by IGMS
He saw now that her skin was not really white. It was gelatinous almost and only looked white from a distance, though he could see that it was beginning to harden. Beneath the clear skin, he could make out tiny blue veins. Her muscles, in fact, were opalescent, and her fine bones were as clear as glass.
She smelled sweet and earthy, like vanilla poured over moss.
Anduval had never peered upon anyone with such breathtaking beauty.
There was movement in the fine musculature of her face, a skraal smile as her lips tightened. "How old are you --" the holy maiden asked, "in human years?"
"I am twelve years and three months," Anduval answered softly, filled with awe.
"You are young, even for a human. Do you know how old I am?"
"Two hundred seven years, nine months, three days, and almost nine hours," Anduval answered.
The holy maiden laughed, a clear melodic sound like an oboe. "So perfectly honest. You please me. Your offering pleases me. Did you know that for nearly three months now, I have not eaten from any other platter but yours?"
Anduval fought back the urge to gasp. He'd never known what had become of his offerings. Each morning and evening he delivered his platter, but at the end of her meal, all of the offerings were thrown away. "I am honored," is all that he could manage to say.
"Three months," she said. "Since the attack, your offerings have revived me and healed me."
She peered now at his platter. As a nymph, she could not eat anything but fungus at the early stage of her life. "Your yellowcaps, so bright and crisp. These ones sprouted in the night. You had to have harvested them well before dawn, before any sunlight could beat down through the swamps and touch them. And this glass mushroom -- you had to travel miles into the forest to find it, for the nearest ones grow only at the base of Mount Dimlock, the steward tells me."
Now she whirled and peered into his eyes. "You know my tastes -- my needs -- better than I know them myself. How did you guess that I craved glass mushrooms?"
For a moment, Anduval stood frozen as he tried to unravel his logic.
The libraries of Magus Veritarnus were filled with ancient tomes that detailed the feeding habits of nymphs. It was a vital subject. Some nymphs developed vast powers. Most did not. So scribes had recorded the feeding habits of past nymphs.
Anduval had studied the texts tirelessly, and had gone much further -- charting Seramasia's growth against that of other maidens, studying texts that plumbed the secrets of various fungi -- the content of their vitamins, minerals, phytogens and hormones.
A truly great skraal mother had not risen in more than six thousand years. The world needed one; it needed a mother right out of legend.
Anduval suspected -- as did the skraals -- that there were inadequacies in the nymphs' diets. Many species of fungi had been lost in the ancient cycor attack.
Of course, Seramasia knew all of this. So Anduval tried to explain his choices.
"The air is dry this morning," he said. "I thought you would relish the glass mushroom's moisture. I know that there is some variation, but skraal maidens crave certain foods, according to their age, their closeness to ascension, the heat and humidity. . . . The injury you sustained in the attack, this too amends your needs. As I studied the records, I began to see patterns."
"All of my other attendants are skraals, and are supposed to be intellectually superior to humans. Why could they not see these patterns?"
Anduval did not want to admit it, but sometimes he thought that he was smarter than most skraals, even though tradition held that it was impossible.
"As I pondered what you might want . . . I felt the answer in my bones . . ."
"Then tell me," she asked, "what will I want to eat tomorrow?"
"Your ascension is almost upon you," Anduval said. "Your skin is hardening. Tomorrow . . . or sometime soon, you will begin to crave insects with your fungus. You will need the protein to build your chrysalis. Tomorrow I will bring mallow mold, and I have hired children to collect young damselflies."
The holy maiden considered his words. "You traveled by foot into the dimmest part of the forest this morning, beneath boa trees so vast that the ground never sees light. Were you not afraid of being eaten by a colossus boar?"
Almost Anduval decided to lie, to boast at his courage. But the giant pigs of the deep woods could grow to weigh three tons, and they often protected their feeding grounds, so he admitted, "I was."
"Then why did you do it?"
"I wanted to please you," Anduval admitted.
"More than you cared for your own life?" the holy maiden asked.
He was afraid that she might laugh at him or mock him.
"Yes," he admitted.
"Do you love me?"
At her back, a guard hissed, a creature named Cessari. Anduval knew of him. The holy maiden did not have guards assigned at random. Cessari was her personal attendant and the most dangerous skraal on Danai. Indeed, he held the title of consort, and in the fullness of time he would become the holy maiden's mate.
It was dangerous for Anduval to confess his feelings for the maiden. He was only a boy, and he was told that he was not old enough to love. But he knew what he felt.
"I do love you," Anduval answered, afraid that the consort might crush him for his boldness. "I have loved you from the first time that I saw you at a distance, two years ago."
The holy maiden peered into his eyes and smiled in satisfaction. "I know what you want from me," she said. "You hope that in time I will learn to love you, too."
Among the skraals, she was but a child, like him.
He did not have to confess his feelings. She could divine them.
"You understand," Seramasia said, "that human emotions are but a shadow compared to what I feel. If I were to love you, you would never understand the depth of my passion. If I were to love you, our minds would meld into one, and my love would destroy your ability to reason. There is a purpose behind the law that keeps you at a distance."
