Tibalt touched the hilt of his sword. “You mean we have to get—”
“She is here.” Xenith scooted back toward the boulder. From above, Fellina glided into the clearing, the breeze from her wings tossing damp leaves, plastering one on Elyssa’s cheek. A girl in a baggy tunic rode atop Fellina’s back, both arms clutching a spine as she trembled.
Elyssa jumped up and reached for the girl. “Slide down. I’ll catch you.”
The girl looked at Elyssa as she slowly unwrapped her grip. Fellina drew in her wings, clearing the dismount path.
“I could not find Jason.” Fellina breathed so heavily, tiny sparks flew from her mouth. “This girl, Solace, said that he has returned to the mill to rescue the others, but I did not see him there.”
“The others?” Elyssa asked as she caught Solace and swung her to the ground. “Who is still alive?”
“I do not know. After I eluded Mallerin, I hurried back to find Jason, and although I flew close enough to see that the basin was empty of humans, I could not tell if anyone was in the holding cage. Solace believes Jason’s father died in the mill, but I could not verify that.”
Solace crouched at Elyssa’s feet, nearly buried in the oversized tunic. “Solace is such a lovely name,” Elyssa said as she reached down a hand.
“Jason gave it to me.” Solace took Elyssa’s hand and rose. “He also gave me this shirt.”
Elyssa touched the sleeve. Yes, it was Jason’s. “Fellina, I know you must be weary, but can you take Tibalt and me back to the mill?”
Fellina extended her neck and set her face in front of Tibalt. Her head swayed slightly as she looked him over. “Not to offend the gentleman’s resolve, but he is better suited to stay here with Solace while we return to the mill.”
Tibalt gripped the hilt of his sword and thrust out his chest. “I’ll have you know, lady dragon, that I, Tibalt Blackstone, was once captain of Mesolantrum’s first regiment, a champion swordsman, and the most decorated warrior during the frontier campaign.”
“The operative word being was,” Fellina said. “Your age, while dressing you with boldness, will not help you run from a pursuing dragon.”
Tibalt touched his bag. “My age has also made me wily. I have a few tricks you dragons have never seen before.”
“Let him come,” Elyssa said. “With Xenith’s injury, she should stay with Solace.”
“What?” Xenith shouted. “I can still fly. I flew all the way here with Elyssa on my —”
“Silence!” Fellina glared at Xenith. “You did well, but now we need you here. If the old man wants to risk his life, that is fine with me, but I will not risk yours any further.”
Solace wrung her hands, trembling. “Do I have to stay here alone with a dragon?”
“Don’t worry,” Elyssa said as she stroked Solace’s hair. “She won’t hurt you.”
“Not intentionally,” Xenith muttered.
“Xenith!” Fellina slapped her daughter’s flank with a wing. “What is wrong with you? You never spoke to Koren or the other girls this way.”
“They were self-sufficient. I am not a nanny for valueless humans.”
“We have no time for more impertinence.” Fellina spread out her wings. “Stay and protect the girl. Behind the boulder you will find an entrance into an underground hideaway. Just step on the flat stone and the ground will angle downward, allowing entry. When you step off, it will spring back. Below, you will find a rope that will open the door again. The refuge is small and dark, so there is no need to go in unless you detect danger.”
Xenith bowed her head. “Yes, Mother.”
“Elyssa, you and Tibalt climb on. We should waste no more time.”
While Tibalt scaled Fellina’s side, Elyssa set a hand on Xenith’s neck, whispering. “Sometimes it takes more courage to accept menial tasks than it does to risk our lives in battle.”
Xenith opened her mouth to speak again, but after a sharp glare from her mother, she nodded and backed away.
Elyssa climbed up to Fellina’s back and settled behind Tibalt, a shoulder-high spine jutting between them. As Fellina rose into the sky, Elyssa watched the ground fall away. Xenith and Solace stood face-to-face, Xenith apparently talking, but the wind swept her words away.
“That was a fine speech, Miss,” Tibalt said, looking back at her. “Where did you get all that wisdom?”
