Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  “What?”

  “She was very old, Hardt. Maybe he shocked her. I don’t know if Mobious knew. Gyari sent someone to find me because he thinks the kid is in shock, but I wanted to find you first.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s at the crossroads of the southern entrance. Pretty much everyone is.”

  Edwarg was right. The crowd of remaining telfs were facing inward and didn’t notice as Hardt and he waded into their midst. All eyes, all ears were turned to Mobious, standing atop a stool of some sort rambling hysterically. “Everyone is dead. Some were killed with lander weapons, but not many. Mostly it was… The magics met and created a rift and people disappeared, lander and dTelfur alike. Konifer with them. The people on the edges kept killing each other.”

  Gyari, the leatherworker, was nearest the boy with a hand on his back supporting him. “Calm down, Mobious. You’re okay now. Just slow down and tell us what happened.”

  “I watched from a tree. I snuck away and I followed them and I watched from a tree. The landers attacked as soon as they saw us, but it was a mess. Konifer was calling to nature and I saw a circle of weaponless landers who seemed to be doing the same thing. Then there was a blinding explosion in the middle of everybody. The light spread out across nearly everyone in half a moment and where it passed, snow fell. A few people were left at the edge of the light but they were too busy fighting to notice and suddenly the light, after pulsing once, kind of stretching to see if it had reached as far as it could, collapsed back in on itself until it was just a lightless shimmer like the air over a flame. And everyone was gone. Wherever the winter light had touched, the people had disappeared. Konifer with them. A very few dTelfur remained at the edges and some of them were struck down as they noticed the emptiness of the field. Then everyone ran. Some lander guardes were chasing us down, but this kind looking guy on a broken cart which had half disappeared was yelling for them to let us go. I could hear him perfectly. He told his royal wing to march west and find out how far away the rest of our army was. He thought there were more of us. So I climbed down to follow them but then I heard him scream and crawled back out to look. He’d been hit with a spear. Everything was madness after that so I climbed down and followed the royal wing. But they were too quick and I lost them.”

  “Come down. Let’s get you into dry clothes and we’ll sort it out later.” Gyari tried to get the shaking boy down from the stool but Mobious was oblivious to him.

  Unable to wade through the shocked crowd surrounding Mobious, Hardt yelled to the boy to reassure him. “I saw the royal wing. They don’t know what happened either.”

  An outlander farmer at Hardt’s elbow put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly and yelled over the crowd to Mobious. “Just wake the dTur so we can figure out what to do now.”

  Pulsing in at their vizet, a chorus of voices repeated the farmer’s words, “Yes, just wake the dTur.”

  Mobious stood above them all, searching desperately through the elders with tears streaming down his face. Finally his eyes caught Hardt’s and his mouth found the words to admit the true horror which had been compressing his soul since he saw the Vize disappear.

  “I don’t know how!” He screamed at his friend. “Konifer is gone and the dTur will never awaken because I don’t know how!”

  Act III

  k207 – k214 (169 - 176 ath)

  One

  ∞

  Three moons passed slowly from dark to dark. Hardt, Edwarg, Gyari, and the other remaining elder dTelfur tried hard to make a go of harvesting what few farmlands weren’t covered by the dragon bodies. Hardt and Gyari tried hunting when they could, but neither man was young enough to catch any large game and they certainly couldn’t bag enough small animals to feed even the few dozen dTelfur remaining in the village. A nursery teacher, nearly as old as Rheay had been, set the few hatchlings who hadn’t been snatched away by fleeing elders to searching through the burrow for private stores of food and cloth and other supplies which would soon run short. The kids had more luck than any of the elders and it distracted them from the pervading grief blanketing the village.

  Though even the oldest hatchlings not included in the thousand were willingly racing through burrow and forest to supply the survivors, Mobious was not among them. He had secluded himself in Konifer’s private bower. Hardt found him there shortly after Edwarg reported him missing from the newly constructed infirmary in the northern end of the burrow. They’d had to sedate him the night he’d returned from the battle when he’d started drawing blood with the fearsome grip he latched onto himself or anyone who got near to him. Gyari’s arm had required stitching but he hadn’t complained. He was too grateful, he had said, to watch the horrified contortions release Mobious’ features as he slipped deeper and deeper under the drug and claimed he was too fearful of losing two Vize in one day to feel the adolescent’s nails at all.

