“We must hurry.” Evver pointed to the edge of shadow still covering half the valley. “The waking wood is growing smaller.”
“Won’t that part of the forest be lit up as the sun gets higher?” Hanna asked.
“The sun is up,” said Taunier. “It must be something else causing the dark.”
“Come on, everyone,” Evver said. The brook looked deep in the middle. He scooped up Tymm and two other children to ford it. The deyas helped the rest of them across, and they made their way toward the patches of sunlight in All Souls Wood.
A mile farther on, they reached the foothills of the craggy mountain Hanna had seen from the cliff. The nameless shadow rising less than a hundred yards to the left of the trail disturbed Hanna. What was it? She tried to see inside, but couldn’t make out any shapes in the dark. Shivering, she paused to soak in the golden shafts of light falling through the white-barked birches on this part of the path, thankful for the warmth.
The trail grew steeper as they left the valley. There were some taller pines here, but none large or old enough to house deyas. Taunier took the lead, walking with a sure stride, and Hanna strained her muscles, trying to keep up with him. Why was he walking so fast? Did he want to be alone?
Her boots scuffed through maple and willow leaves. They were far ahead of the rest now. She could make out Tymm’s and Cilla’s chattering voices down below. Evver and the deyas had chosen to walk apace with Zabith and the children. Or were they too weak to move any faster? She stopped to glance back. How thin they seemed. Evver hadn’t told her how long they could live without their Waytrees. Was it because he didn’t want her to worry or feel responsible if she failed him?
She turned, heart pounding, just as Taunier disappeared around another bend. “Taunier,” she called, “could you slow down a little?”
Taunier paused near a mossy boulder and peered over the side of the trail. He appeared to be waiting for her to catch up, but she didn’t much like the place he’d chosen. The trail had veered left, and the deep shadow was fewer than twenty feet away.
Taunier raised his arm and snapped his fingers. A flame grew above his outstretched hand. He held it higher, leaned over, then suddenly pitched the fireball toward the blanket of dark to the left of the trail and scurried down between the trees.
“Taunier? What are you doing?” She raced after him. The ground leveled again below the trail. In the darkness, he stood among the logs holding his burning light aloft, his skin pale orange from its glow.
Taunier moved his hand and guided the light across the ground. No trees grew in this gloom, only dead logs lying every which way, like the devastated Noor forests they’d left behind.
“Why did you come down here?” Hanna demanded. The air tasted thick, as if they’d entered a pool of stagnant water. Taunier pointed. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw that just three feet away, a faun lay beside a fox. As Taunier moved the light she saw more bodies; sylth fairies still as stone, wolves, two bearded trolls with their knees bent, as if they’d fallen midstride. There were snakes draped belly up over logs, a family of great horned elk, and everywhere the ground was littered with sprites and birds, hundreds of them, all on their backs, their wings spread wide.
Hanna hugged herself, shivering.
Taunier knelt beside a sylth, whose yellow hair spread across the dark ground. He touched her cheek. “She’s asleep.” He began to shake her gently.
They’d awakened the children in the roots. Could they bring these Oth folk out of their deep sleep? It would be cruel to leave them this way, cruel not to try to help them. Stepping cautiously around a troll, Hanna chose a young sylth who looked about Tymm’s age. The boy’s smooth face was lost in dream. She bent to shake his shoulder. He didn’t awaken, even when she shook him harder. The fine dust that coated the boy’s soft bark jerkin came off on her hand. She stood with effort, suddenly overcome with exhaustion.
“What’s … wrong … with … them?” Her words came slowly, as the dark pressed down on her. Her body felt as if invisible weights hung from her shoulders. Alarmed, she looked at Taunier, who was struggling to walk toward her.
A booming voice came somewhere from her right.
“Eldessur kimbardaa!” Evver’s warning voice rolled through the dark. “You are called. Come out before it is too late.”
Hanna saw the deya in a spill of light on the trail above. A red-haired sylth in a sparkling gown stood on Evver’s left. More sylths, some fauns, and a large bedraggled troll had joined them on the trail. The troll held Tymm by the collar.
