The Last Dragon: Book Four

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kendra joined us at the railing. We talked of our impending arrival and how to attract the attention of a foreign king who may have never even heard of the Kingdom of Dire. If Elizabeth was to secure his support in a war, she needed to impress him enough to gain an audience so she could begin her tale.

Her mention of the lack of an identifying crown had my mind churning. All mages I’d ever heard of accompanied royalty as if they were puppies on leashes. The presence of a mage signified importance. Perhaps a nice robe that fell to my toes would help, one that sparkled. I could strut along behind her as other mages did with royalty.

My mind placed the five of us trying to impress an entire kingdom as we entered the city smelling of fish and failed. There had to be a better way to attract positive attention, one so impressive word of it would travel to the castle or palace of the king—and directly to his ears.

On impulse, I said, “What if I provide a crown for you?”

Both used the expression that they displayed when I joked, and they were serious. A sort of cross between anger and pity.

I pulled yellow heat from the sun, applied it to the air in front of the boat and a large flare appeared, the size of a horse. A little work shrank its size and decreased its intensity. I focused on the center, cooling and forcing energy away from there.

What remained was a glowing ring of yellow a little larger than a head.

“Beautiful,” Kendra muttered.

A shift in concentration relocated it closer to Elizabeth. A nudge and it ringed her head.

“Ouch!” she shouted and ducked as she swept her hair with her hand. My creation dissolved in a burst of a yellow flare.

Kendra slapped at Elizabeth’s hair with her fingertips as she scowled at me.

“That was hot,” Elizabeth said, examining the ends of some of her hair. She rubbed a few strands between her fingers and black soot coated her fingers. I’d set her hair on fire.

They stared at me as if I was an unruly child playing with fire—and they were right. I shrugged and said, “It would have been even more eye-catching if you two hadn’t have put the flames out.”

They broke into laughter.

Later, I had constructed another glowing crown of sparkling yellow suspended before us, this time created without the help of the sun. I used essence and energy, but no heat. We all took turns reaching out and verifying it would not set her head on fire. Finally, I moved it to fit on her hair.

Even in the brilliant sunlight, her crown of radiant energy softly glowed. She moved and my new creation moved with her. Princess Elizabeth wore a crown of pure light. Anna clapped, and Captain roared his approval. Will surrendered the tiller to move closer and observe it. He reached out and touched it with a finger.

“Tingles, a little.”

Anna said, “I want one too.”

I placed a ring of light on her head too, and one for Kendra, just because of the laughter the displays brought. I made one for Will, and even Captain. They tilted their heads and struck awkward poses, telling us they were Princess Lovely or the Princess of the Sun. Anna wanted hers to be redder. I made it so.

The magic behind it was simple, required little effort to hold in place, and now that I knew how to do it, maintaining several at the same time was easy. As the delight and wonder wore off, I created another ring, larger and brighter. I settled it on the bow of the boat to the delight of everyone.

I heard Captain laughing loudest so I made his crown huge, as big around as a basket.

Anna called to me, “You need one.”

“I can’t. If I did, I’d like to look as silly as you. I really would but can’t do magic of that sort to myself.” I felt pretty good as I told the lie but saw five pairs of eyes challenge me silently. I made a sixth ring and moved it to my head.

“I wish it was dark so we could see them better,” Anna said.

Kendra said, “A princess in an unfamiliar land needs a royal crown to attract attention. I believe while wearing one of these, Elizabeth will not go unnoticed.”

I turned to Elizabeth. “I’m sorry. I should have explained what I was going to do first.”

“How can words explain something as wonderful and beautiful as this?” she asked, primping as if looking into a reflection.

Later, I’d allowed them all to lapse, when Captain motioned for me to join him. He said, “The wind is dying again. Can you make it stronger?”

I could make it rain. A few lightning bolts might crackle and a rumble of thunder, but the wind was new. I gave it thought. I might push my breath faster, propelling it with my mind, but it would be too little and as I pushed the wind ahead, the exertion the other way would cancel it out.

How large a storm could I create? I didn’t know.

