Gloria Oliver (45 page)

Groans whispered through the grounds as students forced themselves to get up to drag themselves inside. Talia wasn’t sure she could so didn’t bother to try.

It looks like there are very few wounded.

Her mind was shutting down. “Good.” Nertak’s strategy was sound, and with their armor on, the Maeloon weren’t able to really hurt any of them. She shied away from thinking how the bloodbath would have been reversed if they’d had no prior warning. She then remembered the first casualty in the battle.

“Kel!” She sat up, her muscles protesting, and turned to stare at Clarence. “Have you heard anything about him?”

No. I believe LaSeren is with him now, however.

She could make nothing of his tone, and was just too tired to try harder. “I’ll go find out what’s happening.”

I’ll wait for news in my stall.
He slowly lumbered away toward the dragon habitat.

She watched him, slowly rising to her feet. Once the ground would stay still, she made her way toward the main building with as much speed as she could.

Asking directions of several tired-looking watchers, Talia headed downstairs toward the area she’d been taken to when she was ill. A large room with beds held a number of young students being helped out of their armor. Most just looked tired and scratched, only a few actually having cuts or broken bones. She shuffled through the room, looking left and right, but saw no sign of Kel. Her breath coming faster as she tried not to think the worst, she caught sight of a familiar face and rushed forward. “Yllin.”

The sour-faced girl was sitting on the edge of one of the beds, cleaning out a nasty cut on a student’s arm. Yllin looked up at the sound of her name, and her face broke into a wide smile as she realized who stood before her. “Talia, I’m so glad to see you. You disappeared and then Daltan told us he’d seen you working with the squire. But when I heard he was brought in…”

“I’m fine. Really. But I’m trying to find Kel, do you know where he is?” She tried her best to keep the desperation out of her voice.

Yllin nodded. “He’s in the small office, two doors down.” She hesitated, her expression troubled. “I hear it’s bad.”

Talia suddenly felt like crying. “I’ve got to go.”

Rushing away, she found the room Yllin mentioned and wasn’t surprised to discover it was the same one she’d been taken to before. Quietly, she pushed open the door and peered inside.

She spotted Kel in the cot in the corner, LaSeren leaning heavily on her cane watching over him.

“LaSeren?”

The old woman glanced back toward the door her face grave. “Come in child.”

She came in, now getting an unobstructed view of the patient. Kel’s eyes were half-open and glazed. His lips were moving though no words came out of them. His armor had been removed and she could clearly see the ugly wound were the barb hit him. The angry redness she spotted before had spread to cover half of his face. Strips of cloth were tied from one side of the bed to the other to hold him in.

“No…” She felt her eyes grow unfocused.

“None of that now,” LaSeren pushed a stool toward her. “Come, sit down.” She gently pushed Talia onto it.

“Is he … is he going to be all right?” She knew he wasn’t, she could see it, but she needed to be told.

“It all depends.”

“On what?” Talia removed her helmet so she could see the old woman better.

“The fact he isn’t dead already shows he didn’t get a full dose of the poison. The healing gem in his armor helped stave off the effects but wasn’t able to counter it entirely, neither have any of the magical antidotes in my stores. Maeloon poison is not the same as other poisons. If I were made to guess, I would say it has magical properties. Wulan is getting a sample from the bodies outside, but time…”

LaSeren faced her squarely. “Cases of this kind are rare. Normally Maeloon don’t leave any victims alive. There have been some accounts of it, but none the guild has been involved in and what they’ve said…” The old woman shook her head as if the tales were too fantastical or horrible to believe. “We just don’t know enough.”

“Is there nothing you can do?” Had Talia gotten to finally know this stubborn man only to lose him?

“I’ve sent messages to the other guild healers, and Wulan will work to make what he can of the poison.

There’s always a chance he will come across an antidote or some way to delay what is happening. If the bond was whole, then perhaps we would have been able to learn more, maybe enough to try something…” LaSeren looked suddenly worn, as if her years were weighing her down. “Ah, pay me no mind. We’ll do all we can for him.”

