Redeeming the Dragon (Into the Enchanted)

Chapter 32

B efore I departed, the immortal warrior offered further advice. I should not force the magic. I should allow the magic. I should recall the mirror, recall the sensation of Braisley’s power, recall anything I could of my own power, and permit that to drive me onward.

I said to him, “You claimed you lack magic. How can you advise me on how to use mine?”

I meant no disrespect, nor did he take it as such. He simply gazed at me, those eerie deep eyes seeming to hold all the mysteries of the realm.

“I’ve lived long and encountered much,” was all he would say, which I took to mean that he must have encountered so many different folk during the course of his life that he’d learnt mysteries of magic, even if he did not use it himself.

Before I attempted to depart, the Simathe stooped, rummaging in a pack beside the upended log where he’d been seated. He searched briefly before withdrawing an object .

“Take this,” he said, pressing the item into my hand. “May it be of value.”

Lying in my palm was a tiny dagger. It was curved like a cat’s claw. The handle was white, as of ivory, and on the sheath were carved…

“Dragons?” I asked, glancing from dagger to warrior.

“It is Warkin-made,” he explained.

I wondered how he, an immortal Simathe, had come by a blade fashioned by the Warkin. Nevertheless, that was of secondary concern to the issue at hand. I accepted the weapon, tucking it away into my pack as I had the fairy queen’s gift. Finally, I was ready to depart. Except…I was ignorant of how to go about it.

When I said as much to the Simathe, he offered me something else he’d drawn from his pack.

A white stone, luminescent and smooth, with a soft sheen that glowed in the weak sunshine, muted by clouds.

“Use this as your guide,” he suggested.

I accepted the stone, rolling it between my fingertips, debating how to use it as a guide. As I did, I allowed my mind to drift over recent events, from Kidron telling me goodbye and leaving me in the cave, to the mirror sending me to Braisley, then Braisley dispatching me to the Simathe in the Wastelands. Each of the persons I’d encountered held pieces of the truth, but it seemed I’d have to visit this third person, as well as Moonswept, to put all of the fragments together and make a whole.

Still, as I rolled the stone between my fingertips, studying it, my skin began to itch. Concurrently, a soft green glow seeped out from my fingertips and onto the white surface of the rock, coating it. Encouraged, I shut my eyelids and continued to roll the stone and to feel, shutting out the outward world by focusing on memories .

Doing as the Simathe had recommended, I concentrated on how it had felt to be spun through the magic of the mirror—not once, but twice. Also the feel of being encapsulated within the dome of Braisley’s magic, there in the mountains. The feel of my heart and how it yearned for the Warkin prince. Last of all, I recalled how Braisley had called my magic a “persuasive” magic.

“Help me,” I whispered, speaking the words out loud to give them more power. “Help me. Take me where I need to go. Lead me to the one who can help me find Moonswept and save the dragon prince.”

A curious sensation of power swirling about me, coupled with a tugging, sucking, straining sensation, compressed my body.

It’s working, I thought, elated.

Indeed, something was happening. Rather than fight the sensations, I surrendered, envisioning dropping off a cliff and into the embrace of the sea, allowing it to overpower me.

I drifted.

I drifted between the sea and the sky, between the surface and the deepest caverns of the earth. I drifted through time and space, eternity and death, darkness and light. And when I opened my eyes, it was to bright white. Light so bright and so overpowering that I lifted my hand to shade my vision.

Where am I?

It was as if I’d wakened in the middle of the sun itself.

“Take time, child. Be at ease. You be safe.”

A voice spoke to me. Calm. Aged. Feminine this time, so it was not the Simathe.

“Where am I?” I managed to say. My voice was harsh, croaking, as if from long disuse. However, I’d recently been using it to ask for help. That meant something else was affecting my voice.

Dryness. Heat. A startling lack of moisture in the air .

My senses informed me of these things before my eyes opened.

My skin felt dry as leather. The heat was like the blast of Mama’s oven in the cookhouse behind our cottage.

