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Flying South Chapter 6
Here is chapter 6 of my novel Flying South.
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 6
I found that I'd been holding my breath and let it out in a great gasp. The power of the dance thrummed in my blood, as great as anything raised in a festival of the Goddess. The adults who had been dancing now moved back into the circle of firelight and came to a halt in a ring, facing the crackling bonfire. Their bodies gleamed with sweat and they breathed hard, as though only now realising how exhausted they were. "Where have the children gone?" I asked Skyfire, as normal chatter covered the awed silence which greeted the close of the dance. "Aren't they coming back?"
"No, they have to fast now," she said. "The teachers will take them to the other side of Boorlo for their testing."
"For the whole month? I mean, until the moon is full?"
"They'll eat before then," she promised, smiling as though I had said something very funny, but she didn't explain. "You know about spirits, don’t you?” she asked, waving towards the crackling flames. The power. I nodded. "Show me," Skyfire said, still smiling at me, but I knew she meant what she said. "Show me what you remember."
I didn't want to show her. Didn't want any of them to know what I could do. Too good might be a threat, too poor might make them decide I was useless and should be fish food. By the time the moon set, my new sister Skyfire knew everything about me. At one point she asked me about shapechanging, about how I “dreamed animals” and asked to see some of the animals of my homeland. I didn't want to show her, but I did. She seemed like a friendly, cheerful young woman, but behind her gentleness and smiling, I sensed a power I didn't even think Audryn could match. Audryn could make me obey, but I always rebelled inside. Skyfire had the power to make me want to please her. So I showed Skyfire otter and hare, wolf and raven, taking on their shapes briefly, then letting the images break apart like a dream upon waking. She seemed to especially enjoy the raven. "You know that one well?" she asked me.
I crouched in my raven shape, the colour of midnight, my wings against my body. The raven wanted to fly and explore, but I made myself think of human shape and put myself back into it. I lay flat on the sand, gasping, as though all my blood had run out like water. The changes had been easy, easier than I remembered, so much so that I had over-extended my strength. Was it that it felt so much freer to be a raven, or was it only harder to return to myself?
"To protect a place, what do you do?" she asked. I tried not to answer, but Skyfire idly looked me in the eyes and I babbled of circles and spells and shields and Mariel's work as Porteress, Guardian of the Threshold. At some point dizziness overcame me and I slept, there on the sand. Over me Skyfire talked to someone and vaguely I thought I heard Yukungadak answering her, then querying. I couldn't move or open my eyes.
When I woke, I was back in Skyfire's hut, though I knew I hadn't walked back. Skyfire lay asleep in her place and the sounds of early morning were about us. My 'sister' didn't move as I got up, dressed in my shift and went outside. The sky radiated the clearest blue I had ever seen, the air fresh and salty. I walked through the settlement to the stream, where despite the early hour, children were already swimming and playing. Adults fetched water or talked to one another, in no hurry. The fishermen had already left, I guessed, maybe other hunters, though seafood made up a large part of the people's diet. I hadn't seen any big animals here, but I had noted a large variety of furry beasts from rabbit-size to goat-size, which tended to hop rather than run.
I would not tell anyone about this. If Yukungadak and the other elders feared that, they were wrong. I'd make up some story about rocky cliffs where the dragons lived and leave out these islands. Why, imagine what it would be like if I brought my people here . . . Skarrel had 4000 souls, imagine a fleet of ships with only the people of Skarrel, eager for new farmland, a town, clearing land and fouling the water with the weight of refuse from that town. It would be more than that. People from all the towns of Albion, from Scarp and other nations, they would all want to come here. All those who thought they should have something better, who were tired of taking orders and being pushed around.
Given that, there must be a very good reason why none of them had found this place already, even by accident.
Could the sorcerers here be that strong? That Yukungadak and/or Skyfire could wipe me out didn't exactly prove anything. Audryn or Mariel could mop the floor with me, but throwing a protective circle around an entire island would drain them to death. Had the dragon known these people needed all the sorcerers they could get?
I kept walking through the trees until I got to the hill where Kulal had taken me to see the ocean and the islands to either side. How many islands? He hadn't said, maybe he didn't know. The people travelled in little boats from island to island; not much more than rafts and nothing which could withstand the open sea. The morning breeze whipped my hair back, so fresh and cool that I felt more awake than ever before. The long smudge betraying the Land of the Dragons was easy to see today, but a swim from here to there would surely take several hours, difficult for an adult, let alone a thirteen or fourteen-year-old. A bird, though, could fly it easily.
