The Dragonskin Chronicles Bk. 02

"I will still find a quiet moment to speak with Urmah, when the opportunity arises."

"Aye!" Red laughed, "Spirit knows that Urmah seeks the same quiet moment too. You know, she loves you like the grandmother you lost too soon and she knows how desperately you seek peace for you and your new family on your home manor. Spirit assures me that she will give you some tools to help you when you travel to new worlds, as travel you surely must. Mother is relying on you to help her transition to mortality and I would like to help. Can you take me with you on your journey, Father?"

"I will ask, but the portal to the Elf-Queendom is in your Mother's control alone."

"Then I will ask her through you, Father, for I know how persuasive you are, she is like potter's clay in your hands."

"Ha! I think you have that completely the wrong way around, Son, I'm the malleableclay in our relationship. Hey, look ahead, I can see your new home the Mount of Baldyah on the horizon. We're almost home!"

***

Deidre woke up alone in the strange bed feeling wonderfully warm and relaxed and it only took her a moment or two to remember exactly where she was.

She had taken a spur of the moment risk, getting her married sister to look after her son for a few days and booked her flight without even considering where she'd stay if Clive rejected her. She had wanted to wait until Clive's marriage was completely dissolved but recent conversations with Clive had confirmed that the couple had stopped short at legal separation until his job was secured and he would then look for a permanent base in the States and then cut the ties completely. Deidre knew that the impression Clive had already made on his bosses and colleagues at Acme were such that his job was assured. And Clive had made such an impression on her that she felt that she needed to stake a claim before Clive rooted himself too firmly in his new surroundings. It was a risk she felt that was worth taking; if it failed she would drop out of the shared meetings and someone else from her firm could occupy her space. That it had worked out perfectly made her smile with pleasure, but then, where was Clive?

She could faintly hear Clive in the kitchen, which was comforting, but it was noticing the smell of bacon which shook her out of her ennui. Getting up she could see Clive's white collared shirt that she had so eagerly and quite violently stripped from his torso last night and tossed to the floor. She decided to put it on. With both arms in the long sleeves she noted that she needed to roll up a couple of turns to free her wrists, she pulled the button ends together, enveloped the shirt right around her by hand and pulled the closure up and just over her nose. Deidre breathed in Clive's smell, a mixture of his cologne, his aftershave, his deodorant and his natural musk, which brought a deeper loving smile to her face. She even managed to find a couple of the shirt buttons intact, of which she did up one of them only, the rest had pinged off last night, probably to all four corners of the bedroom.

"I'll take this shirt for my own," she said quietly to herself as she walked with the confidence of a well-loved woman out of the bedroom, "who needs buttons when there's just the two of us here today?"

"What was that, Dee?" Clive looked up from the frying pan where he was swizzing round some button mushrooms, as she approached.

"Just claiming your shirt for my own, dear," she smiled as she neared his outstretched arms, putting both her arms around his neck as they kissed. He pulled her into him with one arm around her waist and the other hand behind behind her head, the kiss deepening in passion until she broke it off.

"You can claim anything of mine, Dee, it's yours." Clive grinned with the light of overwhelming pleasure dancing in his eyes.

"Sorry for kissing you with my morning breath mouth, hon," Deidre grimaced. "You taste beautifully sweet and minty. Honey, I must go and clean my teeth."

"Never apologise for a searing morning kiss, sweetheart. You can kiss me anytime, I certainly want to kiss you all the time. But, if you insist on oral hygiene, there's a couple of new toothbrush heads for the electric toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet, just choose a different colour tag to my blue one. But, hurry, Dee, breakfast won't be long," Clive said, "Oh, how do you want your eggs, poached or fried?"

"Whatever's easiest," she turned her head and smiled.

"Well, I'm poaching, the healthier option, the kids always prefer them that way, actually they never have been given a choice."

"Breakfast smells delish, what else do you have?"

"Grilled bacon and tomato, mushrooms fried in butter, a tin of baked beans that I brought from home because last time I was here on holiday I discovered hated American baked beans, and toast, with butter, jam and marmalade. I even packed us some marmite."

"You think of everything, I love marmite on toast, especially if I'm in a hurry during the working week and only have time for toast. I won't be long, I'm already comfortably dressed as you can see," she giggled and ran to the bathroom, with Clive's smiling eyes on her all the way until she was out of sight.

