Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter 19

 

“Working with wisps,” Valrinda grumbled. “I’m telling you, this will go bad for us.”

The wisps were bustling around, setting up a camp for the night. They’d spent the morning flying, and then Beckett had spent the afternoon passed out against Valrinda’s side. He’d nearly froze to death, and for what? To avoid these cute little characters who were skipping around and putting up colorful tents while chattering at each other? Everything they had was bright, or stitched with metals and stones that reflected the dying light of the sun.

“They don’t seem like bad people,” Beckett said. He grabbed some food out of his pouch and snuggled back against Valrinda’s side. He didn’t need a tent, or the fire that was too warm just an hour before but was getting more welcome as night fell and it grew colder in the desert.

“Not bad. Bad for you. Bad for me. Wisps only look out for their troop, and outsiders are not wisps. They say they’ll help, but that doesn’t mean their help won’t actually hurt us in the end.”

Beckett shook his head, taking a drink of water to wash down the bread that was going stale. “Are you always so cynical of others?”

“Yes.”

He rolled his eyes. “We’re going to make the best of our helpers.” Who knew dragons could become jealous so easily? If Beckett didn’t know better, he’d worry Valrinda was gonna turn into Valery, a fucking annoying girl from his sophomore year who’d whined constantly to go together to a dance.

He didn’t dance.

“You’re my guide; they’re just helpers.” He put more effort into soothing Valrinda than he did Valery. He’d shouted at her to leave him the hell alone, and she’d ran off crying, so of course he’d landed in fucking detention. Maybe he was a little more mature now.

“Fine.” Valrinda was still huffy, but Beckett ignored it. The stones of the road were hard under his ass, but he wasn’t about to sleep in the sand. Not after Valrinda told him about burrowing eating creatures.

 

Their first argument about traveling the next day was when Beckett said he’d walk with the wisps instead of riding. Maybe it was risky, but he wanted to talk to them. Find out how they knew about him, where he was going, what he was doing. How else was he going to figure things out? It’d come to him, as he lay there trying and failing to sleep.

How did every fairytale creature in this place seem to know he was there, that he was a human, and that Parallax had lost his star?

He had been told not to trust everyone, but everyone he’d met had done nothing but help him so far. Where was the great conspiracy? The danger? So far it’d been nothing but a walk in the park, as it were.

In the end, neither of them were happy. Beckett walked and Valrinda flew. He flew so low he kept sweeping up fine clouds of sand so Beckett’s eyes watered and talking was made difficult. Plus talking to the ore wisps was like trying to understand chattering chipmunks. They spoke in fragments, talking over each other, and half the time it didn’t make sense. He persisted anyway and got a headache for his efforts. It wasn’t the quiet walk he’d had before or the flights Beckett had taken with Valrinda. What he wouldn’t do for a soda and chips, maybe a nap in a field of cold grass. Nope, all he had was a flask of water.

Endless water. He was so hot and sweaty, his feet sore, and Beckett was getting cranky. He was starting to think about calling Valrinda down so he could ride instead when the sky darkened.

Not the shadow of Valrinda’s wings as he swooped down over them again, it was bigger than that, and the scream that pierced the air sent the air wisps scrambling to hide, collapsing flat.

“What the fuck!” Beckett fell backward, staring up and then at the wisps burrowing into the sand at the side of the road in complete silence, something they’d never been.

Something huge, and bone white with sickly green claws was flapping leathery wings just above them, barely missing where they’d been standing. “Valrinda!” Beckett screamed.

“I’m coming!” Valrinda roared. Beckett watched as Valrinda arrowed, his wings folded tight to his body as he darted at the beast attacking them. He opened his jaw and shot blue fire, forcing it away.

Both the beast and Valrinda beat their wings hard, rising to crash together, clawing and screaming. The scent of burning flesh and acid, blood and fear and the horrific sounds of their battle drowned out the sounds of the desert.

The beast reared its head back and stabbed its horrific beak toward Valrinda’s neck.

