Dragon! Book Two: "Revenge"

CHAPTER FOUR

The lonely walk from Paul and Amy’s house back to Gareth’s took nearly twice as long as it had earlier. As promised, his dinner was waiting on the eating table in the front room. But Sara being Sara, there was also a tall glass of tropical fruit juice beside the plate, and a bottle of spirits.

Sara looked up from her knitting and said, “It must have gone better than I expected because you were there so long yet I see no bruises.”

“I think Amy threw me out.”

“So now you have to give her time to think and understand. And time to listen to Paul.”

“He didn’t react too well, either. Did you already add spirits to my drink?”

“I did.”

“A little?”

“No. I expected her to be upset with you. I put in more than normal.”

Gareth fell into the chair and reached for the bottle. He dashed more in the glass and lifted it. One sip told him it was very strong. He gulped more.

“That won’t help, you know.”

“She’s furious with me.”

“Not at you, but at the circumstances. She’ll see. Give her time. Why don’t you sit on the porch and watch the ocean while you contact Blackie and I’ll bring your out food out there? Try to relax.”

“When I told her about Tad she acted like it’s my fault.”

Sara paused at the doorway before entering. “Maybe it is. Have you ever thought about that?”

“How can that be?”

“Tad has your color hair, and his nose is shaped like yours. You don’t object to that.”

Gareth sat his mug aside. “The boy may have inherited his mental abilities from me?”

“Who knows?” Sara slipped inside before he could object.

Gareth took another sip of his drink and considered a refill. A stronger one. The sun had set long ago, but he watched out to sea hoping to see the lights of the supply ship. It could be early this month, which was not unusual for sailing ships to keep loose schedules depending on storms, winds, and tides.

Did Tad inherit his abilities from me? Gareth tried to remember any hint of such a thing from the almost daily mental conversations he’d had with the man he called his father, over the last thirty years. Together they had discussed crop failures and how to divert food from other locations to the affected areas with as little disruption of normal commerce as possible. They had quietly shifted power away from the King to more open minded Earls and Counts. When sickness broke out, they had doctors traveling long before word reached them.

Farmers benefited from their knowledge, as did ranchers and businessmen. Sailors were warned about dangerous storms and ports, and the Kings own armies avoided many losing battles because of troop movement information supplied to the generals. Most never knew how they obtained information and didn’t care. However, there are a few who understand that knowledge is power and that power can acquire gold.

If he had heard the beginnings of the reverberating in Tad’s mind, so might others. The question was, what were they doing with that information? Fortunately, he had recognized the voice as belonging to Tad instantly and had started spreading his mental blanket to prevent Tad’s thoughts from escaping. It was possible they nobody else had detected his unshielded thoughts.

Gareth looked up to find his dinner sitting on a small table beside his chair. Sara was gone, and the food cold. He reached for the fruit juice and cider, only to find it empty. He climbed to unsteady feet and found more juice in the kitchen. All the candles were out, but the moonlight provided more than enough for him to move to his familiar home and make his way back to the porch where a figure stood near the chair Sara normally used, but it was not Sara.

“I thought you might still be up,” Paul said.

“Sit with me? That is if you aren’t too upset.”

“I understand that you’re doing what’s best for all of us. Amy will come around. The supply ship isn’t due for a few days, so why don’t you let me work on her?”

Gareth took a long pull on the drink. “This is not my doing. I refuse any responsibility. You can tell her I don’t want to take Tad with me on a dangerous trip. Hell, I don’t want to go. He was my father.”

“Calm down, Dad. Tad is our youngest, and she’s fighting that. Inside she knows you are trying to do what’s best for all of us.”

“What else can I do?”

Paul leaned forward and reached for the mug Gareth held. Once in Paul’s hand, he tossed the contents onto the strip of grass. “I need something else from you. And Amy, too. We talked after you left and neither of us really understands what’s happening.”

“There are no words for some, or I do not have the words. It’s like a woman telling a man how she gives birth. She can describe parts of it, but he will never fully understand a new life growing inside her.”

“Good comparison. I’ll use it with her, but we cannot understand, and even with a pregnant woman there are the signs she will give birth. We see her shape change, so we have a positive sign. I came here tonight to ask for one sign from you.”

“I cannot mind-speak with you or Amy. I can influence you, but that is not the same.”

“No, but we sort of set a small test for you so that she will believe. Tad is asleep in his room. Amy is sitting our porch and will say or do nothing. She wants you to wake Tad and have him climb from his bed and come here. I’ll take him back home. Can you do that?”

“Tad’s abilities are only beginning to develop.”

“You don’t know if you can do it?”

I wish he hadn’t poured out my drink. “I can try if it’s that important to you.”

