Chapter Forty-nine
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“Where are we?” my siblin’ muttered softly. Where? “Why’s it so dark?” Dark? His eyes were clasped shut tightly, like Tie’s.
“What do ya see?” the healer asked him.
“It’s dark, just—” Suddenly he squealed.
“What?” I hissed.
Tie hushed me. Her hands slid over Hale’s shoulders as though protectin’ him, or comfortin’ him. He did a bit of shiverin’, but I didn’t sense fear. More like amazement. I wanted to ask him what was goin’ on, but the hen’s shush had sent a serious jolt of I’m-serious into the side of my head bone.
The minutes passed. Why couldn’t I get anythin’ but that same amazement from Hale? When I’ve worked at it before, it seemed as though we shared one brain. One heart. I jerked. Beky was next to me, and climbed into my lap, foldin’ her legs up under her like no ogre could manage, a lot of fear grippin’ her expressive orc face. I wrapped my arms around her, a moment later realized I was actually rockin’ her. Stilled. So silly. Tried to relax the stone-hard muscles in my shoulders, back, arms. Maybe my legs trembled a bit.
The two remained in their trance-like state. Perhaps an hour passed. Then another. Hale isn’t what I’d call hyperactive, but he’s always needed to keep his hands busy. Yet he knelt into Tie, like an embryo nestlin’ in its mama. Only change from time to time was his breathin’, as though surprise would interrupt, then near-gasps of excitement. There was a lot of wonder emanatin’ from deep inside him.
~
Hale
~
When that enormous face drew near from the blackness, I feared for a tiny second my bladder would overly relax. Two rows of canines ten inches and longer stretched across the beast’s forty-inch jawline. Holy weezit. The old paintin’s and drawin’s didn’t exaggerate. The dragon twisted a bit until its—she was a she—golden-yellow eye peered at me from inches away. This was the most famous gold dragon from our folks’ first generation in the Range. Lucas’s mate. Iza’loch.
“Pleased to meet you,” the deep voice rumbled in my head. “And yes. It is a bit upsetting you would have preferred the little, irritating Taiz’lin. But maybe not very surprising. He was of course blood-bonded to that irritating little Ike. A bit of his being lives inside you. I sense his arrogance.”
I’m pretty sure I burst out laughin’, but didn’t hear myself. There was nothin’ in my head but the gentle, rhythmic pentameter of Iza’s heartbeat. “Ya didn’t like my ancestor?” I asked.
She emitted what could have been a mental phft. I sensed her take a long inhalation. “None of your kind could stand near my Lucas in heart and integrity. A human like none before or after. No explaining what he saw in his friend, Ike. An ogre.” That mental phft repeated. “But they were closer than two knuckles of the same hand. Even before they each bonded with dragonkind.” A long moment dragged by. “I still miss my Lucas.” Her heart clearly caught, and a sob almost escaped. “Been so many centuries. Your kind are so fragile. Die so soon.”
“Am I speakin’ to the real Iza, or this, a uh—”
“Does it matter?” That rushed through my skull with a bit of ire. Ouch. “Why don’t we speak about why you are here?”
Uh. ’Cause I don’t know why I’m here.
“You have troll in you?” Iza demanded. “No wonder you’re confused.”
“That’s rude,” I said.
“They’re not very imaginative,” Iza mumbled. “At least in my time in your trite plane.” I sensed a sigh. “But Lucas cared for them. Never decided what he thought of their character. I think mostly because trolls cared for trolls. Not much else.”
That bit of—insight, I felt a little, overwhelmin’, for lack of a better word.
“You claim a bunch of male predecessors who feel they’ve meant a lot to your people.” Another challenge, I think. “Is that so?” Ouch. Right through one temple out the other.
After the pain subsided, I hitched my shoulder. I decided to ignore the people crack. We aren’t people. We’re giants. “In our world, a lot has been accomplished—”
“Good thing they had hens with a head on their shoulders, or they would have wandered in the forests lost as blind marmots.”
“Rude,” I hissed.
“Most truths are,” Iza said. “So you have a particularly sketchy brain, acquired from your papa.”
Oh. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Woulda been nice if Tie had warned me.
