The Beginning (40 page)

This final statement by Denaeh was almost a whisper, breathed out as if speaking it any louder would cause her pain. After a few moments’ time, she took a deep breath and murmured, in a tone that seemed strange coming from this woman who was usually so vibrant, “Yet again, he may not have heard of the transformation of the Tanaan, but how could that be?”

She was no longer talking to Jahrra, but to someone, or something, beyond the boundaries of time. She had her arms clasped across her stomach now and was once again gazing past the dripping ropes of moss tangling up her doorway. Something left her then, part of her spirit or some hope she clung to. Jahrra wasn’t sure what had happened, but she could feel a deep loss saturating the air.

Jahrra blinked away her confusion and reflected on the story she had just heard. The hair on the back of her neck had stood on end as she listened, and she’d grown more and more uneasy. The Mystic hadn’t noticed, but when she spoke the words “blood rose”, Jahrra had turned stone cold. Denaeh had named it as a symbol of Ethoes, but Eydeth had told her it was the symbol of the Crimson King.

Jahrra suddenly felt she could no longer stay quiet. For months she’d been telling herself that the man who had attacked her in Lensterans wasn’t dangerous. She had been ignoring her conscience when it warned her of the danger, and she had ignored Eydeth when he told her the dark stranger was associated with the Tyrant King. She had to ask someone, someone she could trust, someone unlike Hroombra or Jaax who would lock her up for the rest of her life or burn her to a crisp if they knew what had really happened. Denaeh’s description of the blood rose was a perfect opportunity, so, erring on the side of caution, Jahrra thought of a way to ask her friend without actually telling her what had happened.

“Denaeh, I’m a bit confused,” she queried cautiously. “I was told in class that the blood rose was a symbol used by the Crimson King. Why would the Tanaan prince have a compass with the Tyrant’s symbol carved into it?”

Denaeh stayed silent for a long time, her head bowed low. Finally, after Jahrra was beginning to think she hadn’t heard her, the Mystic exhaled softly and said remorsefully, “It wasn’t that way before, but it is so now. He adopted it as his own emblem after the mass slaughter of the Tanaan and the good people of Ethoes, after he spilled their blood upon the Desolate Plain.

“You see, the blood rose only grows when blood has touched the soil. A long time ago, it was seen as one of the symbols of Ethoes because blood is equated with life, and Ethoes gives life. There is an ancient story about the first creature that shed blood. Ethoes’ children were fighting over their belongings on the earth, and an innocent was killed over it, spilling his blood upon the ground. Ethoes was horrified at what had happened, so she willed the first blood rose to arise from the bloodshed and claimed that life should never again be taken in the name of anger, hatred or greed.” Denaeh paused. “Only a few know this story now,” she continued softly.

“What does it look like, this blood rose?” Jahrra asked, trying not to sound too anxious.

As Denaeh meticulously described the very flower etched into the back of the compass, Jahrra became white with fear.

It
had
to be the compass of the Magehn that she had found. The compass of the prince of Oescienne! But that also meant that her would-be-captor in the east wood of Lensterans really was loyal to . . . Jahrra gulped and pushed that thought away from her mind. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was the way the moon’s light fell on his face that made Eydeth think he saw the Crimson King’s adopted mark.

Denaeh finished her description, all the while staring sadly past her moss curtain, not once seeing Jahrra’s surprised and frightened expression.

After a few more moments of quiet reflection, Denaeh turned her golden eyes onto Jahrra and said with a voice that sounded more like her old woman’s rasp than her youthful melody, “What exactly did you see in that book?”

Jahrra looked up, not knowing precisely what to say. She thought for a moment, and then answered, “Lettering of some sort, not the writing I’ve seen in Master Hroombra’s books and maps, but it looked similar.”

“So it isn’t written in Draggish?”

Jahrra shot her head up in surprise, but Denaeh just smiled sadly.

“I’m a Mystic, dear girl. I know many of your thoughts, remember? Besides, I’ve been alive long enough to have heard the language spoken between many, and I had no problem recognizing the random Kruelt words that play around in your mind. But the Magehn and the king had a unique code they used to communicate. Perhaps this is what you saw.”

