The Captive

by Paul Lauritsen

  Carry heavy things over the mountains and be very miserable.

  It would take days.

  I know.

  For each trip.

  I get it.

  The dragon snorted again, spreading his wings. Just making sure my efforts are appreciated.

  They are, Kanin. Always.

  The emerald dragon rumbled contentedly, then sprang skyward, quickly disappearing into the cloudless atmosphere. Khollo watched for a moment, then turned back to the others.

  “So,” he said, thinking through the next few days. “We’ll start by moving the supplies and getting you set up in your holds. During that time, Eralm and his men can resupply. When they have what they need, they’ll head back to Narne for the time being.”

  “Then how do we get anywhere?” Sven asked.

  “We fly.”

  “For eighteen days? Over ocean?” L’tel asked incredulously. “No dragon can fly that long.”

  “It takes less time on dragon back,” Khollo reminded them. “And there are warm air currents which speed the trip up even more and make it relatively easy for the dragons. According to the Keepers’ records, there are half a dozen of these air streams leading to and from the island, and each one has a distinct path that shifts and sometimes falters depending on the season and other – ”

  “Gah!” Sven exploded, throwing up his hands. “You sound like you swallowed a library.”

  “I did,” Khollo replied, a little ruefully. “I did nothing but sit and read for months before I went searching for all of you.”

  “Why?”

  Khollo frowned. “I should think that’s obvious. I wanted to be ready to teach, to guide new Keepers as they begin their journey in the Order. How can I tell you how to raise your dragons and work with them if I barely know anything?”

  “Well, you could,” Aralye put in, “It just wouldn’t work very well.”

  “It still might not work that well,” Khollo warned them. “I didn’t have as much time as I would like. Kanin insisted we start the search earlier than I had planned, and there were other factors involved as well.”

  “Like?” Sven pressed.

  Khollo hesitated, then shook his head. “Later,” he prevaricated. “It will make more sense then.”

  Sven snorted, folding his arms across his chest. “I feel like I’m going to be hearing ‘later’ and ‘not yet’ for the rest of my life.”

  “There’s a reason for it,” Khollo said. “I don’t hold things from you just because I want to. I need you all to trust that I will tell you what you need to know.” He looked around at the half circle of suddenly solemn faces. “The only way this works is if we all trust each other. Once Eralm leaves, the five of us are all we have. And our dragons, of course. But outside of that, we’re cut off from the rest of the world.”

  “I understand,” L’tel rumbled. “I trust you to lead us, Keeper. Otherwise I would not have left my home.”

  “Me either,” Halena said quickly. “I’ll follow you, Khollo.”

  “I guess I have to,” Sven muttered. “Doesn’t mean I like being kept in the dark though.”

  Khollo shrugged. “I’ll tell you everything in due time.”

  “And how do you know when the right time is?” Aralye asked quietly.

  Every eye turned to her, then they all looked back at Khollo. The young Keeper flinched, and for a moment he felt trapped and under siege. Then, he took a deep breath.

  “I don’t know on my own,” he admitted. “But I have some experience to draw on, and Kanin will help as well. This will be a learning process for all of us. I’m willing to put in the work and the time to make this new Order succeed. But I can’t do it alone. I need your patience and your loyalty and your trust, but I also need you. If something is telling you that you need more information immediately, or we are handling something the wrong way, let Kanin and I know. I said before the only way we succeed is together. That includes making decisions about the Order itself and how we use our time on Ethgalin.”

  “What, we get input on decisions?” Sven asked.

  “Of course,” Khollo said. “I have final say, but I trust you four and I’ll respect your thoughts and input.”

  They all fell silent, contemplating this.

  “You’re risking a lot,” Aralye observed finally, watching Khollo. “You’re trusting four people you barely know. You’re training us to care for and work with dragons. You have brought us to a secret island and risked its exposure to the whole world. I think it’s pretty clear at this point that you trust us. You wouldn’t have selected us and brought us here otherwise. It’s only right we return your trust.”

  Khollo nodded gratefully. “Thank you.”

