by Teddy Jacobs
We moved off the trail and took our positions. Cullen and I pushed against a large tree. I looked around and it was only with my third eye that I could see anyone, and even then, you needed to know what to look for — our auras had been changed by the food of the tree mother, and mine even more so by her sap. We blended into the trees as if we were all one and the same, plant and person. Even the mighty Arboris made his tree seem just a bit larger and more imposing.
I held my breath and let my mind wander. They were approaching rapidly, coming from the west. I could smell smoke now. They carried torches. There were many of them. They smelled of smoke and they smelled of hate.
Suddenly a keiler rushed past me, twirled around, and ran back to the road. It was sniffing around wildly. I remembered that they were stronger in scent than in eyes. I hoped that I smelled more of tree than of human, now.
Then three more ran forward to stop and wheel around at the road.
THE TREES HERE SMELL DIFFERENT!
Shut your mind you idiot! This is a magical forest!
MAGICAL OR NOT IT WILL BURN JUST AS WELL!
I said SHUT YOUR MINDS ALL OF YOU!
I saw with my third eye beams of energy move out and squeeze the auras of the keiler. They squealed, and stopped moving.
A man walked out onto the path. I did not dare breathe. I had seen this man before, and I had seen him again in my dreams. He was covered in a cloak and in one hand he held a staff, in the other a lit torch. Two men with swords and torches followed him.
They stopped in front of the keiler. The wizard was only about ten feet away from where I lay pressed against a tree. He spoke. “I’ll talk out loud, because we need to avoid anyone seeing our magical thoughts, and these two men can’t hear them anyhow. The dark lord needs you to be discreet for once, keiler. That means you keep your minds shut. Squeal at each other if you can’t shield your brains. He doesn’t need anyone to hear of his plans to burn that tree and her people. He doesn’t need you spilling his plans to attack the walled city when his troops are ready.”
One of the keiler started to think, I could feel its thoughts moving out, and then Gerard reached out and squeezed its aura, and it squealed again. “Speak!”
The keiler raised itself up on its hind legs and spoke. Its voice was squealing and rasping at the same time, a combination of guttural grunts and high-pitched squeaks. “How long, wizard? How long until we attack the city?”
Gerard grunted. “It won’t be long now. Maybe a week? Two weeks? Our job now is to destroy all their potential allies. First, that tree witch and her sappy children have to go.”
I reached out my mind tentatively. Listening, without touching anything. Besides the two soldiers, and Gerard, and the four keiler, we were alone. The problem was, Gerard was too powerful, and his link with the dark lord was too great.
The others, though, must have had other opinions.
Arrows flew through the air.
They hit two of the keiler right between the eyes.
The beasts staggered for a moment and then fell, and then all was rage and light. Gerard swept his staff back and forth and light burst forth. The other three keiler twisted around. Shield yourself now and the smith. I will get everyone else.
It was Woltan. I hastily pushed a green globe of protection out around me and Cullen. It was just in time because suddenly a wave of fire washed over us, scorching the trees around me. There was a moment of pause, while Gerard looked to admire his handiwork, and then two more arrows flew, striking the keiler who had stopped to stare in fear at the burning forest. Move to other trees quickly.
I grabbed Cullen’s arm and pulled him with me to another tree, leaving a bare unscorched patch where we had stood. I saw the two keiler stagger — one was hit in the eye, the other in the neck, and the boar-man staggered as it tried to bat away the arrow. The two fell.
There was a cry of rage and Gerard raised his staff again. I raised my shields both mental and physical and opened my mind to see everyone around me. My other hand was on my sword, ready to draw it.
Gerard did not have time to move the staff.
A green bolt of living mother wood shot forth from the crossbow of Arboris, and it struck true, hitting not Gerard but his staff, with a great explosion of sound and light and fire and thunder. I watched the staff splinter and explode with my third eye; and Gerard staggered back, and the keiler crouched down, and prepared to run. The soldiers fell down, and we fell upon them. Our swords flashed with green and white fire.
