Jarrod was squatted before the old man. “Keeper, calm yourself.” He gently rubbed the old man’s slender, veined white hands in his smooth dark ones.
She had to admire Jarrod’s persistence. She would have given up on the keeper by now.
The keeper grabbed Jarrod’s shoulders and shouted. “Too dangerous!”
Tamara jumped in fright, and then sighed. “Old fool.”
“Explain yourself, old man,” Thyel said.
The keeper’s fingers pinched into Jarrod’s shoulder enough to make the Chief Counselor visibly flinch. “You must not leave through that doorway.”
“Master.” Fane knelt to speak with him. He placed a container of water between the keeper’s shaking hands. “Drink. I’ve put your herbs in it.”
The keeper flung the goblet away. Uncannily, it sailed straight for Thyel and Tamara. She instinctively ducked. It missed her and sailed by Thyel’s head, barely an inch away.
He gave an angry oath.
“Foolish boy,” the keeper shouted.
“Why?” Fane asked, his own anger stirred. “Why am I foolish? You’ve trained me for five years for this moment. I’ve been a good student. I can discipline my mind enough to embrace a dragon’s mind-touch without panicking. I have practiced on dogs and cats and birds. I know I can do it. Now I have a chance to fulfill my destiny and you pluck it away.”
Fane took his master’s hands. “Don’t you understand, Master. I want to be like you. I want to soar across the sky on the back of a dragon. Travel between realms. See wonders I have only imagined from your tales.”
“Keeper.” On the other side of Jarrod, Skye, too, bent to speak to the old man. “We must use the stone. My brother is in trouble and I must go find him. The only way I know how, is through that opening to Isa.”
The old man shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
“Why?” Fane asked.
“Because there’s nothing left to focus the stone’s energy, to keep it whole,” the keeper said. “Boy, if you go through that portal, there will be no returning home. Not ever. To use the portal in its current state will destroy the last remaining Quinlin stone on this side and the other, denying you the ability to return if all is not as it should be on Isa.”
Never able to return? Tamara staggered back, and sat on a bench. What had they almost done?
“Not if we find a dragon,” Fane said. “If I bond with a dragon, I could travel back and bring these people with me.”
“If you don’t bond? If no dragon is willing to try anymore? They were becoming more quarrelsome with the humans the last time I visited Isa. Or what if you’re killed before you find one? Isa is not a place for the unwary. You know that, Fane. Do your friends?”
“I would face any peril to save Bevan,” Skye said.
The keeper’s quivering hand came to rest unerringly on her shoulder. He turned his blind eyes to her. “Would you, girl? Even if it meant you may never return? That you could be trapped on Isa for the rest of your life?”
Skye’s face turned ashen and her gaze swung toward her aunt. Her blue gaze filled with compassion met Tamara’s. It held a determination to carry on, no matter the risk.
Her niece had a plan. Tamara saw it in her eyes. She would enter Isa, find a way for Fane to bond with a dragon, and then fly them out of that realm in search of Bevan. Marauding giants or difficult dragons notwithstanding.
Even the possibility of being trapped on Isa did not faze Skye. The possibility expanded in Tamara’s mind.
Silently, she pleaded with Skye to not go. She couldn’t stand to lose her, as well as Bevan. Her mother would never forgive her. Tamara could never forgive herself. She shook her head, hoping to discourage Skye.
Her niece stared back, and then mimed the words, “I’m sorry,” and turned back to the keeper.
Tears flooded Tamara’s eyes. She had nothing left now but go home and tell her mother that without lifting a finger to help, she’d allowed Skye to walk into danger, as she had Bevan. The first time, she’d done it from a sense of impatience. This time, it would be sheer cowardice.
Jarrod came over to Tamara’s side and sat beside her, taking her hand. There was such profound understanding in his gaze that a long dead part of Tamara woke up with a start.
Her spine firmed, stiff as an ancient oak. Shaking off his hold, she stood and approached the old man.
Don’t think.