“Thank you for being honest with me.”

“No need. I’m not sure I’ve done you a service.” LaSeren gave her a halfhearted smile. “You look tired, child. Why don’t you go rest? If anything changes, I will make sure you’re told.”

Talia nodded slowly, her exhaustion clinging to her even more than before.

Thanking LaSeren again, she left and made her way upstairs. Once inside her room, she took off her armor and let it fall where it may. The scent of fur and smoke and blood drifted around her so she pushed the doors to the balcony open for some fresh air. Men and women drifted about the yard below picking up Maeloon bodies as well as discarded weapons, buckets, and anything else left behind. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, as if unaware of the night’s events. Shaking her head, she turned away, and still dressed in her pants and shift, crawled into bed.

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WIDE-EYED, TALIA STARED at the wall. Free now to try and get some sleep, she found it wouldn’t come. Kel was going to die, he was going to die and nothing she could do would change that. Her chest ached with the sadness of it. She couldn’t even find the strength to cry.

But there must be something that could be done, there just had to be. Ever since she came to this school it seemed as if she’d caused him nothing but trouble. Now would be the time to make it up to him—if she could only figure out how. It just couldn’t end this way. Her eyes ached.

LaSeren thought there might have been a chance if only Kel and Clarence’s bonding worked. But why didn’t it? From all she’d seen, she knew Clarence owned powers she didn’t understand. Couldn’t he have used these powers to make the bond work? Couldn’t he, if he wanted to, use them now to fix it so he could do what he could to help Kel come back to them? She tensed. The bond, the bond was the key.

Clarence needed to fix it. But what would it take to do it? She just didn’t know enough about it to even guess.

With a rough jerk, she pulled her blanket off her body and sat up. She needed to know more. Surely the bond could be used to help Kel, to find out more of what was happening to him. Ignoring her aches, she fumbled about for some clean clothes.

Leaving her room, Talia quietly made her way downstairs. The school was mostly silent, the previous night’s exertions having taken their toll. She made her way to the far corner of the building to the immense library housed there. With any luck, it was here she hoped to find the answers she sought.

With sure steps, she crossed between the bookshelves and headed for an area on the left side of the library. It was there the section on dragon literature was kept. Cautiously, she approached the tall box set right outside the area. She stared at it with some light trepidation, though Helyn had showed them all how to use it several weeks ago.

“Query: I’d like information on the human and dragon bonding.” She whispered her request at the box.

After several moments, the top of the box shimmered and showed her a three dimensional picture of the stacks. Three books in the picture glowed a faint blue. Two others glowed a faint red. From what Helyn taught them, she knew the red choices were currently not in the library. Studying the picture intently, she set the location of the three blue books in her mind and then went looking for them.

Walking toward the closest of the three, she spotted it glowing softly from the end of the third shelf up.

Quickly retrieving it, she went in search of the other two. As soon as she took each of them from the shelf, the blue glow subsided. Looking for a chair, she picked one a little out of the way to stay out of sight.

The first book she opened spoke about the history of the guild and contained one whole section devoted to the bonding ritual and its modifications over the centuries. After spending almost ten minutes glancing through what it said there, she set it regretfully aside, not finding what she was looking for.

The second book broke the bonding ritual out into its specific components and the mechanics of the different rituals, including the spells generated for the bonding to occur. She understood little to nothing of what she was reading. After a half-hour, she despaired of finding what she sought in it, knowing even if she somehow stumbled over what she was looking for, she wouldn’t know enough to realize it for what it was.

She set the book aside with a sigh, a light headache beating behind her eyes. She picked up the third book.

Almost at once her hopes rose, the text inside not technical but written more for the layman than the other two. She eagerly flipped to the back section on bonding and read what was there.

About an hour later, she closed the book and stood up. Picking up the other two, she took all three to the query box and set them on top. All three promptly disappeared. She stood there, looking at where they’d been, doing nothing. The suspicion growing inside her ever since she first started reading the last book slowly coalesced into certainty. Clarence had
lied
.

