Dragon ghosts, p.2
Dragon Ghosts, page 2
“You came for me!” Thisbe exclaimed.
“You found me!” said Sky. They danced in front of the fire together, and then Sky pulled back to look at the girl. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“I should ask you the same question!” said Thisbe. She looked around. “Where’s everybody else?” There were a few makeshift supplies, nothing more.
“I haven’t seen them yet—did Alex come with you?”
Thisbe blinked, and her grin fell away. “What? Is he here?”
“I assume you’d know better than me,” said Sky with an unsettled laugh. Something clearly was being misunderstood here, but she couldn’t figure out what. She thought back to when she’d last seen Simber, Carina, and Thatcher at the Island of Fire, on their way to get Fifer, Thisbe, and Seth, who’d run off to help the dragons. But that was a long time ago, before she’d been sucked into the volcanic island. Surely Thisbe had been rescued by now. “Wait a minute—have you been in the land of the dragons this whole time? Since Simber and the others went chasing after you?”
Thisbe gave a confused look. “Of course. Where else would I be? I just escaped the catacombs this morning. I haven’t seen anyone from home since before the Revinir captured me.” She paused, still not quite understanding. “Is Fifer okay? Did she survive? Who else came with you?”
Sky’s face wrinkled up. “I’m extremely confused.”
“So am I,” said Thisbe. “Didn’t you come here to rescue me?”
“Me? To rescue you? No. I figured Simber and Thatcher and Carina would have found you by now. They’d stopped to tell me they were going after you. . . . It was weeks and weeks ago, before the Island of Fire swallowed me up.”
“Before . . .” Thisbe stared at Sky, the love of her brother Alex’s life. She tried to understand the strange conversation, but she had no idea what Sky was talking about. “The Island of Fire . . . swallowed you up?”
“Yes,” said Sky. “I arrived here all alone. I—I didn’t know you’d been captured.” She paused, looking consternated, then continued. “I wasn’t even sure where I was, or the name of this land, until the other day when I ventured into the marketplace and listened to some of the townspeople who were speaking our language. I’d assumed you and Fifer had been rescued weeks ago. And that you and Alex and the others had figured out the volcano connection . . . and came looking for me.”
“The volcano connection?” Thisbe asked, even more puzzled. “What are you talking about? You mean the one in the crater lake over there?” She pointed to the center of the lake.
“Yes, exactly!”
“I still don’t get it.”
Sky’s expression became strained. Smelling food burning, she looked at the fire to check her fish and saw that it was beginning to char. Quickly she removed it from the spit and set it aside. “It’s a long story. Do you want to eat something first?” Suddenly Sky remembered how Thisbe had nearly stolen her fish. “And what was that lie about getting food for your sick mother? Your mother died when you were a baby!”
Thisbe’s lips parted; then heat flooded her face. The lie had come so naturally. The Revinir must be right about her being more evil than good, no matter what Rohan had told her. “I’ve been through some tough times,” Thisbe said in a soft voice. She grimaced as the memories of the Revinir forcing her to drink the broths flashed through her mind. The horror she’d felt as dragon scales erupted from her arms and legs after the dragon-bone broth. And the shock of the strange images that had blinded her after the ancestor broth. Absently Thisbe pulled her sleeves down over the scales—she didn’t feel like explaining those quite yet.
The small movement made her groan in pain. Her limbs were weak, her muscles sore from escaping the catacombs. Her stomach ached with hunger. But she remembered Rohan back in their camp area and knew he’d be worried if she stayed away too long. “I have a friend who escaped with me. He’s hiding over there in the brush. May I . . . invite him to eat something too?”
“Of course,” said Sky, eyeing the girl with concern. “I was only teasing about your little fib. You can move your things into my cave. There’s room for three, and the fire keeps the bugs away.”
“Thanks.” Thisbe didn’t bother to explain that they didn’t really have any “things” other than their bone harnesses and the clothes on their backs. She squeezed Sky’s arm. “It’s amazing to see you. You have no idea.”