Don’t plan.
Don’t worry about what’s to come.
Live for this moment. One breath at a time. For once, do what’s right.
“We are going to Isa, Keeper,” Tamara said. “You can either help us reach there safely, or stay out of our way.”
Everyone in the room gazed from her to the keeper.
Silence rang like a thunderclap.
The keeper raised his hands blindly toward Tamara. “Come here, girl.”
She looked at his foggy eyes and shivered. What was she doing? Don’t think! Just breathe. She knelt by the old man.
The keeper put his shaky, clammy hands on either side of her head. He leaned forward until their foreheads touched and brought his uniquely, gagging scent. Whiffs of it invaded her lungs. No, don’t breathe, hold your breath.
Just as she thought her chest would explode, dragons flew at her. At least a dozen. In the air. Chasing her. Screaming in rage.
The keeper released his hold and she fell onto her hind end. She was back in his smelly quarters.
Tamara’s tight chest deflated like a pricked bubble, air gushing out. Which was when it dawned that when those dragons chased her, she’d been airborne.
The keeper laughed.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
The old man shook his head. Tears streamed down his wrinkled old cheeks. He hacked, trying to catch his breath between chortles. “Fane!”
“Yes, Master? I’m here.”
“Take my blessings with you to Isa.” He caught the boy by his neck and, still in great humor, brought him down to his level. “You’ve done well, boy. Beyond my wildest expectations. Now go. The queen of the dragons has spoken.” Then he laughed again, hacking and wheezing.
“He’s gone mad.” Thyel said.
Tamara cringed at that, afraid if she said she’d seen dragons in her mind, he’d call her mad too. Instead, she stood and gave Skye a nod and then walked out the door, heading for portal room.
Queen of the Dragons, indeed. Somehow, he must have tapped into one of her nightmares and the old fool was making fun of her. Face hot with embarrassment, she wanted to get away from the keeper before he said anything else rude.
Skye raced to catch up. Her niece’s slender fingers gripped hers, the only indication she appreciated Tamara’s support.
Tamara squeezed back and made another silent promise to her mother. I will take exceptional care of her, mother. I won’t lose her, too.
It took Fane a while to send a homing pigeon to request and receive confirmation from a neighbor that he would look after the old keeper while Fane was away.
Finally, all but the keeper convened in the portal room and Jarrod retrieved the Quinlin stone from his tome. He stepped up to the depression in the wall and gently laid the stone in its proper resting place.
The Quinlin started to glow.
He stepped back as the circle of light expanded. The stone’s vibration increased as the portal built, growing taller and wider, until it covered the gaping hole in the wall.
“Are you sure you want to come with us?” Skye asked Tamara.
“Wrong question.”
“Right.” Skye squeezed Tamara’s fingers in understanding.
She would never be ready for this. Tamara requested to be the first to step through. If the stone didn’t work and she stepped off the edge of the tower, it wouldn’t matter. She’d imagined such an event occurring too often. At least this way, her sacrifice would save Skye. It was the least she could do for letting Bevan down when he needed her.
At Skye’s worr
ied look, Tamara lied and said, “The less time I have to think about it, the better.”
She moved into the golden light and her body shivered and shook like the Quinlin stone in its resting place. Fear swamped her and she would have backed away except Skye, the foolish child, was right behind her. She hadn’t waited to see if her aunt was about to fall to her death.
Tamara shut her eyes and mind to her fears and imagined walking through a lighted corridor. With each measured footstep, her heartbeat hammered like a summoning drumbeat.
The walk seemed endless, filled with whispers, hundreds of voices speaking in tongues she couldn’t make out. A clear, oddly familiar voice asked. Tamara?
Leave me be! Had she shouted that aloud?
An explosion thrust Skye stumbling into her back.
“What was that?” her niece asked.
Tamara opened her eyes. They were inside a small crude temple made of wooden walls and a thatched roof.
Fane, Jarrod, and Thyel came through next pushing her and Skye further into the room. The amazement on her friends’ faces mirrored her awe.