“Well,” offered Jahrra, getting up to go to her saddlebags, “I wrote a few things down in my journal when we found the book the first time.”

Denaeh looked as if she might faint, but she did her best to recover.

“And you have your journal with you?” she inquired in a harsh whisper.

“Why yes, of course.” Jahrra smiled as she stepped through the tangled moss to retrieve the tome.

As soon as the girl was out of sight, Denaeh began pacing frantically.
If that book is really the Magehn’s log, I must see it! But how on Ethoes will I get it away from those dragons!

Jahrra pushed back through the strands of moss a few moments later carrying her own leather-bound book. Denaeh abruptly stopped her pacing. The Mystic watched patiently as Jahrra flipped through the pages, pages that suddenly looked alive in the dim firelight. Drawings of various birds and insects, reptiles and mammals of all shapes and sizes skipped by, but she had no time to admire them. A few of the sketches even looked like unicorns, but she let the thought escape her mind as the images of maps, creatures and writing flew by. Finally, Jahrra reached the pages where she’d jotted down the characters from the dead man’s book. When Denaeh saw the black scrawl, her heart nearly stopped.

The Mystic knew then what this writing was, even if she couldn’t decipher it. She now knew for a fact that this was the book of the Magehn, and that Jahrra had made a very important, but very dangerous discovery. For a few moments, Denaeh thought of proclaiming this truth, but then she realized what telling the young girl would do. She shrouded her eyes as best as she could and released a long sigh, trying hard not to let her sorrow escape with it.

“Is this the writing from the Book of Kings, the book of the Magehn?” Jahrra asked eagerly.

“No,” Denaeh lied, speaking with a tone of disappointment, “it looks like some rubbish language the pirates might have used in keeping their coastal lairs safe. I’m afraid that book may only be useful in finding a treasure that no longer exists.”

Jahrra was puzzled by Denaeh’s disappointment. The Mystic had been so sure, why this sudden change of heart?

“What about the compass?” Jahrra offered. “The description you gave me was exactly accurate.”

Denaeh smiled and said, “Many compasses were made to resemble the one belonging to the prince. It could very well be one of those, stolen by the ruffian who crawled into that cave and died.”

Jahrra was unable to pick up the deceit in Denaeh’s tone; the Mystic was far too good at lying and Jahrra had no idea if more compasses had been made or not.

She looked down at her journal pages once more and shrugged. “If it really is an ancient code to a hidden treasure, then it could be more exciting than the book of an old Magehn.”

Denaeh winced at Jahrra’s words, but she knew the girl knew no better. She smiled despairingly nonetheless.
If only you knew the truth, child.
For the smallest of moments, Denaeh had been overwhelmingly tempted to tell Jahrra of her purpose in life, to tell her the truth about the book and about the elf who had guarded it with his life. She held back, however, knowing that all too soon Jahrra’s true identity would be revealed to her by those who cared for her.

“Thank you for helping me with the mystery of the book Denaeh, but I had better be getting back. I’m sure Jaax and Master Hroombra will have plenty more questions to ask me.”

Jahrra made a face and got up, heading towards the cave entrance once more. This long talk with the Mystic, although not as revealing as she’d hoped, had calmed her temper and soothed her nerves, if only just a little. She no longer felt as irritated or uneasy as she had when she’d stepped through the door of the Castle Guard Ruin earlier that morning.

Denaeh watched Jahrra riding away from the cave’s mouth, pausing to wave from the top of the tiny hillock leading out of the Black Swamp. She clenched her arms together and heaved a deep sigh. A sad, sweeping knowledge wore at her mind, the way a chill mountain stream bites away at the land. Milihn woke from his nap and flew to his master’s shoulder, grumbling affectionately into her ear. Denaeh reached out and stroked his smooth feathers, grateful for his companionship at this moment.

She could feel what was coming; she could feel it in her heart, in her bones, in her soul. She shivered in the cold of the late afternoon as she moved back through the shrouded doorway of her cave, sobbing freely into her hands, anguished for what she had foreseen and for what she had learned.

