Pa’Rin and Rymar were cold. The sun had not set long ago, but already the temperature outside had dropped considerably. Pa’Rin huddled under Rymar’s left wing for warmth.
The two hid behind a long row of jirsin bushes that bordered the property of her home. Pa’Rin’s neighborhood sat at the base of rolling green foothills covered with jirsin and reiberry bushes. The bushes were regularly used by farmers as windbreaks for their crops, and were more than tall enough to conceal Pa’Rin and Rymar from the sight of the intruders inside her home.
“Do you see Mother and Father?” whispered Pa’Rin. They were thirty feet from her house. They could see that the curtains had been drawn shut, but a light from inside cast revealing shadows against them. Pa’Rin struggled to make out the silhouettes of her parents but could not. She counted at least four figures within the house, all large with unnaturally broad shoulders.
Rymar became restless. This was his home, too, and though he’d never been inside the house, he understood that the house was where his masters lived. He also knew that whomever was inside was trespassing. He inched forward. Pa’Rin could sense his desire to protect Agran and Leital.
“No, Ry! We can’t. Not yet. They might harm Mother and Father if they see us. And you are too big to go inside the house.” Pa’Rin wanted to rush to her parents, but felt that she alone would be no match for the intruders. Though, if she could lure them out of the house somehow…
No!
That’s what they must be thinking, Pa’Rin
reasoned. are creating a trap! What if
Mother and Father are not inside? Do they expect me to come after them, or make
them come out of the house? I wish I knew.
Something occurred to Pa’Rin. The scream she had heard earlier – it sounded like Pa’Rin’s mother -- was a scream not of fright or panic, but of someone attempting to escape, or crying for help…
Then why were no neighbors coming to their rescue?
Pa’Rin glanced at a few of the neighboring houses. No lights were on inside or out. No activity in the streets. How could that be? It had only just turned dark. Where had everyone gone? The stillness of the neighborhood filled Pa’Rin with sickening dread.
Rymar settled down, but his breathing remained intense. Pa’Rin looked at her stained wooden sword and wondered if it would make much of a weapon against the intruders. She considered snapping it in half, creating two shorter pieces with jagged ends.
She read the symbols that her father helped her burn into the wood of the sword with his searing needle. They spelled out the name Grevo M’Rais, the hero of the battle of Lake Hyllaro, as well as the name of his heroic tralion Shomril, and the names of his lieutenants. And then Pa’Rin remembered.
The festival!
Tonight was the vernal Festival of M’Rais, one of the holidays established in the hero’s honor. Each holiday, gatherings were held in the great village lodges throughout Kaasitar province; there was food and drink, singing and dancing, and several stories told about the famous hero. Everyone attended the gatherings…all except Pa’Rin’s parents. They celebrated at home, not wanting to risk leaving Pa’Rin alone. They couldn’t take her with them – not to a location with so much noise and so many people. Agran and Leital’s commitment to protect Pa’Rin, she realized, had restricted her parents’ freedoms as well.
Whomever was in Pa’Rin’s house at the moment knew her parents would be home and not at the festival, and also knew that no one would be around to hear or see their struggle. The thought unsettled Pa’Rin even more.
Rymar tensed up again. He saw something. Pa’Rin squinted at the backlit curtains. She could see one of the figures pointing at the ground and saying something…to someone…and another figure stood behind the pointing figure…and they were holding something…what was it? A weapon? It was hard to tell, but the second figure was waving it menacingly.
Suddenly, the shadow of the head of another figure popped up for a moment near the bottom of the window. It was whomever the standing figure was talking to. Pa’Rin thought it might have been her father.
The second figure shoved the floor-bound figure back down. Pa’Rin put her hand to her mouth, gasping. The first figure turned to the others with him, motioning with great arms and saying something to them. Pa’Rin clung to her tralion helplessly. A few moments later, three men in bulky, leathery armor emerged from Pa’Rin’s home. They began scouring the yard and surrounding property.
They
are still looking for me.
Rymar drove his claws into the ground, stifling his instinct to strike. He whined quietly, plaintively, hoping Pa’Rin would give him permission to protect her family.
