The Last Dragon: Book Four

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The night was even colder than expected. Once we began shivering, it didn’t stop. We huddled in a tight row of bodies, none of us cared who was beside us because anywhere we touched there was warmth. I had Will on one side, which was good. Anna was on my other side. She was so slight she didn’t seem to have any warmth to share, yet she sucked mine away.

I drew heat from the inside of rocks and boulders, but it dissipated as soon as released. I couldn’t think of a way to contain it, like under a blanket.

Anna didn’t really steal my heat, but it was what I thought about from midnight to dawn when I couldn’t sleep because of the cold. Worse, while in that fog of sleep where I was not awake, nor asleep, tendrils of thought not my own crept around in my head.

Not dreams. Not nightmares. Vague probes of mental energy swirled softly near me, never touching or demanding. It was like a swarm of gnats so small they were hard to see. Now and then one lightly landed on my neck, leg, or arm.

But they were more than feelings. They were mental triggers. With the gentlest of touches, my thoughts shifted to other subjects. After the probing touch of one, a childhood memory of falling from a tree while trying to steal apples returned. I hadn’t thought of that incident in years. Another brought forth the memory of a girl my age who had flirted with me.

The events were disconnected, and minor, but also things are drawn from deep memories as if triggered. That was the right word to describe it. The light mental touches brought them to the surface.

Anna moaned. I assumed it was from the cold but when I turned to examine her face in the starlight, her eyes were wide open. I sensed the shivering was not from the cold.

She whispered fiercely, “Was that you?”

“Me?”

“Inside my head. Just now. Was that you? We had an agreement we wouldn’t do that to each other without permission.” Her tone hardened, and her body stiffened as she pulled away from me, so we were not touching as if I’d violated a trust.

I whispered back so we didn’t wake the others. “Inside me too. I recalled things from my past.”

“Little things? Like someone pulling memories to the front?”

“Yes. I’ve never felt it before,” I said.

She placed an arm around mine and pulled herself closer again. “I’m sorry to accuse you, I should have known better.”

I relaxed on one plane and tensed on another. The obvious conclusion was that if it was not Anna and me in each other’s minds—it must be someone else. That person was the Young Mage, without a doubt.

I pulled myself together and calmed my thinking to be rational instead of reacting and making a mistake. The Young Mage was searching our minds for information. More direct probing would alert us to his attempts. While we were sleeping, he could touch a memory here, bring up another over there, and eventually put together a composite of us that would allow him to know us better than we knew ourselves.

“Is this the first time?” I hissed.

“I don’t think so,” she answered slowly as if slightly confused. Then added, “Maybe last night was the first time. When we were in the boat, I woke confused and thinking about Emma. I know it’s strange, but I missed her. At least, in the middle of the night, I thought I did.”

“Never have the same sort of thoughts before that?”

She said, “I don’t think so.”

I thought about the night before also, and how I’d awoken tired and restless, also thinking about Emma, the Young Mage, and Kendra when she was a child. My explanation to myself, at the time, was that it was the worry for our friends in the boat and the things the Slave-Master had told us about what our past lives might be. It had seemed natural and I’d repressed it.

However, tonight when it was so cold, I couldn’t sleep, the mental intrusion was more noticeable. Without the cold and sleeplessness, I might never have identified what was happening, thinking it was only dreams. Worse, the Young Mage might be probing other minds now.

I rose to my knees and called, “Is everyone awake?”

Several assents came in the forms of groans and grunts. I said, “Listen, it’s too cold to sleep and we’re not generating any heat while remaining still. Better we move on and rest after the sun comes up.”

They stood reluctantly, but nobody objected. We gathered our few things and were almost ready to walk when I gathered them close to me with a few waves of my arms. “I have something to ask all of you. Think back to a while ago, and to last night. Did you have any strange dreams, off thoughts, or sense something was wrong? Before you answer, think about it for a moment.”

All of them either answered negatively or shook their heads.

Elizabeth said, “Why the question?”

“We’re not sure, but Anna and I felt a strange sensation.”

“Meaning?” she persisted.