  “But,” she added, “I will not blindly follow. I can think for myself. If I see a situation going downhill, I will say something, and I will almost certainly act on it.”

  “Again,” Khollo said, grinning, “Thank you. That’s what we need. Your opinions all matter, and you were each chosen for a reason. The Order is only as strong as this team is. As we are. We’re all going to make mistakes, including me, and we have to be willing to call each other on those mistakes and learn from them. You’ll feel under fire sometimes, maybe like you’re not good enough. But it will make you stronger in the end, and it will make all of us stronger as well.”

  They were interrupted then as Kanin swooped low, gracefully deposited a slaughtered steer, and wheeled back towards the plains. They all watched for a moment, then Khollo turned back to the others.

  “So,” he said nervously. “Do we have a deal?”

  The four young Keepers glanced at each other, then nodded wordlessly. He could see in their eyes and by the way they moved that each had their misgivings. But they would follow. They would trust.

  Khollo nodded as well, releasing a pent up breath. “Good,” he murmured, half to himself. “Very good.” He raised his voice and started moving towards the first pile of crates. “In that case, let’s get these ready to fly so we can introduce you to your new home.”

  Kanin returned a few minutes later, a buck clutched in each of his foreclaws. When he landed, Khollo and the others were still in the process of rigging a system of ropes and nets to secure the cargo Kanin would be carrying. The ropes had been part of their cargo, the nets a loan from the Southern Star. After a few final adjustments, Khollo worked with Sven and L’tel to move the first pile of cargo into the center of the contraption, then they backed away from the net.

  Kanin gripped the ropes in his talons carefully. Will my claws sever them? he asked, concerned.

  Khollo frowned. I don’t think so. Just hold them very carefully.

  The dragon lifted a few feet off the ground, gradually taking up the slack. Another few driving flaps from his great wings and the lines snapped taught, the edges of the net rising to securely trap the cargo within. Khollo held his breath, watching for signs of excess strain in the ropes. Kanin continued to rise, and the whole pile lifted off from the ground.

  Well? Khollo asked, looking up at Kanin.

  It is heavy, the dragon replied, heavier than your friends at the West Bank were, certainly. But I am bigger and stronger now. I think I can manage. We must be careful though. Remember, Sermas’ rope frayed and he almost fell.

  He did fall, Khollo corrected. But you caught him. And those ropes were lighter than these.

  That is true. The net is holding?

  Khollo moved closer to the suspended load. Seems to be, he agreed. Just fly slow, and be careful setting down. Will you be able to move everything off the net when you get to the hold?

  If not, I will fetch some of you.

  Kanin rose a few more feet into the air, the cargo swaying beneath him. Then, the dragon was airborne, slowly gaining altitude as he headed for the distant mountains.

  “Keeper!”

  Khollo spun at the shout, and saw Eralm striding towards him. “The first load is away!” Khollo called, grinning.

  “I see,” t
he captain replied. “Are these three beasts for us?”

  “They are.”

  “Wonderful,” the captain said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll get the men started on butchering it and preparing it for the voyage. You wouldn’t happen to have that official paper thing ready would you?”

  “If you have paper and something to write with, I’ll have it in just a few minutes,” Khollo promised.

  “I can grab those from my cabin,” Eralm said, nodding. “Just a moment, lad.”

  The captain of the Southern Star quickly strode back to his ship, shouting at Jorgen to organize the crew and get the meat taken care of. Jorgen shouted his own orders to the others, and soon the whole camp was thrumming with activity and ringing with the sound of the sailors’ voices. Even in close proximity they tended to shout what they were saying, likely a habit born of hours spent on ships at sea, where one had to contend with the sounds of snapping sails and crashing waves.

  Eralm returned a minute later with a writing stick and a few sheets of parchment, handing them off to Khollo.

  “There you are,” he said, glancing at his crew. “You’ve done well by us, Keeper. Meat for the voyage, the promise of grain and water, now this. Could be I’ll get used to the notion of dragons sharing the world with us humans again.”

