He ignored the question to ask two more. “Have you just come from there? Has everyone gone mad there as well?”
As well? So yes, the swamplands had been affected too. She had initially been glad to see the face of someone whose eyes were clear. But she was beginning to think this young peasant was simply impudent rather than dim.
She nodded. “My maidservant’s eyes turned black,” she said. “She tried to kill me. I fled to the castle, but—”
“But what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. He didn’t need to know about how the entire castle had turned on itself, how her family was likely dead. She had already told him enough of what he needed to know.
“The same thing happened to me,” he said, looking down at the ground, his lips turning downward into a frown. “I mean, I don’t have a servant.”
She almost laughed at that, but held it in. Of course he didn’t have a servant. Though he looked lean and strong, based on the clothes he wore, he likely barely had the means to take care of himself.
“My brother and father, they—,” he seemed to be searching for the word. “Turned.” And yes, that was a good way to put it. “And a woman named Beulah. She was a cook at Nightshadow castle. When the sun went dark, all their eyes went black and they came at me. But I escaped.”
He was almost handsome, for a swamp-dwelling peasant. But he seemed to have a penchant for stating the obvious. If he hadn’t escaped, he wouldn’t be standing here before her.
Zak seemed to snap out of his reverie and lift his eyes back to her. “Where are you going?”
How impolite he was. In all the time since she had revealed herself to be a Moonglow princess, he had not once referred to her as “your highness”. But she could see that he had been traumatized by the events of the day. So had she. That didn’t mean he still couldn’t show some manners, but it did allow her to forgive him. Still, if he were going to accompany her, he would need to learn to show some respect.
“There,” she said, pointing behind her at where the great tree rose up into the sky.
His face brightened, his lips curving into a smile. “Me too,” he said. “I am to meet someone there.”
How could a peasant boy be acquainted with an owl-mage? Perhaps he was making a joke, though it certainly was not the time for levity. It mattered not. They might as well travel together the rest of the way to the tree. He may be an unmannered commoner, but so far he was the only person or creature she had seen since the sun had gone dark that had not gone mad. Perhaps there was something special about him. Or perhaps it was a coincidence. Either way, those unaffected by the sickness should probably stick together, though she did not want to be the one to make the suggestion.
So she simply looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to make the offer so they could be upon their way.
7
ZAK
She was looking at him as if she wanted him to say something.
His father’s flatbed boat had carried him far and fast, through the swamp and inland via a small river that had emptied into a lake. He had not run into any more crazed animals, though he had heard and seen plenty of troubling things along the way.
The swamp had been filled with disturbing noises, screams that could have been human or animal, or a mixture of both. He saw dead things floating, but with the boat carrying him so swiftly, he often couldn’t tell what they were. Some he recognized as fish. Others were much larger.
As he had emerged from the swamp and started up-river, he saw a flock of birds in a frenzied swarm. At first he had thought they would attack him, but then he realized they were pecking and fighting with one another. As the boat had slipped past, he’d seen bloody sparrows dropping one by one out of the blurry cloud of birds and thudding to the river bank.
Some of the possessed creatures seemed to work together to attack. Others simply turned upon themselves. There was little rhyme or reason, and that made their behavior all the more frightening.
The boat had carried him up the winding river, through hilly country, and that part of his trip had almost been enjoyable. Then the river had come to the lake, and the boat had carried him across it. At the speed he was going, he wondered if it might smash him into the shore, but whatever magic the owl-mage had imbued the boat with seemed to know exactly where it was going.
Halfway across the lake the boat had begun to slow, and that’s when he saw the dragon. It was like an inverted shadow, a great white figure standing out starkly against the darkness of the day.
Zak instinctively took a step back and clutched the pole, though it would do little good against a magical monster such as that. Growing up, he had heard endless tales of the dragons that ruled Xandakar. The white, like this one, were supposed to be the least combative. That did not mean they were friendly. And it did not mean that it would not kill him on the spot. He was not yet close enough to see its eyes and know whether it had the black sickness.
He watched as it bent its slender neck down to drink from the lake, and the movement was so graceful and feminine that he decided the dragon must be a female.
As he drew closer, the dragon spotted him as well. He swallowed hard as the boat drew to a stop upon the shore. Every instinct told him to run to the back of the boat, to jump overboard, to flee. But the owl-mage Hephta had seemed not only to know him, but to genuinely be interested in his well-being. She had enchanted the boat, and that fact that it had brought him to this shore, right before this dragon, was unlikely to be a coincidence.
And as he looked up into her eyes, he could see that they were clear. He relaxed his grip on the pole, feeling the ache in his knuckles, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was standing before a dragon, but at least it wasn’t crazed, like every other person or creature he'd seen today.
And as he watched the dragon studying him, it began to shrink, its wings curling up, its neck contracting. The massive white dragon collapsed within seconds, and he found that he had been right. Before him now stood a young woman.