  But when the boy was reported missing, Hardt denied all offers of assistance and searched by himself. The first place he looked was the historic bower home of all the dTelfur Vize and there he found Mobious, searching through all of the records drawn by the dTelfur protectors over the centuries. Not sure his atchs had even noticed his presence, Hardt left to gather food and water and clean clothes from the falls side bower which had been left unsacked by the searching hatchlings, being as it was on the far side of the dragons and they hadn’t the courage to approach their dormant friends. When he returned, several hours later, Mobious hadn’t moved a muscle from where he sat, pouring over old, enigmatic records, so Hardt set the food and water on the table where Mobious could see them and left the boy alone.

  For three moons Hardt continued visiting the bower three or four times a day, bringing food and clothes, changing the pillows on the few chairs and sweeping out the dust stirred up from the old books, some of which hadn’t been moved in decades. Sometimes, when Mobious looked particularly tense or upset, Hardt would sleep on a pallet he laid on the ground near the bower’s raised sleeping platform. If Mobious noticed, he said nothing.

  Then came the dawn when Hardt woke to find Mobious kneeling at his side, no records in his hands, his eyes apparently alive and aware of the surroundings.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

  “You should have woken me.” Hardt brushed sand from his eyes and slowly pushed his aching body up out of the mattress.

  “No. You work hard and need sleep.”

  “As do you.”

  There was silence for a moment. Hardt let Mobious take his time but didn’t turn away or attempt small talk. It had been too long since the boy had trusted him.

  “I need to go to the dTur.”

  “Okay.”

  “Please come with me.” He said the words as though he thought Hardt might refuse him, as though he felt no request would be granted him.

  “I would join you anywhere, Mobious. All you ever need do is ask.”

  Without another word, Mobious turned away and gathered Hardt’s sweater and cloak. The air was biting with the first signs of winter and though Mobious wore no clothing over his leathers, the same he’d worn off to the battle, he saw his aging friend bundled before they left the small shelter.

  The dragons lay all along the eastern horizon, the sun rising slowly behind them. A frost had settled on the backs of some of the dTur which weren’t warmed by the slow, disturbing breaths of other dragons and made them appear frozen and more distant than they were. Kerander lay most clearly visible as they approached the western side. He had lain with his head jutting out from the line, thinking the sight of a healer would give comfort to the telfs left behind. Now Hardt felt only sadness that he couldn’t comfort the dragon in the loss of his greatly loved Lahrea, gone from the battle in a burst of botched magic.

  Mobious stopped at Kerander’s muzzle and laid his hands on the healer’s nose, leaning against the breath which threatened to topple him. He tried to breath as slowly as the great sleeping creature, but soon his knees buckl
ed and Hardt watched him move his experiment away from the onslaught of Kerander’s exhalation. With his hands reached up and lain on Kerander’s forehead and eye ridge in uncanny repetition of Hardt’s revival of Sophie sixty-some frseason earlier, Mobious breathed normally and shut his eyes. He remained in this strained position as the sun rose fully over the dragons and warmed the cold village.

  The sun was at its apex with Hardt’s stomach growling fiercely when the forgotten lander noticed a shape climbing down through the dragons. He scanned the scaled bodies to see if the figure was alone. He couldn’t see anyone else, but still he moved closer to Kerander’s side in the hopes that he would be less easily seen there from the figure’s position. He stood ready to wake Mobious from his trance and send the boy running to the village to warn the others and waited as the figure climbed closer and closer to their position.

  Just as the person, a woman, jumped down from Ahnarie’s neck a few dragons north of Hardt, Mobious, and Kerander, the young Vize-to-be let out a frustrated, angry cry and sank to his knees against Kerander’s face. As he turned to his friend, Hardt saw the figure turn as well and break into a run in their direction. He pulled a short knife from its sheath on his leg and moved to stand over Mobious, wanting to put an arm around the boy, but certain that if he crouched, his old muscles would never take him to standing quickly enough to defend them both.

