Dragonmaster (14 page)

A
s Norl limped toward the city, Hhana in her human form at his side, he was surprised to see great numbers of Sele coming out through the gate. They walked in their usual imperturbable fashion, without hurrying, but with expressions of disgust on their faces.

“Filthy stuff, that,” one said as it passed by. “Many thanks for getting rid of it.”

Norl turned to stare after it, speechless. He turned back to Hhana, eyebrows raised in astonishment, but she was as astounded as he.

Their amazement only increased when they reached the palace. There, standing on the steps awaiting them, was Dahl the King. Beside him, rubbing irritably at a smudge of black mire on one leg, was another Sele. A Sele who was much more round than the others. Much more plump.

Dahl strode forward as soon as he saw them.

“Norl!” he cried. “What miracles have you wrought?” He grasped Norl’s hand in his and squeezed so tightly that
it hurt. “Is it gone? Is the evil that returned to Taun gone now?”

“Yes, Dahl,” Norl replied. “And not to return again, I am certain of that.”

“The Elders named you truly, Norl,” Dahl said. “You
are
the Bringer of Light.” He held Norl’s hand for a moment longer. His eyes took in Norl’s broken feet. “But your victory has not been without its price, I think.”

Norl could only nod. Then he looked at the Sele and burst out, “Surely, Sele the Plump, this is
you?”

“It is,” the Sele replied.

“But how…? I saw you fall into the abyss, saw you engulfed…”

“We Sele are not so easily destroyed, Norl,” Sele the Plump replied. “We were the first peoples of this world. Before you, before even the dragons. We are not affected by the evil that you bring upon yourselves, that contaminates you.”

For the first time, Norl heard something in the Sele’s voice that he had never heard before. Almost condescension, but not quite. More like a deep and compassionate sadness.

“That which is poisonous to you has no power over us,” the Sele said. “But it is annoying,” it added, scrubbing again at the smudge on its leg.

Norl reached out to grasp the Sele, almost knocking it over with his exuberance. “I am so glad to see you!” he
exclaimed. He shook his head again. “I had thought you to be dead.”

“As I said,” the Sele answered with a smile, regaining its balance, “we are not so easily gotten rid of.”

Dahl turned then to Hhana. “And you are Hhana,” he murmured, staring at her with barely concealed curiosity. “The dragonling. The Sele has told me much about you.”

Hhana inclined her head. “I am, Sire,” she replied.

“Not Sire. We have no titles here. I am Dahl,” the king replied.

Hhana raised her chin and looked Dahl full in the face. “Dahl, then. Yes, I am the dragonling.”

“Then you have my thanks for what you have done. Mine, and that of the people of Taun. We owe you much.”

“Norl…” Back to Norl, now. “Coraun tells me you came with dragons. That the dragons conquered the blackness that held us in its thrall. He was by the river and saw it all.”

“I did,” Norl answered.

Dahl turned once more to Hhana. “I have feared and hated dragons since Caulda and her son caused such death and desolation in Taun,” he said thoughtfully. “It seems that a new way of looking at things is in order now.”

“It is,” Norl answered. “The dragons did as much to save Taun, if not more, than I did.”

“Taun is in the dragons’ debt now,” Hhana said.

Dahl looked sharply at her.

“So we are,” he replied. “We will not forget. But it was the people of the Sele who saved Daunus,” he added, a slight edge to his voice. It seemed that Dahl might find gratitude to dragons a difficult thought to get used to. “They came through the darkness to us. They brought water. Without them we would have perished. But we cannot tarry here, talking! All will be explained later. For now, we must get to the Domain. We must find Catryn and the Elders. It was closed to me, Norl,” he said. “I could not get in.”

“Nor could I reach Catryn,” Norl replied. Again, triumph was short-lived. Again, dread tightened around his heart.

“Dahl,” he said, “ride Magnus, go to Catryn as quickly as you can.” In his fear he did not even realize that it was he who was giving orders.

“What about you?” Dahl said, indicating Hhana and the Sele as well with a nod of his head. He seemed not to have even noticed Norl’s assumption of command. “Shall I have mounts readied for you also?”