The scales of her dragon form had shrunk along with her, becoming a tight-fitting scaled armor suit, hugging her petite frame from neck to toes and covering her arms. Her hair was long and white. Or was it silver? It was hard to tell in the semi-darkness, but her hair shimmered all the same. Her features were delicate, her large pale eyes studying him even more closely.
She was beautiful. And it was difficult to imagine that within her slender body dwelled the power of the dragon that had towered over him just a few moments ago.
Then she had greeted him. Her name, she had said, was Myrian Moonglow. A princess, no less.
They had briefly told each other how their day had gone, frighteningly similar in shape, if not the fine details. They were both headed for The One Tree, which was perhaps only an hour’s walk to the north, maybe two.
And now the conversation had come to some kind of impasse, and Myrian was looking at him as if she expected him to say something.
“Shall we travel together?” he asked. A small smile formed at the edge of her mouth. Perhaps that was the very question she had been waiting for.
But then she said, “You might do well to refer to me as ‘your highness’.”
He let out a little laugh at that, but stopped when he saw she was serious. The world had gone insane, and she was worried about formalities?
Apparently she was, because she now looked irritated that he had made light of the situation.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a breath and wiping the smile from his face. “Your highness.”
If she wanted to play such a game, that was fine by him. He had been looked down upon his entire life, not only by outsiders, but by most of his own family. A dragon seemed like a fine traveling companion in times like these, and if she needed him to speak or act a certain way, he was happy to oblige.
He followed up with a short bow, looking at her to see if she were pleased. Instead, the look of irritation was now coupled with one of curiosity, as if she were tryin
g to discern how serious he was.
“I am sorry if I have offended you,” he said, then remembering. “Your highness.” That would take a little getting used to.
Her face softened as she seemed to decide he was being earnest. “No offense taken,” she said, though the look on her face said otherwise. Her expression also seemed to say that he needed to watch his step.
“Shall we go, then?” he asked. Zak walked up the shore, past Myrian in the direction of the tree.
He heard a small cough behind him. As he turned, she was looking at him with that stern, slightly shocked expression that seemed to say he had done something wrong.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s just,” she said. “A servant should always walk at least three steps behind.”
He blurted out a laugh. “Servant?”
“Why yes,” Myrian said. “I thought you had just agreed to assist me on my journey.”
“Oh,” Zak said. “And I thought we just agreed to go together.”
“Obviously,” she said. “But not as…I mean, not on—”
“Not on what?”
“Equal footing.”
She may have been one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. She may have been from one of the ruling dragon clans. But Zak had been shoved around and relegated to second or even third-class status his entire life. He’d just about had enough.
“Look,” he said. “Whatever is going on right now seems to be tearing our world apart. As far as I have seen, the spell affects everyone, man and beast, peasant and king. On equal footing. If we are to survive and learn the cause of all this, we'll need to work together. We have no time for the niceties of courtly etiquette. And if you have a problem with that, perhaps we should go our separate ways.”
She said nothing, merely looking at him wide-eyed, her mouth formed in a little O. It was as if he had slapped her across the face. Perhaps, in a way, he had. But he’d be damned if he was going to walk three paces behind her just because she thought she was better than him.
“Perhaps we should,” she finally said. “I’d wish you good fortune, but you are probably too foolish to know what to do with it.”
He watched, disbelieving, as she turned away from him and walked up along the beach. He felt the heat rise in his face, not only because he had never witnessed such snobbery in his life, but because the white scaled armor she wore was tight across her plump round bottom.
He could not remember ever feeling such conflicting emotions about a person in his life. She made him nearly tremble with anger and flush with wanting at the same time.
He thought to call out to her, to ask her to stop. But that would likely mean apologizing, and that was something he did not intend to do. So he let her go, watching her silver hair swish behind her, her hips swaying gently as tiny footprints formed behind her in the soft earth of the shoreline.
His pride was intact, but he felt as if he had somehow lost something as she walked nearly out of sight. Certainly it would be valuable with the present danger to have a dragon by one’s side. But it was more than that. Despite her spoiled attitude, he felt a longing for her. Perhaps he would have done the same for any beautiful young woman he had found in such circumstances. But he didn’t think so.
Nevertheless, his window of opportunity had closed. She would probably head inland, towards the tree, and perhaps he would see her there. But until then, he was on his own.
Zak sighed and turned to look up at the towering shadow of the tree on the skyline. Perhaps it was farther than it looked. He should be on his way. Time was difficult to tell with the sun blotted out. He could not even track its outline in the sky anymore.
He took the first step and began to walk.
8
MYRIAN
The insolence. The nerve!
So what if the world was being turned on its head? She was a princess whether the sky was black or blue. Traditions and protocol were to be maintained, even when times were dire.
