The Dragon Caller

by Pauline M. Ross

  Silently he followed her up the stairs, round and round, up and up, every step bringing him nearer to the dreadful moment when he would have to confess.

  “I put our blankets over here, behind the fountain,” she said. “Garrett and Elestra will sleep across on the far side. Is that all right?” Her lovely face was anxious. “There is nowhere more private, but they will not be here for a while yet. They understand.” And she reached for his hand, lifting it to her cheek, so that the golden sparks of the dragons vanished and there was only Taia, her mind a turmoil of nervousness. She raised her eyes to his.“Kiss me, dragon man.”

  He swallowed, mouth dry.“Taia… I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I mean, I’ve never done this before, and—”

  “Neither have I! But we will learn together, and—”

  “But I can’t! When I’ve tried… I couldn’t… the dragons—”

  “I know.”Her mind was infused with sympathy.“Garrett told me everything.”

  “Oh.”He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that he didn’t have to explain the horrible details himself, or annoyed with Garrett for interfering. Relieved, he decided. She knew and she wanted to try anyway, and if he failed again, at least she wouldn’t be surprised.

  “I told my mother about it, in case she knew why it had happened. She had not heard of such a thing, but she said that dragon callers are very different, so I should not be alarmed to discover such oddities. She asked the Spirit for guidance and it said – the Spirit is always so cryptic! It said ‘Silver defeats gold.’ Mother does not understand it, and nor do I, but she said perhaps it would mean something to you. Does it?”

  He couldn’t mistake the anxious note in her mind, fear mingled with hope, but his mind was blank.‘Silver defeats gold?’ What could it possibly mean? But then he laughed, his mind surging with exultation. Of course silver defeats gold!

  “Ruell? Do you understand it?”Now she was full of exultation too, her eyes shining.

  “I think so! In my mind, the dragons are little gold stars, but you… you, my sweet love, are a silver star. When I touch you, all I see is silver stars, the gold of the dragons is gone.”

  “Then we can truly do this!”

  He felt her thrill of excitement racing through him. What she felt, he felt too, but there was still uncertainty in his mind. He wouldn’t dare to believe it until…

  “I need you to touch me.”

  “But I am touching you, dearest.”

  “No, I mean…”

  “Ah. Trousers off, then.”

  She took her hands away and began fumbling with the strings, blushing a little, not looking him in the eye. At once she was gone from his mind, but there was no time to feel bereft, for the dragons were back, full of excitement to be reunited with him, but also anxiety – they hated it when they couldn’t connect with him. Perhaps it was a natural state of being for a dragon, that mental connection, but for him it was an alien thing, frightening and sometimes overwhelming. He loved his dragons, but it was wonderful to be able to shut them out, too. He sent them calming thoughts, then reached for Taia, resting his hand on her cheek.

  There it was again, that silver star, shimmering, glowing, full of apprehension but also… desire, she needed him as much as he needed her. But there was something else there, another silver star, small, far away, but kindly, not a threat. And only one, not the many he’d seen before.

  “Who else is there, connected to your mind?”

  She stopped her fumbling with his trousers.“Only the Keeper. The others are all shut out, but I can never exclude the Keeper. She is always there, but… she is not watching us. We are alone, my love, just you and me and… this!”

  She took hold of him then, and joy surged through him. They were touching – really touching – and nothing bad had happened, there were no dragons in his head, only Taia. Sweet, beloved Taia.

  He groaned a little, and leaned towards her, and she gave a quick gasp. His lips found hers, pressing down on her with all the unassuaged desire of his years of unrelieved tension. And she responded with equal ardour, pulling him down onto the blankets and into the fires of blissful love.

  32: Making Camp (Garrett)

  Garrett had been mad as fire all day. Ruell had been fully occupied moving his dragons here and there under army direction, so there was no chance to talk to him, and Garrett could only glower whenever Ruell came within range. He had nothing useful to do, so he found a spot where he wouldn’t be trodden on or tripped over, and kept out of the way, with Elestra for company.

  And the girl in white, who settled herself beside him and jabbered away quite easily, as if she hadn’t just seduced Ruell within five heartbeats. Garrett didn’t know everything that went on in the world, but he knew magic when he saw it, and he couldn’t see through her eyes, which always made him suspicious. It meant she had a lot of magic about her. Well, as one of these Spirit Children, that wasn’t unexpected. The Protectors and the Keeper all had enough magic to bar his own little talent. But it meant she could be up to all sorts of magical tricks and he wouldn’t know. She seemed innocent enough, but he wasn’t convinced, although she claimed to be as bemused by the whole business as he was.

  “It is the strangest thing, but it feels as though we are meant for each other,” she said gaily. “Ruell and me, I mean. We were just pulled together – a compulsion. But now that we have affirmed our connection, the attraction is still there but it is no longer impossible to resist.”

  “Yes, but what causes it?” Garrett growled.

  “I have no idea, but apparently it is normal for a dragon caller to have a Spirit-sired companion.”

  “Nothing normal about any of this.”