“No,” Norl answered. “We have our own way. We will meet you at the city gates. But go, quickly, we must hurry!”

Dahl turned and ran toward the palace stables.

Hhana turned to the Sele. “I will bear you,” she said. She closed her eyes. The air shuddered around her, rearranged itself, and Hhana the dragon stood before them.

“Climb up,” she ordered.

The Sele hesitated, clearly aghast.

“I will bear you carefully,” Hhana said. The words were reassuring, but Norl caught a flash of a grin and her eyes gleamed with an all-too-human glint. For an instant, the Hhana who had pelted him with apples from Gudruna’s tree shone through them. Then he was changing as well. It was with relief that he took to the air.

Come, quickly,
he sent to Lorgan.
Bring the others.

Five dragons flew out from the trees.

At that moment, Dahl galloped out of the city, mounted on Magnus. The stallion reared up at the sight of the dragons, but Dahl controlled him. “Follow me!” he shouted, and spurred Magnus on across the plain.

Norl and the dragons flew low, keeping Dahl in sight. As they neared the Domain, the land below began to appear familiar to Norl. Here, he had stopped and looked back, on that morning so long ago. How desolate he had been then, how despairing. And how little he had known of what was to transpire. Now? Now there was such a turbulence and mixture of feelings raging inside him that he did not know how he felt. Above all, though, impatience. A need to get to the Domain, to find out what had happened.

Dahl reined Magnus in. He looked up to signal Norl to land.

“Have the dragons wait here,” he ordered. “The portal is just beyond this copse of trees.”

Norl let himself return to his human form. Return to the pain of walking on the earth. Beside him, the Sele slipped off just as Hhana shifted back into human form, and was almost dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. Norl was certain he could see another secret grin on Hhana’s face. Whatever else was happening, Hhana was enjoying paying the Sele back for his mistrust of her. But Dahl was calling to him.

“The portal is no longer here,” Dahl said as Norl caught up to him. “This is where it should be. There is nothing.”

Norl looked around him. The forest surrounded them on all sides. There was a fresh, earthy smell to the ground beneath his feet. Birds sang in the trees, the sunlight shafted down between the branches. It was all perfectly normal. Too normal. There was no barrier between two worlds. There was no Domain.

Norl and Dahl looked at each other, then Dahl took a step forward. Nothing hindered him. He began to walk faster. Norl limped beside him, only vaguely aware that Hhana and the Sele were following.

They crossed a stream—surely this was the river that flowed through the Domain? Then, ahead of them, they saw the cave. The cave of the Elders. Side by side, with the Sele and Hhana following close behind, they walked in.

The walls around them were dull, the stone cracked and mossy. A damp, dank smell assailed Norl’s nostrils.
It looked, smelled, like any other cave on Taun. He could not help himself. He moved past Dahl. Here! Here was certainly the entrance to his own small niche. He peered in, but saw only a dim, earthy hollow. He went back out. Here! Here was the entrance to the grand hall of the Elders. He ran into it, ignoring the pain in his feet, then stopped, unbelieving. Moss drooped from fissures in the walls; it was so dark that he could barely see. A bat swooped down from the ceiling above, startling him. Dahl’s footsteps behind him echoed on bare stone.

Only then did he see the dais upon which the Elders had sat. A throne no longer, it was a cairn now. Stones were heaped upon it, all around it. He stared, uncomprehending.

“They are dead, Norl. The Protector and all the Elders.”

He whirled around to see Catryn standing in the shadows, her hand resting on the withers of the white horse.

“Dead?” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes,” Catryn answered. “The Domain is no more. The Elders are gone.” She looked at Dahl. “And with them,” she said, “my magic. I am Seer of Taun no longer.”

They sat in a circle in the forest, outside the ruins of what had once been the Domain. The two horses stood behind
them. Dahl sat beside Catryn; Norl, Sele the Plump and Hhana to the other side. Lorgan and the young dragons crouched around them, silent and wondering, as Catryn spoke.

