The Dragons of Noor (13 page)

“I am Kaleet.” The largest dragon with the glaring leg wound held his head high. His golden chest shone in the low firelight burning across the deep rift. “You say you have been to Oth. How do we know this is true?”

One-eye at the queen’s side answered before Hanna could speak. “How else could a manling know the Oak King’s name? Who but the sylth folk would have spoken the name of Brodureth, the Waytree that was our ancient western bridge to Oth, may all honor fill his roots and branches.”

“All honor to Brodureth,” sang the dragons. “Our ancient dragons’ bridge.” Hanna sensed deep sadness in the chant.

The male called Kaleet shook his head, the scales
across his cheekbones clattering. “Tell us how you reached the Otherworld,” he said. There was a sense of awe in his voice.

Hanna blinked. She was too overwhelmed at first to answer, but the dragons were impatient, and soon the thrumming sound began to grow again across the black ravine.

Hanna knew without being told that these ancient creatures would not tolerate any kind of lie. The dragons expected fierce, unbending truth, as the law of the Old Magic demanded. At last she said, “The deyas in the Waytrees called Wild Esper, the wind woman. She flew me to Attenlore in western Oth.”

Sweat trickled over her upper lip. She licked the salty drops and waited. The weaving of her words, the truth about herself and her past, all were forming an invisible safety net, which must be strong enough to catch her and Taunier.

Across the gap Kaleet raised his head and breathed blue fire. The others joined him until a burning dome dazzled above. It was brilliant blue as a summer sky, with smoke-white clouds drifting on the wind. Hanna watched, enthralled. The indigo sky was like the one she’d seen in
Oth, where the vivid colors are sharper than any in this world. Taunier tipped his head back as they looked on with wonder.

“Kanameer,” sang a golden terrow at the edge of the crevasse.

“Kanameer, O Pilgrim,” another sang.

Soon all were singing, male and female, large and small, taberrell and terrow. Tails drumming in rhythm, they voiced the tune the Damusaun had sung to Hanna from the sea.

The voices resounded in the cave, the sounds doubled and tripled like rising sea winds. Hanna swayed as the song and drumming filled the air. Thriss tipped her head and sang, “Kanameer. Kanameer,” in a high, birdlike voice. The pip climbed up Hanna’s hair and coiled herself atop her head like a golden crown.

M
iles’s heart drummed in his ears, loud, louder, the sound of dragon wings beating the sky. He awoke and winced. Meer Eason was leaning over the cot, gently coating the burn on his left arm with salve. Gritting his teeth, he tried to sit up, groaned, and fell back on the blanket. The burn ran from elbow to wrist. “How long have I been out?” he croaked.

“All night and half the morning.”

Breal’s head popped out from under the bunk like a furry jack-in-the-box. He panted and licked Miles’s hand. His tongue came close to the burn but did not touch it.

Miles vaguely remembered falling, returning to human shape while he struggled in the chill water, too
weak to swim. Salt water had filled his mouth as he’d flailed, then Breal had leaped into the sea to rescue him. There’d been a sudden torturous sharp pain then. Breal must have accidentally clawed his burned arm with his toenails while paddling. Miles had blacked out after that.

He fingered the jagged tear in his shirt. Breal had probably torn it while dragging him through the water. It had seemed strange at first to find himself clothed again each time he returned to his body, his garments shifting in and out of animal form with him, but he’d gotten used to it.

Meer Eason capped the jar of salve and placed it on the small shelf.

“What about Hanna and Taunier?” Miles asked.

“We’re chasing the dragons east. But they’re swifter than the
Leena.”

Sweat pooled at the back of his neck. “Why did they take them? What will they do with them?”

Meer Eason wiped his hands on the towel. The strong ointment smell still pervaded the little room. “Who can know the ways of dragons? Their thoughts are shielded from us. But,” he said, “the dragons’ visit stripped secrets from all three of you.” His dark face hovered over Miles
like an eclipse, the light from the porthole making a thin glowing line about his curly hair.

Miles breathed unsteadily.

Eason continued. “Did you know your sister had a dragon pip?”

