Dragon Talker (8 page)

Lanner’s fists tightened, “and more.”

“I hope so, brother, I hope so. Let’s get on with this damned day.”

***

As Lamot headed out of the castle, one of the two guards at the gate asked, “Where’s your brother?”

“Ask your boss,” Lamot replied, and kept the horses moving. The guard shrugged his shoulders at the other guard, who shook his head. It was an impossible job, not keeping track of who comes in but who leaves. Perante might be keeping them to work, to terrorize, or to add to the work force. A guard never knew what was going on, and not asking questions usually worked better than the reverse.

The guard near the pulley that would lower the gate asked, “What do you think? New court jester? They never last long.”

“Nah, these woodsman are strong. I bet we have another guard.”

“Ugg. Between you and me, those guys are always too cheerful.” The guard shuddered.

“Don’t say that too loudly,” the other warned.

“Say what, I didn’t say anything.” With that, the two went back to watching the entrance, making sure those coming in had reasons and those leaving were allowed to leave.

Back where the lumber was off loaded, Lanner placed his ax on the ground in a corner, throwing hay over it. It wouldn’t do to carry an ax around, but he liked the idea of at least having one he could come back to. He tried to guess where Perante would keep women he was interested in:
probably near his bedroom, that sicko,
he thought. Unfortunately, he had no idea where that would be.

I’ll go up,
he thought.
Powerful people like looking down on the rest of us, so maybe she is up there somewhere.
He tried to come up with things to say if he was questioned:
I’m looking for the lieu, I’m fetching ….
Lanner was quick witted, but he just wasn’t coming up with a believable excuse.
I’ll just keep my head down, mouth shut, and walk with a purpose.

Lucky for Lanner, people in Perante’s residence were conditioned to answer questions, not ask them, and seeing someone with his or her head down was the norm. This did not hold true, though, around any stairs heading up to the third floor. He walked past three guarded stairwells before realizing he was not going to get to the third floor easily.

All right,
he thought,
time to think like castle dweller. What will get me up there? Food? Don’t have any of that and am not part of the kitchen crew. If I had a woman with me, I could probably bluff my way, but that’s why I’m here in the first place. I’m a craftsman. How about that?
Just as Lanner decided on that plan, he turned the corner and came face to face with a guard in front of another staircase.

The guard was just as startled as Lanner, coming away from the wall he was leaning on. Lanner could tell he caught this guard sleeping. Before the guard could say anything, Lanner punched him as hard as he could, hitting the surprised guard and knocking his head into the wall. He crumpled to the floor. As Lanner stepped over his body, he said, “It’s okay, I’m here to work on…oh, never mind.”

He was on the third floor.

Chapter 13

As Yuri headed out of the village in what he hoped was the direction to the dragon talker’s hut, he tried the flute. He pursed his lips and moved them around like he saw the merchant do in his warm-up, and then brought the flute to his lips. With the memory of the merchant’s song in his mind, he blew into the flute. The sound that came out was nothing like what he had heard earlier. He thought it sounded like a 5 year old blowing on a blade of grass between his fingers for the first time, only not as good. He was right.

He lowered the flute, “Hmmm, I think this might take a while.” Even though it sounded nothing like the merchant, Yuri was undaunted. “Birds,” he said looking at the trees around the path, “do not worry, this is only practice. I’m sure you didn’t sound so good your first time out, either.” As he walked, he practiced, soon realizing just getting a nice tone would be a good place to start.

Before he knew it, he was approaching a hut at the end of a trail. A thin man in his 40s stepped out of the hut, “Pray tell, are you a professional musician come to put on a show?”

Yuri looked up, red-faced and embarrassed. “No sir, not at all. Just starting.” He put the flute in his jacket pocket.

“You quit easy, boy.” The contempt was clear in the man’s voice. “Keep that up and you will never get better.”

Yuri reached back into his pocket to take the flute back out.

“Not now. You should practice, but I don’t want to hear it.” As Yuri took his hand away from the flute, the man continued, “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“I’m…” Yuri began.

