“...at his behest so did request

the west to set her free...”

Iwahnno Ngyehsi Gusya XIX

1:3:4:2/5, III:IX

The dreary horizon filled with light, and Jorn surveyed the local owls for a safe place to rest. The birds recommended an old barn at the edge of Port Donnel, home to many mice and abandoned years ago. Securing the dragons inside with Larin as she slept, Jorn ventured into town to buy clothes for the girl. He’d released his whole stable into the mountains to track her down, but he’d waited to sound the alarm until they’d discovered the secluded shed. With Haisrir and the baron away on business, the frantic guards scrambled to round up the missing dragons, and Jorn broke into the treasury to fund his daring rescue. No one noticed him steal away with Rikal and her thirteen infants.

Bound by the dragon custom of life debt, the blue mother and Lithon both insisted they serve Larin for saving their doomed child. By far the largest of his siblings, the green kit paraded at his father’s feet, patrolling the sleeping girl until Jorn returned with the makings of a sponge bath and a few fineries. Foreign contenders raced at the barony every weekend, so if Larin could find the strength to impersonate a Kanatan aristocrat, they might get aboard a ship undiscovered.

Wakefulness came slippery and fleeting when he patted her ghostly cheek, but she managed to help him scrub away the blood caking her body. Though she hadn’t stirred since the previous morning, Larin agreed to her role as a noble, huddling in her blanket after Jorn helped her don the fancy dress and velvet cloak. “I’ll say I’ve taken ill from the cold,” she expanded between weak sips of broth. “Since you don’t speak Allanic, you’ll be the handler for the dragons.”

Relieved to hear her coherent, Jorn buttoned her boots and settled her over Lithon’s shoulders, leading their entourage toward the wharf. They minced through the icy streets, a few souls turning up near the docks to hawk their wares. Out of place in bright Kanatan garb, a stout merchant called in his thick accent, “Passage! Go passage! Passage from Kanata!”

Gouging the sodden planks beneath their claws, the dragons picked their way across the rocking wharf, and Jorn waved the man over. “Passage for two and our dragons?” he prompted when Larin swayed atop the red, battling a wave of vertigo.

The merchant pulled a small book from his breast pocket. “Ts’od draccon’i?”

“Uh... dragons?” floundered Jorn, glancing up at Larin. “Two dragons, and their kits.”

“Ita stable tsaae you draccon’i? Ts’od passage?” Flapping a hand in Jorn’s face, he reemphasized, “Stable? Stable draccon’i? Tsaae stable in draccon’i?”

“Vetc!” called Larin, exhausted from her three attempts to catch the man’s attention. “Ts’od draccon’i k’ee.”

He jumped, boggling at Jorn before brushing past him to converse with Larin. “Forgive me, my lady! This infernal wind has sent me well on my way to deaf. On your way back from the races, I presume?”

Acting vexed he hadn’t heard her the first time, Larin waved a gaunt hand. “Yes, where I’ve taken ill, no less. Let us aboard and out of the wind, if you please?”

“Laa nat’uu!” He beckoned, retreating up a pitching gangplank. After Larin boarded, Jorn walked Rikal onto the deck and they descended into the hold, the reality of their escape settling over him.

With an impressive overtone of prestige, Larin negotiated two stalls for the dragons and one room to share with Jorn. Most Kanatan ladies married down, and requesting a second room would signal her availability. “No, my handler will lodge me,” she dismissed with another airy wave. “He has served me well for years, and this latest win has secured us a future together.”

“Yes of course,” bleated the merchant, a touch of disappointment wrinkling his brow. “Hearty congratulations to you both! Now please, follow me to your room, where you can take some rest, my lady.”

Ignoring his courtly prattle, Larin relayed the arrangements to Jorn, who helped her up the stairs and across the windswept deck. “We made it,” he exulted, tucking her into their cabin’s small bed once the merchant left with his fare. “We’re free.”

“...to legend’s woe the elf will know

but not before the lessons go...”

Ansoh Njyae Dynde IV

L 1:3:4:7/5, III:IX

The endless sands spilled before Tirrok as his pegasus crested the last valley of the D’jed and descended over the desert. Two weeks in the abandoned Great Hall had eroded his sense of destiny, and he’d reconciled with the fact that his answers couldn’t come from a sage who’d never return. Graced by the impending thaw, Tiena’s brief but frequent rests kept her strong enough to escape the mountains before the cold claimed their lives, and now they basked in the afternoon heat of the desert sun.

Though his old village entreated a mere four days away, Tirrok elected not to open Jokkel’s book and consign himself to going home. His questions still burned, and the winter had proven that age did not earn wisdom. Even the immortal Kingard bore the weight of bitter disillusion, and the sacred temple at Mt. Siik held no appeal for Tirrok now. What guidance could he find there, when he’d already crossed Mother’s Gate in vain? But unwilling to go home without the wisdom he sought, he journeyed south for the Rishi, skirting the desert’s border in the long shadows of the D’jed. Ahead, the familiar reddish sands spilled down onto rolling plains, a glittering ribbon of water snaking into the verdant horizon.

Moved by wonder, Tirrok strained his shining eyes for the green lands beyond the Sutek. Waves of spring grass beckoned, rippling like distant veils across his heart, and reverence welled within him. Safe astride Tiena as she flew, he bowed his head in deep, communing prayer. Thank you for this world, O Mother. More infinite than he imagined, it stretched vast and unexplored beyond all he’d ever known. The rightness of it filled his heart until he sensed it spilling forth into the horse beneath him, the air around him, and the lands before him. Even the sky above filled with Mother’s light, and he breathed every answer he’d ever sought...