“And you,” Sky said, heartfelt.
Thisbe ran off to get Rohan while Sky wiped the dust off two large pieces of bark, which she’d collected and used as plates over the past weeks. When she heard the two coming toward the cave, she broke into the fish with a stick and portioned it out onto the bark.
Thisbe introduced the two. “Rohan is from here in Grimere,” she explained. “He was one of the black-eyed slaves with me inside the catacombs.”
“I’m so sorry you were imprisoned,” Sky said. “I’m glad you escaped.”
“Thank you,” said Rohan, bowing his head slightly. “I’m happy to meet you. And to learn more about how you got here.” Thisbe had given Rohan a hurried explanation of who Sky was as they ran to the cave, but he was not quite sure he understood what she was doing here, if not to rescue Thisbe.
“I think we’re all a little confused,” said Sky. She handed Rohan and Thisbe plates of steaming fish.
As they ate, Thisbe explained that Simber had indeed arrived and had tried rescuing her and Fifer, but he’d hit the invisible glass and hurt Fifer. He’d managed to collect her, but before he could come back for Thisbe, the Revinir’s soldiers had snatched her up. She’d been forced to work underground in the catacombs for the long-fingernailed woman all this time. “I thought Simber would come back for me,” Thisbe said quietly. “Even once I heard that they’d left the land of the dragons and headed home to get Fifer to safety, I expected him to come back. But no one ever did.” She paused as tears sprang to her eyes. “That’s why I thought you were part of some sort of rescue team.” She stared blearily into the fire for a moment, then set her bark plate down. “I thought you’d finally come for me. But that’s not it at all, is it?”
“No. I’m sorry.” Sky watched Thisbe, her compassion evident. “But at least we’re together now,” she said quietly.
Thisbe pulled her gaze away from the mesmerizing flames. “Yes. At least there’s that. Though it sounds like we’re still stuck here.” She was quiet for a moment. She and Rohan accepted another serving of fish. Then Thisbe glanced at Sky. “What happened to you?”
Sky stoked the fire and sat down with a sigh. “About a week or so after Simber, Carina, and Thatcher stopped by, I was out working on the Island of Fire. Just minding my own business as usual, trying to figure out how and why the volcano rises and plunges the way it does.” Like Thisbe had done, she stared into the fire as she spoke, her eyes reliving the experience. “With almost no warning, the island began to go down. I dove for the white boat but couldn’t get it started in time. Scarlet was in the skiff a safe distance away—too far to help. The island sank, and the boat and I were sucked with the sea into the mouth of the volcano.”
Thisbe and Rohan stared. “Then what happened?” Thisbe asked. “How did you not drown?”
“The water poured on top of me like a huge, heavy weight,” said Sky. “I got separated from the boat. I thought I was going to die. I held my breath as long as I could, but when I finally had to gasp for air, I discovered I could breathe. Only shallowly, and it was very uncomfortable, but there was some sort of protection . . . a bubble or something around me. It was too difficult to move my chest because of the intense pressure. I felt like I was moving at an extremely high speed, but I didn’t have any way to gauge that. Everything went black for a moment. Then I could see a circle of light in front of me. It was like a pinprick at first, but it grew larger the closer I got. So I sort of . . . aimed for it, I guess, by pointing my head toward the light. Seconds later I was shooting up through the circle and exploding out of that volcano right over there inside a giant ball of water.”
“Are you serious?” Thisbe exclaimed, while Rohan remained dumbstruck. “Did the boat come out too?”
“No—that’s one confusing part I still don’t understand. The boat didn’t come out with me. It . . . it kept going. I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”
“How can that be? Where did it go?”
“I don’t know,” Sky said again. “But I’ve had a lot of time to think about this out here all alone. And I wonder . . . ,” said Sky, her voice measured, “I wonder if there might be other volcano islands out there, connected to this . . . network. Or whatever. So maybe the white boat ended up going through one of them into some other world.”
“Some other world?” Thisbe asked, incredulous. “How many worlds do you think there are?”
