DragonSpell (6 page)

         
9
         

N
EITHER
H
ERE NOR
T
HERE

Kale puzzled over the fine cape Granny Noon had given her. Draped around her shoulders, it fell to the floor and swayed gently as she moved. Something odd happened to the color every time she glimpsed it out of the corner of her eye.

I’m not used to such elegant clothing, that’s all.

That could be the explanation, but still something about the cape made her vision kind of muzzy.

She stood in the center of the snug sitting room, marveling at the feel of her new clothes. Everything—her undergarments, stockings, boots, skirt, blouse, and cape—smelled new. Soft colors of brown, beige, and white enveloped her small frame from shoulders to toes. Kale couldn’t help the grin on her face. She liked looking clean and neat. She’d be warm, and she’d look respectable. But the cape…

Inside the lining, Granny Noon had sewn pockets in two rows down each side of the opening. From her waist to the hem, eight pockets, four on each side, held one dragon egg each. Two deeper pockets hung in the side seams at her hips. Granny Noon called them
hollows
and had Kale stuff them with objects she said were essential for a quest. With all the things they’d slipped into those pockets, the cape should have bulges. It didn’t.

I may not know much, but I know pockets should look full when they’re full.

Granny Noon had explained each item, but the familiar objects had bizarre purposes. Before Granny tucked the last feather into the right side pocket, Kale knew her mind was muddled with bits and pieces of information she didn’t understand. She tried to sort out Granny Noon’s instructions as the others busied themselves with their own preparations.

Dar stood beside an ironing board, pressing out wrinkles in clothes he had washed and dried. Leetu studied the bookshelves, looking for a book to borrow. Granny Noon bustled from cabinets to the table, packing provisions for their journey.

Kale patted the smooth surface of the cape where a “hollow” pocket lay underneath.
The beans will grow breakfast. The dried yellow leaves cure headache. The dried pink leaves cure stomach pain. The twigs tell which way to water. The white feather is a peace token. The black feather signals trouble. The gray feather means “follow me.” What is the little shell for?

Kale stared at the fire trying to remember.
Oh yes, to summon a crow. But I don’t remember why I would want to summon a crow.

She slowly turned her head, watching the others in the room and wondering how she could ask Granny Noon without alerting Dar and Leetu Bends to her inability to remember simple instructions. She could try to speak to Granny Noon’s mind. How could she block Leetu’s hearing and reach Granny?

Her eyes caught her reflection in the mirror, and she snapped to attention. For just an instant, she had seen only her head…

The cape! There
was
something odd about the cape. The light gray fabric shimmered in the light—rippled, really—catching the colors of other things as if the material reflected images like the old mirror on the wall.

Dar broke the comfortable silence of the room. “Granny Noon spun the cloth from moonbeams.”

“Moonbeams!” Kale cried out. “Cloth made from light?” She stroked the smooth, warm fabric, tilting her head to examine it even more closely.

“Dar, you’re incorrigible,” said Granny Noon. She cast a frown in his direction and then looked over her basket at Kale. “It’s a type of bush with round white flowers. Thus the name, moonbeam plant.”

“Why does it look so strange?” She moved her arms to hold the cape away from her body. Squinting, she tried to see what she had seen just a moment before. She sighed, shaking her head in bewilderment. “And then it looks normal.”

“When you move, the material looks like any other cloth,” explained Granny Noon as she went back to wrapping small bundles with gauzy white cloth. “But when you stand still, you blend into your surroundings.”

“I’m invisible?”

“No, not invisible. More like a chameleon, well hidden. And you would need to put up the hood to keep your head and face out of sight.”

Kale reached over her shoulder and pulled up the soft material that lay like a rumpled collar around her neck. The hood surprised her by dropping over her face as well as her head. She peered through the loosely woven fabric.

“That’s it,” said Dar. “Now tuck your hands under and keep still.” Kale heard him clap his hands together. “That’s it! You’re gone.”

“Really?” The folds around her face muffled her voice. Her warm breath came back to tickle her cheeks.

“No,” said Leetu. “Dar, you’re going to give her too much confidence in that cape, and then she’ll get into trouble.” Leetu carried three books in her hands as she crossed the room to stand in front of Kale. “The cape is more effective in shadows or at night. In the blazing sun, your outline will be clearly visible. Never risk your life, thinking the cape will save you. It’s one of the first rules of service to Paladin. Trust in what is real, not illusion.”