Pa’Rin was struck by how fearsome the men appeared. Their faces were painted black, obscuring their features, and their armor was a combination of metal and padded, hardened material covered in some sort of blackened hide…as if it had been dyed or covered with dark polish. It was unlike anything Pa’Rin had seen before.
The men moved swiftly, overturning harvest bins and opening equipment sheds, searching for her. Suddenly, the men started toward Pa’Rin and Rymar. They did not seem to see the girl and the tralion hiding the bushes, and were not coming at them purposefully, but Pa’Rin knew she and Rymar would soon be found.
“Don’t move,” Pa’Rin said to Rymar. But Rymar could not obey her.
Before the three men knew what was happening, the tralion was on top of them. They were so close to one another that Rymar was able to tackle them all at once. His weight crushed the ribcage of one man, despite his heavy armor, and the impact of Rymar’s right paw broke the neck of the second man. The third man, who had a brief moment to attempt to scramble away, had his back broken by Rymar’s left paw. None of them had a chance to cry out.
Pa’Rin stood in the bushes, shivering. Did Rymar just do what she thought she’d seen him do?
Rymar stepped off of the defeated men and sniffed the air. He looked around to see if anymore intruders were nearby. He found none. He quietly crawled back to Pa’Rin in the bushes.
Pa’Rin backed away from him.
She had never seen Rymar attack anyone, and certainly not with the efficient ferocity she had just witnessed. She knew Rymar would never do that to her, and that those men were trying to harm her and her parents, after all. But she had never seen a human killed before, and not by a tralion, and not by a tralion she had come to call her friend. She did not know what to make of it.
Rymar sensed Pa’Rin’s apprehension. He too was confused. He knew she told him not to attack, but the men were coming right after them, weren’t they? They had to be stopped. Rymar could see Pa’Rin’s stricken expression. She was in shock.
The tralion felt he had done a terrible thing. Yes, he had potentially saved Pa’Rin, but he had also disobeyed her. He had never disobeyed her before. Everything she had ever asked him to do resulted in something positive. He trusted her. But he couldn’t understand why she didn’t want him to attack. Did she not see the men coming? Was she too afraid to say or do anything? His mind could not reconcile the contradiction. But he knew he had upset her, and had upset her greatly.
He settled on the ground, laying his head on the dark leafy earth behind the wall of bushes. He did not look at Pa’Rin. He squinted his eyes and began whimpering softly. It was the same way he whimpered when he and Pa’Rin first met, when he thought she had died from the fall off of the roof of her house. His eyes glistened sadly in the darkness.
Pa’Rin’s shock dissipated slightly as she watched Rymar. She was still caught up in the vision of the three men being felled so swiftly, but was beginning to focus on Rymar’s demeanor. He was ashamed of what he’d done, and she sensed it. He’d never had reason to attack like this before, and he had never gone against Pa’Rin’s wishes before, either. He was afraid Pa’Rin would stop being his friend. He turned away from her just a bit.
Pa’Rin sensed Rymar was distressed. He had not shown any pleasure in what he did to the men. He was just defending me, she thought. He was protecting me. He cares for me. But he was so fast, so strong, so…violent. But Rymar was large – he was a tralion of course. She’d never thought of him as an animal capable of such things. But he was such an animal, and this incident was an intense reminder.
He would never do that to me, she told herself over and over. He loves me. And he would only ever do this to protect me.
She stepped cautiously toward Rymar, who could hear her advancing. He did not look up at her, but instead rolled over onto his back, as they did when they played. It was a submissive position, showing her that she had nothing to fear. She stopped for a moment as he did this. He continued whimpering.
Pa’Rin moved next to Rymar and sat down on the ground. She patted his belly lightly, stroking the light scales of his stomach, trying to calm both him and herself. She looked up at his paws and could see the blood of the men on them. She stopped stroking him.
Rymar looked up at her, wondering why she had stopped. He saw that she was looking at his paws. He rolled away from her, concealing the offending stains, and tried rubbing the blood off of his paws and onto the ground.
Pa’Rin stood up and moved toward the edge of the bushes, momentarily leaving Rymar to himself. She poked her head through the bushes and grudgingly gazed upon the heap of men only a few feet away. She didn’t want to look at them, but was compelled to somehow. She couldn’t ignore them.