Slowly I turned about, expecting to see someone behind me. I had that same sort of feeling, a prickling between my shoulders, that I'd had on the beach before we set off for Harp Island, but no one was there. It was the feeling of having been located by magic, and once so located, it was impossible to hide.
The settlement seemed empty without the young people. The small children were about, yet even they seemed more subdued. I rarely saw the elders, who seemed content to leave me to Skyfire. Sometimes I practised swimming, with a crowd of three to twelve-year-old instructors.
It felt strange to have so much time to myself.
Throughout my whole life, people had been dedicated to seeing that Amber was never idle. From home, where my mother had tried to turn me into a biddable, weddable maiden, I'd walked my neck straight into the Aradian Order. Though they were the major order of sorceresses in Albion, even they were short of recruits with enough magical ability to train and they had, in military terms, conscripted me. They'd certainly taught me magic, a wonder I could never give up, but there'd also been sewing, cleaning, cooking and stable work.
Here, though, no one seemed to mind that I spent hours wandering and swimming, mostly with the young children. I did go out with Skyfire and other women, looking for wild berries and fruits and tubers, but that wasn't work. I kept expecting to be put to work learning new magics, but that never seemed to happen. The women laughed and talked and joked and took time out to sit in the shade of trees and assure me my skin got darker every day. Time ran, and I couldn't keep up with it.
The moon waxed swiftly to fullness and we reached the sunset when the whole tribe stood on the beach below the lookout hill to watch the young people file in along the water-line towards us. No fire now, no long speeches. I caught sight of Kulal and was shaken by how tired he looked, not like a young boy at all. He didn't look at me. Yukungadak stood forward and called out to them strongly, "Begin as children, return as men and women. Take our greetings to the sky serpents."
With that, they waded into the night ocean without a look back and started to swim. Darkness hid the long coastline ahead. I thought about sea serpents and sharks and kraken. Everybody stayed on the beach that night. The weather remained very warm and we needed no fires. We huddled together anyway and didn't talk much. The mothers and fathers were anxious and so were the younger and older siblings of those doing the swim.
"They don't have to swim back all that way tonight, do they?" I whispered to Skyfire, but she shook my shoulder lightly and didn't answer. I fell asleep against a dune's hard sandy shoulder, waking only when the comfortable silence around me buzzed into talk. "Uh?" I heaved upwards, blearily thinking Mariel had come to personally kick me out of bed, then recognised Skyfire facing me.
"Look," she said.
The dragons descended with the dawn. As the sun blazed its first flames above the edge of the world, the sky serpents flashed and gleamed like huge birds gliding in to land. Some were the green-red-blue of 'my' dragon, others showed hues of yellow-green-black or purple-gold-white. Most were quite a bit larger than my friend. Each carried, astride his neck as I had ridden, a waving young man or woman of the tribe. "Kulal!" He jumped down, grinning, accepting the greetings of his mother and father and grinning older siblings.
Nobody talked to the dragons. Once each had unloaded his rider, they launched themselves up once more, wheeled about in a great circle and flew for their home. The congratulations went on unabated. Only Yukungadak paused to stare after the departing dragons, his gaze thoughtful, so it appeared to me. Then he deliberately turned and met my eyes, a cool, considering look.
People were bringing wood and preparing cook-fires there on the beach. I didn't feel like a festival somehow, so I quietly crept away to Skyfire's hut. There Kulal found me, hours later. He even looked different. Older; wild excitement in his eyes blended with a new understanding as he came in and knelt down by my sleeping place.
"Kulal. Will you ride again?"
"No." He blinked, surprised. It was a child-question. "They promised us. They don't have to promise again."
"Can you tell me what they promised?"
"To protect." The shining look returned to his eyes. "Did you see me? I rode highest of all."
"I saw you." I grinned, trying to show him I did understand how it felt.
"Amber, something happened to me, something different. The sky serpents . . . they thought about you. You were in their pictures, on the beach and then you became a very small bird, flying out beyond Boorlo, out over the Great Water. There was a net trying to hold you, a silver net made out of sun. Then another picture. You were a very old woman, still standing on the beach and looking out to sea."
He stopped, shrugging, his eyes pleading with me to understand something he didn't. "They kept showing me those pictures. I think they wanted me to tell you."
