The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (29 page)

In the gaping center of the ring-like
ornament on the dragon's head, the flesh seemed pitted and burned.
There was a residue of something, something that burned at
Myranda's fingers. It could have been dragon blood, which stung
quite a bit where it touched her sensitive flesh, but Myranda
instantly knew that it wasn't. Dragon blood didn't burn like this.
This burning didn't stop at her fingers. She could feel it in her
soul, tugging and twisting at it. This was the work of the
D'karon.

“Myn . . . this . . . thing here. It hurts
you, doesn't it?” Myranda asked.

The beast's eyes turned to her with a clear
affirmative.

“And
they
put it on your head, didn't
they?” Myranda continued.

Again it was clearly so.

“ . . . This is going to hurt, but it has to
be done. Hold still, I am going to remove it,” Myranda said.

Myn carefully pressed herself against the
ground. The dragon's eyes flinched and shut tight as Myranda's
fingers probed the edges. The wizard tried to cast a spell to
soothe the beast's pain and put her to sleep, but the amulet
affixed to her head seemed to turn the spell away. The tingling
burn in her fingers grew quickly past the threshold of pain as she
found a grip and pulled. The whole of Myn's body shook. Amid the
burning of her fingers, a sharp, stabbing pain in her palm
accompanied each tug. She could feel the enchantment reacting to
her, trying to tighten its grip as she struggled against it. The
metal lifted away slightly, releasing a trickle of blood. It was a
mixture of black and red, as though the D’karon’s modifications ran
through her very veins. The pain in her palm was constant now, and
the burning intensified everywhere the blood touched. Myn dug her
claws into the icy ground, just barely managing to stop a roar of
pain in her throat.

Myranda could feel the spells associated with
the piece coiling up her arm, attempting to work its terrible
effects on her as well. Before her eyes, streaks of black wound
along her veins. Her far from recovered mind was ill equipped to
force them away. Her clawing at the metal grew more desperate. Myn
jerked in pain and the piece slipped from her fingers. Panic began
to creep up Myranda's spine, and panic is the enemy of
concentration. Desperate thoughts flickered through her mind. She
needed a better vantage, and a better grip.

Quickly the wizard climbed to the dragon's
neck and redoubled her efforts. She felt a low, rattling growl of
pain from her friend. The metal slipped a bit more. The studs that
so resembled nails on a horseshoe revealed themselves to be just
that, driven brutally into the agonized dragon's hide, and likely
into the bone beneath. Each fraction of an inch that the nails
slipped out translated into a shudder of pain and an excruciating
hiss. The pain ran up to Myranda's shoulder. The blood was a steady
flow now. The sight of it sickened her. As she tugged at the piece,
she could swear she saw flashes of white and violet light pulsing
and sparking. She closed her eyes.

Myn fought desperately against her urges. She
knew that this creature on her neck was her friend, and that she
caused such pain only because she had to. She knew that Myranda was
trying to help her. Unfortunately, a wild beast's instincts are
strong. They run deep, and they speak with a loud voice. Right now
that voice boomed in her mind. It screamed that she was in danger,
that she had to remove the cause of this pain. When one of the
nails slipped free from her flesh, the voice finally became too
much to ignore.

The dragon burst to her feet. In one smooth,
reflex driven motion, Myn threw her head to the side. If Myranda
were prepared, she might have been able to hold on. As it was, she
was fully devoted to freeing her friend of this affliction. Both of
her hands were locked about the metallic piece. The motion shook
her from the dragon's neck, but did not break her grip. As her body
flew through the air, the piece followed, swiftly breaking free and
soaring through the air with the dislodged wizard.

The next moment seemed to last an hour. A
white hot bolt of pain shot up Myranda's arm. The same terrible
pain drove into Myn's head. A gout of pure black blood poured from
Myn's wound, and the air around her began to sizzle and crackle.
The black that stained her hide began to draw together and
intensify. It looked like vines rooted at her forehead and snaking
along her body. They swiftly retreated backward, looping upward
into the air in places and dissolving into a thickening black mist
about the flailing dragon.

