Talismans

by Lisa Lowell

  Owailion had no reply, but the chilling challenge quelled his regret and he stepped back. He would build this palace just as he had been shown and one day see the fruits of his labor. He turned away regretfully from the wondrous room, wanting to speak with the lady, but as the doors closed behind him. Her veiled face turned away and Owailion woke with a start from the dream of the Lady and Palace.

  Owailion sensed Mohan's sudden alarm and abruptly the horizon above the plain filled with the alarming sight of the dragon looming like a golden storm above him, wings spread, with a buffalo hanging from his jaws and an extra one clutched in one talon*. “What is wrong?*” the dragon asked frantically, settling down on the ground, spitting his prey out and licking his bloody chops with his black tongue. “Are you harmed?”

  Owailion tried to calm himself, swallowing his fear at the sight of the predator nibbling on his food in chunks ten times a man's size. “Oh, no,” Owailion tried to brush off his thundering heart. “You go on and eat. I just woke up from a dream. You eat and we can talk later.”

  “I can talk and eat at the same time. What has this dream done to you?”

  Dawn peaked over the horizon and Owailion regretfully realized he would have to explain. He began packing up his blankets and conjured a fire to cook some breakfast while he tried to think of how to explain. He deliberately turned his back on the dragon as Mohan picked up his fallen prey and stuffed it back into his maw, hide, horns and all.

  “I dreamed about the Queen of Rivers again and she showed me the palace that I need to build here. I think I can build it but… I want to meet her and…and why keep the rest of humanity away if we are the only ones here to enjoy these grand homes? Having only sixteen humans doesn't make any sense to me.”

  Owailion also allowed Mohan to hear the thoughts he could not put into words. It made sense that the dragons were the only sentient beings in a country sealed against humans. He very much doubted having humans and dragons at the same time would go very well for either species. And yet having a sealed Land, with the dragons sleeping and just a handful of humans, made little sense. Were these sixteen Wise Ones expected to repopulate the entire continent? Well, if so, he had the responsibility to make the newcomers comfortable too.

  Owailion sighed, with no answers. “You go finish your meal,” he advised Mohan. “I'm just going to sit here and think on how to build a palace with no idea of who will live here in some distant future.”

  “This sleeping you do, it seems to teach you much,” Mohan commented. “I wish dragons could sleep as humans do and gain such insight and guidance. How does sleeping lead to this? You don't seem to be doing anything.”

  “Dreaming is basically all we do when we sleep. I don't know if dragons will dream but I hope so.”

  “Dream, I do not understand this word very well.”

  “Here, let me show you,” and Owailion passed a compressed vision of all that had transpired in the night into Mohan's mind. Then he added, “When we sleep we most often see many things that are silly or random. And sometimes, like in this dream, they are a message from God of what I must do.”

  “You must create that…that place?”

  “Yes, for one of the Wise Ones who will be a warrior, or so it seems.”

  “And what is its purpose? It is a very large…cavern for a small creature like a human.”

  Owailion chuckled at that observation. “It is. Most humans would find one room in that place adequate for their entire family. However, it must mean something more. Each of the Wise Ones is supposed to have one of these palaces for their home. I was shown how it appears and I know I can do it with magic, but I do not know the purpose. Maybe the magicians who attack the Land will fear us more if they see this…this extravagance.”

  “That is often the case,” Mohan commented sagely*. “When the outlander sorcerers see a dragon's magnificence, they often fear and turn back.*” Mohan said this humbly, without a drop of understanding human instincts.

  “I very much doubt it is just your magnificence…only.” Owailion enlightened his friend. “A dragon your size is going to freeze any human in primal fear. You forget, we don't run fast, don't have claws and talons, or blow fire. Your sheer size is most intimidating.”

  “I am the largest,” Mohan observed, again with an innocent embarrassment that he had to point this out. “How long will it take you to build this place?”