“We think perhaps the Young Mage was trying to get inside our heads and find out what we know. I know how that sounds, but we both agree.”

There were confused glances passed between them, especially between Jess and Tang who knew almost nothing of what we were involved in, but Coffin motioned with his hand for them to be quiet. Wiley said, “I didn’t feel nothing.”

I shrugged as I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth. “Why don’t we walk and maybe all get a little warmer from the exercise?”

We went in a ragged line, all following Will. As we walked, my mind slowed and became almost numb, concentrating on only the next step until the faintest mental touch came again. Instead of fighting it, I allowed it to continue, as I followed the others without missing a step. Anything unusual would cause the intruder to flee. The mental touch formed and took shape. It was a dark outline against a stark blue sky. It moved. A dragon.

A memory of the dragon on the flat mountain top near Mercia flooded to mind. The dragon was arriving back to where it had been chained. I had been terrified.

It was not the dragon or memory that scared me now. It was the intrusion and the forced recollection because I had no doubt the Young Mage was inside my head telling me what to think, which memories to dredge up. I carefully followed the tendril of thought to the source, to the place in my mind where a slight tickle of oddness resided.

Like closing a door, I knew a mental push from me in that place would close off the contact. Instead, I fell to my knees and rested my butt on my heels as I closed my eyes and followed the tendril, like the last wisp of smoke from a dying fire. I didn’t force it.

The mental image was a soft mist and wound and twisted like a small river on a flat plain. At times, it almost turned back on itself. I pushed gently onward, following it. There was no resistance.

A glow occurred. Yellow and dim, it emanated from one place. Concentration carried me to the flame atop a candle in an otherwise darkened room. The walls were made of stone blocks, the ceiling wood. Carpets overlaid each other on the floor. Tapestries hung on the walls, and the candle sat upon a small table in front of my eyes.

The table was near me. I sat in a chair facing it. The flame allowed me to concentrate. It held my attention—all of it.

I looked at the candle through the eyes of the Young Mage.

The image abruptly closed as if a dark curtain was pulled. A wave or brilliant red swept past me, engulfing me in a brief wave of searing heat. My mind instinctively fought back, reflecting the red heat to the source as it simultaneously pulled away and fled back to me.

“Talk to me,” Kendra’s voice demanded.

I was on the ground, my head cradled in her lap. I said, “I’m all right.”

“Thank the ancestors,” she said. “Where were you?”

“Where?” I tried to sit but she held stubbornly to my head and refused to let me move.

“You fell to your knees. When we tried to talk to you, there was no answer. Then, you fell to your side and were still. We’ve been trying to find what’s wrong.” Kendra was in near panic mode.

Trying to lie to soothe her, wouldn’t work. I looked up into her eyes. “I touched the Young Mage’s mind. I saw where he is.”

Elizabeth was kneeling at my side. “Where he is?”

“Sitting at a table in a dark room with stone walls. There is one candle. He is trying to reach out to us. To steal information from our minds. I fought back.”

Anna said, “I haven’t felt him since we started walking. He must have been concentrating on you.”

“I think so.”

Elizabeth said, “Of course. He wants to know where we are, our destination, and what are our plans. What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I think this was his first time, or maybe his second. He went slow and was clumsy—and didn’t expect me to do the same to him. He is no better at it than me, and probably worse. He didn’t think I’d invade his head when he was inside mine.” I struggle free and stood. “But we can’t be sure and need to move. There is no way to understand what, if anything, he took from me. Even now, he might be redirecting his forces.”

When the sun finally came up, we were walking steadily and facing it. The warmth didn’t arrive until we’d walked a fair distance after that, but when it did, we warmed—then cooked.

The sun blasted us so hard we shielded our eyes with pieces of material. The shivering in the night was forgotten. We walked and sweat, thirsty and hungry. There wouldn’t be any food but there was plenty of water. I was getting used to using magic to materialize water and it seemed second-nature.

