Kindness and Envy
As months passed Thomas’s humbleness returned to him and Lilya found she enjoyed his company more and more. She joined him as he spread grain and vegetables that were donated to him, to the poorer parts of Havilah and then also to Cush. After a storm had destroyed most of a town they took a troop of Thomas’s knights and went to rebuild homes for villagers on the edge of Havilah. One of her favorite things they had begun to do was to hold concerts in a garden within Castle Ah’s walls that were open for any of Thomas’s subjects to attend.
On this day they had awoken early in the morning to help harvest grain in one of the fields close to the castle. The farmers who owned the land did not have enough manpower to gather all of their crops and the rainy season would be upon them soon.
Lilya kneeled, sickle in hand, in the field of golden yellow grain and pulled the sickle through the strong, thin grain stalks as they bent to her blade and fell to the ground. Behind her she could hear the sounds of Thomas, Clare, and Amari’s blades cutting too. The sun beat on her shoulders and beneath her straw hat sweat dripped down her brow. She knew it would be a long day but soon there would be enough grain again to share with the poor and to replenish the family who owned this land’s coffers.
It is a small thing to help with the harvest, she thought. As royalty we have so much so surely we can find time to help others with the things they need so that they can make a living. Again she sliced her sickle through the grain.
“Lilya, look up!” Clare called from behind her and she stood to see Alexander soaring toward them through the sky.
“Every time I see him he still takes my breath away,” Thomas said as the dragon neared.
Alexander came to a hover above the grain before them, his wings beating gently and the grain swaying in the gusts of wind coming from them. “Can I help, milady?” he asked. “Perhaps I can cut the grain with the edges of my wings. I can harden my scales so that they make a sharp blade and then dive through the sky at the grain to cut it.”
Thomas stepped to Lilya’s side. “We would be honored to have your help, dragon,” he said.
Alexander grinned. “Thank you, Thomas.” His deep, pure eyes looked to Lilya. “Would you like to ride my back while I cut the grain?”
“I’d love to,” she said and placed her sickle on the ground. “Can you watch my blade for me while I’m with Alexander?” she asked Clare.
“Gladly, princess,” the beautiful red-haired girl said and moved the sickle next to a basket they had packed full of food for their mid-day meal.
Still in flight, Alexander extended his paw down to Lilya and she climbed into its embrace. He lifted her above his beating wings and soon she found herself on his back for the first time. His scales were warm from the heating of the sun as she lay flush against his backside, her hands holding tight to grooves on his shoulders. “I will fly carefully,” he told her. “Do not fear.”
As Alexander lifted slowly into the sky she could feel his muscles pulsing beneath her, thrusting his wings up and down.
“We will go to the far fields where the harvesters have not yet gone,” he spoke. Soon they were gliding through the winds over the sweeping fields below, flying beyond the fields then turning toward them again. “Hold on,” Alexander said and she gripped tight to his shoulders.
Her stomach lurched as they dipped downward. She saw the expanse between her and the earth open before them, and with a shot of wind they were soaring toward the land below. Her hat flew off into the sky leaving her hair to flip around in her face. With a quick swoop and glide they skimmed the ground, sweeping into the grain field as Alexander’s sharp, stiff wings clipped the grain from the earth and sent it flying in the air around her, its golden stalks lit with sunlight.
They glided the length of the field before Alexander thrust his legs into the ground, beating his wings and taking to the sky once more. As he soared into the sky Lilya looked back at all the grain they had cut, lying in sheets where it had stood just moments before. “Wow,” she exclaimed in astonishment at what they had done so quickly while the others were still below them slowly cutting stalk by stalk in the grain fields. “We’ll have this done in time for the mid-day meal if we keep up this pace,” she called in a raised voice over the gusts of wind careening past.
Within what seemed like a breath they had flown back across the field and soared toward the grain once more. “Hold on tight,” Alexander spoke to her. With a heart-jumping swoop they dove within the golden stalks, slicing them and throwing them in the air.
Suddenly Alexander jerked and swooped up out of the field unexpectedly, almost throwing Lilya from his back as her fingers dug tight into his scales and her legs clutched to his form. “Alexander!” she screamed in frightened panic. She could feel his heart beating rapidly in his body beneath her. “Are you alright?”