“Finally!” Granny Noon came over to hug Leetu. “I was beginning to think we were mistaken to send you as mentor to this o’rant child.”

Leetu’s face clouded over as she shrugged out of Granny Noon’s embrace. The young emerlindian handed the three books to Kale. “Here, stick these in your cape hollow.”

“My pockets are full,” said Kale, looking at the titles:
The Care and Feeding of Minor Dragons; Training for Performance—An Overall Guide to Dragonkeeping;
and
Pitfalls of Magic.

“Your hollow isn’t. They’ll fit,” said Leetu. She crossed the room with a few graceful steps. Even when irritated, she moved like a leaf floating on a gentle breeze.

“Don’t mind her.” Dar approached, speaking too softly for Leetu to hear. He handed Kale her own blue scarf, laundered and ironed. “She’s miffed because Lee Ark sent her with us instead of taking her to defend the southern border from an invasion of quiss.”

“Quiss? Sea creatures?”

“Nothing but rumors,” said Dar. “The quiss migration isn’t due for another year. Leetu will likely see more adventure with us than patrolling a remote seashore.”

Kale looked at her scarf folded in a neat square. Why had Dar done this kindness for her? He was not a slave or a servant. Why?

Grawligs and gateways, mindspeakers and grannies, Pretender and quiss. All of this is more than I bargained for when I left River Away. Is anything normal out here?

She felt the smooth cloth Mistress Meiger had given her. The beautiful blue scarf had been in a sad state last time she saw it. She looked at the doneel’s friendly face. He stood next to her, eyeing her expectantly.

“You washed my scarf?” she asked, still not quite believing that someone would do this menial task for her.

Dar looked away, apparently embarrassed.

“Thank you,” said Kale.

He nodded with a smile quirking the corner of his mouth, gave a courtly bow, and then returned to his ironing.

Granny Noon put her hand on Kale’s shoulder.

“To a doneel, clothing is symbolic. He saw me throwing away your old clothes and salvaged the scarf. It would be important to him to carry or wear something from his home.”

Kale looked from Leetu’s rigid back to Dar’s small figure. The emerlindian again examined the bookshelves as the doneel meticulously pressed a crease in a pair of trousers. Leetu might be worthy of wearing the colors of The Hall and heading their expedition, but Kale was very glad Dar would be along.

         
10
         

T
HROUGH THE
G
ATEWAY

Kale’s foot hit a loose rock in the shadowy tunnel as she followed the others into the depths of the mountain. The stone rattled and clattered as it bounced against the rough surface of the path ahead. It bumped off Dar’s polished boot and rolled to the side.

Dar’s back kept a steady distance ahead of her. His yellow jacket glowed green in the pale blue light. She only rarely caught a glimpse of Leetu farther ahead. And she hadn’t seen Granny Noon in quite a long time. The elder emerlindian headed the small procession.

Kale’s skirt felt cumbersome. She had never worn anything but short trousers that hit just below her knee. Granny Noon had given her a long skirt and soft leather boots that came up her calves. Her legs tangled in all these trappings. She constantly tripped. And it seemed she was always clumsiest when Leetu watched.

Then there was the cape. Kale liked the way the material flowed around her. But she constantly felt the need to gather it close, keeping it away from the dirt and rock walls in the narrower passages. Never before had she been concerned about her clothing getting soiled.

She didn’t like wearing the new clothes in these awful underground passages. She didn’t like the clammy dirt, the musty smell, and the shadows. She didn’t like not being able to see all the time, and she didn’t like not knowing where they were going.

To the gateway. But where is this gateway, and how long will it take us to get there? I don’t like being so deep in the mountain at all.

The bright burrow leading down to Granny Noon’s rooms had been clean and comfortable. Someone had placed large, glistening lightrocks on convenient, man-made shelves. But in these tunnels, light shimmered in uneven intervals along the walls. Embedded lightrocks glimmered in a natural scattering. Some parts of the passage shone brightly where the rocks clustered. Sometimes the travelers walked in deep shadows with only small, faint lightrocks marking the way.

