Hushed, Tales of Ryca, Book 2

by Shereen Vedam

  Tamara looked at him in confusion. “How could stealing one flower cause such a drastic change?”

  MAGIC NOT DAMPENED, Halla said.

  “That flower must be the source of the magic-dampening effect on this world,” Fane said. “Removing it released all the confined Light. It’s destroying this world. That also explains why Skye’s Light ball works in Melak, and why Thyel took her.”

  “He still plans to use her to find Bevan.” Tamara jumped to her feet, anger boiling over.

  Fane, too, stood. “After this storm runs its course, we can move quickly to find Skye.”

  “And Bevan,” the green Melakean agreed, in a high-pitched squeaky voice from atop Halla. “To bring back flower.”

  “What does Bevan have to do with the flower?” Tamara asked.

  The Melakean frowned, and Tamara received a series of impressions of Bevan speaking to the green Melakeans, of him coming to see Tamara, of his suspicions about Thyel. As fast as Black-Cheek had picked up her language, he still struggled to put into words what he could better communicate with images.

  She tried to comprehend what those images meant. “I think he’s saying Bevan suspected what Thyel might have done.”

  Fane nodded and approached Kiron, who immediately lowered his forehead for a scratch. Fane obliged, speaking thoughtfully, “That’s the impression I get, too. Why didn’t the prince stop Thyel or tell his mother or grandmother of his suspicions?”

  “Nor does it explain why he sought me out.” Tamara rubbed at her temple where a headache was throbbing. The more they talked this out, the more complicated the problem became. That reminded her of the headache she had when her mother discovered her in Thyel’s room and had him removed to be deported.

  Her head had been aching violently then, too. Could it be related to the mind spell placed on her? Her father had removed Thyel’s spell, so why was her head hurting now? “How is Bevan involved in this?”

  Without answering, Black-Cheek glanced toward the forest. He sent her an image of the holy flower, blooming and then plucked. Once out of the ground, it drooped and transformed into an iridescent ribbon.

  Tamara slammed the gates of her mind shut before the Melakean gleaned her thoughts.

  He stared at her wide-eyed, as if realizing she blocked him. Halla, too, cocked her head, looking worried, no doubt sensing the connection between them had closed.

  “Bevan,” Black-Cheek said in his high piercing voice, pointing to his head. “Show you here.” The gesture had an enticing quality, as if tempting her to lower her defenses.

  With strict control, Tamara faced Fane. Getting Bevan and Skye back safely depended on how well she protected her mind from intrusion. No more slip ups! She had a secret and if she finally succeeded in keeping everyone out of her head, that tiny bit of knowledge might save all those she loved.

  “How do you suppose Bevan got to Melak?” she asked Fane, carefully redirecting the subject.

  He shrugged watching her carefully. “After Prince Bevan approached you, Thyel might have used the flower to stifle the prince’s magic and brought him to Melak.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Tamara said with certainty. “First, that would bring the flower back here after Thyel had gone to all the trouble to steal it.” She couldn’t tell him the second reason. “He must have used another of those vines his father stole.”

  “But magic works on Melak now,” Fane said. “Shouldn’t that mean Prince Bevan could have returned home?”

  Tamara gestured to the Melakean. “Ask him that.”

  Fane did.

  After a moment of silence, she said, “What did he say?”

  “Didn’t you see it?”

  “My head hurts and that is blocking his shared visions. Tell me.”

  Fane’s eyebrow rose with blatant skepticism but he obliged. “He showed me the trees of Melak, still alive, though damaged and dying. This world could be in a transition stage with the release of magic.”

  Tamara glanced at the upright giant trees shielding the world from the smaller ones decomposing below. The sky thundered as if in protest. This world did embody all the signs of change: chaos, anger and uncertainty.

  “With the flower gone, the vines die,” Fane continued, focusing on the one thing Tamara had overlooked in her surroundings. “They are the magical links of this world. Just as the strength of these lighting storm waxes, without the flower, the vines’ ability to suppress magic wanes.”

  “Which suggests the vines worked enough to trap Bevan and bring him here,” she said, “but couldn’t hold him for long.”