“At the school of shame. I learned it the hard way.”
Tibalt turned to the front. “Say no more. I understand.”
Fellina stayed low, skimming the trees, flying barely high enough to keep her wings from brushing the tops during her down strokes. Elyssa surveyed the land. With the mountains at the rear, the mining mesas ahead and to the right, and the barrier wall coming into sight to the left, they appeared to be flying northward. The village lay nearly due north, and the grinding basin sat to its west between the dragons’ grottoes and the river.
Since the basin sat in a treeless area, a stealth approach seemed impossible. If Fellina had a plan, she hadn’t mentioned it, so the human passengers had to rely on the dragon’s wisdom and experience.
Elyssa fidgeted on her rough seat. This was how it felt to be the ignorant party when someone skipped steps — helpless and dependent, not in control. Literally going along for the ride was foreign and unsettling.
She sighed. Another lesson learned. For now, without a plan simmering in her mind, what could she do? It seemed so wasteful to allow these minutes to pass without doing something to aid their cause.
Inches in front of her, Tibalt clutched a spine and bowed his head. Elyssa bent around to get a look at his face. Was something wrong? Had the flight brought a spell of nausea?
With his eyes tightly closed and a fist clenched, Tibalt moved his lips silently, speaking with passion at a level that only he and his Creator could hear.
Elyssa settled back and slapped herself on her thigh. Of course!
As she closed her eyes and took on Tibalt’s pose, a hundred thoughts raced through her mind. The most painful one? Shame. Again that school lashed her with its sharp whip. All this time she had fretted about not being in control and wasting precious minutes, when the option to pray had never crossed her mind.
Slowly letting out a breath, she concentrated, pushing out the stinging thoughts and probing the sky with her mind. As tears welled, she whispered, “Is someone really out there? Are you so intelligent that you can process and understand a thousand simultaneous cries for help? Are you so compassionate that you can dry the tears of countless tortured souls? Are you so patient that you will take time to listen to a bullheaded girl who couldn’t remember to talk to the one who is really in control? Why should you listen to someone who obviously believes more in herself and her own abilities than you who bestowed those abilities?”
Her tears flowed freely. “What a fool I am! What a stubborn, self-important fool! I deserve a whip on my back. Let it strike me until I learn my lesson and —”
“Release the whip, Elyssa.”
She looked up. “What?”
“Release the whip.”
Elyssa scanned the sky, squinting in the midday sunlight. The voice was audible, not something in her mind. Had the Creator decided to respond in a new way? She had never heard such a clear voice before, and this one was feminine. If the Creator was really female, that would be a shock to the clergy back home.
As if ending an eclipse, a bright sphere slid away from the front of Solarus and drifted toward her. With the sky as its backdrop, its size seemed impossible to gauge, but when it drew closer, a human female appeared at the lower part of the center, providing more perspective. Five times as tall as the girl, the floating, transparent ball settled into a glide at Fellina’s left, just behind her wing.
“Exodus has risen!” Fellina called, her strokes seeming to take on new energy. “If the Starlighter is willing to help, our chances of success are much better.”
“Who-eee!” Tibalt shouted. “We got us an angel! The Crea
tor answered my prayers!”
Elyssa squinted at the girl hovering within the sphere. Colorful light flashed across her face, distorting her features, but her flowing blue cloak, flaming red hair, and vibrant green eyes shone through. “Koren?”
She nodded. “I will be with the three of you. I have seen the tales, so I know what has happened and what we must do. When we draw close to the grinding mill, I will give further instructions. Fellina, do not look my way, and close your ears to my words for now. If you watch or listen, you will likely be unable to fly.”
A hundred other questions begged to be asked, but Elyssa swallowed back all but one. “What did you mean when you told me to release the whip?”
A girl, perhaps six years old, materialized in front of Elyssa, taking Tibalt’s place. With her torso bare and her hands clinging to the spine, she twisted and looked into Elyssa’s eyes. Three angry welts, red and oozing blood, marred her back. Tear tracks smudged her cheeks. Her face seemed familiar, like herself when she was that age. Then, just as quickly as the girl had appeared, she vanished.