“No!” Beckett screamed. Valrinda reared back, beating his wings sharply and pushed off with his claws, so the beast’s beak glanced off his scales instead of stabbing in deep.

Now free from Valrinda’s grasp, the beast swooped again, reaching for them, but instead of going to Beckett, it tried to grab a wisp.

“You shall not feed here!” Valrinda roared. He sent a blast of flame at the beast’s head, and it dropped the wisp who fell a dozen feet back to the sand. Beckett hoped it was okay, because it wasn’t moving. He didn’t want to move and draw that thing’s attention, but how long could he lay here? The stones were blazing hot, and the sounds of the battle could be drawing who knew what to them.

Valrinda pressed his advantage of being higher than the beast and went for the back of its head, neck, and wings, blasting his fire and racking his claws down its back. The beast screamed, and one of its wings bent awkwardly. It was flying, but erratically and not well. It took off, warbling, and quickly disappeared into the desert. 

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Eighteen

 

“Are you okay?” Valrinda asked. He craned his neck and tried to peer at Beckett, who only looked up for a brief second before the icy wind of their rapid flight made it too unbearable.

“F-f-fine,” was all Beckett could get out without risking biting off his own tongue. He patted Valrinda’s neck, and his hand burned from just the light contact. There wasn’t a choice. They had to stay higher in the atmosphere, and he was going to tough it out. His core was warm enough, pressed against Valrinda, and that was most important. Beckett tucked his head tighter against Valrinda’s smooth scales, just trying to breathe through it.

He tried to hide it, but a few minutes later, Beckett was shaking violently and struggling to hold on.

“I’m going down,” Valrinda announced.

“N-n-nooo.” It hurt to talk, and Beckett didn’t even try to lift up and look around.

“Yes, you can’t stay up here. It’s too dangerous. What good does it do us if you get sick or hurt from being this cold? It’s not safe, Beckett.”

“N-not s-safe d-down.” That was all he could get out.

“We don’t know that. We can’t be sure what your dream meant, and I might have gotten us past whoever, or whatever, was camped on the road. I promised I’d keep you safe, and keeping you up here is the opposite. So stop arguing with me because you’re on my back, which means I’m in charge of this ride.”

“F-f-fine.” He just really wanted to get warm. Or take a nap. Beckett could go for a nap, even if they’d only been up and flying for a short time.

“No sleeping!” Valrinda snapped.

“’M not.” Beckett forced himself to stay away, to keep that petulant promise. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he recognized the danger of falling asleep when he was that cold, even if he couldn’t consciously think it.

Some feeling was creeping back into his limbs by the time they landed, but Beckett wasn’t any use to Valrinda as he slid off onto the black stones that made up the road. His brain was fuzzy, and he huddled in a heap of exhaustion. “I don’t see anyone around,” Valrinda said. “Just rest for now.” He nuzzled Beckett, tucking him close to his side with one wing. “Just rest.”

 

The tinkle of metal startled Beckett, and Valrinda’s roar deafened him. He stumbled to his feet, staring at the beings surrounding them. Valrinda reared up behind him, claws at the ready, but the beings weren’t threatening them that he could see, just surrounding them, so Beckett put a hand on his chest. It was rumbling, and Beckett had to hope Valrinda wasn’t about to burn them all to a crisp for startling them.

Not really the reputation he was going for.

“Who are you?” Beckett demanded defensively. They were small, barely coming up to his elbow, but their bodies were hidden in crimson robes and hoods. Everyone knew if you were hiding your face like that you were probably up to no good.

One stepped forward and bowed. “Oh, great days are upon us now that we have found you, Seeker of the Star. We have pilgrimaged far to offer our services.”

Great. Wonderful. So these beings didn’t want to capture and enslave them, but that still didn’t answer his question. “Who are you?” Beckett asked again, a little less aggressively.

As one, they all lowered their hoods.

Valrinda groaned, “Great, Ore Wisps.”

