SpringFire (2 page)

Grey let out a snort. “I’m more than twice ten, and I wouldn’t want to.”

Ignoring the reminder that at twenty-one he was nearly six years older than me, I just said, “I better get my pack. Then I can have something hot ready for you to drink after you’ve finished hunting.”

I trotted back to the cave, passing Traz on his way out, twirling his staff while his heavy jacket flapped open.

“Close that up properly,” I said.

“Yes, Mother.”

I shook my head and kept going. My pack lay near my sleeping pallet. I checked it to make sure I had everything I needed, throwing in an extra pair of woolly socks; it might get cold sitting around while Xyla and Grey hunted.

When I returned to the others, Traz was, as usual, brandishing his staff as he practiced moves he was learning in his martial arts lessons.

Grey had a sour look on his face and wasn’t playing along. “You’re going to poke someone’s eye out with that thing,” he grumbled.

“Ha!” Traz shouted. “No, I won’t. I have much better control than that.” He held it vertically, spun round, and brought it down a fraction of an inch from my nose as I jerked to a stop.

“Traz!” I cried. “Grey’s right. You’re going to hurt someone.” His wide grin fell at my sharp tone.

“But I didn’t,” he protested. “I knew exactly where to stop so I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“And what if I hadn’t stopped walking? You might’ve broken my nose.”

Traz pulled the staff away from my face and rubbed his hand along its smooth, shiny surface.

“Oh, it’s all right. I’m not mad. Just try to be a little more careful when you’re not actually training, all right? Now let’s go. Those babies aren’t getting any less hungry while we stand around talking.”

Xyla let out another call, and the babies all streamed back into the cave.

Yallick appeared on the path out of the woods and walked over to us. The mages had spent the morning meeting at one of the other caves—one where it was quiet—and he must have returned when Xyla told him we were leaving.

“Hunt well,” he said in his gravelly voice, giving Traz a boost up the dragon’s side.

“You might want to get a pit ready so we can roast an elk,” said Grey. “Everyone will eat well tonight.”

Yallick actually smiled at Grey, his bright blue-green eyes lighting up at the suggestion of a feast. “I will do that. Just bring my young charges back safely.”

“That I will, sir,” Grey said with a quick nod.

By this time, I’d shouldered my pack. Traz reached his staff down to help me. I grabbed it, scrambled up, and took my usual place behind him. We’d traveled like this many times on our journey in the Autumn, and it felt like the good old days to be at it again. A moment later, Grey sat behind me, his arms lightly encircling my waist. So lightly they might as well not have been there at all.

Then Xyla rose into the air. I looked down at Yallick to see him waving at us with one hand while the other smoothed his long, white-blond hair away from his face.

From this height, I could see how the mountainside was pockmarked with caves. There were more than fifty mages living here in hiding from the Royal Guard. For having maejic—a higher form of magic—was a capital offence in this land of Alloway, and King Erno was determined to wipe it out once and for all.

We soared through the air, the wind blowing my hair back and practically freezing the tip of my nose. But the glory of the flight made that worthwhile. Trees stretched for miles. The mountain ridges cut a sharp, jagged line against the bright morning sky. The life vibrations of the forest, both the trees and all the creatures living in it, swelled my heart and filled me with wonder. Life, in all its forms, tasted sweet.

Xyla swept around to the left and circled high over a meadow below, where a dark smudge must be the herd Grey had mentioned.

The dragon began to descend at a gentle angle, and as she did, the meadow grew rapidly in size. She landed on the opposite side from where the elk were so as not to frighten them into taking cover too soon.

Grey immediately walked off toward the herd. He would kill as many as possible before they even realized an intruder was among them. Then Xyla would join the hunt.

In the meantime, I started a small fire on the edge of the meadow near a long-fallen, rotting log. It was the easiest time I’d ever had lighting a fire. The thick trees overhead had kept the rotting wood relatively dry, and it flared into flame with the first spark. Traz took the staff a short distance away and started practicing his moves again.