Koren drifted forward over Fellina’s passengers and then down until the edge of the sphere drew nearly within reach as it hovered in front of Tibalt. “You have seen the backs of the cattle children,” Koren said, “and the stripes that prove the cruelty of their taskmasters. When you fell in the Zodiac’s lower level, you gathered stripes of your own, allowing you to empathize with the plight of the children.
“Yet you are proving to be a cruel taskmaster yourself. You lacerate your soul with stripe after stripe, punishing yourself for crimes that are nothing more than inability to perform beyond your limitations. You whip yourself for lacking experience, for forgetting to pray, for not fully understanding the plight of the cattle children, and yet the Creator finds no fault in a single one of these mistakes.
“He fashioned you with a lack of knowledge and experience, and he delights in guiding you along this journey called life where you collect jewels of wisdom. Why do you punish yourself with every jewel you gather? Why are you ashamed when you learn, when the light of truth shines on your ignorance? It is not a sin to be ignorant unless you knowingly choose it, but now that you are enlightened, feeling shame in the midst of a shower of gems will darken your soul.”
Heat from Exodus’s radiance pulled sweat from Elyssa’s pores. The whip of shame rose like a curling serpent, ready to slice her back once again—shame for feeling shame, a trap, an endless cycle. She clenched her eyes shut. No! She was human! She was no more guilty for being finite than those poor cattle children were for being slaves.
Koren continued, her tone hardening. “The guilty are those who see the light and shun it, cover it, imprison it. Because the light exposes their evil deeds, they lash out at those who carry the lanterns of enlightenment. The guilty snuff the lives of the lantern bearers along with the flames. Truth is a stench in their nostrils, and light-bringers sting their souls. They cannot bear the thought that someone basks in joy while they feel only pain. The only way they know to ease the pain is to extinguish the light.”
“I recognize that from somewhere,” Elyssa said. “Is it in the Code?”
Koren smiled. “More or less. I altered the words somewhat to fit the situation.”
Tibalt wavered from side to side. “Something’s making me woozy.”
Elyssa reached out and steadied him. “Don’t listen! Close your eyes!”
“Will do.” Tibalt hunkered low with his hands over his ears. “Go ahead. I can’t hear. But that Exodus thing is as hot as a ball of lightning.”
Elyssa released Tibalt and settled back, no longer gripping Fellina’s spine. “What about me? Why am I not affected?”
“I don’t know,” Koren said, pursing her lips. “You seem to be quite gifted yourself, so maybe you’re immune. Since I am now Starlight’s primary source of history, perhaps I can find a tale that will provide more information, but until then I’m glad we can talk without any hypnotic effects.”
“Sounds good,” Elyssa said. “Since you’re the history expert, can you show me what’s been happening to Jason?”
Koren spread out her cloak. “And I will also tell you a story about a certain dragon who guards those condemned to the mill. She is a foul creature, yet she must be protected at all costs.”
eight
Jason lay on his stomach at the rim of the basin. Covered by the branch he had cut, maybe no one would notice him. Two dragons had flown overhead during the hours he had watched and waited, but neither stopped to investigate. One might have been Fellina, but it seemed too risky to get up and check. A mistake could be costly.
The spot he had chosen appeared to be a good one. Directly below this point, the wall of the basin sloped toward the floor less severely than it did anywhere else. An agile human could scramble down, but climbing back up would be far more difficult, and both directions would be impossible considering who patrolled the floor.
Below, Julaz circled the grinding monolith for the hundredth time, pausing once to reignite the mounted torch with her breath. Her shuffling feet and tail had swept away every trace of footprints on the sandy bottom, and with no sign of human movements, there wasn’t a way to find out who might still be alive. Yet Julaz continued her steady march. If the prisoners had all escaped or died, why would she be standing guard?
Jason looked at the holding cage in the wall’s recess. Still no signs of prisoners—no hands clutching the matrix of wooden slats, no moans of pain.
