The Dragons of Noor

  The Damusaun stepped closer. He caught the mixture of fennel, wet stones, and azure needles that was her familiar dragon scent. She had not stopped him when he wanted to shift into a dragon’s form and fight. He knew she would not stop him now. She would let him choose the part he was to play.

  Miles slipped the leather strap of his ervay pouch over his neck and handed it to Meer Eason.

  Meer Eason touched his brow and dipped his head, acknowledging a fellow meer. He, too, would let him go.

  The Music Master held the ervay over his head. “For Miles to shift into pure sound, we will have to play and sing from the time that he departs until his return. That was the way Yarta found her way from formlessness to form again the first time she shifted. The song cannot stop, not even for a moment, or he will be lost.”

  Miles was wracked with wave upon wave of fear. Every shift he’d made thus far was to a larger, stronger animal, and he’d relished the feeling of growing power. It went against everything in him to consider becoming a weak creature or, worse, to slip into nothingness. Yet here he was volunteering to do just that, and the lives of those he loved, maybe even the binding of the worlds, depended on it.

  I have to make this work, he thought, but he feared this shift more than he’d ever feared anything. What if he vanished? Was lost forever? Miles stiffened his jaw, hoping Meer Eason and the dragons wouldn’t detect the naked terror coursing through his body.

  The Music Master put a comforting arm about his shoulder. Miles had one more thing to say before the shift, something for Eason’s ears alone. “Sir,” he whispered, “I’ve not kept up my meditation practice,” he confessed.

  “I know this,” said Eason. “But you have played your music. It’s that you can rely on.”

  Miles nodded, unconvinced. He whispered, “I’ve never shifted into anything smaller than myself before.” He couldn’t hide that from his teacher. “I need to … try that first,” he admitted, motioning toward the tiny red beetle scuttling along the trunk.

  “All right,” whispered Eason. “Go on. I’ll protect you.”

  The insect looked ugly. Repugnant. Miles swallowed. He used to think the stories about Yarta’s shifts were stupid, the pointless games of a naïve girl, whose senseless death had left a legacy of fear and ignorance behind. Now he had to rely on Yarta’s experiments, and on the one time she’d managed to return. He had to stake his life on it.

  His heart drummed and, strangely, the one person he wanted to see now was Hanna. She’d seen him shift last year from boy to beast to boy again. She knew him better than anyone and still thought him brave. They all needed him to awaken the tree, to hold the worlds together, but the reason he must go, even if it meant his life, was because of her. Not because she was the Kanameer, but because she was his sister.

  “Are you ready?” asked Meer Eason.

  “Wait.” Miles looked up at the Damusaun. “If I do find the World Tree’s heart, what am I supposed to do to awaken him?”

  “No one can tell you that, pilgrim.”

  The dragons’ blue flames had died down, and the cave was cold and quiet. Miles could see the breath misting from his mouth. He ran his hand along Breal’s soft fur, letting his fingers say good-bye, before he addressed the Damusaun again.

  “I’ll go now.”

  Meer Eason began to play a simple childlike tune called “Merry-Go-Round” that made Miles smile. He’d need an easy melody to shift to something small, and Eason knew that. Eyes on the red beetle, Miles imagined himself shrinking down, envisioning a small, rounded back, hard and shell-like, tiny legs crawling up a great white tree. He let the tune take him even as he felt himself shrinking.

  He closed his eyes. Panic swept through him as he grew smaller and smaller. Eyes open. He saw Meer Eason’s feet. They were mountainous. He spread his tiny insect wings, flitted to the tree, and landed near his fellow beetle. The ridges in the white bark were hill-like. The beetle was traversing along a sharp-edged crevice just ahead of him. Folding his wings, he listened again to the song Meer Eason was playing and let his thoughts flow.

  Quava-arii. Ever changing. You shifted smaller to make sure you could do it without losing yourself. You’ve done that, and you’re all here, even in this tiny shape. Nothing’s missing.

  The thought soothed him. If he could shift so small and still be Miles, then he could go smaller, down to a flea or even … sound waves.

  eOwey, help me. I don’t want to lose myself.