Her thoughts running inside her almost too fast for her to keep up, she left the library and headed north.

Slipping outside into the warming day, she unerringly made her way over to the dragon dormitory. The large door opened easily without a sound. She crept inside. The interior of the large place was dark except for two dimly lit globes at each entrance. Feeling her way, she moved forward, hope and anger warring inside her as she approached the dragon’s stall.

“Clarence.” She peeked into his stall, barely able to make out the dark blob nestled in the interior as she opened the gate.

A faint rustling sound issued from within.

“Clarence.” She called his name out a little more forcefully.

She was suddenly blinded as the globes in the stall sprang to life.

Has something happened?
Clarence’s snout was almost in her face, his thoughts sounding anxious and worried.

She frowned, the dragon’s feelings making what she knew less understandable. “No. Kel is still unconscious. I’m sorry to have startled you, but I need to talk to you.”

The dragon eased his large bulk back onto the hay-littered floor, his crossed eyes staring at her through half closed lids.
What is it you wish to talk to me about when sleep is what we should both be
seeking?

Talia ignored the light rebuke and pushed on. “I want to ask you why you aren’t helping Kel.”

The dragon studied her intently.
I can’t help him. He’s been poisoned. Healing is LaSeren’s area of
expertise, not mine.

“I think you can.” She pushed on. “LaSeren believes a full bonding might be able to reveal information which could be used to help him.”

That is her opinion
, Clarence said crossly.
I want him to be well as much as you do, and I would
help him if I could
.

She felt a tinge of doubt at his words, but didn’t let go. “You say this, but I don’t believe you. You could help Kel if you allowed the bonding to be complete. Her opinion or not, it would at least be something to try. But you won’t, will you?”

He stared at her, his eyes hard.
I don’t know what you’re talking about
.

She sighed. “Clarence, I don’t want to do this, I really don’t. But from what I’ve seen, no one else can help Kel but you. I don’t know why you’re doing any of this, but Kel can’t help himself and no one else can, either. There’s nothing Lareen or LaSeren can do. That leaves only you. I would do it for you if I could, but I can’t. The only thing I can do is to try and bring you to your senses.”

Clarence turned away from her.
Nothing is so simple. You do not understand
.

“Then make me understand,” she demanded. “Otherwise all I see is a selfish dragon, who treasures his secrets more than life and is willing to watch his friend die or become irrevocably mad because of it.”

The dragon sighed, his whole body dragged down as if a great weight had just been placed on top of him.
You do not understand
…

Talia bit her lip, knowing this wasn’t the way to get where she wanted to go, but not sure how else to get there. “I read some texts on the bonding. I understand now why not as many people try for the lottery as one would expect. The bonding is literal, a connection from mind to mind so the dragons and humans back then could be sure of the honesty and intent of each other. A desperate means to prove each others’ worth in a sad, terrible time.”

She took a deep breath and pushed on. “From the beginning I was told your joining with Kel didn’t go as expected. That somehow the bond didn’t go as far as it should have. But it’s not actually true, is it? I’ve seen the effects of the full bonding working through you, I’ve seen the two of you work in perfect unison.”

The instance of Kel and Clarence’s flawless leap over the Administrator was but the first hint that what she said was true.

“For your own reasons, I think you and maybe even Kel have been putting off the bonding—fighting against it, holding it back. If the one doing it was Kel, he’s in no position to stop it from being complete any longer. It would mean you should be able to use it to help, you should be able to see what’s wrong.

That is, unless I am right and the one holding both of you back is you.” She studied the dragon critically waiting to see what he would do.

Clarence said and did nothing.

She tried her best not to lose hope. “Clarence, you know Kel wouldn’t hesitate to give his life for you.

You don’t have to go so far, but yet you do nothing. Isn’t he worth helping? Are your reasons, are the powers you’re trying so hard to hide, so precious they’re worth his life? Do you not care for him at all?”