"A silver net made out of sun," I murmured. Impossible to tell which of those outcomes they wanted or feared. They had wanted me here, but they knew I wanted to leave. If I never tried, I would die here as that old woman Kulal had glimpsed in his dream. This forest island was beautiful and peaceful, but it wasn't my place. I'd spend my life wanting to be somewhere else. "Thanks, Ku. You get back to your party now. They'll be wondering where you are." He grinned and hurried out. I lay down on the earth, running his words through my mind.
Two days later, I walked out of the settlement with Kulal. It wasn't the same as it had been before his testing, when he'd been simply one of the children showing the strange girl around. Now, several adults stood at the entrances to their huts and watched us, nodding and making comments to one another. Kulal carried a spear, a long tough stick with a wicked stone point.
"My uncle is going to speak to your uncle about marrying us," he said as soon as we were out of earshot. Adult earshot, anyway. The usual rabble of children followed, jostling and giggling.
Waru and Yukungadak. I shivered, remembering how Yukungadak had looked at me on the beach. As though he knew my thoughts about trying to flee and intended to wait until I made the attempt. "Kulal, I don't want to get married." He didn't speak or look at me. "Please don't be angry. It's not you - I don't want to marry anyone, not now." I thought about mentioning Nick back home, but that was silly; using him as an excuse. Saying the words, "I don't want to get married" couldn't mean much to Kulal. Though the adults didn't speak directly to me, except for Skyfire and Yukungadak, I'd learned from the little girls that they expected to marry "as soon as we're women". As an adult unwed female, I was strange indeed.
But Kulal said, "You have to run. I heard Yukungadak and Waru talking. Yukungadak is preparing a magic that will make you want to stay and forget about your home." I felt cold. I'd never heard of anything like that, but I thought of how easy the shapechanging had been. Kulal shook his tangled dark hair out of his eyes, still clutching that wicked spear. "Amber, remember when I was a child?" I did my level best not to grin and assured him I did. "You told me about your elders - the Queen and her brother, the uncle of her children?"
"Ye-es."
"And the children are Prince and Princess, first of their tribe, and will be elders one day."
"That's right."
"Jinini is first of the elders, and she is the mother of my father and my uncle. So I am a prince."
"You could say that," I agreed warily, but Kulal wasn't finished.
"It's wrong that you should forget your home. Your tribe need your help, so I must send you to help them."
"Ku - did the drag – the serpents show you the problem with my people?"
He shook his head, frustrated. "They sent pictures, but I was very tired and I couldn't understand."
"That's fine." I thought I had a pretty good idea, given what had happened and been about to happen at the time that the dragon abducted me.
Kulal walked on and I followed. Our escort had got bored with the grown-up conversation and were chasing one another through the scrubby trees and undergrowth.
"You have to go," he said again. "Before Yukungadak can bind your spirit."
That pleasure I could do without. But the urgency of now scared me, the thought of all that ocean and no dragon beneath me. His image said that clearly enough. One small bird, winging forth alone, and how much humanity left at the end of that journey? The dragon didn't know, how could he know, how that magic affected humans.
"Now now?"
Kulal nodded.
"But they'll kill you, Ku."
"They will be very angry," he said, and now he seemed much older than me. "But they would never harm my spirit."
Spirit, no, but harm Kulal's body with big sticks, more likely. We walked up a long low incline towards a great boulder which looked about to roll down on top of us. Beyond us rose another hill of rough reddish stone. If I'd been flat on my back, I would have recognised it earlier. Strong and well now, I could sense the energy all around me, a magic place as powerful as Dian Hill, the place of festival outside Skarrel's walls.
"Ku, I'm sorry." For what, I wasn't sure. He glanced around uneasily. No more time. As it had been when I decided to bring the dragon home. "Wonderful reputation I'm going to have on both sides of the Great Water," I muttered. "Running away. First from home, then from my country, now from here."
"You aren't running."
"Ku, if we were back home, I'd marry you in a moment."
He grinned proudly at that, then spoiled it by looking behind himself once more. "Amber, you have to . . . "
"I know. Maybe you don't want to see this."
"Yukungadak will know." Kulal never said, "my father" when talking of the sorcerer, always his name as though they weren't even related. It gave me a strangely shaky feeling. We locked gazes, closer than touching. Then I shut my eyes and called down the Change upon myself. Not an owl this time, not a gleaming, arrogant raven, but a little bird, a tiny black-and-white, bright orange-beaked, orange-legged bird I'd seen wading about the shallows. I knew those birds. I'd seen them at home when they came inland. Skyfire had told me they flew far, all the way over the Great Water, for no one saw them in winter. Skyfire. I felt a pang of guilt. I hadn't said goodbye, couldn't say goodbye.