Half an hour later, I heard the thudding roar of hooves—hundreds of them—in the distance, making the ground shake. Xyla took wing then and began picking beasts from the herd while chasing them back toward Grey. With Xyla helping, I knew the hunt would be fast and I needn’t worry about getting trampled with her watching out for me.

Grey would be back soon now, so I took my saucepan and waterskin from my pack and began heating the water.

When he arrived, I handed him a tin cup full of steaming tea. He wrapped his bare fingers around it, smiling appreciatively. Traz added a little more sweetening to his own cup, while I poured the last of the tea into mine. We stood around the fire in silence, sipping our hot drinks and moving around a little whenever the wind changed direction and blew smoke into someone’s eyes.

“Ten elk,” Grey finally said. “Not a bad hour’s work.”

Traz gaped at him. “Ten elk? In that short time?”

Grey grinned. “It helps to have a dragon helping out. I only brought down four of them myself.”

“
Only
four?” Traz squeaked. “When are you going to start teaching me to shoot?”

“As soon as … ” Grey’s voice trailed off.

“As soon as he’s taught
me
,” I said.

“Not fair! I’ll be ancient by then!”

We all laughed. It was the first time we’d acted as if we were all friends, and it felt nice. Very nice.

We kicked the fire out and made sure all the embers were dead, then Traz and I climbed onto Xyla’s back. Grey had rigged a rope sling that allowed Xyla to carry a number of the elk at a time, but it still would take two trips.

As we tried to get the ropes in place, a sense of darkness washed over me. My mood plunged into deepest gloom, and, as if it were being whispered straight into my ear, a voice said, “Your move.”

A shudder shook my frame. Traz looked back at me as the voice said it again. “Your move.”

I couldn’t breathe. Blackness started closing in on my sight.

Xyla threw her head up in alarm and let out an ear-piercing scream. The blackness disappeared, replaced with a feeling of dread. Grey took one look at the dragon and a split-second later was rushing toward us. With a great leap, he was halfway up her back and he’d barely got in place behind me when she sprang into the air.

My heart thudded in my chest as I tried to force air into my lungs. I lost my balance and began to slip off as the ground receded faster than ever before.

“They come!” Xyla’s voice shrieked inside my head. Her panic completely overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t tell how much of my fear was hers and how much my own. I scarcely realized that Grey was holding tightly onto me.

“My babies!” Xyla’s vocal cries deafened my ears and her mental cries froze my mind.

We streaked through the air back to the cave-pocked mountainside where the mages were hidden. But before we got there, red and green lightning shot up from the ground and across the sky.

“No, Xyla!” I couldn’t tell if I shouted the words aloud or only in my mind. “We can’t go there! It’s the dragonmasters!”

But she didn’t listen. Or couldn’t hear. We plummeted toward the earth. Then the lightning was all around us. It would strike any moment and kill us all.

With a sudden sheer almost straight up, Xyla screamed again. I was sure she’d been hit. A flash in front of us blinded me. A sizzle shot past my head, and the energy of it seized my thoughts. A last jerk, and then we were falling. My heart squeezed in my chest, and I knew no more.

The reflection of the world sparkles in the window of time.

Gazing upon one another, smiling or storming or dancing or raging as the mood take them, the parallel worlds float upon the ether.

A life passes between them on a thread, rainbow stars billowing out behind in its wake. And on the return journey, it skews in on itself to end where it began.

Look upon the worlds. See how they glitter with life and blush golden with love.

Let all who understand grow in wisdom.

~from
The Esoterica of Mysteries

When I awoke, the earth spun beneath me. I lay curled up in a ball and shivering a little in the cool air. After a moment, the memory of everything that had happened came flooding back. The Royal Guard. And dragonmasters! They must have captured us, and I must be in a cell somewhere. And that meant that they had Xyla, too. Again. They’d captured her once before to force her to fight in the king’s pits. Futility overwhelmed me.

And they’d have all the babies, too!