Sky shrugged. “No idea. It’s just a guess. But clearly there’s a system that none of us knew about, though if we’d just thought a little more, we might have come up with it.”
“How?” asked Thisbe.
“Do you remember that pirates from our world used to travel somewhere to sell the sea creatures they’d captured? That’s why Pan wanted to send her young dragons away in the first place, because they were in grave danger. But we didn’t know where she’d sent them, or how they’d gotten there. It’s all starting to make sense.”
Thisbe was silent, trying to understand.
“Pardon me,” said Rohan, a puzzled look on his face. “You mentioned that you flew out of the mouth of the volcano when it surfaced. Were you thrown clear of the volcano itself?”
“Yes, luckily.”
“You must have hit the water with tremendous force. How did you survive?”
“Well,” said Sky with a shaky laugh, “that’s another mystery. I managed a deep breath before hitting the surface of the lake, so I wasn’t worried about drowning, but I landed so hard I knocked myself out.”
“How did you swim to shore?” Thisbe asked.
Sky gave the two a solemn look. “I didn’t. I think . . . something . . . helped me.”
“Some . . . thing?” asked Thisbe. “Like what?”
“When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the shore, and there were large footprints in the wet sand next to me. They weren’t human. They were webbed.”
“Webbed?” said Thisbe. “Like a duck?”
“No-o-o,” said Sky slowly. “Much bigger.” She hesitated, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “They reminded me of the footprints that our own dear Issie the sea monster makes when she comes to Artimé for a visit.”
A Familiar Face
Fifer Stowe and the others on the rescue team had failed to find Fifer’s twin, Thisbe. Now they were in a strange forest far away from home, injured, exhausted, and digging a grave so they could bury Alex Stowe, their head mage. Their brother. Their friend. The evil Revinir, once known as Queen Eagala of Warbler, had surprised them in the catacombs and struck him down with a lethal spear of dragon fire through his heart.
While Talon, the bronze giant, took over the grave digging, Lani Haluki and her husband, Samheed Burkesh, clung to each other looking shell-shocked. Alex had been one of their dearest friends for more than half their lives, ever since they were first declared Unwanted and purged from Quill. They’d been through so much together. They’d fought together, found love together; they’d even lost their faithful friend Meghan Ranger together.
The remaining three had forged stronger bonds in adulthood. There were few people who’d understood Alex better than Lani and Samheed. There were few people Alex had trusted more than them. The friends were in the prime of their lives! They had so much ahead of them! But in one horrible instant, Alex was gone. It felt like a nightmare.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Lani whispered. Samheed squeezed her hand like he was holding on for dear life. He couldn’t speak. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
A step away from Lani, Fifer was numb and silent. Her relationship with her brother Alex had been rocky. But in the past days he’d become so much more than the stern, slightly distant, rule-enforcing figure she’d known all her life. He’d changed himself and in the process had come to see and accept Fifer as a full-fledged mage—and a good one, at that. He’d become her partner in this quest. Her teammate. Her friend. He’d found trust in her, and she in him. And their relationship had just begun to bloom. They’d worked well together—imagine that!—and had talked about the future. Fifer had grown to love him more than she could have expressed. And she’d wanted to start making up for all the years they’d butted heads.
But now he was dead, and Fifer didn’t know what to do. There was a fresh new hole in her heart, right next to the one for Thisbe. Fifer wasn’t sure if her heart had room for any more. She wasn’t used to this—wasn’t used to losing anyone. The jolt of these losses hit like a hurricane. Her life had been completely upended over the course of months, and she’d been thrust into a nightmare . . . arguably one of her own making. A wave of guilt washed over her. She closed her eyes for a moment to try to withstand it.
And the chances of rescuing Thisbe had just plummeted. She was still being held captive somewhere in the catacombs. But the rescue group’s magical components were useless. Alex’s death had broken Artimé’s magical system. Without it, they were too vulnerable to go after Thisbe again. So they were stranded here until someone in Artimé restored things. Even then, what would they do without Alex? It was a helpless spot to be in. Fifer edged closer to Lani for comfort, and the woman reached out and gave Fifer’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.
