I and the rest of our group blinked at him. “Come again?” I spoke up.
He half-turned back to the mural and swept his arm over the scene. “This-all of this-is a view of a city where humans and dragons lived together. They not only lived together but-” his eyes flickered to Xander and me, “-they even married.”
Alice scoffed. “Everyone knows dragons and humans have never lived together. We’ve always been at war.”
Tillit grinned. “Then I’m about to rewrite history because that-” he pointed at the banner with the words, “-and this-” he held up the book, “-are both saying that they did. It was a really long time ago, by my counting at least twenty thousand years, but they shared cities and fields and everything. This-” he lay his palm on the mural, “-this was the first city. The first one to have the union.”
“So what’s the big deal?” I spoke up. “I mean, they shared a city and they might have married, but you make that sound like it’s huge.”
“It is,” Xander replied. His lips were pursed as his eyes studied the bannered words. “It has always been tradition that dragons and humans cannot live side-by-side, excluding the Maidens.”
Tillit grinned and gestured behind us. “Speaking of Maidens, say hello to the first ones.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the sarcophagus and blinked at the stone coffins. “Them?”
He nodded. “Yep. They weren’t from your world, but they were the first brides for the six leaders of the dragons. Princesses given to princes.”
“But what made them do it?” I asked him.
Tillit glanced between the open book in his hands and the banner. “It says here, and some of it is up there, that both parties wanted to unite their powers to avoid a ‘weakening,’ or something like that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Weakened what?”
“A weakened line,” Tillit revealed as he tapped on a page in the book.
I sidled up beside him and looked over his shoulder. A picture on the page showed two halves to a circle. One half was filled in with green coloring and showed a single white leathery wing. The other half was white and showed green stars.
I pointed at the star half. “What’s that mean?”
“It’s a generally accepted representation of magic,” Tillit explained. He looked up at Xander. “So this shows that the dragons needed humans to grant them their strength, and humans needed dragons to give them their magic.”
Xander lowered his head and stared hard at the floor. “They sought the same as my forefathers, to prevent the destruction of their line.”
Tillit shook his head. “It’s worse than that. These dragons and humans joined together to stop the destruction of their races.”
A hush fell over our group. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. “The dragons don’t just need Maidens, they need humans.”
Tillit nodded. “That’s what it looks like. I guess that explains why they’re not as big as they used to be, or why the humans don’t do magic like they used to.”
“Get out of the way!” Alice snapped as she shoved Tillit and me away from the wall. “Let me have a try. You probably read it wrong.”
Tillit bowed to her, but his eyes flickered to Magnus as a sly grin danced across his lips. “She’s your perfect match, captain.” The stoic old sea captain studied the frantic woman, but said nothing.
“So all of this means what?” I persisted.
Xander raised his eyes to the mural and pursed his lips. “We are the source of our own destruction.”
Magnus nodded. “Aye. The Great War and all its foolish little battles. I guess we’re all of us the worse for it.”
I furrowed my brow. “But my old world doesn’t have dragons and humans are just fine, so does it only work one way?”
“Does your world contain magic?” he asked me.
My face fell. “No. . .”
Tillit rubbed his stubby chin. “So dragons need humans to retain their powers, and humans need dragons to keep their magic.”
Alice growled and threw down her arms. “Blast it all, but the damn sus is right.”
Tillit grinned and puffed out his ample chest as he clapped the book shut. “Of course Tillit is right. Tillit can read.”
I wrinkled my nose and glanced at Xander. “This world hasn’t really done much in that time, has it?”
“There has been too much war to progress,” Xander pointed out.
I turned to the stone sarcophagus and pursed my lips. “So these are the first of me.”
“And the first of my line,” Xander added.
I furrowed my brow and looked back to my dragon lord. “But I thought this whole Maiden thing didn’t start until five thousand years ago.”
Tillit tapped on the cover of the book. “It says here in this history that the Maiden ritual fell out of favor after five thousand years and that the dragons forgot their heritage. They attacked the humans seven thousand years ago.”