  “Exactly.” Tamara said but Fane hadn’t yet realized the half of it. She ignored the agitated gestures from Black-Cheek and focused on Fane.

  “If Thyel left Bevan here, tied but unharmed, with the power of the vines weakened, my nephew could have freed himself. This Melakean has been showing us Bevan walking free along a beach.”

  “If Bevan’s free, and can access magic, why is he still here?”

  Tamara sighed with impatience. Every answer produced more questions. She studied the upset little Melakean, but his closed face told her he was finished answering questions.

  Well, she wasn’t finished asking them. They had already caught him lying once. What if he’d been lying all along? What if Bevan wasn’t free? What if the Melakeans kept him captive?

  She took a step toward Halla, ready to shake Black-Cheek until he confessed everything. She even contemplated enlisting Halla’s roasting abilities as persuasion.

  One glance at her murderous face and Black-Cheek let out a high-pitched screech and scrambled off the dragon.

  Tamara skirted Halla’s legs to reach him but he raced toward the woods. Kiron whipped his long tail toward Black-Cheek. The agile Melakean leaped over that obstruction and vanished into the dark while Tamara crashed into the tail and tumbled over.

  Cursing, she scrambled to her feet and, ignoring the pain in her left shin from the collision, took off limping after the little Melakean. She finally stopped when she lost sight of his scurrying form in the darkness.

  Fane came to a panting halt beside her.

  “He has Bevan,” she said. “I know it.”

  “Could he be hoping for a trade? The prince for the flower?”

  “I’ll give him a flower,” Tamara muttered, opening her mind enough to send a picture of her strangling the Melakean and wrapping his precious flower around his neck.

  A high-pitched squeak from deep in the forest suggested the fleeing Melakean had received her projection.

  “Wait until I get my hands on you next,” she shouted.

  “Right.” Fane gave her a nervous look. “If he wanted to trade, wouldn’t he have offered by now? Why hide the fact he has the prince? And if not for trade, why would the Melakeans be holding the prince captive?”

  “He wants us to find the flower for him. He was probably leading us to Thyel, not Bevan.” Shoulders slumped in defeat, she retreated toward the dragons.

  Tamara gestured at the lightning and thunder littering the sky. “This world is filled with magic, Fane. Yet I can’t wield any of it to find either Skye or Bevan. How unfair is that?”

  At his compassionate look, she turned away. As long as she could remember, she had bemoaned her father’s extraordinary ability to work Light, reflected in abundance by everyone in her family but her. She thought she had overcome that old bitterness. Apparently not, for the injustice still ate away deep inside. Mind-speak simply wasn’t an adequate substitute.

  Halla gave her an encouraging nudge as she approached. The loving gesture broke through her resentment and she gently petted the dragon. “I wouldn’t trade my ability to speak with you for any other talent, Halla.”

  Her love for this dragon astonished her. Halla showed her how to connect with another soul, how not to push love away. Yet, without the use of real magic, how were they to find Skye and Bevan in this strange land? They could search for all eternity, rove the sky from one end to the other and
never catch a glimpse of what lay hidden beneath the canopy.

  The dark clouds shuddered under another lightning strike, illuminating the wet world with bright, startling clarity.

  The energy of that strike reverberated through her like an electric shock. Saira, Anna and her mother casually tapped into that energy to work their spells. On Melak, Light was being released in its raw form, more powerful and dangerous, but still the source of all magic.

  “What’s the matter?” Fane asked. “You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”

  She glanced at him broodingly, allowing her thoughts free rein to graze along a path she instinctively sensed could offer rich fare.

  Fane had been born with the ability to mind-speak to Kiron, and only Kiron. A one-to-one union that was intrinsic to his being. Born and bred into him. There could be no other such pairing.

  She turned to Halla, who blinked her golden eyes with utter trust. The connection she shared with the green dragon felt as intrinsic as Fane’s was with Kiron, with one important difference.

  “I saw Halla in my dreams while still in Ryca,” she said. “Across worlds. How could that be?”

