Talismans

by Lisa Lowell

  “Longer,” Owailion commented under his breath, as he scrambled as quickly as he could. “There might be a magical way to travel but walking is just about as fast as we can go. With only two legs we aren't as fast as most animals. And you're right, we are squishy. We make up for being rather vulnerable with reasonable brains and good hands.”

  “What do humans eat?”

  Owailion was winded and could barely reply. “I'd settle for venison or a nice salmon right now. I love bread and vegetables. Strawberries?”

  He should have remained silent, for he abruptly found himself in a torrent of fish slapping down all around him out of the air, and the distant thud of whole dead deer hitting the mountainside. Finally a hail of strawberries rained down on him until he shouted out in alarm.

  “Stop that!” he bellowed, looking up at Mohan in surprise. “Where did that come from? I'm not interested in eating if it comes falling out of the sky at me.”

  “Sorry about that,” Mohan replied. “The others just want to help. We don't understand your words, bread and veg…vege…tables. Usually a fledgling will eat his full weight twice a day for many days before they are sated. You are not hungry?”

  “Hungry, yes, but I don't eat nearly that much and I want to cook it before I eat it and that means on flat ground.”

  “Cook?” Mohan asked curiously.

  Owailion sighed in frustration, clamping down on his temper festering within. “Cooking is too complicated to explain. How about I demonstrate when I get down to the bottom and instead you tell about these sorcerers that are trying to get across your borders. Explain about this Seal.”

  The dragon hovered almost motionless over the forest at the base of the volcano before he answered. “We dragons magically maintain a barrier around the borders of the Land. No one, dragon or human, may enter unless they are one who has set up the Seal or whose magic supports it,” Mohan replied proudly.

  “You dragons seem to be very good with magic. It seems that you could handle invaders just fine even when you're asleep.”

  “Ah, but we don't sleep. Except that is about to end,” Mohan clarified. “Four thousand years is a long time to stay awake. Now we wish to rest.”

  Owailion paused in his efforts navigating the slope in order to look back up at his mentor in magic. “Sleep? You dragons don't sleep? Ummm…unless there's something very different about me now, I like sleeping too. There is no way I am going to stay awake that long.”

  “No, you misunderstand,” Mohan replied when Owailion started off again. “We know that humans are like other creatures; you will sleep for a night and then wake and in the meantime, magic will not run amok. However, it is not necessary for dragons to sleep…until it is; a long sleep, a thousand years at least. Magic cannot go that long unattended. It will break free and start to alter things, warp them into sickly, twisted puzzles of what they originally might have been.”

  Unbidden, an image flooded into Owailion's mind of a panther-like creature. He watched in fascination as the animal began oozing blood, writhed in pain, spitting and snarling. Its hide rippled and the muscles twisted around its stretching bones. The tortured cat climbed into an equally twisted tree. There the beast abruptly sprouted wings and launched itself into the sky. Then the vision faded from Owailion's brain.

  “Demons form with warped, unattended magic. These demons wish to possess others and feed on their pain. Dragons have banished the demons of the Land to another realm, but more come if we are not watchful. There are portals where they sneak in as well. They will surely come if we sleep.”

  Owailion shuddered in horror and almost stumbled as he slid down a bank of cinders. He would be battling demons like that? With magic? Something in him resisted thinking on it. Instead he changed the subject. “How am I supposed to survive all alone for a thousand years? Usually we humans form nice little packs and help each other in things like this.”

  “Packs?” This insight must have surprised Mohan. “We did not think of that. I would not worry over needing others. Magic should be adequate for all your needs, surely.”

  Owailion huffed at that. “Magic might supply my physical needs, but humans like to interact with others. Sixteen Wise Ones won't be enough. We like to form families. Pack is probably a bad word. Our families help us raise children and keep us emotionally stable. The families live near each other to make villages and sometimes, when there are many of us nearby we would call it a city.”