  Within a matter of moments which threatened to burst his heart, the figure came close enough for Hardt to see with disbelief, relief, and finally joy that the woman was Tareay, thought to be lost in the battle. She joined him at Mobious’ side, all greeting forgotten in the face of the young man’s collapse.

  “Mobious, it’s okay. Let us help you back to Konifer’s bower.”

  Tareay followed Hardt’s lead and knelt beside the sobbing vizet, stroking his curled back. “You’re staying in Konifer’s bower?”

  “Books. The records. I thought they might tell me how to wake the dragons.”

  Head down and cradled in his hands, Mobious missed the look of horrific realization on Tareay’s face as she jerked her gaze to the dragons and then to Hardt’s confirming eyes. Her shuddered gasp was concealed by Mobious’ own determined breath as he uncurled and turned to face Hardt.

  “Take her in to Edwarg. Take care of her. I need to stay here. The drawings weren’t helping me at all.”

  Hardt searched the pale but determined face before him and sighed to himself, wondering if there was anything Mobious could do for the dragons or for the telfs. “You can do it. I have faith that you’ll wake them somehow.” He leaned on the boy for support to get back on his feet and took Tareay’s arm, turning her stricken face away from Mobious. He brushed a hand down Kerander’s warm muzzle as they walked away and called back, “I’ll bring you food later, and a cloak.”

  Tareay waited until they were far out of earshot to ask Hardt if it was a good idea to encourage the boy who already looked so utterly exhausted.

  “He’s the only chance they’ve got. How helpful would it be to teach him doubt?”

  “He looks like he already has doubt, Hardt.”

  “Then I give him faith. Like you have given me, coming back to life like this.”

  “I haven’t been dead. I’ve been hiding. You don’t know what happened out there.”

  “Actually we do. Mobious saw it all and a few others have returned before you.”

  “So you know about the light?”

  “Yes. We had hoped more healers would return to us, assuming they were at the back of the ranks.”

  “I don’t know that anyone thought to keep the healers at a safe distance. I know Kalihari was at Konifer’s side and Nyah was on the southern edge with me. We were in the front line, trying to talk to them.”

  They’d reached the northeastern entrance to the burrow and Hardt stopped with a hand on the archway. “You were talking with the landers?”

  “Trying to talk.” Tareay put her arm back under her lover’s elbow and led him inside. “I need food, Hardt, and I need to sit. I have some wounds that are not healing despite my best efforts and I need to know there are more dTelfur alive than you and Mobious.”

  “I’m not dTelfur, Tareay. I’m a lander.”

  “No one could tell from looking at you.”

  They found Edwarg tending to a young hatchling, Cotts, who’d sprained his wrist climbing about in a few tree, gathering leaves for the healer.

  “Technically, he sprained the wrist falling out of the tree.” Edwarg added as he finished wrapping the wrist with a bandage before turning to grasp Tareay in his arms. “Welcome home. Cotts, go store those leaves in the trunk and fetch some of Sesch’s soup for Tareay.”

  The hunter looked around the remodeled common room as Cotts hopped from the table racing out into the tunnels heedless of his injury and Edwarg packed up the bandage, knife, and salve he’d been using into various drawers and cabinets which had been stowed along the walls.

  “This is the new infirmary, Edwarg? Are we moving completely underground?” Tareay chuckled at the notion.

  “We have no dragons to care for and no one is comfortable within sight of that snoring mound, so we’ve set up shop in here. If Dorat returns, we’ll find another set of rooms to use.”

  Tareay said quietly, sobered, “She won’t.”

  “Come, let’s get you into a more private room.” The healer took her arm and nodded at Hardt to follow. “There will be enough telfs bothering you for your story later. Now let’s look to this nasty gash that’s matted your hair up so badly.”