She looked closely at their bodies, the surprised looks on their painted faces, the odd angles their bodies now laid at. She observed their strange armor; she’d never seen or heard anything quite like it before, not in any books she’d read or lessons her parents had taught her – though she knew well enough that there were many things in her world she did not know anything about. The texture of the armor caught her attention.
It was scaly. Like tralion hide.
It appeared that the padded sections of their armor were covered in a generous layer of blackened tralion hide, treated to give the scaly surface even greater strength. It was uncommon for tralion hide to be used in such a way; ever since the Battle of Lake Hyllaro and the valiant feat of Grevo M’Rais’ tralion Shomril, it was understood that no tralion should ever be harmed or killed for any human use; tralions should be kept alive and may only be used for labor, but not for food or creation of products. It was not, however, against the law to use tralion hide for such a purpose, but it was terribly unspeakable to do so and its use was not openly admitted.
These were evil men, Pa’Rin thought. Rymar’s actions made even more sense. He had apparently recognized the type of hide the men wore and couldn’t help but react.
Pa’Rin ran back through the bushes where Rymar was still lying and whimpering. She crouched close to his neck and hugged him. Rymar stopped his crying, relieved that she was still his friend.
She lifted his great floppy left ear and whispered. “It is alright, Rymar. I understand why you hurt those men. I am not angry with you. Thank you for protecting me.” She hugged him around the neck again, and he grunted softly and pleasantly. Neither of them would forget this.
Now Pa’Rin had a decision to make. Before, she thought that trying to enter her home somehow would endanger her parents even further, and that she may even be captured herself. Now, though, she feared there would be no avoiding an encounter with the men.
She would need to go in for her parents.
She looked at her wooden sword carefully. The reiberry juice stains on it resembled blood, reminding her of Rymar’s paws. Reminding her that protecting herself and her family might include pain, injury, and even death.
“I must help Mother and Father now,” she said to Rymar. “But I will need your help. I do not know what I will do, but I can not do it by myself.” She sat and thought about the best means to get to her parents, if in fact they were inside. And, once inside, what action should she take? Distract them long enough to free her parents? She could enter through the hole on the roof that led to her room, but she would have to get close enough to her house to do it.
She then realized she only thought she saw her father’s shadow through the curtains, and assumed that her mother would be there as well, and could think of no one else that the first figure would have been speaking to the way he did. The lack of certainty was frustrating.
Pa’Rin returned to the edge of the bushes to get another look at her home. She knew that she and Rymar would need to hide the bodies of the men, and quickly; better to make the men inside her home wondered what happened to these three than let them see them in their current state.
Before Pa’Rin had time to think more on the matter, another man emerged from the house. She let out a silent yelp. Rymar heard Pa’Rin and moved to her position. He too saw the man.
“Hold still, Rymar,” she warned him. “Do not attack unless he is close to us.” Rymar twitched but held firm.
The man stood close to the house, scanning the property for Pa’Rin and his men. He knew something was wrong. He looked in Pa’Rin and Rymar’s direction. From a distance, the three dead men were hard to see as lay in the dark in front of the bushes, but the man knew it was them, and knew that they had been killed.
“Your tralion cannot protect you forever, little kaam’da,” the man shouted into the darkness. “I know you are out there.”
Pa’Rin froze, as did Rymar, who could have easily taken the man down where he stood. There was something in the man’s voice, though, that gripped Rymar with an unexplainable fear.
The man stood still for a few more moments, his breath turning to fog in the cold night air. He continued his hawk-like gaze, looking from side to side with a peculiarly mechanical quality, hoping the young girl might appear alone and present herself willingly. She was making this difficult for him.
“Your parents wish to see you, little one,” the man continued. “I am sure you wish to see them.”
Pa’Rin’s face flushed with anger. He was toying with her. Did he think she was that foolish? His brazenness was galling. For a moment, she almost shouted something nasty at him, but held her tongue.
The man scowled. This was not working. Where was this abomination hiding? The man sighed heavily and shouted once more.
“The burden is on you to see your parents again, little one,” he said. “They will be waiting for you.”