The moment ended with a powerful crack as
Myranda's trip through the air ended suddenly due to a collision
with a tree. The wind rushed from her lungs, and the world dimmed
and blurred. The black, bloodied bit of metal slipped from her
fingers and continued in an odd, spinning trajectory into the
woods. Myranda dropped to the ground, with the now familiar pain of
a rib being re-broken throbbing in her side. Her eyes turned to
Myn. The massive form was lost in a cloud of black, appearing only
as a flash of wing, a hint of snout, or a lash of tail, all
thrashing in pain. The frenzy subsided slowly until finally it was
still. The black mist thinned.

Myranda tried to focus her eyes on the red
and yellow blur before her. As her reluctant eyes recovered from
the encounter with the tree, she slowly saw the results of the
short but intense struggle. Myn's coloring was restored. With the
notable exception of a black stain where the piece had been, her
ruby red and golden yellow scales gleamed in all of their former
glory. Her features had returned to the familiar, elegant, natural
ones as well. Her size, however, was another matter. She was no
longer the hulking monstrosity that they had turned her into, but
neither was she the little creature Myranda had thought she'd
failed to save all of that time ago. As the dragon stood, her head
rose to easily thrice Myranda's height, and from snout to tail she
was ten paces if she was an inch. Truly she was the spitting image
of her mother.

The young wizard's mouth hung open in awe as
she looked over her old friend as if for the first time. Perhaps it
was because she'd been so changed, but the shock of having her
friend back from the dead had not struck Myranda before. Now, tears
poured from her eyes as she ran to the beast and wrapped her arms
tightly about the base of her neck.

“Oh, Myn. It has been so long. I never
thought I would see you again. If only you could speak. I want to
know every detail,” she cried joyfully.

As her teary eyes opened again, looking over
the beast's shoulder, she saw what she believed to be a residual
blot of black staining Myn's left wing. No . . . It was too defined
for that. It seemed deliberate, intricate. In fact, it looked
vaguely like . . .

Myranda wiped her eyes and looked again. The
words “it can't be” offered themselves in her mind but were quickly
dismissed. A sane person would have spoken them aloud without a
second thought. Perhaps a year ago she would have whispered them.
Perhaps yesterday she would have considered them. After all that
she'd been through, all that she'd seen, those words would never
mean the same thing. Today, there was nothing that could not be.
What she saw was real. Her beloved dragon had returned from death's
door. She had managed decades of growth in a few months. And now,
like an insignia on a sail, Myn's wing bore the crisp, black curves
of The Mark. The same mark that had been on the sword. The same
mark that appeared on Myranda's hand, Ether's head, and the chests
of Ivy and Lain. The Mark of the Chosen.

Myranda released Myn's neck and took a few
steps back, paralyzed from the torrent of thoughts wrestling for
control in her mind. The memories of that terrible day rushed back
to her. She'd tried to pull Myn's soul back from the brink.
Something had stopped her . . . some power. Then Oriech spoke to
her that day, he revealed her role to her. He spoke of the Great
Convergence. The pieces slowly assembled themselves.

Myn, the pain subsiding and the world seeming
a bit larger, perhaps, but otherwise as it should be, looked upon
Myranda with curiosity. She seemed distant, distracted. The dragon
couldn't know what the trouble was, but she tried her best to work
it out. Myranda was hungry. She had to be. Yet, for some reason,
she did not prepare her meal as she always did. Myn looked about,
quickly realizing that Myranda had no means to do so. There was no
knife, and neither was there a bag to conceal one. Surely that was
the reason. Convinced she'd gotten to the root of the problem, Myn
took the job into her own claws. She'd watched the human ready
similar beasts to be put over the fire many times before.

The wizard did not notice the somewhat
indelicate task being performed before her. She was too deep in her
own thoughts. Oriech had pulled her aside to speak of the
convergence at that moment for a reason. It had just passed. If Myn
was truly the fifth Chosen One, then surely he would have spoken to
her before. Surely he would have shown himself at the moment they
had first joined. Unless it was not until she'd been killed that
she had been chosen. The three signs of the Chosen worked their way
into her mind. Certainly the dragon was pure of soul, and she
already knew that you didn't need to bear the mark on the surface
to be Chosen. That only left divinity of birth.