  “I remember you mentioning that. From all I’ve learned, it’s impossible to bond with a dragon until the physical meeting occurs. The connection begins visually, then proceeds through touch and scent and grows stronger over time. I’ve never heard of a bond across worlds.”

  “I sensed Halla before I even knew dragons still existed.” Her thoughts, as wild as the lightning-filled sky, drew her gaze from Halla to Kiron.

  The bronze dragon returned her stare with an aloof gaze.

  Ever since meeting Jarrod and realizing he could read her thoughts, she’d been careful to try and hide her mind from him. Then, when Halla easily stole into her thoughts, she’d built stronger walls to keep the green out. Not with any particular success, but she’d been working on it, and had managed to hold herself back to some degree. Just now she had shut both Halla and the Melakean out. What if she didn’t try to hold herself back?

  An implausible idea took hold then. “What if my bonding with Halla isn’t like yours, Fane, but comes from magic? Of wielding Light, without my even realizing it?”

  As the possibility of what Tamara suggested opened his mind, Fane’s shocked glance slid to Kiron. “There’s one way to test that theory.”

  Tamara, too, turned to the bronze.

  Kiron silently stared back.

  Can you hear me? she asked.

  The bronze leaned forward and nudged Tamara back. LONG TIME, he replied in a bold rumbling tone.

  Feeling as stunned as Fane looked, she asked, How long?

  LONG, Halla replied, rubbing her face against Kiron’s snout. AFTER HE FREED ME FROM CAVE, KIRON TOLD ME WHERE YOU WERE ON ISA.

  ALL KNOW, the bronze added casually.

  “Who is all?” Tamara asked, forgetting to mind-talk.

  ALL DRAGONS, the bronze answered. WHY THEY CAME TO WATCH BLACK’S CHALLENGE. HALLA NOW VALUED MORE THAN AS DAUGHTER TO QUEEN’S LINE. AFTER BONDING WITH YOU, SHE IS QUEEN OF ISA. QUEEN’S MATE RULES ISA. SO BLACK DESPERATE TO KILL ME.

  He said the last with a touch of pride and Halla used her tail to playfully tap him.

  “That explains why the black came after us even though Kiron had wounded him,” Fane said. “I’d wondered about our audience.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tamara said. “Did you or Halla tell the rest of the dragons about me? How did they find out?”

  Kiron gave her a long-suffering look that made her smile despite her frustration. It reminded her of the look her mother often gave her when Queen Mamosia thought Tamara had said or done something particularly dense. Like on the night she caught her daughter in Thyel’s bed.

  Halla took pity and said, ALL DRAGONS HEAR YOU. At Tamara’s continued blank look, Halla expanded her wings to show off her reflective color and then tucked them in, adding with studied patience, QUEEN ONLY BOND WITHQUEEN. TAMARA IS QUEEN OF DRAGONS.

  * * *

  Keegan’s warning that the Light was being affected sent Jarrod’s pulse racing. To his untrained eye, everything seemed normal. The grass was green. The sky was as blue as ever, without a cloud to mar the day’s perfection. He trusted Keegan’s spiritual insight more than his vision.

  “Tamara? Skye and Fane? Could they be in trouble?” He should have gone with them.

  The king was staring at a point straight ahead and spoke in a voice layered with unease. “We are the ones in trouble, Jarrod.”

  As the king finished speaking, the world shifted. One moment Jarrod stood at the edge of a green meadow. The next, the world had vanished. It was the only way he could describe what he experienced. There was a sense of absolute emptiness: no sights, no sounds, no sense of touch or taste. Not even a stray scent of a flower or grass.

  He wanted to scream just to hear his voice but was terrified of hearing nothing. Panic had him whirling, except every direction looked the same. Empty.

  Stop panicking. Be calm and think. Had he been transported into the void? Or was he simply unable to see anything? No, not true. Below him, something glowed. Falcon’s Tome!

  He picked up the book and opened it. Light flashed from the book. The illuminated pages were filled, margin-to-margin, with colorful drawings and dark neatly written script.

  Jarrod flicked through the pages, peace settling in him as he recognized the tales his people had recorded over the ages. It was all back. Not a single word missing. No blank pages. He wanted to shout for joy, jump up and down and scream a heartfelt, Thank you, to whomever had enacted this miracle.