  Khollo laughed and set one of the sheets on a crate so he could write. “Well, things will change slowly, Eralm. There won’t be dragons all over the world for years yet. For now, we’ll mostly be on Ethgalin, eventually have some messenger dragons stationed in key coastal cities and in Etares, maybe.”

  “Hopefully that’s a long way off,” Eralm muttered. “Otherwise, you won’t need me and my crew anymore.”

  “Sure we will,” Khollo countered. “Dragons can fly three days over an ocean, but they can’t carry much of a load that far. At least,” he added thoughtfully, “Not at Kanin’s size. I don’t know how big dragons get before they stop growing.”

  “Do they stop growing?”

  “I think they would have to,” Khollo said, mulling over the problem. “Seems like otherwise they would get too big to move at all. I have read of dragons larger than Kanin, much larger, but I haven’t spent much time researching the later parts of dragon’s lives. I’ve been kind of focused on younger dragons, which is what we have right now.”

  “Understandable,” Eralm grunted.

  Khollo finished writing with a flourish and signed his name at the bottom. As he did, he caught a whiff of smoke on the air and looked around curiously. Jorgen had organized the sailors quickly, and a small fire was already going in a shallow roasting pit, two sailors still in the process of framing the space with medium-sized rocks to prevent the fire from spreading.

  The young Keeper held the page up, reading over what he had written, then he read it aloud for Eralm.

  “I, Khollo, High Keeper of Ethgalin, request that Captain Eralm of the Southern Star be named the official Courier to the Keepers, and be granted a permanent contract for the shipping of supplies, persons, and messages to and from the isle of Ethgalin. I prevail upon the Sthan King and the Lord of Narne to see to it Eralm and his crew are well-compensated for their time and service, and to ensure they are well-supplied for each voyage. The Southern Star will always be welcome at Ethgalin, and may reprovision here as often as needed.”

  Khollo handed the sheet to Eralm, who took it gingerly, then folded it and put it in a secured pocket. “I’ve signed the message as well. Show it to Lord Piralt on your return. If he doesn’t cooperate, sail right back here and I’ll come sort things out.”

  Eralm grinned and saluted Khollo. “Thank you, Keeper. It’s been an honor to serve. We’ll do our best to hold up our end of the bargain.”

  “I know you will,” Khollo assured him. “Now, let’s see about some of those other promises I’ve made. You need bread yes? Well, for bread we need grain.”

  Khollo spent the next hour guiding a half-dozen of Eralm’s sailors to the nearby fields, where they cut several large bundles of the various Ethgalin grains. L’tel accompanied them as well, since he was curious to examine the differences between these fields and the ones of his Gobel-Tek homeland. While they were harvesting, Kanin returned with an empty net sling and was loaded up again by Sven and the two girls. Khollo saw the dragon coming and going, and briefly checked to be sure Kanin was not overstraining himself.

  When they had cut enough grain, the small group returned to camp. There, Khollo taught the six sailors, L’tel, and the other young Keepers everything Ezraan had taught him about bread making. He showed them how to grind the grain down into a powder, how to form dough, how to shape it and bake it into bread. He taught them the differences in the process for making flat, thin bread and large loaves. After a few failed attempts, even the sailors were turning out a respectable product. L’tel was the best by far, and was delighted with this new skill.

  “What did you expect?” Sven asked the plainsman, confused by his excitement. “You’ve grown up around wheat fields your whole life! Makes sense you would know what to do with it once it’s harvested.”

  “But I didn’t!” L’tel said eagerly, kneading another lump of dough. “I was a farmer. I knew how to grow it, when to harvest it, who would pay the most for it, and who would sell bread for the least. But I never knew this part of the process. It is easy, yes?”

  “Easier for some,” Aralye grunted. Her own loaf was rather misshapen and resembled the sailors’ attempts more than L’tel’s neatly symmetrical effort.

  “It just takes practice,” Halena said encouragingly. “See? My second one turned out much better once I knew what I was doing.”

  Sven scowled and held up a large lump of dough that was clinging to his hands. “Is it supposed to stick to me like tar? Or did I miss a step somewhere?”

