by K Kazul Wolf
I grab the edge of its faceplate and lead it forward, waving Bricius and the other out of the way. “Get the wings,” I order, as I tie the beast. Bricius hurries past me, into the building with a small stack of more broken wings in his arms, the rustle of fabric and metal whispering through the air. I walk away and the beast tries to follow, clicking sharper when it realizes it can’t. I hesitate.
“So the little illusionist does have a soft side, hmm?”
I glance up. Dantea.
My eyes narrow. “What are you doing here?” I turn from the centimare, gathering my wings tightly against my back. I haven’t seen her much since the last time she bothered me.
“Is there somewhere we could chat?” She eyes the doorway. Something she doesn’t want Bricius to hear? Or maybe she wants to get out of the street, not to be seen with a filthy illusionist. I’ve seen how the people in the street look at me and my wings.
I raise an eyebrow. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say out here.”
She sighs and shakes her head. “Those dragons never bothered to respect their elders, did they? Nothing more important than themselves.”
“Do you have a point?” I have more wings to fix. My fingers tingle with the need to keep moving, stay focused on something else before my mind wanders too much.
She tuts. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. You’ve gotten worse since we last talked, and with that attitude of yours, I should turn and walk the other way.” She eyes me. “Or, maybe that makes you perfect for this.”
I scowl at her, despite the curiosity that threatens to crawl out. I’m here to fix the wings, that’s it.
“I think it’s about time you met my friend.”
“Friend?” My heart skips a beat. The one who knew so much about dragons, maybe? But we don’t need knowledge. “Unless he knows how to fix these wings faster, I don’t care. Please leave me to my business.”
“Fine, fine!” She gives a small wave of her cane. “Maybe he can’t help with your metal wings. He can possibly help us take the city in the sky down; he has more knowledge of their ways than either you or Carita has. There’s only one issue. He’s a dragon.”
13
The Flight
Bricius comes out of the building, toting the small pallet in his arms. “This is it?”
My mind whirls for a second, processing the words of both people. A dragon? “Carita said she wanted her soldiers to practice flying more, and this is what I had. It wasn’t as if I received them in good condition.”
He shrugs. “I was simply asking. I think you’re making fine progress; we have quite a number of troops already trained with them.” He goes to the centimare, loosening it from the wall. “It’s time to go, Dantea.”
She shakes her head. “No, dear, I think I’ll stay a little longer. That is, of course, if Ava will have me.”
Both sets of eyes train on me. I’m a cornered sandcat, my hackles raised and no way out. I should send her away, get back to work and trust that Carita has plans for my work. But why is Dantea here? What does she have to say to me that no one else will help her with? And why do I want to know so badly?
“She can stay.” I cross my arms, and the old woman smiles broadly.
Bricius shrugs. “I’ll have someone come to escort you back by dusk.”
“I’m not a weak, frail creature, I can walk this town just fine on my own. I grew up here.”
Another shrug from Bricius. “Thank you again for your work, Ava.” He nods, then leads the centimare away, whip ready.
These people learn nothing, do they?
“Let’s get inside, illusionist.” Dantea takes a slow pace toward the doorway. “It’s too hot for someone my age out here.”
But I hesitate a moment in the street, watching my hard, meager work getting towed away. Is it worth it? What this will do? Then I shove the thoughts away and step inside.
Dantea’s on the other side of the wide room, leaning over my workbench.
She’d better not touch anything.
“You have fine fingers, you know. As fine as your mind, I hope.” She turns toward me, standing straighter than before, taller than I thought she was.
I take a step back. “What do you want with me? Who is this dragon, and why is he an issue? And how do you know a dragon in the first place?”
Her grin returns. “I always liked your curiosity. It’s something I wondered if you’d lost, what with…” She sighs. “Well, sit down. I’ll tell you the tale.”
I don’t move.
