The Foundlings (The Swords of Xigara)

by J. Mark Miller

  Another room beyond the warehouse was dedicated to rebinding books and preparing blank scrolls for new transcriptions. Acolytes here were busy washing strips of fibrous material in shallow vats filled with a foul-smelling liquid.

  A final door led them through an anteroom where they exited the building near the Shrine’s large central pool. Clear of the building, Tenna let her voice break their silence.

  “I’m happy for you. You’ve worked hard and I’m sure you’ll earn your name soon.”

  “I hope so, my lady.” Pixie’s smile flashed in the sunlight. “I welcome the day I can speak the names of others and hear my own spoken in return. Until then, I’m content to serve.”

  “The scroll you’re working on, where will it go when your master completes his painting?”

  “Wherever it is most needed,” Pixie said. “Likely to a museum or library somewhere, or into a noble tutor’s personal archive. If it’s deemed of sufficient quality it might remain here and become a transcription master.” Pixie stopped and blushed bright red. “That would be the highest honor.”

  On impulse, Tenna took Pixie hands and gave them a squeeze. Pixie met her eyes and smiled. Not for the first time, Tenna felt the life of an acolyte was a thing to desire.

  The pair spent the rest of the day exploring the sprawling refuge. Acolytes and masters alike busied themselves creating clothing, spinning wool, harvesting silk, and weaving flax linen into sheets. Others labored to store fruits and vegetables reaped from the Shrine’s gardens and the surrounding jungle. Still others dressed sundry animals for their meat, preserving the skin, scales, sinews, and bones for other uses. There were scores of beehives for honey and beeswax, and thousands of tea bushes grew on a managed hillock, producing the light tea drunk at every meal.

  At mid-afternoon they shared a light meal with a band of dwarven acolytes returning from clearing a path to a freshwater spring nearby. This was followed by a time of singing and prayer at one of the many small chapels scattered throughout the grounds. Though the entire community gathered every ten days for a service led by the High Keeper, these smaller chapels were made available for individuals and groups to use at their discretion.

  Their devotions were brought to an exciting end by the roar of a dragon. Pixie grabbed Tenna’s hand and said, “You’ll want to see this.”

  They wove through the dispersing dwarves to find a spiral staircase of wrought iron. This led them to the chapel’s flat rooftop where Pixie pointed into the sky with excitement. The long, sleek form of a dragon took shape, its body reflecting bright sunlight onto the ground below.

  It appeared the entire Shrine turned out to view the dragon’s arrival. Tenna spied Duras and Katalas in the crowd below, and her father and Doulos were standing shoulder to shoulder with Karah atop the Shrine’s main edifice. Even Y’neth strode out in the midst of the commotion, dripping wet and walking arm-in-arm with a grizzled looking human.

  “Mahir is a frequent visitor,” Pixie explained, “and much loved by our people. We never tire of watching him land in the courtyard.”

  Tenna noticed the dragon was not spiraling in for a landing as described in the stories. She knew first hand the dragons need not take such an indirect route, shuddering as she remembered the ravaging of Madhebah, but the speed with which this dragon was approaching was faster than anything she had ever seen.

  Closing the last hundred yards, the bright dragon pulled up hard then seemed to float down for a graceful landing. The crowd erupted in applause as his taloned feet touched the lawn.

  For her own part, Tenna did not applaud. She was not enamored by the brilliant quicksilver dragon. Her eyes were locked on his passenger.

  He was a tall young man with sandy blond hair. His clothes were fine, a fur-trimmed cape resting on broad shoulders. He stood up in the riding harness and slid nimbly down the dragon’s burnished hide, moving quickly to help the acolytes release the harness from around Mahir’s girth.

  His voice was kind and lighthearted, piercing the air with a sonorous clarity all the way up to where Tenna stood in beguiled observation. Her breath caught when she heard that voice—calm and melodic but shadowed with pain and loss.

  As the young man swept off his cloak and folded it over his arm Tenna heard her father’s voice ring out across the courtyard. She looked over to see him pointing with wide eyes at the new arrival. She took a closer look at the man to discover what had caused her father’s reaction. A bright pendant of some sort hung from his neck, but she was too far away to make out its shape.