With that, the man turned and went back inside the house. Pa’Rin wasn’t sure what the man had meant. The burden is on me?
Moments after the man entered the house, he reemerged with two more armor-clad men. The men had Pa’Rin’s parents with them.
They are still alive!
Her parents struggled with the men, and their mouths were bound and gagged with dark pieces of cloth. Pa’Rin’s blood went ice cold.
She started to run out from the bushes, but saw that the men with her parents were holding large knives to their backs. She didn’t want to risk startling the men or doing anything that would lead to her parents being harmed.
Pa’Rin shifted to the right. She could now see the dirt street in front of her home. Just past the house was a large wagon with a domed canvas covering. Two battered-looking, flightless tralions were attached to the wagon’s yoke. The first man opened a hatch in the back of the wagon and pushed her parents through. Once everyone was inside, Pa’Rin stepped out with Rymar.
“We’ve got to follow them, Ry! Be careful not to be seen.” They made their way across the yard on light feet, moving quickly and trying to make little noise, all the while keeping their eyes on the wagon, which had not yet moved. Rymar saw the two tralions, noting how defeated they appeared. His dislike for the men grew more intense.
Pa’Rin and Rymar hid behind the house, peering around the edge at the wagon. There was rustling and noise coming from underneath the canvas covering; muffled, struggling voices intermingled with sharp, angry ones.
Suddenly, a slit opened in the canvas, and the face of Pa’Rin’s mother desperately appeared.
“Pa’Rin! Pa…”
There was a scuffle occurring on the other side of the opening. Leital’s words were strained and broken. Pa’Rin ran out from behind the house, but her mother could not see her daughter from the angle she was at.
“Find Ves—Pa—Pa’Rin – find V.. Ves…find Ves-- Pa’Rin…hurry….”
Pa’Rin cried out to her mother, but she could not be heard over her mother’s frantic words and the skirmish within the wagon. Her mother’s face receded from the opening, and the painted visage of one of the intruders took its place. Pa’Rin had just enough time to dive behind a short stone wall nearby, avoiding being seen by the man. Rymar, watching everything, held his ground behind the corner of the house.
The man’s face disappeared, and a leather-clad arm emerged from the slit and threw something at the ground.
Whatever it was, it exploded instantly.
A massive eruption of white and orange light sprang up from the where the object struck the earth, blinding Pa’Rin and Rymar. Smoke and flame roared out angrily in all directions.
A few moments later, the flames vanished. Nothing but charred skeletons remained of the wagon and the two flightless tralions.
Pa’Rin choked on the acrid smoke and blinked through the murky air. Rymar hurried to Pa’Rin’s side, hacking as he breathed, equally stunned by the sudden burst of fire and light.
Mother and Father.
Pa’Rin waded through the haze toward the smoking hulk of what used to be the wagon, her eyes flowing with tears, searching for signs for her parents. Had the men just incinerated them all? Rymar inspected the two tralions who had died so needlessly. He began whimpering again.
“Help me, Rymar,” she pleaded to her tralion. “Help me find Mother and Father.” She wasn’t ready to accept what she had just witnessed. Not yet.
Rymar knew the scent of her parents and began sniffing the blackened wood of the wagon’s frame. He pawed at the ashes, sneezing occasionally but managing to get a good read of what remained. Pa’Rin feared the fire and heat would destroy the scent of her parents, but needed Rymar’s help nonetheless. Pa’Rin watched silently, not allowing her body to be overcome with shock. She wasn’t ready to give up.
Rymar wasn’t having any luck. He made no noises to indicate if he’d found evidence of her parents’ remains; this did not, however, mean that they weren’t there.
With his snout, Rymar pushed aside a pile of debris that had once been a two-person seat within the wagon. Something within the charred and crumbling wood was gleaming. Something metallic. Rymar grunted.
Pa’Rin dashed to the spot and push more of the ashes away. The metallic object was a long blade…one of the men’s knives, perhaps? No, the edges were too straight and the shape did not have the curve like a knife blade…
She realized it was the end of a spear that had been snapped off near the head. It had sustained little harm from the fire; even the remaining portion of the wooden handle seemed to not be affected by the blaze. She picked it up and looked it over, not sure what to find, inspecting it only because Rymar had taken such interest in it.