Raising an eyebrow at me, she takes a seat on my cot. “Well, one of us had better be comfortable. Now. It was, what, three decades ago? Ages—though not for you and your kin, living nearly twice our lives.
“Regardless of time, there was once a dragon that flew down from the city in the air to escape his fate, whatever that was.” She closes her eyes, that smile growing from her eyes onto her lips. “And, I must say, he was quite the handsome dragon—in both forms. We met while I worked in the market and I was helping my ma run her stand. We used to take the carcasses from the farmers and hunters, clean ‘em up, prepare and sell the meat.”
“A butcher?” The weathered old woman doesn’t much look like she’d have anything to do with the business of blood. Then again, she did help take an entire town a while back.
“Yes, dear, now please don’t interrupt. This handsome young man comes and grabs a whole camel’s leg, already deboned and everything! I catch up to him just sitting in an alleyway, the meat hanging from his mouth. Disgusting. I believe I kicked him in the head to pry the leg from his teeth.”
My eyes widen. She kicked a dragon and is alive to tell the tale?
“He did some sort of growling thing, and I gave him a stern talking to about how you’re supposed to cook camel meat, for starters, then about actually paying for food. He stuttered an apology, mumbling something about ‘impulse control issues.’ He sounded sincere and very confused, so I brought him and his stolen camel back to the stand, and he worked the rest of the day.”
She clasps her hands together. “Once he was done, I cooked that camel meat right as it should have been, gave it to him, then sent him off home. The next day, I come to my stand and he was there, wanting more work. My ma, at that time, was getting older and had to leave a lot of the work to me, so I didn’t mind. He was awkward at times—let me tell you, he really did have some impulse control issues—but we were thick as thieves.”
She sighs “One day, the guards came to our stand to collect taxes. I paid them readily, but that wasn’t enough for them. They tried to take me, too. And so there, right in front of the entire market, Maur showed me his beast form for the first time—and the last. He tore the guards to shreds and I…I screamed and ran.” She looks down, taking in a deep breath. I almost reach out, almost take her hand. Regret is woven into the wrinkles around her mouth and her eyes, and it’s too close to the regret woven through me. But I hesitate, and she continues.
“He came to me later that night hanging his head like he’d done something bad, like he hadn’t saved me from horrible men. He said goodbye, then told me to follow the river if I ever wanted to find him. I never knew what he meant for the longest time. Not until these lovely people took me in, not until I heard the stories.”
After a silent moment, I dare ask, “The river?” Other than the moats and a few oases, there aren’t any bodies of water in the desert. She’d have to be talking about a different country, even another continent.
She nods. “Fitz—you remember him, the man with the white skin? He’s moved on from this town, an explorer of sorts. He says that in his studies he found dried riverbeds out in the desert surrounding Mercatus.”
I furrow my eyebrows. “Riverbeds?” Maybe I was right when I first met her; maybe she is senile
“Precisely. But once, a very long time ago, there were rivers. And Maur apparently knew about them. Honestly, from what I’ve seen and learned from Fitz, I think the dragons took all the water. That
’s why he knew.”
I snort. “They wouldn’t do that. It already takes so much energy to maintain the floating city that…” But Fitz said that the city was maintained by one, single illusion, cast a long time ago. That means that all the illusions the dragons are supposedly casting are going elsewhere. My gut twists.
“Oh? Then explain those riverbeds, those ruins that are hidden in the desert sands with languages we’ve long since forgotten. There was a world before this desert. The dragons used their damned illusions to suck out all the water to support their city and only gave back to the landscape as they saw fit.”
Sickness bubbles in my stomach as the realization of how small I am hits me. Dragons, I know nothing of the world I live in. When I’m compared to this place, the vastness of unknown history before me and events around me, I’m nothing. I know nothing. I grasp nothing. I grit my teeth. How much of my life is lies?
Dantea gives a sharp slap to her knee. “Now we’re getting off topic. I came here to ask a request of you. And I think you know what it is.”
