Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  Fourteen

  ∞

  Hardt was on the hatching grounds when Akai’s long dormant egg finally trembled five sheddings after Tareay’s labor. He and Mobious had arrived hours before to scrub Deg in the hard to reach places. Deg was marveling at how thin and white Hardt’s hair had become when Mobious pulled his first minor miracle in sheddings.

  Danny had asked him to watch the eggs for a moment as he stepped away to relieve himself and when returned to the edge of the hatching ground, Mobious was in the middle of the clutch standing over Akai’s long-nested egg, a hand resting casually on the all blue shell which reached up to almost his thigh. The spring rains had come early and his cloak was hanging heavy on his shoulders. At most times the boy rebelled against the restricting cloak and flung it over his shoulders to wear like a cape, but as he stood quietly by the egg he had the cloak wrapped tightly about himself, the hood hanging low over his face. Water dripped from him onto the little egg and he would gently brush it away. His silence and stillness captured all the adults’ attention and they watched the intent boy with the small egg against the backdrop of the afternoon storm.

  “Deg?” Mobious pushed his hood back from his messy hair and looked up to find the old hatcher.

  “Here I am, Mobious.” Deg nodded at the boy.

  “She’s ready to come out now.”

  Hardt caught the look Deg shot Danny but the younger hatcher lowered his head against the wind and hurried in under the festival awning. Water sprayed the eggs as he shook himself and set his nose against the smooth, warm shell of Akai’s old egg.

  “When they’re ready, Mobious, they hatch.”

  The boy carefully wiped the egg dry before he looked up at Danny. “She’s afraid.”

  Danny’s first lids were closed in concentration, so Mobious turned his imploring look on Deg.

  Deg prompted him. “Do you know why she is afraid?”

  “She doesn’t want to be alone.”

  “Alone?”

  Mobious wailed distressingly and kneeled down against the egg, watching Danny’s inspection. “I don’t know. She’s just afraid.”

  Danny pulled back and looked at Deg. The negative shake of his head was almost imperceptible, but Hardt saw it. For just a moment the old dtur’s brow furrowed in a frown but then a decision was made.

  “Mobious, help Danny roll the egg over to the hatching sands.” Deg turned to look down at Hardt. “Can you find Akai?”

  “She’s in the infirmary. She and Dorat are keeping Sophie company while Edwarg exercises her wing.”

  “Nahni will be with them too, most likely. Will you go and bring Akai back here? Also, send Nahni to find Odrine.”

  Hardt nodded and slipped out of his heavy rain cloak and jogged out into the storm and down the side of the hatching hill.

  So it was that, four hours later, Hardt found himself playing Catch My Tail through the crowd of dTelfur gathered to assure the new dragon that she wasn’t alone. Akai had flown Hardt back to the hill and brought Edwarg and Dorat as well. Nyah had hitched a ride on Sophie since it was only a very short distance. Nahni, while fetching Odrine from his rock studies, told Tian who fetched Viscier and Konifer to the site. Danny, after combing up the hot sands with Mobious’ help, went to fetch the birth healer, Kalihari, from the nursery and wound up bringing Kiely and Kahrier along as well.

  Once the egg was set up on hatching sands, Mobious seemed to lose interest and ran off to drag various adults into his games. A few of the observers were concerned by this, especially Danny who had found no indication that the egg was in preparation to hatch. But Akai was hopeful and so everyone stayed.

  Hardt was sneaking around Tian to jump on Mobious’ trailing cape, his makeshift ‘tail’ when the boy suddenly stood up from his hiding place and rushed over to the egg. He knelt by it for half a second, unconcerned by the burning hot sands, then leapt up and searched through the crowd. He found Konifer standing apart with Tcoa and Hendry, the young hatching dtur who had pulled back the weathertarp when the rain stopped. He was crouched by the good sized egg Deg had identified as his, stroking it lightly.

  “Konifer.”

  An icy look crossed Konifer’s face and passed. “Yes?”

  “Please help her.”