Too bad I only knew only a few magic tricks. There were a thousand things I wished I knew like Kendra had mentioned the night before. Could I have made warm rain? Could I have drawn heat from the rocks and soil, then combined it into a breath of warm air? And contained it over us? Is such a thing as fire without wood possible? Lightning said there is, but magic always costs, just like fire. If there is no wood to burn, something else must either supply heat or supply energy that can be changed to heat.

My legs and calves hurt from walking in the sand, as well as the lower part of my back. I’d have slowed but each time I looked up and saw Coffin ahead of me moving steadily forward, I pushed on. His three boys seemed to have lost their ability to banter about the time Kendra had fought with the youngest. All three were in awe of her—and didn’t want to offend and have her humiliate them.

Will dropped back and walked with me. Something was on his mind. He said, “It would sure be nice if we could look over the next hill and see if there is an army waiting for us. We could stumble right into them.”

“Hey, I like that idea. Let me know when you figure out how to do it.”

“You’re a mage . . .”

“I am just like you except I can take the small amount of water in the air and concentrate it into clear water to drink. I am not a mage, don’t fool yourself, just someone who can perform a few little tricks. It takes years of practice to do those other things.”

“Is there anything you can do to help?”

I took a couple of steps and said, “Ask Kendra. She can tell if a mage is near us. Other than that, we can have one person walk ahead.”

He accepted my rebuke and we continued. Sweat poured off me. It ran down my forehead, soaked my underarms, and made my shirt stick to my back. Between my legs chafed. The sun was not yet halfway into the sky. No wonder nobody lived in the Brownlands.

Kendra called a halt. She turned to me and said, “Everyone here knows you are not a full mage, but you can make water for us to drink, and I know you can make little rainstorms. Why are we suffering when you can change that? It’s not like we have to hide your abilities anymore.”

My thoughts were confused, sluggish. I hadn’t had much sleep, and her tone offended me. My anger flared, but I held it inside. Keeping my meager magical powers hidden from others had been a lifelong habit. The people around me had risked their lives with me.

More to the point, I hadn’t thought of making rain, despite having done it with Kendra only a day earlier. Magic of that sort is all too new to me, especially when tired, mentally and physically.

I said, “You’re right. We’ll talk as a group later, but Kendra is right. You’re my friends.” I extended my gaze to include Coffin and his boys. “Why suffer like this when there is help available.”

My mind had drawn water from under the surface of the ground before, but now it had to extend deeper to find moisture because of the dryness of the ground. I withdrew it while thinking there were deep-rooted plants that would hate me for stealing their future. Once free of the ground, I atomized the water into a fine mist that surrounded us in a damp cloud.

The fog prevented the direct, searing sun from reaching us, and the air felt cooler with the cool fog that was so dense it almost combined into raindrops. I fought to find a balance. We didn’t need rain when a fog would do, but controlling the elements was still new to me.

We could see outside the fog, so our travel was not impeded. At first, the bank of fog was too large and unwieldy to control as we moved. I pulled it back in size until it only encompassed the nine of us, with a few steps of extra on either side.

Almost instantly, smiles appeared. A few jokes were told, and people giggled or laughed. Shoulders no longer drooped, and when they got over the initial reactions, our pace increased to a full walk instead of a tired shuffle. I imagined what we must appear like to any who might be out in the desert and realized that for all intents, we were concealed. They would only see a gray smudge, like a small drifting fogbank, and probably wouldn’t notice inside it were people.

What a way to hide. It was a trick to remember. My stomach growled and while one portion of my mind kept the fog in place, another tried to find a way for magic to feed us. It didn’t happen.

Perhaps a more accomplished mage could make food appear. If we stood under an apple or nut tree, I felt certain I could shake a few branches and watch the bounty fall from the branches. I might, with practice, calm a skittish rabbit long enough for my arrow to strike. But I had no bow, and there were no rabbits.

A thought occurred to me. “Kendra, is your dragon guarding our rear?”

“I see no need for that,” she said. “Do you?”

“No, I was just wondering where it is.”

“South of Ander, along the seacoast, is a small range of mountains. She is there. Resting.”