The soldiers cursed and staggered back, seeing nothing but the swords, and then they fell too, and died. Gerard had pulled his own sword. He looked around wildly, and, his eyes unfocussed, spoke a word of power: SEHEN.
His eyes focused on me, and they glowed with red magical fire — two red orbs of anger, and he spoke.
“You will pay for the staff, for the book, and for the keiler. We meet again, Anders Tomason. I hope your parents are well.”
He smiled sardonically, and raised a blade that glowed red in the dark night with malevolence.
I nodded, and then my sword swung and clanged against the other and a shock ran up my arm, and there was a great blast of thunder and I saw Gerard’s look of surprise too, and felt Carolina in my mind. You aren’t ready for this, Anders, but he isn’t either. There’s a huge demon in there who is twice as strong as me but he’s not too clever.
I had no time to think about anything. With every blow I felt weaker, but Gerard staggered as well. I wanted to speak a word of power but figured I had neither the energy nor the concentration necessary. Gerard must not have either, or he would have already slammed me. I tried with all my might to keep my mental shield up, and raised the green shield of the tree mother as well. Then Gerard dealt me a great blow. The sword loosened in my grip. I staggered and fell, and the sword fell by me.
Gerard’s sword slammed against my green shield. There was a great flooding of green light. For a moment I thought I was dead but I realized it was the tree mother in the shield, absorbing the energy of the blow and stunning Gerard. I grabbed at my side and felt the sword in my hand and Carolina with me. Jumping up, I dealt a blow to Gerard, who staggered back, his sword loose at his side. Then Kara was there at my side, and Woltan at the other. Gerard spoke a word, and it was a curse, but it flew away in the wind with him in a whirl of red smoke. Blinded for a moment with a red flash and a smell of burnt sulfur, when I regained my sight we were alone in the dark night.
There were dead bodies all around us. Dead keiler and the two dead people.
Woltan spat. He has gone to rejoin his master. We would do well to get out of here.
We left the bodies to rot.
Maybe they deserved a burial, but we had no time.
We followed the fluorescent path of the road, but kept close to the side, ready to flee or hide again in the trees.
I walked alongside Woltan. And the tree mother?
Their attention for the moment will be on us. The more we move, the more they will be distracted from her. Besides, we cannot defend her against greater forces unless we get help from the Kriek.
I fear too for your forgotten city.
Perhaps we are better defended. He would certainly have more to gain from us. But his hatred for the forest is great. I’m sure the Tree Mother has helped you appreciate that.
Her magic is different from his, isn’t it?
Woltan sighed. A long time ago magic split into two branches; there was the chemical, with its devils and sulfur, and there was the natural, with its fresh earth, its herbs, its flowers and trees and faeries. Most magicians have some balance between the two, but much of the natural magic has been lost. Meanwhile, magicians like the one we fought –
Gerard, Gerard is his name –
Like Gerard, or his master, the dark lord, have brought their study of the dark and chemical to a higher level than any other. But they are more and more estranged from everything natural and living.
But it was in his shop
that I first learned of the nuts.
Spices and nuts are magic that even they have not lost. But his connection to the living may make him more dangerous to us, and to you. Thank you for the warning.
Is all chemical magic dark, like that practiced by my uncle?
Woltan’s aura darkened. Your uncle. It’s hard for me to remember that.
I’m not proud of it or anything.
Sorry. I guess there can be good magic of the chemical variety. There are many great and wonderful magics practiced by the dwarves, and the earth elves. And your sword for example, is an example of good chemical magic. But inside it is the strong force of the natural, the pixie you know as Carolina.
The sky above us was now lit by a few stars and a sliver of a moon.
We were walking at a quick pace. I still didn’t feel at all sleepy, and pushed my mind out to scan the forest around us. I felt nothing but trees and shrubs and small plants, in rich damp earth. But there was something strange, up ahead.
Up ahead of us, the forest ends, and I see… nothing.