  Mobious ran to keep up as the Vize stood and crossed into the circle of friends. Konifer went directly to the egg and laid a hand on it staring into the middle distance until Mobious stepped into his line of sight on the other side of the egg laying his hands on it in imitation of the Vize. His eyes focused and for a moment it seemed he would castigate the boy for disturbing him but in a breath he let his anger go and refocused his energies on the little egg. The words he whispered were heard only by Mobious who took his hands from the shell at the same moment as the Vize. At that instant, the egg split. With a pop, a crack appeared running from end to end. Twice the egg jerked violently and then the whole shell fell open, tumbling a tiny dtur onto the hot sands.

  Akai tripped in her rush to get to the infant. She stretched her neck out and raised the baby’s head with her nose as Kalihari raced onto the sands in her special shoes to clean off its mouth and nose. A gasp went through the crowd as the two of them helped the exhausted little dtur to stand. It was only a head above four-foot tall Mobious. Even Nahni had been as big as a telf adult when she hatched. The new dtur’s lungs were proven fully developed though, when Kalihari got her face cleaned of slime and she wailed out her hunger and fear.

  Finished with her inspection, Kalihari turned to Akai. “She looks perfectly healthy.”

  A collective sigh of relief drained the tension from the hatching ground as Odrine stepped forward and proudly entwined his tail with Akai’s. She moved closer to her get and from some long abandoned instinct, offered the baby a dry teat. The child gladly took it and her body relaxed so completely that half the crowd moved in to keep her from falling over. But Odrine was there first. He used a wing to hold the baby up against her dam’s breast.

  Akai dipped her head down to stare in wonder at her long-sleeping get and spoke the traditional naming greeting. “Welcome, Annie.”

  The greeting was echoed by her sire and her hatching dragons, her Vize, his unacknowledged get, the lander and all the dTelfur who had come to her hatching to reassure her that she would be well loved.

  “Welcome, Annie.”

  With the crowd following the hatchling’s slow steps down through the rain to the infirmary, Deg pulled Konifer and Mobious aside.

  “I am disturbed by this hatching.” He began. “Annie is a special soul and I fear she was hatched to save us from great danger.”

  “Is that why she was afraid?”

  Looking down at the boy, Deg realized why so many dTelfur had deduced his relationship to the Vize. He was a short, thin boy with angled features and straight black hair. But most especially his eyes matched his sire’s in all but sadness.

  “I think so.” Deg turned to the Vize. “Recognize your get Konifer. We are going to need a well-trained Vize.”

  “I have another.”

  “In the shell! This one has exhibited unheard of powers since before he could speak and I am certain you have heard the tales. Apprentice him, Konifer.”

  Konifer turned to the small boy at his side. “You will begin training with me in the morning. Have Sophie take you to the old telf burrow caves as soon as the sun is up.”

  He waited only for the boy’s nod of understanding before he stormed away from the hatching grounds.

  After he’d disappeared down the side of the hill, Mobious turned back to Deg and asked, “Am I the other get you were talking about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Hardt know?”

  Deg paused for the briefest moment.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” The new vizet thought for a moment and then nodded at the old dtur as if to ease his mind. “Konifer will like me. He just doesn’t know me yet.”

  Fifteen

  ∞

&nbs
p; Konifer did like Mobious. The boy was bright and disciplined. Lessons assigned were finished and delivered ahead of schedule. Foolish questions were abandoned in favor of observation. Over all, Konifer was surprised by Mobious’ abilities and by the personality that had earned the child friends among most of the rest of the dTelfur in a mere thirty-nine sheddings. He might have even begun to show the boy some affection if his other get hadn’t hatched barely two sheddings after their lessons began.

  Konifer alone attended her hatching. He named his girl dTella and though everyone noted the unusual yet familiar prefix, no one mentioned it. After only a week in the nursery, Konifer took the baby girl and settled her into his burrow rooms. By contrast, Akai and Odrine had taken up near permanent residence in the nursery bower to be close to but not overwhelming of Annie. Nahni had observed in closed circles that though Annie was the only dtur with parents, (she used the lander word) Konifer was the one raising his daughter in the selfish lander fashion.

