The Dragons of Noor

  “Yona, how long have the lit lands been disappearing?”

  “Two moon cycles now.”

  Two months. Hanna’s mind went back to late August, when Tymm was Wind-taken and the Waytrees of Shalem Wood thundered down. On that day she’d not yet known that the Waytrees of Othlore Wood had fallen, too. “It’s when the Waytrees in our world began to fall,” she said. “Not just in my forest home on Enness Isle, but everywhere.”

  She tried to imagine the dark wave swallowing the magical sylth kingdom of Attenlore she’d seen last year in western Oth. Her heart raced and her hands went cold as she thought of the darkness engulfing the glimmer cities in all the Othic kingdoms, cities whose very walls shone with light. She imagined the deep shadow blotting out prairie, mountain, and valley in every land, even in the dragonlands of Twarn-Majas, where the Damusaun said the beautiful mountains were made of deep-blue stone.

  There were so many places in Oth she’d never had a chance to see, so many magical beings felled and lost.

  Carrying Zabith piggyback, Taunier passed a mossy boulder and caught up with Hanna. They were all overcome with exhaustion and hunger, the trail crowded with fauns and sylth folk hefting the youngest children up the path. Tymm rode on Grunn the Troll’s left shoulder, and Cilla perched on his right. Both clutched the troll’s beard, parting the hairy mass in the middle. Cilla was braiding her half. Her rugs were prized at home, but she wouldn’t be able to do much with Grunn’s tangled beard.

  Farther back, Kevin and a few of the older children hiked soberly alongside the deyas. Evver dragged his large, rooted feet. His head was down, his shoulders hunched. Behind him, deyas leaned against one another, swinging their empty hands as they strained to keep up.

  Stopping at a vantage point, Hanna spied a black void looming over the high mountain ridge, and pointed to it.

  Yona shivered. “The Outer Darkness,” she said.

  Hanna felt chilled looking at it. It was more ominous than the thick shadow creeping along the mountainside. “Why so much worse up there?” she asked.

  “The darkness deepens closer to the center of the rift,” Yona said. The tallest trees, the ones they needed desperately to reach, were just below that dark-rimmed peak. They talked of turning back, but there was nowhere else to go.

  The snowy mountaintop stood white against the weight of blackened space as they hiked closer to it.

  “Why do the splitting worlds send this horrid darkness?” Taunier asked. “Why does it put everything in its path to sleep?”

  “The two worlds were bound in their making,” Yona said. “Even now, what happens in one will affect the other.”

  “It’s not going dark in Noor,” he argued.

  Zabith tapped him on the head. “There is more than one kind of dark,” she said. “It’s the loss of magic in Noor that casts a shadow here.”

  “Ah,” said Grunn. “What’s bound is bound.” He crashed his meaty fists together. “We trolls knew the dark was comin’ afore it began.”

  Yona scoffed, “We sylth surely would ken this loss before you.”

  “We’d a song my lady.” He drew his shoulders back, Tymm and Cilla rising higher as he did so. He sang gruffly in Trollish. Yona translated for him:

  “Darkness grow and darkness take,

  Till none in Oth are left awake.

  Ending worlds can nigh begin,

  Till Arnun tree entwines with Kwen.”

  “The World Tree?” Taunier looked unconvinced.

  Hanna recalled the lines Miles had pointed to in the Falconer’s book: The great Mishtar held that one day the heart of the World Tree might still be awakened, and Kwen and Arnun be rejoined. Still, would that work with a long-dead tree split for thousands of years? How could it come alive and join again?

  She’d rather rely on Evver. She knew him. Trusted him. Still, she wasn’t sure the deyas, weak as they were now, could root down deep and help the Waytrees bridge the worlds long enough for her to bring the children back to Noor. Her head began to ache again. Since the Damusaun had named her Kanameer, everyone had counted on her: dragons, deyas, the Wind-taken children. Even the few Othic folk who’d managed to escape the growing dark seemed to be expecting her to help them.