We must be coming to the Stone Mountains. There nothing grows, and we must be careful, as no one will mistake us for trees there.
Is there any life at all there?
I have not left the lost city in all my life. Talk to Kara, or perhaps Ulrike.
I reached out my mind to Kara, and found her, a dozen feet ahead of us. I could see her aura in the night, then. Kara, do you know anything of these Stone Mountains?
Ahead of me, she stopped, and let the others pass. She fell in beside me. They are an ancient place. No one has lived there for hundreds of years. Nothing lives there now. They say a great magic blasted the place. Only on the far side of the stone mountains do I know the way, so we must go over or through or around them, I guess.
Through them?
They say there are tunnels that go beneath them. We Kriek have never needed tunnels… We travel by foot and by teleportation.
And nothing lives there?
No plant or animal. Of other things, beneath the earth, I know not.
We’ll be there soon.
Can you feel it?
I can feel the absence of plants. I can feel the plants all around us, and behind us, but ahead of us, there is … nothing.
Kara reached her hand out and touched my shoulder. It will do you well to be among our people again. If only this journey was just for your pleasure and instruction. We have so much to show you.
VIII
The sun was slowly rising when we walked out of the forest and to the base of the mountain. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The stone road we followed became mere stone upon stone, and if we had not been following it for so long, we might not have even seen it.
In the forest it had been covered with moss and surrounded by trees — here it was nothing more than an etching in the stone under our feet. There were runes every ten feet or so. We had gone from lush forest to stone sterility. Everywhere that I looked in the early dawn, there was nothing but dead rock.
Nothing lived here. There was no plant life, anyhow. I reached out my mind in all directions and felt nothing. Ahead of us loomed a sheer stone wall. When I looked up, I couldn’t see the end of the mountain peak. Behind us, the forest was almost out of sight, and I almost stopped believing in it; I could no longer feel its energy and life.
The etchings in the stone brought us to a sheer face. There were stairs, broken and cracked, a few hundred feet away. But the faint path seemed to run straight up to the wall, as if the mountain had been put there afterwards.
Elias walked up to the wall and put his hands against it. There were runes there, I could see, and Elias had started touching them. But I paid him little heed. Something else was very wrong. I reached out my mind in all directions, and sensed nothing, but something was wrong, nonetheless.
The sun was now out fully and we were all squinting in the harsh white light of sun against white stone. Woltan was also looking around, as if searching for something amiss. My sword buzzed at my side, and I brought my hand down and grabbed the pommel. She came out almost without me pulling her. Above you, Anders, they are coming, sound the alert!
“ABOVE US!”
My first thought was that it was some kind of bird. Then, as they came closer, I knew they were too big to be birds. They were far above, but falling rapidly. Then one was swooping down at me, and I thrust out my sword as it snapped its jaws and raked me with a giant claw. I ducked from the one and held out my shield to meet another. The dragon roared, belched fire from its mouth, and met my shield. Then it was swooping back up in the air again.
Dragons. Impossible. The stuff of tall tales and legends. They didn’t exist – my tutor had proved to me mathematically that nothing that big could fly.
I looked wildly around. Elias was crouched down at the wall, touching runes. The others kept their backs against the mountain as well. The dragons had flown back up and were preparing to swoop down again. Reach out your mind to them, Anders, it’s our only hope.
I backed up to the wall to meet the others, opening my mind and sending it upward. And I met then… intelligence.
WHO DARES TO BREECH THE BOUNDARIES OF THE STONE MOUNTAIN?
It is I, Anders Tomason, three-blood prince, and people of the Tree Mother, of the Forgotten City, and of the Kriek.
I KNOW OF NONE OF THOSE OF WHOM YOU SPEAK.
Then listen.
My blood began to sing.
I don’t know what I sang, but images flashed in my mind, of peoples long lost, of kings so many generations back that only the blood remembered. I held up the sword and Carolina and the blade acted as a beacon, broadcasting up my song. My blood memory sang of the sea, and of civilizations that had fallen, of knowledge and old magic lost and to be found again.