I swallow. “You want me to go check on this old flame of yours? Why would he help us, and what would he even do? You damned dragons a moment ago. So why are you asking me?”
She grins. “Hardly. He will help us in our fight. He killed those guards to protect me. I know what the city in the sky is to you now, and dragons know Caelum deserves it. But you’ve seen that there are those that will more than raise a claw to help us on the ground, and even illusionists. No matter what Carita tells you, you’ve known kindness from dragons.”
My heart stutters in a painful, sore sort of way. One. I knew kindness from one.
“We have no plan for when the wings are finished, you know that. They can train all they want, but they aren’t training for an attack or an ambush; we don’t have enough trained soldiers. We need an advantage. Furthermore, who else would help me? You can’t even think Carita would.”
“And why wouldn’t she?”
“Did you listen at all when we told you that tale? She hates dragons. More than I hope you ever know.”
We glare at each other for a moment. I know she’s in the right, but anger still gnaws at my guts. I have a job here. I have a duty to help these people who have taken me in after what my home did to me.
Yet loyalty doesn’t feel like the main reason I don’t want to go. I can barely admit to myself why.
I’m afraid.
Here with the Story Collectors, it’s safe. I have a task, I have a distraction. But it isn’t a purpose. If Carita’s right, if the only way forward is to fight, then what am I doing here?
“All right,” I snap. “I’ll go.”
Dantea grins as if she had no doubt that I would say yes. “Thank you.”
I look away. “Then how am I supposed to leave all this work undone without Carita hunting me down?” I say it like I’m some sort of hostage. Of course I have the freedom to leave. Carita wouldn’t take that away from me. But she would be less than pleased at my destination.
She removes the pack from her back and tosses it into my arms. I nearly collapse under the weight.
“This will get you there, and probably back. I trust you and your dragon senses can find water, but food and shelter and the like are all in there.”
“You expected me to do this, didn’t you?”
She grins. “You’re the only one who would, I told you. Well, it’s time for you to head off, get a good start while dusk is still new.” Dusk? “And time for me to head back and tell them that you’ve left on a short trip. It’s a good thing they haven’t been training enough for long distance travel on those wings of theirs. No one will follow you.” She gets up, with great effort. “Good luck. And…” She presses her lips together, making me wonder if she’ll continue for a moment. “Tell Maur, if you do find him, that I never forgot him. That I never will. And that I forgive him, because there was nothing that needed to be forgiven in the first place.”
Her eyes meet mine with an intensity that makes me want to shrink away, but I can’t. Something rises to choke my throat but I clear it. “I will.”
She nods and walks out of the room without a backward glance.
I clutch the pack in my arms, looking around the room after she’s gone. My eyes wander for things I should take, but there’s nothing other than my sabre. Nothing like when I fled my home in the sky, when I looked around at all the things and memories I coveted, knowing I’d never see them again.
With a deep breath, I throw the pack on, secure the sabre, and walk out of the rooms that have been mine for a month.
With barely a glance at the sunbaked buildings around me, I spread my wings and jump high into the air above Mercatus.
14
The Dragon
It’s been a long time since I’ve flown. Other than my flutters around the rooftops, watching the sky and taking short-cuts, my wings have been at my sides since they’ve healed. It feels good to move them and race through the chill air of the desert at night.
The riverbed is easy to spot once I’m high enough. I probably would have missed it if I were traveling on foot. It’s just a dip in the ground, littered with a few more rocks than the surrounding area. I pause there for a moment, deciding which way to follow it. It seems to stretch endlessly in either direction. I growl, wondering if I’ve been sent on a wild goose chase. Maybe I should turn back now, go and do something that I know will be progress in this fight.