  Half an hour later, they reached a small grassy clearing and waited for the deyas to catch up. Evver crested the hill. His feet barely touched the clearing when he turned off the path and walked out among a stand of redwoods. Evver had been hunched over, pressing himself hard to make the climb. Now he drew up tall before the stately trees like a plant unfurling in the sun. Hanna held her breath.

  Spreading his arms wide, Evver gave an ancient call, a sound like river water.

  He paused, listening to the silent mountain, then said, “No deyas in this ancient grove. We will enter here.”

  Hanna wanted to grip Taunier’s arm. She tugged a long blade of grass.

  A sigh moved through the deyas.

  “Yes, here.” Another deya held up her hands.

  The whispering branches seemed to welcome the deyas in one by one. Hanna watched, needing them to go, not wanting them to leave.

  Evver waited for all to be safely housed before turning to a grand redwood that looked tall enough to have reached its two-thousandth year. He gestured to Hanna. “Come with me to the door.”

  She left the others in the clearing. Evver took her hand, or, rather, she wrapped hers about his smallest finger. His skin was cool as winter leaves when the snow dresses the branches. When they reached the redwood, no door was visible.

  Under the blowing boughs, Evver let go of her hand and said, “We will root down here as long as we can, but we both know we cannot do this long.”

  Hanna nodded. She knew the rift was too great now for such a small grove to bind it.

  Evver said, “If the worlds can be rejoined, you must find the way to do it in the time you have left, Kanameer.”

  His stern look passed through the brave guise she’d been wearing to hide her deep misgivings underneath. She must find the way? How could he expect her to do that? She wasn’t even sure she was the Kanameer. She’d accepted the name only because so many of them had seemed to want her to.

  “How can I? I don’t know what to do or how to get back across myself with so much of Oth already gone.”

  “Say it, Kanameer. Tell yourself who you are.”

  “But,” she whispered, “what if I’m not?”

  “Do you believe in the power of the Old Magic?”

  “The Old Magic.” Hanna tasted the words, the magic that eOwey had sent out in song at the making of the worlds.

  “It is all around you, and it is in you—small as breath and great as mountain wind. Do you feel it?”

  “Aye,” said Hanna. When she was with Evver, she felt the magic near.

  “And you wish to serve?”

  “I’ve never minded that.”

  “Then what troubles you?”

  “I’m not … a leader. I’m not sure I have this … power everyone thinks I have.” She felt herself blushing.

  “Essha,” said Evver. “You flew to Jarrosh in the Whirl Storm, dreamwalked for us and the dragons, brought us through the caverns of Mount Olone, rescued the Wind-taken, called the great wind spirits to blow us down to All Souls Wood, and now you have helped us find our new grandtrees. Who but the Kanameer could have done all this?”

  Hanna thought a moment. It did sound remarkable when he put it that way. “But I don’t have the power to … I didn’t always know what I was doing,” she admitted. “And I didn’t do it alone.”

  “I am the Azure King, yet you helped me along the way as I aided you.”

  Hanna saw Evver asking her to lead the deyas to All Souls Wood; she saw him rescuing her and Zabith from the falling azure, humming to his folk when they were weary, bringing the Wind-taken children down from the roots, comforting the youngest ones when they were afraid.

  “Aye,” whispered Hanna. “You were always quick to help all of us.”

/>   “This is what a Deya King does, Hannalyn. But I did not act alone. Why do you think the Kanameer must act alone? You needed Taunier’s light, Zabith’s vision, and I suspect you will need the youngest child who was Wind-taken before you are through. Indeed your ‘power,’ as you call it, is nothing more than the Old Magic. You could not have led us if you had not welcomed it and let it flow through you like the wind.”

  The breeze of All Souls Wood whispered between them. Everything she’d done as the Kanameer had felt so much like guesswork. But all along as she had found herself relying on her friends, her sense of direction, and her desire to help the ones she loved, the way she was meant to take seemed to open before her again and again. Was this what Evver meant?

  The deya gave her a piercing look. “Essha, Kanameer. I must leave.” He gestured toward the others in the clearing. “They need you. You will need to know who you are to go where you are going.”