“Let me go!” Tymm was shouting, arms flailing.
The troll held on. “I said stay back, boy. Ye can’t go in there! Would ye end up like them?” He pointed to the bodies sprawled on the woodland floor.
Evver extended his hand, his long fingers going dark as they dipped in the thick shadow. “Taunier,” he said, “Hannalyn, come out.”
She lifted her foot, tried to move. Her legs were too heavy. She just needed to lie down and rest a moment before she went on. She crumbled to her knees.
Taunier’s light burned out as he lunged forward to catch her. He wrapped his arm about her and slowly pulled her to a stand.
“Don’t give in to it,” he said.
Leaning closer to the edge, Evver sang:
“Esh ell ne da.
Ne da rumm pe.”
Listen to my heart.
My heart beats for you.
The deyas, sylths, and troll joined in. Streaming voices met and harmonized into a river. The song drifted over the fallen trees and sleeping bodies, sending a fresh current through the dead air. Hanna felt the stirring against her cheek, cool as water, warm as breath.
“Come on.” Taunier took her arm, and together they pushed their way through the thickened air.
Tymm wrestled free from the Troll.
The troll reached out. “I’m warnin’ ye!”
“Here.” Tymm loosened his belt, unfurled his grass rope, and tossed one end into the dark. He handed the other end to Evver. Trailing from Evver’s large hand, the rope fluttered like a thin green flag in the warm wind of the song. Hanna and Taunier reached for it.
THIRTY-FOUR
THE HAND
eOwey sung NoorOth as one,
Embraced by the great World Tree.
—DRAGONS’ SONG
Miles awoke at dawn. Last night’s bonfires were red coals. Meer Eason slept with his head on Breal’s side. The rest of the dragons were curled snout to tail and snoring, but the Damusaun was missing.
The queen had begun the Dragon Council late last night. Miles had tried to stay awake, but exhaustion had won out, and he’d drifted off by the fire. He stood and scanned the desert, furious with himself. What vital plans had he missed? Had they talked about Hanna and Taunier and Tymm? Did the Damusaun still think there would be a way to bring her clan home? Sleep had stolen him when he’d most needed to be awake.
Miles searched the sand, found the Damusaun’s tail marks, and followed them into the desert. She’d disappeared again to some solitary place. He drank from the river, shook the droplets from his head, and continued trailing the serpentine patterns.
Near the temple ruin, stone spires cast long shadows in the pale, morning light. He followed a single shadow all the way to the pillars where the she-dragon had stopped sometime before dawn. The deep claw prints revealed that she’d paced back and forth before moving on.
Miles looked up. Some pillars in the long row still had roof beams stretching out like branches toward the far side. He imagined a dome spread overhead like a great forest canopy. There was nothing left of it now, but he sensed the dome had once been green, and so had the arid dragonlands. How long ago that must have been.
Dawn painted the clouds tangerine; the sky loomed pale purple. In the nearby bushes, insects began to click. Wind stirred the clouds above, and their twin shadows on the sand moved toward the mountain range.
Circling a pillar, he rested his palm on
the cool stone. There were darker circles higher up along the pillar’s sides, like knotholes in a tree. Miles leaned closer and whispered his deya name, “Mileseryl.”
Silence. But then what did he expect? This was not a tree trunk. No deya dwelled inside.
Abandoning the ruin, he trailed through patches of dry grass bent low by the Dragon Queen’s tail. Yaniff was strange and beautiful. Someday he’d explore the other dragon temples he’d seen from the air, climb the far mountains, and view what lay beyond.
A low rumbling sound crossed the desert. Miles spread his legs and adjusted his stance. The ground shuddered. The next mighty tremor knocked him flat on his back. Stone towers swayed left and right. Two crashed down fewer than ten feet away. Miles rolled on his side, tried to get up and run, but the molten sand pitched and rolled like a yellow sea. From the far-off camp, Breal was racing toward him.
“Breal! Lie down, boy!”
Meer Eason leaped onto a terrow, and the dragons all took to the air.