They didn’t look very wispy. In fact, with their eyes spaced wide apart, and faces strangely pushed forward at the nose and mouth almost like a muzzle, with wide teeth they were all showing either in a threat or a smile, they looked a lot like a human mixed with a goat. Not that goats had purple, yellow, or orange hair, or walked around on two legs wearing cloaks and talking… but the resemblance was there.

“What’s an Ore Wisp?”

“It is what the others call our kind, since we mostly secret ourselves in the mountains where we can search out sparklies and other fancies—”

“They’re obsessed with anything shiny,” Valrinda said, “And they’re not above stealing what catches their eye either.”

“We do not steal,” one said indignantly. “We trade.”

“Does the other person always agree to the trade?”

The group was silent. Valrinda snorted. “That’s what I thought,” he muttered. “Better what your stuff, Beckett. You never know what they might take. In fact, you’ll probably not even realize it until you go to stand up and your pants fall around your ankles and a useless rock falls into the dirt in place of the belt they took.”

“We would never take something from the Seeker. We are here to help him.”

“Help him? How? I’m his guide,” Valrinda said defensively. “I’m helping him, so buzz off, wisps.”

“Wait, wait. Didn’t you say they’re good at finding shiny, sparkly things?” Beckett asked.

“Yeah, so?”

“We are,” several wisps exclaimed at the same time, drowning out Valrinda’s petulant mutter.

“So, obviously Parallax’s star will be shiny, right? They could help me find it!”

“We could, we will!” They were so excited, their little voices piped up in a pitch that was almost painful to hear.

“You’ll be lucky if they don’t steal it for themselves,” Valrinda declared in a fit of doom. He stamped his foot. “Nothing good ever comes from consorting with wisps!”

Beckett knew he was supposed to listen to his guide, but what about his vision? He’d seen them. And how did they know to be on the road and looking for him? They had to be something more at work here, some magic that probably was part of the path that Parallax set him on to find his star.

“Valrinda, I think they were meant to find us, and we’re meant to work together with them. I need their help, just like I still need yours.” He stroked Valrinda’s side. 

Want more flash?

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail

 

Maybe he shouldn’t be so amazed by flying, considering the modern world he came from, but flying on Valrinda’s back was really different from the two hour flight in a jet to his aunt’s house. One big difference? His seat was a living, breathing being who liked to crane his neck back and talk to him whenever he got the chance to snap his wings out and glide along on a thermal wind.

He answered a lot of questions Beckett had about the world they were gliding swiftly over. Watching the land rise and fall, he appreciated not having to trudge the distance each day but made Valrinda look for places to set down earlier in the evening so he could rest before it got dark. They always looked for a place with shade, shelter, and water if possible. The flask helped, but Beckett liked to bathe, and it turned out Valrinda would splash around in shallow water if the body of water was large enough.

One afternoon Valrinda paused, flapping his wings to hover high above the fading foothills of a mountain range. Not even Beckett’s coat had kept him warm as they flew over its high, white-capped peaks so they’d sped as fast as possible. The air had been cold and oxygen thin but the view had been spectacular so Beckett kept his eyes open despite feeling like the tears from the frigid wind would freeze his cheeks.

He was still chilly but looking forward to finding some warmth curled up with Valrinda by a fire, so he wasn’t sure why they stopped. “What is it?”

“There’s smoke on the horizon.”

Smoke meant fire, usually. “A fire, like a big one, or something like travelers’ fires?” He couldn’t see it, but there were clouds in the distance, and Beckett had no way to tell the difference between them and smoke. The landscape had also shifted from trees and jungle to a desert-like landscape with feathery plants, red sand, and large stone outcroppings casting wide shadows.

“I’m not sure. This would have to be a lot of fires to make that much smoke.”

Beckett curled against Valrinda’s neck again. He stroked it, sensing how troubled he was. “Are you okay? You seem really worried.”

“At the base of these mountains is the black road. Your dream….”

