“And she can give me the words to a song that you remember, and I’ve never heard?”
“That’s right.”
The idea intrigued Kale and her kimen passengers. They spent several hours in the afternoon singing songs from myriad heritages: kimen songs of praise; marione songs of planting and harvesting; tumanhofer songs of earth, sky, and sea; and dragon songs of clan and ancestry. Kale discovered that Celisse and the young minor dragons had a fierce pride in their genealogy. Librettowit provided Gymn and Metta with heroic tales of minor dragons.
An hour before the early autumn dusk, Lee Ark signaled for their descent. The four dragons landed in a vale with a stream for water and a stand of trees offering wood for the campfires.
Brunstetter took off on foot to bargain for a herd of sheep from a local shepherd they had passed over. He carried a heavy purse of coins and came back with enough mutton to satisfy the hungry dragons. Kale gratefully watched the urohm lord escort the dragons to the other side of the trees to meet their dinner. She didn’t mind Gymn’s, and now Metta’s, antics as they looked for food, catching bugs in the air and gobbling them down. Even the snaring of an occasional mouse did not upset her. But there was nothing entertaining in watching a large dragon devour an animal whole.
Pleasantly tired after the uneventful day of traveling, the troupe soon finished an evening meal and bundled up to sleep warmly in tents and blankets. The moon hid behind a bank of snow-filled clouds. The fires smoldered as glowing embers. No more flames leapt. No sparks shot heavenward from brightly burning logs.
In the darkest hour of the night, the blimmets attacked.
Kale heard a terrified screech and sat up. In that moment, shrill cries of panic multiplied to fill the air.
She crawled hastily out of her small tent and sprang to her feet, trying to decipher meaning from the clamor. She heard Lee Ark’s strong voice call out, “Blimmets!” and then she knew. Weasel-like creatures with luxurious dark fur and razor-sharp teeth, blimmets devoured warm-blooded animals.
The cacophony of shrieks came only partially from the victims of the attack. Blimmets gave full voice to harrowing screams. The noise frightened and confused those they descended upon.
To Kale’s ears, the chaos sounded like hundreds of women and children screaming as they were torn apart. But the questing band numbered only eighteen including the dragons. It was the slaughtering blimmets who numbered in the hundreds.
“Light!” Lee Ark’s voice trumpeted above the havoc around Kale’s tent.
She rushed to the nearest fire and grabbed a stick. She stirred the coals, throwing on kindling that had been gathered for morning. A blaze leapt up.
Not enough! They need a blaze above us to light the whole camp in order to fight off blimmets.
Holding the stick ready to swing at an attacker, Kale listened to the contest for life. Her comrades defended the camp. The large dragons roared. They would stomp on the small enemy and crunch those they caught in their mighty jaws. But blimmets won by sheer numbers in most cases. They swarmed out of the ground, attacking anything in their way. They did not engage in a battle but in a feeding frenzy.
Kale ran to the next campfire. She brushed past a tall figure, and only knew it was Wizard Fenworth when she heard him speak.
“What are those two things that make water?” he asked.
“Hydrogen and oxygen, Fen,” Librettowit’s words came between grunts. His breathing sounded labored.
Kale wondered what he was doing as she stirred the next bed of coals. She coaxed a flame to dance above the wood as she quickly fed twigs into the hesitant fire. Her eyes darted back and forth, searching out the shadows. Why the blimmets had not overtaken this small, central part of the camp, she did not know. The light from the fire extended only a few feet and did not illuminate the tents on the fringe.
Am I helping? Is this firelight enough?
She saw silhouettes of two people swinging swords in a downward motion. Lee Ark and Dar. The blimmets were mere shadows undulating around their legs.
“One part hydrogen to two parts oxygen?” Fenworth puzzled aloud.
Kale wanted to scream at the old man to do something useful. How could he talk such mumbo jumbo when their friends were in mortal danger?
“No!” Librettowit screamed. “The other way around.”
“Light!” Lee Ark commanded again.
Where do I get light? Illusion? Can I make a light like I did in Risto’s garden? No, that was an accident.