  “I really don't know,” Owailion considered. “Do I have to even be here to monitor it if I tell magic what to do?” Without expecting an answer he stood up and considered the effort needed to build this dream into reality. His magical instincts began stirring, drumming deeper than he had gone thus far with his shields and conjuring. He could sense deep below where water, long gathered in natural cisterns had pooled and he would tap into them. He felt for the bedrock of the cliff under the thick topsoil and with a flick of his mind began lifting that earth away, making it disappear into the ether. He would found the palace on stone deep below the prairie surface. He gave magic its instructions and then turned away, looking for something to distract himself, testing if he needed to concentrate on the excavation once he had ordered up the magic to do it.

  “Are you done eating?” he asked Mohan as if there was not a gaping hole appearing right next to him on the cliff.

  Mohan looked a little startled; his gold eyes bugging out at this prestigious use of magic, and had to tear himself away from watching the dirt fly away. “Ummm, I've never eaten so much before and yet, I don't feel that I'm stuffed. Thank you for asking.”

  “It sounds like gorging,” Owailion pointed out, “like bears and other carnivores that hibernate. They eat a tremendous amount before they sleep for the winter. Is that what you're doing?”

  “I don't know. No dragon has done this hibernate before. Is gorging normal then? I ate sixteen buffalo and I think I could eat as many again and not feel bad about it.”

  “Remind me not to go wandering off in the mountains alone any time soon if your entire species is out gorging right now,” Owailion teased. “Do you feel up to continuing our journey or do you need time to digest? This palace seems to be building itself once I tell magic what to do and if we keep moving you will stay awake longer.”

  Mohan assured him that he could fly on with no trouble. Owailion ate his own breakfast quickly as he surveyed the progress of the deepening and widening hole his magic drove into the earth, reassured it would work independent of his concentration.

  “I need to give it a name, for the map,” Owailion commented before they left the site. He pulled out the map and noted the approximate location with a diamond on the western coastline. “How do you say fortress in your language?”

  The dragon tilted his head awkwardly, blocking out the sun so Owailion couldn't see well enough to continue his drawing. “It is another language, I suppose. I would say…Paleone. It is strange, I did not think of it as another language. What you and I speak to each other is not the same as we name things. True names are spells to have power over a thing. When we name it we give it magic. This naming things…it is human magic I think.”

  “Paleone it is.”

  Chapter 7 – First Talisman

  “I think you should meet with Tamaar,” Mohan announced.

  “Why?” Owailion almost squeaked in sudden alarm at that prospect as they took off again, leaving Paleone as an active dig site on the cliff.

  “First of all, she is the expert in Seals. She has set a double shield around her territory and she can teach you the fundamentals. Also, she guards the southwest coast. That is where most of the ships are met. If anyone has taken the stones like you say, perhaps she has seen them in her forays.”

  This sounded well enough to Owailion, at least in principle. He needed some new way to search for the rune stones as well as a goal to get away from Paleone as it was coming together. He had made a memory globe of it so he could easily check in and know its progress, but now he needed a new project. Facing Tamaar, Mohan's
mate, might sound like a positive step but it also carried a large chunk of intimidation with it.

  “Alright,” Owailion agreed.

  It took no time to arrive at the edge of Tamaar's sealed territory, and they landed on the northern edge of a forested peninsula that jutted out into the ocean. Just as they landed and Owailion slid down, the sky just beyond the cliff, filled with a blinding flash of silver, gold and bronze dragon. Tamaar, three headed and with shadowy wings filled his view. She couldn't match Mohan for size, but the amethyst, sapphire and emerald eyes mesmerized. She hovered, unwilling to land, displaying an alarming array of teeth, each one the size of his arm. Owailion straightened up in sudden fear as the incredibly long necks and heads snaked above him, but some instinct drove him to do something strange.

  Owailion bowed to the dragon, lowering his head and murmured, “Lady Tamaar, thank you for meeting me.” Exposing his neck to a dragon was the most unnatural act he could recall but he clamped a shield of steel over that thought and waited to be acknowledged.

