The Seadragon's Daughter (25 page)

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Authors: Alan F. Troop

BOOK: The Seadragon's Daughter
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The notes of her song waft up to us. To my relief they don’t affect me. But the iguana tilts his head and relaxes his muscles, his eyes transfixed on her. She approaches slowly, returning the iguana’s stare, singing the entire time, climbing the rock and finally sitting next to the beast, water dripping from her naked body, spreading over the stone, darkening it everywhere that turns wet.
Through it all, the iguana remains immobile. I want it to break free of her spell, to pull back, to turn and run. I know how it feels to have music penetrate both mind and soul.
The Pelk girl puts a hand on its head, strokes its neck with her other hand, the iguana’s flesh quivering at her touch.
Drawing a breath, I consider shouting a warning. But for what? In the end, the iguana is just another beast to be preyed upon. Who am I to say this one should live, when I’ve killed so many myself?
Tantra’s song turns deep and soft. She shifts one finger into a claw and draws it across the iguana’s neck, a red line appearing as the beast’s flesh parts open, blood welling up, flowing across the rock and dripping into the lagoon. The iguana shudders once and collapses.
The Pelk girl stops her song and looks up to Derek.
“That’s my girl!”
he mindspeaks. “Wasn’t that magnificent?” he says to me.
Shaking my head I mutter, “I was that iguana last night,” but Derek either doesn’t hear or chooses to ignore me. He clambers down from the tree and I follow him.
By the time we reach the rock, Tantra has cut off the iguana’s tail and sliced it into two halves. She stands and holds them up to Derek. He takes one and motions for her to hand me the other. “What about her and the other two?” I say.
Derek laughs, takes a bite from his section. “She’s given us the best part. It’s their tradition. Why would I complain? They’ll eat the rest of the body and be glad for it.”
Tantra’s stomach, certainly not as flat as Lorrel’s, protrudes slightly and Derek rubs it with his free hand. The Pelk girl smiles at him.
“My child grows inside here, doesn’t it girl?”
he mindspeaks.
Tantra puts her hand over his. She trills out a laugh.
“Your child grows here. . . .”
She points to Derek’s other wife on shore and to the other in the water.
“And there, and there!”
Then she looks at me and points toward the mangrove forest.
“And your child grows in Lorrel’s stomach over there!”
My child. I look toward the forest and frown. I’ve been so busy damning myself for my betrayal of Chloe that I haven’t thought at all about my new son and how he can possibly fit in my world.
Derek looks at my face and nods. “Bloody inconvenient that—how quickly our women conceive. Let one of them decide it’s time, and the next casual romp you have with them ends up in fatherhood. At least when humans do it, they have a sporting chance of remaining unencumbered.”
“I like being a parent,” I growl. “I just would prefer to share that experience with my own mate.”
“Well, you don’t owe this one anything.” Derek takes a bite from his share of the iguana’s tail. “The way I look at it,” he says, chewing as he speaks, “is we were forced into this. So whatever has to be done about our children is the damned Pelks’ problem, not ours.”
I nod and Derek takes another bite from his meat. My stomach growls and I eat some of mine too. Closing my eyes at the sweetness of the meat, savoring its firm texture after the soft meat of fish and lobster, I think about the boy and the name, Dela, that Lorrel has already chosen for him.
She has already begun to act as if I have no part in any decisions about the child. So why should I care? I can think of no reason why Derek’s words aren’t true. Yet, no matter what, my blood will run in the child’s veins. “I don’t know,” I say, as much to Derek as to myself. “The child hasn’t done anything to me.”
25
 