-
Chapter Eighteen
-

Painful Words and Stubborn Ways

The brisk winter wind picked up as Jahrra emerged from the Wreing Florenn with Phrym. The sun was still hours away from setting, but the cold of the coming night was approaching fast.

“Let’s get moving Phrym. I think it might start raining again soon.” Jahrra eyed the dark clouds above and shivered.

Once clear of the woods, she brought Phrym into a steady gallop, hoping they would get home before the rain came. Jahrra dreaded going back home for fear that Jaax and Hroombra were waiting inside, ready to drill her with a hundred questions she didn’t want to, or couldn’t, answer. Even if the book she’d found was what Denaeh said it was, nothing but a pirate’s journal, Jahrra had a bad feeling it was much more complicated than that. Maybe it was the weather that made her feel so uneasy. Or maybe it was Denaeh’s confirmation and her own final acceptance that the man from the wood so long ago was a threat, and not just an imagined phantom. Something was brewing in the wind, Jahrra could feel it, and it wasn’t just the storm. It was something else, something older, something more sinister.

The Castle Guard Ruin came into view and Phrym picked up his pace, eager to get into his warm stable. But Jahrra didn’t feel relieved; she only felt her stomach sinking like a stone into a deep pool.
Maybe I could just sneak into my room and go to bed
, she thought hopefully as she trudged through the trembling weeds, leaving an anxious Phrym to gaze after her. She knew the unease she felt was written all over her face, and that the dragons would sense immediately that something was wrong. Jahrra hung her head against the occasional gust of wind, its cool breath pulling tendrils of her hair loose from their braid. Smoke was rising from the ancient chimney of the common room, but she could detect no movement coming from the cold building. Her heart began to beat rapidly with a sudden hopeful thought,
Perhaps Jaax has finally left!

She stepped bravely through the door and noticed that Hroombra sat in his usual location, behind his enormous desk reading his scrolls.
What about the book?
Jahrra wondered in dreaded silence. The great dragon didn’t say anything right away. He waited for Jahrra to hang her jacket and scarf before addressing her.

“Jaax has gone out for a while,” he said quietly, not even glancing at her. “He’ll return later this evening. We will have something important to discuss with you in the morning.”

Jahrra looked up at Hroombra, her mouth going dry. She could’ve sworn she heard sorrow in his voice, but she couldn’t say for sure. He finally looked up at her, and she immediately knew something was wrong. She had seen this look in Denaeh’s eyes on many occasions (when the Mystic didn’t think she was looking), but she had never seen Hroombra appearing so troubled before.
What could possibly be written in that journal?!
Jahrra thought furiously, now realizing that Denaeh might have lied to her.

“Have something to eat, and then go to bed.” Hroombra’s voice brought Jahrra’s thoughts back to the present. “A good night’s rest will do you some good.”

“Why must we wait until morning to talk?” she braved, trying to keep her voice steady. She hated the tense emotion hanging in the air, and she would rather have it out of the way than to dwell on it the entire night.

Hroombra smiled a sad smile. “Because it is something important we must discuss, and it would be best if you were rested.”

Jahrra simply nodded, the knot of dread tightening in her stomach. She wanted to ask where Jaax had gone, but thought better of it.
I’m in trouble, I know it. Because of that stupid book! Rhudedth was right. We should have left it all alone!

Jahrra tried to eat some dinner, but she could only swallow a few spoonfuls of stew before feeling sick. She left the fireside and headed for bed, dreading the several hours she would be tossing and turning in turbulent thought. When she finally did fall asleep, Jahrra dreamed of pirate ships and lost treasures.

***

The early sun shone through the small, west-facing window the next morning, but it was the veiled sunlight that pushes its way through clouds. Jahrra tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but the tirade of shouting coming from the main room of the Ruin prevented her from doing so. She bolted upright, eyes still closed, and listened to the familiar voices. It was Hroombra and Jaax, and they were fighting.
Fighting about me
, she thought, her head pounding as the memory of yesterday’s events came flooding back.