"Ku, talk to Skyfire for me." I'd broken my own concentration and had to start again, summoning the image of the bird to cloak my own. This time I didn't dare stop. You couldn't half-light a fire. I leapt up, found myself all lightness and freedom and sharp eyes. Up I flew, wings beating madly, my only direction the open sea. A rush of air beside me told me I had company and then something large and dark came at me, forcing me to flap wildly to stay in the air. I sneaked a look to see what form Yukungadak had taken to hunt me, and nearly fell out of the sky in fright.
I had heard of nothing in the world like the leather-winged, fanged horror which feinted at me to catch my wing in those long sharp teeth. Only its relative clumsiness and slowness saved me. Its wing-span must be a good five yards, or bad, depending on your viewpoint. Eye to gleaming red eye was a fairly bad view. From the tern's eye, dragon-sized. I dodged below the thing, flying all out. It vaguely resembled a huge bat, but no bat had a long, savage head like this creature, with a knob of bone on its skull as long as the narrow, fanged beak.
"Amber, come back to the beach."
Yukungadak spoke calmly, gently, inside my head. I ducked my head, glanced down, and saw a human form standing on the beach below the Rock. It wasn't Kulal, he couldn't have got there in time. Yukungadak's summoning shrieked, not even trying to be nice. I darted desperately aside from a snap of those needle-like teeth. The thing lifted, using those long bat wings to glide and rest. It could pick me off at its leisure when I got tired. Wait a moment. Tired? I'd chosen a bird that could fly across oceans. Yet I flew as though through water, thickly and with effort. Below, the tiny dark form of the sorcerer stood calmly, watching me. How could he do this with no cost? I could feel his energy, as calm and rested as though he'd just got out of bed.
"I have no choice. I am the link through which the sky serpents guard."
"No choice for what?" I tried to shut my mind. Didn't look at him, didn't think about anything except avoiding the impossible enemy. But he shoved an image into my mind, as unstoppable as a dragon thinking at you. Skyfire, lying sprawled on the floor of her hut, limp as death. Her mouth fell slightly open, gasping, her eyes stared desperately at nothing. She barely had enough life in her to keep breathing.
"She's your niece."
"She is mine." His voice ached with true regret, I thought. Unlike Vidar, Yukungadak didn't like what he did, but he'd steeled himself to it. "I may not use any of the people who are not of my blood. When she has no more power, I will draw on Kulal, and then on the other children. You will tire and you will land. Whether you are still alive when you do so is up to you."
Fatigue hazed my eyes. The sunlight itself seemed to fragment into long lines, cutting over my vision like a rope net. Silver rope, silver net. It pushed back against me as I beat my wings with all the power in me. Let no one say I don't learn from experience. "Help! Dragon, help me."
Yukungadak's voice beat in time with my blood, my wings. "The sky serpents do not intervene."
"No? One brought me here to add to your people, didn't he?" Then I dropped any attempt to argue, it cost strength I didn't have. Forget subtlety. I was already falling. I sent one last image; that of an armoured knight riding against a crouched dragon too cold to move his wings. The fanged bird hit me broadside with a wing and I tumbled helplessly, my wings losing their beat and flailing, as useless as human arms. It did not follow up that strike. I was able to recover before hitting the water and spin about, still dazed, trying to see where the damned thing had got to. It was hovering above, wings held stiffly out.
"No," said Yukungadak's voice inside my mind, filled with anger and grief and above all fear. "I see I must kill you to stop you and I will not kill, you or my kin. The sky serpent comes, he will take you home. Go with him and remember mercy - when you bring your people."
That was about all I remembered. I sensed rather than saw something huge flying beneath me, rising up so that it was now carrying me. I woke up properly some time later, surprised to find myself alive, still in tern form, my feathers splayed out over a hard scaled shoulder. The dragon glided lazily on the air currents. I felt his alertness as I roused. He sent a swift, resigned image, that of a bird winging its solitary way over a bright ocean, the wings faltering and the bird plummeting, exhausted into the waves. I hopped up and arranged my wings. No fatigue, no pain; I felt as though I could fly forever. Thank you.
I didn't try to see Boorlo, or search for Yukungadak. I launched myself from the dragon's back and felt the air currents push up under my wings. The dragon glided around in a circle, elegant and jewel-gleaming, then turned around for those red cliffs, his home. My own home lay a long, lonely way away; I'd better hurry up about finding it. Nesting season.