  “Lady?” Tamaar's mind voice came in three tones, all speaking at slightly different times.

  “A term of the highest honor to the most beautiful females,” Owailion provided as he lifted his head, wondering if he would have to translate 'human' to Tamaar as well, or if she was just surprised at his manners.

  “We know what a lady is,” Tamaar's triple voice replied haughtily. “We are just taken aback by a warrior using it to describe a dragon.”

  “I am no warrior…at least I do not think I am. In my memories and magic, I'm only a few days old and do not remember my former life. That is why I have come to speak with you. I wish to learn more about seals as part of my duties for when the dragons are all in the Sleep.”

  “Not a warrior? You will be,” Tamaar's reply dripped with cynicism. Then she turned one set of glowing emerald eyes toward Mohan, keeping amethyst and sapphire warily on guard on Owailion. “Has there been more news about the standing stones, Beloved?”

  Mohan's manner seemed to lift with the endearment, and he rose up on his haunches before he answered, spreading wide his wings. “Owailion believes they have been removed from the Land by ship and was thinking that you might know of a ship that has passed by carrying them.”

  “By ship?” This caught Tamaar's curiosity again and her three sets of eyes swiveled back to inspect Owailion all the more. She finally came to land on the cliff right next to the much dwarfed human, nearly bowling him over with back winging. He felt exposed and naked again on the mountainside facing her intense gaze, as if she could see into his soul. “What makes you think this?” the triple tone rang in his head. “Earlier at conclave you thought that it might have been a dragon who took them. A dragon would not use a ship to carry them.”

  For one frightening moment Owailion could not dredge up a reply. “Yes, but a dragon would also never think they were important. Yet a human would and might persuade a dragon to give the stones to them and then take them back to their home.”

  “And what would you, with no wings, do if you found the ship that carried them?” Tamaar asked with an insinuating tone, as if she mocked him for his powerlessness.

  Owailion felt his heart sink. She was right; in this situation he was powerless. Yet he could not refuse to answer her. He waited breathlessly, thinking behind his shields. Then the Wise One instincts finally kicked in and he did not fight the prompting.

  “Lady, I shall defend the Land with all the power at my disposal,” Owailion swore, feeling the Heart Stone pulsing in his chest.

  And at his oath the most amazing thing happened. One moment he stood on the bluff in the simple utilitarian clothing he had originally conjured for himself that first day on Jonjonel and the next moment, without any intention, his clothes changed. He suddenly found himself dressed in brushed leather breeches dyed a soft dove gray, with silver stitching on the seams and over that he wore a velvet jerkin that shimmered and shifted through shades of silver, with patterned stitching of gold and silver in it, richly decorative. The sleeves of a cloud white shirt billowed in an unfelt wind. Across his body, a molded steel bandoleer carried a platinum sword encrusted with diamonds. It held down a silver velvet cloak lined with white fur, also embroidered until it stood stiffly, barely stirred by the magical wind. And most alarming, on his head he could feel a crown. He didn't dare reach up to inspect it, for the dragons, both of them reared back in alarm at this transformation. Owailion could understand the reaction.

  “What is this?” Tamaar's three voices and Mohan's one simultaneously rumbled through Owailion's head.

  “I….I….I don't know,” he replied honestly. “I didn't do this.”

  “Your…coverings…they change?” Tamaar pointed out the obvious.

  “He calls them clothes,” provided Mohan helpfully*. “But I have never seen them change before. A dragon does not change his scales.*”

  “A human changes clothes so they can be washed but…but this…this is magic. I didn't do it, I swear,” Owailion sputtered.

  “I think that is the word. You swear or take an oath and this happens. Have you encountered this before?” asked Mohan.

  “No,” Owailion replied honestly, and as he did so, his clothing, without any action on his part, returned back to his original attire. “No, I've never imagined something like that could happen. It's like the palaces I'm supposed to build; too grand for any normal person.”

  “Palaces?” the sapphire mind of Tamaar queried.