“You be with the Jearim,” the voice replied. “Do not open your eyes yet. Wait…”

I heard the rustling of fabric, then something soft as a whisper and thin as a cobweb was draped over my head.

“Now,” the voice instructed. “Now you may look.”

Obediently, I lifted my eyelids, at the same time leaning forward and straightening my spine.

I’d not been lying down, as when I wakened in the Wastelands with the Simathe First. Instead, I was sitting up with my back against the wall of a wooden hut. Before me was a blindingly white wall of stone. Braisley’s mountains had been white, capped with snow. These walls were every bit as white but boasted a smooth, pearlescent sheen.

Like the stone the Simathe had given me.

That must have been why he’d bidden me use it. I had—and it had brought me to the place of its origin.

“You be well?”

My gaze snapped from the canyon before me to the speaker on my right. I was gazing at everything through the wispy, translucent veil she had cast over my head. Regardless, I could see quite clearly.

A face, wrinkled and aged, the lines like the squiggles of my father’s sea charts. Deep, dark eyes, brownish-green, like the deepest depths of the ocean. Dark skin, the color of the rich, warm soil in the jungles of my home island. Hair gone grey-white from age, braided and coiled around her head in a living crown.

“Who are you?” I asked, twisting my body to face her fully. I’d never seen her like. Still, as with the Simathe, I sensed she offered me no danger. Also, I deduced that the Simathe would not have sent me here if there were any danger.

“I told you,” she said, rocking back on her heels, “you be in the home of the Jearim.” She grinned at me, her white teeth contrasting sharply with the deep hue of her skin. The gaps between her teeth offered a friendly air. “Someone sent you here,” she observed. “No Blinded find the Jearim unassisted. Who sent you?”

“I—he was a Simathe,” I stammered, desperately trying to collect my wits. “The First, he called himself. Who are the Blinded? I am not blind.”

“Weren’t you?” she chuckled. “All be blinded by Brightstone at first.”

Brightstone. Blinded.

Tearing my focus from her, I glanced about the area once more. The brightness of the rock appeared to come from within, much like that of the sun itself, albeit I figured the light was not actual light, but rather the reflection of the sunlight on the white stone. Also…yes, I’d been temporarily blinded until she threw the veil over my face.

The names made sense, once I placed them in context.

“Ah, the First.” The old woman’s voice drew me back. She nodded sagely. “It would have to be him. Or Contrey. One of the old ones.”

What did old mean to an immortal warrior?

“Who is Contrey?” I asked that question instead.

The woman flapped a wrinkled palm, shooing the question away. “One of the deathless. No matter. Well, child, can you rise? Can you stand?”

My strength was returning as I settled into another realm so different from my own that my brain reeled to accept it. I’d rarely dreamt of visiting other portions of Aerisia, being content with a quiet life on my home island. Now, I’d seen the impregnability of the fairy queen’s mountain home, glimpsed the lifeless and barren Wastelands, apparently lived in what I’d been told was the heart of Aerisia itself, and now found myself in…

I nodded at the older woman, my movement shaky, but braced myself on the hut to push myself upright. My legs were weak and shaky. Too much magical jumping from place to place, I supposed.

“You can stand. This is good,” the woman crowed, rising with an audible creak of her knees. She wore a simple wrapped dress of bright colors that passed over one shoulder and left the other bare. Feet in rope sandals peeked out from beneath the hem, and she wore colored pebbles, strung on leather strands, about her neck and wrists as jewelry. More colored pebbles were embedded in her braid, like jewels in a crown. Her brown-green eyes gleamed with interest.

“Child, tell me,” she said, patting my arm. “It has been long since you ate?”

“It’s been…”

I stopped, the veil swishing slightly over my face. “I cannot say,” I finished with a helpless laugh. “I have been traveling all over Aerisia. But, aye, now that you mention it, it’s been quite some time.”

“I thought so. Follow me, girl.”