Fifer’s gaze turned to Simber, who’d become a frozen statue when the magic disappeared. Letting Simber know what had happened . . . It would be impossible. Fifer glanced at Lani and said quietly. “Will you tell Simber when he wakes up?”
Lani nodded. “Of course,” she whispered. “Don’t worry about that anymore.” She kept her arm around Fifer. They watched Talon continue to dig.
The legendary winged bronze giant from Karkinos, the Island of Legends, was unaffected by the Artiméan magical outage. He raked his hands deeper and deeper into the forest floor, pulling roots and rocks and dirt out of the way. Digging a grave for a hero in a land that wasn’t theirs.
As Talon was finishing, trumpets sounded in the far-off distance. The Artiméans paid little attention. When the grave was ready, they removed Alex’s robe. Crow folded it carefully. Then Samheed, Carina, Seth, Thatcher, and Kaylee lowered Alex’s body into the grave, laying their head mage to rest forever. Those who wanted to speak about what he’d meant to them did so tearfully, quietly. Others stood by, unable to find the words, staring silently through wet eyes.
When it was over, they each put a fist to their chests and tapped, saying, “I am with you.” It was a symbol of unity that Alex had created in a dark moment many years before. A symbol the Artiméans intended to continue using in Alex’s honor. No matter where his body was buried, the people of Artimé would hold Alex in their hearts, just as he had held them all in his.
Fifer stood back as the rest of them pushed the dirt into the hole, on top of her brother. Slowly they dispersed, but Fifer remained, watching the fresh mound of brown dirt turn gray in the heat.
Seth stood with her. After a moment he put his hand on her shoulder, but he stayed quiet too. He was trying to remember every second of the funeral perfectly. Someone would have to recount it to Thisbe someday, and Seth wanted it to be right. It was the only thing he could think of to do for his friends in this terrible time.
At the campfire a short distance away, Crow, still holding Alex’s robe, looked at the others. “Does anyone remember the spell to bring the world back? Perhaps it can be done from here.”
“I know the spell,” said Lani, sniffling and wiping away tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. “But I don’t think it’ll work, because part of it requires standing on the back step of the gray shack. But I’ll try it. I’ll try anything.”
Crow brought the robe to her because Lani’s wheels weren’t working well at all on this terrain. Now that the magic had been stripped from the contraption she’d been using ever since her lower body had become paralyzed in the final battle of the seven islands, she struggled to move. She slipped the robe over her shoulders and fastened it. It smelled burned, but it also smelled like Alex. She breathed deeply, trying to absorb any possible lingering greatness from the mage, knowing there would be no more opportunities to get it firsthand. No more talks, no more philosophical arguments, no more laughter or playing tricks on each other. The harshness of that realization was more than Lani could take right now. First Meghan, now Alex. She and Samheed were the only ones left of the original foursome. At barely twenty-eight years of age, it wasn’t right or fair. Her heart ached for Alex and Sky and their future lives that would never be. The universe was altered. All hope seemed to drip away from her limbs and soak into this miserable place, and there was nothing Lani could do to collect it.
She opened her eyes. “I’ll try over there,” she said quietly, pointing to an open area. Samheed helped her across the rough ground to the space she indicated, then stepped out of the way.
Lani blew out a breath and closed her eyes. She concentrated for a long moment. Then she recited the magic spell that she’d memorized years before, just in case she might ever need it, for that was the kind of person Lani was.
Follow the dots as the traveling sun,
Magnify, focus, every one.
Stand enrobed where you first saw me,
Utter in order, repeat times three.
Then she concentrated even harder and said, “Imagine. Believe. Whisper. Breathe. Commence.” Those five words had been revealed in the “dots” found in artwork in the head mage’s office, which is what the spell referred to. Lani didn’t need to see the art to remember the words. She repeated them three times, pausing in between each word to really think about it and what it meant, and its significance to bringing back the world.
