Shieldwolf Dawning (17 page)

"What have I done?"

Fruit of Sublimation

"If you hadn't given the fruit to Suthum, you could have been back in time to meet Shieldwolf Longmane. He wouldn't have suspected a thing," Whistler said to Samarra on their way back to the tunnel. "Remind me again, why did you give her the fruit of sublimation? Now you
have
to tell someone about this."

Samarra pulled a sour face at him. "I know I have to tell someone. What do you take me for, a knucklehead? I know when to own up to things."

Whistler pressed on. "How could you be so dumb?"

"Are you serious?" Samarra couldn't believe what she was hearing. "If I hadn't given the fruit to Suthum, she would have eaten you. Do you even understand what's going on right now?"

Whistler nodded with the most serious expression on his face. "Absolutely. I'm doing all the work. You're following me because you have no idea where to go, and he's just standing around like a fish-witted pignut."

Brin growled and pounded his tail on the ground in anger.

"What?" Samarra didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

Whistler waved his wing dismissively. "All that matters is that you're in trouble. There are serious consequences for what you just did. Dragons are magic. Suthum now has the main ingredient for escape from her cradle. If she knows the evocation, she'll be gone from here the minute she has collected all the components of the spell. The Elders will be angry when they find out you helped Suthum escape." He laughed derisively. "They'll probably send you to the hotbox for something like that."

"And what do you think will happen to you?" Samarra frowned. "You were there, too."

"Yes, I was, but I didn't engage in trade with a
dragon
of all things. I wasn't the one who opened the door for Suthum's escape. If I get disciplined for any of this, it won't be half as bad as what will happen to you."

"That's not fair!" Samarra stamped her foot on the ground. "We were there because of you. You can't look at what I did on its own like that. I didn't just hand over the fruit because I had nothing better to do. I handed it over because it was the only way to save your tail. Besides—" she raised her voice, "—if you hadn't been yelling out
'kakku-kakku',
or whatever it is you were yelling, Suthum wouldn't have come out at all. You're as guilty as I am."

"Actually," Brin spoke out, "Suthum was coming out to eat. She was carrying a bunch of seaweed. Technically, he might not have woken her up. She might have been awake already. Even so, we'll face the same consequence because we all contributed to the events leading up to the trade."

"Wait a minute." Samarra scowled at Brin. "Whose side are you on?"

Brin said nothing and looked away.

Samarra continued. "We don't even know that Suthum plans to escape. Maybe she's keeping the fruit as a treasure."

"Hah! Why would she save it?" Whistler asked. "If I were in her shoes, I would do a vanishing act, too. Dragons aren't as dumb as their distant cousins." He looked pointedly at Brin.

Samarra put her hands up in defeat. She didn't feel like listening to any more arguing. If she was going to be disciplined, she was going to be disciplined. No amount of worrying would change a thing. She slowed her pace until she was following the two from a good distance. She blocked out their bickering and focused on the footprints they were leaving behind.

Brin's footprints sank deep into the sandy soil, while Whistler's were barely visible. Samarra had noticed Whistler was lighter on his feet despite his stocky frame. Sometimes he moved as though he were floating inches above the ground. Samarra wondered what it would feel like to fly, to soar through the air. Where would she go? What would she do? She could understand why Suthum would want to escape — confinement to a cradle for the rest of her life sounded claustrophobic and depressing.

Samarra also wondered what would happen if she didn't tell the Shieldwolves about the trade. If Suthum escaped, they probably wouldn't find out for another day. The only ones who knew that she had given Suthum the fruit were Brin and Whistler, and she had a feeling they could be convinced to keep quiet. Samarra thought about all of this and more on her way up the path. When she finally reached the magical door that led back into the tunnel, she leaned against the wall and waited for Brin and Whistler to stop goading each other.

"Whatever you say about 'the way this is' or 'the way that is,' I bet someone goes to the hotbox." Whistler glared at Brin. They stood face to face despite the two-foot difference in height between them. "I'm putting one moonstone shell on that." He rustled through his pockets.