The words of Oriech echoed in her head. They
were odd, specific, and deliberate. “Your existence in this world
must simply be the work of the direct will of the divine.” Could it
be that the massive power that had swept Myn from her grasp had
been the will of the gods? “The Quickening” affected different
people in different ways. Perhaps, in the hands of the gods Myn had
been coaxed into her prime instantly. The explanation was
desperate, hopelessly complex, and stretched the rules until they
screamed, but it fit.

Far from satisfied, Myranda reluctantly
accepted her own explanation and finally took notice of Myn's
handiwork. She'd done a remarkably delicate job of separating the
beast, though the result was still a bit stomach turning in its
appearance. Myranda plucked up a piece of the meat, prepared it,
and consumed it. Myn snapped up the rest. With the hunger dealt
with, she looked over the blaze before her, and the pitch black
column rising into the sky. It was a miracle that the whole of the
forest had not been consumed in flame by now. Reluctantly, she drew
her mind to the task of extinguishing it. The fire gradually died
out under her will, leaving a pile of charred wood she could not
hope to conceal.

By the time the flames had flickered their
last, Myranda could already feel her mind fatigued again, and the
chill was creeping into her bones. A spell or two warded off the
cold for the time being, and she scanned her surroundings. Nothing
seemed familiar. For a moment she wondered how she could have
traveled to this place and not know where it was. Then she
remembered the flight. It seemed like a dream. Her eyes turned to
the sky. If they could fly . . . then it didn't truly matter where
they were, only where they wanted to go. There were two rather
severe difficulties, though. First, there could be no hope of
entering a town now. Myn simply could not be hidden. Second, unless
they flew above the clouds, they could not travel by day. Likewise,
nights with a strong moon would present threats of discovery as
well.

Discovery. Myranda looked to the column of
smoke as it tapered off. Perhaps at night it would not have been
noticed staining the sky, but night was gone and day was quickly
taking its place. If there was a town anywhere nearby, they had no
doubt already seen it. Briefly Myranda considered conjuring up a
rush of wind in hopes of scattering it, but the idea was quickly
dismissed. After all, if a sudden and clearly mindful gust of wind
perfectly scattered the smoke before someone's eyes, it would bring
armed men more surely than the smoke alone. Besides, if she was
going to be relying solely on magic to keep her warm, and without
the aid of a staff, she would need all of the strength she could
spare.

Myranda realized that Myn was looking
impatiently at her friend. The young wizard settled to the ground
and leaned against a tree near the smoldering remains of the fire.
Myn thumped heavily to the ground and gently dropped her head onto
Myranda's lap. It was nearly as large as her whole body had been
prior to her divine growth spurt. Myranda stroked her head.

“We've got to find them, Myn. Lain, Ivy,
Ether, and Deacon are out there, somewhere. If we are lucky, they
are still alive. They are going to be under heavy guard, and I have
no weapons. I have no staff. I don't even have proper clothing. But
I have you. It may just be enough,” she whispered.

Closing her eyes, Myranda worked at one of
the spells Deacon had taught her. A spell of detection that would
not draw the attention of the D'karon. It was different from the
one she'd developed on her own. It was less broad, more targeted.
Rather than looking upon the whole of the area at once, she focused
intently on a small region that shifted and slid along, drawn
weakly toward whomsoever one sought, something akin to looking at a
map through a keyhole. The greatest challenge of the spell was
keeping oneself from succumbing to frustration. Most trying was the
fact that you did not search at all, but attune yourself to your
target and allow your mind to be drawn to it.

Slowly, deliberately, Myranda set her mind
adrift on the breezes and eddies of the spiritual plane. One by
one, she shifted her thoughts to each of her friends. She began
with Lain. Her consciousness bobbed lightly on the sea of the mind,
patiently awaiting the lightest tug, the weakest current to guide
her. None came. Reluctantly, she shifted her aim to Ether, bracing
herself, ready for a surge. When she continued to feel nothing but
the weak push and pull of the worn defeated souls of her
countrymen, her heart dropped. Ether's soul was powerful,
blindingly so, and she never concealed it. Even when she was weak,
it shone like a beacon to the mind. Now there was not a whisper,
not a glimmer.