Enchanted Realms

Chapter 7

Josh put down the sponge and rinsed his hands in the blood-clouded water for a final time, exhausted. The cavern mouth was bright with day, a wisp of smoke snaking up from the fire pit. Thousands of eyes remained fixed on him, just two of them human, all the rest wyvern.

The wound looked like the stitching on a lace dress, but it was clear of blood and pus, and looked less angry red at the edges.

Josh had had to cut out the barbed spearhead, then had healed the layers of flesh with his emerald, working slowly and methodically. Just before reaching the outermost layer of muscle, his emerald had sputtered out, and he"d had to sew the flesh shut.

Josh sighed and smiled at Alyson. “Thanks for your help.”

She nodded, her eyelids looking heavy. Her hand on the great bony crown between the two eyes, she continued to caress the wyvern softly, the diamond against her tunic glowing on its chain. “Will she be all right?”

Josh nodded. “Yes.” And he felt rather than saw Threnody behind him relax. The relief around the cavern was audible, wyverns chirping and cooing their sentiments to each other. Josh turned to Threnody. “She"s not to move until I"ve had a chance to inspect the wound again in about six hours. I"ll need my emerald recharged before then, and I"ll need some sleep.”

“Certainly. Everything is ready for you both. We"ve prepared an area nearby, in case she wakes.”

Alyson rose and stepped to Josh"s side. “She"s deeply asleep, probably won"t wake for several hours.”

“How about pain?”

“I used a neural block, which should wear off in a couple hours.”

Josh blinked at her, wondering where she had learned how to do that.

“This way, Josh and Alyson,” Threnody said, running their names together. He led them to a small area screened by a low rock wall right beside the Queen"s nest. Straw had already been laid down, and over that a layer of moss.

Josh felt an urge. “Uh, Threnody …?”

The conversation was awkward, as it seemed the wyverns had no shyness regarding their elimination. They did however have a certain place halfway around the mountain where they excreted.

Threnody loaded them up and flew out of the cavern, Alyson sitting behind him and holding on tightly. Josh had to squint, the daylight was so bright. The view of the lake and surrounding mountains from the shoulders of the Wyvern was stupendous. Josh thought he even caught a glimpse of Alsace. Alyson squealed in his ear at each shift of weight.

The promontory where they landed looked like the battlement atop a castle, each crenellation a place where a wyvern might go. Twenty such crenellations lined the precipice, the cliff-side caked with guano and more aromatic than a human sewer.

Josh tried to go first, but couldn"t because he was retching so much. Alyson just shook her head and said, “I"ll find a tree over here.” Josh used it after she did.

On the flight back, Threnody banked hard and dropped down the cliff face. At the base of the cliff, people were harvesting the excrement.

Back at the cavern, as they dismounted onto the cavern lip, Alyson said, “I can"t believe they"re doing that.”

Threnody snorted a poof of smoke. “We haven"t been able to stop them. Most of them are from La Marche, merchants who sell it to farmers. A handful of the excrement apparently can fertilize whole fields.”

Looking out over the lake from the cavern mouth, Josh translated for Alyson, who was looking quite pale. He and his father had used wyrm guano similarly.

The slopes approaching the cavern mouth, Josh noted, were wide, smooth meadows, slanting upward from around the mountain itself like shelves that might have been cut into the mountainside. One on each side, he saw, both wide enough for an army.

Alyson said something mauled by a yawn.

He led her to the small, human-sized nest that had been made for them. She looked exhausted, as exhausted as he felt.

“Why don"t you lie down? I want to look in on Queen Aria.”

She squeezed his hand and nodded.

Threnody was settling himself beside the entrance to Aria"s nest. “By the way,” the wyvern said, “thank you.”

Josh nodded. “A privilege.”

In the nest he found Aria in the same position, but awake.

She raised her head to look at him. “I feel much better, Josh. I"m grateful.”

“A pleasure.” He sat near her head and scratched between her bony horns.

Her eyes half-closed in pleasure. “You"re not able to return to Alsace, I"ve been told.”

Josh nodded, remembering his glimpse of his former home earlier. He felt sad in one way, grateful in another. “I would never have met Thaddeus Corntassel if I had stayed there.”

Aria spewed smoke. “Once every five or ten years someone gets past him.”

“Horrible existence he has.”

“He"s a horrible man, feeding on people since he was a young man. This way at least, it serves a purpose.”

“Does he really make his stew out of people?”

“Indeed. It"s quite good, I"ve been told. Listen, Josh, I intended to steal that diamond while you were nearby.”

“You planned that?” Josh was amazed then concerned.