The desert shook. Miles got up and stumbled forward, shouting. Clouds of choking dust surrounded him, cutting off his view. How could the dragons fly over and sweep him up off the shuddering ground if they couldn’t see him? He screamed louder and tried to stand, then fell back on all fours. In the next violent tremor the desert cracked. Before he could leap back, the split tore into a great fissure, and Miles plummeted down.
A narrow beam of sunlight poured into the crevasse. Miles slowly came to and saw a crack of blue above the high, earthen walls. His head pounded, and his chest and back felt badly bruised. He crooked his neck, peered down the deep crevasse, and gasped. He would have fallen to his death if he hadn’t been caught here, but he was not on a ledge. He squinted at the dirt wall and let out a hoarse scream. A giant’s skeletal hand thrust from the raw earth and clutched him with long, bony fingers.
“Help, someone!” No sounds of movement from above. Couldn’t they hear him? He called again, his voice cracking with strain.
The bony hand seemed to grip him even tighter. Was the skeleton alive? Would the giant draw him back inside the earth? Sweat soaked his shirt. He should shape-shift smaller, free himself, but he’d never shifted to a smaller animal before, and the idea terrified him. What if he were trapped in a helpless little form, condemned to live out his life as a lizard or a mouse? It was unthinkable.
His rib cage ached, and his legs were numb. His flesh twitched with fear, indecision, anger. “Help!” he called again. “I’m trapped down here!”
Loud barking from above. “Breal! Get one of the dragons!” Breal lifted his muzzle and howled. It wasn’t long before Miles saw the Damusaun flying overhead, before she carefully winged down into the wide rift.
“Don’t move,” she ordered. No trouble there. He hadn’t been able to do anything so far but turn his head.
Flapping her wings to stay in place, the Dragon Queen used her sharp talons to free Miles from the skeleton hand. Once she had him securely in her claw, she flew up and placed him gently on the sand.
Miles sat up dizzily and spat. “Thank you,” he wheezed. Every breath sent sharp pains across his chest and back. Had that hideous thing broken one of his ribs? Meer Eason leaped down from a terrow and ran toward him.
“Miles! We thought … Are you all right?”
“My ribs are a little sore.”
The Damusaun left them together, and Meer Eason knelt and ran his hand along Miles’s ribs. It was a gentle touch; still, Miles sucked air between his clenched teeth.
“Some bruising, but I’m fairly sure the bones are not broken.” He wiped the dust from his hands. “Are you thirsty?” Eason pulled out his water pouch, found it empty, and headed for the river.
Miles rested his head against Breal’s furry neck. The Dragon Queen flew back and settled on the sand before him.
Miles looked up. “What was that horrible skeleton hand that caught me?”
The Damusaun tipped her head. Her cheek flaps wobbled. “What hand?”
“The hand. The … giant bony thing back there in the chasm!”
Breal whimpered. Miles hadn’t meant to raise his voice to the Dragon Queen, but surely she’d seen it? She’d freed him from it, after all.
“That was no hand, Miles. You were caught in Kwen’s roots.”
“Kwen? The World Tree?” He squinted up at her. The sun haloed her head in blazing white. “Did Kwen fall … here?” he asked.
The Dragon Queen drew a rune in the sand with her claw. “Since the breaking, we have guarded Kwen’s remains and watched over his offspring. The greatest descendants grew here in Yaniff, their younger brother and sister Waytrees grew in Jarrosh.”
It was hard to imagine a forest here, where miles and miles of barren desert blotched with dry grass led to the rocky foothills. Even the mountainsides were bare.
“I don’t see the remains of any trees at all, let alone the remains of a giant one.”
The Damusaun nodded toward the pillars.
Miles blinked. “But that’s an ancient ruin. Those pillars are made of stone.” He’d touched one less than an hour ago. Marble, he was sure of it.
“After Kwen was buried under the earth, a vast forest sprang up here in Yaniff,” said the Dragon Queen. “It looked to be many thousands of tall white trees, but we dragons knew they were all shoots growing from Kwen’s trunk, still partly living underground. These ‘pillars,’ as you call them, were once a vast green forest before they were covered in volcanic ash long ago. When they died, their siblings, the azures of Jarrosh, became the oldest living Waytrees of Noor.”