Instantly his heart slowed and his flight became smooth again. “Yes,” he said to her in a distant tone. “But look down there.” They were high above the fields now and his large paw pointed with one clawed finger outstretched toward where Thomas, Amari and Clare were. Farmers were racing from all points in the grain toward someone who appeared to be crippled on the ground. “It’s Thomas,” he said as he began a swift glide down toward the commotion. “I heard him calling out in pain.”
As Alexander came to a hover above the grain he held his paw beside where Lilya clutched on his back and she quickly made her way into it and was lowered to just above the ground. She leapt from it and with a plume of dust landed on the earth below. Thomas was just a little away and she pealed her feet into the earth, darting to his side.
“Thomas!” she called, her heart pounding as she came to him. “Thomas, what happened? What can I do?” She felt queasy as she noticed blood seeping from his eyes and nose.
“The… pain…” Thomas moaned and writhed before her. “Why…”
Amari kneeled beside the young king. “I was talking with Thomas and cutting grain and then he just collapsed to the ground, screaming in agony. I can’t get him to say what’s hurting or what happened.”
“Dora…” Thomas moaned. “Dora…”
“The healer?” Amari looked to Thomas’s eyes. “Where is she?”
Thomas grabbed at his own stomach, grappling with his flesh as if trying to remove something. “AHHHHHH!”
Clare looked to Lilya from the crowd of farmhands about them. “I think she’s at the farm house.”
“Then we’ve got to get him there. Help me, Amari.” Without hesitation Lilya went to Thomas’s head and hoisted his shoulders up. “We’re going to get you to her, Thomas,” she told him as Amari lifted his legs. “Make way!” she shouted to the farmers surrounding them and the group quickly opened up for them to come through.
“Watch out for rocks and ditches,” she told Amari as they carried Thomas as quick as they could over the already cut field toward the farm house in the distance, her feet sticking in the ground as she went. “And watch not to slip on cut stalks of wheat!”
In her peripheral vision above she could see Alexander keeping their pace, his flowing shadow soaring on the field about them.
Thomas choked and spat blood into the air as his body bobbed up and down. “Faster!” Lilya called out. “Run!” What was wrong with him? He had seemed sick when she met him but since then he had been so healthy with no sign that he was ailed by anything at all. She ran sideways now, with Thomas’s upper body in her arms, and all her muscles burnt with exhausting pain. Her hands went numb and she wanted badly to just drop him to the ground and relieve the feeling. I have to go on, she thought to herself.
Looking down at his face as she ran, she could see his head rolling, unconsciously bobbing on his neck. The ground whizzed by in a blur below.
They were about half way to the farmhouse now and their full-on run had begun to slow.
“I don’t know…” Amari huffed and breathed hard. “…how much longer I can hold him. My arms are failing me.”
> “You have to! We have to get him to the healer!” Her legs continued to move even though her body was telling her to stop.
Then, as her speed was picking up again, Amari’s foot slammed into a stone and he crashed to the ground, throwing the king’s legs as he dropped.
Lilya struggled with Thomas’s weight and felt as if she were being pulled like taffy as his body flew from her grasp and thumped to the ground, rolling as it landed. “Amari?” she called and as the boy slowly rose she raced to Thomas to lift him up again.
Amari held his own left arm with his right hand, moving the left hand’s fingers slowly. “I can barely move my arm.” He looked to her worriedly. “I can’t feel it. What can we do?”
Lilya looked to Thomas’s limp body, his head motionless and face down in the dirt. The day’s heat radiated about them. “Can you help me hoist him on my back?” she asked.
“I can try, but will you be able to carry him all the way to the farm house?” Amari asked and came as quick as he could, helping her lift Thomas’s limp body upright with the use of his one good arm.
“I will have to,” she said and noticed Alexander’s shadow on the ground getting smaller and smaller, as if he were coming down to them. “Can you put your shoulder beneath him and push him up on my back?” she asked.
Amari quickly got beneath the boy-king’s propped up body and took Thomas’s weight on his back while Lilya turned to grasp onto Thomas when Amari had lifted him against her.
Amari thrust Thomas up against her back and she reached her arms back to grasp onto Thomas’s arms, stumbling as she did, but couldn’t reach them. “Can you push him higher?” she asked. A gust of wind flowed about her and then she felt Thomas’s body being pushed up her back to where she needed it so that she could lock her arms around his to carry his weight.
“I thought I’d lend a claw,” she heard Alexander’s voice behind her. “I’d carry him myself but I’d be afraid of injuring him more.”
