The Dragon Caller

by Pauline M. Ross

  From the ditch ahead, a lone soldier leapt out at him, brandishing a sword with a shriek of anger. Ruell’s horse startled and shied, and with a cry of dismay he fell backwards. He had just enough sense to loose his feet from the stirrups before he crashed to the ground with a force that knocked all the air out of him. He lay on one side, unable to move, his vision filled with the soldier bearing down on him, sword raised. He closed his eyes, awaiting his doom.

  Twenty dragons, at least, swooped to his rescue. They burned on his inner eye as bright as little suns, each one distinct, each filled with unspeakable rage that this abominable person should dare to attack their beloved Ruell.

  He opened his eyes. The swordsman was gone, and Khanassha’s eye rested not two paces from his own.“Are you unharmed, Master? We have destroyed the scorpion.”

  Scorpion? That was too difficult to understand. “I’m all right. I think.”

  Behind Khanassha, Garrett was on his hands and knees. That was difficult to understand, too. What had happened?

  Garrett crawled past Khanassha. “Up!” he said, in urgent tones. “Got to get moving. Come on, Ruell, you can do it.” Then, scrambling to his feet, he wrapped his arms around Ruell and hauled him upright. “Come on, run!”

  Ruell lurched forward, as Khanassha took off in a choking cloud of churning dust. Garrett took one arm and Elestra the other – wait, what had happened to the horses? He shook his head, putting off worrying about it until later, concentrating on setting one foot in front of the other. Nothing hurt, it was just hard to breathe, hard enough to stand, never mind run. But Garrett’s urgency infected him, and the dragons were there, fluttering anxiously around, twittering together, encouraging him.

  He ran. Perhaps it was more of a shuffle at first, but with Garrett and Elestra supporting his arms and matching their pace to his, they settled into a steady rhythm. They had the wind behind them, helping them along, or was that Elestra? He couldn’t tell.

  Behind them, the dragons fended off the regrouping soldiers. Ahead, they cleared the road of hapless farmers, wagoners and riders. Ruell didn’t dare to think of the mess they were leaving behind them, of overturned carts and escaped beasts and panicked humans. He focused with fierce intensity on his steps: left, right, left, right, left, right… Gradually the farms and neat fields gave way to brick houses, craftyards and shops, and the road became a paved street, edged with tall buildings and packed with terrified people who scattered as the dragons approached.

  They reached a large square at the intersection of two major streets, and here Garrett paused. “Not… going to… make it… to harbour,” he puffed. “That way. Tower.”

  He pointed down the side road, and there at the end of it was a green hill topped by a tall tower. There was no visible door or window, but it didn’t seem to be manned by the army, so Ruell had to trust that Garrett knew what he was doing.

  They set off again, but they’d not taken ten paces when the dragons’ screeches of alarm alerted Ruell to trouble. “More soldiers,” he gasped. “Ahead.”

  They boiled out of an alley just fifty paces in front of them, although Ruell had no idea whether this was the same group that had been following them and knew a shortcut to cut them off, or a different group altogether. It made no difference, for the dragons swooped on them with the same ferocity, scattering them here and there. But not far enough. On this street the shops boasted canopies protruding over the walkway, and many of the soldiers crouched there, out of reach of flying dragons. A crossbow bolt struck Garrett, but pinged off him as his glass ball protected him. Another whizzed over Elestra’s head. Khanassha landed behind them on the street and a burst of angry fire ended the soldiers’ resistance, and the last of them fled, for the moment.

  Then they were struggling up the hill to the tower. Ruell was so exhausted his legs burned, and his breath rasped in his chest. Khanassha landed beside him, full of concern.‘One more step… and another…’. With the gentlest of touches, the dragon placed one wing behind Ruell, supporting his last desperate efforts.

