Dragonmaster (5 page)

N
orl woke early. He had not managed to sleep until almost morning and when the first warm rays of the sun fell upon his face he lay for a moment, groggy, before he rose. He looked around and saw that Hhana and the Sele slept still, each curled up beneath a sheltering tree. He looked at Hhana. With her cap pulled down around her ears and her face soft with sleep, she looked like the young boy he had first taken her to be. He could almost make himself believe that what he had seen the night before had never happened. That, surely, Sele the Plump must be mistaken about her. Then she stirred and reached out a hand, and Norl was shocked all over again by the sight of the long talons that tipped each finger. Razor-sharp they seemed in the morning light. He shivered and turned away. His quest was impossible already—what was he to do now?

He walked into the trees to relieve himself, then went back to the stream to wash. The water ran silver
in the early morning light. A spiderweb on the bank shimmered in the slight wakening breeze, each delicate strand limned with dew. Birds were waking now, too, and calling to one another. It was a peaceful scene, but there was no peace in Norl’s heart. He gave his head a shake and knelt to scoop water over his face. Then he stopped, frozen. The stream poured past him, crystal clear, but in the middle…

He stood and craned to get a better view. A thin tendril of darkness deeper than black swirled and eddied through and around the stones. A mist hovered above it. As Norl watched, a finger of the mist seemed to wisp toward him. He flinched back, away from it. And then…it was gone. The stream ran pure and translucent once more.

“I have time for a swim, I think,” the Sele’s voice said from behind him.

“No!” Norl cried.

“Why ever not?” it asked. “What is the matter?”

“I’m sorry,” Norl said. “I did not mean to shout at you. But you must not get in that water.”

“Why not?” the Sele repeated. “It might be cold, I give you that, but I have padding enough to keep me warm.”

“It’s not that,” Norl said, searching for words. “It’s just that I saw something…There was
something
in the water…” He shook his head to clear it. “I imagined it. I must have. But pray, do not swim, friend Sele. Not this morning.”

The Sele stared at him, then it held out a hand. “As you
wish,” it said. “Come and sit with me then. We must talk before the maid awakes.”

The Sele led the way to a knoll some distance away from their campsite. They settled themselves down.

“I have a confession to make,” the Sele said.

“What—?” Norl began, surprised.

“I never answered your question as to how it was that I found you.” It paused. “It was Catryn who sent me to you, Norl.”

Norl leaped back up to his feet.

“How…? How did she know…?” Then he checked himself, exasperated. Of course she knew. Catryn knew everything that went on in Taun. It would not have been hard for her to find him, she had only to cast her mind out. With that thought came the memory of the orange cat at the tavern that had stared at him so insistently. Catryn! It must have been her. Anger rose hot and heavy within him.

“Was it not enough that I could not learn her magic?” he burst out. “Must she now humiliate me by following me? By watching over me?”

The Sele put out a placating hand and drew Norl back down.

“Did you really think she would let you go off to such danger without doing what she could for you?” it asked.

“But I do not want her help,” Norl replied stubbornly. “This is my battle.
I
made the vow,
I
must fulfill
it. If Catryn interferes, Caulda will only rise against us once more and the terror will start all over again.”

“Catryn knows that,” the Sele said. “She knows that, but she carries a great love in her heart for you.” It paused. “That gives you a responsibility to her, too,” it went on. “Perhaps you did not think on that when you left without her blessing?”

“You are saying I should not have done so?” Norl asked bitterly.

“I say no such thing,” the Sele replied. “You are a boy no longer and you have the right to make your own decisions. I say only that with that right comes a need for accountability to those who love you.”

Norl tore at the grass and stones upon which he sat. A sharp pain in his hand made him look down, but he did not register the blood that flowed suddenly from a gash across one finger.

“So you are to nursemaid me?” he snapped.

The Sele’s mouth twitched.

“That was unfair,” Norl said quickly. “Unfair and unkind to you. You have been the best of friends to me. I have no right to insult you so.”