And yet there’s a part of me that wants to take Dantea’s word, trust it over Carita’s. I understand her hatred of the dragons above, but what about the unheard-of idea of that one’s fallen? Like us? Dragons and their rule are the problem, so all the better to have them and their power as part of the solution—maybe the only way. Maybe most of them are bad, but not all. After all, Vito existed. Vito didn’t want to hurt me, hurt anyone down here. He…
Gritting my teeth, I choose the direction that seems to go farther from the border and away from civilization, into the endless sand.
I glide high, along currents that I’ve never felt in my feathers before. It’s sort of nice up here. I like it better than Mercatus. No one will give me strange looks, no one will judge me for what I am. It’s just the endless sky and the ceaseless sand, innocent creatures living their simple lives underneath. And the stars above, they’re infinite. It’s like all the night sky is a shimmering blanket to wrap around me.
And all I can wish is that Vito were flying beside me, so he could enjoy it, too.
That’s what I hate most about the flying.
I have time to think.
The sun rises and I only stop to eat, getting a drink at a small oasis. The heat of the day pounds with burning fists across my back and my wings, but I can’t stop. If I stop moving, maybe I won’t keep moving. Maybe I’ll go back. I have to keep moving.
The landscape changes.
A great, shimmering thing looms in the distance, consuming the whole horizon. A mirage? One of those natural kinds I learned about, ages ago. But it keeps growing, getting closer. It changes from being a vague glistening to something massive and glowing with colors, an ever-changing, ever-moving thing, like the wings of a dragon. And then comes the noise. Like trees in the wind, but more rhythmic and lulling.
Finally, I reach it. I dive down, and it seems to almost grow around me as my sandals touch hard, wet sand. The shifting colors gather themselves up and crash along the shoreline, spraying me with mist. It tastes like salt. But this couldn’t be.
I reach down, letting the water wash over my hand as another wave comes in. It’s warm against my skin, rushing around my feet and then pulling back just as fast, drawing sand over my hand. How can a body of water be so big I can’t see the other side? Is this…could this be an ocean?
There aren’t any houses or hovels or any sign of life as far as I can see, the desert ending where the beach begins. I snort, shaking my head. “Either I chose the wrong path, or Maur died here long ago,” I mutter, shaking dropl
ets off my fingers. “All this damned desert traveled, just to have to turn back. Of course. How fitting.”
But back to Carita, or to search further? Can I really waste more time hunting for a dragon that might not exist while those damned Caelum beasts keep eating their innocent illusionists, keep destroying the lives of the people down here?
The sand shifts beneath me. My feet sink in and I try to pull them back up, but it feels like they’re being sucked down. A scream bubbles up my throat, but there’s no one around to help me. I fall over, grasping at whatever I can to haul myself up, but it’s only loose sand. I’m alone. I’ll die alone.
The sand is already to my waist, water flooding to my chest. I try to grab at an illusion, push myself out, but panic makes my grip slippery. I can’t get a hold of the sand, digging and digging to try and find anything.
My head sinks under the sand in a rush of water and grit. I’m going to die by drowning at the edge of a desert.
And then there’s air. My head releases from the suction of the water and I slam onto a hard floor. Something above me glimmers with the display of sunrise. Like it’s cloudy glass between the water and me—except I just fell through it.
I get to my feet, shaking the sand out of my wings, and reach toward the ceiling, my fingers dying to know what texture it holds.
There’s a tutting noise to my side. “A serpent that can’t even counter an illusion.”
My feathers ruffle and I jump back. Serpent? I’ve rarely heard that insult, mostly toward one of the illusionists in my class that was completely inept at casting illusions.
A man stands in the half-light shimmering through the water, the sand around him reflected with the colors above. There are glints of metal all over his face — simple piercings run down his ears, two on his lip, one through his nose. Tattoos curl in dark swirls across his body, from bare feet to bald head, delicately spelling out words in a language I don’t understand. Wrinkles line his features, but not in a way that makes him look old. His yellow eyes are the only splashes of color amidst onyx tattoos and burnt umber skin. He wears a loose pair of very used brown trousers, but that’s all he bothered to put on.