Milo and the Dragon Cross

by Robert Jesten Upton

  “Direct me to the one who can take me to the source of the cross.”

  No sooner did Milo say this than he knew he had said it wrong. The look of glee on Musail’s face confirmed it. “Seek a guide you cannot see!” he cackled, then vanished.

  All motion around them stopped. Milo kicked himself for losing his concentration. He should have asked, “Lead me to the place where I can find the one who knows the source of the cross.” He wasn’t sure what the implications were between what he had intended to ask and what he had actually said, but he had been warned, and Musail’s reaction verified his mistake.

  Bori was still growling deep down in his throat and his fur was ridged. Milo took off the crown.

  “I messed up,” he told the cat. “I needed to have Musail actually help me find whoever I need to find and the way I said it let him off the hook. Now it’s up to us to find whoever it is we need to talk to by ourselves,” he told Bori. “I hate the idea of staying here all night, but unless you’ve got a better idea, I don’t think we’ve got a choice.”

  Bori agreed. It was a sleepless night. Nothing else happened, but expecting something was just as bad. The something that might be out there kept Bori’s green eyes and Milo’s brown ones wide open all night.

  As soon as there was enough light to avoid stumbling into a tree trunk, they were moving. With Bori’s help, they found their way back to the track of the old road. “I hope we get to the other side of the forest soon,” Milo said as they shuffled along, with the light improving moment to moment. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to put Musail’s advice to work, or what it means, but right now, I don’t care. I just want to see the sky again!”

  “Then follow me,” said a voice from just a couple of steps away.

  Bori went straight up, hissing and with every hair on his body rigid. Milo jumped sideways so suddenly that he slipped and went down in the loose leaves.

  A bright laugh erupted from the empty space where the voice had come from. Milo thought it sounded familiar.

  “Stigma?” Milo inquired, recalling the invisible contestant from the park at the starting line of the Hunt. “Is that you?”

  She laughed again. “Yes, Milo. It’s me.”

  “You almost scared us to death!” he shouted, his heart racing so hard that it felt about to burst through his shirt.

  “I’m sorry.” The giggle that accompanied the apology made it sound less sincere.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, brushing off the dried leaves and debris.

  “Looking for you. You took a different way from the rest of us back at the End of the Earth. As it turned out, the way the rest of us went was a false lead, or at least a disastrous one. Interesting, but wrong. When I realized you weren’t there, I decided that you might be on to something that the rest of us missed.”

  “I doubt that,” he grouched.

  “Why did you come here, then?” she asked.

  “How I got here’s a long story, and one I don’t feel like telling just now. If you think I can show you anything, then I’m afraid you’ve taken another wrong turn. I don’t really understand it myself.”

  “That’s all right by me. I like you,” the empty air said. “Maybe I can help you, then. I heard you say that all you want is to see the sky again. If you really do, I can help you find it. Just follow me.”

  “How can I do that if I can’t see you?”

  He felt a hand slide into his. “I’ll lead you,” she said. “Come along this way.”

  Bori took up his place in Milo’s rucksack, his bushed-up tail back to normal and his cool demeanor as smooth as if nothing had happened. The invisible hand drew Milo into motion.

  “How long have you been following me?” Milo asked.

  “Several days, I guess. I followed your signature emanations until I caught up to you.”

  “When was that,” Milo asked suspiciously, wondering what ‘signature emanations’ were. Instead of asking that, however, he was thinking about how long she’d been near and if she had been spying on them.

  “Oh, just now. I felt you were close by, then I saw you coming up out of that hawthorn grove. Is that where you spent the night?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “Wasn’t very restful, I bet.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Out. Just out,” Milo answered, still uncomfortable about how much she knew and wondering if he could trust her.

  They walked for some time. There was a division in the old road, with a lesser track—so much lesser, in fact, that Milo could barely discern it. The invisible hand that drew him along drew him onto it.

  “Not long now,” Stigma said.

  “How do you know? Have you come this way before?”

  “I haven’t, but others have. Most of them long ago. I’m following their emanations. Just like I followed yours.”

  “What is that?” Milo demanded. “Emanations?”

  “The trace of intent people leave behind. Like a track of their wills. It’s part of my magic, like my invisibility.”

  “Must be nice to have powers like that.”

  “Or not. It’s a heavy price sometimes, Milo.”

  “So...” Milo continued, edging into his question without committing more than he had to. “You weren’t with us last night?”

  “No, I hadn’t caught up with you then. Why?”

  “It wasn’t a good night. There’s some sort of...people, I guess, or spirits or something—here that don’t let you rest. And you can’t really see them.”

  “Oh. Forest Folk. They don’t like us. But they don’t bother me because they can’t see me, either, so they leave me alone.”

  “I wish I had that ability,” Milo said, thinking how much easier the night would have been without Musail’s relatives.

  “No Milo. You don’t. My invisibility is a curse. If I could, I’d be visible with more joy than you can imagine.”