Far above the dragons listened as they circled.
And then something changed.
The dragons as one opened their great maws. And from them rushed forth not fire, not smoke, not cries of battle or rage but song.
Dragon song.
The song reached out and hit my bloodsong and at the point where they touched a great blue circle of energy formed. My sword began vibrating strongly and pulling at my arm.
I gripped it with two hands and continued singing.
I didn’t recognize what I sang, couldn’t understand the song of the dragons, but somehow my blood knew both. I felt their song in my blood, and saw images of battles won and lost, of ancient cities, the land of the merpeople before it fell under the water, the glass castle, and many other images that left nothing but wonder and confusion. I saw men of old, pixie kings and pixie warriors, demons, imps, and men, always more men. Men on horseback, men on dragonback. The tugging continued at my arms.
I looked down for a moment, and almost forgot to continue singing.
The ground was hundreds of feet below me. My mouth closed and the tugging stopped.
I started to fall and Carolina screamed at me: Keep singing Anders! OPEN YOUR MOUTH!
The song of the dragons above me suddenly seemed alien and meaningless, repulsing me now instead of inviting.
The sword went limp above my head, as the ground rushed up to smash me against a stone floor.
My body went limp as I fell.
I was going to die.
Sing, you idiot boy!
I opened my mouth.
The song poured forth, stronger than before. The sword shot up above me, as I held on with all my strength. I was being pulled up again, and my song coursed into the dragonsong — bloodsong and dragonsong united.
The ball above me expanded, and pulsed. It was greater than I had imagined it.
The song pulled me higher. The dragons circled faster above me.
Suddenly I was in the blue globe, and the dragons were there with me, and the song stopped. My mouth closed. I prepared to fall once again.
But I didn’t.
The dragons weren’t moving either. Their mouths were silent but thei
r great black eyes stared at me.
PRINCE.
RIDER.
BLOODSINGER.
YOU KEPT US WAITING SO LONG, WE STOPPED BELIEVING IN YOU. WE FORGOT YOUR EXISTENCE AND DID NOT RECOGNIZE YOU UNTIL WE HEARD YOUR SONG.
WE PLEDGE YOU FEALTY. WE DRAGONS HAVE A BLOOD DEBT TO YOU BLOODSINGERS, AND WE MISS HUMANKIND. IT WILL DO US WELL TO SERVE YOU. THERE WAS… A LACK.
THE SPELL IS WEARING OFF. YOU WOULD DO WELL TO GET ON ONE OF OUR BACKS. CHOOSE WELL, YOUR CHOICE IS BINDING. LET YOUR BLOOD LEAD YOU.
I looked down and gulped. It was a great drop beneath me. A half dozen dragons hung in the air around me. They were golden, blue, red, green and white. Their eyes were all black, though, and all their eyes were on me.
I looked into their eyes and at their auras. They were all beautiful, but there was one that called out to me. My blood hummed when I looked at her. I could tell she was a female; somehow, my blood knew.
I did not think about what to do next. I bowed my head to her, and she blinked her enormous eyes and let her head drop. I hoisted myself onto her neck. Then we were all falling, and I held onto her neck as she twisted and spun out of a dive into a glide across the clear sky.
The air rushed through my hair and I felt very alive, very free, very happy for the first time I could remember. Like I was born to do this.
You are a rider born, Anders Tomason. Let me present myself. My name is Yesenia… But now we must land, your friends are waiting. I can feel their worry from up here. We dragons are very sensitive to human feelings and thoughts. That means even though your mind is shielded, I can feel your thoughts through your legs and arms wrapped around my neck.
Let us go down, then.
We glided down in great, slow circles to the ground. As we were about to land, I saw my friends below, tensed up with arrows drawn. I thought a message to them. Relax, we come in peace.
IX
They let their weapons fall down to their sides as the dragons landed. There were six dragons, Yesenia and five others. My sisters and brothers are going to pick riders. Tell your friends not to worry.