  That he had the vocabulary in this apparently new language meant something, Owailion reasoned. He would need other humans or he would go mad, even if there were a few other magicians here. He could not imagine being so isolated here in the Land. If the new language had the words for family, village and city then they must be necessary.

  “This is not something we considered,” Mohan replied in a contemplative tone. “Dragons live apart, left in our eggs until we have fledged. There is a conclave where we gather once a decade, but we rarely see each other in the meantime. Your coming is the first time I have met many of my fellow dragons all at the same time. Is a family necessary if you have no hatchlings?”

  Abruptly Owailion felt light headed and stopped in his tracks. He sat down with a thump on a convenient outcropping nearby and slowly began realizing all he might have forgotten in this amnesia. Had he left behind a wife and children? Hopefully he would not have volunteered for this strange change in his circumstances if he were leaving behind someone who depended on him. But no wife or children? No other people at all…except for the eventual arrival of the other Wise Ones? And he was going to be living eternally? It seemed alien to him.

  “Owailion, are you ill?” Mohan hovered closer and then dropped down onto the mountainside below him. “You are not well. Did we do something wrong?”

  Owailion did not know why but this final blow to his limited understanding rocked him to the core. Alone for eternity? He could not fathom it and the terror that should have drowned him ever since he had awakened to the first magical blast now descended on him like rain. He curled up around himself and closed down, shutting out everything: the volcano, the sorcerers, demon battling, a massive dragon, his own filthy and tired body, everything. Owailion wanted to sleep away the horror and wake up again sometime later with his memories intact and pick up his life wherever he had dropped out of it.

  Without asking, Mohan reached out a claw and delicately scooped Owailion off the mountainside. If he had not been catatonic already the human would have passed out in terror as the dragon launched himself out over the valley and spun down gently into the forest below. Knowing so little about humans did not keep Mohan from acting. Instead he used what little he did know, finding a creek at the base of the mountain near the trees and wedged his gigantic reptilian body between the trunks and the slope. Then he carefully set Owailion down on the bank of the creek and with a little thought, conjured a pile of twenty fish or so and an equal pile of berries next to Owailion's head.

  “Owailion, are you there?” Mohan asked in a mental whisper.

  The smell of fish rotting in the late afternoon and his hunger eventually overcame Owailion's terror enough and he mumbled something and then sat up. He looked at the fish, the creek and then back toward the mountain but he could only see a bank of gold scales between himself and the mountain. So, with nothing better to do, Owailion began laughing hysterically. It was all too surreal to comprehend.

  And his laughter did not help. Mohan reared in anxiety. The dragon probably interpreted his laughter as a sign of distress for the reptile began carefully backing away, which promptly brought trees snapping and crashing in the forest.

  “No, I'm okay Mohan. Please, don't move any more. I'm fine.”

  “You don't sound fine. Is that the sound you make when you are in pain? Did I hurt you by picking you up?”

  “No, it's laughter. Dragons don't laugh?

  In answer to the question Mohan demonstrated by sitting back on his two tails, lifting himself up high above the trees a
nd letting out a hacking roar that shook the ground. When he had settled once again the dragon replied. “That is how dragons laugh. What were you laughing at? I thought I hurt you. You didn't move and your mind stopped speaking to me.”

  “That's probably because my mind stopped speaking to me too for a moment,” Owailion replied. “It just hit me very hard that I'm alone and I didn't take that well. I was overcome.”

  “You are not alone, Owailion,” Mohan tried to reassure him. “All the dragons know you are here in the Land and will protect you. Other Wise Ones will come to help you make your packs. God has promised that. But that does not explain why you were laughing.”

  Letting out a sigh, Owailion admitted, “It was either that or I was going to cry. No, I saw this pile of fish and had to laugh. Humans don't eat that much in a month. Yes, we eat often, but not that much. And now that I'm on level ground I can make a fire. I'll show you how humans cook.” Then in a fit of curiosity he asked another question. “Do dragons blow fire?”