  Mohan provided the answer helpfully. “God has commissioned him to build caverns…he calls them houses or palaces, for the other Wise Ones. They are also glittery…like those clothes. But God wants them.”

  Owailion nodded and then realized he had an opening to continue his interview with Tamaar, despite the distraction of the regalia appearing. “That is another reason I have come to speak with you, Lady Tamaar. God has asked me to build palaces throughout the Land…as outposts so the Wise Ones may take up the guard of the Land. One of these palaces may be in your territory and I must be near it to sense where I am to build it. May we have permission to enter and see if there is a Wise One who must stand guard in your lands?”

  Tamaar let out a strange sound, half bark, half chirp, in alarm, and reared back, with the amethyst head even hissing. Mohan growled low, a calming purr. “Tamaar, he comes with God's commission. He cannot harm you, the Land or anyone in your protection. He can do no evil.”

  Owailion wanted to know what caused her distress at his coming to visit, but he held his peace. Mohan had more credibility in his littlest talon than any human would ever garner with her, and if anyone could convince the tri-colored dragon, it would be her mate.

  “He holds a Heart Stone, yes, but he can remove it. What is to keep him from throwing it aside?” Tamaar reasoned.

  “By nature he is good. Humans are like that. They either are slaves to their nature as the ones you have battled, or they are like Owailion; trained to be good by nurture. See him in truth spell and witness for yourself his soul.”

  Owailion again underwent Tamaar's serious glare and this time watched for what dragon magic might emerge. He waited for some wave of power, but instead felt nothing until he found his appearance once again had changed, back into the silver and white regalia. This time he pulled the crown off his head and inspected the silver circlet decorated with a faceted diamond the size of his eye. He could not catalog the changes he had withstood but he knew last week he had been a typical human, ignorant of this world of dragons and magic. He had been called the King of Creating and now he dressed as a king. He had become a sorcerer and immortal… unless this she-dragon ate him, and he would never be able to comprehend it all.

  “I see no falsehood in him,” Tamaar declared.

  That comment made Owailion look away from the crown and up at the dragon again. She had done to him as he had done to the sorcerer on the ship; put him in a truth spell. Was this wondrous costume how he truly was now and his common clothes were
the disguise to help him blend in like a normal person? He almost laughed to imagine tramping crossing the Land wearing such finery.

  “You must be what you say you are; a good man, for you appear as this….this…glittery human and that shows you as honest,” Mohan explained to the flurry of questions that tripped through Owailion's mind. “You are not bloody, serpent tongued or showing as a demon. It is difficult for a dragon to speak a falsehood but man has the ability. However, as a Wise One, you probably cannot lie either if you appear so…what is the word in human terms?”

  “I appear as….I think the term is a King. Only a king in the world of men would dress this way. And can I lie? I don't know why I cannot…and ….”

  Owailion experimentally tried to say something, anything false. He could barely think of something; he preferred summer over winter, but the words would not come out of his mouth. Why couldn't he say a simple untruth?

  “I can't. I can think of a lie but the words won't come out of my mouth,” he gasped after struggling over forming just a few syllables. “That is so strange.”

  “That you cannot lie, it is a good thing. Dragons find it very strange, but humans find lying too easy. There is no reason to be false,” Mohan advised and then turned back to his mate. “Does he have permission to enter your territory and learn about seals? I will be his escort. He is mostly following the coastline…creating a map.” And Owailion heard the gold dragon pressing the concept of 'map' into his lady's minds.

  “You are welcome to see it when I am finished,” Owailion offered.

  All six of Tamaar's eyes flashed in a glare at him. “We shall not need that. I will grant you access.” haughtily Tamaar replied. “I will also leave you something I have found so you can train him,” she added for her mate's sake. Her sapphire head reached out and brushed lightly against Mohan's jaw line and a gentle cat-like purr. Then she pulled away. Owailion bowed low once again in thanks to the lady-dragon and then mounted up on Mohan's neck while Tamaar dove over the cliff and into the sea.