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 6
I found that I'd been holding my breath and let it out in a great gasp. The power of the dance thrummed in my blood, as great as anything raised in a festival of the Goddess. The adults who had been dancing now moved back into the circle of firelight and came to a halt in a ring, facing the crackling bonfire. Their bodies gleamed with sweat and they breathed hard, as though only now realising how exhausted they were. "Where have the children gone?" I asked Skyfire, as normal chatter covered the awed silence which greeted the close of the dance. "Aren't they coming back?"
"No, they have to fast now," she said. "The teachers will take them to the other side of Boorlo for their testing."
"For the whole month? I mean, until the moon is full?"
"They'll eat before then," she promised, smiling as though I had said something very funny, but she didn't explain. "You know about spirits, don’t you?” she asked, waving towards the crackling flames. The power. I nodded. "Show me," Skyfire said, still smiling at me, but I knew she meant what she said. "Show me what you remember."
I didn't want to show her. Didn't want any of them to know what I could do. Too good might be a threat, too poor might make them decide I was useless and should be fish food. By the time the moon set, my new sister Skyfire knew everything about me. At one point she asked me about shapechanging, about how I “dreamed animals” and asked to see some of the animals of my homeland. I didn't want to show her, but I did. She seemed like a friendly, cheerful young woman, but behind her gentleness and smiling, I sensed a power I didn't even think Audryn could match. Audryn could make me obey, but I always rebelled inside. Skyfire had the power to make me want to please her. So I showed Skyfire otter and hare, wolf and raven, taking on their shapes briefly, then letting the images break apart like a dream upon waking. She seemed to especially enjoy the raven. "You know that one well?" she asked me.
I crouched in my raven shape, the colour of midnight, my wings against my body. The raven wanted to fly and explore, but I made myself think of human shape and put myself back into it. I lay flat on the sand, gasping, as though all my blood had run out like water. The changes had been easy, easier than I remembered, so much so that I had over-extended my strength. Was it that it felt so much freer to be a raven, or was it only harder to return to myself?
"To protect a place, what do you do?" she asked. I tried not to answer, but Skyfire idly looked me in the eyes and I babbled of circles and spells and shields and Mariel's work as Porteress, Guardian of the Threshold. At some point dizziness overcame me and I slept, there on the sand. Over me Skyfire talked to someone and vaguely I thought I heard Yukungadak answering her, then querying. I couldn't move or open my eyes.
When I woke, I was back in Skyfire's hut, though I knew I hadn't walked back. Skyfire lay asleep in her place and the sounds of early morning were about us. My 'sister' didn't move as I got up, dressed in my shift and went outside. The sky radiated the clearest blue I had ever seen, the air fresh and salty. I walked through the settlement to the stream, where despite the early hour, children were already swimming and playing. Adults fetched water or talked to one another, in no hurry. The fishermen had already left, I guessed, maybe other hunters, though seafood made up a large part of the people's diet. I hadn't seen any big animals here, but I had noted a large variety of furry beasts from rabbit-size to goat-size, which tended to hop rather than run.
I would not tell anyone about this. If Yukungadak and the other elders feared that, they were wrong. I'd make up some story about rocky cliffs where the dragons lived and leave out these islands. Why, imagine what it would be like if I brought my people here . . . Skarrel had 4000 souls, imagine a fleet of ships with only the people of Skarrel, eager for new farmland, a town, clearing land and fouling the water with the weight of refuse from that town. It would be more than that. People from all the towns of Albion, from Scarp and other nations, they would all want to come here. All those who thought they should have something better, who were tired of taking orders and being pushed around.
Given that, there must be a very good reason why none of them had found this place already, even by accident.
Could the sorcerers here be that strong? That Yukungadak and/or Skyfire could wipe me out didn't exactly prove anything. Audryn or Mariel could mop the floor with me, but throwing a protective circle around an entire island would drain them to death. Had the dragon known these people needed all the sorcerers they could get?
I kept walking through the trees until I got to the hill where Kulal had taken me to see the ocean and the islands to either side. How many islands? He hadn't said, maybe he didn't know. The people travelled in little boats from island to island; not much more than rafts and nothing which could withstand the open sea. The morning breeze whipped my hair back, so fresh and cool that I felt more awake than ever before. The long smudge betraying the Land of the Dragons was easy to see today, but a swim from here to there would surely take several hours, difficult for an adult, let alone a thirteen or fourteen-year-old. A bird, though, could fly it easily.