With a groan of despair, I sat up to find that I was back in the clearing in front of the cave. Traz and Grey both lay nearby, still asleep or unconscious, I wasn’t sure which, and Xyla, too, sprawled on the ground. More like a dead thing.

Stiff as I was, I got to my feet and tottered over to her. She was breathing, but shallowly, as if it were hard to draw breath. Her legs twitched a bit, and her color was off. She was usually a rich, bright red, but now she looked coppery, as if someone had rubbed her with a yellow paste to dull her hide.

She lay on her side, her head on the ground and mouth slightly open. I reached up and touched her face. Her skin felt much cooler than usual, and that was saying a lot, since, as a reptile, she had cold blood.

At my touch, she stirred slightly, and I thought she might awaken, but she didn’t. Instead, her body seemed to wilt, if that were possible. The twitching stopped. I bit my lip, fearing the worst, but no, she took another shallow, shuddering breath. I felt her heartbeat, slow—very slow—but steady.

Then a soft rustling sound behind me. I whirled round to face the menace, only to find Traz sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He let out a small groan, much as I had done, and that seemed to awaken Grey, who also started to stir.

But where was everyone else? Yallick, Oleeda, and the other mages? The dragonmasters? Surely none of them would’ve just left us all lying here—the former because they were our friends, and the latter because they were our enemies.

“Wha—what happened?” Traz asked in a tremulous voice. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” I said softly, looking around and beginning to wonder if it were a trap.

Grey seemed to have gotten his bearings and rose to his feet, his movements lithe and wary as a hunting cat. I fancied his ears pricked.

I opened my own senses. Usually very sensitive to the life vibrations all around me—so much so that I usually had to block them out—I could feel scarcely anything. Almost as if everything were a quarter-beat out of sync. As long as I didn’t concentrate on it, everything was fine, but when I tried to get into rhythm, it made me dizzy; I lost my balance and almost fell, even though I was standing still.

Grey seemed to stagger slightly, too, as he circled the edge of the small clearing. Our eyes locked for a moment and he shook his head. “Nothing,” he mouthed.

“Where’s Yallick and everyone?” Traz’s voice crackled through the still air.

“Shh!” Grey and I both hissed.

Traz got to his feet and came to stand by Xyla and me. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked in a hushed whisper as he stroked her neck. He seemed finally to have caught on to our danger.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

Grey joined us, a knife in each hand. “I wish Chase were here,” he said. “I feel half-naked without my dog.” He looked around again. “Let’s go look in the cave. But carefully, quietly. And let me go first.”

Traz glared at Grey’s back but followed. I fell in behind him as we crept toward the cave, nerves on edge to catch any sense of disruption. But nothing beyond the soft soughing of the wind in the trees.

The cave mouth was huge, more like a gaping hole in the mountainside, and the cavern beyond was enormous—big enough to house Xyla and her brood of twenty-three, plus more than enough room for several people to live, too.

Of course, the light from the opening didn’t shine far into that gigantic space. But it was still enough that we should’ve been able to see the place where we had our fire. And the ground should’ve been trampled down; people had been living there, after all, for several months. Instead, the ground just inside was deep with a layer of Autumn leaves blown in by Winter storms. The cave had a distinct air of disuse.

Grey took a few steps inside. “It’s no use,” he said, coming back out. “I need some light.”

“Oh! Of course!” I exclaimed. I unslung my pack and dug out my kit of meditation candles. “These ought to help.”

We lit three and each took one. We’d lost the edge of our caution; surely, if anyone were watching and wanted to grab us, they would’ve done so already.

Going back into the cave, we stayed together to pool the light. Once we were well inside, our eyes began to adjust to the darkness. We couldn’t see all the way across, but after one circuit, one thing was very clear: no one had been living here for many years. If ever.

It was when we got back outside that something else dawned on me. There was no snow on the ground. How had I missed that before? It just couldn’t be. Although it was Spring, we’d recently had a late snowfall and the snow had been deep, except in the clearing and along the paths, where the passing to and fro of people all day every day had tramped it down.

And now there was no sign of anyone anywhere. Not even the paths remained.