“No,” the Sele replied calmly, “you do not. But I take no offence. You have had a hard time of it these past years.”

At that, something seemed to break inside of Norl. To his horror, he felt tears start up. He dashed them away furiously, leaving a streak of blood across one cheek.

“There is nothing left for me but to fulfill my vow to
Caulda, Sele, and in so doing, perhaps stave off her revenge upon Taun. That is all I can hope for. If Catryn foils me in this, then I will not only be a failure, but my whole life will have been lived in vain.”

“Catryn will not foil you,” the Sele said.

“But if she accompanies me, my vow is broken!”

“She will not do that. She knows this is something that you must do without her, whatever the outcome. But allow her a measure of concern, Norl. At least allow her that.”

Norl fell silent. “What, then, is your part in this?” he asked finally, all the fire gone from his voice.

“That I do not know,” Sele the Plump replied. “We will have to find that out, you and I.”

“And Hhana?” Norl asked. “The…dragonling?” He could hardly bring himself to say the word.

“Even less do I know that,” the Sele said.

Catryn sat for a long while beside the ever-flowing stream, then she stood and reached for her seeing bowl. She would do as the Protector and the Elders had bade her. She would honour Norl’s vow and not follow him again, but she must know how he fared. Guilt warred with worry in her mind. She remembered his tortured, bitter words that last night: “
It’s no use. There is no magic in me. You were wrong, Catryn.”
She had not contradicted him. She
had
doubted him—and she had let him see her doubt. If he went
to his death now it was because of her. It was because she had not taught him well enough; she had let him go unprepared.

She dipped the bowl into the water and filled it to the brim, then she bent over it and stared into its depths. She could see Norl there, see the Sele beside him. It was good that Sele the Plump was with him, but that did little to ease the despair that she felt. Then, shimmering behind them, she saw the form of the maiden who had been with Norl in the tavern.

Maid—but not a maid? The image gleamed an unholy green. Catryn honed her senses, blocked out Norl and the Sele, arrowed in on this new creature. And her blood ran cold.

Dragon!

Hhana sat up abruptly, startling Norl.

“What is it?” he asked. Hhana’s brow was furrowed; she had a puzzled, almost frightened look on her face.

“I heard something…No, that’s not right. I felt something…But it was inside my mind…” She raised one hand to her temple, then stopped as the talons on that hand raked across her forehead. She dropped her hand as if scalded and stared at it. “So it is real,” she whispered. “I thought it but a dream.”

“What did you hear? Or feel?” Sele the Plump asked. His voice was unusually sharp.

Hhana hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.
“It’s gone,” she said. She was staringather nails. She looked up at Norl. “If what this Sele says is true,” she demanded, “if I am truly dragonling, what is it then that I must do?”

But it was Sele the Plump who answered her. “For now, nothing,” it said. “We go together on this quest. We will have to trust that we will know what to do when the time is right.”

At that, Norl burst out, “We are
not
together! This is
my
quest—it is not your affair. Either of you!”

“But we are here,” Sele the Plump responded. “I know you must face Caulda alone, but allow us to accompany you as far as we can. Allow us that, Norl, I beg you. There is a reason why we have been brought together, of that I am certain.” Its voice trembled with the intensity of its words, unusual for the Sele.

Hhana sprang to her feet and faced Norl defiantly. “I once said that perhaps I could help you,” she said. “You mocked me then. You know you did,” she added quickly as Norl was about to interrupt, “but I may have spoken more truly than I knew.” She turned to stare at Sele the Plump. “I know not what is happening to me, but I do know that if this Sele feels it must stay with you, then I should, too.”

Sele the Plump made no argument, merely shook itself back into its normal aplomb. Before Norl could reply to either of them, it spoke decisively. “Let us consider the matter settled, then,” it said. “May we, Norl?”

Norl spread his arms wide in surrender. “For now,” he said. “But only for now.”