  He paused, squashing his swelling excitement. Something was different about Falcon’s Tome. There was some writing in it he’d never seen before. In the front of the book, there were pages he’d never read.

  “How can this be?” he asked aloud, not excepting an answer or even to hear his words.

  “How can it not be?” Keegan replied nearby. “The book’s finally returned home.”

  He swung around but couldn’t identify anything resembling the king. Jarrod had distinctly heard him speak though. Which meant he still had ears to hear the king, eyes to see the tome, even if the rest of his body had vacated the premises. “Sir, you’re here, too?”

  “If we give our minds time to adjust, we should, theoretically, be able to see each other as well as hear ourselves,” Keegan said in a thoughtful tone. “Our senses are too attuned to the world of the living, Jarrod. Even on the light side of Ashari, perception is patterned to mimic the living world, to remind us of where we’d visited, of where we’d loved and lost. Any wonder we can’t ‘see’ the dark side, where such luxuries are forbidden, where those who return here are made to pay the price for not appreciating the gift of being born.”

  Jarrod digested that explanation and then asked, “How did we come to be here?”

  “We were pulled in, rather rudely, I would add.”

  “And ‘here’ is the dark side?”

  “If I properly understand the working of Light, and I’ve only been studying it intently since my death, the dark side is the Place of Chaos, where Light was first shaped and formed.”

  “Formed?” Jarrod asked, astonished. “Into what?”

  “Us. People, places, things,” Keegan said. “‘Life’ as we know it was formed from this dark mass.”

  Jarrod blinked and a shape appeared beside him. The king! He was a glow – a distorted, ethereal being. Jarrod’s hand moved through him as if he passed his palm over campfire flames.

  “What’s happened to you?” Jarrod asked, and then looked at himself. “To us?”

  “Light and form do not exist here, Jarrod. This is the place of the beginning. Be careful and stay close. We must not allow ourselves to become lost among the others who inhabit this plane or we may never get home.”

  “Can we? Go home? You said earlier no one returns from the dark place.” He felt himself shatter as he said those fretful words. His body began to
lose its cohesiveness.

  “Hold on!” Keegan said in a sharp tone. “Do not let despair take hold or you will be lost.”

  Jarrod mentally pulled himself together and felt a whoosh as if what was left of his form mimicked his imagining. He glanced at the tome. It remained in his grip. “How is it I hold Falcon’s Tome when I have no hands.”

  “Our thoughts and emotions control our actions here. Stay focused. I suspect the key to leaving lies within your unique book, Jarrod. Don’t lose it.”

  Jarrod imagined himself gripping the book tighter and the book moved toward him as if he had clenched the hard-covered tome to his chest. “Why were we brought here, sir? Who did this to us?”

  “No time for questions. I’ve no taste to remain where I was dropped. Follow me.”

  “If we are still alive,” Jarrod muttered, but curbed his despair before it literally tore him apart. He hugged his tome and hurried after the floating version of the king.

  For what seemed an eternity, they moved about in silence, yet it didn’t feel as if they went anywhere. This place had no landmarks, no points of reference that showed here was different from there. He doubted the king was any wiser about their whereabouts. Keegan, however, epitomized purpose and that produced a comforting presence. Jarrod blindly kept pace with him, intent on escaping whatever had delivered them into this insubstantial hell.

  Jarrod didn’t know when he first perceived more of this world. One moment he was alone but for an eerie spark of light ahead that was Keegan. Next, he was one among millions.

  He could no longer identify the king.

  Keegan! he sent out a call coated in desperation.

  Here, came the startlingly close answer. Ignore them.

  Who are they?

  Locals. The response was tinged with such dry humor, a hysterical laugh fought to burst out of Jarrod. The king’s warm touch now led him. He followed, feeling claustrophobic and in complete sympathy with Tamara’s qualms about closed-in places. Do they sense us? Hear my projected thoughts?

  They’re a part of this darkness, more so than us, who should never have been brought here. As it was difficult for us to adjust to this realm, it might be hard for them to perceive us. That should work to our benefit.