"So," Deidre later asked coyly over breakfast, with emphasis, "What are OUR plans for today?"

"Well, I was hoping for a lazy day relaxing at home, but..."

"Oh me too, I do more than enough rushing around during the working week."

Clive, in a tee-shirt and shorts, "Yes, sightseeing's overrated and you lived here once and probably seen everything. We've even got warmed up pizza in hand that we can have for lunch."

"Perfect."

"Staying in, we don't even need to get dressed."

"So, we just load up the dishwasher, wipe down and play the rest of it by ear, shall we?"

"I do want to play with your ears, Dee, they seem... sensitive."

"They are, extremely sensitive to soft lips and wet tongues, even gentle teeth," she breathed, looking at him with half-hooded eyes. "Can I check out all your sensitive areas?"

"Oh yes, so long as I can explore you to find all yours to play with."

"All my sensitive play areas are yours alone, Clive. I think we need to map them all."

"That's the kind of sightseeing and site feeling that we shouldn't delay."

***

The dragons and giant eagles landed in the modest formal gardens of the Manor House of Baldyah.

Korwyn dismounted from Dark first and jogged towards the house, seeing Head Gardener Dhigham, who walked over from where the gardeners were enjoying breakfast on the terrace behind the Manor House.

"My Lord, how be ye?" grins the gardener, "I certainly like your ride, not that I'd ever be tempted to ride with ye!"

"I'm well, Colonel Dhigham, even after that ride," Korwyn laughed, "the green fields and livestock of the manor look magnificent from the air."

"Thank you, Sire, but please just call me 'Gardener Dhigham' rather than my militia rank, we've tried to underplay the militia training, although your manor youngsters were magnificent against Goadrik's Hussars, and instead we've concentrated on the agricultural side of our task here." He paused. "Your mother has gone to the market this morning, she always enjoys shopping for the evening's main meal. I have sent a young'un off to fetch her back."

"Thank you, Dhigham. And, while we're here, please call me Korwyn, we are after all old soldiers and the current war is over and all we need to do now is keep the peace."

"Well, Korwyn, my gardeners and me, well, we'll stay on here until we've got the harvest full in and besides a couple of the men had decided that they'd like to stay on here, having fallen in love with a couple of the widows here," Dhigham grinned, "Or maybe they just like the climate in these here parts!"

"Very likely! Well, I've always been grateful for spending most of my formative years here, it's a safe, quiet place, easy to defend and great for children to grow up in safety. I'm looking forward to bringing up my own family here."

"Aye, it's an interesting and varied mild climate most of the time, great land for growing crops, plenty of rocks for walls to keep in stock and house building, seaweed for field fertilizer but I do miss my own little allotment back home."

Queen Grandmother Urmah approached the pair.

"Your majesty," Dhigham bowed his head.

Urmah took one of Dhigham's rough hands in both hers, "Dhigham, you're well?" she asked, as he looked up, the half-dwarf, half Witch was half a head taller than the gardener. She smiled when the gardener nodded that he was well enough. "You've done a great job here, Dhigham, thank you." She smiled on him warmly as his ruddy face grew crimson.

"Thank you, your majesty," Dhigham replied haltingly, "which reminds I, er, must get on."

He released his hand and shuffled off quickly towards the fields, any field apparently.

Urmah turned to Korwyn, "He was one of my first and youngest wet-behind-the-ears guards, a cadet officer, when I first became a queen of one of the minor kingdoms. Such a sweet boy.... When my daughter married Klandrak I was asked to join her household and I took Captain Dhigham as he was then with me. By then I was a widow, my husband, a gentle and popular sub-king with no ambitions beyond caring for me and seeing his daughter marry well, died in what was called a 'hunting accident', then, when Klandrak also ordered me killed, Dhigham helped me get out of the country." She looked wistfully at the gardener's broad departing back.

"He's a good man, one of the best. Er, Queen Grandmother Urmah," Korwyn asked, "could I have a private word before my mother and no doubt the rest of the welcome party arrive from the market place?"

The old Witch smiled warmly at him, her bright eyes shining as bright as he'd seen since the successful resolution to the attempted coup at Dharibia. She took his arm and led him away a little from the rest of the group.