A swirl of white blinded Kale. Cold wet flakes stung her cheeks.
“Wrong temperature,” yelled Librettowit.
“Oh dear, tut-tut.”
In an instant the snow disappeared. A swooshing sound drowned the screeches of the blimmets and the cries of the questing comrades. A blast of water fell from the sky with enough force to knock Kale flat.
“Now that’s better,” said Fenworth from the ground near her. “Should I do another?”
“Perhaps once more,” Librettowit answered.
This time when Kale heard the swoosh above her, she covered her head with her arms and squeezed her eyes shut. The second deluge did not catch her off guard.
The fires were out. Pitch dark engulfed her. The smell of wet, charred wood filled Kale’s nostrils. She moved back.
The horrible screeches had ceased. Around her, moans oozed through the black night. She shivered and sat up.
She wanted her cape. She wanted to check on Gymn and Metta. She wanted to see something. The darkness felt heavy against her skin. Her heart raced. She fought the urge to cry out for Dar or Leetu to come rescue her. What had happened to the wizard and his librarian? Why didn’t they do something? She had to have light. She had to!
A pop and sizzle above her turned into a long glowing cord of light. It hung over her, some twenty feet above the campsite. It grew as she watched, the ends extending outward like tendrils of a vine. She rose to her feet, her neck still bent backward as she stared at the slender rope gently pulsing with a soft glow.
Wizard Fenworth and Librettowit both came to stand beside her. They, too, stared upward as the light wormed its way through the black night, dispelling the dark. The tube twisted and then branched out. Thin fingers of willowy light popped out of the side, sizzled a moment, and then began to stretch. As each new appendage grew, it, too, sprouted new limbs of glowing tubes.
“Remarkable,” said Librettowit.
“Unique,” said Fenworth. “Well done.” He turned and placed a hand on Kale’s shoulder. “You and Gymn are needed this night. Librettowit and I will practice the art of healing in our way. You minister in yours.”
Kale tore her gaze away from the intricate lacework created by the intertwining vine of light. The shadows of night disappeared under the moon-white glow from above. A circle of clear ground encompassed the wizard, the tumanhofer, and Kale. At its edge began a gruesome spectacle, piles of blimmets, sodden corpses, their sleek black fur glistening on lifeless forms.
“We have no time to waste, my dear.” Fenworth stroked Kale’s shoulder. “Go to our friends. Stop the bleeding. Stop the pain. Put each into a deep sleep and move on to the next. When we have relieved their suffering and the immediate threat of death, then we will return and repair the damage done to their bodies.”
Kale looked up into the face of the old man. His strength shone through the sadness in his eyes. She nodded and moved back to the tent, crawled in and found Metta crooning over Gymn’s still body.
“Wake up, Gymn,” she said. The sound of her own voice surprised Kale. Her tone held authority as if she were suddenly in the position of Lee Ark, responsible for their safety and unwilling to brook any nonsense.
Gymn stirred. Kale picked him up. Metta flew to land next to her neck and leaned under her chin. The touch of the singing dragon comforted the o’rant girl.
When Kale stepped over the line of blimmets piled in a circle around the inner camp, she realized they had been held back by some force, though she
did not have time to figure out what. Fenworth and Librettowit moved among the felled dragons. Kale approached Lee Ark. His shredded trousers barely covered his bloody legs. His wounds freely bled. Kale dropped to her knees beside him.
Lee Ark turned his head to her, and a twitch at the corner of his mouth told her he tried to smile. His expression told more of great pain and courage. “Next time,” he whispered, “I go to bed with my boots on.”
Kale nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She put Gymn on his barrel chest and concentrated. Vaguely she heard Metta singing as she and Gymn worked to heal their leader.
No pain. Sleep. Stop the lifeblood from flowing out.
She felt Gymn shudder. When she looked at Lee Ark, she saw his handsome features relaxed in sleep. She moved on.
Dar was already unconscious. She repeated the procedure, following Fenworth’s instructions even though she wanted to stay and completely heal her friend.
