by Adams, A. D.
The Dragon Healer of Tone
(Book 1)
By: A. D. Adams
Copyright © 2006 by A. D. Adams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my Wife, Valentina, with whom I share my love, my life, and my dreams.
A Thought For the Reader
Look to your mind’s eye at sights unseen.
Behold realms of life and joy beyond your reach, but not your dreams.
Envision places of love and adventure that no one can hold, but all can possess.
Welcome to worlds unknown and things unseen.
For only you shall know what you dream.
Table of Contents
A Thought For the Reader
Prologue - The Writer
Chapter 1 - The Dragon World
Chapter 2 - The Birth of a Child
Chapter 3 - The First Year of Life
Chapter 4 - The Birth of a Dragon
Chapter 5 - The Tragic Accident
Chapter 6 - The Long Growing Season
Chapter 7 - The Journey
Chapter 8 - The Visit
Chapter 9 - The Lost One
Chapter 10 - The Rescue of a Meal
Chapter 11 - The Healer
Chapter 12 - The Wounded
Chapter 13 - Care and Feeding of a Human
Chapter 14 - A Useful Tool
Chapter 15 - Burning Meat
Chapter 16 - Clothes and Other Needs
Chapter 17 - The Time of Growing
Chapter 18 - The Dragon Council
Chapter 19 - First Flight
Chapter 20 - First Hunt
Chapter 21 - Terra’s First Flight
Chapter 22 - Freedom
Chapter 23 - Learning to Swim
Chapter 24 - Meeting a New Friend
Chapter 25 - Growing Up and Its Problems
Chapter 26 - Exploring the World
Chapter 27 - A Moon Rising Alone
Chapter 28 - Seeing His Kind for the First Time
Chapter 29 - Reproduction
Chapter 30 - Exploring a Secret Place
Chapter 31 - Knowledge
Chapter 32 - History
Chapter 33 - The Last Lesson of Flight
Chapter 34 - A Visit to a Friends Home
Chapter 35 - Old Friends Visit
Chapter 36 - New Flame
Chapter 37 - Terra Rides the Winds
Chapter 38 - Rest and Learning
Chapter 39 - The Training of a Sounder
Chapter 40 - Fienna is Presented to Dragon Society
Chapter 41 - After
Chapter 42 - Finding a New Home
Chapter 43 - Preparing to Leave
Chapter 44 - A Teacher Needs Help
Chapter 45 - Someone’s Watching
Chapter 46 - Moving
Chapter 47 - Terra Is Presented to Dragon Society
Chapter 48 - The Word Heard by All
Chapter 49 - The Dragon Healer
Chapter 50 - The Healer of All
Chapter 51 - The Prize
Chapter 52 - The Soul
Chapter 53 - Retribution
Chapter 54 - The Light
Chapter 55 - The Visit
Chapter 56 - The Wogan
Chapter 57 - The Draman
Chapter 58 - The Attack
Chapter 59 - The Return of Evil
Chapter 60 - A Time to Heal
Chapter 61 - Privacy
Chapter 62 - Old Friends Talk
Chapter 63 - A Surprise for All
Chapter 64 - A Search for Knowledge
Chapter 65 - Learning to Cope with Change
Chapter 66 - All Learn of the Change
Chapter 67 - The Visit
Chapter 68 - Help
Chapter 69 - Time For the New and a Change
Chapter 70 - A Time to Find Help
Chapter 71 - A Journey to Remember
Chapter 72 - Experience and Surprise
Chapter 73 - The Past Rises
Chapter 74 - New Clothes
Chapter 75 - The World Changes
Chapter 76 - A Quiet Time
Chapter 77 - A Fool’s Attack
Chapter 78 - The Release
Chapter 79 - The Birth
Epilogue - Part of the Whole
A Thank You to the Reader
Author Profile
Prologue - The Writer
(15th set of seasons in the age of the Draman)
My name is Kacaba, and I have been assigned to write the history of man and our intertwined relationship with the great dragons. The great Master Scribe Soto assigned three students to create independent manuscripts from which he would pick one as the book for our people to use as a historical guide. Being one of the chosen three honored me.
I plan to write the history as a story rather than a dry thesis of facts. I find stories easier to understand and much more interesting. I would like the reader to know that this is a true history, to the best of my knowledge.
Much of the information was gathered from those who actually participated in the events described. I intend to give the information of our past as factually as possible in a single coherent story, created from all the information I have obtained. Please excuse the first chapter. It is basically a short history of the time before the Draman and is explained in other writings. I thought it wise to explain a bit of the past for the young ones born after this history to give an idea of our existence before the changes brought on by the Draman. From this point forward, I will not mention myself.
Chapter 1 - The Dragon World
(Life and Death a Struggle for All.)
333 set of seasons since the coming of the Averons
Many seasons ago on the Dragon world of Tone a saga of love and magic began that gives dreams reality and hope possibility. The Dragon world was a place of beauty as well as violence and death.