  “Yes, at the sorcerers on the other side of the Seal, but it would probably start a forest fire here, which would not be good for squishy people. If you need a fire to do this cooking, I can teach you how to make one with magic.”

  True to his offer, Mohan walked Owailion carefully through using his power to conjure fire. “You must draw on the deep of the earth,” Mohan began. “Use your mind to see what you want to create. The stuff of the earth will become fire if you ask it to change. Think about its size and the place you want it to grow and the fire will come.”

  Doubtfully Owailion brushed aside a coating of fallen pine needles, clearing a spot for his fire and then concentrated, thinking first of kindling, and then the start of a smallish fire. If this worked he did not want to be the one to deal with a raging forest fire. At his wish, kindling popped out of the ground like dandelions, and Owailion laughed again. Then a poof of smoke showed in the middle of the kindling, and he blew briefly on the smoke. He was rewarded by a simple fire, and then he had to hurriedly add conjured firewood to maintain it. He grew so fascinated with the magic involved that he forgot the purpose of the fire in the first place.

  “Is making fire cooking?” Mohan asked curiously but sounding not at all impressed.

  “No,” Owailion admitted. “Now I need a knife and …” Owailion used the magic to conjure a knife to gut one of the many fish that had been offered. As he worked with the knife and then conjured a pan to fry it in, he explained the need to cook his food.

  “And you cook your food every time you eat?” Apparently this amazed the dragon, for he ate a few caribou, his favorite meal, about once a month. “But look at all you eat. No wonder you eat three times a day. It seems a waste of time to make your food all brown and hot. Well, maybe this is because humans do not have fire within you so you must roast it on the outside. That makes sense to me.”

  Owailion chuckled at the thought of cooking his food while in his stomach and then went back to questions he had about magic. “So I can conjure anything I want or need just by wishing for it? What is to keep me from conjuring grand things, making myself rich beyond anyone in the world?”

  “You are a Wise One,” Mohan reminded him. “You would not be so foolish. Besides, who would care if you made a clothes out of the brightest dragon scales? No one here will see them to be impressed. God selected you because you would not be tempted by that kind of magic. That is where the evil starts among man; using magic out of greed rather than for the service of others. The sorcerers from other lands use their magic for that kind of control and avarice.”

  Owailion looked around at the forest, at the emptiness of the Land and then gathered a fist full of pine needles to feed his fire. “What if there is no one here to serve. Humans are not meant to be alone.”

  Mohan rumbled audibly at that before he replied. “Then perhaps God does intend you to be in your pack. He will provide what you need. Never forget, He has chosen you. Have faith in that.” Then after a pause he added, “Owailion, your mind is cloudy. Is there something wrong with you?”

  “Oh, I'm just tired now. You know humans, we sleep every night. If I can sleep, I will be not-cloudy in the morning. Is that okay with you?”

  Mohan snorted his agreement. “What do you require to sleep?”

  Owailion conjured a blanket for himself and lay down without caring about the bed he knew once upon a time he might have enjoyed. “Dark and quiet,” he mumbled. And Mohan gave him that.

  Chapter 2 – Dream of Stones

  The dream fell on Owailion like a light rain, soft and refreshing. He had not thought, given how overwhelming the day had been to that point, that he would also have a dream so tremendously life-altering as well. It started with him back on the top of the mountain, on the ledge but Mohan was not there. Instead a great storm cloud loomed overhead and Owailion looked up into it with wonder, expecting an explanation.

  “No,” a voice announced from the cloud. “I have a task for you and a blessing. Owailion, you have come to the Land to help and you will be rewarded. You will not be alone for eternity. If you fulfill the instructions I give to you, the door will be opened for immeasurable blessings. First, you must learn all you can from the dragons, for they will sleep soon. You may ask for their help but the work must be yours. I have also prepared other Wise Ones that will walk the Land with you. Have faith that your path will be clear and when it is not, it will be straight.”

