The Magic Wakes (26 page)

“One who tried to hide it. I wished to be something different every day of my life.”

“Magic is in your blood and you’ll find yourself again soon enough.”

Jaron waited for them outside the entrance to his ship. He paced with his head down, but looked up when they approached. “There are a few points I need clarified before we try the unbinding. I need you to find the answers I need.” He looked directly at Talia. Then turned to Landry and continued, “You will accompany her since I doubt you will allow her to go alone.”

Landry and Talia glanced at each other. Neither were used to his direct manner yet. How were they supposed to find his answers?

Jaron handed Talia a small handheld computer. “I made a list of the questions. You need to ask the trees near your home. They will know the answers, or be able to tell you where you must go to find them. You must go quickly because we cannot perform the unbinding spell without you.”

“Why can’t Talia ask the trees here?” Landry asked.

“She could, but those around her home know her better and will share information more freely with her.”

“All right. What do you suggest we use for transportation?” Landry looked around as if to point out the lack of aeroflyers in the forest.

“You will take my ship. It is similar enough to your transports for you to fly it without any problem.”

Talia’s jaw dropped. He was giving them his ship? Jaron had already turned to rejoin the mages waiting for him.

“Jaron,” Landry called out. “Similar or not, I need instructions on how to fly this thing.”

“Of course.” Jaron reached out and placed his right palm on Landry’s forehead.

They stood in silence for several minutes, eyes closed. When Jaron stepped away, Landry shuddered and his eyes stared into the distance. He cleared his throat and refocused his eyes on Jaron.

All Jaron said before walking away was, “Not everything is worth the price that is asked of you.”

“What was that all about?” Talia shivered at how pale Landry had turned. He looked haunted. While she studied him, he took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders.

“I’ll tell you inside.” Landry spoke low, but watched Jaron until he was out of sight before ushering her inside.

Talia didn’t know what to say to that. They sat in silence for a while as they flew toward her home. Eventually, they made small talk again, but they both needed time to process the last three days, and they often fell into companionable silence.

Closer to Gneledar, Landry opened a view scene. The front bulkhead turned opaque then cleared to give a panoramic view around them. Talia’s stomach flipped. She reached out to touch the wall and found it just as solid as before, even though it looked like it had disappeared.

Jaron’s ship traveled faster than the tram, and the trees of her youth came into view within two hours. She soaked in the little hill and cottage as it came into view. Talia reached out to greet her trees and they welcomed her home.

“You can set the ship down over there.” She pointed to a small clearing at the side of the house. Landry carefully lowered them to the ground and shut down all the systems before they made their way outside.

It was wonderful to be home. Breathing deeply, Talia savored the earthy smell of pine and moss. She looked toward the house and missed Keeta. Normally he would be hanging from the vines around the door waiting for her. Swallowing the memory, she turned away.

“We should talk to Calmalder. He’s the oldest tree in the forest, and sort of the father figure for the trees here. We would have to wait for these trees to relay his answers to us anyway, so it’ll save time to go straight to the source.” She walked downhill, following a small trail leading into the thickest part of the forest.

The trees grew closer together as the land leveled out and the underbrush grew thinner. Occasionally, Talia reached out to the trees for directions, but the journey still took longer than she had planned.

“So, how often do you visit this Calmalder?” Landry walked a few steps behind her.

“This will be the first time. He doesn’t like to communicate with humans, even those who speak his language. The younger trees say he sleeps all the time and barely talks with trees anymore. I hope he’ll speak to us today.” Talia picked her way along a thread of energy.

“Can I ask you a question?” Landry asked.

“Sure.”

“How is it you never married?”

Talia stumbled over her own feet before they rooted themselves to the ground.

“Let me ask you a question. If you dreamed of your death your entire life, would you have married?”

Landry took her hand and pulled her close. “Of course not. Was there anyone you would have considered marrying?”

“No.” Her cheeks burned.

She leaned away to examine his face. He was perfect. Strong jaw line, a smile hinting he knew things about you, and eyes that pulled you in and held you prisoner. She experienced a strange ache as she remembered expressions on other faces in her past.

“Guys usually . . .” The muscle in her jaw clenched. “Well, they kept their distance. I guess I’m not the dating type.”

“They were wrong.” He pulled her into a hug, his heart beating beneath her ear. It scared her to hear it quicken as his arms tightened around her.

“Can I be honest with you?” she whispered.

“I prefer it that way,” his voice rumbled above.

Backing out of his arms, she turned away to gather her thoughts.

“You scare me. Maybe it’s my habit of pulling away from everyone. Maybe it’s because I’m not sure if these feelings are real, or not. Everything is happening so fast.” She turned back to Landry and searched his eyes. “I’ve never cared what anyone thought of me, but I care how you feel about me.”

“I’ve been through this discussion a hundred times in my mind. I can’t deny I was attracted to you the first time I saw you. The way you stood confident and defiant before us fascinated me.”

“Oh.” Her face warmed again.

“But, I’m wary of how lost I get in your emotions. I don’t have the answers you want, but Talia, I promise you this, I’m going to hang around until we find out what this is.”

They stood for a moment in silence. The light filtering through the leaves danced around him, and Talia couldn’t help but notice the strength in his arms, the span of his shoulders. She wondered if he was strong enough to fight the Dragumon.

Landry crossed the short distance between them. “I try not to notice what you’re feeling, but your signal is very strong, and sometimes it’s hard to tune out. For instance, right now you’re worried about too many things. You don’t have to carry the weight of this war by yourself.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and ran his fingers down her arms, sending shock waves of energy through her. He leaned down until his lips were close to hers. “But now you feel something else entirely.”