"I understand," he said.
She grew thoughtful. "You please me," she said. "It is my hope that in time you will find a human woman to love. I will go into transcendence soon, and when I do, I will be gone for a number of years. Seek for a human woman to love.
"I fear . . . the cycor will return soon. I do not know if we have four years or four hundred, but we must prepare to defend ourselves. Yet I fear that our preparations will be in vain.
"Therefore, make the best of the time we have left.
"As for now, your devotion must be rewarded. You will continue to bring my morning meals until I go dormant, but in the afternoon you will begin an apprenticeship under the magus. You, too, shall become a magus."
Anduval considered. There were technologies that were undreamt of by men, and it was the duty of a magus to master these. It would greatly add to his duties. But he was only a human, and did not have the strength or endurance of a skraal. He did not know how he might manage it.
More importantly, he would arouse the jealousy of the maiden's skraal servants, and that was a dangerous thing to do.
Suddenly Anduval recalled something, a message that he had hoped to deliver to the magus, a message for the holy maiden. Compared to the dangers posed by the cycor, it seemed rather inconsequential.
"Milady," Anduval said with a bow. "I have heard a rumor that might interest you: in the bogs outside the forest, the skull and body of a dragon have been found."
The holy maiden drew a breath in surprise, and her consorts leapt forward eagerly.
"Is the skull intact? Has it been opened?"
Anduval shrugged. "As far as I know, it has not been taken from the bog."
"We must go look upon it," she said, glancing toward Cessari. "This is a great treasure."
"Beware, milady," Cessari said. "This may be a trap, to lure you from the safety of the forest!"
But the holy maiden whirled and peered to the east, as if her mind sought out beyond the miles. "No, I can feel it no
w, there at the limit of my powers. How sweetly the dragon dreams . . ."
We will have to go under the cover of darkness, Anduval realized, when the creatures of the forest venture out to forage. That way it will help hide her heat signature from cycor ships. She will want to go in secret.
The holy maiden riveted Anduval with a look and said, "Go and tell the magus what you have heard."
Angar was drunk by midday. He went to the pub and told the town about his dragon, and as the tale spread, many an oaf just like himself came and offered to pay for rounds.
By early afternoon, the size of the dragon had grown enormous in the telling, and many a man gaped in disbelief at stories of talon a yard long and a wingspan of a hundred feet.
There were offers to buy teeth. "I'm the best scrimshaw artist in Moonravis," one fisherman boasted. "Lend me the ivory, and I shall double its value!"
But Angar did not like the man's work. It was true that he was the best in town, but with a find like this the ivory should go to the best carvers on Danai.
"I'll bet I could make fine boots and belts from its skin" the cobbler suggested in a wheedling voice, his hands making little groping gestures.
The innkeeper offered, "Five gold rings for a tooth -- and all the beer you can drink for a year"
"Two years" Angar demanded.
"Sold!" the innkeeper shouted instantly, and Angar rued the bargain.
I should have demanded more, he thought.
But the innkeeper forced a mug of his finest into Angar's hand, and in moments Angar was so happy that he was dancing on the bar while the other guests serenaded him with drinking songs.
"You know," a blacksmith shouted in the midst of the song, "that it is not the teeth or hide that is the greatest treasure of a dragon. It is found in the dragon's skull!"
The blacksmith pointed to his own skull and nodded wisely.
Angar's head was reeling by then, but somehow the blacksmith's image, his message, kept whirling about in Angar's mind. It was like a piece of oat straw caught in a dust devil. It spun around and around.
Suddenly Angar fell from the table, and several peasants leapt to be first to help him up.
"Leave me, leave me alone," he begged. "I've got to go get that dragon out of the river."
With superhuman effort, he hauled his massive belly off the floor and began to weave in the general direction of his home. But the patrons of the bar all shouted, "We'll come and help!" and Angar was still sober enough to realize that he would be grateful for twenty strong hands.
So the townsmen went to the edge of the bog, and with picks and shovels and pry bars they dug into the mud and freed the dragon, pulling its half-petrified corpse into the sunlight on the riverbank, where flies buzzed around it curiously for awhile, then rejected its ancient flesh as an unworthy home even for maggots.
The townsfolk gaped in amazement at the dragon's size. Surely it would have had an eighty-foot wingspan. And its talons really were over two feet long.
But the leather did not look to be worth much. Most of it had been devoured by worms and discolored by the tannins in the peat, it seemed.
Meanwhile, the ivory in its teeth was discolored and had gone soft with age, making matters worse.
Angar feared that the innkeeper would rescind his offer of two years' free beer.
One of the townsfolk even laughed at Angar, saying, "I would not like to have to bury that thing!"
As Angar fell into despair, a skraal warrior came to the bog and begged the people not to disturb the dragon's remains.
"The holy maiden will pay well for a skull that is still intact," the warrior offered.
So Angar shooed the townsfolk off his property in the afternoon, and stood guard over the rotting corpse. He settled in the shade of a hazelnut tree and lay in the tall grass for a long while, trying to figure out how to make the most money from his smelly prize, when he fell asleep.