  Konifer heard none of the criticisms and wouldn’t have cared if he had. He was besotted with the girl and determined that she should have the joyful childhood his sire had denied him. If in his zeal, he forgot how much of that childhood he had spent longing to live in the nursery with the other hatchlings, three hundred and thirty-seven sheddings as an isolated Vize and vizet could forgive the oversight. Deg commented that at least dTella would have Mobious for outside company and that it would take an effort to be Mobious’ friend without inheriting all the loved-ones who came along with him. Nahni certainly wasn’t going to politely keep her distance as many dTelfur did when they saw Mobious travelling by Konifer’s side.

  A few days after dTella’s tenth shedding, Nahni backwinged to the ground in front of the three just far enough away to avoid knocking Mobious from his feet. Snow swirled around her as she settled onto the thin path leading in from the close western farms where Konifer had been conferring with Peltine on the possibility of creating winter crops. Mobious, with dTella in his arms, bounced over to greet her but pulled up short at Konifer’s barked reprimand.

  “Decorum!”

  Nahni did not return Mobious’ smirk. She’d come with horrible news and had hoped not to be the one to find the Vize. All the strides they’d made in convincing Konifer not to hate landers in general and Hardt in specific would be destroyed as soon as she told him why he was needed in the village.

  “Konifer, Odrine was accidentally caught in an animal trap. He broke loose and made it back to the village but he’s in a lot of pain. The healers need your help.”

  She lowered her neck to the ground, indicating that they should climb up. Mobious hurried over and settled dTella in front of him, leaving space for Konifer to take the front position. Konifer held his ground.

  “We don’t set traps.”

  Nahni kept her tone calm and lightly imploring. “Odrine is suffering Konifer. Fault can be assigned later, can’t it?”

  When the Vize had secured himself on her neck, she flew them as quickly as she was able to the infirmary where the situation had clearly gotten worse. Healers were moving patients out of the large tent which rocked violently. When Nahni and the other dturs had taken off to find Konifer, Odrine had been weeping quietly over his crushed left front foot. The leg had collapsed on his landing, unable to take the pain and that had caused the lander trap’s metal toothed plate to push further through the already torn muscles of his chest and neck. He was unable to find a way to hold himself up that didn’t cause unbearable pain and he couldn’t get his brain to pass out, so he’d been lying on the ground weeping uncontrollably as several healers hauled him through the entrance. Apparently he’d gotten a second wind.

  The milling dTelfur scattered as Nahni hollered for landing space at the doorway. Lahrea, atchs to the dtur healer Kerander, took dTella from Mobious as he slid from Nahni’s back to follow Konifer who had leapt off as she landed.

  “Kerander and Fieara are physically holding Odrine down while the others are trying to get all the spikes out of him and put his guts back in. He’s been hollering like this since just after you all left. It’s awful. Dorat and Tian are trying to convince Akai to go away with the hatchlings. Can you believe they can hear him all the way down there? It’s too horrible. I’ll take dTella down to the nursery and help them get Akai away. She shouldn’t have to hear this.”

  The woman turned, pushed her way desperately through the crowd, and ran away from Odrine’s suffering as Nahni worked her way closer to it. Inside the infirmary, the sight was as chaotic and distressing as Lahrea had described. Hardt was with Nyah, circling the body to look at every wound. But at each spike and puncture he could only moan, “We never used traps. I don’t recognize these things. I don’t know how to undo them.”

  Konifer was striding straight for where Nyah and Hardt were kneeling by Odrine’s small back legs, trying to detach a metal clamp of some sort which was tightening as Odrine thrashed about, slowly crushing the bones. He was intercepted by Edwarg who grabbed the man with great relief and led him up to Odrine’s pale head.

  “Please, you must do something to stop the pain. He has regurgitated all painkillers we’ve managed to force down his throat and the topical ointments aren’t doing any good. We can’t help him like this.”

  “Normal methods aren’t going to work, his mind is too far gone.”

  As the Vize reached out a hand towards the dying dragon, Nahni watched Mobious creep silently up to stand beside him and watch intently.

