by Trista Shaye
“That’s alright, we just need to see if he might know who took the specific paper were looking for,” Kendel replied.
“That is a smart idea.” Exto sniffed and shook out his wings. “The hunters keep things well circulated amongst each other, they’re like their own sort of gang. They would know what and who you’re looking for, if anyone does. Why didn’t I think of that?” he muttered.
“Great! Would you take us to see your friend?” Diana asked, thankful there was another way to get the information they needed.
“I guess I could.” Exto said, “Technically, I’m still on duty, but I was on the duty of watching you, so long as I’m with you I guess I’m still doing my duty.”
Diana and Kendel both nodded their agreement eagerly.
“Very well, it’s quite the flight, though.”
“Flight?” Kendel’s eyes widened and he looked at the other two in turn. “I don’t have wings. How am I supposed to get there?”
“You could magic yourself up?” Diana suggested.
“Only if I’ve been there before and if it’s within distance. Both of which I’m going to have to answer as a definite and probable no,” the mage reminded her.
“I suppose, though it’s not that dignified.” Exto cleared his throat and then whispered, “You could ride me.”
“Can you even carry me?” Kendel looked on incredulously. “No offense, but you’re not very large.”
“No offense taken.” The dragon waved him off. “I may not be large physically, but I have a bit of strength in me. You’ll have to walk as much as possible, and I’ll carry you when I have to – there’s a few bits I’m thinking of that will be impossible if you don’t have wings.”
Kendel didn’t know how he felt about it, the dragon still looked too small for riding to him, but he didn’t have any other choice.
He nodded his rather reluctant agreement and, after
Exto had called over a fellow scout and asked him to round up the trolls and gnome, they were off again, heading out of the cavern and into the chill, paling evening.
“There’s not much daylight left, but we can yet make it, I believe,” Exto encouraged them, as they walked through the thickening snow. It had begun to fall harder as the day wore on.
They tromped along and Diana and Kendel both rubbed at their arms to keep the circulation moving so they wouldn’t freeze or catch frostbite.
“W-what’s your friend’s name?” Diana asked through chattering teeth, she needed something to concentrate on other than her freezing limbs.
“Name’s Dakin. One of the oldest bounty hunters in The Dappled Peaks, one of the most renowned, too.” Exto said over his shoulder as he led the way up a steep incline.
“Dakin?” Kendel repeated, grabbing a ledge and hauling himself up, grunting all the way. “He doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Ah, well he’s something.” Exto leapt upwards and a bit of snow his back foot dislodged fell on Kendel’s head with an ooff! “But he knows what he’s doing, that Dakin Wingslayer.”
Kendel gulped as he brushed the snow from his face.
“W-wingslayer?”
The trip was worsened by the weather, and it turned harsher still. This made Diana all the more thankful when they finally arrived at the bounty hunter’s den, far up the mountainside near a peak.
Kendel had gotten off Exto’s back stiffly, his legs still trembling from the fear of the flight, and he had almost collapsed there standing on his own.
Exto had entered the main cave first and then ushered them in for a formal dragon introduction with Dakin. Dakin had taken to them surprisingly well, and offered them hot drinks and blankets and had even stoked the already burning fire so they could warm themselves up next to its roaring flames.
“Thank you,” Diana sighed, as she stretched her toes toward the heat and allowed herself to relax – as much as she could anyway.
Dakin shook his scales so that they rippled from his head down to the tip of his tail. He was completely black and, unlike the shine Exto sported, he was dull and matte, beautiful in a unique way. He was also much larger then Exto, more the size one thinks of when they hear the word ‘dragon’. Not utterly ridiculous in size, as some were, apparently; but he did take up a decent amount of his own cavern.
There were all sorts of knickknacks about the cave, treasures and odd pieces of loot Dakin had received for bringing in bounties or finding lost goodies. Diana wondered if he himself had ever been stolen from, but by the way he displayed his wealth, she found it hard to believe. Maybe there was some sort of unspoken rule, that one didn’t steal from a bounty hunter’s lair – she could think of several good reasons not to.
Exto had explained their need and their hope to hunt down the wizard and Dakin’s curiosity was piqued.
“Why would you be seeking out this no-gooder? If he does have dragon magic as you think, doesn’t that make him nigh invincible?” Dakin wondered aloud, crossing his front legs before himself and lounging to one side of the fire so his guests could have the heat directly in front.
“Someone has to stop him,” Diana said, trying to square her shoulders and bolster her courage but she felt a bit wet and cold and thought she probably didn’t appear very brave at the moment.
“Seems like a death wish, little fairy,” the black dragon snorted, but he wasn’t rude about it, just stating a likely fact.
“I can potentially change everything, if we know what it was he stole from the dragon,” Kendel explained. “There’s a spell I’ve seen for disenchanting things. That way he can’t redirect the consequences of his ill use of power and destroy innocent people.”
“Where did you see that spell?” Diana asked, her eyes narrowing. “Was it in the same place as the other scroll about the fairy ring? The ones you’re not supposed to be looking at?”
“Maybe …” he hedged, looking into the fire and wiggling his toes. “Can neither confirm nor deny where it might be.”