They climbed high that day. At one point they found themselves on a kind of plateau. Another trail joined the path here, and when Norl looked back down along it he saw the city of Daunus shining in the sunlight on the valley floor far below. Dahl would be there now. As King of Taun, that was his home.

How tempting it would be to abandon this fruitless endeavour, to go down to Dahl, throw himself on his mercy. Beg for his aid. Dahl would try to give it to him, Norl knew that. But he knew equally well that it was not possible. Caulda had demanded that he return. Dahl had not been able to vanquish her before, he would not be able to help now, either.

With a sigh, he turned to follow Sele the Plump and Hhana.

T
here were no villages this far up the mountain. No trees. Bare rock only, with scrubby bushes lining the path. Where there were breaks in the bushes, Norl could catch glimpses of a terrifying drop. The valley was so far below now that they were above the hawks and vultures that circled in and out of the trees and fields, hunting, always hunting. An eagle caught his eye. It was gliding, soaring easily, wings spread wide. His heart clenched with sudden pain. He forced his eyes away from the bird and set his face to the craggy heights above. Somewhere up there was Caulda’s lair. Somewhere up there she waited for him.

They paused beside a trickle of a stream at midday. Whether or not it had been his imagination the morning before, Norl eyed the water carefully, even wading ankle deep into it before he allowed the Sele and Hhana to drink from it, but it ran clear. No sign of darkness. They finished up the nuts that the Sele had brought. As it swallowed the
last of the grain, Sele the Plump gave a rueful pat to its belly.

“Where, I wonder, will we find sustenance up here?”

At that, a memory stirred in Norl’s brain. When he and Catryn had been in need of food on their journey to Dau-nus, Catryn had found fruit for them from a special tree. Deliverance fruit, she had called it. Green and lumpy on the outside, so unappetizing did it look that Norl could not believe it would be nourishing, but when he had broken it open, it was moist and sweet and had more than satisfied his hunger. It was a magical fruit, Catryn had told him. It contained no seeds and could not be grown, but if people had need, it would be there for them.

“Wait,” Norl said, then, to the Sele and Hhana. “I know of a tree that will satisfy our hunger. I will search for it.”

Before they could answer, he disappeared into the bushes above them, careful not to stray too close to the cliff edge. One misstep and he would fall to his death. He scrabbled up as far as he dared, but the bushes tore at him and seemed determined to thwart him.

Perhaps the Deliverance tree does not grow here, so close to the dragon’s lair,
he thought.
Or perhaps it will not appear for me because I do not have the magic.
Once again he tasted the bitterness of failure in his mouth. He turned away, about to give up, but at that moment, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of white.

“It is a small tree,” Catryn had said, “and bears both fruit and white blossoms at the same time.”

Could it be…? He pushed forward, heedless now of the thorns and branches that snatched and scratched at him.

There! Just out of reach. Hanging over the abyss below. A small, scraggly tree, hardly big enough to be called a tree, but Norl could see the lumpy green fruit nestled amongst the flowers.

Just one step more…

But it was a step into nothingness. Norl screamed as he felt himself falling, toppling into the void.

“No!” His scream turned into one single word, hurled like a challenge into the sky around him from the depths of his soul.

This was not happening! He was not falling!
He focused his mind on that thought and held on to it, blocking out everything else.

He…was…not…falling…

And then, as if released from the terrible weight that was dragging him earthward…, he was
not
falling.

He was flying.

Soaring.

His outstretched arms felt the wind beneath them, holding them up. But they were not arms. They were wings. Feathered wings! Norl could feel each feather responding to currents of air that he could almost smell, so palpable were they. He felt the flow over every part of his body.

His body! Feathered as well. Glistening golden in the sunlight. Obedient to his slightest thought.

He banked, swooped down, then let the current carry him higher. Spiraling within it, he kept inside the boundaries of the rising whirlpool of air, circling up and up. He looked below him and could see to the very floor of the valley, every object sharp and distinct. He could see people moving around, see the frantic scurrying of small creatures in the fields so far below, terrorized by his shadow as it passed over them.