She twitched her ears. “The quake awakened our hope, pilgrim. We saw the World Tree move. Kwen cared enough to catch you in his roots. Why do you think he did this?”
“Wh-Why?” Miles repeated. He was lucky to have fallen into the tree’s thick white roots, but it didn’t mean the World Tree had reached out and caught him. “I don’t know why,” he admitted.
The Damusaun thrust forward and snapped her jaws, as if to bite off his head. It’s one thing to have a master crack a switch across your palms in school and quite another to have a dragon snap her long teeth at you. Breal yelped and fled a few feet back. Miles would have jumped up, too, but his legs were still asleep. He rubbed them hard. Thousands of needles pricked his skin from thigh to heel.
Meer Eason returned with the water. Grateful for the interruption, Miles drank thirstily, emptying the entire pouch. His teacher was prepared to stay, but the Damusaun tipped her head and flicked out her slit tongue. “You will leave us for now, Meer Eason.” The Music Master glanced at Miles, then bowed and said, “Come on, Breal.”
When they were alone, Miles said, “Damusaun, my mind still isn’t clear.”
She nodded in agreement.
“And the reason is,” he went on more bravely, “I’m worried about Hanna and Taunier. And my little brother still needs to be rescued. I promised my da I’d find him, so I can’t be sitting about here in Yaniff. I need you to show me where I can cross over.” He stopped, knowing he was babbling. There had to be a way in still.
“You think we abandoned the Kanameer?”
“Not abandoned her, just, well …” He gazed up at the Dragon Queen’s blazing, yellow eyes. In the stark sunlight, her scales sparkled like gemstones. Whatever came out of his mouth seemed to anger her. “I just think we have to go back after her and the others. I mean, I have to go,” he corrected. “Because Hanna’s my sister and—”
“We cannot go where she has gone, pilgrim.”
“I know you can’t go before Breal’s Moon night, but I can go.”
She shook her head.
A bolt of fear shot up his back. “What do you mean? I’ve been to Oth before. There must be a—”
“Where were you when we held the Dragon Council?” Smoke huffed from her nostrils.
He was too ashamed to say he’d fallen asleep.
She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “The dragon bridges from Noor to Oth are fallen now
.”
Heat raced across the desert in waves. Miles’s head spun, and he tried not to be sick.
“I have ordered the clan to dig,” said the Damusaun.
Miles looked over his shoulder and saw terrows and taberrells flying in and out of the rift he’d been caught in, like bees busy with their hive.
The queen’s head swayed. “It will take them some time. Can you walk?”
The nausea he’d felt a moment ago had passed. Miles managed to stand upright, though his knees wobbled. He took shallow breaths to keep his ribs from screaming.
“When youth fails us, we return to ancient things.” The Damusaun turned about. “Come, if you wish to see the cave of bones.”
THIRTY-FIVE
TAKING ON THE NAME
The Damusaun called me the Mishtar, friend of dragons, but it will take a lifetime to grow into the name.
—THE MISHTAR, DRAGON’S WAY, VOL. I
They hiked another hour on the trail through All Souls Wood, trying to run ahead of the shadow spreading from the deep rift where the worlds were torn. For that was what it was, Hanna learned: a creeping dark growing from that rift. According to the sylth, Yona, the darkness had swallowed all the other lands of Oth, and everyone but a few like herself who’d managed to escape had been caught in a deadly sleep.
Yona was strong of build, with red hair and brows that tilted over deep green eyes. She’d led a handful of sylths, forest creatures, and Othic folk on an arduous journey toward the light. But she eyed the shadow that was moving now across the face of the mountain. “This is all that is left,” she said. “We’d thought Mount Esseley and All Souls Wood would be safe, but darkness comes even here.”
Hanna shuddered, remembering the sylth boy she’d tried to awaken. He was still asleep, still caught in the dark. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the rest of Mount Esseley blackened into endless night. If they were caught, they’d fall into dreamless sleep like the others, lying as still as the dead in the encroaching dark.