Leetu had fallen among the ravenous blimmets. They had shredded most of her body, digging with sharp claws as if burrowing into their victim, and at the same time, biting and tearing away small mouthfuls of flesh. Curled in a ball, Leetu had protected her face and chest.
Kale cried as she and Gymn saved the emerlindian’s life and then rose to search for the kimens.
They found them huddled together. Their wounds were less severe since they had leapt into the trees as soon as the attack began, except for Glim. He had been the first one assaulted. Zayvion cradled Glim’s lifeless body in his arms.
38
MOVING ON
Wizard Fenworth, Librettowit, Kale, Gymn, and Metta worked until dawn. Dar and Lee Ark regained their strength first, enough to set the campfires blazing again. They had to go into the woods to gather dry wood. Fenworth’s deluge had saturated the immediate vicinity. The frigid air turned the water on the ground to ice. Everyone wore wet clothing, and the warmth of the fires felt good.
Leetu and Brunstetter had suffered many wounds, but responded to repeated healings administered by Kale and her minor dragons. Wizard Fenworth and the tumanhofer gave aid to the large dragons. Then they helped heal the two-legged members of their questing party.
As the sun came up, the fine lace network of lighted vines overhead abruptly stopped growing and faded away. The people of the countryside walked over the nearby rolling hills to congregate around the camp. They offered to help in any way they could.
If Kale hadn’t been so tired in body and in spirit, she would have been amused at the sidelong glances they aimed toward Fenworth. Each woman bobbed a curtsy. The men nodded. Kale didn’t doubt they had turned out to help those who were victims of the blimmet attack. It was something the people of River Away would have done as well. But a wizard walking among them certainly stirred up curiosity.
The farmers and townspeople thanked Wizard Fenworth for slaying the blimmets, then set about digging a huge hole in the ground. When they finished, the local people layered the blimmet bodies and wood doused with deckit powder in the crater. No one touched the beasts but used shovels and picks to move them.
This done, the kimens invited Metta to go with them into the stand of woods to bury Glim. Kale watched with sadness as the little people marched in a dignified procession away from the crowd. They carried Glim’s remains in a shroud of golden light. As tradition demanded, those who waited sat in a mourning circle.
The local women went back to their homes, leaving the children to ask questions.
“Why did Pretender make the awful blimmets?” asked a young boy sitting in his father’s lap.
As the oldest member in the circle, Wizard Fenworth nodded to Librettowit, indicating that the tumanhofer should answer the question. The broad little man stood and went to the center. He would answer the children’s questions until he came upon one he could not or did not wish to answer. Stroking his beard, he looked the crowd of men and children over, cleared his throat, and began.
“For each of the high races of Wulder’s creation, Pretender tried to make his own race. The blimmets are Pretender’s failure to make a race like our friends, the doneels.”
“Did Pretender send the blimmets to kill us?”
“No.” Librettowit paced around the center of the circle and then faced the young man who had asked. “Pretender has no control over this evil creation of his. That is one of his failures, and I’m sure it goads his ego. However, blimmets charge blindly from one act of destruction to another, and that surely delights Pretender’s wicked heart.”
“Where did these blimmets come from?”
“From the ground. They burrow rapidly through the earth. Sometimes their movement can be seen from above as the ground bulges and sinks in a line above their tunnel. After they have eaten, they sleep for months, then wake up ravenous.”
“Will they come back?” The little girl’s chin trembled, and she held tightly to her father’s arm.
“This pack is dead.”
“Why did the water kill them?” The tall boy sat upright beside the other male members of his family.
“Blimmets do everything quickly, in small fierce movements. They breathe in gulps. They pulled water into their lungs before they knew what was happening. Also, they are not intelligent. Those who survived the first drencher would not have realized they only needed to hold their breaths in order to survive.”
“They’re pretty,” a little girl said around the thumb stuck securely in her mouth.