We walked on. Her answer bothered me for a couple of reasons. “Is there a reason why she is there instead of closer to us?”

“I don’t know. She’s been a little standoffish, I guess you’d say.”

That was an odd answer and I’d pursue it later. Maybe the dragon didn’t like people since every time it flew around them, they were shooting arrows at it or trying to stab it with swords. But there was more, and I tried to gently prod an answer from my sister with an indirect question.

“How do you know about the mountains?”

Kendra kept walking. We all did, enveloped in our land-cloud of coolness. She finally said, after obviously thinking about it for a while, “I don’t know. I can’t talk to her. I just know where she is.”

We continued walking as a group. Nobody said anything. They probably sensed Kendra was trying to work out something she didn’t understand. Even Wiley had quit chiding Jess at every opportunity, something that had started up again during the walk.

Kendra said abruptly, “She has eaten a mountain-goat, flown out over the sea searching for food, and is napping on a ledge of rock where she can watch out over a valley with a river at the base. I have no idea of how I know all that, so don’t ask.”

Elizabeth shot me a look that ordered me to shut up before I said anything.

Trey, the quietest of the three sons, said, “Traveling with you five is fun. Always something new.”

Nobody laughed. The rest of the day passed uneventfully. In midafternoon, we saw a wagon roll past in the distance, and later a man on a horse. Neither indicated they saw us. Will thought the road between Dagger and Ander must be there just over a rise, generally going in the same direction as us. A few bushes now dotted the landscape, which had become low-rolling hills with rounded tops.

Before long, low junipers and cactus grew, and even a few stunted trees dotted the brown ground. We continued due east and because Dagger lay to the north of us, we would safely bypass it. When we reached the coast, we intended to turn south, but the presence of the road registered with me. We would reach it before we came to Ander.

Traveling along a road would be easier walking but the fog surrounding us would have to go. The reaction of anyone on the road would be fun to watch, but we were not here to entertain locals or create new myths. I’d grown so accustomed to providing the fog shroud that I’d almost forgotten about it. That made me smile. And the word shroud gave me another idea. The fog could be around only me and I’d be almost invisible, especially at night.

That idea deserved more thought, planning, and practice. If it worked, I’d be almost invisible and able to move past guards with ease. Again, the curse of not having formal training reared like a lion ready to take a bite of me.

As those thoughts crossed my mind, three men walked abreast on the road, all dressed like peasants in thick gray clothing. We were dressed much the same. I slowly removed the veil of mist until by the time we reached the road well behind the men, it was gone.

Walking on the road was not much different than on the hard-packed sand of the desert except there were fewer large stones to trip over. There were ruts left from wagon wheels and the last rainstorm. We split into two groups when suggested by Will. We’d continue as if we were not all walking together. Coffin and his sons went ahead. Large groups attract attention and curious people who noticed a group would talk.

We smelled the sea before catching sight of it. The salt tang, the bite in the air, and the calls of seabirds all alerted us. We came over a slight rise and the sea was there—along with a cluster of small buildings and docks with boats bobbing beside them.

“Ander,” Will said, speaking as if he’d been there before. He hadn’t but paid attention when others talked. He always knew more than he said.

As we got closer, Coffin’s pace picked up. The village consisted of perhaps twenty homes, and twice that many outbuildings for tools, fishing equipment, boat repair, and drying racks for nets. It was a village centered on fishing and that required daily maintenance on the boats and nets. Those lacking the proper repairs were rotting on the shore. Fishing nets hung everywhere.

We passed the first few houses, and one painted a faint green became our destination as we turned away from the road. A dog barked incessantly. A woman peeked from behind a curtain and a few moments later a man wielding a curved knife as long as my forearm emerged. He stood in a defensive pose as he looked us over.

Coffin and his boys pulled to a polite stop. He spread his arms wide. The rest of us remained on the road. Coffin called, “Better get some food in the pot Captain, we haven’t eaten in two days and you need to show some love for your brother and nephews.”

The man with the knife twirled it above his head allowing the sun to flash off the surface to display his skills, which were considerable. He called as he finished, “Then you better get your asses over here or go hungry. This ain’t no city eatery, Coffin. Not even for my brother.”