“Don’t lie to me, stranger, I’m a dragon talker and I can tell if you’re lying.”

Yuri paused. He didn’t know that that could be a gift.
There’s so much I don’t know
, he thought.

The man stared at Yuri, waiting.

“I’m the new dragon talker for Mandan. Both the talker and his apprentice died in a fire, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m looking for help.”

The man’s lips turned down into a frown. “A dragon talker, huh? Let me see your amulet.” The man walked towards Yuri as he pulled out his necklace.

He reached for it, but Yuri turned away and put it back. “That’s going to have to be good enough.” Yuri didn’t know why he said that, but letting the man hold it didn’t seem right.

“Well, that’s the first smart thing I’ve seen you do. But do it again, I’ll tear your head off.”

Yuri’s brow furrowed, “What?”

“Kid, I can’t tell if you lie or not. I lied, and you just believed me. Admitting you’re a dragon talker, away from your village. Are you stupid? Mages will torture you for what you know; other talkers might have orders to do who knows what. Some might just be sick and tired of people coming to them, asking them questions they can’t possibly answer.”

Yuri was crestfallen, “But how am I supposed to learn?”

“Your old talker.”

“is dead! And I’m on my own trying to figure it all out.” Yuri saw all his plans unraveling. “You got to help me.”

“I am, dragon talker. Go home - out here unprepared will get you killed. I would do it myself without a second thought.”

Yuri almost stepped up to the talker, but he was realizing the man’s threats just might be real. “Listen, please. I don’t know what to do. I will do anything if you help me.”

The talker stared at Yuri. Yuri didn’t flinch. “Anything? Will you kill? Sacrifice your family? Friends? Better yet, are you ready to be the most hated man in your village? You don’t know what the tail you are talking about. I will say this once more, so listen carefully: Go home before you get yourself killed. Your dragon will teach you what it needs to if it wants.” With that, the talker entered his hut and closed the door.

Yuri stood and stared at the door, frozen in place. This was not how he imaged it would go. He kept waiting for the talker to come back out. Instead, Yuri heard the faint sounds of a fire being set up. Soon, he saw smoke coming from the chimney. With nothing else to do, he turned around and started heading back down the trail.

Half way down the trail, Yuri stopped.
What am I thinking? I’m not going to let him chase me off like a little kid.
He turned around.
Okay, tough man
, he thought,
I can be tough, too.
Yuri felt his heart-beat speed up and he was sweating in the cool afternoon by the time he made it to the door. Once there, he hesitated for just a moment before pounding on the door.

“Listen, I just want some answers to some basic questions… I’m not leaving until I get them.” Yuri waited and tried to hear what was going on inside the hut. He didn’t hear anything, but soon he felt a presence behind him. Turning, he jumped back, his pack banging into the door as he saw the dragon talker standing behind him with an ax.

“You don’t take no for an answer, do you?” The talker held the ax in one hand, as if it were as light as Yuri’s flute. He brought the head of the axe under Yuri’s chin. “That doesn’t always go over so well, does it?”

Yuri slowly raised his hand up to the head of the axe and gently put pressure on it, “I’m just trying to take care of my village.”

“I don’t give a damn about your village. I have my own to take care off. Some lessons only stick with blood, I guess.” The talker raised his axe. Yuri bolted under the talkers raised arms.

The talker missed Yuri but caught the back of his pack, pulling it and Yuri into the wall of the hut. Yuri slipped his arms out of his pack and ran ten steps away before looking behind to see what the talker was doing. He was just standing there, axe resting on his pack, claiming it.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Yuri yelled, “but all I want is my pack and I will go.”

As Yuri waited for his reply, the air around the talker began to shimmer in waves, like heat off of rocks in the summer. Slowly, the talker began to disappear behind the waves.
I guess I know what gift his dragon gave him
, Yuri thought as he watched as the talker completely disappear and the air became still again.
I hope I can heal from axes.