“It’s the only place for her now Hroombra! I’ve been scouting the area and it is no longer safe as you had once thought. She may finish her final year in school here, but come this summer, she’ll be going north, whether you like it or not!”

Jaax sounded rather angry, angrier than Jahrra had ever heard him. Hroombra, on the other hand, sounded weary as he tried to plead with the other dragon.

“Jaax, be reasonable. No one knows who she is. She’s safe here, as long as she is with me. We must allow her to make her own decisions, when she knows the truth.”

Suddenly there was silence. Jahrra crept to the door, trying hard to listen over the rapid beating of her own heart.

After awhile longer Jaax responded quietly, his voice calmer now but not devoid of a biting chill, “Hroombra, were you aware that she has been visiting someone deep within the Wreing Florenn, someone we would have never allowed her to make contact with? Someone I thought had been driven from this world long ago?”

Jahrra froze. Denaeh! In the many years she’d known and visited Denaeh, she had never told Hroombra about her, not once. She’d always been afraid that if Hroombra had known about the Mystic, he would have forbidden Jahrra from visiting her. Now it appeared that her suspicions had been correct all along.

“What are you talking about?” Hroombra sounded as if his own anger was starting to brew.

Jaax took a deep, wearied breath. “The Mystic Archedenaeh has been living in the Black Swamp for many years now. And would you know it, Jahrra just happened to stumble upon her?” The dragon’s sarcasm was almost painful to listen to. “I fear she’s been visiting the woman for quite some time now, for several years in fact.”

The silence that followed was too much for Jahrra to bear. She charged out into the great room, which now seemed much smaller filled with two full grown dragons staring each other down. Both Jaax and Hroombra looked down at her in slight surprise. Jahrra, who had planned to attack Jaax for spying on her, was suddenly at a loss for words. She simply stared up at the both of them, feeling smaller and smaller as she looked first to Jaax and then Hroombra.

“So,” Jaax said in his patronizing voice, “how much did you hear?”

Jahrra didn’t want to answer him, but she knew, by the look on his face, that she had better.

“Only that you plan on sending me away and that you have been spying on me,” she said as spitefully as she could.

Jaax merely smirked, that horrible, annoying, stupid, infuriating smirk of his. Jahrra seethed with anger, but she did her best to keep control of it.

“Well, that is all you need to know for now. The day after your graduation from the school in Aldehren, you will be moving up to the city of Lidien to continue your education. How long you remain there,” Jaax paused and looked Jahrra up and down, “is yet to be known.”

Jahrra stared at him, her mouth hanging open in absolute horror.

“Furthermore,” Jaax continued, undeterred by Jahrra’s mute but obvious reaction, “between now and then, you will not be visiting that Mystic. I had felt something strange about those woods and now I know why. How you found her, I don’t know, but it would have been better if you hadn’t.”

Jahrra was shaking with rage. How could he say these things? And how could Hroombra stand there and let him?

“You can’t tell me what to do, Jaax! You’re not my guardian, Master Hroombra is, and I’ll never leave Oescienne, it’s my home!” Jahrra could feel the tears burning in her eyes, but she held them back.

“Hroombra, tell her,” Jaax said quietly, his stony eyes looking pained.

Hroombra appeared even more crestfallen then the night before. “I’m afraid he’s right Young Jahrra. You must stay away from the Black Swamp. Now that I know of the Mystic’s presence, I must urge you to go away for a few years, off to Lidien to continue your education.”

Jahrra couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How could you! Denaeh means no harm, and I won’t leave Oescienne, how could you even consider it?!”

Hroombra looked as if each word he said caused him pain. “Young Jahrra, you have no further say in this matter.”

Jahrra found herself sinking, sinking in the turbulent waters of her many years of keeping secrets, finally rising up to drown her. The surprise of everything that had happened in the past week overwhelmed her, and now she found she couldn’t think straight.
This is all Jaax’s fault! He has come and ruined everything, just like he always does!
her mind blazed in fury.