  Then she saw it. There, hanging from his belt, sheathed in the finest scabbard Tenna had ever seen was a belt knife identical to the ones carried by Katalas, Duras, and her father.

  This young prince was a Blade Bearer.

  52

  The Shrine

  Time and landscape passed in a blur on Mahir’s back. Chrysafi’s words echoed through Tander’s mind as they sped across the sky. He spent the first several minutes of the flight in sheer terror after the dragon left into the sky before he could draw breath.

  He finally gathered his wits and discovered he couldn’t keep his eyes open in the face of the wind. His hopes for conversation were dashed as he opened his mouth and the sudden inrush of air stole his breath away. He spent an uncomfortable hour laying as flat as he could manage on Mahir’s back in an effort to avoid the hurricane force wind.

  Tander eventually worked out a way he could sit reversed in the harness and breathe a little easier. As he blinked his eyes open he found they’d already passed over much of the Mazerah mountains. The next few hours were spent winging across the rolling hills of northern Maehdras, the great city of Madhebah dominating the southern horizon.

  A dark green mass of tall, ancient trees filled the ground beneath them, the vast Barrhas Wood. Stories said the trees were alive, that they protected the inhabitants of the Celedine mountains from their enemies. Mahir slowed somewhat as they neared those peaks and Tander turned in the harness to see their flight angling toward a gap in the mountain range. He spied a ledge jutting from the rock face, and the shadow of a cave nearby. Mahir pulled up hard, brought them down on the ledge, then spoke to Tander for the first time since leaving Chrysafi behind.

  “We’ll wait for a few minutes and see if the Celadine council has any missives to send to the Shrine. Hop down and head into the cave. You’ll find a privy and some fresh water.”

  Happy to leave the harness, Tander took the opportunity to refresh himself. He discovered the spring, and as he bent down to take a drink an elf carrying a parcel climbed up through a hole in the floor. The elf gave him a silent nod before walking out onto the sunlit ledge. Tander followed, only to hear the dragon instruct him to take the parcel and mount up.

  Tander had enough forethought to turn backward in the harness, making Mahir’s takeoff more bearable the second time. The Celadine range soon passed below, giving way to a tangled jungle. Mahir turned southeast again, following the path of an ever-broadening river.

  It wasn’t long before Mahir slowed again and snaked his long neck back over his pinions to fix Tander with his liquid eyes.

  “We’re nearly there,” Mahir told him. “Look to the east. You will see the tallest spires of the Shrine jutting up from the canopy.”

  Tander looked and saw the tips of the sanctuary poking through the trees. He breathed a sigh of relief as he realized his journey was finally coming to an end. He’d spent the most of the last few weeks on dragon back and was worn to the bone. The exhilaration of flight had long since passed and he was ready to plant his feet on solid ground.

  “I suggest you face forward,” the dragon chuckled. “You’ll look a bit silly if you arrive facing the wrong way on your steed. Close your eyes and duck your head if necessary.”

  “Who’d be there to see it anyway?” Tander grumbled.

  “This time of day? Quite likely the entire population of the Shrine. My landings tend to draw a crowd.”

  Tander managed to tu
rn around before Mahir surged ahead faster than before. The dragon trumpeted his arrival, then sped like an arrow into an open courtyard lying between the thick jungle and the Shrine’s main edifice. They careened toward the ground, making Tander grip the harness in white-knuckled fear. Mahir pulled up at the last second and his wings caught the wind like a sail. Tander jerked backward in the harness and was forced to clench his legs around the dragon’s neck in an effort to stay upright.

  Mahir floated to a feather-light touchdown. As promised, a crowd had gathered, lining the courtyard’s walkways and covering every flat-topped roof. The crowd erupted with applause as the dragon landed, drawing another thunderous roar.

  Tander threw off the belt holding him to the harness and slid to the ground, ecstatic to be grounded once more. Several children dressed in white silk ran forward to help release the harness, and he welcomed them with a cheery voice.

  “Thank you,” Tander said. “I usually have to do this part all alone.”

  “Welcome to the Shrine, my lord” one of the children said. “May you find rest here.”

  “Rest,” Tander gave the boy a genuine smile. “That sounds nice.”

