands. She is the Dragon’s Breath. You’ve been gone many years, great Aridon.” The beast continued its slow approach toward them, its head dipped low, as if on a hunt. “She’s already risen one of the ancient serpentine, and we are on a path to raise another, but we have far to go, and not long to get there. I command you to—”
But with a speed that surprised even Veranor, with a quick brush with its sparkling white wings it leaped toward him with another loud roar, the great cat’s milky-white teeth gliding through the air toward them. The commander’s sword was quick too, and as the Aridon flew high toward his chest, he slashed his sword toward the animal as the commander slunk to the sandy ground. Veranor looked up to see the long black body float above him, and he felt a fear unusual to him. He only felt that type of fear among the gods or the dragons. He watched as his sword, with as sharp as it was, glide harmlessly along the Aridon’s chest and stomach. Not a single drop of blood was spilled.
“Kera,” he murmured. The body of the beast, easily twice as heavy as the commander, fell onto Kera, who collapsed to the ground. “Kera!”
Veranor rose, but he knew he was already too late. The black lion mauled the girl viciously, clawing at her as if to tear her apart. He watched in horror as its neck muscles glistened as it sunk its teeth into her. Its sharp claws thrashed her, as the wings of the beast jostled from the vicious attack. Kera had been letting out short calls for help and terror, but her voice soon faded.
“Kera, no—”
Veranor watched as the Aridon raised its head from the attack, and slowly turned back toward Veranor. The commander caught a glimpse of Kera’s body behind the beast, it was motionless. He held his sword up to his side again. “You devil,” he said. “She was as much a queen to you as any in these cursed lands. Go ahead, come on! You like to kill innocent children? You don’t know what you’ve done, she was our only chance! Come on, surely not every part of you is invincible.” The Aridon continued to creep toward the commander, its head lowered, and ready for another attack. “Let's find which part of you can bleed . . .”
Veranor raised his sword, his hands gripping it tightly. He worried not for his own death at that moment, no, he only focused on one last kill—the death of the first Aridon in many lifetimes—and as he shifted his feet to burst toward the beast, eager to find a weak point in it, a pair of silver eyes rose from behind the beast.
“It can’t be . . .” he whispered. The Aridon seemed to notice the commander’s confusion, and went to turn around, but before it fully could, young arms wrapped around the creature’s strong neck from behind. “Hurry, Kera, three strokes!”
In a whirlwind of confusion, the Aridon twisted and thrashed, with its long wings rustling on both sides as Kera held on a tightly as she could.
“Great Aridon,” she called, and with a single stroke of her hand on its neck the Aridon thrashed even more violently. “You have returned to the sands because I have risen the dragons.” Another stroke then, and the beast let out a roar as loud as a dragon itself. “You will obey me. I need your strength and your flight.” It let out another roar again, its eyes opened wide in a wild fury. It flew straight up into the air—twirled and flailed—with Kera hanging from its neck, her feet swaying harshly in the wind. She could fall at any moment as it tried to shake her from its back, and she would fall all the way back to the sands.
“That’s it,” Veranor said. “One more. Just one more!”
Veranor watched in worry but also in eager anticipation. It would only take one more stroke, but the Aridon thrashed like a violent wave in a sea storm. It did everything it could to fling the girl from its back, to let her plummet all the way back down to the sands. Veranor readied himself to catch her if she was to lose her grip and fall, but he knew that from that height, she wouldn’t survive. Her life was now in her hands.
As he watched the mythical beast twist and turn, scraping with its claw to find her again . . . the fight ended suddenly. The beast floated back down toward him in a circular pattern, like a crow’s descent toward its next lifeless meal. The Aridon’s wings stopped flapping and it returned to the desert floor with a light plume of sand. Its eyes had turned from a ferocious bloodlust to that of a docile animal. It lowered its neck and head, and its body relaxed. Veranor looked up at the mythical beast, and the girl atop its back with a grand smile across her face. Her black hair whipped in the wind behind her. Her silver eyes made her look mythical as she straddled the first Aridon in the Arr in many generations of man.
“Kera—” he said. “I watched you die. How have you . . .? How are you still alive?”
“I’ll tell you once we’re in the air.” She gave another wide smile.
Veranor returned hers with a rare smile of his own. “The gods were right to fear you, Kera. The
re will be songs sung of your deeds someday.” Then he brushed his cape back behind him and went over to the side of the Aridon and lifted a leg over its back. He sat behind Kera and gripped tightly onto the lion’s fur.
“Fly, great Aridon, fly!” Kera said. With that the Aridon’s wings flapped, and with the strong gusts of wind on both sides, it lifted from the ground. “East, take us to the Xertans!” Veranor’s grip loosened as he released that even with their combined weight, and the force of the rushing winds as they flew through the air, they both sat easily atop the Aridon with no winds trying to brush them off.
“You truly are magical,” he said to the Aridon. He leaned forward. “You’ve got to name this one too, after you tell me how you survived back there.”
They flew through the high sky then, high above the desert floor at great speed. The Aridon’s wings whipped through the air, with its silky feathers cascading with different hues of pearly whites.
“We found something in the cave in the Dune of the Last Dragon,” she said. “Burr got them from the Headdress of the Borendúr for me.”
Veranor thought for a moment, then realized what Burr had given her. “That’s quite a gift he said. The Stones of Geminos are back in the possession of man.”
“Not man,” Kera said, “woman.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Not a single damned cloud in the sky, huh, Lilaci? That’s just our luck,” Fewn said. She’d been walking next to Lilaci for the better part of an hour before she finally spoke. “Hot as the Eternal Fires, and not a shadow all around us. Phew, not a shadow except down there. I bet it’s nice and cool down there. Loaded with fresh water and fish.”
“Sure, Fewn,” she replied. “I’m sure it’s just brimming with fish.”
“You might think I’m kidding, but water only flows one way—down. Last time we crossed a canyon, one that was created from out of nowhere. You remember what happened? Roren could have died from that flood. So could you.”