She shot a hateful glance at Hroombra, the kind dragon that had cared for her all these years who suddenly looked menacing.

“I wish you would stop calling me “Young” all the time! I’m not young anymore, I’m seventeen, and I won’t go!”

Jahrra was so enraged that she screamed before she stormed out of the room, “I hate you, I hate you
both
!”

She ran from the Ruin and across the rain drenched field to Phrym’s stable. She couldn’t go back to Denaeh’s in this state, not yet at least. She quickly threw her old saddle (she was determined to burn the one Jaax gave her) onto a rather confused Phrym and headed south, not to Gieaun and Scede’s, but to the lakes and to the shore. She had to run up Demon’s Slide one more time. She had to feel that rush, that sense of freedom. She had to burn off the rage that engulfed her and threatened to choke her.

Jaax watched as Jahrra took off on her semequin through the window beside Hroombra’s great desk.

“So this is the liberator of the world you have raised? Defiant and stubborn, complete with a bad temper!” Jaax sounded quite harsh as he turned his head back to Hroombra, his great brow furrowed in frustration. “How do you expect me to prepare her for her future if she can’t even be brought to Lidien without such behavior?”

Hroombra stood quietly, head bowed low. He didn’t answer, so Jaax ploughed on, “What do you have to say for this?”

The younger dragon was brutal, unwavering. He demanded an answer that Hroombra simply did not have.

“She is her own person, Jaax,” the old dragon said at last, his earlier anger snuffed out. “No style of upbringing would have turned her out differently. She is passionate, determined, cares deeply for those less fortunate than others and, believe it or not, she is loyal. She’s exactly what this world needs. Once you understand this, perhaps it won’t be so hard.”

Hroombra took a deep, rattling breath and then turned his weary eyes on Jaax. “We can no longer keep the truth from her, she must know,” he murmured. “Once she knows, she’ll be more understanding.”

“No, keeping the truth from her is crucial,” the young dragon insisted. “Once she knows the truth, her safety will be at stake. Imagine, after we have told her, if she were to run off and tell . . . No, it’s not yet the time.”

“Jaax, we must,” Hroombra insisted.

“When the time is right, we’ll tell her!” the Tanaan dragon hissed. “Until then, she’ll need to learn to do as she is told. It’s for her own good and the good of all Ethoes that we delay as long as we can.”

Jaax spoke with such anger and force that Hroombra couldn’t help but be reminded of the very young, very damaged dragon from the past. Hroombra had always wanted to confront him about what had happened so long ago, but the years had made Jaax more and more resistant to the concern felt by others.
No more waiting, no more delaying. I’ve put this off long enough, I must try now. I must try before it’s too late.

“Jaax, you’ve been carrying this guilt and anger on your shoulders for far too long now. This thing, this passion for what is past has poisoned you like an evil infection. There is no one left to blame, there was never really anyone to blame, especially not yourself. You must move on now Jaax, you must put it behind you; it has been far too long, it is time for you to start living again. Don’t take your anger out on Jahrra, it is wrong. She isn’t the one to be angry with.”

Hroombra knew he awakened old ghosts by saying this, but he knew most of those ghosts were already awake, haunting the young dragon the way the ruined castle haunted him. Yet, he knew that Jaax must confront his own demons before he tried to conquer Jahrra’s. It wouldn’t work any other way.

Jaax didn’t answer right away. Instead he sat rigid, focusing on the empty fireplace as if it were about to spring to life.

Finally, he closed his eyes and took a great, hissing breath. “And I suppose by living you mean hiding out in a forgotten land, babysitting a child who has turned into another lost cause? Is that what you mean?”

Jaax’s remark was biting and he made no attempt to hide his scathing resentment.

“I never believed you to be a lost cause Raejaax, and neither is Jahrra,” Hroombra responded with a hurt voice. “You two have much more in common than you even know. Especially the most obvious thing: you both have a problem with letting go of the past. The only way you’ll ever be able to help one another, and anyone else for that matter, is if you learn to forgive and move on. I fear you’ll have to learn that in your own time, however, whether or not it takes another hundred lifetimes.”