“Thanks,” she groaned as she supported Thomas’s full weight, her arms locking his torso tight to her. Placing one step, then another she began to move again slowly as her feet sank into the earth. There was still half of a field of cut grain to go across before she would reach her destination. After a few more steps she was able to gain momentum again, using Thomas’s weight to propel her forward, and soon her walk was a belabored run.
Moments seemed like hours and her muscles inflamed but soon she was nearing the farmhouse and saw an old woman sitting at a table outside its doors. Lilya’s muscles gave out as she neared the woman and saw Pine, Juniper and Cypress running toward her from a stable nearby. She rolled Thomas off her back and he thumped to the ground before she let herself also tumble onto the dusty soil.
She could see the old woman standing up out of the corner of her vision. “Thomas,” the hag said in a scratchy, knowing voice. “You are in pain.”
The boy moaned but did not move.
As Lilya lifted herself from the ground she got a better look at the woman. She had seen her in the halls of Castle Ah a few times but realized she knew nothing about her. Why would she be uninformed about a healer that Amari seemed so quick to recognize? Who was this woman?
“I can restore your health,” the woman spoke and came to kneel beside the young king as she placed her crippled hand on his limp shoulder. “All it would take is one more fig…”
Instantly Thomas’s body came to life and he screamed in anguish, curling in the fetal position. After a few moments he felt a small surge of strength and went to stand, then grabbed his side and slumped back to the ground. “Where… are they?” His expression resembled that of a begging child.
“I have them here, my king.” Dora went back to the desk and lifted an oak box from its top. “Here,” she said and opened the container before him. “Pick one and I will prepare it for you.”
“What manner of healing is this?” Lilya asked and went quickly to their side. “This is some kind of sorcery. Thomas, don’t eat these. We will find a real way of healing you.”
Thomas looked to her and she cringed as once more she saw blood streaming from his eyes’ bloodshot stare.
“Thomas…” she pleaded with him, but his pained gaze caused her words to trail off.
“They… are safe,” he spoke to her in a whispered rasp. “I discovered them myself,” he choked for a moment, lowered his head and then raised it again to look at her, “…in woods beyond our lands.”
“No matter where they came from, there is nothing natural about using figs as a miracle cure.” Lilya pointed toward the hunched-over old woman. “And she is up to something. I can see it in her eyes.” Suddenly Lilya wished that she had not brought Thomas here and had instead brought him to a common healer in the town outside the castle.
“She’s right, sire,” Cypress said and began to approach.
Lilya looked to the hag and saw a black fire burst behind her eyes. “Silence!” the Pan screamed in a cackle.
With her outburst all three guards were headed to apprehend her now.
“No…” Thomas’s pitiful order came. “She is out of place… but she will heal me. Leave her be.” With that Thomas’s weak arm reached toward the dark oaken box and he withdrew the smallest fig of the six it held, placing it in Dora’s deformed hand.
“Thank you, sire,” she said. “I only wish to serve you.” She reached within her garments and drew out her carved bone knife, taking it to the fig and peeling off its skin with her blade. The red juice of the fruit dripped to the ground and sizzled in the soil as she rolled the skin between her bony fingers and slipped it through his lips like a mother feeding her child.
In horror, Lilya thought she saw the remaining fruit in Dora’s hand pulsing like a bloody, veiny heart. Surely I am seeing things. Surely this is all a dream. But it was not a dream. She knew that in her heart. Something must be done, she thought and tried to approach Thomas but something, some spell perhaps, was holding her in her place. Her words would not leave her lips either. Let him be! The words were a whispered silence in her thoughts.
Within a few breaths’ time Dora had brought the bloody fig to Thomas’s mouth and forced the whole thing past his lips. He chewed it, letting its juices run down his mouth. He seemed to be savoring its pulse.
And with a large gulp it was over. The blood coming from his eyes vanished. His eyes returned to their normal color and he stood up straight, as if nothing had ever been wrong. “See, I am healed,” he said and smiled at his guards and Lilya.
“It is not natural,” Lilya told him. “And I will show you that.”
Dora cackled and walked away from them. “You will show him nothing,” she said in a low voice. He is already mine.
The last words came to Lilya through her mind, the same way that Alexander spoke to her sometimes, but she knew this hag was something else entirely. And with her last words the old woman disappeared around the farmhouse walls.
“If you wish to talk to me, I am going back to the castle for some relaxation and I’d love to have your company as I walk back,” Thomas told her.