The mages on ships outside of Trager had made storms so violent we couldn’t sail through them. They had presented a barrier, but that wouldn’t help us even if I knew how.

I told Captain, “I’m a beginner at magic. Just learning. That’s why I burned Elizabeth’s hair because I used the heat from the sun instead of the energy of light. Does that make sense?”

“You think on it. Let me know if you come up with a way, otherwise, we’re going to spend another hot afternoon without wind.”

We’d sailed past a vast lowland to the right, an area with hundreds of shallow inlets. Captain said that was a prime place to fish when they were breeding in the shallows. Ahead, on our right, rose small mountains and not a tree or shrub in sight.

Captain said, “There’s another little bay up ahead if we have enough wind to reach it. Like the other, a sandy bottom and we can all catch up on our sleep.

In midafternoon, we reached the place he wanted. The bay was smaller and shallower than the other. After setting the anchor, we went over the side to find the water as warm as the air, too warm to be refreshing. We huddled in the shade.

Elizabeth said, “I wish it would rain.”

Kendra splashed water at me to attract my attention. She squinted and when I returned the expression, not knowing what she wanted, she gave me her frustrated look. Her finger pointed at the sky. There was not even a cloud up there.

She splashed again and I got it. She wanted me to create a mini-storm as I’d done in the desert, not a full-fledged storm, just a light rain. I had an entire sea to draw moisture from. I flashed a smile back at her.

I said to Elizabeth as I gathered moisture to use, “I was busy thinking and missed what you said.”

“Nothing. I just wanted to cool off in the rain.”

“Yes, my princess. As you require.” I’d already gathered enough moisture from the surface of the sea where it was in the process of evaporating, so it required little change to concentrate it into a cloud above us. The drops fell, cool and small.

Elizabeth leaped to her feet and spun around in circles while swinging her arms out wide and shouting at me, “What have you done? You are the best.”

I laid in water so shallow my ears were above the surface, but the cloud above us kept the sun away and the falling water cooled us. Not cold. Just right. I fought sleep and lost.

Captain woke us not long after. The wind had returned early. We sailed from that place and as evening drew down on us, the wind increased until we fairly skimmed along. Wavelets turned to whitecaps. He said, “If this keeps up, by morning we’ll round the tip of Dead Isle and sail north. We might reach Landor tomorrow, but only if the wind keeps up.

The fishing vessel pitched and rolled but plowed ahead sending water crashing from the sides of our bow when it fell over a wave. Our spirits raised. We ate, talked of nothing, and prayed for the wind to continue. The gods answered with more wind.

Captain huddled over his tiller and the boat tried to turn to our right. He fought it. Will went back and sat on the other side of the tiller arm, acting as a block to help Captain steer. I would go back and relieve one of them later, probably Will because Captain wouldn’t give up the tiller in seas like this.

My expectations and thoughts turned to Landor, a land unknown to me only days ago. I knew it had an army and Fairbanks didn’t. Reviewing the geography in my mind, Landor lay to the south of the other. Immediately north of it was Fairbanks, then north of that was uninhabited Brownlands.

If all that was true, and I believed it was, a strange question came to mind. Why did Landor have an army if there was nobody for them to fight? They were the farthest kingdom to the south, so it didn’t make sense.

I moved to sit beside Elizabeth.

She was still wearing her crown of energy, although I’d reduced its size and also the light it radiated. I’d winked the others out before the rainstorm. “I have questions.”

“I do not have many answers, these days.” Her voice was soft, distracted.

I continued, “Things have changed.”

“Yes.”

“Our relationship has not. I am still your loyal servant as long as you will have me.”

“Kendra said much the same earlier. So, did you.”

“Good.”

She turned to me. “Want to know what I told her? I said that I hope to continue to share my apartment with the two of you, or set you up in your own, but as friends and loyal subjects of the king. You no longer serve me.”

Emptiness flooded me. I felt lost. And there were tears on my cheeks.

She said, “In my opinion, you have never really been my servants. You’ve been my friends. Always. Now, that relationship is defined for all to see. However, since this trip began, you both have assumed new roles far beyond what I can comprehend.”