  He led them to the guest sleeping quarters where Dorat had tried to store Hardt that first night when he and Sophie had fallen at the river. There was a bell-rope new hung by the bed and a table with cups and a water pitcher by the newly curtained doorway. As Hardt poured a cup of water and took it over to his young lover, he remembered waking there sixty-some years earlier knowing how he could heal Sophie and then trying to communicate that to Dorat when she found him in the passage tunnel and tried to get him back to her rooms. The memory reminded him of what Tareay had said about the battle.

  “You say you talked with the landers?”

  “Nyah and I and some others were in the front lines specifically because we speak lander pretty well. We were just approaching the edge of the burntbos where you… where you first met Sophie and dTserra when we saw them. Everyone was scared. I think we all wanted to run away, but instead we ran forward, Nyah and I caught up with the rest.” She paused to greedily drink down the glass of fresh water before going on. “We started screaming in lander that we just wanted to talk. Through it all, we kept saying ‘we don’t want to fight. We want to talk.’ But the mob was out of control. We couldn’t hear our own voices. As we had agreed, Nyah and I and I hope the others at the front fought only in defense. I don’t remember, I don’t know what was going on around me. The guarde were fighting in earnest, scared out of their sense I think. And then…” A shock of pain interrupted her narrative as Edwarg gingerly touched the infected wound he’d finally reached through the bloody, knotted hair.

  “Sorry.”

  “Do what you have to do, Ed.” She smiled weakly at the man and turned her eyes more intensely on Hardt. “The light. I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye and turned in time to see Nyah illuminated by it, she was looking up at the snow falling. So was the guy who’d been battering her with a black sword. Then they were gone and I was bludgeoned.” She reached up as if to touch the now freely bleeding wound Edwarg was cleaning. “It knocked me unconscious and when I awoke, I don’t know how many hours later, the plaine was cleared of everything except a few bodies and some weapons laying outside a circle of rich black dirt the size of at least the hatching grounds. The bodies were all dTelfur and they were all dead. I should have done something with them, but I didn’t. I ran. I was running and hiding for two moons before I came to my senses and realized I should try to find my way back here.”

  Edwarg had heard several similar storie
s over the past days. He’d learned that most of the survivors needed to tell someone what had happened before they would relax or rest. Two had fallen asleep the instant they’d finished talking and he suspected Tareay was just as tired, but unlike those others, this hunter had heard a little of the desolation of the village and seen Mobious’ desperate hopelessness. It was little relief, Edwarg feared, for her to find herself in a home so changed.

  “What now?” Rising panic made her voice crack.

  “The bleeding has stopped now so I’m not going to bandage it. I am going to have to cut off all the hair around the gash and ask you to sleep on your stomach for a few days.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She turned to glare lightly at the deliberately thick old healer. “What now for us? What happens to the dTelfur?”

  “We survive.”

  She would not be put off. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Calm down Tareay.” Edwarg tried to sooth his patient as he gathered up a shock of hair in his scissors. “Everything will work out when Mobious wakes the dTur.”

  “Mobious isn’t going to wake the dTur!” She snapped at the man, turning so quickly that her head wound started bleeding again and he nearly cut off his own fingertips. “At least not today. Or this moon. He’s the vizet. He won’t come into his full powers until the dawn of his hundred and fiftieth shedding.”

  The two men looked at her blankly, not catching her inference. She hopped off the table and crossed the room to pour another cup of water from the pitcher and then turned back. “Mobious was born somewhere around half a century ago.”

  “Six decades.” Hardt corrected her.

  “Six decades then. That still leaves us with nearly a century before he achieves ascendancy. Nature won’t let him wake the dTur before then. I’ve got nearly two centuries of shedding so it’s likely I’ll still be around.” She paused significantly but let go unsaid the fact that it was nearly certain that both Hardt and Edwarg would be gone long before then. “But until then we’ve no Vize. We’ve no dTur. We’ve barely got a village and most of our farmland is covered by dragon bodies. The fields which aren’t covered are too far away on foot to serve the village anymore. We can’t survive here.”