  Owailion didn't know what to say to the voice in the cloud, though he assumed this was why he had come to the Land. And he was on the path, even if he could not remember the start of his journey. He said the only thing he could say: “What must I do?”

  Another vision imposed itself into Owailion's mind. In it he held a little bronze bowl as he stood along a luxurious river valley, at the bank of peaceful green water. In his vision Owailion knelt at the river's edge and filled the vessel. Then he looked inside, hoping to see the future as if it were a crystal ball. The reflection in the water shifted from displaying the sky. Instead he saw mountains from afar and within the mountain's ring he saw a deep forest below it. The reflected image swooped as swift as a dragon, plunging down into the trees and until it alighted on the forest floor.

  Owailion held the bowl rock solid in excitement. He was about to witness something magical. The scene passed through the base of the trees, hundreds of them, lined with ferns and then toward a strange clearing. A light dusting of pine needles and ferns lined it but no trees interrupted. Instead he saw eight standing stones like sentinels within. The reflection was too small for him to study the stones closely but in reality they could easily be twice the height of a man, all set out in a perfect ring. And most intriguing of all, they boasted writing. He strained to make out the markings in the reflection but they were too small.

  In frustration, Owailion was about to dump out the bowl's water when a tremendous wind passed through the forest within the reflection and obscured his view of the stones. When the branches parted again, the rune stones had disappeared.

  “No!” Owailion shouted, disturbing the image and sloshing water over his hands.

  “The stones have been stolen,” announced the voice within the cloud. “This is part of your Seeking. You will build palaces, create Talismans, teach the other Wise Ones. And you will Seek for the thief of the Stones. These are your tasks, Owailion, King of Creating.”

  Owailion woke with a start, frantic, hoping the dream would be forgotten, but it lingered on. He sat up in the forest next to a pile of fish rotting, with the dragon missing and remembered every word. He shook with frustration and wonder, trying not to feel overwhelmed.

  Then above him Mohan appeared instantly swooping over the trees, obviously called because of Owailion's alarm. “What is it?”

  Owailion looked up through the fir branches above to his mentor and “I just had a very….very clear dream. Do you understand dreams if you do not sleep?”

  “Yes, I have heard of them, but something has alarmed
you.”

  Owailion took a calming breath. He needed to understand that this dream, although profound, was not going to be resolved in an instant. He had much to learn first. “I won't be eating fish any time soon. How do I get rid of your…offerings? They smell.”

  “I agree, they stink. Just wish them back into the earth and they will return.”

  Owailion chuckled, but also experimented with the wish to make the offending smell go away and they did. He retained the strawberries and ate a handful for breakfast as he thought through things.

  “So you have spoken with God in this dream,” Mohan observed, probably hearing Owailion's thoughts about the dream. “What has He asked you to do?”

  Was that God then? Owailion didn't feel any restriction on sharing his dream with the dragon, and certainly, he needed help with performing these duties he had been given.

  “I have several tasks. First, I am to prepare for the others by building homes for each of the Wise Ones and crafting talismans for them; something they can hold that will help them in their own magic. Then I have to find some rune stones.”

  “Find them? I do not know what a rune stones is.”

  He looked up at Mohan. “They are the standing stones, set up for a purpose of some kind. I called them rune stones because of the writing.”

  “Writing?”

  Owailion sighed with the effort to explain the alien concept to his mentor. He wasn't patient, he realized with surprise, and decided to ignore the implied explanation. “The scratches on the stones. They say things.”

  “?” Mohan's mind voice never actually said formal words but his curiosity rippled through the mental link. “I have not heard them say things.”

  Rather than try and fail to teach a dragon how to read, Owailion tried a different tactic to address the missing stones. “Do you know this place?” he asked and then, with little more than his instincts, Owailion pressed the memory of the rune stones under the trees into the dragon's memory.