“We made it!” Fane shouted. “This is Isa! This temple is exactly as my master described it.”
To their right an alter constructed of a large flat stone held various implements carefully lined up. Fane ran to pick up a bowl and then a candle. He muttered in excitement over each find until, finally, his trembling fingers touched an iridescent scale the size of his chest.
Tamara remained rooted as her friends and Skye wandered about, exploring various corners of the room. Her heartbeat continued to thud like the beating of a giant clock.
Even as her surroundings skewed alarmingly, Tamara recognized the distortion for what it was. A clear sign of her fear, her world encompassing the space of her body, standing still, her right hand clasped safely within her mother’s left. Back then, she’d been unable to move a muscle, her thoughts skittering around the edges of her confinement like a panicked rat in a miniscule cage.
Now, although she had all the freedom she could hope for inside this foreign realm, deep inside she knew there was no clear avenue to return home, which left her as trapped as she had been by her mother’s spell.
She hugged herself as her blood cooled, then heated, and cooled again. Her legs shook so hard, she feared she might collapse. She headed for a bench on the far wall and sat. Bending, she laid her head on arms crossed over knees and allowed the swimming sensations to sweep through her.
Finally, the queasiness stilled and she sat up and looked around. Straight ahead, Thyel studied the area they had just come through. The wall looked like a circular carved gateway. Within her hazy thoughts, she realized the tower room would have looked like this had it not been destroyed.
Thyel ran his hand over an indentation. He picked up a handful of crumbly dirt. The remains of the Quinlin stone on this end? Had their use of the unstable receptacle at the other end destroyed the stone here too, as the keeper predicted?
Was that the flash that occurred when they came through? If the stone at this end had splintered a few moments earlier, while they were still inside the lighted tunnel, would they have been trapped there with those incessant whisperers?
Jarrod strode in front of her, blocking her view of the depressed shelf where the Quinlin should have been. He knelt until his face came surprisingly close. Taking her cold hands in his warm ones, he murmured, “We’re fine, Tamara. We made it through.”
He’d read her thoughts again. She willed herself to remain tranquil. She did not want to visibly panic. It was bad enough he could read the darkest recesses of her mind.
“Once we find Bevan,” he said, sounding not in the least concerned about that improbability, “we will fly straight home on a dragon.”
Skye exclaimed then, pointing to a wall. “Look, a map!” She ran to study it.
Jarrod looked over and his eyes widened with interest.
History was recorded on that wall. Instead of being resentful of his distraction, Tamara softened, smiling indulgently at his keen interest.
Skye’s find also gave Tamara the excuse to seek privacy, time to gain some self-control. “You’d better see what she’s found. Could be a map that shows us where the dragon nests are located.”
“Will you be all right?” he asked.
“Quite fine, Chief Councilor,” she replied, but with a tolerant smile. “Don’t let me keep you from your study.”
He hesitated, then gave into his curiosity. With a nod, he went over to where Skye followed a route on the map with a forefinger.
Fane and Thyel, too, joined Skye.
Tamara was glad. She preferred to be alone. Her head had started to spin again. The room closed in on all four sides and made perspiration drip down her forehead to sting her eyes. Her heartbeat, while slower than earlier, still pounded like a runaway horse.
She spied a doorway at the other end of a corridor. Standing on shaky legs, she headed toward the sliver of light highlighting the edges of a door.
“The map shows all of Isa, including the villages dotting the countryside,” Skye said in an excited voice.
“Look! I know this village,” Fane replied. “My uncle lives there. He could tell us about the state of the dragons.”
“Why not head straight for the dragon hold?” Thyel pointed at the map. “It’s closer.”
“Because that would take us through giant country,” Fane said in a firm tone. “We don’t want to do that.”
Her companions’ voices faded into the background. Their chatter seemed inconsequential compared to finding a way outside so she could see the sky.