After I finish enough to fill my stomach, I ask Derek for instructions on how to find Lorrel. He grins at the half chunk of meat still left in my hand and says, “Bringing your woman a meal?”
“I need to talk to her. Being nice won’t hurt anything.”
He shrugs and gives me directions, pointing me on the way. I leave him at the lagoon and climb into the mangroves by myself. The directions seem simple enough, just a matter of following the path of smoothed roots and branches until I come to a new, small clearing, where I’m to cross the ground and find the trail on the other side.
But as I circle the clearing, to make sure I don’t mistake any natural markings for the shiny, worn signs of a trail, I find two trees to choose from. I go back and forth from one to another, examining their roots and branches and, in the end, I take the right one just to see if it leads me anywhere.
Almost as soon as I’ve traveled long enough for the clearing to be out of sight, the path begins to fade. Peering at the roots below me, I slow and take only a few more steps before I stop. “At least I know what tree I should have taken,” I mutter and turn.
Something rustles the branches to my right. I stare through the leaves and see the rust-red body of some sort of creature moving past me. Placing the chunk of iguana meat on the Y of a branch near me, I grab the branches to my right, yank them apart and see the animal.
I gasp and it freezes, its green eyes wide, its mouth open as if it’s shrieking, though it makes no sound.
“Away go!”
it mindspeaks, and I almost fall from the branches.
The beast’s scaled body, similar to my natural form, except much thinner and reddish colored, can’t measure more than a yard. Its skinny tail, curled at its end and within my reach, looks to be about as long.
Its mouth still open, sharp white fangs showing, it begins to move away.
“Wait,”
I mindspeak, reaching out with one hand and seizing the curled tip of its tail.
“Please.”
The creature hisses and freezes again, its tail twitching in my hand, trying to pull free.
“Undrae, hold not me!”
it mindspeaks.
“Will you stay?”
“Hold not and again ask.”
I open my hand and the creature yanks its tail out of reach and backs up a few more feet.
“Now stay I,”
it mindspeaks.
“Not many time.
“What—who—are you?”
I mindspeak, staring at it.
The animal spreads its wings as best it can within the confines of the branches. Far more delicate than mine, they appear almost translucent, glowing deep pink where the sunlight strikes them.
“Teacher not had you? Guess not castryll mine?”
From its size alone, it can only be a member of one castryll.
“I assume you’re a Thryll. But what makes you so sure I’m Undrae?”
“Much hear and see we Thryll, I Clieee. Too big for Pelk and too small for Zal be you.”
The Thryll stares at the chunk of iguana meat on the bough next to me.
“Not fish that be. Fish Pelk eat. Undrae be you.”
I pause before I answer. Because of the way it speaks, I have to concentrate on each word and rearrange them in my mind.
“Do the Pelk know you’re here?”
I mindspeak.
The creature spits toward the ground and hisses again.
“Fish eaters. Nothing here know them of Thryll or Clieee. Kill us if they do. Now go I.”
“Wait, Clieee,”
I mindspeak, but the Thryll begins to wend his way through the branches. I look at the iguana meat and shrug. Lorrel has no reason to expect me to bring it to her. Picking the meat up, I hold it out to the creature. “Are you hungry?”
He stops and turns, eyeing the meat.
“It’s fresh. It was killed within the hour,”
I mindspeak.
Returning, Clieee takes the chunk from me with both hands and smells it. “Iguana,” he mindspeaks.
“Like it I.”
He bites into it and tears off a piece.
I wait for him to gulp it down before I mindspeak,
“You live here too, right?”
“Why tell you I? Tell you not them?”
Shaking my head, I mindspeak.
“Why would I put you at risk? The Pelk are no more my friends than they are yours. One of their females poisoned me. They use that to hold me prisoner, giving me a temporary antidote every few days. Without it I will die in agony. I am in need of allies. I must find a way to go home.”
Clieee considers my words, tearing off another piece of meat, gulping it down before he mindspeaks,
“Need not allies we. Here live Thryll since before Great War. Live us places many, trees many. No need to shapechange us like Undrae or Pelk or Zal. Have us trees many, have us wings.”
“But do you know much about the Pelk? Anything about their potions and their antidotes? If you do I can bring you much more meat.”
“For my whole flight enough?”
The creature busies himself gulping down the last of the iguana meat before he continues.
“Not many years have I. Rear fly I. Point flies Zalman. Question can I him.”
I sigh.
“But I have no idea when or where we can meet again.”
“Not worry you. Find you I. Meat bring you.”
“I’ll bring it back to you after I get home. I can’t promise more than that.”
“Decide will Zalman. But meat only, fish no.”
Smiling, I nod and mindspeak,
“Fish no.”
“Zalman’s words bring you I,”
Clieee mindspeaks and slips away into the mangroves.
 
It takes me only minutes to return to the clearing and set forth on the correct path, and only minutes more to reach the clearing where Lorrel gardens in the company of a white-haired, much wrinkled Pelk female. Weeding with her hands around the base of a Dragon’s Tear plant, Lorrel looks up as I walk out of the mangroves and mindspeaks,
“Hi.”
She stands and motions for me to come to her. Dressed in a small pink polka-dot sundress that fits her petite frame almost perfectly, she twirls around modeling it.
“It looks good, does it not?”
She mindspeaks,
“Malka picked it out for me.”
She tilts her head toward the older woman, who, clad in a baggy T-shirt and too-tight electric blue shorts, is busy picking seeds and berries from the nearby mangroves and putting each in separate bowls.
I nod toward Malka and smile, but she scowls at me in return, her wrinkles compacting as she does so, making her skin look like a series of white furrows.
“Never mind her. She is just jealous she has no one to love her in her nest,”
Lorrel says, putting her arms around me, trying to press her body against mine.
Pulling away, I mindspeak,
“We have to talk.”
She turns her back on me, goes back to the Dragon’s Tear bush and begins to yank weeds out as quickly and violently as she can.
“Is that all you Undrae do? Talk and talk and talk? All I want are strong arms around me and something equally strong thrust between my legs. If you want to have a conversation, go find Derek. His wives tell me he never stops talking—even when they have sex! You are my lover. Act like it!”
Malka grins at Lorrel’s outburst. Clenching my fists, I glare at her and then turn my attention back to Lorrel. I want to lash out at both of them but see little possible gain. Even if I killed them both I would still be a prisoner of Pelk poison. Taking long breaths, I concentrate on reducing the adrenaline coursing through my blood.
When my heartbeat returns to normal, I mindspeak,
“I am not your lover. What we had last night was a virtual rape—not lovemaking. You have made me your prisoner and your victim. You hold out your temporary antidote in the hope I will be your willing slave. I will never be willing.”
“Yes, you will, Undrae,”
Malka says.
“You have already felt our power. What makes you think you can resist it again?”
Whirling in her direction, I shapeshift my right hand and point one sharp talon at her.
“Old woman, is this your way of telling me you’re tired of living?”
“You must not speak to her like that. Malka leads our lisrrynn,”
Lorrel mindspeaks, standing up, moving between me and the elder Pelk.
“She is our maker of potions, our mother of mothers. The antidote you take comes from her hands. She has yet to pass that knowledge to any of us in this srrynn.”
“Silence, child!”
The old woman walks over to me, takes my right claw and places my talon against her throat.
“I have lived as long as I have only because I swore I wouldn’t die until our srrynn returned to Atalan. Mowdar asked me to train this one before I choose my last sleep. I promised him I would. I am tired and would welcome your releasing me from that promise.”
She grins.
“Slice my neck, please. The knowledge that you would soon die in great pain from my poison would give me one last pleasure before I passed.”
Shifting my claw back into its human form, I sigh, turn my back on both females and walk toward the mangrove path. Lorrel catches up to me as I put my foot on the first root.
“Wait, Peter,”
she mindspeaks.
“Go where you want to now, but please return to our nest tonight.”

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