Librettowit looked at her kindly. “Yes, my dear little one, they are. Their fur is gloriously shiny for all their digging in the dirt. It is incredibly smooth and silky. It even has a pleasant odor, somewhat like baking nut pie, sweet and rich. However, if you take a blimmet pelt and make some garment to wear, it attracts other blimmets, and you meet a nasty end.”
Librettowit put his hands behind his back and glanced over to Fenworth. The old wizard nodded.
Librettowit sighed. “It is also said that the meat is tasty. Roasted blimmet is a savory culinary dish. I tell you this not to tempt you, but to warn you. Once you have eaten the blimmet meat, you will want more. I cannot imagine a more unhealthy occupation than hunting blimmet. Yet there are men who do so. Young men…they do not grow old.”
“Is that why we burn them?” asked another child.
“Yes, and we put in the deckit powder to make the fire burn hot.” His voice rose and for the first time sounded stern and impatient. “Deckit powder also leaves a bitter taste that would discourage any fool from the idiotic notion of sampling the meat just to see if the stories are true.”
“I have a question,” said Kale.
Librettowit nodded to her.
“Why did the blimmets only attack outside the circle we stood in?”
Librettowit’s shoulders eased back, his chest puffed out, and a pleased smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
“I did that.”
“Wit.” Fenworth said the name low and slow.
“Well, it’s true I couldn’t have done it without Fenworth right there feeding power into my spell, but you can’t live with a wizard and organize his library for centuries without learning at least a thing or two.”
Kale remembered hearing the tumanhofer grunting and panting during the attack. If Librettowit could cast a magic spell, could anyone? Provided that anyone was given the right training, of course. She didn’t think she should ask that question here, but one of the younger children must have been wondering the same thing.
“Was it hard?” a little voice piped up.
“Quite,” answered the librarian.
“Sir?”
Librettowit turned to a girl sitting snuggled up against a slightly older sister.
“Yes?”
“What was the pretty light we saw in the sky? It was after the screaming stopped. It wasn’t high enough to be the moon or the stars.”
Several voices spoke up, defying tradition of allowing the spokesman to answer any question. The phenomenal light caused more interest than the pec
uliarities of blimmets.
“Wizardry.”
“The wizard did it.”
“Wizard Fenworth made the light.”
Librettowit turned to face Fenworth.
“Aye,” said the old man. “Wizardry made the light, but it was not me.”
Kale stared at Librettowit. Had the tumanhofer performed such an astonishing spell?
No, he was just as bewildered as I was. And if Fenworth didn’t do it, who did? Librettowit and I were the only ones who were not hurt. No, that’s not true. Gymn and Metta. But Gymn had fainted. Metta?
The song of the returning mourners drifted from the woods. The people rose to their feet out of respect. From one direction came the five kimens and Metta. From the other arrived the women with the rejoicing feast. A few in the crowd hummed the song the kimens sang in strong, sure voices. Metta flew ahead of the walking procession and landed on Kale’s shoulder.
Dar pulled out his flute and joined the music. Kale heard several fiddles pick up the melody as the people responded to the unspoken call to worship. The o’rant girl recognized the praise song she had heard kimens singing in the cygnot forest after the mordakleep attack. Now she knew the words. Metta sang in her sweet, high voice, and Kale began to sing as well, knowing the little purple dragon gave her the words from a kimen’s memory.
In the past, Kale had participated in the custom of celebration when a citizen of River Away died. She understood that death meant a passage to another time and place. In River Away, the villagers thought the more boisterous the revelers, the more likely a dead person would enter a place of happiness.
It’s like Leetu said. Some things I knew were right are wrong. I’m changing so much on the inside. I keep learning things that seem to me I should have known all along.
It isn’t how much we dance and sing and enjoy the rejoicing feast that gets a dead person to a happy place. It has something to do with the person, not us. It has something to do with Glim’s life, not his death.
She walked around among the dancers until she had examined each of the kimens’ faces. Shimeran, Seezle, Zayvion, D’Shay, and Veazey all looked content. They sang with joy but not with absurd fervor. Kale relaxed. They truly celebrated Glim’s departure, assured he would reside in a happy place.