Dragon's Heart (4 page)

Maya
reached out and wrapped her arms around him. “Shhh, it’ll be all right. It’ll
be all right. We’ll find out who you are.” At least she prayed they would. This
went way beyond strange.

“Will
you stay with me please, Maya? Will you stay with me until I remember?”

She
looked into those eyes, eyes so like the dragon in her dream and nodded. She
would stay with the young man until he returned to where he belonged. For some
reason her instincts warned that he didn’t belong here.

The
stone continued to glow as she held the boy, but a whirling noise in the
distance broke the silence on the mountain. Only now did she realize how quiet
the mountain had become while she sat in the circle of stones and darkness
descended upon them. Not even the sound of the wind passed through the trees.
She tried to see between the stones and beyond the trees but the fog remained
thick there.

“I
think help has arrived,” she told him. “I think I hear a chopper, but they may
not be able to land near us. The fog’s still thick around the stones. They’ll
probably have to find a clearing in order to set down. Then they’ll walk up and
hopefully be here soon. I’m going to walk beyond the standing stones and see if
I can reach them on my cell. I’ll be right back.”

“Al…all
right.” He glanced away and then back at her.

“I
won’t go far. You’ll still be able to see me.” Maya got up and walked toward
the stones, but stopped. The stone no longer shone. She rubbed her eyes and
continued moving forward. The nearer she got the more the etching of the dragon
faded away, until it disappeared entirely. “What the…!” she exclaimed.

“What?
What’s wrong?” the boy asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Th…the
stone. The stone is no longer glowing.” She stepped back so he could see for
himself. As she looked over at him, she made another discovery. His eyes weren’t
shining anymore either.
 
“Your
eyes…they…they aren’t glowing either.”

“What?”

“Your
eyes. Your eyes were giving off a light like the stone. Who are you?” she
finished on a whisper.
What are you?
she silently questioned.

“I
don’t understand. I…”

Maya
shook her head. “It’s okay. We’ll get to the bottom of this. There must be some
sort of explanation.” Or she was losing her mind.

“Why
would light shine from my eyes? Why don’t I remember anything? Arrrgh!” The boy
shook his head, sending hair flying in every direction. “This makes no sense.
Why can’t I remember? I should be able to remember. What’s happening to me?” He
tried to rise and got as far as all fours.

Maya
rushed over to help him.
 

“Hey,
hey, hey, take it easy,” she said helping him to straighten. “Do you think you
should be standing up?” She placed an arm around his waist and he looped his
across her shoulder.
 

He
turned to look at her and had to look down. She was no slouch at five eight,
but this boy, this young man stood over six feet and was probably still
growing. “I think I can stand. It’s only when I try to remember anything my
head hurts.”

“Well,
just take it easy. I still think you should sit back down.”

“No,
please. I want to see that stone. Can you help me over there?”

“I…”

“Please.
I feel like I need to see the stone.”

“Okay,
but if you feel dizzy, we stop.”

“Agreed.”

Maya
helped him walk over to the stone, aware he tried not to put any weight on her.
She simply guided him. Once they faced the previously lighted stone they
stopped. It looked dark now, just an ordinary looking piece of rock.

The
boy raised the arm at his side and laid his palm against the stone. When his
hand touched it, both he and all of the stones glowed. They found themselves
surrounded by light in a rainbow of colors. Maya could have sworn she heard a
low hum coming from all directions just as the boy’s body trembled beside her.
He threw his head back and roared. Not a scream but a guttural primal cry. The
vibration of which burrowed into her soul. The sound of a wounded animal.
 

Scared,
Maya dropped her arm from around his waist and stepped away from the boy,
forcing him to release his hold on her. Without her support, he fell to the
ground, unconscious again and the light coming from the stones winked out, as
if it had never existed.

Looking
down on the boy who lay at her feet, Maya gasped. She
was
indeed losing her mind.

T
he good news, despite running into some bad weather,
flight forty-seven arrived right on schedule. Best of all, the passenger in seat
14A slept through most of it. He didn’t see anything else blocking out the sun.
The bad news, he dreamt. He dreamed of a circle of emerald stones, dragons with
hides of gold, and a dragon so dark no light reflected off it.