“It’s not. If you say this is the way we have to do this, I may not like it, but I’ll go along. It’s Amy that was not raised in our home, and I don’t think she fully believes all she hears of your abilities. It’s not her fault.”

Gareth nodded and closed his eyes. He reached out and felt around until he found Tad’s mind. “Wake up, Tad. Wake up and climb from the bed.”

“She’ll be much easier to convince if you can do it. This test was all her idea, and she’s convinced it will fail.”

“Be quiet.”

“You’re doing it?”

Gareth ignored him. “That’s right, Tad. You’re standing beside your bed. Now you need to go see your Grandpa. He’s waiting for you.”

Paul sat in silence, his eyes watching the walkway but probably seeing nothing. Two figures emerged from the gloom of the night. Tad walked ahead in the stumbling shamble children use when awakened from deep sleep, and a few steps behind him was Amy, looking even less steady on her feet. Tad climbed the steps and walked to face his grandfather with sleepy eyes. Gareth gave him a hug. Gareth’s eyes met Amy’s.

She nodded a single time before scooping Tad into her arms and turning her back to them as she returned him to his bed without a word to either of them.

“I’ll pack his clothes in the morning,” Paul said. “I think Amy is okay, now. Not happy. Okay. At least she believes you.”

“She doesn’t understand, and that makes it even harder for a mother to do what she needs. I believe it’s a capacity we men do not have.”

They sat together for a while, listening to the soft night sounds and the roll of the surf, neither speaking again. Then, after finishing his drink, Paul stood and silently followed his wife and son home.

Gareth watched Paul leave while he again touched minds with Blackie. The dragon had located a cleft on a stone cliff with a perch just large enough to squeeze into for the night. Above was solid rock too high for the longest rope to reach down. Below was half a mountain of solid rock where there were no torches, lanterns, or fires within sight. Blackie was irritated at being awakened, so Gareth exited and left him to rest. After the long flight, he needed it. Gareth closed his eyes to shut out the world around him, and he listened to the crashing of the waves on the beach for a short time. The breeze picked up and rustled through the palms in soft rhythmic interludes as if accompanying the rhythms of the waves.

He woke with the sun full in his face and a blanket spread over him, but he still slumped in the chair. His body would protest all day. Sara must have put the blanket there, and let him sleep. Instead of climbing to his feet, he stayed seated, listening with his mind to the random mental world outside the island. He heard a Sister tell the sheep in her flock that the grass in the upper meadow was new growth, soft and covered with morning dew that they’d love to eat. A Brother reported on the fishing catches in the Far North Sea. He heard hundreds of simultaneous conversations between men of the Brotherhood, like listening to a crowd of men speaking at once in a crowded park. Some words, or thoughts, or ideas, filtered through like they would as if men talked, shouted, or called to one another at the park.

The difference was that most were all on the mainland, many days away. A few were local fishermen, the residents of nearby islands, and sailors at sea.

He sat and filtered what he heard, trying to focus in on a mention of his name, the name of his island, or any other specific mention that related to him or his father. Like the men at the park again, if he heard a particular word or subject he could hone in on it and listen while ignoring the mass of other conversations.

People do it with normal speech daily. Nobody hears the rustle of leaves, the crackle of an insect, the buzz of a bee, the conversations of the nearest twenty people, or all of the other background noises around them at any time. But, let one rattlesnake shake its rattles ten paces away and the person’s ears center on that sound, ignoring all others. Or perhaps a better example would be a dozen children playing, and one cries out in pain. The mother of that child runs to help because she hears her child in the crowd of others.

Gareth listened and ignored most thoughts. Then he heard his name mentioned within the din. Or perhaps the voice was speaking of The Gareth, his father, but no matter, it was a subject he needed to hear. He shut out the rest of the noise in his head and waited. “Gareth is coming soon.”

It was not a man he heard. It was the mental voice of a woman, obviously of the Sisterhood. She was not communicating with anyone, it was her private, unprotected thought. He felt guilty at singling her out and listening to her private thoughts, but more important was what she was thinking, and why. How does she know I’m coming?

Sara chose that moment to carry a tray of bananas and mangos to the porch. She glanced at his face. “Something wrong? Has Amy been over here already and I missed it?”

“Someone knows I’m going to the mainland.”

“How can that be?” She fell into the chair beside him and sighed.

He reached out again with his mind and touched the masses of people speaking to cats, dogs, mice, and each other, a jumble of conversations that buzzed in his head like angry bees. Then he heard his name again and followed the link to a man speaking with his mind to another. One of the Brotherhood. He appeared be reporting or passing on information in a dull, monotonous manner. The gist of the end of the thoughts said, “. . . And no other sightings of Gareth.”