"One moonstone shell?" Brin guffawed at the top of his voice. "Can't even trade a tea biscuit from a wood nymph these days with that. If you want to make a bet, make one worth winning. I'm almost willing to bet two moonstone shells on push-ups in difficult conditions. That's a more logical consequence."

Whistler laughed. "You've been watching too much holovision. Your head is empty."

Brin growled.

Whistler backed away. "All right, all right."

"I wonder how our kin have coexisted for this long on the same lands." Brin narrowed his eyes. "Your head is full of feathers."

"Shut your gob." Whistler waved his claws in Brin's face.

"Not again." Samarra marched over to them. "Stop it." She grabbed Whistler's collar in one hand and Brin's sleeve in the other. "Or I'll deck you. First you, Whistler. Then you, Brin. I'm sick of hearing about feathers and scales and all the other stuff you've been arguing about. Can't you agree on something? Anything? At least pretend to like each other until we reach Shieldwolf Proper. Okay?"

Brin nodded. Whistler blushed. Light winds gushed from the east and swished through the forest. Samarra's stomach gurgled in song. Whistler burst out laughing. Samarra blushed and clenched her stomach to stop it from making any more noises, but none of her efforts worked.

"If you don't stop arguing, I'm going to tell them
exactly
what happened," she said with impressive firmness. "First, I'm going to tell them that you were taunting the dragon to come out, knowing what might happen to you. That was silly." Whistler gulped and averted his eyes. His feathers lay flat against his scalp in worry. Samarra focused on Brin next. "As for you, I'm going to tell them that when he passed out, you wanted to leave him behind, knowing that Suthum eats archeop. How honourable is that?"

When Samarra was satisfied that there would be no more trouble, she released her friends, stretched her fingers, and inspected her nails. "I should stop biting my nails. Brin, can you please open the door? It looks like Whistler sealed it on his way out."

Brin leaned down to work the magic door open. Samarra gestured for her companions to enter and retrieved the torches from their rocky hiding place. Brin lit the torches, kept one, and gave Samarra the other.

"Can we be nice to each other for a little longer?" she asked on her way through the tunnel.

Brin and Whistler followed her in silence.

"I have a proposal." Samarra put her free hand in her pocket.

"What?" said her two companions in unison.

"I'll take the blame for today. It's my fault if things go bad with Suthum. It was my choice to give her the fruit."

"No. You can't do that." Brin shook his head adamantly. "We were all responsible for what happened. We should all take the blame."

"Are you kidding me?" Whistler piped up. "This works perfectly for me. She can take the blame if she wants."

"But that's lying." Brin's nostrils flared. "It's wrong to lie. I should have known you would say something like that."

"Pfft. You're acting like a big girl's blouse."

"Go throw yourself at a wall, dumpy." Brin raised his fists.

"Hey!" Samarra wheeled around.

Whistler shooed her away. "The bottom line is that you have to lie sometimes. Do you think the Elders never lie? I bet they lie to us all the time or they
forget
to tell us about certain things. Samarra wouldn't be lying, she would just be not telling the whole truth."

"Is there a difference?" Brin challenged.

Whistler shook his head. "Not to me."

Brin narrowed his eyes in disapproval. "Well there's a big difference to me. It's called honour amongst friends."

Whistler's right," Samarra chimed in. "Sometimes telling the truth can get you into more trouble than telling a little lie. Little white lies," she added. "That's what we called them on Gaia. Those are fluffy — they don't hurt anyone. I'll take the blame. It makes sense."

"Well it doesn't make sense to me. Suthum is not a little white lie." Brin held firm. "I'll take the blame with you. I'm not a chicken." He looked pointedly at Whistler.

"Suit yourselves." Whistler hopped into the main room.

Samarra shook her head in disbelief.