The
voice of the pilot came on announcing they were in their final descent over
Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The passenger woke up abruptly, dazed
at first, then glad when he realized they’d reached their destination. Well,
the first part of it. His wife pulled her seat upright, and he did the same
then put on his jacket. Already he lost the gist of his dreams until they were
all but forgotten. He didn’t remember anything odd happening during the long
flight. He just looked forward to spending time with his daughter.
 

He’d
divorced her mother two years ago and then moved to London. A long time in the
life of a child. He hadn’t seen his daughter since, but he’d kept in touch with
her.
 
Recently remarried, he very
much wanted to be a part of his kid’s life. She would be ten tomorrow and he
wanted to surprise her.

     
When the
emergency and rescue people finally found them, Maya didn’t know how long she’d
sat on the cold unforgiving ground with the young man’s head in her lap. At
least long enough for her butt to go numb. She’d dragged herself and the boy to
the outer perimeter of the stones so her phone would work and for the rescue
team to be able to locate them. Odd, beyond the stones the noises of the
mountain came alive, startling her for a moment. This entire day and evening
went under the heading of bizarre. She should have run back down the mountain
at the first sign of weirdness, but she didn’t. The young man, regardless of
all the strange things going on, needed help. Needed her. She could not abandon
him.

     
“Here lass,”
the first man said to reach her, dressed in a padded red jumpsuit with a yellow
vest and a patch proclaiming him part of the Irish Mountain Rescue. “What
happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

     
“Yes. I’m fine.
But he’s hurt,” she said indicating the still unconscious boy.

      
Another
paramedic stood right behind the first. The other man checked the young man’s
pulse then shone a light into his eyes. Thankfully, the only glow this time
came from the pen light in the medic’s hand.
 

  
    
The second man had a radio attached to the
helmet he wore, and she heard him tell the person on the other end to call off
the other teams; they had found the lost hikers.
 
“Let’s get him on the stretcher,” the first man said. “Can
you tell us what happened, Miss? Is this your hiking companion?”

     
Maya watched as
they efficiently and safely strapped the boy onto a stretcher. The second medic
helped to lift him to begin the walk back to the helicopter. Both men were past
middle age, but even in the padded suits they appeared built like linebackers.
They had no trouble lifting the boy.

     
“Ah…no. I don’t
know who he is. I-I found him unconscious in the middle of the stones. He came
to a little while ago and spoke a bit. He didn’t remember what happened or who
he was.” She’d decided not to mention anything about his glowing eyes or the
glowing stones. Other than sounding crazy, something else compelled her to hold
her tongue.

      
“Stones?
What stones?” The first medic asked, pausing in stride to turn his head to look
around, then continuing forward.
 

      
She
shifted her body to gesture the way they’d come. “They’re right…” But the area
now lay in heavy fog revealing no sign of the stones. “There are about ten of
them, right over there.” Puzzled, she looked back and forth between the two men
who had kept walking and she hurried to catch up to them. “Come on, you had to
have seen them when you found us.” She raised her hand up to her waist. “The
stones are about this high!”

      
“No.” The
first man glanced at his partner, a look of confusion on his face. “You see
anything?”

    
His partner wore a similar confused
express on his face Maya could clearly see because of the LED light flaring
from the helmet he wore, and shook his head in the negative. “We barely spotted
the two of you,” he said. “Maybe the fog blocked our view. Anyway the important
thing is we found you thanks to the GPS signal from your phone.”

     
Maya couldn’t
understand why they hadn’t seen the stones. Granted, the thick fog might
obscure their vision but they should have at least seen the stone they found
them near. It had only been a hand span away. Another unexplainable thing she
decided not to pursue for now. She looked down at the teenager on the
stretcher.

     
“Will he be all
right?” she asked, worried.
 

     
“I didn’t see
any evidence he took a blow to the head,” the first medic said. “But don’t
worry. We’ll get the lad to hospital in no time and the doctors there will take
a look at him.”

     
“May I come
with him to the hospital?”

     
“Of course you
can.”

      
Talon glided out of the cloud to land in a
circle of stones that looked very much like the stones of his home world. He
had never been here before but he knew he’d made it through the portal. Terra,
called Earth now. The land of the Forgotten Ones.
 

    
His golden dragon form shimmered even as
he landed on the ground. If human eyes had been present to observe the change,
they would have thought they stared at an image coated in fluorescent silk, as
a male in human form emerged from the center of the shimmer. But in truth the
only human essence existed in the center of the stones in the body of a young
man who appeared to be about seventeen earth summers.