“A fairy ring, you say?” Dakin’s spines stood tall. “Almost as bad as dragon magic. But added together?”
“Exactly why we’ve come for help,” Diana said in agreement. “My realm, your realm, we’re all in danger.”
“Hmm.” The bounty hunter breathed in deeply. “If he is doing all these things, and has all the power that you say he does, why hasn’t he ended it? Why does he linger and wait?”
“Maybe he doesn’t have everything he needs?” Diana suggested tentatively, shrugging. “That’s to our advantage, right? That he hasn’t ended it yet.”
“Yes, and no. Though, if you figure out what he still has to acquire, then you could keep it from him,” Dakin explained.
“Seems like a better plan than trying to stand up to him, what with all that power,” Exto chimed in. “Don’t know you’d last long in a stand-off, but if you never let him get to what he’s after, that’s something else entirely.”
“But what else does he want that he doesn’t already have?” Kendel wondered. “And that doesn’t stop the fact that the fairy rings are still present in at least two realms. They won’t stop leaching their destruction into things regardless of if he gets what he’s looking for or not.”
“True, true. He can’t delay the decay of that forever, though he could slow it, it would not last.” Dakin scratched his chin with a clawed hand. “Why not rewrite the spell?”
“Do what?” Kendel asked loudly, sitting straighter and staring at the dark dragon.
“Rewrite the spell of the fairy ring. They’re written down, aren’t they? Just take a quill in there and make some minor changes. Or a reversal spell, not even a change to the old one, just adding something new.”
“You think you can do that?” Kendel asked the rhetorical question, aghast.
“I’m suggesting here, I don’t know all that much, but why not?” Dakin shrugged mightily, tryin
g to ignore the tone of the mage’s voice.
“Why not? Why not?” Kendel’s face was getting a little red, Diana thought. “I’ll tell you why not! Because you just can’t! Those spells were written ages ago and aren’t to be tampered with. Only a Gilded Mage is allowed to do earth shattering things like that, not a regular mage and definitely not a fairy. And you know what else, the wizard? – the one who’s causing all of this? Yeah, he’s the Gilded Mage!”
“Settle down child, perhaps move away from the fire. You look a little hot in the head and sharp of tongue. There’s no need for harsh words here. Unless you want to fight it out,” Dakin warned with a little of his teeth showing.
Diana thought maybe it was a threat. Either way, she didn’t want the side of him to come out that was the harsh and rough side Exto had mentioned earlier. They had been having quite a decent time of it and she really didn’t want Kendel to mess that up.
“We’re sorry,” she apologized quickly and then added, after a moment, “so rewriting or adding a spell won’t work. I guess we’ll have to stick with disenchanting and go from there.”
Dakin snorted at her apology and seemed a little snubbed, but after some time he looked to Diana and spoke again in his deep voice that she could feel reverberate in her bones.
“I can tell you, it was heard amongst us that one, Flangurn Tailwhip, had lost something quite dear to him, recently.” He made emphasis on the recently and gave a knowing look. “I can also tell you the object in question was an ancient urn owned by his great-grandmother which he inherited only a decade ago – around the time he would have been choosing his item to enchant.”
“An urn,” Diana echoed his words.
“I can also tell you,” Dakin went on, his brow creasing, “that not long ago he went mad, and flew off to the east. No one has seen him since and they say looters have been in and out of his cavern extensively. Now, I don’t know much about losing an enchanted object from one’s horde – it’s not often that it happens, honestly it never does. But it’s said that if you do lose your object, odd things will start to happen. You might even lose your mind.”
Diana swallowed hard and felt herself shiver even though she sat in front of the warm fireplace.
“Thank you,” she whispered, in appreciation of the information.
“Keep diligent watch.” Dakin jerked his head at them. “I didn’t give you that information so you could gallivant off and set yourselves right into trouble, or worse. Knowledge is to be used with care, all sort and kinds. Remember that.”
“Thank you.” Diana nodded again, it was time for them to go.
Just then, from the outer cavern that lead into this, they heard a crashing and squawking and Diana’s heart pounded very loudly in her ears.
Dakin gave Exto a nod and then motioned for her and Kendel to get low and stay still. Exto moved to one side of the entrance into the outer cave and waited by the door, just out of sight of whoever would be entering. Dakin rose to his feet.
“Who is it?” he demanded in an even more resonating voice than before.
There was another light squawk and then in flapped a messenger dragon, torn by the wind and beaten by the snow. He looked rather spent.
Exto gave him a hand and helped him waddle into the room further – his feathered wings looked a little worse for wear.
“What is it?” Dakin demanded, though he figured the messenger was there for Exto not himself – no one ever came to his cave lest he invited them or they were his friends.
“There’s an issue in the market.” The dragon – who was about the size of Exto but looked nothing like him – coughed, out of breath. “The wizard has returned.”
Twenty
When they set out for the market, it was pitch black outside and Diana feared for her life, flying back down from the mountain peak. Thankfully, Dakin had said he would go with them and could carry both Diana and Kendel on his back. After Exto had insisted he could fly just fine, but had almost been thrown into some rocks by the nasty wind, Dakin had grabbed him in his front talons and flown the rest of the way for them all.