  He had no picture in his mind to shift to. No animal or insect. He had to let the song itself take him. The tune began to change as Eason slid into the dragon song they’d offered Kwen in the hollow cave. And now the voices that rose with the ervay were rumbling dragon voices. Abb nayn kwii onan. Zuss. Tesha yoven.

  Awaken. Bind the Broken. Miles let the chant flow all around him in a river that carried him along in a warm current. It was like the time he’d played as a seal in the Morrow Sea, only more so. He left the body of the beetle and slowly let go. He was sound and wave, and still he was Miles. The surprise thrilled him.

  Voices carried him, rising, falling. Miles willed himself to move faster within the song and found he could do that. From high notes to low, he did one flip and two and three. He was completely free. The happiness he’d felt swimming in his seal form and later flying on a dragon’s back was nothing next to this.

  The song mellowed, and he fell into its easy rhythm. It was a new tune he’d not heard before, but that didn’t matter; he could play and move within the sound as he circled his way around the rings, deeper and deeper into the heart of the tree.

  The journey was near and far, and he knew straightaway when he’d reached the center ring.

  Show me your heart, Kwen,

  Show your heart to me.

  Show me your heart, Kwen,

  And I will set you free.

  Show me your heart, Kwen,

  Show your heart to me.

  Show me your heart, Kwen,

  Life in the great World Tree.

  This was the song the dragons sang and the sound Miles rode as he searched. With the surrounding song, he lost himself inside the music, lost his worry, his loneliness, his need to prove himself, lost everything, yet he was not lost.

  Miles didn’t know how this was so, but it was so. The tune carried him and was him, and he belonged.

  I in you and you in me, the dragons were singing in tune with the ervay. They were all inside the song of eOwey. He knew it now as he rode the sound waves. He would find the heart of the tree and awaken him for Hanna, for Tymm, for Taunier, for the dragons, the deyas, and the sylth folk of Oth, for all of them and everyone who lived and longed for both worlds to be gathered in.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ROOTS

  Feel the ground beneath your feet as you walk. Heart to root, remember the ones who hold you up.

  —EVVER, THE AZURE KING

  The starless black was dead silent. The air felt so thick it was hard to move hand or foot, hard at times even to breathe. Hanna clung to Arnun’s roots; all that held her up in the vast, unending void. The only way she could keep herself from retreating back to the safety of the cliff was to fill her eyes with Taunier. He balanced on a thick root just ahead, his hands waving as he fought the Outer Darkness with small, bright bursts of fire. The flames shed light on the kneeling children as they pieced together Arnun’s roots.

  On the cliff behind them, Thriss breathed a slender blue jet as she circled Arnun’s trunk. The Fire Herd and the little pip were their only source of light and warmth in the frigid gloom. Hanna drew another fragment from her pocket and watched Tymm’s soiled fingers with wonder as he pressed the piece snugly into place. Broken things were just a puzzle to him—things he could rejoin with grace and ease and glue, only here no glue was needed, for Arnun melded the pieces and filled them with vibrant life, once they were properly joined.

  The root bridge lengthened, and still the void extended on and on. You have far and far to go to f
ind the light beyond the dark. Had Evver known they would walk out over the abyss on nothing but roots? Had he seen ahead and glimpsed her doing this, the way she’d glimpsed the Wind-taken building Arnun?

  A song began as they built the root bridge, and the one leading the song was Arnun, her voice deep as the night:

  “Show me your heart, Kwen,

  Show your heart to me.

  Show me your heart, Kwen,

  Life in the great World Tree.

  Long have I journeyed to find you,

  Long have I waited to see,

  All that I love remembered,

  Held in the great World Tree.”

  It was a love song, but the love was more than that of a husband and wife. It was the love between those who’d been torn apart, those who longed beyond all things to see each other again. Ahead of the group, Taunier herded his blazing light. If the roots should fail to reach the World Tree in Noor, could she let him disappear without ever reaching out to him? Would the last thing she saw be simply his back?