Another phift worked through my chest. “Always ready to shift your shortcomings onto another. Nothing ever changes.”
“Yes, because I’m sure yar Lucas never erred.”
I waited. Would she rip my head off? I waited a bit more. Then a rumble I assumed was laughter sent a near-painful vibration through me. Then another sigh.
“To be honest, he placed others ahead of himself constantly. Could have been much more if he had just forced the weaklings of the Hamlet, the Range, to grow a spine.” Another long sigh. “I’m happy for your visit. I haven’t been able to check in, as Lucas would have liked me to do. But crossing to this side—the despicable wizards were just a little too efficient in closing the curtain between us.”
“Then how are we—”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. The little majic trapped on your side—is too tenuous. Be happy for what you have. Don’t look for it to fix the stupidity of your kind. By kind, I mean all you trite giants, humans, and little people.”
“Are all ya dragons so judgmental?”
She repeated her phift. “You can’t even imagine our greatness.” A deep laugh gave away her sarcasm. This one didn’t hurt rumblin’ through me. “You have two others with you that can touch the ethereal.”
I nodded. “Siblin’, and a troll healer,” I said.
“Healer.” Iza snorted. “No witch or wizard. What you could accomplish with a bit of that vigor. Though they raised enough drama when they came here it’s amazing we let any of them survive.”
“So the wizards did return with you?”
“Where else do you think they went, fool?”
“I could use less attitude.”
Iza paused a moment, before twisting almost double to look me over closely. Her inner eyelid flippin’ closed and open sideways made me swallow deeply.
“Definitely related to that ignorant Ike,” she drawled.
A new question was diggin’ a hole in my head. “If the wizards closed—”
“Have no idea,” she said. “A first in—we aren’t great with your time system—maybe six hundred years.”
“Somethin’ ya aren’t an expert in. Good to know,” I poked.
A grumble erupted somewhere inside that ton of canine enamel. “I should have ended your fraternal lineage when I had a chance.”
Had she slapped me? I lay on the floor of Tie’s kitchen, the sun slumberin’ in through her windows forcin’ me to squint. There was a yellowish pall in the room. Tie sat slumped forward in her chair. From the direction of the natural light, it was no longer late mornin’—the sun prolly bein’ prodded by the western peaks.
“He’s with us again,” Beky screeched.
Rushed footsteps indicated Bele lumbered from the far side of the room, prolly from the comfy seats in front of the hearth.
“What happened to Tie?” she asked.
I guess she wasn’t worried about me. I sat up quickly to check on our friendly majic-wielder, who puts her visitors into—where had I been? Only a hint of the magnetic energy I had sensed comin’ from the healer when we arrived touched me now. “Exhaused,” I said, tentatively paddin’ the back of her hand to test if she was even alive now.
“What happened?” Beky whispered at my shoulder.
That could come later. I helped the healer lean back in her chair, willin’ some of my energy into her—as though I knew how to do that. Her blue-gray eyes did flicker open, though. She tried to speak, but hacked for a long bit. Bele hurried to get her a cool drink from the spigot—who knows how it was kept from a frozen state up here.
After several sips, she tried again. “Were ya truly speakin’ to someone on the other side?”
“Could ya hear?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I sensed—”
No surprise she couldn’t explain it either. She managed to get across that she needed to lay down. Bele had the old hen in her arms before my brain engaged, and carried her through the near doorway. Beky and I followed. Helped get the fragile soul into her bed, and covered in a quilt up to her chin, remnants of her prolly once glorifull dreads laid out next to her.
“Anythin’ we can do?” Bele asked.
Tie sighed. “Ya younguns take off. These roads turn pitch at sunset. Don’t need ya riftin’ down a five-hundred foot gully. We’ll be in touch.”
She closed her eyes. Don’t know where it came from, but I was pretty certain we wouldn’t see her alive again. That dug deep into my chest, resonatin’ in that place I’d recently learned harbored emotion, my sternum. It both burned and ached. Rattled upward into my head.
Bele was on her phone. After a moment I realized she was speakin’ with the hen I had to seriously flirt with to get an appointment with Tie. “Ya’re sure they can get up here tonight?” Bele asked. Evidently the hen gave her the right words to reassure her.
~
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