At first the tunnel had been cool and fresh. Now the hot, moist air stung Kale’s nose and left a metallic taste in her mouth. She thought they might end up clear on the other side of the world if they kept going, down and down, always marching down, deeper into the mountain.

Dar entered a darker section of the passage, and Kale walked a little faster. She didn’t want to be left behind. Something smacked against her ankle. She whirled around. Snarling teeth flashed close to the ground. She jumped back. A dark animal, no bigger than a rat, skittered into the shadows. She pivoted on one foot and ran after Dar.

“What is it?” he asked as she came up behind him.

“An animal.” She panted, not from the short run, but from fear.

“Dark, quick, ugly teeth.”

“A druddum.” Dar kept walking, no faster than before. “They won’t hurt you as long as you’re with someone.”

She pushed her nervousness aside and concentrated on Dar’s thoughts. She didn’t pick up any words, but she got the impression of the doneel chortling.

He’s teasing me again.

“Tell me the truth,” she insisted.

Dar gave her a quick look of mischief over his shoulder. His shaggy eyebrows waggled, his ears perked up and twitched, and his mouth opened in his extra-wide grin. Then he shrugged and turned back down the tunnel, walking steadily on.

“They don’t hurt anybody,” he said over his shoulder. “However, they do steal things. Food, naturally. But they also take things just to look at them or feel them. They have hoards, and they
will
bite if you try to take something from their cache.”

Dar adjusted the pack he had been carrying across his chest so that it hung over his shoulder. Another druddum barreled around a turn in the tunnel. Both the small animal and Kale let out a high-pitched squeal. The druddum flipped in the air and took off in the direction it had come from. Dar laughed.

“I once came upon a druddum’s nest,” he said. “I stopped short before it saw me and watched awhile. It had a piece of smooth cloth and turned that scrap over and over in its paws, stroking it like a pet. Its eyes were half closed, and it hummed one note almost the way a cat would purr. That druddum sat on a mirror, and lots of shiny things poked higgledy-piggledy out of the dried grass of his bed.”

Kale didn’t care what a druddum’s nest looked like. “They won’t attack?”

“No.” Dar stepped over a large rock in the path, and Kale followed.

“They run through these tunnels at great speed and sometimes run smack into walls. That druddum probably scared itself spitless by running into you.”

Reassured by Dar’s words, Kale nonetheless stayed close behind him.

“How far until we reach the gateway?” she asked.

“I’ve never been to this gateway, so I don’t know.”

“Dar, do you read my mind?”

“Nah, I don’t have the talent.”

“Not at all?”

“Not even a whisper.”

Kale concentrated, staring at the back of Dar’s head. Again she heard no thoughts but felt his general excitement and knew he was eager to go through the gateway and begin the quest for the meech egg.

“Dar, can you block me from reading your mind?”

“No, but doneels are harder to read than mariones.” He looked back and flashed her another wide grin. “It’s the thick heads.” With a wink, he turned back to follow the others. “After you’ve been in training for a time, you’ll be reading my mind and telling me what to do, just like Leetu Bends.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Kale couldn’t imagine ordering anyone about, and certainly not with the audacity of the young emerlindian.

Dar quickened his pace. Kale scurried to keep up. It amazed her how quickly the doneel moved on his short legs. He never stumbled either. All her muscles were tired. She wanted to crawl back into the comfy bed at Granny Noon’s.

It was exciting to get up before dawn and have Granny Noon talk to me and just me. But now I wish I’d slept more. And my muscles are sore again. I’ve done more climbing, running, falling, hiking…more everything!…than I ever did in River Away. I thought I worked hard as a village slave, but at least I got to sit and peel vegetables once a day. I even got to sit when I milked cows. Don’t these people ever sit down and rest?

Her hand went to the pouch that again lay under her blouse. Fumbling with the cord, she pulled it out to hold as she walked. Just before they left Granny Noon’s, Kale had slipped her special egg, the first one she’d found, back into the pouch Mistress Meiger had given her. The egg belonged there, not in any pocket. Its presence comforted her, hanging around her neck, sometimes bouncing against her chest. In the pocket of the cape she couldn’t feel it, and sometimes she wanted to feel it.

Like now.