Or were they? As she walked up the beach away from the young man who had called himself Zak, she began to doubt herself. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she was being overly particular about his hideous manners.
No, she thought. He is the one who is wrong. Yet the further she walked away from him, the less certain she was. She did not intend to stop, but with every step she hoped that he would call out to her. She wanted him to ask her to come back.
Even though he was boorish, and a peasant to boot, there was something about him. It wasn’t just that he was handsome. He was, with a fine, strong face and a lean, muscular body. But that could not be the extent of the conflicted emotions she was feeling, not just a simple physical attraction. After all, he was a commoner, and not just any commoner, but one who came from a family of swamp rats.
But if he was so undesirable by virtue of his status, then why did she keep seeing his face in her mind? Why did she find herself curious to know the feeling of running her fingers across the bareness of his chest where his tunic lay open? Why did she wonder with every step what it would be like to cup his face in her palms and draw him in for a kiss.
“No!” she said out loud, startling herself. She looked back to see if Zak was still there, if he had heard her outburst and might be wondering if she had now gone mad. But the shore of the lake was empty. He was gone.
I do not need him, she told herself. If anything, he needs me far worse. And yet, in a world that had seemingly gone completely insane, did they not need each other? Virtually everything that walked or crawled had been affected by the sickness. But the two of them had been spared. Did that not mean something?
Perhaps it was not too late. She could go back and find him. She could perhaps even swallow her pride a bit and tell him she had been too demanding.
Part of her wanted to do so. But another part, the part that knew she was in the right, that he was the one who had shown her disrespect, told her it was far too much trouble to bother. He was gone. Let him go.
Besides, they were both headed to the same place. The One Tree was as large as a city, so they might not even see each other there. But who knew? The world was a huge place, and it had somehow brought them together the first time.
So Myrian turned inland, away from the lake and towards the tree. She thought of taking dragonform once more and just flying the rest of the way. But she felt so tired and shifting would only drain her even more. The water from the lake had been refreshing, but she still felt he exhaustion seeping into her bones. No, she would walk, and it would not take her long to reach the base of the tree.
She just hoped the owls hadn’t gone mad as well.
The walk was actually nice. The root system of the tree stretched out far and wide. Thick and gnarled, they twisted through the grassy earth. The ground around them was sprinkled with patches of clover and the occasional cluster of wildflowers.
Myrian didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she began to feel better the closer she got to the tree, as if a layer of grime were being lifted from both her body and mind. The sun was still dark, but the grass and flowers seemed to still retain their color and vibrancy.
She began to think this area was being protected by some sort of benevolent spell, and that feeling only got stronger the closer she came to the tree.
She approached slowly, still wary of being attacked. But the area around the base of the tree seemed devoid of any human or animal presence. Once she got close to the tree itself, her entire view was filled with it. She could smell the deep ancientness of the wood, mixing with the smells of the nearby grass and flowers.
That was another thing she hadn’t noticed until just then. Away from the tree, nothing smelled quite the way it was supposed to. If she had smelled anything back home, it had been the faint scent of rotting meat, as if it overlay everything. But thankfully that was gone now.
Myrian put her hands against the dark wood, feeling the smooth grooves in the bark. For some reason, that made her feel even better, almost
normal again. But as she looked around, she didn’t see any kind of door or entrance.
So she began a long walk around the base, looking for how she might enter. The roots this close had either been carved or shaped by magic to form a walkway, so the going was easy. But after nearly twenty minutes of walking the wide circle, she still saw nothing that resembled a way in.
As she walked, she occasionally glanced upwards, noticing spheres suspended high up in the branches giving off a warm yellow glow. But she heard no voices nor saw anyone move.
Finally she stopped. “Greetings,” she said. The lowest branch was still far above her head. Could anyone even hear her? “Is anyone there?”
She supposed she could take dragonform and fly up to one of the many platforms or walkways she saw suspended high above her. But she also thought it would be best to do that as a last resort. The owls might be unnerved at the presence of a dragon fluttering up from beneath them, especially with everything that was happening.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I am not infected,” she said. “I seek help. My name is Myrian of the Moonglow clan.”
Still nothing. She started walking again, but as she did, she heard a strange squeaking sound. She looked up to see a huge basket descending to the walkway before her. The squeaking seemed to be from some unseen pulley high up in the darkness.
The basket, suspended from a thick rope, lowered quickly to the walkway surface, landing with a dull thunk. The front of it was cut away, like a small door, and inside a plank of polished wood stretched from one side to the other like a seat.
Myrian looked around, then up where the basket had come from. She saw and heard nothing, which was a little unsettling. Maybe this was all some bizarre trap. Maybe the owls had all been slaughtered, and now some group of lunatics with black eyes was going to draw her up in the basket and tear her to pieces.
“Go on, dear,” she heard an old female voice say faintly from above. “Get in and we will pull you up.”
Dragon Black, Dragon White Page 5