A Task
The smell of burnt tar and the smoke of charred bones assaulted the air and stung Pax’s nose. Iranisa’s breath blew aromatic hot air across the camp-site; ash and dust and small rocks moved with each exhale.
“Do you have to do that?” said Gheis. “We’re going to do what you asked, but we need to plan – and to eat.
Do you know where there’s any food?” He stood up and dusted the camp-fire ash from his tunic. “No. I didn’t think so. Well, we can’t do anything until we either find food, or food finds us. Obviously, we are not as important to dragons as dragon needs are to dragons. We’ll just starve while we go out hunting for the things you want – things we can’t eat!” He stalked off; huffs of dust followed the stomp of his sandals. A cloud enveloped him as he shook out his hoochie.
Pax looked at Iranisa.
“Do you know where we find these things – these minerals you want?” She stood and walked towards the recumbent dragon. The glitter and glow on her scales was like sunset over crystal and salt. The huge jaws rested on what would be a front leg – if it were real. She seemed almost real, but the landscape on the other side of the dragon was still clearly visible.
“I can sense where the deposits are, almost like a smell; however, I cannot sense it until I am above it. You use medicine, and part of your medicine is the use of oils from the essence of flowers?” Iranisa asked. Pax nodded.
“This ‘essential oil’ is used because of the strong aromas?” Again Pax nodded.
“It is similar. A dragon has a particular signature that resonates with a particular mineral, or gem. If a dragon is close to their resonator, they can sense it. As you would smell the strong odours of your plants. It is the smell of our essential element.” Iranisa shook her head and flicked her tail. Rocks split and scattered tiny shards of stone around the clearing. Pelted skin already raw and sensitive.
Pax yelped.
“We need it. Everything resonates with something else, and dragons resonate to the acoustic strength of minerals. Mine are diamonds and crystals and salt – therefore, my colours reflect this.” She shimmered a wave of rainbow colours along her back and flank. Shivers of light ran through the air where her scales intersected with reality. A deep sigh. More dust eddies.
“It is more than that. To absorb the energy from our resonators enables our magic. No symbiotic mineral means no magic. No magic means we live the life of any beast, not as a real dragon. We need our resonators to give the full extent of music to our song.” Iranisa started to thrum; the gong notes an echo in the still air, cut the chill into shards that fell as tinkles of sound onto the sand. Pax slid into the music.
She had to stop it; turned in a full circle to avoid the glide of sound that swept a net over her mind.
“Please don’t trap me,” she whispered, even though she longed to let go and be absorbed by the sound, and the feel of the sound; to go to the place of harmonies; to be one with that sense of wholeness. But it felt like a death, too, as told to Pax by the people she’d nursed back from the very edges of life. She’d questioned Iranisa about why they should bring dragons back if they, the dragons, were only going to eat them: her people, her creatures. The animals and people she healed.
Iranisa laughed. Well, it felt like a laugh, the rumblings and snorting of a dragon that threw waves of humiliation back at her question. Pax felt herself redden; her face tingled with the threat of tears. The humiliation she felt at the hands of the bullies all through her life – until Shadow stepped in and stopped it. She straightened her back, steeled her resolve.
“Would you promise not to harm us if we help you?” Pax felt a cold lump in her stomach, but if Shadow could ask promises of a dragon, why couldn’t she?
“Our food is magic; our magic is energy from our resonators; our resonators are part of this world and no other – that we know. We would not have to eat you if you find our resonators.” Iranisa’s response felt like truth; however, Pax was afraid, very afraid. The promise Iranisa made was to Shadow, not to her, not to Gheis.
“I will not harm you. I will not harm him. I am not a taker of life unless it is necessary. Have you done a thing that was designed to annoy me?” Pax shook her head emphatically. Iranisa lowered her head again. “I could claim you, mark you as a keeper, however, I see your life will go a different way. You have your own path – a difficult path, but it is your own, and by your own choice.”
Pax let out a sigh. She didn’t want to be a dragon keeper, whatever that meant. She wanted to be a healer, a teacher, a carer. She was only here because everyone in Narrung was schooled through the military academy; all children needed to be capable of being soldiers. All the other guilds were secondary to defence. All the citizens of Narrung had to protect their land. Shadow was the best student of the martial courses, so Pax chose to be part of her team, knew they had the best chance of completing the set tasks and going on to graduate. And never having to do it again.
That was how it would have been, if Pax hadn’t been seen – heard – by the shepherds. She’d failed Shadow. Failed her best friend; her only friend apart from Gheis, and Gheis was her friend only because she saved his life. Pax was confirmed a place with the healers once she passed this test; to study further, to become a master, and to heal. She was a good healer. That was what she wanted from her life. Not dragons, not rocks. Not impossible tasks.
“And your colours – do they get stronger after you, um, absorb these elements?” She watched the colours spiral in flashes and washes over the dragon. The movement mesmerised. She had to keep her mind clear, keep her eyes averted from the swirls.