  She knew Evver had to leave her, but she didn’t want him to go.

  “Kanameer. Say it with your mouth,” he said. “Listen and allow it to settle deeper in your roots. Let the knowing of it feed you.”

  Hanna knew he was right. She couldn’t let her uncertainty hold her down anymore. She would need to believe she was the Kanameer to let the Old Magic continue to flow through her and guide her. All Evver was asking her to do now was say the word aloud, to essha it, the deya word for “listen and understand.”

  She looked into his shining eyes, green as forest pools.

  “I am the Kanameer,” she said. It was a quiet pronouncement, but the word came smooth and sounded like a song inside her. She said it again, a little louder this time.

  More than the dragons’ crown, more than the golden terrow cape, the word wrapped its sound around her. And for the first time since she’d heard the title from the Damusaun, Hanna let herself believe it. The belief was as fleeting as the glint of sunlight in Evver’s eyes, but a spark had come and, with it, the promise of some future warmth.

  “Hannalyn,” he said. “Kanameer. Essha now. You have far and far to go to find the light beyond the dark. But feel the ground beneath your feet as you walk. Heart to root, remember the ones who hold you up.”

  “I will remember.” She wanted to say more to him, but already Evver was fading from his long journey. He’d stayed too long outside his tree.

  “Go now.” She motioned to the redwood.

  He spoke no more before entering the trunk. Hanna thought she heard a sigh as he disappeared, though it might have been the wind whispering through the branches. She did not turn back yet, but stared a long while at the rust-red bark dressed in pale sunlight. You are home now, she thought. Her heart ached with joy for him, sorrow for herself—one pain that branched in two directions. She would miss the deya and the courage he gave her.

  Hanna rejoined Taunier and Meer Zabith. Together they made their way toward the little grassy clearing where the Wind-taken and Oth folk waited. Evver’s words echoed in her heart as she walked. She didn’t know how she was supposed to bridge the worlds or how she would overcome the darkness in the place where Noor and Oth were torn. But she sensed she must climb higher up the mountain, to the place the Oth folk feared most, the peak where the last lit land of Oth here in All Souls Wood met the deepest part of the Outer Darkness.

  THIRTY-SIX

  SHARDS

  You have far and far to go to find the light beyond the dark.

  —EVVER, THE AZURE KING

  Hanna led the party to a rocky plateau, near the highest peak on Mount Esseley, where the cliff-touched the sheer black edge of the Outer Darkness. Stepping near, she felt its dying breath all around her, in the earth and dust, and the faintest smell of sea, drowned in a dark without wave or shore. She wanted to run as soon as she saw the night that was not night, the starless, moonless edge of dark. But her inner sense had led her to this hard ground littered with shiny, black, sharp-edged stones.

  The moment she set foot on the cliff, she heard the stones speaking. Words whispered one upon the other, stacked words, strewn words, flowing wild and disjointed into her ears. She passed through the scattered rocks, listening, trying to make sense of them.

  Pieces my again gather lover Kwen me build reach my help roots bring Oth broken Noor to Tesha from broken the Yoven bind world to again world join.

  Each stone spoke a single word, so all the words came in a jumble. Hanna paced back and forth, trying to make sense of it, until she gave up and shouted, “Slow down. What are you trying to say?”

  Her strained voice silenced the stones and startled Yona, who stood, arms crossed, watching her. Hanna looked at the stones on the ground. Where were the words now? Taunier crested the steep trail, panting as he carried Zabith. He placed her on the plateau, and she dusted off her clothes. Her shawl had nearly vanished; a few green threads remained draped across her bony shoulders. The children huddled around her and Taunier, looking about them.

  Taunier brushed off his hands. “What are we doing here, Hanna?”

  Hanna read the frightened faces, sylth and troll and human. The Outer Darkness was too close, the emptiness too frightening for them to stay here. She pointed at the ground and said, “The stones were talking.”

  It sounded very strange, but she didn’t try to soften it with explanation—she didn’t even understand it herself.

  Meer Zabith and the children fanned out across the plateau, stopping here and there to pick up a sharp stone. She could hear them talking excitedly, their words overlapping as they interrupted one another.

