“Kondor?”
She’d probably known all along that was what I meant when saying, after this. The thing was, we’d been orphaned for a few years, survived on our own, and never knew what happened to our parents. It gnawed at us like a hungry dog with a new bone. We had no history, no memories. A land filled with people like us tugged at every fiber of my being.
Elizabeth had been wonderful in taking us in for the last ten years, but we knew we looked different, no matter how they glossed it over or accepted us. We were different. There was a story of our beginnings that haunted us. Now that we knew there were others living in a place called Kondor, we had to go there to find a sense of our identity, a sense of belonging and perhaps family or a reason of why we were orphaned in a strange land.
Like all orphans, we’d shared common dreams and ideas that we were lost royalty from a far-off kingdom, and our families were waiting with open arms for us to return and place crowns upon our heads and wrap us in loving arms. Also, as with all orphans, that was never going to happen. But there might be something there. We had to find out. Inside, I knew my sister felt the same, even if she didn’t say it.
Near the top of the stairs, someone had piled four small flat stones, one upon the other. The little tower tilted to one side unsteadily. What caught my attention about it, was that when the dragon had broken free, it had shattered the roof of its cave to escape. Half a mountain rained down. Then it had attacked the city below, and the ground had shaken until buildings fell. My eyes fixed on the flat stones as if they were offensive. How had the little stack of rocks remained upright? It didn’t make sense.
Unconsciously, as I’d done a thousand times, I reached out with my mind and used small-magic to nudge the rocks, just the slightest touch. They tipped to one side and fell over.
They shouldn’t have.
I didn’t have any more magic. “Kendra, did you see that?”
“What?” she panted, pausing to rest as we spoke.
“Those stones over there. They were piled up, four of them. I knocked them over with magic. And how were they able to be piled on top of each other?”
She instantly scowled and said, “You know you are not able to . . .”
The meaning of my words had finally reached her. A twig lay on the flat surface nearby. I levitated it and moved it closer to her. She snatched it from the air. “How? You lost your magic.”
“I don’t know either of those things. Besides, who piled those stones? When? It had to be since the dragon broke free, and why have my powers returned?”
Kendra tossed the twig aside and began slowly climbing again, her jaw clamped tight. One step, two. Another stumble. More steps. Later, a second landing with another bench and a small trickle of water falling across the solid stone from above. Not a waterfall, or even a small stream. It was no wider than my hand, and when I placed my finger in it, the water depth came to the first knuckle. But it was wet and cold. We slaked our thirst without talking.
We were so tired and winded we barely talked as we rested. My legs were on fire. I’d twisted my back on one of my many falls forward as I missed a step. The only things to be grateful for were the benches, the little waterfall, and the fact that all of the other mountains in sight were taller and we were climbing the smallest. I was grateful nobody had chosen one of the others to cut the stairway into.
Later, the stairs made another switchback, and we went up more slowly. I leaned forward and used my hands to touch each step as if crawling, which I was. That last rise of stairs was shorter, and I spent the entire way trying to think of how my returned small-magic might help us without coming up with a good idea.
Sure, I could use my miniscule powers to ease a paper from a purse, toss a pebble a decent distance, increase speed and accuracy of something I threw, or slosh ale over the side of a mug and embarrass someone. They were small things. While often useful in certain situations, none of it was helpful in climbing stairs.
“I think I see the top,” Kendra said from below me.
Looking up, she was right. We reached a flat area carved into the side of the mountain after only a few more steps. The area was a few hundred steps wide and the same length, while part of the hillside above had been broken apart and jagged pieces of what I assumed had been the solid rock roof covered the smooth, flat surface. The rest of the roof had slid over the side, and the destruction of the path it took was easy to see. The vegetation had been scoured free, and the exposed rock appeared fresh.
The entire side of the mountain above what had been the cave confining a dragon the size of a barn was shattered and broken. Most of the remains of the roof had tumbled onto the flat area that had been the cave floor. There were only a few places where the rock was not piled higher than my head on the polished floor. I used my hand and wiped away smaller debris, dust, and rock. The original surface was polished in the same shade of gray as this part of the world seemed to be, but the slight sheen appeared as if it had been polished by the passing of many feet.
Kendra joined me. “So, this is it.”
Her face was red with exhaustion. The wind had picked up, and there was a touch of fear in her eyes. Well, fear, hate, puzzlement, and who knows what else? Easier to just say, emotion. She was overwhelmed with it. She wove a path around the largest boulders, moving to where the back of the cave would have been.
I stood up to follow as I caught my breath, but she pulled to an abrupt stop. Her head tilted back, and her fists balled.
A cry of rage came from her so loud my ears hurt. At first, I was mistaken. It was not Kendra screaming in rage I heard, or if she was, her scream was lost in the roar of a dragon. It flew into sight around the nearest peak and dived at us, spreading its wings and approaching in a controlled glide, the eyes fixed on us. My thought, probably my last, was that the beast was going to eat me. No matter, I stood as if made of the same rock as the cave, unable to move.
As it reached the mountaintop, the wind from its wings rustled my beard, mussed my hair, and blew up a cloud of dirt and sand that blinded me. I threw up an arm to protect my eyes.
When my eyes cleared, a dragon had landed so close an underhanded toss of a rock would strike it. It was the first dragon I’d ever seen, and only the third time.
Again, it was the true dragon, not a snakelike Wyvern. The beast in front of me stood on all four feet, great wings retracted, much like a bat. Its knees were taller than my head. The head of the great animal faced away from me, so I had an up-close view of the dragon’s butt, and my fear bubbled up in a nervous laugh at the thought. Dragon’s butt. I would forever recognize Kendra’s dragon in the future when I saw its butt.
The phrase didn’t seem so funny when it heard me laugh, and the neck swiveled until the cold brown eyes found me. It shifted its body slightly to better examine me, the second time it had done that. While it had been this close to us on the road, I’d seen it reach out and snap up a man no closer than me, then killing him before he could take a single step. The dragon had been standing in a similar position. My life was in the decision the dragon made.
My heart pounded, sweat coated me despite the chill in the morning breeze, and my legs refused to move. Kendra stepped protectively past me and walked up to the beast as if they were old friends. She held up her right arm and waved to gain its attention, and it finally looked at her instead of me, then it moved closer and sniffed her while making a huffing sound.
Her action surprised me. Kendra had never been the brave one of us three: her, Elizabeth, and myself. She was usually the first to stop or quit difficult tasks, the worst at archery, the easiest to defeat in wrestling or fighting. Yet, she stood there and faced down a dragon.