  Hanna stood and walked carefully along a thick root. Fall to the left or right and she would plummet to her death, but she had to walk this far. The song had circled round again, the words repeating the refrain:

  “Long have I journeyed to find you,

  Long have I waited to see,

  All that I love remembered …”

  It was a thousand miles and a hand’s reach to touch him on the shoulder. Taunier turned slowly and looked down at her.

  “Hanna?”

  “If this is hello, then hello. If this is good-bye …”

  She framed his face with her hands, brought it closer to hers, kissed him on the mouth. He did not draw back as she had feared but leaned into her, his lips barely parting.

  “Show me your heart, Kwen,

  Show your heart to me.”

  Light danced about their heads. Taunier put his hand behind the back of her neck and drew her closer to him. His lips tasted of salt and fresh rain on green leaves. His skin was cool as wind, but his mouth was warm. And there was fire there.

  They were still lost in the kiss when a towering white tree loomed ahead. And as Arnun’s tendrils touched Kwen’s roots, a spear of brilliant light pierced the dark below. In Taunier’s embrace, Hanna watched the breaking dawn spreading golden light east to west. It seemed as if a great black cloth were being drawn back as mile on mile of luminescent colors washed over Oth. Mountains, meadows, and valleys appeared below. Hanna glanced to the left. Beyond the base of Mount Esseley, the Yannara Sea shone copper bright and turquoise, the colors of dragon scales.

  One by one the children wiped off their hands and stood, eyes wide. Hanna waited breathless as the rent between the worlds healed and the Outer Darkness died away to the birthing of the light. Across the lands below, the folk of Oth who had slept in darkness until the waking of the world would rise now from dreamless sleep to a new day.

  Arnun’s long black roots entwined the great white tree. Taunier and Hanna’s fingers interlaced, and they were the first to step from Oth to Noor.

  “Show me your heart, Kwen-Arnun.” The song went on, though some dragons stopped their singing to thump their tails and cheer as the Kanameer and the Fire Herd crossed back into Noor in the place where the two worlds joined.

  In Noor the ground trembled as the World Tree grew dizzily upward, breaking through earth and intertwining in the sunlit sky.

  Black tree. White tree. Root to root. Stem to branch to trunk embracing. Oth and Noor together, fitting as two hands fit, as lovers fit. And all was yes and yes.

  THIRTY-NINE

  SALT WATER

  Those tears were hard-won treasure saved up over a lifetime.

  —GREAT-UNCLE ENOCH

  Hanna sang with the dragons encircling Kwen-Arnun, where the great World Tree branched high into the sky. Five or six hundred feet tall, the black-and-white-entwined trunk reached higher than any cathedral, growing beyond measure of any living thing she’d ever seen in either world. The mighty branches forked out to millions of smaller ones leafed in green and gold.

  Beneath the World Tree, the ground swelled with life. Flowering grasses spread green over the parched desert land. There was beauty all around, but Hanna couldn’t take it in while Miles was still missing. In the hours since their return, they’d not let silence fall. Miles’s life was held within the songs, and so they sang. Guided by Meer Eason’s ervay, children’s and dragons’ voices harmonized.

  Hanna paused to sip from Taunier’s water pouch and let the healing coolness spill down her throat before passing it to Tymm. She looked at the children in their tattered clothes. Their hair was tangled, their faces smeared with dirt; still, their mouths were open wide as they sang. Without them, the worlds would not have been joined. She felt a sudden pang of gratitude. I’ll bring each and every one of them home, she thought. We owe them that.

  Meer Eason leaned against a terrow. Even with all the help he was getting, it was clear the Music Meer couldn’t go on much longer.

  Hanna left the circle to walk around the World Tree’s trunk, its girth like a castle; it would take time to pace all the way around. She’d gone only a little way when Thriss landed on her shoulder, and Taunier and Breal joined her.

  “Miles,” she said as she walked beneath the boughs. “You awakened Kwen. The Wind-taken rebuilt Arnun, and we’ve rejoined the worlds. Why won’t you come out?”

  She was talking as if her brother could hear her words right through the wood. If Miles could still hear Eason’s ervay, the children’s wavering choir, and the dragons’ rich, wild voices, then why would he not hear her?