“What is it, Ry? What do you smell?”
Rymar continued sniffing the tip of the spear. Something about its scent was familiar…or was it? He lifted his head and sniffed the smoky air, coughing lightly as he went. He stepped away from the remains of the wagon and the cloud of smoke, into fresher air, his nose finding something that he couldn’t ignore.
Pa’Rin followed him into the street. She looked around, unsure of what he could be following. Had he picked up another scent? And what did this have to do with the spearhead he’d just found?
Rymar began grunting excitedly, stepping from one foot to the other. He had picked up on something. He continued sniffing, walking tentatively down the dirt street. He raised his head higher to follow the scent.
He flapped his wings and hovered above the street by a meter or so, still sniffing. He rose a bit higher into the air, and moved a bit forward. Whatever it was he had picked up on, Pa’Rin thought, it leads to the sky.
Rymar lowered himself to the ground and turned to Pa’Rin expectantly. She was still holding the tip of the spear. She had never seen Rymar so excited. His urgency was a sign that he’d found something…but what?
“To the sky,” Pa’Rin said without realizing she was speaking. She thought of what her mother had told her moments before the explosion:
Find Ves. Find Ves.
Ves.
In Trylia, the supreme being Ves lived atop a golden cloud covered in rare ranja trees. It was believed that, when one died, the spirit of a Trylian traveled to Ves’ cloud, where Ves would smile upon the deceased, bless them, and transform them into a ranja tree that lived with him for eternity on his cloud.
Had Rymar picked up on the scent of her parents’ spirits?
That can’t be so! There must be another answer. And what about this spear? Did they try fighting the men off with it?
She looked back toward the charred wagon, toward her home and her yard, at the other houses in her neighborhood. She was angry that the evil men knew how and when to strike. She was angry that people feared her and wanted to harm her and her family. She was angry that she was different from everyone else.
It isn’t my fault! I didn’t ask to be different! If I could change who I was, I would! I don’t want to be an abomination like the others say. I don’t want to be a kaam’da.
Rymar could sense her hostility and pulled back somewhat. Now he was taken aback by her. Pa’Rin noticed his uncertainty, sensing that her irritated pacing and facial expressions had made him uncomfortable.
“I am not upset with you, Rymar. You are my only friend now.”
She paused after hearing her own words. Yes, she thought, he is my only friend now. There is nothing left for me to do but find out where my parents went. Or perhaps they are dead now, and there is no hope in finding them. Perhaps I must…find Ves.
Pa’Rin still did not understand what her mother meant by this. Leital said the words before the explosion; did this mean her mother somehow knew she was about to die, and that she and her father would soon join Ves on the golden cloud? That she was to follow them and find them? It didn’t make sense. But nothing made sense to Pa’Rin anymore.
With nothing more than the spearhead and the scent trail to go on, Pa’Rin climbed onto Rymar’s back and patted him on the head. She did not have time to cry or feel grief. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel those things. Not until she had some answers. Not until she knew for certain what had happened to her parents. She had to have hope.
“Follow the trail, Rymar.” She spoke with a wearily mature tone. “Let us see if we can find Ves.”
Rymar understood her and beat his great wings once more. With his nostrils flared, he and Pa’Rin ascended into the black Trylian night.
The two had been following the trail for half an hour. The air grew colder the higher they went. Pa’Rin wished she was wearing warmer clothing, though her determination distracted her enough from the cold to reduce her discomfort to nothing more than a slight annoyance.
Having rarely ventured farther than her own neighborhood, Pa’Rin had no idea where she and Rymar were. She took comfort knowing that Rymar would alert her to anything of interest along the way. His sense of smell would have to be enough of a guide for now.
In the dimness, Pa’Rin could make out clusters of ranja trees and other tall, fertile growths that dotted Kaasitar province. She’d flown this high with Rymar before, not only across the canyon of the Havenworld, but also over the forested areas near her home. She hadn’t, however, flown this far for this long with Rymar, and ordinarily she would have been thrilled to do so. But tonight, the reason their flight was a grave one, their destination unknown.