  A thought came to Milo just then: what Musail had said about a guide he couldn’t see. “I told you that I really can’t help you find the next clue. That’s because I need to find something—or someone else first. See, I got involved with a...a difficult situation that I have to take care of before I can learn the next clue. I think. Maybe you could help me if you know something that I don’t understand at all. If you’d be willing to help? I mean, if you can?”

  “Of course, Milo. Like I said, I like you.”

  “Okay. Do you know who Heronsuge is?”

  A thoughtful silence came from the place were Stigma was. “No, I don’t think that means anything to me.”

  “Well, then do you know anything about the Great Barrow?”

  “Ahh! That I know. It’s from very ancient lore. A place that dates back into the Age of Heroes. That was when the Avatars were wresting the world away from the Elementals. It was a time when Magic was released into the Realms.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I mean, is the Great Barrow a place I could actually get to?”

  “Yes, and no. It isn’t a place like the Kingdom of Odalese. It lies in the realm of enchantment, sort of like the Tower of Glass, only even more so. It’s a place that only those who follow the right path can get to.”

  “Could I get there?”

  “Look!” Stigma said. “Up there! A break in the trees!”

  Milo looked, knowing that the diversion had ended the answer to his question, if the answer had been there in the first place.

  Sure enough, blue sky showed through the canopy ahead. They scrambled up a slope slick with leaf litter and peered out into bright sunlight. They had reached the forest’s boundaries.

  “There!” Stigma said smugly. “You wanted out of the forest, and there’s out!”

  Milo gazed over the rolling landscape beyond, laced with woods, and open to the sky. Bori jumped down from the rucksack, as relieved as Milo to see out. They saw the horizon where a pale blue chain of mou
ntains met the sky. That was the only feature he could pick out as a destination.

  “It looks like a long ways to anywhere,” Stigma remarked. “If you like, we can travel together. I’ll do what I can to help you find the Great Barrow. I think you’ve helped me with the next clue, whether you planned to or not, so it’s the least I can do.”

  Milo couldn’t think how he might have given her a clue he didn’t know himself, but if she would help him, it didn’t make any difference. “By the way,” he asked, “how are the other contestants doing?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I decided to follow you when I realized we’d made a wrong turn. Everyone made it to the End of the Earth—how could they miss a clue like that? A clue, I understand, which you had a hand at opening—and after the slinger tournament the obvious clue had to have something to do with the three brothers and their homecoming in Akenwald. Everybody took off to get there first. Except you. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that. Instead, I went where the others were going. Just too arrogant, I suppose. I didn’t even notice that you were the only one who wasn’t in Aken Forest, and while we were all casting around looking for the next clue and acting like we knew what we were doing, we were watching each other to see if someone really did know something. Since I have the advantage of spying on others without them knowing I’m there, I knew when Count Yeroen took off, Aulaire hot on his heels. I followed like an idiot, afraid that I’d loose out if I didn’t. I think the others did the same, because we all started arriving behind Yeroen, one after the other, at the Valley of the Stone Knights.

  “That was an even bigger mistake, as it turned out,” she continued. “The Pass of the Stone Knights is the site of one of those legendary places from the Age of Heroes. There was a huge battle there when the Elementals trapped the army of the First King who happened to be the founder of the Oak Clan. They would have been completely annihilated if the knights of the King’s Table hadn’t sacrificed themselves to serve as a rear guard. The rest of the army got away while the knights held the pass. They placed themselves under the Stone Spell in a desperate effort to hold the pass.”

  “What’s that: ‘the Stone Spell?’”

  “It’s a terrible oath. They turned themselves into invincible stone. They could still fight, but they had to surrender their living bodies for bodies made of stone. It meant that they could remain animate, and remember their purpose of fighting, but they lost their living flesh.

  “So that’s the curse on the Pass of the Stone Knights: nobody can go across the pass, because anyone who tries will be attacked by the Stone Knights. But the Knights hold one other characteristic, which I think Yeroen thought he could exploit. They retain their knowledge about the Ancient Days. If a person can defeat a Knight—or trick him into thinking that he has been defeated—he must tell you what he knows. So it seemed like a perfect place to learn the next clue. Anyone who could get information from a Stone Knight would have to be a very clever and knowledgeable mage. Of course, we all believed that we were up to that challenge. One of us after the other entered the pass to try. It was awful. I entered the pass, and since the Stone Knights couldn’t see me, none challenged me. But I saw what was happening to others. You see, if you fail, you get petrified. That’s when I noticed you weren’t there. I decided I would be better off trying to find you, so I backtracked until I found your trail and followed the way you’d gone, all the way through Inverdissen and along the coast until I found you in this forest.”

  “Who?” Milo asked in horror. “Who got turned to stone?”

  “I don’t know. I know only who I saw with my own eyes. Ali and Tivik.”

  “Analisa?” Milo asked. “Or Yeroen and Aulaire?” he added, mostly to hide his particular interest in Analisa.

  “I don’t know. I think they may have made it, but there’s no way to know what they might have learned. Maybe they did learn the next clue. You know, there are many clues to the paths of the Hunt.”