  Tander moved forward to the dragon’s head. “Thank you, Mahir, for bringing me here so swiftly. I hope we might fly together again, but perhaps at a more leisurely pace.”

  Mahir’s head drew back. “Leisurely? I haven’t flown so slowly in an age for fear you might blow off my back. More leisurely indeed.”

  Tander let loose a hearty laugh at the dragon’s dripping sarcasm. “Then perhaps one day we’ll see how fast we might fly together.”

  “Yes,” the dragon laughed in return, “someday. When time no longer moves more swiftly than I can fly, then we’ll truly test your mettle. Until then, Tander, friend of dragons, I bid you farewell.”

  Mahir unfurled his wings to take off, then caught himself and looked at the boy. “Be sure the High Keeper receives that parcel. There is crucial information within.”

  And with that, Mahir was gone.

  The crowd dispersed and Tander was led by a white-robed boy into the sanctuary’s main structure. Rather than meeting with any of the Keepers, the boy told him he’d been instructed to show Tander to his accommodations so that he could bathe and rest before dinner.

  When they arrived at Tander’s rooms the boy stood slack-jawed in awe. The quarters were far larger than his father’s entire house and more wondrous than any he’d ever seen apart from the tower oaks on Nesos. Bamboo fans hung from the ceiling, somehow spinning of their own accord. A giant tub of steaming water dominated the back room, filled to the brim with hot water that had been piped in from elsewhere in the complex.

  Surely it was all magic.

  The acolyte bowed and left him to his bath, but not before informing him dinner would begin in an hour, and that he was the guest of honor. Tander scurried to shuck off his clothes and left them at the door to be laundered as the boy instructed, then made for the bath.

  He meant to hurry through the bath and arrive early at dinner so as to make a good impression, but once his body hit the water—and its warmth penetrated his stiff muscles and joints—he struggled to keep his eyes open. Far underestimating his fatigue, his consciousness faded away.

  The young acolyte’s voice jarred him awake some time later.

  “My lord, are you well?”

  Tander bolted up from the water with a curse, sure he was late for dinner.

  “I’m fine,” Tander called to the boy. “I’ll be right out.”

  So it was that Tander found himself rushing through the corridors barefoot and wet-headed, wearing nothing more than a flimsy robe of red silk. At least he’d had the presence of mind to buckle his Blade about his waist, hoping it might make him appear more masculine.

  He pushed the acolyte ahead, almost stepping on the boy’s heels as they dashed into an indoor garden where dinner was already underway. He groaned as every eye turned to watch him blunder into their presence, but if anyone thought his tardiness rude they kept it to themselves. His only relief lay in the fact that the entire party seemed similarly dressed.

  The gathering was as odd an assortment of people as he’d ever seen. The High Keeper was an ancient but youthful looking elf woman named Karah. She was the perfect hostess, regal in bearing, warm in voice, and kind to all. Tander felt stirrings in his heart he’d not experienced since his mother’s death, but he tamped them down lest a flood of emotion consume him in front of the gathering. He set himself to learn all he could about the others in the hopes of forgetting all he’d lost.

  She greeted him warmly, inviting him to take the chair at her left, directly opposite a young woman who reminded him of Derae. He spent most of the evening speaking to the pretty girl whose name he learned was Tenna. He was sure he made a buffoon of himself, especially to her father, Zalas. He felt doubly self-conscious under the scrutiny of an old man who claimed to be the legendary wizard Doulos, leaving him wondering what he’d done to earn the man’s scowls.

  A terse sailor named Stile sat at Tander’s side. The man was amiable enough and took part in the dinner’s chatter but his attentions were all but exclusively reserved for the blue-skinned tann woman named Y’neth. Tander had never seen a water elf before and struggled not to stare.

  Another elf and a dwarf, Duras and Katalas, rounded out the dinner party. Longtime friends, their banter was light-hearted and infectious, helping the dinner pass with smiles and laughter.

  Tander struggled to stay alert as the hours passed. His belly was full and the wine had gone to his head. The High Keeper gave him a sympathetic smile and brought the dinner to a close, sending the members of the party their separate ways.