  “Dragon callers are inherently abnormal, I suppose,” she said, smiling. “Physically different, somehow. Mother has been looking things up, as you may imagine, and she found a journal with some interesting details. Wait… let me see if I can read it.” Her eyes lost focus for a few moments. “There! Zak is holding it open at the page. It is the memoirs of a dragon caller – a very old book, as you may imagine.‘There is something like a stone lodged under the breast bone; not a real stone, but that is what it feels like. At the moment of transition, I was aware of the stone and the power lodged therein. The fire released all the power so that it was entirely at my command from that moment forwards. There had been previous times, brief flashes when I was aware of the stone, but they did not last. Only the final and greatest fire at the time of challenge was strong enough to unleash the power permanently.’ There, you see? Ruell undoubtedly has such a stone in him. Has he ever mentioned anything of the sort?”

  Garrett shook his head, wondering at the implications of that. The final fire? The time of challenge? What did that mean? But when he asked the Second Daughter, she had no more idea than he did, and nor did the Keeper and the other Protectors, hurriedly looking up books in far away Mesanthia.

  “I want you to know that, whatever the cause of it, to me it feels right – a good thing, not evil. And I think to Ruell also.”

  “Anything that forces you to do something, whether you want it or not, is evil in my view,” he said bluntly. “And you don’t know what might happen.”

  “I know. It is a little frightening, it cannot be denied, but it is our destiny, of that I am certain. This is meant to be, and therefore I embrace it willingly… eagerly! I hope he will do so too.”