  “Add more flour,” Khollo said, “It will reduce the stickiness, and make the consistency better.”

  As Sven busied himself fixing the dough, Kanin returned with an empty sling for the second time. Bread making, he snorted in disgust. Waste of time. Bread is not good for dragons.

  Waste of time for you, yes, Khollo agreed. But bread is good for humans, so it is not a waste of time for us.

  Never mind. Your kind are hopeless on this issue. Is it time to take them to the dragon hold?

  Khollo glanced back at the others and nodded. “Yes, it’s time. Halena, Aralye, grab your packs. Sven, L’tel, load up the net. Kanin will bring you in the next load.”

  The young Keepers scattered, leaving the sailors grumbling at their dough and slowly forming more bread for the voyage home. Khollo left them to it and began working on Kanin’s saddle, adjusting the leg straps along each side.

  Three people isn’t too much, is it?

  I have carried three before.

  I know, but you’ve been working hard.

  I can manage.

  Okay, Khollo said doubtfully, but don’t hurt yourself, Kanin. We can’t afford to have you grounded.

  I do not want that to happen either, Kanin said growling deep in his chest. I will not put myself in such a position again.

  Good, Khollo said, relieved. He scrambled up into the saddle, preparing for the flight. A moment later, the two girls arrived, packs in tow, and quickly climbed up behind Khollo. Halena was a little more awkward, since she had not flown before. Khollo showed both of them how to cinch the leg straps securely, then gave Kanin the all clear. The dragon spread his wings and flapped slowly, gradually ascending in a smooth curve. Even that slow take off was enough to make Halena gasp in surprise and clutch frantically at the saddle.

  Kanin flew steadily over the island, following the river up to the mountains. They flew over plains and forest, over vast herds and swaying fields. Khollo sighed contentedly as he looked out over Ethgalin. Home.

  The girls, once they got used to soaring through the air, soon began to appreciate the beauty of the island as well. They pointed things out to each other that Khollo was well-familiar with, awe
and excitement coloring their voices. Then, they were upon the mountains themselves, gliding through the lowest pass. A cleared watchtower reared up on their left, then fell behind.

  “Welcome to the stronghold,” Khollo said as the jungle appeared before them. “The ancestral home of the Keepers.”

  He pointed out the main hall and the library, the roads Kanin had cleared. Then, he pointed to the dragon holds in the east as Kanin turned towards them. His passengers were stunned speechless by the grand scale of the buildings. It was not until they landed on the third level of holds and dismounted that either found their voice again.

  “This is unreal,” Halena breathed, eyes dancing. “It puts anything in Ardia or Narne to shame!”

  “Even in ruins,” Aralye agreed. “What would this place have looked like when the Keepers were thriving?”

  “Hopefully, we’ll find out in the coming years,” Khollo replied. He gestured to the holds behind them, and the two piles of supplies Kanin had helpfully dumped by the entrances. “These holds are where the Keepers and their dragons lived, one Keeper and one dragon to a hold. They are only accessible by dragon back, so we don’t need to fear the jungle predators up here.”

  “And we can’t leave either,” Aralye observed drily.

  “Well, Kanin can get us up and down,” Khollo said, “And once your dragons are old enough, they can fly you around as well.” He glanced at the sun, checking the time. “Kanin and I should go fetch Sven and L’tel. Feel free to explore the holds while we’re gone, maybe start sorting out some of those supplies. We’ll be back soon.”

  Halena nodded. “Go, bring them. We won’t do too much exploring before you’re back. It’ll be better if we all explore together.”

  Khollo nodded, then climbed back into the saddle. The moment he was seated, Kanin was off again.

  They retrieved the other two Keepers shortly, and dropped them off at the hold. Khollo led them on a quick tour of his own living quarters and the four holds he and Kanin had cleared, then left them to work on sorting supplies and outfitting their new homes with everything they would need. Khollo, meanwhile, went back to the beach with Kanin. There, he supervised the loading of the nets to make sure the dragon was not overtaxed. A small group of sailors helped him with the task, sweating and swearing as they moved the heavy crates.