"At last." Whistler burst into shrill song, opened the trapdoor, and climbed out of the bunker. Seconds passed before he poked his head back in. "The courtyard's clear. Oh, and let me know what the hotbox is like."

****

A jumble of thoughts cycled through Samarra's mind, especially thoughts about the consequences she might face when Merganser finished with her. She and Brin had been sitting on a bench outside Merganser's office for over an hour, waiting on pins and needles to see what would happen next. The door had remained tightly shut since Shieldwolf Longmane had marched them over to be punished.

"I bet he's in there plotting the most horrible things." Samarra bit her lip in worry.

Brin sighed glumly and adjusted his glasses.

"I bet you're let off with a warning." Samarra jumped up and paced the room, pausing at the window. Outside in the courtyard, Shieldwolves were coming together to form a battlegroup.

"I don't think so." Brin tapped his tail on the ground repeatedly, obviously nervous about what was to come. "I wonder what will happen to us, I've heard about punishments of two hundred push-ups. I could only ever get to fifty. What if I can't do them all? What will Shieldwolf Longmane do to me?" He rested his leathery head in his hands. "I never thought I'd be sent to see an Elder for something like this. What will my mother say?"

Samarra groaned. "Don't worry about it, Brin. There's a first time for everything. I'm sure your mother will love you no matter what." She circled the room and trailed her fingers along the corner sofa. She was tempted to lie down and sleep, but chose to return to the wooden bench where she had been told to stay. She leaned back until her head was against the cold wall. Her arms hung loosely by her sides. "Brin?" Samarra turned her head to face him.

"Yes?" The bands on his face were pale with worry.

She touched his arm. "You're a kid. You're supposed to get into trouble. I was always getting into trouble on Gaia."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" He frowned. "Because you're not doing a very good job of it."

"Hmph!" Samarra sat up straight when a noise came from behind the door.

Brin growled softly as the door swung open. Shieldwolf Longmane marched out, looking straight ahead on his way through the waiting room. Merganser appeared at the door in fatigues. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun.

"I would like you both to contemplate something before you enter my office." She stared at them unblinkingly. Samarra focused on the grey streaks that stretched to the tips of her bun; anything to avoid looking at Merganser's blind eye. "Imagine Kairuhan if morning came without the warmth of the sun." Merganser went back into her office, leaving the door wide open. "You may enter when you feel you are ready."

"What?" Samarra mouthed at Brin.

"I don't know," he mouthed back.

Samarra tried to imagine what it would be like if morning came without sunrise. If it was like a dark winter, that would be normal from what she had heard about the winters on Kairuhan, but she had a feeling that Merganser was talking about something else. Did this all have something to do with the fruit? It definitely had to do with Suthum. Samarra wondered if Whistler was right. She probably shouldn't have admitted anything to that Shieldwolf Longmane.

Brin stood up and walked into the office. Reluctantly, Samarra followed and sat beside him. Merganser was seated behind her large desk. Her visor lay in front of her. Samarra was mesmerized by its swirling charcoal surface. Merganser cleared her throat and put the visor under her desk, out of Samarra's sight. She placed her hands flat on the table and looked at each swain inquiringly.

"The Shieldwolf patrol spans seven territories." Merganser reached for a jewelled case to her right. She took out an ancient map, stretched out the parchment on the table, and held the edges down with cast-iron paperweights shaped like watchful gargoyles. "First, we patrol this mainland of Gudrun Wade." Her fingers sparkled as she pointed to a range of mountainous islands in the south. Samarra gasped in delight when colour brightened the illusion. "Shieldwolf battlegroups have been patrolling the black sands of Hokken Sol for years." An image of a volcano appeared from the map and oozed out smoking, molten fire. "Every day they risk their lives for the good of Kairuhan."

Merganser made a fist and the picture vanished. She pointed to a vast sea in the west. When she moved her hand over the waters, diamond-domed buildings burst from swirling depths of blue. "We also guard the underwater cities of Seton Desert."

Samarra leaned forward for a better look.