"Please call me 'Urmah', my dear friend, Korwyn. You have done much to gain an old woman's respect, even love from your deeds alone, saving the lives of the family that I care so much about. And, we are both royals of a kind, entitled to our relative ranks within our own societies, so we are not so much distant in rank for formality. We both have a healthy level of respect for the power and the degrees of empathy within each other to be on friendly, first name terms, are we not?"

"Indeed, Urmah," Korwyn smiled in response, "I have no quarrel with you but I do have some questions."

"I know and I will answer candidly what I can. Let us walk to that little grove of apple trees yonder, I believe there is a bench there that you used to sit on as a boy and view the little valley of fields beyond; I hope it is still there."

"I hope so too," Korwyn laughed shaking his head, "It's been almost ten long years."

The old bench was still there, but it looked brand new, all the timbers had been replaced recently and seemed remade somehow more substantial than he remembered.

"Once this bench was fit for only a solitary boy to sit and ponder his future away from this idyllic place," Urmah said quietly, as whispers in such a place was appropriate, "but now it could comfortably accommodate a family where a loving father could tell his children and grandchildren stories based on adventures in the past and lessons for them for their own bright, happy futures. Come, sit next to me and ask away your questions."

As he sat his eyes fell on the familiar scene of a dozen small fields in a hollow valley, all quiet, as today the gardeners weren't working, surprised by the arrival of their royal guests, and all were probably occupied putting together a lunchtime feast in honour of the visitors. Otherwise the scene was reminiscent of his pastoral childhood, with fields full of crops, interspersed with pastures of healthy livestock. When he was last here, ten years ago, as a young man grown up to the realities of adulthood far too soon, he was convalescing from his wounds and the fields below were fallow, all the skilled men to work them having been killed at Hawkshart, and Korwyn had been racked with the guilt he still bore as being a sole survivor of his generation.

"You've seen me sitting here before?" he asked Urmah.

"Aye, I have, not physically of course, as this is my first visit here to your manor, but through you I have seen many of your experiences."

"You can read my mind, like Red or the Spirit?"

"No, not exactly, Korwyn. Don't fret, your innermost thoughts, your most intimate feelings or memories are forever closed to me. I am just very good at guessing... plus I have second sight and have seen this scene of us sitting here together before, many years ago. So I knew you'd make it this far, but I was unable to see if I was the person sitting with you."

She held out a hand and Korwyn saw and felt no threat from the slight but powerful woman, a friend not an enemy, her involvement in his destiny only recently realised, so he reached across and held her hand. He felt a sense of peace come over him.

"Is that you?" he asked, "making me feel rested and relaxed?"

"Aye, Korwyn, I have healing hands too, not unlike Zyndyr's healing webs. I'm just taking away some anxieties and in doing so I can also sense that you have no real physical pain. Your mind is, however, apprehensive and although I cannot read your mind, I know enough about you, Korwyn, that I know you have concerns about your relationship with Zyndyr and her bid for mortality, the health your baby, your future life as a farmer. Immediate concerns are visiting other worlds and meeting people who are so much more powerful and more knowledgeable than you, with strengths beyond those available to even the most champion of Man Champions of our world." She patted his hand with her other hand. "Worry not, Korwyn, or at least worry less. Before you embark on your journey I will teach you a few spells which will help you in both your quests."

"And you know in advance what my quests are and what will be helpful to me?"

"Aye Korwyn, I may be a Dwarf Queen, but I am half-witch, half-dwarf, I am the daughter of a very powerful Sorcerer, one who feared nothing and had ambitions beyond those of much more stable and realistic wizards. I am also the granddaughter of the dead sorcerer that you know as Spirit, who I never knew while I was growing up. I missed his guiding hand then, but I have it now, I am pleased to say."

"Second sight?" Korwyn asked, "You can see the future?"

"Aye, but such power is limited, Korwyn," she said, be gripping his hand, "I cannot foresee my own future or the future of those family that I am joined with or even the future of my descendants to come. So, I could not foresee that my father would rape me and then sell me to a Dwarf sub-king immediately I came of age. I had no forethought that my only daughter would marry a king who would drop her and me into abject poverty on a whim simply because she produced a daughter instead of a son. That king even banished me from the Seven Kingdoms so I couldn't help my daughter, who was imprisoned and died at his hands."

"I assume that Dwarf king was Klandrak?" Korwyn asked, "the king that hired me to find his kidnapped daughter Myr?"