Tone, as its inhabitants called it, was one large continent; its interior vast and unknown to humanity. Along the entire length of the western coast was a ridge of virtually impassable mountains. Amid the mountains and the high coastal cliffs were the deep valleys that lay in timeless mists. At its widest, the valley region was no more than an eleven sun-risings walk for a man.
There were three seasons in the valleys. The cold season started the cycle and was laced with a biting rain that tore at the skin and soul of the people. The cold and wet turned into a short dry period, known as the planting time. Then the long warm wet growing season finished the cycle. The moon of Tone marked seasonal time passage. The great yellow moon went from its full round shape to various crescents, finally ending with no moon at all. It then passed back through the crescents in reverse order until it reached full roundness once again.
This cycle took sixty-two sun-risings. The people knew time based on the light of the sunrise and darkness of the sunset and the seven full moons it took to complete the three seasons. Twice during a single set of seasons, the great full moon turns an angry red color. This happened at the end of the growing season and at the beginning of the dry planting time.
The world that was known to the humans wa
s the misty valleys that existed between the dual evils of the coastal dragons and the mountain Averons. Humans had lived this way for so long that only the ancient legends, told by the storytellers, explained why. The tellers traveled the land singing and chanting the stories for food and lodgings.
Man’s place in this world was one of clouds and nearly endless rain.
The clouds passed over the coastal cliffs then were stopped by the high mountains. Here the clouds gathered into dark and angry masses. They would then incessantly pour their rain onto the mist-laden valleys below. This made planting food crops difficult, and the people were always hard pressed to grow enough food. The mud always seemed to be knee-deep making life a struggle from sunrise to sunrise. For a precious full moon rising, the rain would stop, allowing the plant growers to put their seeds down. The harvest, though, was another story; it was always done in what seemed to be the infinite wetness of the land, and only a small portion of what was planted reached the hungry bellies of the people.
The humans could not venture outside their valleys for fear of becoming a meal or encountering the evil of the black Solan. Legends told that she controlled the hideously deformed giant black fliers known as the Averons. These fliers were the scourge of man’s existence, keeping them trapped in the timeless misty valleys. Legend had it that beyond the mountains were beautiful green fields, rivers, and lakes where rain happened only when it was needed. Who could know without tempting a sure death, for the few who had tried were never heard from again.
The storytellers weaved their tales of dwarfs, elves, and nymphs; the three races that controlled this realm. During a great battle, humanity was driven across the coastal mountains to the valleys beyond. The legends told of the Solans of Tycarr, women of magic, who managed to stop man’s enemies from destroying them completely. This was done by blocking the great mountain passes during the “escape from death.”
The Solans caused huge avalanches that created walls of stones. Many died during this leaving, and only four remained to help the surviving humans in their new existence. The legends said little of the ways of the Solans of Tycarr, other than they were a group of women who were born with magic and had one or two of the nine powers. What these powers were and how they were used was not known. Tycarr was said to be a castle of great towers that the Solans used for training. Once each year they went forth from Tycarr to recruit the young women of the villages who showed magical abilities. It was known to have been a great honor to be chosen for training in the sisterhood.
The legends continued with the four remaining Solans defending and providing what help they could to humanity. It was said fifty full sets of seasons later that the black Solan, “Obecka,” was born; a sun-rising that would prove to be the beginning of many dark times for the valley peoples. The birth of Obecka was at first greeted with celebration, for another great Solan now existed to help. As she grew so did her magical powers, which she used to get whatever she wanted, not seeming to care that she hurt others in the process. The four remaining Solans of Tycarr usually stopped her from harming the people who had already suffered the devastation of their world. Over the seasons, however, she ever so slowly became increasingly enraged at being controlled by the others. This eventually drove her to a deadly act. Her magic grew with her overbearing manner until she was the most powerful of all the five Solans. She attracted the four to a cave in the valley of Herston by asking the other Solans for a meeting to discuss her future as their queen. The other four became enraged by her assumption that she would rule them and came to deal with her insolence. As the four angrily waited in the cave for her to join them, Obecka trapped them by diverting a stream over the cave’s mouth and freezing it. The trapped Solans could not penetrate the magically created solid door of ice. She then caused an avalanche that she thought would trap the others only until she could come up with a way of controlling them. Unfortunately, the mountain was very unstable, and the cave started to collapse. The four tried to support it with their power, but the enormous weight of the rock above them finally overwhelmed their combined magic. The cave collapsed killing them all.
Obecka, realizing what she had done, went deep into the mountains and found a dark cave in which to hide. For the first time in her life, she felt guilt for the act she had committed, and over the next several moon risings, her guilt grew, finally driving her mad. In her madness, she decided to punish forever the people who had treated her with disdain.