Slowly I turned about, expecting to see someone behind me. I had that same sort of feeling, a prickling between my shoulders, that I'd had on the beach before we set off for Harp Island, but no one was there. It was the feeling of having been located by magic, and once so located, it was impossible to hide.
The settlement seemed empty without the young people. The small children were about, yet even they seemed more subdued. I rarely saw the elders, who seemed content to leave me to Skyfire. Sometimes I practised swimming, with a crowd of three to twelve-year-old instructors.
It felt strange to have so much time to myself.
Throughout my whole life, people had been dedicated to seeing that Amber was never idle. From home, where my mother had tried to turn me into a biddable, weddable maiden, I'd walked my neck straight into the Aradian Order. Though they were the major order of sorceresses in Albion, even they were short of recruits with enough magical ability to train and they had, in military terms, conscripted me. They'd certainly taught me magic, a wonder I could never give up, but there'd also been sewing, cleaning, cooking and stable work.
Here, though, no one seemed to mind that I spent hours wandering and swimming, mostly with the young children. I did go out with Skyfire and other women, looking for wild berries and fruits and tubers, but that wasn't work. I kept expecting to be put to work learning new magics, but that never seemed to happen. The women laughed and talked and joked and took time out to sit in the shade of trees and assure me my skin got darker every day. Time ran, and I couldn't keep up with it.
The moon waxed swiftly to fullness and we reached the sunset when the whole tribe stood on the beach below the lookout hill to watch the young people file in along the water-line towards us. No fire now, no long speeches. I caught sight of Kulal and was shaken by how tired he looked, not like a young boy at all. He didn't look at me. Yukungadak stood forward and called out to them strongly, "Begin as children, return as men and women. Take our greetings to the sky serpents."
With that, they waded into the night ocean without a look back and started to swim. Darkness hid the long coastline ahead. I thought about sea serpents and sharks and kraken. Everybody stayed on the beach that night. The weather remained very warm and we needed no fires. We huddled together anyway and didn't talk much. The mothers and fathers were anxious and so were the younger and older siblings of those doing the swim.
"They don't have to swim back all that way tonight, do they?" I whispered to Skyfire, but she shook my shoulder lightly and didn't answer. I fell asleep against a dune's hard sandy shoulder, waking only when the comfortable silence around me buzzed into talk. "Uh?" I heaved upwards, blearily thinking Mariel had come to personally kick me out of bed, then recognised Skyfire facing me.
"Look," she said.
The dragons descended with the dawn. As the sun blazed its first flames above the edge of the world, the sky serpents flashed and gleamed like huge birds gliding in to land. Some were the green-red-blue of 'my' dragon, others showed hues of yellow-green-black or purple-gold-white. Most were quite a bit larger than my friend. Each carried, astride his neck as I had ridden, a waving young man or woman of the tribe. "Kulal!" He jumped down, grinning, accepting the greetings of his mother and father and grinning older siblings.
Nobody talked to the dragons. Once each had unloaded his rider, they launched themselves up once more, wheeled about in a great circle and flew for their home. The congratulations went on unabated. Only Yukungadak paused to stare after the departing dragons, his gaze thoughtful, so it appeared to me. Then he deliberately turned and met my eyes, a cool, considering look.
People were bringing wood and preparing cook-fires there on the beach. I didn't feel like a festival somehow, so I quietly crept away to Skyfire's hut. There Kulal found me, hours later. He even looked different. Older; wild excitement in his eyes blended with a new understanding as he came in and knelt down by my sleeping place.
"Kulal. Will you ride again?"
"No." He blinked, surprised. It was a child-question. "They promised us. They don't have to promise again."
"Can you tell me what they promised?"
"To protect." The shining look returned to his eyes. "Did you see me? I rode highest of all."
"I saw you." I grinned, trying to show him I did understand how it felt.
"Amber, something happened to me, something different. The sky serpents . . . they thought about you. You were in their pictures, on the beach and then you became a very small bird, flying out beyond Boorlo, out over the Great Water. There was a net trying to hold you, a silver net made out of sun. Then another picture. You were a very old woman, still standing on the beach and looking out to sea."
He stopped, shrugging, his eyes pleading with me to understand something he didn't. "They kept showing me those pictures. I think they wanted me to tell you."
"A silver net made out of sun," I murmured. Impossible to tell which of those outcomes they wanted or feared. They had wanted me here, but they knew I wanted to leave. If I never tried, I would die here as that old woman Kulal had glimpsed in his dream. This forest island was beautiful and peaceful, but it wasn't my place. I'd spend my life wanting to be somewhere else. "Thanks, Ku. You get back to your party now. They'll be wondering where you are." He grinned and hurried out. I lay down on the earth, running his words through my mind.