For me, Coffin didn’t move nearly fast enough at the promise of food. We chased after them and found not all of us would fit in the small cabin. Wiley and Tang helped another boy place a few slabs of lumber turned gray by the sun across a pair of water kegs to the side of a stranded rowboat while trading friendly insults of the kind cousins do. Those boards became our table, one where we would all stand to eat because there were only a few chairs inside. It was located on the shady side of the house, so standing didn’t bother us as long as enough food was placed on it.

The house and village smelled of fish. Reeked is probably the better word and it was not strong enough. Everything had the taint of rotten fish. Seagulls wheeled in the sky and called, certain they’d find another meal of discarded fish guts and heads if they remained long enough. They’d learned well.

Elizabeth stepped out from the rest of us and scanned the fishing village suspiciously, finding nobody in sight. The docks were empty, the houses may have been deserted because there was no smoke from the chimneys. No children played. She said, “Where is everybody?”

Tang said easily, “Sleeping. Too hot to work in the afternoons and the best fishing is just after sunup.”

He’d obviously been to the village before. She scowled at him, confused at his explanation. “And?”

He continued as if enjoying telling her something instead of the other way around, “The best schools of fish are way out in deep water. You have to sail your boat there in the morning darkness and be ready with your nets before sunup. That means you sleep in the afternoon when it’s the hottest. You get up around midnight and sail to the fishing grounds, fish all morning, then return and unload and process your catch until the heat of the day drives you inside. They’re sleeping. This is the normal routine.”

Her expression was chagrined as she glanced around the village again. Kendra and I tried to act like we already knew all that. She gave me a wink and said to Elizabeth, “Fishing is hard work and you have to do it on the fish’s schedule.”

That sounded so silly I almost laughed.

“I had no idea it was that difficult,” Elizabeth said in a wondering tone.

Tang nodded, accepting her apology, and added, “It’s even worse when the fish don’t bite.”

Tang didn’t explain how it was worse but didn’t have to. I wanted to chime in and smooth things over but a stern look from Kendra told me to remain quiet and perhaps we’d get away with our pretend-knowledge. Jess and a girl of about his age arrived carrying a large black pot between them and Wiley carried a plate piled high with cooked fish.

Coffin, Will, and the fisherman who had greeted us were inside, heads huddled together. I imagined them all talking at once, trying to both ask questions and explain what was happening. It must have been quite a conversation. Will seemed to be holding his own. Coffin was angry, his arms waving and his voice rising. The fisherman was confused and scared—but still talking to them. He hadn’t thrown us out yet. That seemed hopeful to me.

I wanted to leap into the conversation and convince the man Coffin called “Captain” to allow us on his boat—and at the same time, knew that would be the wrong thing to do. Instead, I watched the others use a wooden ladle to scoop the contents of the black pot into an assortment of bowls, different colors, sizes, and conditions. I eyed one of the larger bowls but by the time it was my turn, I settled for one of the smaller ones, the only ones left.

The fish had been fried. It was crispy on the outside and the soft meat inside was pinkish. Each person before me had taken a fish and used their fingers to break it down the center so the bones were exposed. The bones were went into a waste pot that would probably go into a compost pile, while the tender pieces of fish were added to the watery stew.

The original pot of stew had been supper for Captain’s family, but when we showed up, his wife started cooking what they had plenty of, which was fish. She also had added water to make it stretch, and the addition of fish made the carrots, onions, and turnips it contained a meal fit for a princess.

Most people, both country and city residents, had a community pot. It generally simmered on a swing-arm over the side of a fire. Whatever food the day brought their way went into the pot. Some had cooked without interruption for days and days. Rumor said a few lasted months. As long as what went in equaled what came out and it simmered over a fire, a stew was endless in variation, taste, and always ready.

I thought about all that as I glanced at Elizabeth wolfing down her meal after a couple of days of not eating. At home in Crestfallen, I’d seen her turn her nose up at a biscuit whose edge was dark brown—not burned, just darker than others. The crust was always removed from her bread, the fat trimmed from her meat, and she always used dainty silver utensils.