  “You have to do something, Konifer. He can’t live for long like this.” Edwarg left the man to his work and returned to helping the other healers remove the horrid weapons from Odrine’s hide.

  Konifer hadn’t even heard the healer. His eyes were focused on a distant light which only he could see. Angry colors flashed blindingly from the light, striking Konifer with pain. Seeing the power of the light, he knew he couldn’t take the colors into himself or he would be destroyed. The colors would not dim at his request and were in fact, getting sharper, ripping the light apart. Nothing he tried could calm the colors and Konifer sighed, partly from frustration and partly to relieve the ache in his own body which was instinctively taking the pain from Odrine’s soul. It was the hardest discipline to learn; preserving oneself in the face of a sacrificial solution. He closed his eyes to break himself from the torture of Odrine’s soul and the solution came to him. He pulled down a shade on the light, hiding it from the colors which could not flash without the light behind them. The colors faded and he was left in calm, cool, darkness.

  Odrine looked like he had suddenly fallen asleep. But it was more than that. His breathing was too slow as was his weakened heartbeat. The blood spurting geysers of blue over all the healers slowed to a gentle push which they could easily apply pressure to. With Fieara watching carefully to assure that the vital signs continued, the rest of the infirmary staff worked to heal Odrine’s myriad wounds.

  Konifer asked Fieara to fetch him when they were done operating on Odrine and then took himself over to an empty bed, climbed up, and fell into a deep sleep. If Hardt had noticed, he would have been incorrectly relieved that Konifer didn’t want immediate revenge on the landers. As it was, Hardt was too busy helping Nyah with the bigger wounds to even notice the Vize’s exhaustion. A few bystanders ran off to the nursery to fetch Akai thinking her presence would help Odrine heal faster and then a few more experienced dTelfur ran off after them to point out how little good it would do Akai to see her love with his hide ripped open. Basically, as soon as Konifer had placed Odrine in stasis, everyone milling around found some way to help out and got busy doing just that.

  Only Nahni had noticed that Mobious’ eyes had gleamed with the same distant focus as Konifer’s and that just before Odrine passed mercifully out, the vizet had fainted dead away on the infirmary floor.

  Sixteen

  ∞

  Nahni shed a score more times without seeing Konifer take retribution on the landers. Mobious had woken up later on the day
of Odrine’s injury with a story of lights and colors and unbearable pain, sadness, fear, and loss. With more tenderness than any dTelfur had seen in the man, Konifer had watched over the boy and cared for him. The healers had decided to leave Odrine in his unnatural state of indefinite sleep until the worst of his wounds was healed and when, after nearly two moons, Konifer came to wake him up, Mobious was considerately not brought along.

  Now, as Nahni flew with Mobious and Sophie with Hardt on a long overdue citrus harvesting trip to the eastern shore, she thought how fortunate Mobious’ collapse had been. Every dTelfur had been certain that Odrine’s injury, as unintentional as it may have been, was going to be the catalyst to drive Konifer into a retaliatory rage against the strangers on their land. However, concern for his apprentice appeared to have driven those thoughts, for certainly he had had them, from his mind.

  Suddenly the pine-scented smell of fire wafting from the north flooded Nahni’s brain with memories of dTserra’s death. Her heart caught at the reminder and she dreaded Konifer’s reaction if it were landers who started the fire. It was too soon after Odrine’s accident to expect him to be reasonable. Many years later she would look back at this moment, this smell, and shake her head at what little comprehension she had of just how much trouble this day would bring. Already she could see Sophie swinging her head around to confer and Nahni was half-ready to argue for ignoring the danger, but before the old dragon could get a word out, they both saw flames shoot up as a copse of thorn trees exploded. Without discussion, the two dragons turned north.

  “We’re gonna need water!” Hardt leaned forward to yell into Sophie’s ear.

  She craned her neck to look around and adjusted their path. “There’s the river.” Suddenly she turned her head to blink at him. “This is the same place we visited before.”

  “Before?”

  “After Forte, when Mobious had the pumpkin forty-something sheddings ago.”

  “Pace?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Where you met your dam.”