She turned, scuttling away, her back slightly bent from the length of her life, leading me from the hut and into the heart of a village. I followed, gazing about in awe, wondering where in the depths of Aerisia we were. Huts crisscrossed the valley in zig-zagged patterns, fires surrounded by stones were planted at intervals among the huts, and a few trees here and there waved their leaves in the breeze. Amid the huts were also several barns, sheds, lean-tos, and even garden plots. These folk, the Jearim, were an orderly and self-sufficient people.

“Come, come,” my guide beckoned when my steps slowed. “Not time for gawking. Time for eating. ”

Obediently, I quickened my pace, but how did I not gawk?

Soaring around me on all sides, save one, were cliffs of pearlescent white stone thrusting themselves proudly into the blue sky. Having looked about, I could see I was in a vast canyon whose opening appeared more a pinprick of light than a true entrance. The white stone was indeed blinding, dazzling, especially beneath the sunshine. Growing up in a tropical, ocean area, I’d supposed myself accustomed to bright sunshine. However, sunlight shimmering on golden sands was far different than sunlight reflecting on white canyons. I wondered how the folk here survived—not only the blinding light, but the dry heat—then supposed they were simply used to it.

“Here, girl, Sit. Sit,” ordered the woman, and I halted just in time to avoid running into her.

My attention had been fixed on the walls of the vast canyon supporting the brightest blue sky I’d ever seen and not on her. I was also gazing upon lush palm trees, sprouting at clumps here, there, and all about, from whom I supposed the thatch on the huts was made. Three distinct waterfalls streamed down the canyon walls, falling into a river that flowed along the foot of the canyon, disappearing beneath the stones at the far end. At the far end of the encampment, stood a single tree. A tree with yellow bark and strange black leaves that didn’t move even when a breeze happened to blow.

I nearly tripped at having to come to a halt so hastily. Embarrassment heated my cheeks, and I hoped the translucent veil hid my blush.

“Sit, sit,” she insisted, flapping a hand impatiently, then ordered, “Meigh, fetch food.”

A small girl, perhaps eight years younger than myself, hopped up from the mat on which she’d been sitting, weaving another colorful mat from a bundle of dyed grasses on the ground beside her. The direct sunlight overhead didn’t appear to bother her, which was remarkable, for I was already perspiring.

“Yes, Grandma,” she said, and scurried away after motioning me to take a seat.

My guide and I stood in a circle of stones for chairs, and I dropped onto the nearest one. A small fire snapped in the center of the circle, ringed by rock, and over it was suspended an iron pot from which steam and delicious smells emanated. Despite the discomfort of the sunlight and heat, my stomach growled, reminding me that it had been quite some time since the cave had provided a meal. My location was uncertain, but I sensed no danger to my person and my person was ready to eat.

“May I ask where I am?” I inquired, turning to the old woman who had taken the stone beside me. “I am Lorna, from the Jeweled Isles. I am Sanlyn. I was sent here, as I said, by the Simathe First. He thought you might be able to assist me. However, I don’t know who you are, beyond the name Jearim, and I do not know where I am, except a place called Brightstone.”

Before the old woman could speak, a chorus of squeals and giggles erupted. Startled, I glanced to my left, only to see a flock of young children charging towards us. Following hard on their heels were teens and mature women, whom I assumed to be older sisters and mothers. From the youngest to the oldest, these folk shared my guide’s deep skin and brown-green eyes, her bright, colorful clothing, and her pretty pebbles strung creatively for jewelry. Some wore copper bangles and bracelets, along with copper earrings. Some of the women had their hair braided around their heads, while others wore multiple braids reaching to their waists, and a few had their hair tied up in a knot woven with a bright scarf or colorful threads .

I also noticed, while there were male children in the group, no men followed the group. Nor did I see any about the village. Where were the adult males? So many questions, yet I had to wait to ask them as the children piled into a screaming, laughing heap around the fire and about my feet.

“Grandma, Grandma!” they were gasping. Their thin arms waved, their hands flapping in excitement as they pointed and gestured at me. “A Blinded! A Blinded!”

“Yes, a Blinded,” the elderly woman chuckled. Leaning closer to me, she said, “Most have never seen your kind. It has been years since a Blinded has visited. You must have a dire need. Tell me.”