Lilya needed to speak with Thomas. But more than that, she knew she needed time to think. Hopefully Alexander could make some sense of what just happened. She turned around to see her dragon friend hovering behind her with a perplexed look in his features. “I am going with Alexander to finish reaping the crop.” She turned back to Thomas and saw a sad expression on his face. “But we should talk tonight when I return,” she added. “Please do not eat any more figs, and be wary of that healer of yours. I don’t trust her.”
Thomas walked, slumped shoulders, away from them all, towards the woods between the farm and Castle Ah. “I will wait for you,” he said, not looking at her. “And I feel amazing now so I will have no need of my Pan.”
She watched him as he walked to the wood, with Juniper quickly following after him.
“And there is something I don’t understand…” Thomas stopped and turned around. “Why do you s
pend all of your time with that beast?”
“Thomas, he’s my friend, and you knew that when I came here.” She would have said more but he turned from her, pushing a small sapling out of his way and disappearing within the foliage of the woods.
҉
Thomas’s thoughts raced as he walked through the woods. How dare she question Dora’s skills and my discovery? He stomped on a small seedling that was sprouting through the ground. How dare she spend all of her time with that animal? “It’s not Dora that can’t be trusted, it’s that be-damned dragon,” he muttered to himself. “How dare that thing try and steal my girl?”
He was mad. No. He was furious. Lilya should be here with him right now. Wasn’t it him that had just been curled over in pain? Why was she so quick to desert him for another? “I saved her from her father,” he said. “She owes me her company, whether she thinks so or not.”
Beautiful emerald green light shimmered through the leaves of the tree boughs above and came to rest on the ground about him but Thomas was blind to the beauty. His mind was fixed on the injustice he thought he had been served and nothing else.
“Thomas!” Juniper said as he caught up with his king, placing one massive hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Leave me be,” Thomas said, shrugging the hand off and moving faster through the trees.
Juniper stopped and stared ahead. “She didn’t mean to insult you, sire,” he said and left a pause so that Thomas could think about his words. “She cares for you but she is concerned just like the rest of us are. You need to understand where she is coming from.”
Thomas turned toward Juniper and threw his hands up in the air. “If she cares then she should not be with him. That’s just the truth of it. I was in pain and I need her here by my side now. She is so insulting sometimes.” He turned and continued his trek through the woods toward the rising Castle Ah in the distance. “And stop following me! I need to have her by my side or I need to be alone to think.”
His hulking guard stopped, standing silent and still where he was. What was becoming of his king? Would the boy ever be the way he once was?
Thomas stomped through the woods in a jealous, envious rage all the way back to the keep, and then all the way back to his quarters from there. He spoke to no-one and thought over and over again about how mad he was with Lilya that she would spend time with a monster instead of the king.
When she would come calling later he would ignore the rap on his door, not because he did not want to see her, but because of the bitter envy that burned within his soul and the fear he had that he would take out anger on her because of it.
҉
High in the sky after they had finished reaping the grain crop for the farm owners Alexander and Lilya talked about what had happened with Thomas. They had been talking about it ever since Lilya had taken to the air once more with her friend.
Clouds skimmed along Lilya’s face in a misty fog as sunlight swept in sheens through the vapor.
She could feel Alexander’s deep voice rumble in his body beneath her before his words came through his lips. “The thing that worries me the most,” he said, “is the fact that I was unable to see her. I couldn’t hear the healer or smell her either and when Thomas ate the fig a part of him seemed to become opaque in my mind.”
“What could it mean?” Lilya shivered. “Could she have been wearing some kind of magical cloak so that you would not sense her?”
“There is no such thing as magic.” Alexander’s voice held strength to its tone. “There is only one thing that could make something like her invisibility to me true, and I would love for that fact to be wrong.”
“No such thing as magic?” Lilya asked and held back a small laugh. “I’ve heard that about dragons before and yet here I am riding on your back. But if it was not magic, then what could it have been?”
Alexander swooped up through the clouds, toward the sun and then glided forward slowly in its radiant light. “Do you remember when I told you that there is only one God?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But I don’t see what that could have to do with this.”
“Well, that one God has a rival, a servant who fell from his good graces when the servant challenged the one God for his throne.” Alexander paused. “The only creature that I know of who could block my sight is that fallen servant. I’m not saying that is who the healer is, only that I suspect she is in league with him.”
“What can we do?” Lilya asked.
Alexander moved his head around so that she could look into his deep, worried eyes. “We do whatever we can do to try and save Thomas’s soul from this presence.”
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