Rymar sniffed rhythmically as he flew, taking in short puffs of air every few seconds or so, adjusting his path slightly to stay on course. Pa’Rin clung to him tightly and let her mind wander. She began thinking about all of the things her parents had and had not told her about Trylia. She’d learned much from books, and absorbed whatever knowledge she could through observation, but the information she had access to was controlled, limited. She could see the strain on her parents’ faces when she’d asked them a question that they couldn’t answer – not because they didn’t know the answer, but because they felt telling her the answer would only have negative consequences. They did tell her to some extent that there were others in Trylia and in Kaasitar that feared her, but told her these people were simple-minded and unsavory. She asked if her relatives, or rather her parents’ relatives, feared her, and once again they grimaced. Another answer they didn’t want to give her.
What about finding Ves, as her mother had said earlier that evening? She knew her parents were not particularly religious people, and while leading such a lifestyle wasn’t unheard in Trylia, it was not a way that most Trylians chose to lead their lives. Was this another reason why she and her family had been harassed all these years? Because they were different, like she was? No, she was certain it was mostly because of who she was and the things had happened.
No, do not blame yourself, Pa’Rin. Evil people don’t understand us. They don’t understand that we are good, and that we only want what is best in life. Even if they truly knew how good Mother and Father and I really are, they would have found a way to harm us. It is what evil people do. Pa’Rin wondered if her mother’s cries of Ves revealed a deeper belief in the afterlife than her mother had indicated.
Another thought occurred to Pa’Rin. When the explosion incinerated the wagon, she was shocked, but did not fear for her life, and therefore did not travel to the Havenworld. Pa’Rin had traveled to the Havenworld a handful of times since her first visit years ago, usually when she and Rymar were playing in the forest and she was playing too close to the edge of a tall rock or high up in a tree with an unsteady branch – in other words, when she feared for her life. Each time she traveled, she arrived in a different location: the first time, she’d found herself inside the cavern overlooking the canyon; another, she’d appeared at the base of a small outcropping of limestone; and yet another time, she was on the canyon floor surrounded by the exotic mosslike growth that was so abundant there. After a time, Pa’Rin began intentionally placing herself into situations where she would fear for her life, sometimes actually falling from a tree or off of a rock on purpose, to test whether or not she would find herself instantly transported to the Havenworld. And each time, it worked.
She learned a difficult lesson, then, when she once clung to the end of a vine hanging from a ranja tree, swung from it, and let go over a large patch of rocks and shrubs. She assumed that she would feel the swell of fear from the perilous height and the prospect of falling, and that her fear would push her into the Havenworld. She had, however, become so accustomed to not being harmed by these actions, that she wasn’t afraid at all. Instead of traveling, she fell toward the ground at a lazy trajectory. Fortunately, Rymar happened to be nearby, chasing a few woodland rodents, and saw her falling. He rushed to her at the last moment, breaking her fall. It had all happened too fast for her to feel the true fear of death, and only realized the danger she was in after she dismounted Rymar. After that incident, she stopped trying to scare herself into the Havenworld, counting only on natural and unpredicted threats to produce the same effect.
Why, then, didn’t the advancing men in the yard or the explosion make her fear for her life?
Perhaps
I’ve come to know the difference between a true threat and something I only
think is a threat to my life. It was the closest to a logical solution
she’d come up with to one of the many questions she had been faced with that
day. Did that mean she somehow knew, on a deeper level, that neither instance
was a threat to her life? That must be
the answer, though I do not understand why that is so.
The girl and the tralion were now over a more populated region of the province, an area that lay between the smaller villages near the foothills and the denser, urban districts near the edge of Lake Hyllaro. This is where many of the lodges held the vernal gatherings honoring Grevo M’Rais.
Should I go to one of the gatherings and ask for help? No, they would not help me if I asked. I know what they think of me. And those that don’t fear me….they fear the ones that do fear me.
They passed unobserved over the closely-grouped homes and gathering places, as everyone was inside celebrating. Even as they drew closer to more densely peopled areas, the world below seemed strangely devoid of human activity.
Pa’Rin hugged Rymar’s neck a little tighter.