He was flying!

Exultant, for long moments he could make sense of nothing else, but then, suddenly, he saw a gash in the mountainside beside him. A dark, impenetrable rift in the rock itself. It drew him down, closer, and yet closer, as if something within were calling to him, ordering him to come to it, and he could not resist—could not disobey. The nearer he came, the greater was the pull. Just as he was about to descend into the shadow itself, a voice in his head shocked him back into awareness.

Flee, Norl! Get away!

Catryn’s voice. Panicked. Echoing painfully in his mind.

He gave a mighty beat of his wings that carried him out of range, just as a hiss of flame and fire shot out of the crevasse. Even so, he felt it singe the outermost feathers of one wing, a sharp stab of pain. For a moment he faltered, lost height, then he plummeted back down to the bushes below.

He landed hard. Eagle no longer, every bone in his
body was shaken. For a moment he lay where he had fallen, his mind so full of confusion that he could not think. Gradually, his senses began to come back to him. He was on a small ledge just under the brink of the cliff from which he had fallen. He looked down and cowered against the mountainside in a momentary terror. The depths below him were dizzying. Then he realized that he clutched the trunk of the Deliverance tree!

He pulled himself up and with shaking hands filled the pouch at his waist with three of the fruit. Pain flared in one finger. He looked and saw that it was reddened and swollen. Burned.

“You were gone so long,” Hhana said when he had scrambled back up to the path. “We thought something had happened.”

Norl could not speak of what had transpired. Not yet.

“I found the tree,” he said, instead. He dug into his pouch and held out two of the fruit to the Sele and to Hhana, hiding the burned finger from them. “Eat. The fruit looks unappetizing, but it will satisfy your hunger as nothing else ever will.”

He thought Sele the Plump looked at him strangely, but the Sele said nothing, only accepted its fruit and bit into it. Hhana broke hers open and tasted it suspiciously.
Suspicion gave way to surprise as she gulped the rest down.

“Truly,” she said, “this is a magical fruit!”

Norl ate his without even tasting the sweetness within. His mind was in turmoil. He had flown—but how nearly he had been lured into Caulda’s grasp. How close he had come to death.

No matter.

He would be more wary next time.

He would learn.

He had flown!

“He has flown!”

Catryn stormed into the Protector’s domain without any pretense of ceremony, robes flying and bright, fire-flamed hair streaming.

The Protector leaped to his feet, then grimaced with pain.

“Catryn!” he exclaimed. “What are you saying?”

“Norl,” Catryn replied. “He has found his magic and flown, but it was not a triumph—it nearly caused his death!”

“Tell me,” the Protector demanded. He sank back down onto his cushions, but leaned forward to hear.

“I have been following him—” Catryn began, only to be forestalled by a raised hand.

“You promised us you would not follow him,” the Protector
said. “You know that he must go alone to fulfill his vow.”

“I watched him in my seeing bowl,” Catryn hastened to assure him. “Only the once did I actually follow him and that was in the form of a cat. He knew not that it was me.”

“That was once too often,” the Protector reminded her. “And you should not be so certain that he did not realize it was you. Norl is no fool. But enough. What has happened?”

Catryn took a few steps away from him, as if to gather her thoughts and collect herself, then turned back to face him.

“I was sleeping,” she began, “when I was suddenly awakened by the sure knowledge that Norl was in deadly danger. I did not even have time to reach for my seeing bowl. I cast my mind out and found him—found him soaring high above the earth below. He was giddy with the excitement of it, but even as I found him I felt the wrath of Caulda building up below him, ready to lash out at him. I screamed to him…
”

She glared at the Protector as he was about to protest once more. “Was I to let him die?” she cried. “Yes, I screamed a warning to him and only just in time. Caulda’s flame and fury almost engulfed him.”