I let it drop. It wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The wind swept past us. I remained quiet as I tried to assemble my thoughts and concerns. Elizabeth nudged me with her elbow. “Come on, what did you have to say that I sidetracked?”

“Landor. There are things that bother me. Why do they have an army if Fairbanks does not?”

“And that bothered me. Will has been there once. To the south of Landor is a warlike kingdom called Hesham, a traditional adversary for a century or more. Inland, there is a range of mountains that extends all the way to the sea. There are raiders, thieves, and even pirates, loyal to no crown and impossible to exterminate. It is called Myra, not a kingdom so much as a wild area that has never been contained. There are other nearby kingdoms, as well.”

“So, they do need an army,” I said. “That answers one main question and lots of smaller ones.”

“And your next question is something about how I am going to convince them to help us stand against the Young Mage.”

I ignored the wind and listened to her.

She said, “I suspect the king of Landor has his own spies and is aware of the deaths of the rulers of Kondor, Kaon, and Trager. I’ll tell him about Dire if he does not already know. And that his kingdom will be the next to fall, no matter what happens in Dire.”

“How do you know that?”

She smiled weakly. “Geography. If you look at a map, Dire sits alone in the north. There is nothing above it but Whitelands, nothing to either side that is not already under the control of the Young Mage, and that is the key to the entire story. The only direction the Young Mage can expand is into Fairbanks, which will quickly fall, then Landor.”

“There is nothing left to conquer to the north, east or west. So, he must go south?”

“No. I’m sorry my mind is rambling. The key is one word: young. The Young Mage. It is not so much that he controls magic, but that he is young and ambitious. He will not stop with all he has. He had the ambition of youth. He will look for new lands to rule. Landor and Fairbanks are but ripples in the stream. He’d flow over and around them to reach kingdoms to the south.”

“How many kingdoms are there?” I asked with more than a touch of awe in my voice.

She paused, then leaned closer as if about to share a secret. “I asked that same question years ago. The exact same one. My father had sent me to the West Keep of Crestfallen to spend three full days with the Records-Keeper.”

“I remember that. He was a dour old man who never answered a question without asking one. Kendra and I thought you were in trouble and being punished. You acted like it when you returned.”

“Because of what I learned, not because I was in trouble. The Records-Keeper has three floors of the West Keep all to himself. Floor to ceiling books, scrolls, maps, and records. Letters from one king to another. Journals of explorers. Details of wars won and lost centuries ago, so long the names of the places have all changed. And more.”

“You found something there?”

“The maps. Stacks of them. Hundreds. The Records-Keeper and I started with one of Dire. Alongside it, we put what must have been Kaon, and below that Trager and Kondor. We spread them out on the floor and put them together like a giant puzzle.”

And Fairbanks and Landor,” I added.

“Yes. And below them Malawi, the wealthy kingdoms of Myra and Hesham. And others more to the south, east, and west. We started at the north end of the third floor and continued halfway to the south wall. You know how big the West Keep is, so you can imagine the giant map we made.”

I pictured it in my mind and couldn’t help but ask, “Dire was a tiny corner near the wall?”

“I would bet we managed to fit a hundred kingdoms together and kept finding more.”

As much as that astonished me, another fact crowded it aside. “After ruling Kaon, he brought the armies of each kingdom under his rule. He did it with Kondor and Trager. He defeats a kingdom and absorbs the army into his.”

Elizabeth said, “More than that. He appoints his trusted generals and promotes from loyal men to become generals of the other armies. When he took Trager, he sent a small army there to enforce his rule, while relocating all of Trager’s troops to Kaon where they were mixed in with other of his units, so they had no loyalty to their homeland. He’s done the same each time, so his army swells with the capture of each new kingdom.”

“With those three armies, and those of Dire, Fairbanks, and Landor, he will take their men for his own army. He’ll have an army five times the size of any single kingdom,” I said, understanding for the first time. “That is the just the start . . .”

“Just the start,” she agreed glumly.