She again considered what the significance the spearhead had, and why it apparently shared that same scent as the trail Rymar was following. She noticed that the trail was taking them closer and closer to the urban districts. Is that where the evil men came from? Did my parents’ spirits head in this direction? And the spear must have belonged to one of the men; it did not appear to be one of her father’s, so she ruled out the idea of one of the men taking a spear from her father. Was it the spearhead itself that shared the scent that Rymar was following, or was there another scent on it that matched the trail? Pa’Rin wished Rymar could tell her, in her own language, what it was he smelled, but she was forced to trust that whatever it was he sensed would lead her to the answers she was looking for.
Pa’Rin decided to try sniffing the spearhead herself. Maybe my human nose can sense something Rymar’s can not? Carefully she withdrew it from her holster and held it to her nose. She inhaled; it smelled faintly metallic, like anything else metallic she’d encountered before. No hints of perfume, no revealing traces oils or cleansers…nothing. She continued to analyze it.
Suddenly, Rymar halted. He slowed and was hovering at a dead stop. Pa’Rin’s heart raced a little.
“What is it, Ry? Have you found something?”
Rymar moved a few feet through the air to the left, then to the right. He sniffed madly all about him, looking in this direction, then that, then another. He even turned completely around and flew back the way they’d came for a few seconds.
He’d lost the scent.
Pa’Rin knew what had happened and panicked. What now? He must try to find the trail again…but what if he doesn’t? What do we do? They could always find their way home if they had to, but they might not be able to find the trail again if they tried at a later time. She and Rymar had to keep going.
Maybe he forgot the scent, she thought. Was that possible? She didn’t know everything about tralions’ sense of smell – only that it far surpassed that of a human’s – but hoped perhaps he’d lost the memory of the scent and needed reminding.
Still holding the spearhead in one hand, she inched her way up along Rymar’s back and neck, moving the spearhead closer to the end of his snout. “You can smell it again if you need to,” she said to Rymar, who understood what she was doing. She went as far as her body could go, and strained to bring the tip in front of his nostrils.
“Almost there, Rymar…”
And just as the spearhead reached its intended spot, Rymar sneezed.
The spearhead went sailing out of Pa’Rin’s hand. She could only think to say “No!” to Rymar, who immediately dove after the spearhead. Despite Rymar’s keen vision in the darkness, he had a difficult time tracking the falling piece of metal, even by scent. Pa’Rin barely had time to brace herself as they both plunged after the descending spearhead.
They were now plummeting toward an abandoned vacant field, lit only by the high three-quarter moon. Pa’Rin and Rymar weren’t sure of the best way to retrieve the spearhead in mid-air – she didn’t want to risk grabbing at it and losing her grip on Rymar, and he didn’t want to cut the inside of his mouth if he tried biting at it – so the best they could do was watch it fall and hope they could see where it landed. Pa’Rin was silent with determination, trying to focus on the falling object as the cold rushing wind forced tears to spring up in her eyes.
They were perhaps seconds from reaching the ground, and Rymar, avoiding a crash landing, adjusted his wings and leveled off. Pa’Rin tried to see where the spearhead would most likely land. It was just above a large, dark, impossibly dense patch of weeds that abhorred all light. Pa’Rin’s heart sank.
“Land by the dark patch,” Pa’Rin said to Rymar, as she pointed to the weeds. Rymar swooped around to his right and glided toward the area Pa’Rin had motioned to. He landed twenty feet from the patch, coming to rest on a carpet of dead grain stalks and unusable soil. Seconds later, the spearhead smashed into the massive patch of weeds.
The weed patch loomed before the girl and the tralion. It more than twice as tall as Pa’Rin, and covered as much area as her own house and backyard. Even without the prospect of having to look for the spearhead within, it was a formidable sight. Pa’Rin sighed heavily and looked to her tralion companion.
“I hope you didn’t forget the scent, Rymar. We may need it now more than ever.” Pa’Rin led him toward the high weeds, preparing herself for whatever lay within, as well as the presumably long hours it would take to find the spearhead.
After a few steps, Pa’Rin struck an unseen tripwire with her foot.