  With a shudder, Milo thought about what would have happened to him if he had gone into the Pass. Then he hoped Stigma was right about Analisa getting away safely.

  He could see Bori bouncing through the tall grass beyond the trees, a grey-bodied porpoise in green waves. Gesturing toward the cat and assuming that his invisible companion was watching the same thing that he was, he said, “I guess Bori has plans for his own lunch. I’ve got a little food that my friend gave me when Bori and I went into the forest...want to share it with me? You.... You do eat, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Milo, I eat. I’m pretty much like you, except you can’t see me.”

  He took the food out of his rucksack and began separating it into two portions. The one he’d laid out for Stigma began to disappear, a bite at a time. “How does it work?” he asked. “Being invisible, I mean?”

  “Do you mean: how did I come to be invisible, or how is it that you can’t see me?” she asked back.

  “Both, I guess, but mostly, how can you be here but not be seen?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’m not invisible to myself. I can see myself as well as you can see yourself. Invisibility is, like, a talent I have, but someone laid a curse on me that made it permanent. It’s almost like the curse works not so much on me as it does on everyone else. If they can see, then they can’t see me. Once, I could be invisible or visible when I wanted to, but the curse took that control away. I’ve made it part of my magic, but if I could learn to reverse it, I would be thrilled. I would be forever grateful to whoever could do that for me.”

  “When we were being introduced back in the park at Kingdom of Odalese, you put on a robe and I could see you.”

  “Yes, when I want to be seen, I can put on clothes. You can see the clothes, but you can’t see me.”

  Milo hesitated. “You mean, you’re...”

  “That’s right, Milo. If I don’t want to be seen, I don’t wear clothes. I’m not made up of air, or invisible flesh or something. I’m just as solid as you are.”

  He felt a grip of a hand on his arm.

  “The curse just makes it impossible for you to see me. I’m here, it’s just that...that you can’t see me. If we were in a totally dark room...in other words, if you couldn’t see anything at all, then I would be there just as much as you would be. If we touched, it wouldn’t be any different than touching anyone else in the dark.

  “Here; let me borrow your knife for a moment,” she continued.

  Milo gave her his knife. The handle disappeared, and the blade sawed away in the air. Suddenly a hank of hair, along with the knife, appeared on a rock beside him. The hair was pale; so pale that it matched the color of the moon when full He touched it. It was fine, straight, and soft.

  “You’re blond?” he asked.

  “Yes. All the sorceresses of my line have moon-struck hair.

  “Are they invisible, too?”

  “Some of them. Only, they can control when to be invisible and when they want to be seen.”

  “Why did the person who cursed you do that?”

  “That’s a long story. One I don’t feel like telling. Like you don’t want to tell me why you want to find this Heronsuge.”

  Milo could respect that. “It looks like a long way to anywhere from here,” he commented, looking out across the wilderness ahead.

  “Yes, at least, by foot, the way you travel.”

  “How do you travel?”

  “My magic is Air Magic. I travel on the wind if I’m not walking, as I have been to follow you. It also has something to do with why the curse works on me the way it does. But don’t worry. I can walk as well as you, and I’ll be sure we don’t get separated. Since you can’t see me, you can’t really follow me, so I’ll tell you where we’re headed. Like now; do you see that hill? The one with the single pine tree growing out of its peak?”

  “Yes. I see the one you mean.”

  “Well, that’s where we’re going next. If we get separated, or walk at different speeds or choose different routes,
that’s where we can meet up next. From there I’ll pick out another rendezvous point, and so on. Okay?”

  Milo agreed. As he packed, he came across the acorn he’d taken from the oak at the beginning of the Korrigan. He dug a small hole, dropped the acorn into it, and covered it over with loose earth.

  “There,” he said, patting the earth into place. “Live long and prosper.”

  He called Bori, who showed up on cue to take his place inside the pack. They set out, following the arrangement that Stigma had suggested. He never knew if she was nearby or not, but once as they were crossing a muddy stream bank, he saw fresh footprints made by a small bare foot and new ones appearing up the bank on the other side.

  They traveled this way for several days without incident or signs of other people. That was the problem. The land was vacant. They were out of food. Bori offered to share the mice he caught, but neither of the humans were hungry enough to take that offer. They ate berries and nuts that they found along the way, but it was hardly enough to term a meal.

  “I think I’d better travel ahead,” Stigma told Milo. “I could move much faster and locate the nearest place to get real food.”

  “How’ll we find each other again?” Milo asked.

  “I’ll take care of finding you,” she assured.

  “How will I know where to go?”

  “See the mountain range that we’ve been walking towards?” Milo nodded. “See the highest peak? And then a low spot before the next set of peaks? Aim for that pass. I’ll meet you there, or along the line you’ll be walking for the next couple of days.”

  It meant he would have a long way to go on an empty stomach until Stigma returned. Milo didn’t care for the idea much, but what else could he do?

  They walked. Stigma was gone and Milo walked. And got hungrier. And worried. That meant that he was getting tireder. How long would he be able to keep on without food? All he could do was to hope that Stigma got back sooner, rather than later.

  14