CHAPTER EIGHT #2
Never would I forget those pens on his ship, fitted with sturdy upright beams for hammocks to hold the beasts.
Hippocamps can survive out of the water; they have to breathe air like us.
The modifications to Skirmisher proved everything Gordon and I had discovered.
Even his second-in-command was disturbed, never expecting his captain would sink so low.
At first, I’d wanted to run to Fraser, to demand an explanation, but Gordon dissuaded me.
When he said nothing would stop Fraser from sailing, I’d planted the fireblast spells, pleased to be the ‘nothing’ that stopped the raid. That’s what mattered.
Right?
“Funny, I’ve said the same thing.” In the bright morning sun, Fraser’s dry and somewhat sad retort tripped my self-righteousness, causing my confidence to stumble.
Anger I expected, and his implacable determination.
Those were easy enough to see in his contemptuous expression, but there—was that sadness?
Regret? It lasted just a moment before his pale blue eyes frosted over, once more cool and mocking.
“Well, this is going to be awkward.” Taenya’s voice broke the climbing tension, and we each looked away. “Won’t we all have fun together?”
I’d forgotten she was there. Fraser had filled my entire view. Taenya laughed, and Cassyrra trilled and shook her head.
“We do have our work cut out for us.” Taenya seemed unperturbed by Fraser’s flat denial.
“You are right about one thing: I’m not going to convince you at all.
You’ll decide that on your own.” Either she did not know Fraser’s famed unyielding will, or this mysterious friend of theirs possessed magical persuasive skills.
Fraser could look furious, he could look intimidating, but now he just looked confused. “I told you—"
Taenya cut him off. “Like I told you last night, I’m going to let someone else to do the convincing.”
“Like who?” He scoffed, raising a single dark eyebrow with devastating disdain.
Taenya’s grin widened, and she cackled. “Can’t wait for you to meet her. It’ll just be a few more minutes.”
The dragon lifted her head and took a few steps away from the tents and into the field to face due east toward the sun climbing into the sky. Taenya watched her as if waiting for a signal. Fraser’s closed expression and frown said he was done talking.
The dragon uttered a low, resonant hum, raising one long-fingered forefoot.
We all turned to face the massive beast. Her front ‘feet’ were more hand-like, a palm with mobile fingers armed with wickedly sharp talons.
She sat on her haunches so she could raise her other forefoot, spreading her wings for balance.
“Cassyrra expected your little trick,” Taenya said.
“She was over here scouting last night, had a chat with the current residents.” When she turned to face the dragon, she said over her shoulder, “We figured you’d take a shot at us.
What pirate doesn’t have ballistae?” Fraser’s brows narrowed, and his eyes glittered.
“Privateer,” he hissed, and from the way his jaws clenched, it was a sore subject.
Taenya strolled toward her dragon, calling, “Once you meet Cassyrra’s friend, you can ask her. She’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” Once she reached her reptilian friend, she looked back at us. “Just be careful what you ask. You might not like the answer.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fraser shouted as Cassyrra flicked her claws, then scythed them together. They made a snicking sound that chimed like metal on metal, and she ignored him, spreading her fingers wide to let loose her amethyst numin from the tips of her claws in a flashing spray.
Instead of fading, the sparks swirled and grew until a vertical whirlpool of energy spun, hanging in the open air above the grass.
It twisted there for a few seconds, then snapped into a doorframe.
Hazy purple energy billowed, contained within the bright violet borders and obscuring the view of the field beyond.
Taenya at Cassyrra’s side spoke a few sentences in a language I didn’t recognize.
Liquid and chirpy, it sounded like a cross between spoken word and birdsong.
She finished speaking and clapped her hands, giving three sharp raps.
The haze crackled and retreated to reveal a different scene in the frame, one that did not belong in the grassy seaside field.
It was the fanciest teleportal spell I’d ever seen.
Undulating waves of sand stretched as far as the eye could see under a sky bleached white with heat. Standing in the doorway was another beast out of legend.
A sphinx.
Her lovely human face showed hints of her feline nature, with a short, snubbed nose, and high, angled cheekbones, framed by tousled curls that glinted like spun golden floss.