As they burst through the main market entrance and Diana and Kendel slipped off Dakin, they could see the place had been in an uproar right before they arrived. Now however, all was quiet but everything was in shambles – the booths were crushed or shattered and their wares scattered all over the ground. The dragon vendors and customers cowered and looked up fearfully at the new comers – their eyes held sadness at their arrival instead of relief.
“What are we going to do?” Diana whispered to Kendel as they inched forward into the market, casting their eyes everywhere in search of the one responsible.
“I don’t know yet,” Kendel said, but they kept moving forward – two dragons, a mage, and a fairy, edging through the wreckage.
“There you are!” came a shout, and Matilda almost bowled the two of them over as she moved to embrace them at a full run. “You had me so worried! Don’t run off again, you hear!”
“Lost friends, found.” Shaarg had also come tromping over and lifted them all off their feet in a massive hug.
“Where’s the wizard?” Diana asked, as they were released. “We heard he came here.”
“Aye, he did.” Matilda shook her head sadly. “He brought this place to the ground, as you can see. I’m not sure if he’s still here, I lost him in the crowds.”
“Dragons bring us here, say you here say Ex-ho brought you here. But we no find you,” Shaarg explained. “Now, we find again, finally.”
“Yes, we went to visit Exto’s friend. He’s helped us greatly.” Diana explained their absence to the gnome and troll.
“Come on.” Kendel waved them along. “We’ve got to find him, he can’t be allowed to do this anymore. I mean, look.” He pointed to a dragon nearby who was gathering up her little ones and comforting away their tears.
“Let’s keep searching, then.” Matilda nodded, and they once again began to work their way through the mess, keeping all eyes open and aware.
They hunted from almost one end of the massive cavern to the other and felt their hearts begin to despair yet again at having lost their quarry.
“Looking for something in particular? Or was it just me?” a voice seemed to whisper over their shoulders and yet also to boom through the entire cavern.
The group swung about, desperate to locate the speaker.
Not far away, walking towards them and in no hurry at all, was a wizard – Diana could tell because of the robes he wore. He looked tall and his facial features were angular, sharp and almost bird like.
“You …” Kendel breathed out, unable to get his voice above more than a hiss.
“Yes, me. You’ve been looking for me, I’ve heard. So I thought I’d wait for you, because in truth, I’ve been waiting for you to catch up to me. And here we are, at the end of our little waiting game, and your little chase.” He clapped and halted his approach. “Well done.”
“It can’t be.” Kendel shook his head, his eyes full of silent pleading. “Why?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know. But not here.” The wizard shook his head. “No, not here.” He raised his hands and Kendel’s warning came much too late for them to escape.
In a flash and twinkle, they were gone and Diana felt herself lose all sense of time and place. Her mind went dark though her eyes were open. But soon enough, they too closed.
Diana opened her eyes slowly and let out a groan. She couldn’t feel her hands. She tried to move but couldn’t, and her heart rate quickened. She looked down and saw she was tied to a chair and to her right and left were the others, tied as well – though Shaarg was in a cage which was lashed to the floor by tight chains and metal spikes. They were in a wide, open room with nothing but a desk, a window on the far wall that was closed, themselves, a door to their left, and a large cabinet with glass doors that appeared t
o be mostly empty.
She could hear Kendel groaning as he slowly woke from the blackness as well and she called out his name to help him wake faster. He struggled with his bindings as she had and looked about frantically, also as she had.
“What’s going on?” Diana asked him, as he tried to settle himself down to think and work through their problem. “Where are we?”
“Castle Majestic,” Kendel said flatly, almost angrily. “We’re in a master’s study.”
“A master? You mean the wizard’s study?” She tried to wiggle around to see him better but still couldn’t move, so she settled for craning her neck.
“I mean Master Rould’s study,” he replied, trying to breathe more evenly and control his mounting anger. He clenched his fists and his teeth.
“Rould?” The fairy girl blinked. “You know him?” But she thought, ‘Of course he must, everyone here must know everyone.’ She hadn’t bothered to think of that before, that the traitor would be someone he knew.
“Yes.” He swallowed and she heard an unusual hardness in his words. “He’s my master.”
Diana gasped and her mouth dropped open. She honestly didn’t know what to say. How terrible! She imagined herself in his place, finding out her favorite school teacher, the one who’d helped her get a place in The Magic Vale, turning evil and trying to destroy everything she loved. It was awful, and that’s what she said.
“How awful,” she breathed, still in a bit of shock.
Kendel just remained silent and Diana didn’t ask any more questions.
Presently, Matilda woke and did the same things they had – trying to wiggle lose and see where they were. Then Shaarg woke and began to rock his cage and ram his head against it, struggling to break free.
After the troll had quieted down somewhat, many minutes later, the door opened and the wizard walked in, and everyone seemed to suck in a breath, even the room itself.
“I see you’re all awake, how fortunate,” Rould noted, not even looking their way but just walking over to his desk. He lay some things down and started sorting some papers.