“No.” He was still upset about that. How could she have hidden it from him? They used to share everything to do with magic. He frowned. “And I didn’t know Taunier had power over fire.”

“Another secret revealed,” Eason said. “The power to herd fire is a rare gift. The ancient kings of Kanayar once knew how, but the way was lost to the royal line long ago. Yet this boy—” He paused, thinking.

“And then there’s the matter of your secret.” He poured Miles a cup of water, steadying himself against the table as the ship rolled. “Tell me what happened back there.”

“What happened?”

Their eyes locked. “Who taught you shape-shifting power? You’ve known since you came to Othlore that the art was banned from the school years and years ago.”

“I did not learn it at school, sir.”

“Where then?”

Miles was silent.

“We haven’t much chance of finding Hanna if we hold back from one another, Miles. There’s hidden strength in truth. Without it …” Meer Eason let his unfinished sentence move through the dim air between them, as if the unsaid words were small ships set adrift.

Miles took the cup of water, its coolness cleansing his parched throat. “I’ll tell you,” he said at last. He knew he had to shift again to find Hanna and Taunier.

“Do you know of the beast called the Shriker?” It was a long story. As they headed east in the wake of the dragons, he left no part of his tale unsaid; there was no point now.

Meer Eason leaned in closer as Miles told of the magic shape-shifting power the Sylth Queen gave him, how he’d used it to shape-shift into the Shriker’s form to protect Hanna from the beast. He spoke of tracking the Shriker into the Shadow Realm of Oth and their bloody battles there.

“Hanna crossed into Oth to find me,” said Miles. “Without her I would have stayed inside the Shriker’s form.” He shuddered.

“So both of you have crossed over before.” Meer
Eason’s voice was low, but it held a tone of respect. Few meers knew how to use the Waytrees to cross world to world these days. Though there had been many Waytrees in Othlore Wood, the mysterious passage, what some called the dragons’ bridge, moved about, tree to tree, deya to deya, and even the High Meer admitted he’d been unable to find a woodland passage to Oth in these past few years.

Meer Eason’s face hardened. “You hid too much from us, Miles.”

Miles felt the boat rocking in the water, its instability mirroring his own confusion. “I didn’t mean any disrespect for the school or toward you, sir. After I came out of the Shriker’s form, I promised Hanna and myself I wouldn’t shape-shift again. Not until I had more control over the power.”

“Did you keep that promise until this shift?”

“Knowing it was against the school rules made it easier not to shift on Othlore.” Now that the truth was out, he wanted to say more, to explain. Maybe then he’d understand it all a little better himself. Grunting from the pain in his arm, he managed to sit up in his bunk.

“I knew I had to strengthen my understanding of magic, so I studied hard and waited. I would have been happy enough to be blue-palmed at the end of this year, to learn a deal more before I ever tried to shift again.” He gazed down at his left hand. It still saddened him that he’d had to leave Othlore before being given his true meer sign. He wondered now if he would ever have an Othic symbol emblazoned on his palm. But there was something else he wanted to say.

“When I shifted into the Shriker’s form, something was missing from my magic.”

“What do you mean?”

Miles frowned. “I don’t know.”

Meer Eason looked doubtful.

Miles tried harder. He’d feared shifting since his experience last year. If he could better understand what happened back then, he’d be less afraid to use his power now. “I was taken into a dark, animal place by my Shriker’s shift. I can’t explain it better than that, but I didn’t have control over the shape-shift, or not very much, anyway. It overpowered me.”

“Turning more and more into the creature one changes into has always been the danger for any shape-shifter.
And you stayed a long while within the beast, as you said. It can also be a matter of resonance.”

“Resonance?”

“How shall I put this?” Meer Eason paused a moment. “If there are similar tendencies between the shifter and the creature he shifts into, that is resonance. Let’s say the shape-shifter has a great love for the sea, he or she might turn into a fish, stay too long in the shift, and remain a sea creature from then on.”