  And finally the tower was there in front of them. Ruell collapsed onto the grass at its base. Elestra was on her hands and knees, gasping for breath, and even Garrett –the fittest man Ruell knew – was bent over, hands on knees, chest heaving. There they stayed for some time, breathing, breathing, resting their aching limbs, beginning to feel normal again. Khanassha and Yannali sat either side of Ruell, wings neatly folded, watching over him protectively, while the rest of the dragons hovered nearby, drowning him in their anxiety for his welfare.

  Below them, the barked orders and clash of steel suggested the soldiers of Drakk’alona were also recovering their strength. Ruell sat up. Below the green slopes of the tower, its manicured lawns criss-crossed with neat stone paths, the whole of Drakk’alona was laid out before them, all solid stone walls and wide streets, with barges choking the river and great ships with many coloured sails filling the harbour and overflowing into the open sea beyond.

  “Well, we made it,” Ruell said. “So now what? How do we get in?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Garrett said.

  29: Ran’ashilla fah (Garrett)

  “What do you mean, you haven’t the slightest idea?” Ruell said. Elestra laughed, and Ruell rounded on her at once. “What’s so funny? I really don’t see anything in the least bit amusing about our situation.”

  Garrett said nothing, content to watch them. He’d never been to this tower before, but he’d seen one just like it on the southern coast and another on the western coast. The magic in them affected people in different ways – some were afraid, and some attracted, but most just felt well, relaxed and unconcerned, even about an army reorganising itself at that very moment at the foot of the hill. It didn’t surprise him that Elestra’s spirits were bubbling up again under the tower’s spell.

  “Oh, the situation, no,” she said, lips still quirked upwards. “Oursituation is dire. Imminent death at the very least, I suspect, or incarceration without food or water in some rat-infested hole of a dungeon. But Garrett not knowing how to get into the tower – that’s very funny.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to explain the joke to me,” Ruell said. “And if you could do sobefore the imminent death or incarceration, I’d be grateful.”

  “Oh, don’t be stuffy, Ruell,” Garrett said. “Itis quite funny, actually. If we can get inside, we’ll be safe, but there are no doors or windows to be seen, no obvious way in.”

  Ruell rolled his eyes, but Elestra laughed again, a gurgle of pure merriment that made Garrett laugh too.

  “So what is your devious plan?” she said, still smiling at him, her lovely eyes sparkling.

  For a moment, Garrett couldn’t breathe, warmth flooding through him. If she was under the tower’s spell, he, it seemed, was under her spell. He cleared his throat. “This is Ran’ashilla fah, although what that means I don’t know. Something in the Drakk’alona language, I’d guess.”

  “It means‘white tower of wonder’,” Elestra said. “And yes, it’s in Rin-dryar, the language spoken here.”

  “How educated you are,” Garrett said. “The‘white tower of wonder’ is almost certainly mage-built and dates from before the catastrophe, so only magic will open it. And I have a source of magic.”

  “Your glass ball!” she said, clapping her hands together in glee.

  “Indeed. These walls look perfectly smooth, but there are apparently doors all the way up, so all we have to do is make them visible.”

  “Might be good to get a move on,” Ruell said. “We’re about to have a visit from the army.”

  The first soldiers were climbing steadily up the steep slope of the hill, and when Garrett looked round, he could see more streaming up from the town below and flowing round the base of the hill. The dragons fluttered anxiously, and the two protecting Ruell took off and began circling round the tower.

  “No problem,” Elestra said. “I can deal with them.” And one by one the soldiers
fell backwards, as if they’d been pushed, rolling back down the hill and taking several others with them.

  “Neat trick,” Garrett said, and was rewarded by an even wider smile. He reached into his bag and pulled out his glass ball. “Ball, show me the doors on the tower.”

  The ball glowed for several heartbeats before fading away. And there they were, the outlines of doors in the wall, spiralling round and up right to the top.

  “Where’s the nearest? Ah, that one.” Garrett couldn’t hide his disappointment, for it was at least the height of three men above them. How were they to reach it?

  “Why is it high up?” Ruell said. “And why so many?”