Xander arched an eyebrow. “Why had you not read that chapter to us earlier?”
Tillit shrugged. “I thought it was ancient history, but not that ancient.”
I looked at the tense faces around me. “So what now? I mean, this isn’t the power the book warned us about, is it?” I swept my eyes over the dry room. “And I don’t see any water, either.”
Tillit studied the mural and stroked his chin. “I wonder where this is.”
Alice’s eyes flickered over the picture. She did a double take and her eyes widened. “That’s Ealand of Reod Fyr!”
All of us glanced from her to the painting. I tilted my head to one side and furrowed my brow. “How can you tell?”
She pointed at the base of the castle. “I’d stake my ship that these stones are the same ones that the barracks stand on right now.”
Tillit nodded at the ground below the castle. “And that looks a lot like water, doesn’t it?” There was indeed a hint of a small hint of blue color beneath the foundation of the castle.
“The book may have led us here first so that we may find this mural,” Xander mused.
My face fell. “Great, so this great power we’re looking for is in the middle of enemy territory. Anybody have any idea how to get in there without dying?” I looked from one of my companions to the other. No one spoke up. I sighed. “Even better. . .”
“Let us return to the boat and gather our thoughts in the daylight,” Xander suggested.
We turned away from the ancient graves and mural, and walked back down the tunnel. The mood among our small group was somber. For my part I was stuck thinking about the barracks problem and the revelation that humans were a necessary part of dragons. It made so much sense, what with the few dragons with magical powers and the dragon lords’ decision to restart the Maiden ritual.
Thinking of the union of humans and dragons reminded me we had our own current union problem. Magnus and Alice walked side-by-side and cuff-to-cuff, but not hand-in-hand. The only interaction was the occasional tug on the chain by one or the other.
I sidled up to them. “Where exactly did you two agree to get married?”
Magnus puffed out his chest and grinned. “On the best ship on the seas.”
Alice nodded. “Aye, and he never showed up to my ship.”
Magnus whipped his head to her and frowned. “The best ship is the Blå Engel.”
Alice stopped and stuck her face into his and growled. “The Rache is the finest!”
“The Blå Engel!”
“The Rache!”
I slipped between them and held up my hands. “Wait a sec. Let me get this straight. You two thought the wedding was going to take place on your ship, and you didn’t bother to check the other to see if that’s where they were?”
The captains paused in their bickering and stared blankly at one another. “You were waiting for me on yer ship?” Magnus asked her.
“And you were waiting for me on yers?” she returned.
I shook my head. “I take back what I said earlier. You two aren’t a married couple, you’re a couple of children.” The pair turned their hard eyes on me. I stepped back with my hands raised in front of me. “Come on, you guys know it’s true. Who else wouldn’t bother to actually look for their intended?”
“That is enough,” Xander called out. Tillit and he stood ten feet ahead of us and looked back at our squabbling little group.
I scuttled my argument and scurried to Xander’s side. We three walked on with the pair following behind. I glanced over my shoulder at them. They didn’t look at each other, but their hands were clasped. I smiled and faced ahead.
We exited the cave and found the boat still anchored where we left her. Captain Thatch stood behind the wheel, but he faced the opposite direction. His attention lay on the sky and the bright sun in it.
“Sunbathing?” Magnus scolded the old sea dog as we reached the bow.
Captain Thatch whipped his head to us and grasped the wheel before he frowned at Magnus. “You’re forgetting who chased us out of the bay, and that we’re still stuck on the same island.”
“We don’t need to be worrying about them coming to us. We’re coming to them,” Magnus told him.
Thatch arched an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“We need to move in as close to the barracks as the sea will allow,” Xander explained.
Our captain furrowed his brow and stroked his gray beard. “I might know a good place to land, and a way to sneak past them barracks.”
Alice paused in climbing in the boat and stared hard at him. “How do you know a way to get in when I don’t even know?”
He grinned. “Ya don’t think those men in those stone walls get a little thirsty and lonely, do ya? And who better to give them some simple pleasures than old Captain Thatch. Now draw up that anchor and let’s be off!”