Miles said nothing, understanding this better than he wanted to admit. The Shriker’s raw rage had felt far too familiar. All his life, Miles had hated the villagers down in Brim who’d shunned him and his family. They’d turned their backs on the Sheen family, because it was a Sheen who’d brought the Shriker to Enness Isle long ago, when Rory Sheen offered his bearhound to Death in exchange for his own life. Seeing Rory betray his loyal companion, Death had cursed Rory and turned his dog into the Shriker. Rory’s dog had done nothing to deserve such treatment from his master, but on that night, man’s best friend became his worst enemy. After that, the Shriker appeared in the shape of an enormous demon hound, hunting and killing folk on Enness Isle.

Since the time of the curse, the Shriker was driven by hunger for revenge. Miles knew that hunger, and he’d wanted to punish those who’d belittled him, to taste revenge himself.

Resonance
, he thought, shuddering. His anger and the Shriker’s anger had become one. Taken into the beast’s power, he’d wanted to stay there and use it for his own revenge. This was the reason he’d been afraid to shift again.

Meer Eason asked, “What happened to the Shriker when you fought him in Oth? Did you manage to kill him?”

Breal stepped closer and laid his soft head on Miles’s lap, looking up at him with his big brown eyes. There was a secret between them, one he could not tell even now. “The Shriker’s gone.”

Miles shifted his weight on the hard bunk, his heart beating fast. “I have to shift again, sir. Fly after Hanna and Taunier, or we might never find them.”

Meer Eason didn’t answer him directly. Instead, he began to pace the length of the room. “Where might the dragons take them?” he mused.

Miles waited anxiously. Did his teacher agree? Did
he want him to shift? He stood up and steadied himself on the tilting floorboards. But just as Eason turned, mouth open, to make a pronouncement, Kanoae burst through the door. “The boundary guards have spotted us.”

Eason spun around. “Can we outrun them?”

“Their ships are larger and faster,” puffed Kanoae. “They’re gaining on us.”

H
ands tied behind his back, Miles stared down at the turbulent black mouth of the East Morrow Sea. Two steps more, and he’d reach the end of the plank. Behind him drummers pounded. Meers Eason and Kanoae would be next to walk the plank.

The boundary guards had searched the
Leena
, tossing everything but food, ale, and valuables into the sea.

“We’re not your enemies,” Miles had argued hotly. “The High Meer sent us here.”

This had made things only worse. “Black magic,” one shouted.

“You can’t trust meers,” called another. “Tie them up and gag them before they cast a spell on us.”

Their “trial” had lasted less than an hour. They’d crossed the Boundary Waters without permission and broken the King of Kanayar’s law. The ship’s captain pronounced them “filthy wizards sneaking past the boundary to join the dragons of Jarrosh.”

“Hurry up!” The crewman prodded his back with his sword. Miles flinched. He’d already been flogged in front of everyone, a punishment for screaming through his gag to protest the sentence. As they saw it, he was trying to cast spells. The whipping had left his back raw and blistered, and his burned arm still stung.

He took another step. Three inches of plank left. If he didn’t jump soon, the guard would run him through. He was overwhelmed by sorrow, anger, fear. His hands were tied behind him, so he could not swim. In a moment’s time the dark water would swallow him; he’d sink along with the Falconer’s trunk, which had been tossed from the
Leena
like so much trash. His life would go down, together with his longing to find Hanna, to rescue Tymm, to save the Waytrees that held the worlds together.

So much was left unfinished. He wanted to learn how to control his passions and his power. And someday, if he
proved himself worthy, he dreamed of being chosen to become the High Meer, one as famous as the founding meer of Othlore, the Mishtar. That was his secret, passionate wish.

He wanted all of it. To have the world and keep the world. Life’s end was now only a few breaths away. Tears streamed down his cheeks and were lost in the sea below. Water to water. Salt to salt.

The drumming grew louder.

Eason was humming the song
“Quava-arii.”
The Music Meer could not sing the words, gagged as he was; still, Miles knew the song and its meaning.
Quava-arii
—ever changing. Meer Eason was signaling him to shape-shift. He’d never shape-shifted with his hands tied.
Think! Concentrate!
He closed his eyes, tried to envision a great bird large enough to rescue his friends from …

Crack! A whip lashed his back. Miles tottered and fell into the ocean.