Slowing her pace, Julaz yawned. Then, like a cat, she turned in a circle twice before settling to the ground.
Jason wriggled closer. Yes! Go to sleep, you lazy beast. All I need is a few minutes.
Sweat trickled from his forehead to his cheek. Jason brushed his arm across his face, but it didn’t help much. His sleeveless undershirt lacked enough material to absorb sweat or protect him from the dirt or prickly heather. Scratches and smudges covered his bare arms from wrists to shoulders, uncomfortable but unavoidable annoyances.
After a few minutes, Julaz’s body swelled and deflated in a steady rhythm. Jason glanced at the sky. Still no other dragons. Apparently these sisters weren’t as vigilant as Fellina had said, at least when they were separated. Maybe they policed each other.
He pushed the branch aside, rose with it in his grip, and tightened his sword belt. Holding his breath, he stepped over the edge and set his foot on the slope. He then leaped into a run, holding the branch out to the side with one hand and his scabbard against his hip with the other. With each step, he sprang to the next, careful not to let his boots slide. When he reached bottom, he continued his run with several soft footfalls until his momentum eased.
He spun toward Julaz, twenty paces to his right. She slept at the base of the monolith, apparently undisturbed.
The cage lay thirty paces to his left. Would it be better to check for prisoners first or to slay the dragon in case she awakened? Hacking open the slats would be noisy. She wouldn’t sleep through such a commotion.
Tiptoeing, Jason hurried to Julaz. Her body lay curled like a kidney bean, and her long neck snaked over her wing and flank. With her underbelly hidden, it would be impossible to deliver a fatal blow, and her thick armor meant that chopping her eyes or neck couldn’t guarantee anything beyond sending her into a foul mood. So how could he open the prison without waking her?
At the corner of his eye, the torch’s flame flickered. He glanced between it and the branch. Burning the door would probably be quieter than chopping it. It might be worth a try.
He pulled the torch from its bracket and skulked toward the cage, frequently checking the sky for Mallerin. When he arrived, he grasped one of the slats and peered inside. “Anyone in there?” he whispered.
“I am,” a quiet voice responded. A shadow appeared, and the boy with the withered arm approached, a teenager with sinewy biceps but no meat on his ribs. “Who are you?”
“Jason. What’s your name?”
“Basil. Are you
—”
“I’m a friend, and I’m going to get you out of here.” Basil pointed at the sword on Jason’s hip. “With that?”
“With this,” Jason said, lifting the torch. “How many others are in there?”
“Just another boy my age and a man. The man’s asleep, but I can wake him up.”
Jason gripped the slat more tightly, digging the edge into his skin. The man who wrestled his father to the ground had likely turned the handle that crushed his bones. Taking a deep breath, Jason calmed his anger. The man had been forced to do it. It was still wrong, but cruel whips can drive men to commit evil acts. Survival, even in the midst of torture, is sometimes a sadistic motivator.
“Okay,” Jason said. “Make sure they’re both ready to leave quietly, then come back here. You’re going to help me burn this gate.”
Basil disappeared into the shadows for a moment before returning, breathless. “What do I do?”
After dropping the branch at the base of the gate, Jason held the torch in front of the cage. “Grab this. When I wave at you, light the branch.”
Basil grasped the torch. “How will we get out of this pit?”
“I’m still working on that.” Jason ran on the balls of his feet to the grinding stone, grabbed the ladder leading to the top, and carried it to the slope. He leaned the ladder against the loose soil and wedged it in place. The highest rung dug into the face of the wall about eight feet short of the top. A healthy adult could leap from that rung, grab the rim, and muscle up to solid ground, but the boys would need help.
A scuffling noise made Jason twist toward Julaz, his whole body tensing. She lifted her head and scratched behind her ear with a back claw, but her eyes stayed closed. Then, after lowering her head again, she resumed her rhythmic respiration.
Jason drew his sword. They had to hurry. Maybe he could stay low and battle the dragon if necessary, while the man climbed and pulled the boys to safety. Then he could help from below if anyone had trouble reaching the rim.