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  “Years?” gasped Kale.

  “Just kidding, young lady.” She patted Kale’s arm as the contraction eased off. “We’ll get you comfortable so the only time you’re hurting is when you’re working to have that baby. No sense in fidgeting in between times. I’ll show your husband how to hold you so he can rub your back exactly where it will do the most good.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Mistress Relk laid a squirming baby boy on Kale’s chest.

  “There,” said the meech. “He can listen to your heart just like he’s been doing for months.” The midwife rubbed him with a cloth, listing off his inventory while Kale and Bardon gazed at their new son.

  “Two arms and legs. Ten toes. Ten fingers. Two of everything he needs. My, these ears are pointy.”

  She looked curiously from Kale to Bardon. Bardon grinned and lifted his hair covering his ears.

  The baby squalled.

  “He’s got good lungs,” said Tulanny.

  Sachael tsked. “That wasn’t very original, Tulanny. If you want to be useful, get this nosy dragon out of my way.”

  “Not me,” said the meech. “That beast bites.”

  The baby’s wails turned to soft sobs, then to a coo. The blue dragon crept closer. Bardon reached to keep the creature at a distance from his son. It hissed.

  “Just as I thought,” said Tulanny. “That’s a protector dragon, but she’s not protecting you, Kale. She belongs to the baby.”

  “Oh,” whispered Kale. “It’s all right, Bardon. Don’t move her. I should have known. The dragon bonded to our baby.”

  The little blue dragon put a wing over the child and looked up to Kale’s face.

  “Her name is Fly.” Kale giggled. “Not the insect kind of Fly, but the act of soaring.”

  The baby’s small fist waved in the air. The blue dragon intercepted a swing and allowed the tiny fingers to latch on to her neck.

  Kale laughed again. “Fly has forgiven me for keeping her child trapped inside me. I have risen in her estimation since she can see I’ve done a fine job of taking care of him so far.”

  “Well, the dragon has a name,” said Tulanny. “What’s the boy’s name?”

  Kale looked at Bardon, and they spoke at the same time. “Penn.”

  “It’s time for Master Penn to have his first meal.” Sachael gave Bardon a nudge. “You go tell the men out there what a fine son you have, and in fifteen minutes, you can come back and tell your wife what a fine lady she is. Right now, you’re in the way.”

  Bardon started to object.

  Sachael pushed him toward the door. “She needs cleaning up, and she’ll appreciate all the pretty things you have to say to her after she’s in a fresh gown and has her hair combed. Out.”

  The midwife closed the door. She turned and smiled at Kale.

  “Now, haven’t you got the most beautiful boy baby in the whole world?”

  Kale sighed contentedly. Yes, I do.

  For the three days that Kale stayed inside with her husband and baby, Mot Angra slept soundly. Her friends came to see the baby. Brunstetter knelt outside the window and held the baby like a butterfly in his huge palm. Sir Dar said he got the first smile out of Penn. Tulanny said it was a gas pain. Seezle said Penn smiled in his sleep when he dreamed of kimens. The meech community paraded through, offering their congratulations, small trinkets, and tiny bags of potent herbal tea. The fragrance from the teabags gave the room a pleasant air.

  Lee Ark showed Kale how to hold the baby with his little tummy on her forearm when he fussed. She already knew to do that from helping marione housewives with their fussy babies. But Lee Ark was so pleased to help, she nodded and smiled and accepted his advice.

  Finally, Regidor came to see her. The others cleared out of the room to give them time alone. When Regidor peeked at the baby, tears sprang to his eyes.

  “One coming into the world, one going out.”

  Kale gasped. “Gilda?”

  “She’s not going to make it, Kale. She doesn’t want to.”

  “Oh, Regidor, I should have sat with her. She probably thinks I don’t care.”

  The meech barely shook his head to disagree. “She didn’t want you there. And”—he sighed deeply—“she probably hasn’t thought of you once in all the time she’s been fading away. All she thinks about is herself, really. Her cosmos is the strange things she has decided are important. I don’t believe even I am within that isolated circle.”