“My true colour is blue. I was created as blue. When we found we could feed our magic with our resonators, we discovered how to change our colours to reflect them – in that way, we give thanks to the resonators. So we reflect our resonators, regardless of the colour we were created with.” Iranisa hummed again. The breathy sounds made the sand eddy and swish.
“You were created?” Pax frowned. “You mean you were born blue?”
“We were created.” Iranisa’s voice and body tensed, the almost-muscles contracted tightly, and smoke dribbled from her nostrils. “We were created as play things.” She stood and unfolded her wings from her back, stretched them to full length. They didn’t cast a shadow. Pax ducked anyway.
“We were created from Astarii, and creatures that no longer exist, and,” she turned and looked down at Pax from a great height, “the blood of humans.” One sweep of her wings took her into the air; debris splattered Pax as she rose. Blood trickled down one leg. Pax ignored it. It was one of many; something she would deal with later.
Iranisa’s voice drifted back.
“I can sense something.” A tinkling sparkle in the sky and she was gone.
“Never ask a dragon anything about themselves,” she muttered, as she hefted her pack onto her shoulder. “Never ask a dragon anything!” She stomped over to Shadow and Gheis and waited as they loaded their packs.
Today they would head directly north, to Ulamba. There was no time to go to Lake Teeni first. Pax had looked forward to seeing the lake; swimming; having fish to eat. But the dragon said they go to Ulamba, and Shadow said that’s what they’d do. Gheis argued, of course. And Shadow laid out the order of hierarchy – the leader would say what, would say when, would say how. So now they were going through the hottest, driest, rockiest landscape where there would be no food, no water, and no stopping. And to note any areas where these bloody minerals would be!
The words spoken by Iranisa told them of the task.
“To go beyond Narowi to Moolanda; to find the gildenbeast in the shape of a wizard; to kill the wizard and return to Narrung with the stone from his heart.” The words sounded simple, like a child’s game, and was all she gave them. What does a gildenbeast look like? What does a wizard look like? They knew of wizards, but in her mind, Pax saw only a man dressed in funny robes and carrying a lightning stick. Was that the sort of wizard they were looking for? Just a man? And why did they have to kill him? And not just kill him, but cut out his heart? There wouldn’t be a stone in his heart. She’d cut up bodies, knew what was in them, how they were put together. In all her classes with bodies of men and beasts, she’d never known a rock or stone, even tiny, to be in a heart.
There was no such thing as a gildenbeast, so she wouldn’t even consider that problem.
Pax had dreamed of the Narowi massif. In the dream, they were on the other side, in a world of green and damp, and smelly wet things, and birds brighter than sunsets that flashed through a dark canopy of trees – and huge, toothy creatures. Although, now she’d seen a dragon, even a ghost dragon, the toothy creatures were not huge at all, just big enough to swallow her whole and still have room to spare in the cavernous gullet.
No-one from Narrung had ever returned from Moolanda, the far side of Narowi. Even the island hopper people, the Yudgee, didn’t fish near the coast, and they never landed on the shore. They said the place was full of death, and ghosts called the unwary in to feast on them.
Just stories.
The camp fire story-lines played in her mind, pictures of demons and Mokoi conjured like magic from the words to haunt her now. Or was it just stories to stop people from trying to get there? Could it be a good food source? One the Yudgee kept secret, for their use only? No, the H’Rucca stories were all a form of truth message.
The words didn’t always make sense, and sometimes the words or sounds were used in a context different to the way Pax used. Lore was like that – it encompassed the whole of the culture: the song, the story, the journey; and the lesson, for yesterday, today, and tomorrow – all at the same time. If she was ever initiated into a tribe, she wanted to study with a song-lorist, to learn how the message could be understood even if the words were different in meaning for each song.
The H’Rucca culture was a living thing, practiced by the whole of the community as a daily practice. They were conscious of who they were through what they did, what they said, what they sang, and what they connected themselves to: the land, the animals, the people. She would love to be a part of the whole, as she had never felt in her life.
Her father died at sea; she was not even five years old, and as much as his death affected her, her mother’s actions after his death, the way she didn’t even acknowledge Pax as her own child, that hurt more, and still did. Pax was alone in the world.
Shadow would leave her one day; Gheis would leave her one day. She would be alone again. The dream for her life was to surround herself with people, to become someone who was needed, wanted, maybe even loved.
A protruding rock in the soft sand tripped against the edge of her sandal. She gritted her teeth, concentrated her effort to lift each foot higher.
It was easy for the others, they could shuffle-run forever, but Pax was heavier, more solid, and it took a lot of effort to keep up. She would never let them know that. She would not be the one to hold them back. She would not do anything to cause more friction.
Copyright Cage Dunn 2016 – an excerpt from ‘The Narrung Sagas, Book I: The Journey of Shadow’
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Book II: A Dragon Dream has been returned by the Bear, Ted, One for the Use Of Reading Group and is now under ‘reconstruction’ as advised by the story surveyors!