As a young girl, she thought that her special powers made her greater than the ordinary men and women of the valleys and that they owed her whatever she demanded, but instead they avoided and distrusted her.
Her madness drove her to punish them by taking twenty small black fliers and changing them into monstrous black feathered creatures with twenty foot wing spans that were capable of killing anything moving on land. She called them Averons and trained them to prey upon humans and beasts alike from their nests in the mountains that once protected and now ravaged humanity.
No one had seen Obecka for hundreds of seasons, but her legend grew. The Averons were seen only on the brightest of sun-risings flying about the edge of the valleys looking for their next victim. The legend held that Obecka and her Averons could not come into the valleys because the magic of the four was in the valley mists. The storytellers weaved the song of the icy door created by Obecka and how it slowly melted and absorbed the magic from the blood of the four murdered Solans. The blood red water trickled into the valley streams spreading across the land and eventually evaporated into the mist, combining the power of the four into a magic laden shield that Obecka and her Averons could not or would not enter. The origin of the legend and who first sang of it was lost in the shadows of time. The mist still filled the great valleys sun-rising and sunset protecting the people from the one that would harm them. It was said that one sun-rising a woman would come and gather all the power of the mist. She would then take revenge for the deadly act of murder the black Solan had committed. This one would restore humankind to its proper place in the world. It was thought that a great Solan would be born to accomplish these tasks, since the magical power of healing was born only in the women. No man had ever shown the power of magic, so it was known that it would be a woman who would bring humanity out of the mist and into the world of light. Newborn female babies were always carefully watched to see if the great Solan had come, but none ever appeared, and after many seasons, the search slowly vanished as time swallowed the past, changing it into legend even though the people still held the hope that one sunrise she would come.
One other evil plagued man, the great coastal dragons, which were frighteningly familiar. Little was known about these great beasts; it was thought the dragons killed for food not pleasure. Man was not a favored meal, but would be taken when available. It seemed the dragons liked to stay near their dens in the coastal cliffs where they could bathe and sun themselves. They were able to protect themselves from magic, for it was said that even the black Solan could not affect them. The dragons were beautiful animals with their great wings and multicolored skin, but they were more dangerous than any Averon. They were four to five times larger than the Averons and apparently liked the taste of their flesh, for they could often be seen on clear sun-risings carrying an Averon carcass to their dens. The dragons rarely came close to the human villages and farms even though the mists did not seem to bother them. The farmers kept their plow beasts under roof so the dragons would not see them. Dragons had been known to swoop down from the sky and take an entire plow beast while the farmer was plowing. They would carry the beast as well as the plow away. Once a luckless planter was taken; he had gotten tangled in the plow harnesses and was carried away with the plow beast, never to be seen again. So it came to pass, that the Averons would not venture too close to the dragons’ domain or the valley mists, and the dragons stayed near their coastal dens, leaving the muddy misty valleys to humanity.
Chapter 2 - The Birth of a Child
(Life F
orever Starts Anew.)
333 set of seasons since the coming of the Averons
It was a typical sunrise, RAIN; but Reicka was happy for she was pregnant with her first child. She was a beautiful woman with a gentle round face framed by long straight brown hair and a small but strong body. She glowed with life, as her body grew larger with child. Her husband, Adam, was a large muscular man with wavy brown hair, almond shaped eyes, and fair skin. This sun-rising he was in the field trying to divert water away from their seed crop. Reicka’s mother, Sadi, was with her. Sadi was the local healer with minor healing power.
Reicka also had healing magic, but pregnant women did not dare use it because it could weaken them to the point of losing the baby. This had happened to others, and Reicka was not going to take any chances with her first-born. She was in her last sun-rising before the birth. Her pregnancy had given her no problems at all. She thought this was a little odd. Normally, women did have at least some troubles, especially first time mothers. In fact, she felt better than she ever had, even so, her mother made her sit most of the time since it was her first, and she was unusually large. So she sat patiently in the corner with the glow of the fire lighting her knitting, which would one sun-rising, clothe her baby.
Their home was typical of the planters: a low box made of stone blocks that were roughly one man’s foot square. The roof was secar wood, which grew in the valleys. It kept the interior dry but had an odd smell, which the village dwellers disliked. The odor did keep bugs and small vermin away. There were two rooms. The first was large with a stone table and a fireplace for cooking. Four well-worn chairs sat near the fire for warmth. Cooking utensils hung from pegs in the walls surrounding the hearth. A strong bow with long straight arrows hung over the fireplace’s mantel. It was a place of peace and warmth in a world of dampness and cold. The second room was a small bedroom with a bed made of feathers stuffed into a cloth bag. Other than a bed and one chair there was little in this room. The final room was the loft, which was used for food storage. In the loft, food was safe from the hungry animals that lived in the world. A strong ladder was kept by the door and used to enter the loft through a rough square hole in the ceiling. The house was clean and neat, for Reicka did not like disorder.