Grey and Traz gathered firewood, while I returned to Xyla to check on her. She hadn’t stirred, but I could see her eyes moving under her lids as if she were having an agitated dream. I draped my arms around her, trying to coax some kind of response.

By the time the others had gathered enough wood for the afternoon and night, and had gotten a fire roaring inside the cave, I’d grown cold and a little desperate to wake the dragon.

“Xyla,” I called, using both my voice and my spirit to try to reach her. “Xyla, you must wake up.” It became a chant, and about the twentieth time I said this, her tail twitched. “Xyla!” I cried, putting as much passion into my tone as I could. “Xyla!”

An eyelid fluttered open. An ear flicked.

“Donavah.” Her voice inside my head was so weak that I almost didn’t catch it.

“Xyla, dear. I’m here. Let’s go into the cave. It’ll be warmer there.”

“Donavah? Warm?”

“Come, my love.”

“So tired.”

“I know. But please. Get up. The cave is only a few steps away.”

She lifted her head a little. “I do not know if I can make it.”

“You can. I know you can. I will give you my strength.” As if that would help.

But my feeling of urgency must have penetrated her lethargy, because she began to rise. Once she was on her feet, I kept a hand on her leg. Her head drooped pathetically, and I feared she wouldn’t make it. We’d awakened around midday, but the sun had long fallen from noon, and the temperature had already begun to drop. She
must
get inside.

She halted and began to sag to the ground again. “No! Xyla, no. Just a little farther. You must keep going.”

Grey and Traz came out, and as if they understood the need for skin-to-skin contact, they each took a spot by another of her giant legs. She took a step, then another. A pause, then another.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she entered the cave and sank back to the ground. The tip of her tail was still outside, but we dragged it in and hoped it would be far enough.

I felt overcome with weakness and wondered whether Xyla really had used whatever strength I’d been able to lend her to make that short journey. Then I laughed at myself. Whether she had or not didn’t really matter. The simple fact was that I was hungry. How long had it been since I’d last eaten? Hours? Days? Years?
Centuries?

I sat next to the fire, unable to get to my feet, even though I knew I should. Watching me, Grey scowled. He looked as tired as I felt, but he suddenly dashed outside. I just watched him go. He stalked all around the clearing in front of the cave, looking for something.

Then he let out a disgusted curse and came back inside. “My bow! It’s gone!”

“What—” I started, but he interrupted.

“I remember now, I dropped it when I leapt onto Xyla’s back. At the meadow,” he sighed. “Supper might be small tonight.”

“Wait!” Traz said with a note of triumph in his voice. He rummaged around in his pack. “Ha! Got it!” He drew something out from the very bottom and brandished it in the firelight. “My slingshot. Guess supper’s on me tonight, O great hunter.”

Grey looked at him with eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he said with the barest hint of a smile. “Go ahead. I don’t mind.”

After Traz had gone, I found a little dried fruit in my pack and shared it with Grey as we stared into the fire.

Then Grey spoke first.

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me, about maejic.” The night after Xyla’s babies were born, I’d explained it to him, how the group I was with were mages—people who had the ancient gift of maejic, a power stronger and older than magic—and that King Erno had set out to destroy the community in an effort to wipe maejic out. I’d told Grey that I had this power, and that when he’d rescued me, I’d been trapped and left to die by Anazian, a mage who had turned against the others.

He’d listened without saying a word, and I’d been so afraid that he would pack up his things and leave. After all, King Erno had made maejic a capital crime. But once I’d finished and he’d had time to absorb it all, all he said was, “So you can hear and speak to Chase?”

“Yes. Well, not during that time at your cabin. Anazian had put a spell on me so that I couldn’t use my maejic.” I winced a little at the memory of those long days when I’d been bereft of my gift and thought I’d lost it forever. “But the spell was eventually broken.” I hadn’t told him that Yallick and Oleeda tried to break it and couldn’t, and that in the end, I’d somehow—I didn’t know how—reached deep within my soul to break it myself. That was still too confusing for me to make any sense out of it.