  “Over here,” Tymm called to Cilla.

  “This is a gathering place,” said Hanna. It was, after all, what Zabith and the children were doing. Tymm had picked up a glassy black shard and was showing it to Cilla. She pulled another, smaller one from her pocket and cradled it in her palms. They exchanged the stones and scanned the ground for more.

  Taunier passed them by, heading for the dark wall.

  What was he up to? Hanna ran after him, calling, “Watch out.” She caught the edge of his cloak, trying to draw him back. Taunier snapped his fingers, and a flame hovered just above his fingertip, as yellow as a honeybee. He raised his arm near the edge as if to see beyond, but the little fire did not lessen the dark, nor was there a reflection as there might be against a shining black wall, only emptiness.

  Frowning, he turned to Yona. “You said the foothills below this ridge met the shoreline of the Yannara Sea. But there’s nothing here.”

  “The Outer Darkness grows,” said Yona. “All of Oth disappears.” Beside her, Grunn let out a groan. The sound seemed to propel Yona forward; either that or Grunn had given her a push.

  “It’s not safe this close to the edge of the rift,” Yona said. “We should go back now while we can.”

  She spoke with authority, and Hanna fought the urge to agree. She was afraid. She wanted to get away from the dark wall, too, but she’d felt drawn up the mountain to this spot. And Evver had said to pay attention to that inner sense of direction she’d been following, to lean into the Old Magic that whispered quietly inside her.

  “I am the Kanameer,” she said. “We will wait here a little longer.”

  eOwey, please let my sense be right, she prayed. There was a soft click-clack behind her, like children playing marbles. She turned around to see Tymm, near the edge of the Outer Darkness, placing his shard beside Cilla’s. “Tesha yoven,” he whispered.

  “Tesha yoven,” Cilla repeated, placing another shard on top.

  They giggled, heads bowed close together. They were making something, though Hanna couldn’t tell yet what it was. Watching Tymm’s swift hands reminded her of the pieces he’d glued together the day she’d broken Mother’s platter, of other times when he’d mended fences, woven rope from grass, fixed the leaky water bucket, or used Da’s tools to make toys and gifts for the family.

  The other children joined Tymm and Cilla, stacking stone on stone. They were moving quickly, hands dancing, talking to one anothe
r.

  “Here.”

  “No, this one. That’s right.”

  “Oh, give me that one.”

  They all seemed to know where to put the shards, not helter-skelter in a pile, but fitting them just so like puzzle pieces. And they were fitting them together, with no space in between, so perfectly it seemed that they were joined. A tower was growing taller and broader before her eyes. Soon it formed into a black trunk with branches growing from the sides.

  “What is it?” whispered Taunier.

  Hanna picked up a shard. It was cool and hard in her hand, but it was wood, not stone at all. She held it out to him. “Remember the dreamwalk I told you and Miles about on the Leena?”

  “The black tree.” Taunier looked both startled and excited.

  “Thank you,” said Hanna.

  “For what?” He frowned, surprised.

  “You said I shouldn’t get in the way of what Tymm came here to do.”

  Taunier wasn’t used to compliments. He gave her a single nod and looked away.

  She caught Yona’s questioning expression and tried to explain. “I had a dreamwalk after my little brother was Wind-taken. I saw him climbing a great black tree with other children; he was shaping a face in the giant trunk.”

  Yona went on tiptoe to whisper in Grunn’s ear. He leaned down to listen before pointing over Hanna’s shoulder. Tymm and Kevin were climbing up the thick low branches. More children followed, building the tree higher and higher.

  There must have been magic in their hands, for the tree seemed to be filling out quickly. It grew from five feet to ten and more. When it reached twenty feet, the children were still adding to the trunk and building more and more branches. They whooped with excitement, passing shards up the trunk, climbing higher to fit them into place. Hanna had to crook her neck to watch them.

  Tymm clung to a bough with one hand as he ran his other hand along the smooth black trunk. His fingers moved, pressing, shaping—a face began to form.