Enchanted Realms

Chapter 10

A knot of wyverns was gathered on the right side of the cavern floor, many of them looking up. On a shelf perched two wyverns, one of them the roan Euphony.

Between the wyverns stood the slight form of Alyson.

“What do you suppose is happening?” Josh asked, dismounting to the lip of the cavern mouth. He and Queen Aria had just returned from the southeastern coast. Josh scrambled from the lip down to the cavern floor and across to the knot of wyverns, among them Threnody, who saw him coming.

“What"s going on?” Josh asked.

“We"re too late, I"m afraid,” Threnody said. “You must get your friend, Josh. She"s refusing to leave Glossody"s side.”

Just before they had left that morning, Threnody had reported Glossody"s illness to Queen Aria. “Stay with her for as long as you can,” Aria had told him. And as she and Josh had departed she had told him, “All will be revealed in time, and she will be cared for in our absence.”

“Glossody"s worse?” Josh asked Threnody.

“Much worse, much faster than anyone could have foreseen. No one can help her now. Quickly, Josh, Alyson must come down. Now!”

Threnody bent down for Josh to climb on him, then lifted Josh. He stood on the wyvern"s neck, walked up the neck and leapt off the bony crown to get to the ledge.

Josh felt the heat.

“She"s dying,” Alyson said upon seeing him, her hair plastered to her head, beads of sweat rolling down her face.

The wyvern lay on her side, her breathing shallow and rapid, the eyelids hanging low. Between the scales, the skin glowed red like the embers of a fire.

“She"s burning up,” Josh said. “Alyson, you must come down now.”

“Huh?” She glanced at the wyverns on either side of her, looked closely at Euphony. “She"s what?!”

“Now!”

Josh helped her climb onto Euphony, who launched herself, and then he mounted the other wyvern, and the moment it launched from the ledge, Josh grasped the white crystal at his neck. A rush of fire and hot air singed him, the muted force still knocking the air from his lungs. The wyvern wobbled in flight but braked and brought them safely to the cavern floor.

Josh dismounted and looked back, his legs shaking with fright.

The shelf was empty, the rock scored with burn marks, a cloud of smoke dissipating across the ceiling, smoldering pieces of the nest scattered across the cavern floor.

Queen Aria still stood on the lip of the cavern. She lifted her wings wide and screeched loud enough to reach them all. “Our sister Glossody now flies aloft through perpetual skies, free at last of the burdens of skin, scale, bone, and muscle. Thus the cycle is complete. Let us not mourn her passing, for she lived a life as full as any, but let us mourn instead the loss of our brotherhood with humans, a brotherhood that might have renewed her and brought her through another cycle.” Queen Aria folded her wings and bowed her head.

All the wyverns followed her lead.

For a full minute they held this pose.

Josh looked around for Alyson.

She sat on a ledge several nests over her back to Euphony, her face buried in her hands, weeping and disconsolate. Euphony was arched over her, one wing spread across her, as though to shield or blanket her.

Josh walked toward her, the smell of sulfur strong in the cavern. Bewildered, Josh climbed the ledge, sat beside her and pulled her to him, her sobs deepening.

* * *

“Perhaps it was wise to consider more deeply before deciding how to cut the diamond,” Queen Aria said.

The three of them sat on the lip of the cavern, near the southern edge of the cavern mouth, the setting sun in the west keeping back the mountain chill.

“Now you know the struggles we face, our races,” she continued, facing the setting sun, as though she contemplated the end not of this day but of the very existence of the wyverns. “Without humans, the wyvern race faces extinction. Our physiology requires that we periodically discharge our reserves, and one of the few ways to do that is by recharging a stone. Without this discharge, energy gathers in our reserves and keeps gathering until they overload.” Aria sighed, hot sulfur and brine washing over Josh and Alyson.

“I"ve never heard any of that before,” Josh said, glancing at Alyson.

“Wizard Whipplethorpe never mentioned it either,” she said, her voice faint.

“Much knowledge has been lost or distorted by fear.”

He didn"t like the vacant look in her eyes. “We have to bring the two races together again, somehow.”

“Indeed. It is the only way.” The wyvern glanced back into the cavern. “We were not meant to live like this. Once, our race lived alongside humans across the planet. Now, only three enclaves of wyverns exist, and only one or two kingdoms still observe the old ways, still welcome our visits and our companionship, but only among the most powerful of humans. I told you earlier that great power requires great responsibility. It also requires great flexibility and trust.

“Humans have never held great power and great trust in the same hand comfortably. Most seem to think them mutually exclusive, that to hold onto power, one must distrust one"s close associates and deprive them of access to power in order to preserve one"s own. It is ultimately a self-defeating philosophy. We do not wield any power but what is given to us by others through their trust that we will wield that power equitably, for the benefit of all.”

“How can the diamond be shaped to generate trust on a broad scale?” Josh asked, holding onto Alyson"s hand.

“It would be difficult to overcome the fear of those who now wield power. The Guardians of Alsace, for example, will resist your every attempt to exert dominion over those lands.”

“The legend notwithstanding,” Josh said.

“What legend?” Aria turned her heard to look at him.

As did Alyson.

“Legend says a wyvern talker will claim this diamond and assume the crown from the guardians as the true King of Alsace.”

“The tale has grown since the original telling,” Aria said.

“You heard the original telling?” Alyson asked.

“I was the original teller.”

Josh and Alyson exchanged a glance. “What did you say?”

“Whosoever cuts this diamond becomes the next King.”

Josh frowned. “Not a wyvern talker?”

“Why couldn"t you have added "queen"?”

Josh and Aria looked at Alyson. “I"ll remember to do that next time, my Queen,” Aria said.

“Mock me all you want,” she replied. “How do you think the wyvern talker got added?”

Aria shook her head. “A human assumption perhaps. I did have to find a wyvern talker to say it to.”

Something deep disturbed Josh. “Does a wyvern talker have to be the one?”

have“Precisely my point,” Aria said. “Alyson, you"ve developed quite a bond with Euphony. Do you speak wyvern?”

Alyson shook her head. “I don"t know when it started, but I"ve been able to hear her in my head for a couple days now. And you, and Threnody. And you three can understand me. Does that make me a wyvern talker?”

“I think it does. More importantly, it demonstrates that anyone can become a wyvern talker in just a little time. All you have to do is listen.”

Alyson smiled.

Josh felt relieved, worried that she was taking Glossody"s death too hard. He leaned against her, putting his head on her shoulder.

“Perhaps another tale perpetuated by the powerful to restrict others" access to power,” Alyson said.

“Probably,” Josh said. “Queen Aria, any reason that Alyson can"t help you shape the diamond?”

“None except the most important.”

“What"s that?” Alyson asked quickly.

“I have chosen him.”

Josh was surprised and delighted, but felt her disappointment. “So, you"re saying she has the talent, the resourcefulness, and the integrity you"re looking for?”

Aria grinned. “She most certainly does. And somewhere there"s a kingdom for her to rule one day.”

“It"ll have to be a queendom,” Alyson said, sighing.

Josh and Aria laughed, the wyvern spouting gouts of smoke.

“Thank you, though,” she told Aria, looking mollified.

“You"re welcome,” the wyvern said. “You are well-matched, both of you strong and self-assured. I look forward to watching you grow together.”

Josh felt Alyson sigh, and she kissed the top of his head. “He"s wonderful, isn"t he?”

“You both are,” Queen Aria said, heaving a long slow sigh. She looked off toward the sunset, and Josh could tell her thoughts were elsewhere.