  “In case the lower doors get covered up, I suppose. The earth shifts over time. But it does make it tricky. How are we to reach it?”

  “The dragons might be able to lift us up,” Ruell said dubiously. “That’s how Allavrissha rescued me when I fell down the cliff, although it was really uncomfortable. Mind you, she was fully grown. But look, the doors are regularly spaced, see? So from that one, the next one should be just below the grass about here. I can get the dragons to dig, if you like.”

  “Maybe you could get a move on?” Elestra yelled at them.

  Even with her efforts and the dragons harassing the advancing soldiers, there were just too many of them. Inch by inch they made their way up the hill, and even when one was knocked down, there were two or three more to take over. Garrett could see that they were running out of time.

  “Right, better dig then.”

  Ruell summoned several dragons, who set to willingly, their powerful claws tossing great clods of earth down the hill. But as fast as they dug, the soldiers were approaching even faster. One or two arrows went pinging past, to bounce harmlessly off the tower. A crossbow bolt clanked against one of the dragons. With a hiss of displeasure, he turned his head and flamed it before it had even hit the ground.

  There was no sign of the door. Garrett checked the visible doors, then paced out the distance round from the last one.

  “It’s further round!” he yelled. “Dig here!”

  The dragons shifted, and set to again. There were rocks below the grass, but the claws had no trouble with them, digging in with ease and sending lumps of stone crashing down the hill. And slowly, oh so slowly, the outline of the door appeared, no more than a rectangular shadow on the tower’s stone surface but it was enough.

  “Ball, open the door!” Garrett said. And the wall within the outline vanished, leaving a dark opening.

  “At last!” Elestra cried, and would have dived headfirst into the tower, but Garrett caught her arm.

  “Let me go first. We don’t know what’s in there.”

  “Fine but make it quick.”

  Even as she spoke, soldiers boiled over the brow of the hill, yelling, armour clanking, swords drawn. Several dragons hissed and dropped from a height onto them, but there were more coming up behind them – the whole hill was crawling with them.

  They were out of time. Garrett practically threw Elestra through the opening. Ruell scrambled after her, one of the dragons brushed past to squeeze inside too and Garrett dived in behind them.

  “Ball, shut the door!”

  And the door was gone, the hill was gone, the army was gone, and they were in darkness, the only sound their own laboured breathing. The ball was gone, too, shooting out of his hand as he fell. He’d landed on his knees, and he sat unmoving, catching his breath, as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Beside him, the dragon hissed very gently, and as it turned its head, the glowing amber eyes came into view, swirling slowly.

  “Everyone all right?” Garrett said, his voice echoing into the darkness.

  “Fine.” Ruell’s voice.

  “Elestra?” Then, in sudden fear,“Elestra!”

  “Down here.” Her voice was faint, rising up from the depths below. “I fell into a hole.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” Surprise in her tone. “I just floated down. Not hurt at all. I don’t suppose you have a candle or two in that bag of yours? Or can your ball give us some light?”

  “I dropped it.”

  “Khanassha can find it,” said Ruell eagerly. “He can see in the dark.”

  A skittering sound and a rush of dragon-scented air suggested that the creature had taken off. Garrett caught sight of the eyes moving here and there some distance away, but soon they vanished.

  “He’s found the ball,” Ruell said. “He’s— Oy, don’t do that! Khanassha!”

  There was an explosion of light so brilliant that Garrett’s eyes hurt. He turned away with an exclamation, wrapping one arm in front of his face. “What happened?”

  “Thestupid dragon! He started playing with the ball, and… and it got sucked up the middle of the tower. I don’t know what happened exactly, but it… it sort of blew into pieces. But look, Garrett! Look at that!”

  Cautiously Garrett shifted his arm and half opened one eye. The light was more bearable now, filling the whole tower, which stretched up far above their heads. They were crouched on a level section of a long stair that spiralled round the inside wall, up and up and up. And almost the whole tower was filled with glass balls moving slowly up and around and down, in an endless stately dance.