“Oh, yeah.” Beckett’s stomach churned. He didn’t have great feelings about what he’d seen. “Do we have to follow the road or stop by those fires?”

“We could try to avoid them by flying straight through and overnight, but we cannot deviate from the road. There are dangers here, creatures that avoid the road but not any who are unwary enough to land in the desert.”

“Let me guess… sandworms?” Beckett said dryly.

“Worms? No, they are tiny with teeth that couldn’t do more than welt even your bare skin. The biggest danger comes from the ivory biters. They are small creatures, but swarm in tunnels they dig with their dagger-like claws. Their body is nothing but a mouth and stomach and waste chute, and they burrow seeking food to go in one end and out the other. A swarm could consume me in seconds, even my bones, if I landed on one of their tunnels and they sensed the vibrations.

Beckett blanched, unable to get the image out of his mind from Valrinda’s graphic description, and shuddered with more than cold though he longed to be warm. “So we stay on the road. Why don’t we camp here tonight and make a plan?”

Unfortunately, they couldn’t have a fire because Valrinda smartly pointed out if he could see the smoke maybe a scout from whoever, or whatever, had made the other fire would see theirs. Beckett piled on an extra shirt to snuggle his arms under and cover his hands after he ate a cold dinner of stale bread and dried fruit followed by a long drink of sweet water. At least the flask and its spell hadn’t failed him. He poured and poured and poured until Valdrina had also drank his fill.

Valrinda curled like a snake, creating a nest for him and tucked a wing over top, becoming his living, breathing tent against the chill of the night. Exhausted, Beckett stroked Valrinda’s neck. “Do you think we could fly high enough to not be noticed by whatever caused the smoke?”

Valrinda grimaced. “I could, but I worry about your breathing and the cold. You didn’t do well with the mountain passage, and we’d have to be much higher in case they have a scryer or dragon with them.”

“What about just flying around? If you don’t land until we get back to the road, we’ll be safe, right? The biggest issue is the biter things?” If they couldn’t go over, maybe they could go around.

“They’re the worst,” Valrinda agreed. “We also might run into the territory of some flying chacories, and they have a wingspan similar to mine. Fighting one with you on my back could be dangerous.”

Beckett sighed. “So either we stay on the road and take our chances, we try to go over and maybe get scried, or we go around and potentially run into dangerous beasts.”

“No really good options but to go up and over. And you forgot that going over is going to be both painful and dangerous for you.”

“I can handle it,” Beckett insisted. It was really their only option. “How bad could it be?”

 

He dragged in another painful breath, each one sharp and fast as he tried to get enough oxygen. Despite wearing every layer he had, wrapping a shirt over his head and fast so just his eyes were exposed, and putting every inch of his body against Valrinda’s, Beckett was in danger of turning into a blue popsicle. Famous last words, his mother’s favorite admonishment when his dad was too overconfident, echoed in Beckett’s mind as he shook so hard his teeth clacked despite his clenched jaw.

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Sixteen

 

Beckett should have waited until she had the spell and crescents, shouldn’t he? “Will she come back out?” he asked Valrinda.

“Of course. A wizardess who doesn’t keep their word doesn’t get much business, would they?”

Oh. Good point. “Okay.” He’d just wait.

An incredibly tall, green-skinned man with yellow eyes and three black horns opened the door. “Here.” He thrust out two huge hands, one holding a bag and the other a water flask like the one Beckett had seen on other’s belts. Beckett nearly fumbled both as he took them. Dragging a miniscule paper from his pocket. “And this.”

Somehow he grabbed that too. “Um, thanks.” The door slammed in his face again, and Beckett turned with wide eyes to Valrinda. “What was that?”

“Her familiar, probably. Or slave.”

“Slave!” Beckett’s voice rose dangerously high, and he stared in shock at Valrinda. “You have slaves?”

“Only if they enslave themselves to gain something. In his case, probably a spell.”