The Protector shook his head, then, “What is done is done,” he said. “He escaped?”

“He did. But I can still sense danger all about him, and not just from Caulda.”

“What do you mean?”

“He travels with a creature…a creature that terrifies me. She is a maid, but not a maid. When I touch her mind I can feel only a wild, dangerous chaos.”

“Not a maid?” the Protector echoed. “What is she, then?” “She has the stink of dragon about her,” Catryn said. “Are you certain of this?” “I am.”

When they had satisfied their hunger and were resting against the cliff rocks, Sele the Plump spoke again.

“Something else did happen, Norl,” it said. “Did it not?” It licked the last bits of pulp and juice off its fingers, obviously determined not to waste a drop, and waited for Norl’s response.

Hhana looked curiously from one to the other.

Norl sighed. He might have known that he could keep nothing from the Sele. Sele the Plump knew him as perhaps no other being on Taun did, not even Catryn. But how could he explain?

He took a deep breath. “I was searching for the Deliverance tree,” he began slowly, “but miscalculated. I stepped off the edge of the mountain.”

“And fell?” The Sele’s brow furrowed.

“No. I didn’t fall.” Norl took another deep breath. “I flew.”

“You
flew?
” For the first time since Norl had known him, the Sele looked nonplussed.

“You
flew?
” Hhana echoed.

“I did,” Norl said. “It was wonderful! It was everything that I had ever dreamed of!”

“So,” the Sele said. It smiled. “The Protector and Catryn were right to keep their faith in you. It is as the Protector said:
Magic cannot be given from one to another. Each must make his own.
And now you have made yours. Truly, you have a right to be joyous.”

Norl sobered. “But, Sele,” he said, “I do not know how I did it. I do not know how to make it happen again.”

“You will find the way,” the Sele said with confidence. “Have faith in yourself. Perhaps that is all that has been lacking up to now. Perhaps
that
is the wall that has been keeping you from achieving all that you might.”

Norl sat silent for a moment, mulling over the Sele’s words. They struck a chord deep within him. Then he looked over at Hhana. She was staring at him. On her face was a look of wonder, but there was something else there as well.

Was it envy?

He shrugged the thought off and turned back to the Sele. “I flew,” he said, “but in my elation I forgot to be on guard. Caulda nearly destroyed me.”

“She is near?” the Sele asked.

“She is, and she waits for me.” He held out his hand. The burn throbbed, dark and inflamed. “That was but a warning, I think.”

The Sele fell silent.

“I have a request to make of you,” Norl said then. “It is
something that I have been worrying about ever since I set off on this journey.”

“Anything,” the Sele responded. “You know that I will do anything in my power that you ask.”

“I have not seen Mavahn, my Taun stepmother, since I left her three years ago. When…” He faltered. “
If
I do not return from this quest, will you visit her and take my love and heartfelt wishes to her?”

“Of course I will,” the Sele replied. “But you will do that yourself, I’m certain of it.”

At that moment Hhana let out a cry. She leaped to her feet and stared skyward. The air seemed suddenly hot. Heavy beyond belief. Before Norl could collect his senses, the sun was blotted out by an immense, black shape. The world around them plunged into darkness. Then the shape drew nearer and shot out a plume of flame that illuminated the clearing in which they stood.

Caulda.

I’ve come for you.

The words burned themselves into Norl’s brain as the dragonfire scorched the stubble around them.

“Fire!” Sele the Plump let out a strangled cry and ran from the flames. Hhana stood rooted to the spot.

Caulda swooped down and grasped Norl in long, mercilessly sharp talons. Norl had time only for a brief, useless struggle before she was aloft once more, with him dangling below her. The dragon stink and the pain where her talons
spiked into him overwhelmed him. The last thing he saw before darkness overcame him and he swooned was the Sele rushing back—too late—and Hhana standing, frozen, staring up after them. This time the expression on Hhana’s face was easy to read. Fear, of course, but also…fascination.