"Aye, the very same. I couldn't even foresee that that my own father would kidnap and rape my granddaughter, and that Klandrak would gladly abandon my daughter and granddaughter in order to marry again in order to have a brood of sons."

"A very imperfect talent, second sight seems, Urmah."

"Aye but that restriction on the witch discovering her own future and those of her family is there as a restriction to stop any witch become more powerful, they cannot see if their schemes will succeed, nor the consequences of failure, it helps keep a check on individual power. Therefore it is natural to use that foresight for the good of others. That principle failed with my father, they called him the Mad Wizard of Yandor for a reason, he had simply lost his mind, especially after all the full-blood Sorcerers and Witches returned to the home world where they all came from."

"So did you not see what King Klandrak was plotting?"

"Not exactly in second sight, where his actions affected me or my family. That he wanted dominance of the Seven Kingdoms through marriage alliances? Aye, I could see what he was doing without second sight, and I warned my husband of my fears. But even my husband was not of my choosing, the sub-King had been picked for me by my Sorcerer father and he chose one of the stupidest minor dwarf kings of them all. He was a bumbling oaf personally and politically but, in his way he was honourable and kind to me and my daughter and we enjoyed almost twenty years together. I grew to love him in a way. I even helped prevent several attempts by Klandrak to kill the two of us, I dressed his wounds a number of times, all good practice when it came to nursing you back to health."

"Me?"

"After Klandrak imprisoned my daughter and eventually starved her to death, I escaped and in absentia I was banished from the Seven Kingdoms, especially after I attempted to free my daughter without success, but I was unable to save her life or free my granddaughter from his power. I then wandered the world, taking an interest in what the governments were doing to curb the growing power and ambitions of my father the Mad Wizard, the answer being... nothing. I attended Hawkshart merely as an observer, having a bad feeling in my gut that something momentous was about to happen, but was not at all clear what that would be."

"You were there? What did you see?"

"Everything. At first I was actually standing on the promontory where most of the non-military and non-political bystanders stood to watch. I was some way behind your mother, who was standing next to the girl who has become Queen Pleasmona, your childhood friend. My eyes were drawn to who your mother was pointing to, later I found that was you and your father. I particularly noticed you, not just for your relative size, but the pure joy and pride in your youthful face taking part in this historic Treaty.

"But, Korwyn, as soon as I saw your joyful face, I saw several different futures for you flashing through my head and in front of my eyes, all of them resulting in your instant death, within moments. I 'felt', sensed, if you like, the elf-arrow that was heading directly for your heart. I could see it, I could slow it down in my mind so that it took an age to reach you. In my peripheral vision I could see another arrow heading towards who I now know was your father. I could do nothing about that, but I poured all my power into deflecting that swift, heavy dart so that it hit your shoulder and not your heart."

"You saved my life!"

"Aye, Korwyn, and, as soon as that arrow missed your heart, I saw your future changed, split into a number of different possibilities, firstly that you were about to be burned to a cinder by fire coming from nowhere, so I put a spell in your mount, so that your horse thought it saw a snake on the ground. It bucked and threw you off your saddle. I snapped the stirrups in your tack so you left the animal cleanly and then I rolled you towards the ravine away from where I saw the flames in my mind melt the very rocks. Unfortunately, as you fell over the edge you dropped out of my sight and I saw you badly injured but surviving, at least for the moment."

"I broke a lot of bones, I am told."

"And a rib had punctured your lung, you almost drowned in your own blood, my friend. However, as soon as you fell, I looked up and saw the Black Dragon flying towards your troop and I immediately sensed that it was my father. I couldn't see his future, he was family after all, but I caught a briefest glimpse of his immediate past. I saw you, Korwyn, sever his toe on the foothills of a mountain, in a place I recognised from my childhood living at Blearn Mountain, I saw his dragon form change from White to Black and vanish, to reappear within sight of the multitude assembling at Hawkshart. Then his terrible breath of fire reigned down on your troop, but mercifully you were out of sight and out of the line of fire. He then moved onto the Elves with his fire. By then I was moving as swiftly as I could down the escarpment towards the ravine. I concentrated part of my attention on what my father was doing and realised that he was acting with purpose, ignoring the other creatures at Hawkshart but now targeting the Elves."