Yuri tried to see evidence of the talker, waves in the air, footprints, but the ground was too firm for the tracker to leave tracks and he was either standing still or extremely quiet. Yuri wanted his pack, but he didn’t want to face an angry, invisible man with an axe, either. “I’m taking my pack and leaving.”

Yuri started running to his pack, jumping from side to side, hoping that might throw off the talker’s aim. When he reached his pack, the air started to shimmer again and Yuri realized the talker had never left. The talker took a long, overhead swing of the axe at Yuri. Yuri raised his right arm to protect his head. The blade of the axe bit into the muscle of his arm above the elbow, cutting clear to the bone. Blood was streaming down his arm freely. It would have been worse if the jacket wasn’t made out of leather, but even still it was enough that any normal person would have passed out from the blood loss. Yuri, though, was no longer normal.

Even so, his arm went numb immediately as he fell to the ground. On the ground, Yuri looked at the talker as he picked the axe up to take another swing. He couldn’t move his right arm and his left was holding his upper body off the ground. Yuri kicked out at the talker and hit his kneecap, the kick straightening the talker’s leg and then breaking it as he forced it to bend in the other direction.

The talker screamed and fell to the ground, trying to grab his knee but unsure how to move in a way that didn’t cause pain. Yuri leaned back, trying to use his bleeding arm for balance. It did not hold his weight and he fell onto his back. He lay there dizzy and panting; blood pooled on his chest and ran down his sides as he cradled his arm against his sternum. Looking up, he saw the darkening skies and listened to the man who attacked him moan in pain. Occasionally, Yuri would lift his head to check if the talker was getting up. He was not, and it did not look like he would be getting up any time soon.

Yuri had no energy and was too numb to feel fear. When the talker eventually passed out from his pain, all the adrenaline running through Yuri’s veins seemed to disappear at once. Without it, Yuri fell unconscious. When he woke, it was night. Yuri looked for the talker and saw him halfway to the hut, unmoving. It was hard to tell, but Yuri figured he must have dragged himself that far and passed out again. He was glad he hadn’t started crawling towards him.

At a loss for what to do, Yuri searched the skies above for the constellation his village called Samora. As a child, he could never see the dragon. The best he could do was make the stars look like a dog, and he knew he didn’t want to share that fact with Samora. Tonight, though, he could finally see it: Samora’s head reaching up to swallow the North Star, its wings spread wide and its tail curving down to the ground. It was almost as real as seeing Samora in the field. “Hi?” he asked, wondering if he would get an answer.

Yuri felt his arm tingling. He brought his arm up and saw that, while thin, it was definitely healing. He could almost see the muscle rebuilding under his healed skin. He dropped his head back to the ground and exhaled deeply. He felt the same tingling on his throat, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember when he was injured there. It was definitely time to go. The other talker had started moaning again and the strength was returning to his arm. He stood up slowly and went to his pack. He put it on left shoulder first, just to be safe. He tried to be thankful for his recovery, but it wasn’t that easy considering he didn’t know what gift Samora had actually given him.

He looked up at the stars, searching for the dragon constellation he saw so clearly before, asking, “Was he crazy before or after he became the talker?”

Yuri began walking. He didn’t feel like sleeping and felt he might as well start for the next town, finding some water and solitude along the way.

Chapter 14

Lanner began imagining various ways Perante’s magic would show up. Tapestries that would grab him, mice that would report him, wolves that would devour him. What he found, instead, were pleasant people going about their business. He would look for groups of 3 or more people and fall in behind them, hoping they would give him cover. When they went into a room, Lanner would peel off at the last minute, after getting a peak into room.

People appeared to be able to walk around the perimeter without reproach. What type of room Melanie would be in, he could only guess, and his guesses did not make him happy. He had just dropped in behind a group of workmen when Melanie found him. “Lanner! What are you doing here?”

Lanner spun around, “Melanie! I can’t believe I found you.”

Melanie looked at him quizzically. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Well…when you left home so…you see…I”