  “They weren’t visible when we came in,” Ruell said. “The tower seemed to be empty and dark, from top to bottom, and even through Khanassha’s eyes I couldn’t see them. When he nudged your ball into the centre, it must have activated something. And now we can see the balls.”

  “No, I think itcreated them,” Garrett said. “Ran’ashilla fah is famous as the only tower ever to be entered. The Tre’annatha somehow managed to get in a long time ago and took every last one of its glass balls, and when it was empty they abandoned it, and now no one knows how to get inside. Except us.”

  He leaned forward to look over the edge. There, some distance below, was Elestra, waving at him, a wide grin on her face. He jogged down to join her, and she ran to meet him at the bottom of the steps.

  “Thank the Gods! You’re truly not hurt?”

  She shook her head. “Not a bit of it. I had a very soft landing.”

  The dragon, head low, the picture of abject guilt, crouched miserably beside the wall, its eyes lidded.

  “Tell your pet I’m very displeased,” Garrett said to Ruell, who had followed him down. “It’s destroyed my glass ball.”

  “There are plenty more,” Ruell said.

  “Yes, but that one was special. It was mine and it was given to me by—” He stopped, still reluctant to talk about it, even after all these years. But she was long gone, and it was foolish to be so grief-stricken after so long. He was past all that, surely. “By a good friend,” he ended lamely.

  “It was Mother’s once,” Ruell said sharply. “Before your good friend stole it.”

  “She had a better right to it than anyone alive. It was hers to take, and when she no longer needed it she gave it to me. It was the only thing I had left of hers, to remind me of her life.”

  Elestra rested one hand on his arm. “She’s dead?” Garrett nodded. “Poor thing. How did she die?”

  “I killed her,” Garrett said bleakly.

  ~~~~~

  The tower was huge, but it wasn’t a particularly homely place. Light emanated from somewhere, but it was impossible to say where, and it was a strange, unnatural light, like neither daylight nor moonlight. The interior of the tower was one vast, open space, tapering towards the top, with the ever-moving balls filling most of it. There was a narrow gap near the walls that they never entered, and whenever one strayed close it would gently change direction, as if bouncing off an invisible membrane.

  The stairs wound endlessly upwards, with regularly spaced doors and windows that could only be seen from close up, blending back into plain wall as they passed by. The doors had rope handles and opened at a pull, to show the smoky canopy and myriad towers of Drakk’alona, with a cloud of dragons wheeling above, but the windows sho
wed only blue sky with gulls and a grassy headland.

  “I suppose the door we came in by is still exposed,” Garrett said.

  “Shall I get the dragons to cover it over again?” Ruell said.

  “No need. The army know where we went, but they can’t even see the doors, never mind open them.”

  At the top of the tower, the stairs passed through an opening and emerged into a room untouched by the light from below. In the gloom, they could just make out a giant glass ball sitting on a plinth.

  In a dark corner they found a small water fountain.

  “Well, at least we won’t die of thirst,” Elestra said cheerfully, cupping her hands to fill them and then drinking deeply before Garrett could stop her.

  “Maybe a little caution would be in order,” he said, but without much heat. It was hard to be cross with her when she smiled at him so warmly.

  “I don’t think this place means us any harm, do you?” she said. “I feel… perfectly well, despite all that running and wind-blowing and what not. Don’t you?”

  It was true, Garrett had to concede. It would be normal to suffer aching muscles and exhaustion after all that they’d been through over the last few hours, but he felt none of it. It was as if he’d just woken, refreshed, from a long, untroubled sleep.

  He laughed, and impulsively he snatched up her hand, still dripping with water, and kissed it. “You know, for a pampered rich girl on her first expedition, you’re remarkably unbothered by the hardships of the journey. You should be grumbling about how difficult it is to do your hair without three maids to help you, and wondering when you’ll be able to change into a fresh silk gown.”