    
Too late, Talon realized time moved
differently for dragons on Akgon. Then again maybe not, at home even at four
hundred years brethren considered him barely past hatchling, still young. As a
human, he would appear a mere
teenager. Those thoughts were of no consequence. He heard whispers.
Ones he couldn’t ignore.

    
The Earth and the Stones of Power called
to him. They recognized him and welcomed him as the son of one of their own,
long gone from this world. They lulled him with their song of the ages. They
had a lot to tell him.
 

    
The first thing the Stones made him aware
of—his nakedness. He enjoyed the feel of air brushing against his skin,
but his body temperate warmed the chilled air around him so it felt more like a
warm breeze. In this land, his entire body needed covering in some form of cloth,
and not the loin covering he usually wore. Mother Earth guided him in what he
needed to do.

    
Magick, to his surprise, ran very strong
on Earth, especially at the heart of the Stones. It ignited his blood and his
veins flowed with power. He looked down and found himself clad in what the
knowledge in his mind told him were blue jeans, a dark green long sleeve
t-shirt and covering for his feet, hiking boots; suitable clothing for the
place and time.

     
The song changed, coaxing him to
sleep, to rest. There was too much to learn and it would take some time. He was
young. His eyes drifted close and his muscles relaxed. Talon lay down on his
back in the center of the Stones.
He would be perfectly safe. No harm could come to him in the circle of
power. So much he needed to know. So much still to do. The knowledge the Stones
and Mother Earth had to impart to him numbed his mind. He slept…deeply.

    
Then knew no more.

Maya didn’t know what to tell the night nurse. She had been
shocked when she checked the time, a little after nine. It had taken the rescue
squad a lot longer to find them than it should have. During the short ride in
the helicopter to the hospital, both medics and the pilot kept insisting they
didn’t see the stones and had never heard of anything like she described in the
area. They had spoken to the guide, James, to locate her, but he never
mentioned anything about a circle of standing stones. He’d given them a rough
description of where he had taken her hiking and the GPS signal in her phone
did the rest.
 

The medics had already left. Maya returned her attention to
the admittance nurse.
 
“As I’ve
said before, I don’t know who he is. I found him in the center of these
standing stones, somewhere on Sperrin Mountain. I’ll take responsibility for
him until we can find out who he is.”

The nurse raised her penciled eyebrows and replied, “Peter,
one of the guys you came in with, said they found you off the hiking trail. He
never said anything about any standing stones. I’ve lived in these parts all my
life and I’ve never heard of such stones.”

Maya sighed. They’d been going round and round about
this.
 

“Look, the doctor will be out in a minute,” the nurse
continued. “I’ll just write him up as an unidentified male. When he wakes,
we’ll get the rest of the information. Go ahead and have a seat over there.”
She pointed to a row of seats against a wall. “I’ll send the doctor round to
you as soon as he’s done.”

“Thank you.” Maya removed her backpack and sat down. She
found herself alone and tired in the waiting area. Taking out a package of
trail mix, she polished it off along with the bottle of water one of the rescue
workers had given her. The entire evening held a surreal feel and she still
didn’t understand what had happened, other than being inexplicably drawn to the
boy. He wasn’t her responsibility, yet she had found him and promised him she
wouldn’t leave. She had a lot of questions she needed answers to; answers she
hoped he could provide.

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and made a call
to change her flight reservations and to keep her room at the Inn. It cost her
a small fortune. At this point, she’d stay in Ireland for the remainder of her
trip. With luck, which seemed overdue, she wouldn’t have to make any further
changes. Surely the boy would awaken, regain his memory, and be able to put her
mind to rest about what happened on the mountain. What she had seen seemed
real. A dragon etched into a glowing stone, just like the boy’s eyes. How did
you explain that?

Maya let her head fall back until it touched the wall and
then she closed her eyes. Unsure how long she slept, but the odd angle of her
head caused her neck to ache, jerking her awake. Rubbing her neck, she glanced
at the nurses’ station, in time to see the night nurse speaking to a balding
man, then point in her direction. She got up and walked toward him.

“Ms. Trent?” he asked as he held his hand out to shake hers.
His white starched doctor’s coat brightened up the dreary colored hallway. “I’m
Doctor Donovan. I understand you came in with the unconscious young man.”