It was the solemn, unexcitable thought process of the Brotherhood. Simple, no emotions, and only the basic information required. But it hinted that earlier conversation had also been about Gareth and that the Brotherhood was actively searching for him. While it had been true they searched for him for the last thirty years, the coincidence of that conversation at this time suggested the hunting had intensified. Again, why?

It could not be a coincidence. He reached out into the mental abyss and immediately found another instance of his name being mentioned. This time, it was a question. The response was that they were watching the King’s Road near Bayport and had noticed nothing unusual. The mental contact broke, and Gareth settled back into his chair to consider the new information.

If the Brotherhood had lookouts on the major roads, and if his name was mentioned so many times, he needed to hide. When he had been young, a fisherman had taken him through a part of the kingdom where all sensitives were searching for him. Instead of hiding in the forests, they had traveled the roads in a wagon filled with corn to sell at market. Gareth had led a goat by a halter as if taking it to an uncle on another farm. For two days they had walked past dozens of the Brotherhood, hiding in plain sight.

Angry footsteps on the planks of the porch snapped his attention to the approaching visitor.

Sara recovered first and smiled as she said, “Amy, we were hoping you would come see us this morning. Can I get you tea?”

Hands on hips, Amy glared at Gareth, ignoring Sara. “What are you up to? Just because of that stunt you pulled with Tad last night does not mean I’m letting him go with you.”

Sara turned to Gareth and controlled a smile threatening to burst free, but with her head turned Amy couldn’t see her face. “You pulled a stunt?”

“Just a small test to convince Paul that Tad indeed has mental powers.”

“You woke him and made him walk here so it would convince me,” Amy growled. “Not Paul.”

Gareth knew that if he showed his anger, he would lose any opportunity to allow Tad to travel with him. In his softest voice, he said, “He never came here in the middle of the night before, did he?”

Sara held out the plate of fruit and offered it to Amy, who refused with a wave of her arm. Sara set the plate aside and said, “Your father-in-law needs your help. He has never asked anything of you, but this one time.”

“He hasn’t asked anything, yet.”

“Have you given him a chance, Amy? As mothers, we sometimes overprotect instead of listening. At least, I do.”

Gareth let them talk. Sara had a way with convincing people to do things with her gentle ways and easy manner. He had only to look at the new floor inside the house that he’d refused to lay last year to know her power.

Amy said, “Why would he need little Tad’s help?”

Sara went slowly when she changed people’s minds. She peeled a banana and before taking a bite said, “Two minds are better than one. We all know that. You and I understand only a fraction of what Gareth does, let alone the mental powers he has. Now our grandson, your son, may have the ability to help Gareth in his tasks. You should be proud.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Amy wailed.

Sara bit the tip off the banana and delicately chewed before speaking. “Neither do I. None of us understand. But I understand this. Everyone in our family is in danger, and my husband is going to try and protect all of us. You. Me. Tad. All of us on this island, and I will do whatever I can to assist him.”

“Tad is my youngest.”

Gareth felt his time to talk had come. “I will protect him with my life as I will all of my family.”

“I don’t want him to go.”

Gareth emphasized with her thinking and said, “Just as I don’t want to go, but I must, and I will not make you send him with me. We are family. I am not the King and his court. However, I can better protect him if he is with me.”

Sara chimed in as if they had discussed it beforehand, “It’s a beautiful day. Gareth and I were about to walk on the shore and see what shells have washed up. Would you care to join us? But, let’s not talk about Tad anymore.”

Gareth stood. “Amy, he is your son. Let’s go pretend we are beachcombers looking for treasure.”

Amy shook her head, plainly wanting to continue the conversation but she seemed confused by the idea that they were letting her do as she wished, so there was nothing left to discuss about the matter. “I’ve got to make breakfast for Paul and the kids.”

Gareth and Sara walked with her to where the path made of white rocks split, one path to the other houses. They took the path to the beach while Amy took the other, walking almost in a daze. The conversation had not gone as she expected and she’d obviously been prepared to shout and fight.

Once they had found and discarded a dozen shells of various sizes and colors, Gareth said, “You were very convincing with her.”

“Amy has a right to be upset,” Sara said.

Gareth tossed aside another shell. “She’ll pack his things so he can go, thanks to you,”

“What will you do now?”

Gareth shrugged. “Collect a few more shells I don’t need. Then, I’ll sit on my porch and enjoy what little I can while waiting for the ship to arrive. But I will also use the time to scour the air for any sniff of what’s happening. What is drawing all of this together now instead of another time?”

“You do not give me the impression you are mourning the loss of your father, but I know you are.”

“I also mourn the loss of Cinder, but he was not my dragon. As for my father, I do not yet know for sure he is dead. There is the smallest chance he is alive. And if he is dead, I will have vengeance. And revenge.”

“Yes, I understand that.”