Spine arching, Tirrok gasped awake and shuddered in the soft grass, throat raw and body aching. His pegasus nickered, nudging the side of his head with her velvet snout. “Tiena?” he coughed. “What happened?” The sun had descended a few hours in the west, and the Sutek’s border lay but a mile north. After checking his friend for injury, Tirrok gazed into her eye to ring the bond between them.

Warmth bloomed through his chest, and her memories surfaced. He’d vanished astride her back, but his body remained, contorting and groaning out strange sounds. Then he fell, and Tiena dove to catch him, depositing him on the ground to endure the rest of his convulsions in safety. When his spasms ended, he slipped into a deep healing sleep, and Tiena had guarded his peaceful repose until he awakened.

The events troubled him, but Tiena’s affectionate lack of concern brought him some comfort. Easing her back into the sky, Tirrok banked in a wide circle to scan for an explanation. Two winged shapes at the southern horizon caught his attention, their forms bulky and their flight slow. With nothing else to investigate, he urged Tiena after them, flying fast to confront the pair vanishing in the distance.

Soon he spotted riders atop the bird-creatures, and he deciphered two elves much like Kingard peering back as he closed on them. In a gesture he’d learned from Jokkel, Tirrok swept a hand through the air and they conceded to his speed, slowing but not banking. He bowed his head in respect when he drew close enough to hail them. “Fair weather and cool water!”

“Uh, hello!” called the woman from her larger mount, her thumb aimed at the ground. “Care to land?”

“Please,” he shouted in reply. Her language took effort to make out over the wind, though similar enough to Suteki for Tirrok to comprehend.

Signaling to the man astride his smaller beast, the woman brought them into a cumbersome downward spiral. Tirrok circled above until their final descent, when Tiena plunged to the earth and flared her wings, banking in a tight arc to touch down at full gallop. As she slowed to a trot, the larger beasts alighted at a standstill, and the elves dismounted while the desert rider doubled back for them. “Did you see that landing, Sharis? Incredible!”

“Of course I did,” she signed back, slapping her brother’s hands down before he could offend the stranger with more secret signals.

In keeping with Sutek custom, Tirrok waited for the elves to ask who he was and how he came to be in their region. Instead, an awkward moment stretched between them. “We are Tirrok Jokkelel of Jahari, and Tiena, my bonded,” he ventured into the unasked questions. “The newman’s choice has brought us past the desert’s edge, and we are strangers in a strange land.”

“Oh good,” exclaimed the man in obvious relief, nudging his tense companion. “That’s Sharis, my sister. I’m Fal’on. We thought it odd for a Dua Dara to follow us so far south. Are you a scout, or are you journeying?” With the newfound threat of mindwarps weighing on him, this fortuitous encounter struck him as more than mere coincidence.

“Fal’on, you’re not thinking of telling him, are you?”

“Of course I am! The Sutek’s independent–”

“But they still swear fealty!” Quiet while the siblings signed to each other, Tirrok interpreted their gestures. The hand signals Jokkel had taught him differed in places, but he decoded enough to follow the conversation.

“You’re the one who wanted to tell everybody, Shar.”

“Yeah, and you called me insane for it!”

“Actually,” Tirrok announced into their silent argument, “we do not swear fealty. The empress grants our lands complete autonomy provided our seers counsel the empire in times of need.” Their abashed expressions harbored no guile, so he intimated, “I am on a personal mission, to find truth and to shape my own destiny. Now, knowing I have no connection to the empire, please tell me of your mission.”

Uneasy confiding in the newcomer, Sharis stalled, “Well, it all started when we overheard a conversation in this tavern–”

“Mindwarps are moving into Sierlyn!” blurted Fal’on, impatient with his sister’s caution. “They’ve warped the empress, and they’re using her to collect shifters for them! For decades, the imperials have been saying they must be stamped out, but shifters used to be revered, and it’s just in this past century–”

“He doesn’t need a history lesson, Fal’on!” Taking her brother’s reckless betrayal in stride, Sharis summated, “We overheard the warps talking, but we have no one to turn to for help. Could the Dua Dara do something, maybe?”

Shaken, the youth faltered. “I...” An old desert legend told of the mind-bending wraiths, and of the all-powerful chieftain who would defeat them. It was said he dwelt in the City of Mist, and that the Dua Dara would send their finest warrior to rouse him for battle. “I am not sure.” Could the legend somehow mean Tirrok as the Dua Dara’s finest? And was Kingard the mighty chieftain then, awakened in the misty realm beyond Mother’s Gate?

“You have to believe us!” Fal’on pleaded, breaking into his thoughts of Jokkel’s book and the secrets bound within. “I’ve studied Khollic for years, and we saw them with our own eyes just hours ago!”

“I’m sure it is as you say,” Tirrok consoled him, new questions roiling through his chest. “Tell me, have you heard of the City of Mist?”

“What, A’lara?” choked Fal’on, gaping astonished at the desert man. “That’s where we were going!”

“We couldn’t think of anywhere else to go,” Sharis justified before he gathered the wrong impression. “Why? Do you know where it is?”

“No,” admitted Tirrok, the mounting providence of their encounter burning away his doubts. If the City of Mist still awaited, then he would seek it and see what the legend made of him. Perhaps his answers lay with Kingard after all. “But, I will journey with you to this city, if you will have me.”