  “Goodnight, Tander,” Tenna told him with a soft smile, drawing a glower from the girl’s father. Tander stood up on unsteady feet and offered a shallow bow in return.

  He made a wobbly turn toward the path he thought led to his quarters, only to find himself standing nose to nose with an outlandishly dressed elf. The elf smiled down at Tander as if they were old friends. Maybe it was the wine, but Tander had difficulty focusing on the elf’s eyes, and it appeared the elf was wearing tree limbs, or perhaps he was himself part tree.

  “I am Quist,” the elf offered a hand, “guardian of the High Keeper.”

  “Um, hi,” Tander stammered and took the elf’s hand, “I’m Tander.”

  “It’s my understanding you have a blinkswift egg in your possession,” Quist said.

  Tander finally managed to take the elf’s hand and shake it. “Yes, I do. It’s in my room, in my pack.”

  “Might I suggest you allow me to see to its proper incubation?” Quist asked. “I assure you, your face will be the first the bird sees once it hatches.”

  “Sssure,” Tander slurred his words. Whether from fatigue or too much wine, he wasn’t certain.

  Quist called an acolyte who came and took Tander by the arm. “The acolyte will see you to your room, retrieve your egg, then bring it to me. I have also been bid to ask if you were entrusted with a parcel by Mahir.”

  Tander snapped sober as he remembered the parcel. “Oh no! That’s in my pack too. I…I was supposed to deliver it as soon as I got here. I’m so sorry…”

  Quist raised a hand and smiled. “There’s no harm done. Please allow the acolyte to take the parcel in addition to your egg. I bid you rest.”

  Quist gave a half bow then turned and walked away, leaving Tander in the care of the acolyte. By the time they completed the long walk to his rooms Tander could barely muster enough strength to point out his pack. The acolyte nodded and led him to bed.

  Tander was asleep before the acolyte left the room.

  53

  The Shrine

  Needles pierced Tenna’s arm and she bolted up from sleep, sending a small gray mass of fur tumbling off the bed with a yelp. She flopped over to peek down and saw Mas, the little jungle tiger, mewing up at her. She scooped him from the floor and plopped him in her lap.
r />   “Is your mother looking for you?” Tenna asked. “I don’t want her in my bed too.”

  Mas ignored the question, choosing instead to give a languid stretch followed by a far-too-content purr. Tenna chuckled and rubbed behind his ears, prompting him to nuzzle her leg in return and purr all the louder.

  Tenna lost herself in thought, reflecting on the drastic changes life had brought. The dragon’s attack, fleeing the only home she’d ever known, being arrested and sentenced to death only to take part in an escape that precipitated the destruction of the largest structure ever built by human hands, there was too much to conceive. But her misadventures hadn’t stopped there as she shuddered in remembrance of their flight through yrch infested woods and their last minute escape into a refuge under siege. Then, even as that refuge escaped imminent invasion, she and the company had left its safe confines behind to walk through a jungle that was perhaps the most dangerous natural place on Awia.

  It all seemed so foolish and uneccessary. How was it she’d even survived?

  But then she thought about the people she’d met and the wonders she’d seen. Even her father turned out to be someone different from all that she knew, a man whose character seemed somewhat diminished in her eyes. Then there was the fabled Doulos who had stepped out of the stories to become her companion, mentor, and protector. She mourned for Cedsul, and for his friend Onahim whose spirit had been crushed by the elf’s death. She’d also gained new companions in Katalas and Duras.

  She’d come to know the tann Y’neth, and learn of the great love the woman had for the rough but intelligent Stile. Y’neth was like a big sister, and the High Keeper was becoming something of a mother figure. And then there was Pixie, the girl whose eyes lit up when she spoke about her love of transcription and serving Onúl. Tenna had developed something akin to a big sister’s pride in the girl.

  She found herself surprisingly glad for the adventure, despite the tragedy and hardship. Though she once thought the journey would end at the safety of the Shrine she knew better. Plans were already being made to leave the sanctuary and embark on the next leg of their quest, but Tenna had made plans of her own—plans based on two discussions she’d had with others in recent days. She was all but sure she would ask permission to stay behind and take orders, becoming an acolyte, leaving her father and friends to save the world without her.