Two days later, I walked out of the settlement with Kulal. It wasn't the same as it had been before his testing, when he'd been simply one of the children showing the strange girl around. Now, several adults stood at the entrances to their huts and watched us, nodding and making comments to one another. Kulal carried a spear, a long tough stick with a wicked stone point.
"My uncle is going to speak to your uncle about marrying us," he said as soon as we were out of earshot. Adult earshot, anyway. The usual rabble of children followed, jostling and giggling.
Waru and Yukungadak. I shivered, remembering how Yukungadak had looked at me on the beach. As though he knew my thoughts about trying to flee and intended to wait until I made the attempt. "Kulal, I don't want to get married." He didn't speak or look at me. "Please don't be angry. It's not you - I don't want to marry anyone, not now." I thought about mentioning Nick back home, but that was silly; using him as an excuse. Saying the words, "I don't want to get married" couldn't mean much to Kulal. Though the adults didn't speak directly to me, except for Skyfire and Yukungadak, I'd learned from the little girls that they expected to marry "as soon as we're women". As an adult unwed female, I was strange indeed.
But Kulal said, "You have to run. I heard Yukungadak and Waru talking. Yukungadak is preparing a magic that will make you want to stay and forget about your home." I felt cold. I'd never heard of anything like that, but I thought of how easy the shapechanging had been. Kulal shook his tangled dark hair out of his eyes, still clutching that wicked spear. "Amber, remember when I was a child?" I did my level best not to grin and assured him I did. "You told me about your elders - the Queen and her brother, the uncle of her children?"
"Ye-es."
"And the children are Prince and Princess, first of their tribe, and will be elders one day."
"That's right."
"Jinini is first of the elders, and she is the mother of my father and my uncle. So I am a prince."
"You could say that," I agreed warily, but Kulal wasn't finished.
"It's wrong that you should forget your home. Your tribe need your help, so I must send you to help them."
"Ku - did the drag – the serpents show you the problem with my people?"
He shook his head, frustrated. "They sent pictures, but I was very tired and I couldn't understand."
"That's fine." I thought I had a pretty good idea, given what had happened and been about to happen at the time that the dragon abducted me.
Kulal walked on and I followed. Our escort had got bored with the grown-up conversation and were chasing one another through the scrubby trees and undergrowth.
"You have to go," he said again. "Before Yukungadak can bind your spirit."
That pleasure I could do without. But the urgency of now scared me, the thought of all that ocean and no dragon beneath me. His image said that clearly enough. One small bird, winging forth alone, and how much humanity left at the end of that journey? The dragon didn't know, how could he know, how that magic affected humans.
"Now now?"
Kulal nodded.
"But they'll kill you, Ku."
"They will be very angry," he said, and now he seemed much older than me. "But they would never harm my spirit."
Spirit, no, but harm Kulal's body with big sticks, more likely. We walked up a long low incline towards a great boulder which looked about to roll down on top of us. Beyond us rose another hill of rough reddish stone. If I'd been flat on my back, I would have recognised it earlier. Strong and well now, I could sense the energy all around me, a magic place as powerful as Dian Hill, the place of festival outside Skarrel's walls.
"Ku, I'm sorry." For what, I wasn't sure. He glanced around uneasily. No more time. As it had been when I decided to bring the dragon home. "Wonderful reputation I'm going to have on both sides of the Great Water," I muttered. "Running away. First from home, then from my country, now from here."
"You aren't running."
"Ku, if we were back home, I'd marry you in a moment."
He grinned proudly at that, then spoiled it by looking behind himself once more. "Amber, you have to . . . "
"I know. Maybe you don't want to see this."
"Yukungadak will know." Kulal never said, "my father" when talking of the sorcerer, always his name as though they weren't even related. It gave me a strangely shaky feeling. We locked gazes, closer than touching. Then I shut my eyes and called down the Change upon myself. Not an owl this time, not a gleaming, arrogant raven, but a little bird, a tiny black-and-white, bright orange-beaked, orange-legged bird I'd seen wading about the shallows. I knew those birds. I'd seen them at home when they came inland. Skyfire had told me they flew far, all the way over the Great Water, for no one saw them in winter. Skyfire. I felt a pang of guilt. I hadn't said goodbye, couldn't say goodbye.