  “How can that be, Regidor? You love her so.”

  He shrugged and wiggled his hand above the baby.

  Penn swung his tiny fist in the air and caught one of Regidor’s fingers. Kale tried to absorb the knowledge that Regidor’s wife lay dying and he was cooing at her child. It boggled her mind that her sophisticated meech friend cooed at all.

  “You’re making faces,” she said.

  “Of course, I’m making faces. That’s what you do with an infant.”

  “How do you know what to do with an infant?”

  Regidor looked briefly nonplussed, then he grinned. “I must have read it in a book somewhere during my vast studies of libraries in every city of our fair land.”

  Kale choked on a laugh. Regidor helped her sit up and thumped her back. Penn started to cry, and Fly zipped across the covers to stand on his little chest. He immediately calmed.

  Regidor gave Kale a glass of water when she could hold it, then laughed at her when she spilt it down her front. He mopped her up with a towel.

  When Kale could talk, she glared at him. “What are you trying to do? Drown me?”

  “Nah, just freshen you up a bit.” Regidor eyed the little blue dragon standing protectively on the baby’s blanket. “Is this the famous spitfire dragon?”

  “This is Fly, Penn’s minor dragon.”

  Regidor laughed and pulled up the stool again to sit beside her bed. “I hear she bites.”

  “Not so much now that Penn is out where she can see him. Fly really had me stumped, Reg. I couldn’t figure out what her problem was.”

  “And now you know?”

  “She was mad at me for keeping her baby prisoner inside my stomach.”

  Regidor laughed again, his rich, deep laugh. Hearing it made Kale’s heart lighter. They bantered over the food and the furniture they’d found in Bility. Then they talked quietly about the history of the town and Mot Angra and, on a note of wonder, what could be Toopka’s role in the danger they faced.

  “Could it be,” Regidor speculated, “that the egg will hatch an equally powerful but good dragon?”

  “As far as I can tell, Regidor, it is only shaped like an egg. I’m not convinced that it will hatch into anything. But Toopka has been as happy as any carefree child ever since Wulder removed it from her chest.”

  “And gave Sittiponder his sight.” Sadness fell on Regidor once more.

  “What is it, friend?” asked Kale.

  “It’s been good to sit with you, Kale. For a while I could put away the horror Gilda has brought upon us.”

  Kale gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean us, the community. I mean us, the couple, Gilda and myself. She’s taken the precious love we had and tossed it aside. Sometimes I’m so angry, I would like to leave her to her moods and rants and misery.

  “I want Gilda to discover joy again. I want her to see her self-destruction. I love her and want to shake her to make her see how her hold on life is riddled with falsehoods, and it is those lies that are killing her. She doesn’t listen. She doesn’t believe. There is no way I can tie her to a post and keep her from slipping away.”

  Kale touched his hand. “I think Wulder must feel that way at times.” Regidor squinted one eye at her, so she continued. “He has always given us reason to draw near, always fed us truth through word and deed. Yet we, as His people, continue to harbor false expectations, trading a glorious reality for a shabby imitation of truth.”

  Regidor remained silent, staring off, in his own world of thoughts.
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  Kale let him wander a bit, then brought him back with a question. “Regidor, what have you been doing while keeping Gilda company?”

  “I’ve been building a gateway.”

  “You have!”

  He nodded and twisted his lips into a puzzled frown. “This gateway has been the hardest thing to construct, and basically, it is an ordinary portal. Not as fancy as the talking gateways.”

  “Mine quit working.”

  “So did mine. I think we are too close to that source of power that fuels Mot Angra. The power of his wickedness generates a disturbance to natural laws for miles around.”

  Kale nodded, although she only partially grasped this concept.

  “The animals who attacked Gilda and me as we came closer, I think were driven by the madness of Mot Angra.”

  “Why you and not us?” Kale nestled her baby closer to her side, marveling at his tiny nose, long dark eyelashes, and pink pursed lips. Fly settled on her shoulder, a perch that gave her a good view of the room.