“He traded his body?” Indentured servitude. “We used to have something like that, once upon a time.” That was freaking crazy. The bag he clutched in his right hand was heavy and clinked when he shifted his grip. Beckett went over and leaned against Valrinda. “Can you hold this?” He held out the flask.

“Uh-huh.” Valrinda clasped it in his claws delicately.

“This paper is what, the spell to fill the flask?”

“Yep.”

The writing on the torn section of rough paper was spidery and faint, done in a brown ink only slightly darker than the paper. He squinted at the words, mouthing them silently, not sure if he could figure out the syllables. “Shouldn’t she do that?”

“Do you want the flask only to fill up the first time? You need the spell keyed to you.”

“What if I say it wrong?”

“It’s magic.” Valrinda did his shrug thing. “It’ll work out just fine since she gave you the spell.”

“But she didn’t. Her familiar slash slave person did.”

Valrinda sighed. “But she wrote it for you and did the spell on the flask for you. It’ll work, so stop worrying.”

“You know an awful lot about magic.” Beckett grabbed the laces holding the other bag closed and loosened them to peek inside. Okay. So, azure crescents were literally little shaved pieces of curved blue stones.

“Wait, are these gemstones?”

“What did you think they would be?” Valrinda leaned over him to peek inside, his hot breath gusting and blowing Beckett’s hair into his eyes. “Oh nice. She must have really liked your human tech. She gave you premium crescents. You’ll only need one or two to get a belt and coat.”

Beckett shoved his hair back. “Personal space, remember?” Why did none of the beings in this place respect his space? “I thought they’d be metal coins.”

“You’re leaning against me. And who would use metal to trade? It’s worthless.”

Beckett’s face went even hotter than it had been when Valrinda had been breathing on him. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Wow, how to explain money? Wait… why try? Moving on. “Where do I get a belt and jacket so I don’t freeze while we’re flying or at night. It’s cold at night in the desert, right? Back to the gnome store?”

“No. You’ll need a special seller for this.”

Traipsing through the city with Valrinda at his side, Beckett continued to try not to look like a complete idiot staring at everything and ignore the way everyone stared at him. They found a stall instead of a store that sold dragon armored coats, and he even found one that had scale colors similar to Valrinda’s. “These weren’t… skinned off a dragon, right?” he whispered even as he stroked the smooth scales that went down the long sleeves and all down the split sides of the coat that would hit him about mid-thigh. It even had a hood.

Valrinda and the stall owner’s laugh echoed over the thrum of the market noise. “No, they shed out when we go through a growth cycle, and we sell them. Very popular for armor and for jewelry,” Valrinda said.

Armed with a flexible metal belt that belted around his hips to attach his flask and crescents to and a lightweight jacket that promised to keep him warm while flying, Valrinda and Beckett grabbed food at one of the victualer stalls on their way toward the gates for another crescent that went into Beckett’s bag.

“Should we check how the coat works for you?”

“Yes!” He’d loved flying, it had just been too damn cold. As soon as they were back on the road, Valrinda crouched so Beckett could climb on. Pulling his jacket closed, he leaned down over Valrinda’s neck and grabbed on. “Ready.”

Valrinda’s muscles bunched and he launched himself upward, his wings beating up and down with hard thumps and taking them straight into the sky and leaving all the stares and other creatures behind within a minute. As soon as he leveled out, Beckett lifted his hood and covered his ears and head, but he was able to stay sitting up without getting all wet or freezing.

“This is great!” he shouted. The ground whizzed by underneath them, trees and bushes and streams glinting in the slowly setting sun.

Valrinda looked back, his grin wide enough to show even his sharp back teeth. “I’m glad you like it too!”

“How far can we go tonight?”

Valrinda pointed ahead of them. “How about to the river? There are some traveler cots built near the fords you can use tonight.”

Not sleep outside under the stars with Valrinda? He’d check it out, but maybe he could say it was too cold or hard or something. “Sounds like a place to check out,” he said noncommittally. In the meantime, he had a whole new world to see from the sky.