"Ku, talk to Skyfire for me." I'd broken my own concentration and had to start again, summoning the image of the bird to cloak my own. This time I didn't dare stop. You couldn't half-light a fire. I leapt up, found myself all lightness and freedom and sharp eyes. Up I flew, wings beating madly, my only direction the open sea. A rush of air beside me told me I had company and then something large and dark came at me, forcing me to flap wildly to stay in the air. I sneaked a look to see what form Yukungadak had taken to hunt me, and nearly fell out of the sky in fright.
I had heard of nothing in the world like the leather-winged, fanged horror which feinted at me to catch my wing in those long sharp teeth. Only its relative clumsiness and slowness saved me. Its wing-span must be a good five yards, or bad, depending on your viewpoint. Eye to gleaming red eye was a fairly bad view. From the tern's eye, dragon-sized. I dodged below the thing, flying all out. It vaguely resembled a huge bat, but no bat had a long, savage head like this creature, with a knob of bone on its skull as long as the narrow, fanged beak.
"Amber, come back to the beach."
Yukungadak spoke calmly, gently, inside my head. I ducked my head, glanced down, and saw a human form standing on the beach below the Rock. It wasn't Kulal, he couldn't have got there in time. Yukungadak's summoning shrieked, not even trying to be nice. I darted desperately aside from a snap of those needle-like teeth. The thing lifted, using those long bat wings to glide and rest. It could pick me off at its leisure when I got tired. Wait a moment. Tired? I'd chosen a bird that could fly across oceans. Yet I flew as though through water, thickly and with effort. Below, the tiny dark form of the sorcerer stood calmly, watching me. How could he do this with no cost? I could feel his energy, as calm and rested as though he'd just got out of bed.
"I have no choice. I am the link through which the sky serpents guard."
"No choice for what?" I tried to shut my mind. Didn't look at him, didn't think about anything except avoiding the impossible enemy. But he shoved an image into my mind, as unstoppable as a dragon thinking at you. Skyfire, lying sprawled on the floor of her hut, limp as death. Her mouth fell slightly open, gasping, her eyes stared desperately at nothing. She barely had enough life in her to keep breathing.
"She's your niece."
"She is mine." His voice ached with true regret, I thought. Unlike Vidar, Yukungadak didn't like what he did, but he'd steeled himself to it. "I may not use any of the people who are not of my blood. When she has no more power, I will draw on Kulal, and then on the other children. You will tire and you will land. Whether you are still alive when you do so is up to you."
Fatigue hazed my eyes. The sunlight itself seemed to fragment into long lines, cutting over my vision like a rope net. Silver rope, silver net. It pushed back against me as I beat my wings with all the power in me. Let no one say I don't learn from experience. "Help! Dragon, help me."
Yukungadak's voice beat in time with my blood, my wings. "The sky serpents do not intervene."
"No? One brought me here to add to your people, didn't he?" Then I dropped any attempt to argue, it cost strength I didn't have. Forget subtlety. I was already falling. I sent one last image; that of an armoured knight riding against a crouched dragon too cold to move his wings. The fanged bird hit me broadside with a wing and I tumbled helplessly, my wings losing their beat and flailing, as useless as human arms. It did not follow up that strike. I was able to recover before hitting the water and spin about, still dazed, trying to see where the damned thing had got to. It was hovering above, wings held stiffly out.
"No," said Yukungadak's voice inside my mind, filled with anger and grief and above all fear. "I see I must kill you to stop you and I will not kill, you or my kin. The sky serpent comes, he will take you home. Go with him and remember mercy - when you bring your people."
That was about all I remembered. I sensed rather than saw something huge flying beneath me, rising up so that it was now carrying me. I woke up properly some time later, surprised to find myself alive, still in tern form, my feathers splayed out over a hard scaled shoulder. The dragon glided lazily on the air currents. I felt his alertness as I roused. He sent a swift, resigned image, that of a bird winging its solitary way over a bright ocean, the wings faltering and the bird plummeting, exhausted into the waves. I hopped up and arranged my wings. No fatigue, no pain; I felt as though I could fly forever. Thank you.
I didn't try to see Boorlo, or search for Yukungadak. I launched myself from the dragon's back and felt the air currents push up under my wings. The dragon glided around in a circle, elegant and jewel-gleaming, then turned around for those red cliffs, his home. My own home lay a long, lonely way away; I'd better hurry up about finding it. Nesting season.
Never a dull moment.
(Anonymous) 2005-11-01 07:13 am (UTC)(link)Poor Amber, she left the frying pan a long time ago, and there are some things worse than fire. :-/