Queen Aria remained silent, her gaze on his face.

He began to realize what she wasn"t saying, and his mind stumbled toward conclusions, and finally into understanding. “How long have you known about me?”

Area looked at him, moving her head back to help her eyes see him as a whole, so wide-spread that their binocularity was lost on objects closer than five feet. “I knew when you were born.”

His internal response was a little “of course.” Josh had already known that, somehow. It"d happened before, like that, where he"d sometimes knew before the fact what was going to happen, or saw truths that had long been hidden. “How long were you waiting for me?”

“A long time.”

Over two hundred years since the last King of Alsace. Josh sensed Aria had waited longer than that. “You weren"t waiting for the king, were you?”

She blinked at him, again silent in the face of his questions.

“You"ve some higher purpose.”

“Indeed. When you look around this cavern, what do you see?” The head swiveled back to stare at him directly.

“A lot of wyverns, perhaps ten thousand. More than I ever expected to see in one place.” He looked at her. “Why do they huddle here?”

“Indeed. Precisely the question.” Aria laid her head back down, her breathing rough.

Josh knew she suffered more than she dared show. The wound inflicted upon her by spear point was the least of her pain.

“A time ago, wyvern and human lived alongside each other. Enclaves such as this were unnecessary. People didn"t live clustered around the castle as they do in Alsace, either. Distrust has grown, a poison that has seeped into relations between species across hundreds of years. I don"t know its cause. We each are at fault, both of us frequently suspicious of the others" motives.

“Thaddeus Corntassel ready to trap any interloper is one of many manifestations. The Guardian evinces it as well, their warriors now doubled upon the battlements at Alsace. That they have battlements and a castle is also evidence.

“This distrust must end. My elder sister Canticle, Wyvern of Harold the Third, spoke with me shortly before Harold died. She saw in her stewardship of Alsace the building suspicion of the populace. Thus it is in La Marche, Lorraine, Avignon, Aquitaine, ever vigilant for a threat that wyvern do not pose.

“This diamond from Alsace should have never lain uncut in the castle for over a hundred years. Wyvern talkers are not that uncommon. Your father John is one such talker, though he isn"t recognized as such. The Guardians were ensconced by the time of the diamond"s unearthing and thus they prohibited its being brought to a wyvern for cutting.”

“But they insist the wyvern-talker must cut the diamond.” Josh covered his mouth, not having wanted to interrupt Aria in her circumlocution.

“Matters not who cuts it, wyvern or talker, just that it be done in tandem for its power to be cultivated fully. Thus my taking the stone with you present.”

“A way to lure me here.”

“Just so. I did not intend that you should lose your home, and for that I"m regretful. Such loss is hard to bear, worse as it added to those already borne by one so young.”

Josh knew she referred to his mother, who had died when he was younger. He hardly remembered her, but had always felt her loss keenly, especially when he was with friends and saw the love they had from their mothers. Not that he"d felt any lack from his father, just the knowledge that he"d never know or have a mother in his life.

“So I waited until you went to the castle and were alone with the diamond. I did not expect the guardian son to return, nor did I expect to have to "persuade" you to help me. My apologies for that as well. It does not bode well that I began our relationship by compelling your assistance.”

“Compelling me wouldn"t have been necessary if I hadn"t been suspicious,” Josh said shrugging. “I"m glad you did. I wasn"t at the time, of course.”

“Just so, and well spoken. We have lost that spirit of mutual cooperation. You"re a wyrm-rancher; the domestication of our smaller cousins contributes to the rift between our species, as it provides humans with an alternate way to recharge the stones, albeit a poor one. With that alternative, humans are less eager to seek our wyvern help. Without stones to recharge, we grow restless, depressed, irritable, and sometimes aggressive. Our health suffers, and as individual wyverns grow ill, so too does the species suffer.

“You are in need of sleep, Josh. You have brought me surcease and comfort, both for mending my wound and listening to my prattle. Come back when you have rested. I promise not to go anywhere until you"ve looked at the wound again. Go, sleep near your friend, who is more than she seems. She too is a gem underneath the rough veneer, and she glows in your presence. Sleep well, man-child, and dream of the betterment of relations between our species.”

Josh smiled, his heart large with her blessings, and he kissed her just above her tender nose flesh, and then stood. A yawn struck him, his fatigue clear to all but him.

When he stumbled back to the small nest they"d made for their human guests, he didn"t notice when he lay down beside Alyson that she pulled him close, his knees tucked in behind hers, his front against her back.

She drew his arm around and held his hand between hers, and in that position, his face in her hair and her wonderful scents filling his each breath, Josh fell asleep, feeling complete.