She clasped the egg in the pouch and felt strength returning to her legs and energy pumping through her body. She soon felt she could follow for another day if she had to.

Granny Noon had explained how the magic of the egg worked to heal her. Kale thought over the words carefully. Granny Noon talked a lot about Wulder, and she always talked in a tone of voice that gave Kale the shivers. A nice kind of shivers.

The old emerlindian spoke of a great mystery, one revered for ages and ages by people Kale had never heard of. She knew the things Granny Noon said were true, but they didn’t seem to have anything to do with a slave girl turned servant. She thought the words Granny Noon used must have come out of distant places and wondrous times.

When the storytellers and minstrels tell of legends in the tavern on a Saturday night, they use words like “long ago and far away.” But Granny Noon talks as if that “long ago and far away” is here and now.

Kale clutched the rock-hard egg in its pouch and felt the dragon within respond with a steady thrum. She kept her hand there and tightened her grip with a jerk every time they encountered one of the hasty druddums. She did manage to keep from squealing as the lightning-quick hairy bundles barreled around the corners. But when they careened off her legs or came in groups of a dozen or more, she plastered herself against the wall and called out to Dar.

“Come on,” he urged. “If we stop for you to recover every time we meet something unpleasant, we might as well give up the quest now.”

Kale bit back a response.
Well, Master Dar, I didn’t really ask to be included in this quest. I had a destiny, and that destiny was to go to The Hall, not follow some fancy-dressed doneel through endless tunnels with nasty rat-things running crazy—

“We’re here,” Granny Noon’s soothing voice announced from just in front of Dar. The dark emerlindian, small and fragile, looked as much at home in the eerie light of the tunnel as she had beside her own hearth many miles behind them. Leetu stood to one side of the passage under an outcropping of lightrock. Her face and hair reflected the blue luminescence. Kale looked past her companions for a door, a gate, an opening, but saw none.

“You will now pass out of my authority,” said Granny Noon, “into realms that hold danger, not only for you, but for all of the seven high races. I am not to walk with you, but I do follow you with my hope. You will be strong. You will be courageous. Each of you will give of yourself for the good of the others. Do not let fear enslave you. Do not let frenzy bind you. Seek truth. Seek honor. Obey your call to serve Paladin.”

The air beside Granny Noon quivered. Ripples of iridescent colors radiated from the stone floor to the arched ceiling.

Granny Noon embraced Leetu Bends, patted her on the back, and kissed her cheek. The young emerlindian returned the affectionate gesture and then silently slipped into the shimmering air. The lights held her for a second, and then she was gone.

Dar stepped up and bowed with his usual grace and flourish. Granny Noon chuckled, leaned over and hugged the doneel, pressing her brown cheek to his furry side whiskers where the drooping eyebrows mingled with his long mustache.

Kale watched Dar leave Granny Noon’s side and walk into the gateway. Again, the radiance sparkled and held his figure for a moment before he moved to beyond where Kale could see. Kale stared as if she would suddenly be allowed a glimpse of the other side.

“Well, young o’rant girl,” said Granny Noon, “are you frightened?”

“Yes, very.”

“Excited?”

“That, too.”

“You will do well, Kale Allerion.”

Kale’s eyes snapped from watching the shimmering gateway to the face of Granny. “Allerion? I’ve never had any name but Kale.”

“Now you do.” Granny Noon came close, embraced Kale as she had Leetu, and gave her a parting kiss. “Go, child. Your destiny is on the other side of the gateway.”

Kale hung back. “Granny Noon, I’m not worthy.”

“None of us is, dear.”

Kale looked into Granny Noon’s dark, dark eyes. Kindness, strength, and courage shone in their depths. Kale nodded with a jerk and turned to the gateway.

Mesmerized by the constant ebb and flow of prismatic colors, she felt Granny Noon’s presence behind her. Granny Noon rested her small, strong hands on the o’rant girl’s slender shoulders. She felt reassured by her gentle squeeze.

“Trust Wulder,” said the old woman’s mellow voice in her ear. “Follow Paladin’s lead. That’s best. You’ll be fine.” The pressure of Granny Noon’s fingers on her shoulders eased up. “Take a deep breath now, and go. Sometimes the passage kind of pinches your lungs.”

Kale inhaled deeply, lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and stepped forward.