What matter where they headed? They would still be stuck on Isa. For now, all she wanted was to get out of this cramped little temple and see daylight, breathe fresh air. Hands braced against opposite walls, she followed the light that promised a sense of freedom.
She pulled open the door and stumbled out into blessed openness. Fresh, cool air assaulted her face. She squinted into the bright daylight.
The sky was painted in an unaccustomed grayish-blue hue. Thankfully it was still high up and did not press down. The knots in her shoulders loosened. The land behind the temple stretched far into wide-open, grassy fields. By any measure, this new world was definitely not a tiny cage.
Her teeth unclenched, and her sore cheek muscles thanked her. To the right were low-lying hills on the horizon, like freckles. A pretty sight. To the left, about a league away, a forest made up of strange spindly trees spread out in front of a mountain range whose tips were hidden by gray clouds.
Among all this unfamiliar terrain, the three moons that hovered low on the horizon were pleasingly familiar. The sight gave her a warm reassuring embrace. She could as easily be standing on the castle gardens, looking at the horizon. This soil may be red instead of brown, but she felt sure those three moons were the same ones she’d seen last night from the castle balcony.
Had it only been last night that her mother barged into Thyel’s room and berated Tamara on her conduct? The event seemed a lifetime away.
Her perspective shifted. Had she approached her troubles with her mother in the wrong manner? Instead of rebelling against the queen’s every order, she should have proved to her mother that she was now an adult. One who no longer needed the queen’s protection, or anyone else’s.
Perhaps this journey wouldn’t be a complete disaster. They might yet make it back home. A possibility that had seemed incredibly unlikely a few moments ago, now grew new wings.
If they found Bevan and brought him home, her mother might see that Tamara didn’t need a caretaker. She could not only see to her own needs, but to that of her family and friends as well. Even without having a shred of magical talent.
She rejoiced that she’d shown the courage to join Skye on this daring journey. Not only was she not trapped, she was in the midst of her very own adventure.
She raised her arms and twirled, shouting, “I’M FREE!”
“Munno!” a voice rumb
led high overhead.
Something plucked her up and raised her until air swept by painfully, plastering her hair across her face.
Tamara screamed, fearing her nightmare had come to life here. Eyes tight shut, she shouted, “Dragon!”
“Dragon?” the voice above her mimicked her startled cry. She was spun around until she was dizzy and couldn’t make out what had her in its tight grip.
Only once the spinning finally stopped did Tamara open her eyes and realize it wasn’t a dragon who held her in its fierce grip, but a giant man.
Her assailant’s gaze remained focused on the sky above, the arm holding her swinging about with his continued frantic search. “Kanda? Kanda filty? Kanda dragon?”
Her eardrums shuddered at the loud voice calling out practically in her ear.
“Tamara!” Jarrod shouted in a tiny hollow voice from below.
The world thankfully came to a stop as the giant stopped turning to look downward. Tamara’s head kept spinning for a moment more and she wondered if she was about to throw up all over the giant’s fingers.
“Let her down!” Skye shouted up at them.
Her head finally settled, Tamara leaned as far as she could over the giant’s fingers and craned her neck to look down. Far below, her friends and Skye had gathered outside the temple.
“Kanda dragon?” the giant asked again.
“I…I thought you were the dragon,” Tamara said.
“Y?” the giant asked, turning his astonished gaze to her. “Y, filty?” Then he chuckled. “Y gulta, human.” He shook his head as if she’d said a silly thing, and with her still in his grip, he walked away from the temple.
“Put me down,” Tamara shouted.
He came to a halt and brought her up to eye level. “Cho?”
“Because I don’t want to go with you.”
“Ta munno,” he said matter-of-factly, pointing to his chest, and kept walking.
“My friends will make you give me back,” she warned as his large legs ate up miles, leaving her group far behind.
The giant looked back at the four tiny humans running after him. He gave a rumble of laughter and kept going, heading further into the plains.
Magic and Shadows: A Collection of YA Fantasy and Paranormal Romances Page 153