  “Because Mot Angra knows and hates the meech.” Regidor slapped his knees. “But the gateway is constructed, complete. It is probably the strongest gateway in the world. I had to reinforce almost every strand to keep each one from slipping out of place.”

  “Where does it go?”

  He chortled. “Where does it not go?” Regidor stood and then bent to kiss Kale’s forehead. “I have talked with the others. Seezle is going for help. She will bring back Paladin and every wizard and knight and fighting man loyal to him. The next time Mot Angra stirs, he will face a formidable army of Wulder’s people.”

  Kale looked up at Regidor, a strong warrior himself, whose shoulders drooped with sorrow. “I’m not so sure a big army will defeat our enemy, Regidor.”

  “This may be true, Kale. But until Wulder reveals another plan, we must be ready.”

  He left, and Kale continued to muse. She shifted her son to rest on her chest with his head on her shoulder. “One small weapon piercing one vulnerable spot. I think that is what will defeat the foe, Penn.”

  49

  WORDS UNKNOWN

  An influx of warriors, knights, and wizards flooded the meech village, and still, the treacherous dragon slept. On the third day, Paladin arrived. In the evening, he went with the men who would chant in the cave. Some of these men would also deliver food and water to Mot Angra. Bardon and the other warriors tagged along but did not enter the cave. They circled the entrance at a distance and awaited orders from Paladin.

  The leader of Amara wore his finest royal garb and on his shoulder sat the purple dragon, Metta, with her head held high. Bardon had been astonished that Paladin requested the minor dragon to accompany him. Paladin had winked and said, “The singing dragon and I are riding on a hunch.”

  Bardon saw their leader hesitate at the opening. He knew that feeling. The darkness in the cave was not due to lack of light. Bardon felt the oppression even thirty feet away.

  Paladin turned and his eyes met Bardon’s. “Come with me.”

  Bardon’s hand clenched around the hilt of his sword. He wanted to say, “No, thank you. I’ve been in once, and once is enough.” But he bit his tongue and walked quickly to stand at Paladin’s side.

  Paladin spoke in an undertone. “I want you to tell me if you see or feel anything different from the first time you witnessed this place.”

  Bardon nodded. He couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. His experience with the cave consisted of his visit plus the secondhand knowledge from Pat, who had followed the men coming here in the middle of the night. The images Pat projected into his mind disturbed him far more than his memories of his own visit.

  Paladin looked Bardon in the eye. “A monstrous evil should take your breath away. But breathe, comrade. Wulder gives life and breath. What the monster has taken away, we shall claim again, for Wulder bequeaths it to us.”

  The meech men filed into the cave, carrying torches, and lining up in rows. Their chant started with a low hum that crescendoed to the first spoken word. Paladin and Bardon watched from under the beautifully painted wall. Over the heads of the chanters, the black, glistening paint on the opposite wall caught the flickers of torchlight. The fierce dragon in the drawing seemed to flex its muscles. His chest appeared to draw in and out as if panting. Even the great yellowed eyes swept back and forth over the mere mortals at its feet.

  “Enough!” shouted Paladin and strode to the front of the men. “Stop and learn the words you were told to sing.”

  The voices stilled, not at once, but with a staggering that hinted of fear. Afraid to continue, afraid to stop. Most of the men’s eyes shifted away from Paladin’s strong figure to the gaping black hole at the back of the cavern.

  Paladin pointed to a young meech in the front row. “Sing the first line of your chant.”

  The man cleared his throat and sang huskily, “O-gitaks to who Derfor ess soo.”

  Paladin opened his mouth and sang the phrase again. “Oh, give thanks to Wulder, for He is good.”

  The words echoed off the walls. As the phrase bounced from wall to wall, Bardon could see how the individual sounds lost their shape and became distorted from the original. But with Paladin’s force of conviction, the first words hung in his heart, and the echoes faded.

  Paladin pointed to the next meech. “The second line.”

  This man sang with more strength. “Foress mur sees indoors forests rivers.”

  Paladin sang. “For His mercies endure forever and ever.”

  Metta bounced on Paladin’s shoulder as he again pointed.