  Tears darkened her dusty leather boots as she rounded the tree. “Come back, Miles. Come back because I say so and because I can’t do without you.”

  She ran her hand along the patterned bark. “Remember the way Enoch was caught inside the oak for fifty years? You don’t want to be imprisoned like that, do you?”

  How long before Eason’s strength gave out? How long before they must all let go of the song, knowing at last that Miles could not return?

  Hand in her pocket, she wrapped her fingers around the cool surface and drew out the small brown bottle of tears. The Kanameer will know what to do with them …

  The Kanameer will know. “Enoch gave me this bottle,” she said hoarsely. She pulled out the cork stopper. “He sent this for you all the way from across the sea. All the way from home.”

  Hanna let two droplets fall on Kwen-Arnun’s roots.

  “These are Enoch’s tears.”

  She kept walking as she tipped the bottle, sprinkling a drop here and there along the base of the tree. “He gathered them the day you and Gurty and I freed him from the oak.”

  She was partway around the trunk now, still sprinkling drops in twos and threes. “Some would say they’re only salt water and worth nothing at all. But they were hard-won tears. You were with me when Enoch came out. We saw him laugh and cry and dance all at the same time. He was like a wild man. Do you remember?”

  White roots and black drank in every drop, songs for the listening, tears for the drinking. “Enoch told me to tell you these tears are sorrow and joy, all in a little brown bottle.”

  The bottle was nearly empty. She poured the last few drops on her hand and tossed them into the branches. Sunlight caught the droplets clinging to the twigs. Golden leaves rustled.

  Empty. She knelt down with Taunier and Breal, placed the small brown bottle snugly between Kwen-Arnun’s roots, and added her tears to Enoch’s.

  Taunier put his hand on her shoulder. She thought of Granda and the Falconer who died last year, of the dragons who were shot down, of Kanoae, who’d never return to the meer’s school on Othlore. But not Miles, she thought. Please not my brother.

  Meer Eason leaned against a terrow’s side. The ervay’s song was fading. Hanna stilled her body. There was a growing silence beyond the tune, a hushed breeze in the leaves, a wave breaking a long way from shore, the far-off steps
of a loved one walking mile upon mile to the place where the other waits. The silence was in the wind, the waves, the steps not heard by the ear, but felt in the heart and breath. Hanna held her breath, listening.

  The silence was broken by a little thud. A small, round fruit fell from the World Tree and rolled up to Hanna’s boot. It was silver, about the size of a juicy plum.

  “Catch!”

  Hanna leaped up with Taunier just in time to see another small globe hurtling down. She caught it, laughing, and gave it to Taunier. Both drew farther back, shielding their eyes against the sunlight. High up in Kwen-Arnun’s branches, half obscured by leaves, Miles sat swinging his legs.

  “Try the fruit, Taunier! It’s delicious!”

  Taunier took a huge bite and chewed appreciatively. He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips.

  “Come down here before you fall,” Hanna shouted cheerfully. She spun around and around just to fling the joy outward. It was too much to keep hold of otherwise.

  “Just a minute.” Miles climbed even higher. “There’s more fruit up here.”

  “Toss me one,” shouted Tymm.

  “And me.” Cilla waved her arms. More children crowded under the branches, jumping up and down.

  “I want some.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Give me some.”

  Miles laughed. “All right. There’s plenty for everyone. Heads up.”

  FORTY

  DRAGONS’ BRIDGE

  Kwen-Arnun, the great World Tree,

  Reached green arms east,

  Reached green arms west,

  And dragons all flew free.

  —DRAGONS’ SONG

  Breal’s Moon rose above Yaniff, full and round and silver as Arnun’s fruit. Beneath Kwen-Arnun’s branches, Miles joined the gathering for the dragons’ crossing.

  Taberrells and terrows smacked their tails against the ground. He felt the pounding in his feet, the drumming deep as the earth’s heartbeat. Thriss crouched on Hanna’s shoulder, flicked her tail against Hanna’s back in rhythm with the others. And on Miles’s right, Meer Eason stood tall with Taunier, resting his hand on Tymm’s shoulder.