Two full moons were up when he finally roused himself.
The greatest treasure "is found in the dragon's skull!" he kept recalling, the thought whirling about him like dry autumn leaves.
He wondered at that. Angar was not an educated man. Education was for skraals, farming and petty labors for humans. But Angar knew a bit of folk wisdom.
Sometimes, when a large bird died, it would leave piles of small stones as its craw decomposed. There was an old wives' tale he had heard about a farmer who discovered diamonds amid such remains, and further search revealed that a nearby hillside was covered with them.
Perhaps dragons do the same, he considered. Maybe dragons swallow rubies or emeralds, or maybe they just form naturally in a dragon's skull!
Why should the skraals get all of the treasure? he wondered. They get the best we have to offer, and what do we get in return?
With that in mind, he staggered home to find his ax.
"Magus Veritarnus, my name is Anduval. I am to be your apprentice."
The magus shot Anduval a dark look, hesitated for an instant, and said, "I can't waste time on such nonsense." He turned his back.
Anduval had found the magus in his Operations Center. The magus was a tall man with a lean physique and a haggard look. His skin was as midnight-black as Anduval's. He had his long hair braided in cornrows and slung over his neck onto his chest. The magus peered up at a glass wall where squiggly chains made from green, red, yellow and blue were wrapped into cords. The magus had a crystal wand, and when he pointed at one of the rods, he would speak, and the chains would break. The colored blocks would then rearrange according to his command.
"Let's have a look at chromosome 12, gene 111, marker four, shall we?"
The image on the wall shifted, rushing down the coiled chains, until it stopped, and the magus squinted at the image on the wall, ignoring Anduval.
Anduval prompted, "It is the wish of the holy maiden that I be your apprentice."
"Go and tell her to mind her own business," Magus Veritarnus shot back. "We are in a state of emergency."
Anduval offered, "The holy maiden seems to think that I could help."
The magus whirled, looked down. "Time that I spend with you is time taken from more important duties. Do you understand?"
Anduval was an observant child. He understood far more than most adults thought that he should. For weeks now he had been gathering bits of information overheard in palace halls, and in the markets outside of town.
"You are preparing for the cycor attack," Anduval said. "You only have a few years to do it. You're gathering seeds and spores, and hiding them here beneath the fortress. I know, because I know of the children that you've hired to begin the work.
"You hope to weather the attack, as our ancestors did. But you are afraid that it won't work. Six thousand years ago, the cycor hit us with planet killers. But that didn't work, so you're worried that they'll be more thorough this time.
"You're trying to save what you can, the seeds of humanity. But you are doomed to fail, for there are hundreds of millions of people who will die. There isn't room to protect them all, down here in the depths of the palace."
The magus straightened his back, sighed, and peered down at Anduval, as if in defeat.
"You're damned smart for a twelve year old." Anduval hadn't told the magus his age. But then, the magus was rumored to have phenomenal powers of observation. "I wasn't that smart at your age.
"This isn't a palace, you know. It is a bunker, designed to withstand cycor attacks. That is what it was built for."
He studied Anduval as if weighing him; Anduval realized that the magus needed time to make up his own mind.
"I was told to inform you that the body of a dragon has been found."
"Frozen?" the magus asked hopefully. "Preserved in ice?"
"No, it was found in a peat bog. I hear that it has not decomposed. The holy maiden has asked that I lead you and her to it."
The magus stopped for a moment, breathless, riveted by the news. He nodded slightly, eagerly, black pupils sh
ining.
Then a look of defeat entered his eyes once again, and he said softly, "Let us hope that it is whole."
Anduval had to sprint that night to keep pace with the quicker skraals.
Their entourage was small -- the holy maiden, a pair of guards, Anduval, and the Magus Veritarnus ran at the tail of the group, with his black cape flowing behind.
Anduval led the way. The light of two small full moons, the angry twins, shone red and glaring on the fields of dry grass, bathing the night in blood. Anduval ran, and in doing so he tried to hide his humanity. He dared not slow or stop. He could not beg for rest. He wanted to prove that he could move as swift and effortlessly as a skraal.
So he sprinted through the fields, his heart pounding, lungs heaving like bellows, until he was dizzy with fatigue. His feet winnowed the dry grasses, knocking ripe grain from stalks of wheat.
The scent of grass and stinkweeds carried on the warm night air.
The others raced behind him. They did not have far to go outside the great forest, but the stars overhead seemed threatening to Anduval. At any moment, one of them could turn and dive -- a cycor warship that would explode like the sun, washing the planet in fire.
It is only a matter of time, he told himself. They will come, and the world will become void in a flash.
A wind came from the deserts in the east, blowing a thin veil of red dust high into the air. Lightning flickered in the empty heavens, and the skraals became agitated.
The skraals moved swiftly and effortlessly, and Anduval knew that they wished that his small legs would go faster. But the Holy Maiden Seramasia did not condemn him. She jogged at his back, sometimes whispering words of gratitude and encouragement.
Thus they reached the cottage where the farmer Angar lived. The house was made from squares of sod, with poles angled up at the top. Bundles of cattail reeds served as a roof.