  “Ike awl to who der indess.”

  Paladin shook his head. “You’ve moved a word that belongs with this phrase and tacked it to the beginning of the next. The word you sing as rest is really the second part of distress.” He threw back his head and intoned, “I call to Wulder in distress.”

  With the next meech in line, he said, “Sing after ‘rest’ to the end of this stanza of the chant.”

  “Who Der and sir me and set me inbraw de Plae sess.”

  This time Paladin crooned the words with infinite love in his voice, and Metta trilled with him, filling out the fullness of the words. “Wulder answered me and set me in broad places.”

  He then took the bucket of water from one of the carriers. “Show me where this Mot Angra sleeps.” He turned to look at Bardon. “Want to come?”

  The words, the real words, of the song had bolstered Bardon’s courage. He liked the loud, plaintive notes of “I called to Wulder in distress.” And the answer soothed with a reflection of the same melody pattern but in a different key and tone. He hummed “and set me in broad places” as he picked up another bucket and joined Paladin.

  Dread of the deeper cavern rippled across Bardon’s skin, but the torches shone brighter than he expected. He sang with the men as they incanted “Wulder answered me and set me in broad places” with skill.

  Many times, Bardon had received Pat’s images of the activities in Mot Angra’s cave. The visit to this place had disturbed the little dragon, and he didn’t seem to be able to shake the memory. Bardon clearly saw the difference between that evening and this one. Even with the undercurrent of fear and apprehension, Bardon knew this ceremony had more hope infused in the performance.

  The air thickened with moisture and a heavy perfume as they descended. The fragrance filled Bardon’s nostrils and nearly choked him. The vocalization ceased as the party of men used shallow breathing to keep from absorbing the cloying aroma into their lungs. With the muffling of distance, the group of singers in the entry cave could still be heard.

  A nerve-grating noise replaced their pleasant music. The wheeze of a big beast inhaling, then a slight rumble as it exhaled made Bardon aware of the living creature somewhere close by.

  They came to a hot cavern. Bardon could only guess at the size of the underground room. Their torches cut through the dense darkness for no more than a few feet in any direction, but his inner sense told him he
could walk a great distance before finding the opposite wall.

  The meech hurried about their task, moving quietly on the stone floor to positions where they propped the torches in wooden holders. The man with the recently slain deer walked into the dark with two men carrying torches close at his shoulders. Paladin and Bardon followed with their lights lifted to dispense the gloom.

  On the floor, a spot smeared with blood marked where the next meal would be placed. Careful to not make a sound, the food-bearer crept closer and gently eased the carcass out of his arms, not letting it drop, but sliding the deer down to rest in front of a black rock.

  The rock, however, twitched. Bardon realized he was looking at one nostril of an extremely large beast. The steady in and out of air halted, then started again. The nose quivered. The meech men backed away, pushing Paladin and Bardon away as well.

  The rockish form rolled, revealing a slash of mouth. The mouth opened, and gleaming teeth shone in the torchlight. The teeth clicked twice and parted. A thin red tongue slid out, snaking toward the deer carcass. The tip touched the rough fur, tapped down the body until it reached blood, then passed back and forth over the wound. The tongue licked until no more blood caked the fur. The serpentine end wrapped around the corpse and dragged the slain animal toward the mouth, past the lips, over the ridge of teeth, and into the depths of the throat.

  A meech signaled by waving a torch in an arc. The men who delivered the deer trudged away from the beast, and those carrying buckets passed them as they went down to pour water into a trough carved in the stone floor. Paladin and Bardon emptied their buckets, then joined the men as they convened at the cavern entrance.

  “He didn’t chew,” Bardon whispered to Paladin.

  “Apparently, he swallows his dinner whole.” Paladin followed the meech as they retraced their steps to the outer cave. “If his snout is taller than our meech friends, how big do you think his body might be?”

  Bardon walked beside his commander for a few moments before he answered, “Big.”

  Paladin rubbed his jaw. “What do you think his weak points might be?” “He’s so heavy, I wonder if he can fly.”