“The Domain died slowly,” Catryn said. “As did the Elders. The Protector was the first to let go.” She paused. “I think, Dahl, that he was thankful for the release, even though he feared what it meant for Taun. The Elders resisted. Ygrauld went first, then Ronauld. Tauna fought the hardest but finally she, too, was overcome. But in their dying, they protected me. They saved me. I can speak their names aloud now,” she added, her voice breaking. “They are secret no longer.”

She turned to Norl.

“You left without bidding me farewell,” she said. “Without a word to the Elders and the Protector, without their blessing.”

Norl felt his face flush with shame. “I should not have done that,” he said, his voice so low it could hardly be heard.

“Were you afraid I would stop you?” Catryn asked.

“I was,” Norl answered. “I was a failure. Why would you allow me to go?”

“And I doubted you,” Catryn said. “When you had most need of me, I doubted you. I will never forgive myself for that.”

“You had good reason,” Norl said.

“But I was wrong. You were not a failure, were you?”
Catryn asked. She looked deep into Norl’s eyes. “You did exactly what you were destined to do. You saved Taun. You brought light back to our world.”

“I could not have done it alone,” Norl protested, gesturing toward Hhana, the Sele and the dragons.

“Of course not,” Catryn answered softly. “Nor were you ever expected to. No one can do things alone. That was the lesson I had to learn when it was my time.” She paused, then a smile broke through. “And it was just as hard for me to learn as it was for you.” She sighed, the smile died. “So Taun is saved,” she went on. “But how different it will be now. There are no Elders to guide us. No immortals.”

“But there are dragons.”

Hhana’s voice broke in, defiant.

Catryn nodded. Her eyes found Hhana’s in the gathering darkness. “Yes, there are dragons,” she agreed. “And one dragonling, I think. Is that not so?”

“It is,” Hhana replied.

“The Elders told stories about dragonlings,” Catryn said. “But they believed them all to have been destroyed.”

“They believed wrongly,” Hhana responded.

“So I see.” A pause, during which Catryn and Hhana held each other’s eyes, unblinking. “I feared you, you know,” Catryn said finally.

“Do you fear me now?” Hhana asked.

“I think not,” Catryn replied, but her voice was thoughtful rather than reassuring. “With the return of the
dragons, we will need a dragonling.” She looked again at Norl. “And we will need a dragonmaster. It will be a different world,” she repeated, “but an interesting one, I think. You two will have much work to do, helping humans and dragons learn to trust one another again.”

Norl gazed at her as she sat beside Dahl, leaning slightly against his shoulder. Her hair flamed as red as ever, her eyes were as sharp and keen, but she seemed older. There were lines now on her face, around her eyes.

Dahl looked down at her, his own eyes widening with a sudden realization. “You are no longer immortal,” he said.

“No, I am no longer immortal,” Catryn answered. “That gift, if gift it was, has been taken from me, too.” She looked back up at him. “And the barrier between us, Dahl, is no more. Once I denied you because I would not be able to bear seeing you grow old and die while I lived on.” She reached for his hand. “But now…Now, Dahl, we can rule Taun together. We can help our world heal—and we can grow old together.”

Norl stood alone on the battlements of Dahl’s palace. The moons had risen, the land below him was flooded with their light and the shadows they cast in the soft, welcome darkness of night. He drew into himself, closed his eyes
and took back his eagle form. The wind whipped through his feathers. He raised his wings high, feeling them rise with the lift and the solidity of the air beneath them. A movement in the dark trees caught his eye. Was it a panther? A black cat slipping through the night? It might be. But if so, it was not Catryn.

No Elders. No Seer of Taun.

But there were dragons.

He lowered his wings, grasped the stone with hooked and crooked talons, and braced himself against the wind.

There were dragons. And
he
was Dragonmaster.

Dragonmaster

© 2009 by Karleen Bradford.

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FIRST EDITION

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bradford, Karleen

Dragonmaster / Karleen Bradford.

I. Title.

PS8553.R217D723 2009   jC813’.54   C2008-904061-9