As she fell, a crazy orchestra of bells jangled from somewhere behind Pa’Rin and Rymar, followed by what sounded like a windhorn blaring loudly into the darkness. The girl and the tralion huddled together.
In a grove of trees several yards past the weed patch, a light came on from within what appeared to be a short decrepit hut concealed by the darkness of the grove. From the hut came an angry voice.
“Weapons! I have weapons, you see!” The voice sounded old, and more frightened than anything else.
Pa’Rin could see a figure emerge from the hut, but could not make out anything more than a shape. She held still, waiting for the figure to make a move.
“Name yourself, trespasser! Name yourself! I have weapons, yes oh yes!”
The figure became nervous, losing their coordination and accidentally firing their weapon. A small projectile shot out and careened toward the high patch of weeds. Pa’Rin and Rymar reacted instinctively, running aimlessly away from the advancing object.
The projectile thudded to the ground several feet short of the weeds, unexploded. It was apparently a dud.
The figure hastily ran toward the girl and the tralion. Pa’Rin huddled behind Rymar’s body, who was protecting her. She was crying.
The figure, an old woman, caught sight of the tralion and the top of Pa’Rin’s head. She heard her crying, and called out to her again.
“I say,” said the old woman, a bit softer this time, “who is there?” She moved a bit closer. She was uncertain of the tralion – what was a tralion doing out here, alone, at night, and in the company of a young girl? – but Rymar seemed afraid, not hostile, and the woman responded in kind. “I did not harm any of you, I hope?”
Pa’Rin, still hidden behind Rymar, wiped her eyes and inhaled. She could not appear to be afraid to this stranger, the stranger who had just fired on them, never mind that the weapon didn’t injure them. She stood and faced the old woman.
The woman wore a large grey overcoat that covered her painfully hunched back; it was so hunched, in fact, that it appeared to be a large hump. The woman had an extraordinarily wrinkled old face, with eyes set so far back in her head they nearly disappeared. She had a concerned expression, and the compassion calmed Pa’Rin a slight bit. Still, though, she was upset that the woman had attacked her before having a chance to give her name.
“You shot your weapon at us,” Pa’Rin said.
“I am sorry. Yes oh yes. I did not mean to. I am old, and my fingers do not work as I would want them to, so you see.” She held up the hand holding her weapon; it had only four fingers, and they all appeared as knotty as aged ranjawood.
“My name is Vestra,” the old woman said. “Yes oh yes. What is your name?”
Vestra? Pa’Rin blinked at the woman. Many people in Trylia had Ves as part of their own names. She thought of her mother’s words from before, and then thought of the woman’s name…surely it was a coincidence.
“My name is Pa’Rin,” she said warily, “and this is my tralion Rymar.”
The old woman clutched an silver medallion that hung from a rope around her neck. She took a step back and kneeled, slowly, and bowed her head to the ground.
“Thank you, Ves of the golden cloud, for sending me the child. Yes oh yes. Thank you!” The woman bowed, chanting thank you nearly a dozen times. Pa’Rin was astonished and a little embarrassed.
“Please,” Pa’Rin finally said, “we are lost. We are looking for—“
What, exactly? Her parents? The men who had come for them? Ves and the golden cloud? She was looking for all of them. She finally chose something to say.
“We are looking for my parents. They are called Agran and Leital—“
The woman looked up and smiled. “Yes oh yes, I know your parents, Pa’Rin. And I know who you are too, so you see. Though you and I have never before met.”
Pa’Rin stared at the woman, then looked to Rymar, and then back to the woman. Words escaped her.
“Come,” said Vestra, “we have much to discuss, yes oh yes.”
The old woman beckoned to the girl and the tralion, and the three made their way for Vestra’s hut. It was as ancient as the woman, perhaps older, but seemed surprisingly sturdy and exuded a warmth Pa’Rin was not expecting. The hut seemed as if it wanted to stay hidden from the world, situated as it was in so isolated an area. Rymar sat outside near the front window, nibbling on a patch of lush grass by the hut’s front porch.
Vestra held the door open as Pa’Rin entered. “By the by,” the old woman said as she closed the door behind Pa’Rin, “I know that you are looking for more than just your parents, so you see. But I can help you find them, and so much more, yes oh yes.”