Now, she held a hand-carved wooden spoon in one hand, a hunk of bread torn off a loaf in the other, and stuffed food into her mouth without bothering to wipe the crumbs away. I found myself smiling. Elizabeth glanced up and equaled my smile before turning her attention back to her meal.

I was too intelligent to say anything. Not now. But there would come a time, in private, when her eating today would be remembered—and recalled in detail. All to my benefit.

Funny what a couple of days without eating will do to a person’s attitudes.

Captain made his way in my direction without making a scene. He paused as he passed by me and whispered for my ears only, “Follow me.”

I casually set my bowl aside and without making eye-contact with anyone, eased around the corner of his house, and followed him down the slope to the dock where two boats were tied up. Another lay upside down on the shore. New tar had been applied to the cracks between the boards of the hull on the shore. It was bright and shiny black with long drips where it ran. A cauldron hung from a tripod at a firepit. The tar had been heated there.

I’m the first to admit I know little about boats in general and less about those that sail. The two boats in the water had tall masts, and I assumed the one upside down on the shore was the same. I also assumed they had not dug a hole deep enough to hold a mast while the boat was upside down, so masts must be detachable. If so, how did they manage to stand the strain of a stiff wind when upright?

Captain said, “A few words in private if you please?”

“Certainly,” I responded, having no idea of what the subject would be. He was shorter than me, but many are. Middle-aged with a few streaks of gray appearing in his brown hair and beard. His shoulders were wide, his bare arms rippled with muscles, and his eyes were blue and clear. A few wrinkles lined his eyes.

He said bluntly, “Is my family in danger because of you?”

It would be easy to lie. Harder to tell the truth. “Perhaps. I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Helping us shouldn’t make you or your family targets of the Council of Nine. We simply wish to hire you, not convert you to our political beliefs. You are just earning a few extra coins, something rare for a fisherman. But I wouldn’t go around bragging about us, either. And, to be fully honest, if I were you, I’d either refuse to help us or have my family be ready to flee in another boat.”

He spat over the side of the dock. It struck the water. A seagull swooped down to investigate. “Quite a speech. I made up my mind that if you lied to me, I’d turn you away. You just made it harder for me to do that.”

There were times when I knew to shut up.

He drew in a huge breath while making up his mind. “Coffin is kin. My brother. There were times when he helped me and my family when fishing was poor. Without that help, who knows what we’d have done.”

“You’ll help us?”

“Unless you talk me out of it. Coffin says you want to start a war and that isn’t something that’s appealing. Convince me to help.”

For the first time, the hint of a smile flickered on his lips. I tried to decide what would convince him. He just wanted to fish and provide for his family. I could tell him of the Young Mage and all the terrible things he’d done to others, or that the Council of Nine would one day change his life by coming to his village. Neither was compelling. The deaths of kings he’d never heard of, who ruled lands he’d never visit, was the same futile information.

It was my turn to draw in a breath and speak with emotion instead of conviction. “The time has come in my life to do something great, to fight against evil, to keep others from suffering. The truth is, the five of us could all go to our homes and probably live prosperous and happy lives for years to come. At home, three of us live in a grand palace, have only the best food, clothing, and we live with royalty. Most treat us as such.”

“Coffin said you are a mage.”

The statement took me by surprise again. Each of us sees ourselves in certain ways. The idea of me admitting to being a mage was only days old. I thought of myself as more of a trickster. “An untrained mage. Not even a novice, if you want the truth. There are a few talents, but believe me, the lack of training puts me in a different category from others who are mages.”

“Your sister is neither mage or sorceress, but she controls a dragon?”

“She does. For the purpose of our mission for the king, she has called herself a dragon queen, a dragon tamer, and a few other names. We don’t know what to call her.”

“You did not flinch when I mentioned a dragon. You actually believe in dragons—and that when your sister beckons, one magically appears in the sky spitting fire and killing people at her command?”

That statement was harder to face than admitting I might be a mage.