“About time.” Her drawl said she was bored. Not exactly what I expected.
Of course, a sphinx would speak. That wasn’t what made me flinch. It was her voice. I wish I could say it was musical or lilting, but rather, she looked and sounded like a peevish teenager. One with massive paws the size of a royal’s dinner plate, the body of a lioness, and wings.
Her paws thudded softly as she stepped through the teleportal frame from...wherever she was, to stand before us. Numin sizzled against her tawny coat, a thin purple line that crackled along the length of her frame as she passed through the doorway.
She was easily the size of a small horse.
“I told you so,” she said, sitting and facing all of us. She shook out gilded wings, flaring them wide before folding them again to her sides. Her head tilted, and she rolled her eyes. “You were almost too late.”
“Yes, Cleobah,” Taenya said with exaggerated patience. The sphinx chortled.
“And what else? He’s not so thrilled with our idea?” She tilted her head toward Fraser.
Cassyrra huffed; her agreement rolled along with the gust of air that came with it.
“You were right,” Taenya said. “If we’re counting sarcasm as a prediction.” Her green gaze went stony. “I think your exact words were ‘they’re gonna love it!’ Yet this is about as far from ‘loving it’ as it gets.”
“You must not have heard me when I said, ‘eventually.’ They’ll get there.” The sphinx radiated smug confidence.
Sphinxes are immortal, one of the few truly immortal beings.
I’d run across a few mentions of actual encounters with them at the mage schools I’d attended; they were considered rare, often deadly, like many magical creatures.
Those first-hand reports described them as capricious, benevolent in one meeting, only to attack in another.
Since Taenya addressed this one by name, I relaxed somewhat, enough to wonder why a notoriously solitary creature was there in a town, with a dragon and a human.
Then, those gorgeous golden eyes locked on mine.
“This one is more like it.” Satisfaction flowed from the sphinx with her purr in a palpable wave, the vibrations ticklish against my skin.
I blinked to see that the sphinx’s face was youthful, that she was not yet mature.
No one had ever encountered a sphinx, male or female, that looked young.
All the bestiary tomes I’d read described them as old or ancient.
“Did you tell him about the school?” She swung her head toward Taenya.
“Got as far as telling him Cassyrra chose him as a student. He didn’t want to hear anything after that,” the other mage answered. The sphinx pursed her lips.
“Of course he didn’t. He doesn’t believe you.” Her tone didn’t improve, only got progressively more annoyed.
“He has no reason to. Convincing him is your job.” Taenya looked just as annoyed as the sphinx sounded.
“You’re not interested?” The sphinx stood and stepped up to the edge of the dome to address Fraser, speaking as if to a small child. “Don’t you love your hippocamps?”
All I heard was ‘hippocamps.’
“I knew it!” I hissed, pointing my finger and hoping my ire would hit him through the numinous shield surrounding him.
“You know nothing, little girl.” The sphinx chuckled, turning her luminous golden eyes to mine.
It was jarring being called ‘little girl’ by a creature that looked to be five or six years younger than my twenty-five years.
Even her lioness body was that of a lean, rangy youngster. “But you will. Both of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fraser and I spoke in unison. I glared at him. He gave back as good as he got.
Her leonine shoulders shook, her wings rustling as well.
“Oh, come on. I ca–an’t tell you.” The singsong lilt annoyed all of us, from the way the other two rolled their eyes, and again, I was reminded of my friend’s sister.
Not what I expected from a legendary magical creature.
However, acting like a bratty teen with an attitude stripped away much of the mystique.
She tilted her head to study Fraser through the blue numinous dome like he was a bug under glass.
“Taenya was supposed to tell you about it.”
“We didn’t get the chance,” Taenya said. “Turns out these two hate each other, and we were too busy keeping him from killing us.”
The sphinx broke off her examination of Fraser to slide a sly side-eye at me, then blinked at Taenya. “Oops.”
She responded by rolling her head like she’d reached her last nerve and was losing the battle to keep herself together. “Ozora, Fraser, meet Cleobah. This new mage school is her idea.”
Finally! Maybe I’d get some real answers.
“Oh, and Fraser? She’s the one to talk to about your hippocamps.”