He kissed her nose, the corner of her mouth, and then brushed his lips across hers to kiss the other corner. “There is something irresistible about knowing someone wants you to kiss them.”

Talia breathed him in and placed her hands on his chest. He smelled like dust, moss, and sweat.

And he felt like home.

Landry’s lips hovered over hers. Warm, soft. A direct contrast to the rest of his body. Talia shivered in anticipation, but instead of a kiss, he whispered against her skin, “I can wait until our world is safe again. Then neither of us will have any excuses.”

Talia rested her forehead on his chest and tried to calm her racing heart. It took a few minutes to notice the buzzing voices in her mind. She cocked her head to the side and listened.

“Calmalder is awake and waiting for us. We need to hurry.”

Up ahead, eleven ancient trees were laid out in concentric circles. Equally spaced, the outer circle consisted of six trees, the inner circle held four, and one gnarled tree stood in the center. The trees were evenly spaced, giving their twisty branches room to grow and branch. Completely different from the other trees in the rest of the forest, these trunks were short, low to the ground with the branches starting about waist high. A soft green moss covered the branches that forked and twisted in every direction.

“Calmalder is the one in the middle.” Talia pulled out the pocket computer and accessed Jaron’s questions, quickly browsed them, and put the computer away again. After a few short steps, something happened that neither of them had expected.

“What do you want from me?” Calmalder’s voice filled the air, not just echoed inside Talia’s head.

“You can speak with the tongue of man?” She had never heard of such a thing.

“It is laborious. Ask your question.” His voice was deep and slow.

“Do you remember the legend of the Dragumon?” Talia asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know how they were created?”

“Yes.”

“Can they be defeated?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how we can defeat the Dragumon?”

“No.”

Talia ran her hand through her hair and sighed. Her fingers searched for the necklace, forgetting it was gone for good until her arms fell limply to her side. “This isn’t working.”

“You said you had to find the right question if you wanted a usable answer. Maybe you haven’t asked the right one yet.” Landry’s calm seeped into her.

Talia took a deep breath and searched for the right question. She turned back to the old tree. “Calmalder, who would know how to defeat the Dragumon?”

“Dragons.”

“But there are no dragons left.” She threw her hands up in the air.

“Ask him about the dragons.” Landry waved her back to the conversation.

“Calmalder, where did the dragons go? Can we still communicate with them?”

“Most went away. Only a great mage can find them.”

“Most, what happened to the others?” Talia asked.

“Killed. All but one.”

“What happened to the one?”

“She sleeps. She waits.”

Excitement pulsed through Talia’s veins. A dragon alive on Sendek!

“Where can we find her?”

“Deep in the Acaran Mountains, under centuries of stone. The path begins and ends with the waters of change.”

“What does that mean?” Talia glanced back at Landry, but Calmalder did not speak again. The other trees whispered that he had returned to his slumber.

“Landry, he’s asleep again. How can we find a dragon with so little information? The Acaran Mountains cover thousands of miles.” All her excitement drained out and a wave of exhaustion filled its place.

“The path begins and ends with water . . . I have an idea, but we need to get back to the ship so I can look at a map.” His eyes twinkled.

Talia had planned to gather clean clothes from the house, but with the excitement of finding a dragon, she decided not to waste any time. They settled into the flight deck and Landry set course for the nearest border of the Acaran mountain range. He also pulled up a three-dimensional topography map to study the vast area.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Talia gazed at the mountain range hoping to see a giant X marking the spot.

“There’s a legendary waterfall that comes out of the mountain itself, and then plunges a thousand feet to disappear into the valley floor. It’s supposed to be a rock climbers’ paradise, but no one has put it on the map, or proved they’ve been there. I’m looking at all the rivers and tracing them upstream in the hopes of locating the waterfall. It’s said to be deep within the mountain range, out of easy hiking distance.” His fingers traced a blue line of water as he spoke.

“Begins and ends with water, I get it. Where are you looking? I’ll start on the other side.” A secondary computer screen lit up and linked into his map. They spent the next half hour searching every square mile of river in the mountain range, with no luck.

“Ok, so it’s not going to be close to an above ground river. Computer, black out sections four, five, eight, twelve, and fifteen.” Landry commanded. “Now we look everywhere else. Black out sections as you go so we don’t double search.”

The foothills of the mountain range loomed closer. With half of the screen black, they only had the center of the map to explore. Landry set a new course to the border of the unsearched area.

“I’m not finding anything that looks like the waterfall you described. I might be able to get more information from the trees. If you slow down, I should be able to talk with them without actually getting out, like on the tram.”

“It’s worth a try.”

With her eyes closed, Talia expanded her energy until it filled the hull of the ship, and then pushed past it reaching for the trees. It was hard to sense them through the thick metal. At first, the trees refused to answer. Something that she could only translate as snobbery. Another new experience for her.

Talia went cold and empty with the silent treatment, but she refused to give up. After a few more minutes, the ship passed into a new area with more sociable trees. They were closer to the tram route and remembered Talia. They apologized for the other trees.

The tramline trees sent out a query. The image of the waterfall location hit Talia without warning. Tall mountains with very little vegetation reached upward. A thundering waterfall spilled out of the side of one mountain, gouging a deep hole in the ground. The view panned out until Talia got her bearings. She opened her eyes and pointed to a place on the map, just northeast of the center sector of the mountain range.