  Garrett rubbed his nose thoughtfully, but there was nothing he could do for either of them except stand aside when the magic took them and hope that they both emerged unscathed from it.

  ~~~~~

  The evening was unexpectedly pleasant, and not just for the abundance of food. Surrounded by the elite of the Mesanthian army, the talk was all of swords and bows and spears, of strategies and battle plans, and, as the night wore on and the ale was consumed, of their personal exploits and triumphs, in the way of soldiers everywhere. They absorbed Garrett into their number ef
fortlessly, asking politely about his own experiences, only to be shocked and fascinated when they discovered that he was not, as they’d supposed, just a low-level hired guard, but had fought in the bloody war of the Karningplain, and seen the uprising that followed the end of it.

  “So you’re a Skirmisher, comrade,” one of them said, slapping him genially on the back. “That’s a high standard. When you come to Mesanthia, you must train with us, teach us your techniques.”

  “Not a Skirmisher,” he said at once. “I was taught by one, but I don’t have his skill.”

  “You’re too modest. And if you fought against the Vahsi, you must be good.”

  Garrett smiled, and said little. It was too complicated to explain that, not only was he not a Skirmisher, but he’d fought against them in the war, and that the Vahsi were nowhere to be seen.

  “That was a bad business, in the Karningplain. They’re all to pieces now, so you’re well out of it. Still, it’s a surprise to see a Skirmisher so far from home.” The others nodded their heads vaguely. The Plains of Kallanash were far away and insignificant to Mesanthians.

  Hytharn was less surprised by Garrett’s presence at Drakk’alona. “The First Protector sends his greetings,” he said, when the conversation turned elsewhere. “Zak remembers you well, and it’s fortunate that you wrote to him about your dragon caller, because otherwise we’d never have been here at the right moment.”

  “He got my letter from the Windblown Isle, and so you decided to come to Drakk’alona?” Garrett said, raising an eyebrow. “Interesting logic.”

  Hytharn rumbled with laughter. “We didn’t exactly decide. Naturally we planned to go to the Windblown Isle, but we had word that there’d been some kind of dragon infestation there, so we put in to Drakk’alona to see what we could find out. Just as well we did, or you’d have fallen into the hands of the Drakk’alona army.”

  “Actually, we got away from them all by ourselves,” Garrett said testily. “Andwerescuedyou, if I remember rightly.”

  He laughed genially. “Oh, we’d have been all right, although I’m not ungrateful. Your intervention was appreciated, even if not strictly necessary. Nevertheless, they are still out there, and a few extra swords never goes amiss.”

  “Perhaps, but you lot complicate matters,” Garrett said. “We had just three of us to deal with, and that’s not so difficult. Another twenty-four makes things very different.”

  “But the twenty-four bring you ships,” Hytharn said, smiling. “All we have to do is to get you from here to there. How long will it take these dragons to reach a suitable size, do you think?”

  It was not a question that Garrett could answer. In fact, there were increasing numbers of questions he’d have liked answers to, most of them centring on Ruell and this strange girl who had mesmerised him. Ruell was a mystery that no one seemed able to solve, but the girl…

  “Tell me about the Second Daughter,” he said to Hytharn.

  “Ah, yes. Normally she would not have come on a venture like this, but the histories are very clear that dragon callers always form an alliance with a Child of the Spirit, so here she is. We brought the Third Son, too, just in case, but it was the Second Daughter who was called. What do you know about the Children of the Spirit?”

  “Not much. Xando – I mean the Second Protector – told me something of the process, but it sounded weird to me.”

  That brought another deep rumble of laughter. “Itis a weird process. We were all surprised to discover the details, I can tell you! There are three cycles, each involving all five of the Protectors as well as the Keeper, and after each a pregnancy which produces several babies - five, six, seven at a time.”

  “Gods!” Garrett said. “The poor Keeper!”

  Hytharn laughed again. “A Spirit pregnancy is not in the least troublesome, I assure you. The Keeper was perfectly well the whole time. The babies are born tiny, but they grow at a staggering rate. They come into their powers at five or so, and are mature at ten.”

  “Mature enough to… act grown up?” Garrett said.

  “At ten? That is a little young, perhaps. What you must understand, Master Garrett, is that all the Children are connected to the Keeper, just as the Protectors are. There is something uplifting about being privy to the thoughts and feelings of other people. It’s impossible to be selfish or childish when every emotional ripple is exposed. The Children of the Spirit mature early in every way, including the physical. The First Daughter has a child of her own already, and several of the Sons… well, young men like to experiment. Second is fifteen now, and plenty old enough to know her own mind, and to deal gently with your boy, if that is worrying you.”

  “Everything about Ruell worries me. I never thought how challenging it would be, having a son. It shouldn’t be hard, should it? Keep an eye on him, answer his questions, be there to pick him up when he falls… I never expected I’dfret about him so much.”

  “Is he your only child?”

  “The only one I know about.”

  “Ah, then there is your problem. When there are eighteen of them, it is a little easier to stand back and watch them fall. They generally get back up again, and without any help.”

  “Eighteen… I can’t imagine that. Can you tell if any of them are yours?”

  “It doesn’t exactly work that way. One has my yellow hair, but Zak’s nose. Another has my hair, the Fourth Protector’s chin and the Fifth Protector’s hands. None have Xando’s oval eyes, but two have his skin colour and hair – like your lady there,” he added, nodding at Elestra. “They take elements from all the Protectors. It’s a strange business.”

  Garrett kept respectfully silent, not having anything sensible to say about such a bizarre arrangement. He’d never been able to understand how it would work, being mentally connected in that way, so that everything you did was known to everyone else. No deceit, but then no secrets, either. No private thoughts. If you took a fancy for a woman, there’d be no hiding your thoughts on the matter, and if you were getting good and friendly, there’d be no hiding that, either. It would take some getting used to. And if the Second Daughter was mentally connected to Hytharn—

  “Can you… I don’t know, watch them? When they’re together?”

  Hytharn shook his head, with a gentle smile. “No. But you needn’t worry. She won’t hurt him.”

  “You don’tknowthat!” Garrett burst out, loud enough that a few heads turned towards them. He lowered his voice, then went on, “There’s some dark magic going on between them, and everyone seems quite easy about it. Oh, it’s just what young people do, let them get on with it. But it’smagic drawing them together, and not one of us knows where this will end up.”

  With another shake of his golden head, Hytharn said, “Worrying never made anything better. You’re a warrior to the core, so you know how it works – take care of things that are within your power, and forget about everything else. Keep your head clear of extraneous thoughts that buzz around like flies and keep you awake and drain your energy. They’re not productive. There is nothing we can do to keep Second and Ruell apart, short of physical force, so let us relax, enjoy the evening and sleep like babes afterwards. Shall we join the musicians? Or is a little play with the bones more to your taste?”

  Garrett laughed at this deft turning of the conversation. He decided not to fight it. They would know soon enough, presumably, whether Ruell and the lady in white were going to succeed in their bedroom endeavours, and in the meantime he might as well enjoy the evening. “I’ve probably spent more hours with bones in my hand than not, over the years,” he said, with a smile. “I’d be happy to watch the play.”

  “Only watch?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair for me to play.”

  “Oh, you fancy your chances, do you?” Hytharn said with a broad grin.

  “It’s just that—” He stopped, realising that Hytharn knew nothing of his ability to see through others’ eyes. How easy it would be to say nothing, to join in, to enjoy
the thrill of winning again. Life was simpler when he’d spent all his time gambling, knowing that he had to win to survive. But he no longer needed to, and it would be a distraction now. “I’ll just watch, if it’s all the same to you.”

  So he sat and watched the play, and worked out pretty quickly what the best strategies were, and who were the best players. After that he was bored, so it was a relief when the musicians put away their instruments, and the games players collected their winnings and headed for their allotted sleeping spaces on the floor, leaving only the night guards pacing watchfully inside the door. It seemed likely they’d have a quiet night, for the cavern beyond was empty now, and the army camp surrounding the tower had also settled down for the night.

  Elestra took his hand and they began the long climb to the room at the top of the tower. Garrett was oddly reluctant. What would they find up there?

  As they reached the halfway point, the dragon shot past them, diving in and out of the column of ever-moving balls with a trail of fiery sparks.

  “He’s enjoying himself, anyway,” Elestra said, with a sideways look at Garrett. “Whereas you’ve been as growly as a bear all day. You wouldn’t even join in with the gaming, and I know that’s something you’re good at.”

  “Well, it’s easy if you can see what everyone else is holding,” he said with a rueful laugh.

  “You could have not used your ability.”

  “And tomorrow or the next day, when they find out about it, they’ll wonder about every point I won. The only way round that is to lose every single point, and I can’t quite bring myself to do that. Have I really been that grumpy? Sorry. I’m just worried about that boy of mine.”