CHAPTER 25, Dragon's Revenge

The sun had risen over the bay an hour ago. Pryth’s pyre smoldered. By tonight, it might be reduced to ash so that they could cast the remains to the four winds.

The villagers milled around, sharing breakfast, completing small chores, lingering while they all awaited news of a new life added to the village. Kim’s brothers and Kat sat with him upon rocks placed conveniently to the fire for them. Kat yawned and looked longingly at the ground, as if she’d like to stretch out and fall asleep right there.

M’Berra and Geralds had found beds somewhere and gone off to them hours ago.

Loki jumped up and paced, unaware that people passed back and forth across the entrance to the big cave with some speed and urgency.

At last Chaney Lotski ducked out of the cave entrance and wandered toward them. Her eyes looked sunken and hollow with fatigue and her already pale skin seemed almost translucent in the early light.

But a grin split her face when she saw Kim. “Congratulations, Mark Kimmer O’Hara. You are the father of a healthy baby girl,” she said, offering her hand.

Kim took it numbly. “A girl?” He gulped in shock. “We were sure it was a boy.”

“Disappointed, little brother?” Konner asked. Then he jumped up and slapped Kim’s back with enthusiasm. “I have a niece. Did you hear that everybody? I have a niece!”

Kat and Loki joined him in jumping up and down with excitement.

Slowly the fog lifted from Kim’s mind. “A girl. It’s a girl!” he shouted. Then he sobered. “Hestiia. What about Hes? Is she okay?” He anxiously searched Lotski’s face for a clue.

“She will be fine.” Lotski became serious. She seemed weighed down with responsibility. “She lost a lot of blood. She’s weak and tired. But she’s nursing. That will help slow the blood loss. The women here know more about childbirth than I do. If they hadn’t come up with special herbs and moss to pack the bleeding, we might have lost her.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, heavy with fatigue. “Herbal remedies or not, I don’t want her out of bed for three days and she shouldn’t even think about another child for a couple of years. She needs to fully recover. And if that means celibacy to prevent another pregnancy, then so be it.”

“I can’t even think about that. As long as Hes is okay, I’ll do anything, anything to keep her that way.”

“It’s what you don’t do that’s more important.”

“Can I see her?” Kim started walking with long purposeful strides toward the cave before he had an answer.

“If the ladies have finished cleaning up and will let you in. But don’t stay too long. Hestiia needs her rest.”

Kim hesitated at the cave mouth.

Poolie, as wife of the headman and therefore in a position of authority among the women, beckoned him in. Hugely pregnant herself, she rubbed under her belly in ever larger circles, as if soothing her own early labor pains. She held a finger to her lips, then pointed to the still, pale face of Hestiia beneath a mountain of sleeping furs on a pallet near the center of the cave.

Kim crept close to his wife and knelt beside her. A lump of emotion clogged his throat and his hands trembled. One of the other women twitched the edge of the furs aside to reveal a wrinkled pink lump cradled in the crook of Hestiia’s arm.

“My daughter?” he breathed.

“Our daughter,” Hestiia whispered. She raised a tired arm and caressed his face with one finger.

He caught her hand in his and kissed her palm. “She is beautiful, as light and fragile as the air.” He didn’t quite dare touch the little thing that opened vague blue eyes to stare at him. The pink fuzz on top of her head looked like it might turn red later, maybe blond. He didn’t care.

“Then we must call her Ariel.” Hestiia smiled as she gently uncovered the baby for Kim’s inspection. “But remember that the wind can be a formidable force. Remember the storm last Solstice?” A bit of a smile touched her lips.

“Just like her mother,” Kim agreed. He counted ten perfect fingers and ten wrinkled toes. Two arms. Two legs. A head atop a long skinny body. What more was necessary?

“Ariel she is. But she is also Pryth. She will carry both names,” he decided. The memory of the old wisewoman passing the mantle of experience and responsibility to Hestiia lingered in his mind.

“Yes. Thank you.” Tears filled Hestiia’s eyes. “ ’Tis right and fitting that we honor our friend and mentor.”

“Get some rest, love. I’ll be right outside.” Kim bent to kiss his wife on the brow.

Her eyes closed. Immediately, her breathing took on the slow steady rhythm of sleep.

Kim sat and watched her a long time, unwilling to accept even the little separation of leaving the cave.

“You know, Kim’s going to be even more reluctant to leave this place with us when we return to civilization,” Loki said quietly.

Kat stared at her oldest brother aghast. “How can you even think about separating them at a time like this!” She placed her clenched fists on her hips and stared at Loki, chin set as stubbornly as she knew how.

“We can’t leave him behind,” Loki protested. He matched her posture with equal belligerence.

“Now, now, don’t fight. We just got reunited,” Konner stepped between them.

“If anyone leaves this planet, it will be me,” Kat insisted. She had a brief mental image of herself leading Loki in force bracelets off an IMP rescue ship. She shook her head.

No, she would not do that to her brothers. She had grown past the need for revenge. But she’d still like to slug all three of them for the twenty years of separation.

Well, maybe not Kim. He had been little more than a baby when the family broke up. And now he was a new father.

She couldn’t help grinning. For twenty years she had been the adopted daughter, accepted and loved but just slightly outside the family dynamic in Governor Benedict Talbot’s household. Now she had more family than she knew how to manage.

“Look, we can’t settle the issue of who goes and who stays until we get the fuel cells recharged again,” Konner said. The middle brother, the neutral one who always found ways to mediate among his siblings. Just as he had twenty years ago. “I’m as anxious to get back to civilization to claim my son as you are to get back to your lives. But we have to settle the problem of Hanassa and what he’s doing to the people here. We have to find a way to kill the Krakatrice on the big continent.”

Kat took a deep breath to settle herself. “We are all tired and jumpy. Any decision we make now will be based on flawed judgment. Let’s get some sleep.” She stretched her back. Then she yawned. It grew to encompass her entire body. And just kept growing until she thought her jaw would crack and she’d never be able to open her eyes again.

“Sleep sounds good. I’ll take you up to the clearing and get you settled.” Konner yawned, too.

An emptiness settled in Kat’s belly that could only be filled with sleep. Sleep and something else.

“Where’s Gentian?” she asked.

Konner shrugged.

“I saw him skulking around near dawn,” Loki offered. “But not since.”

Kat’s emptiness became a knot of anxiety. She called the flywacket with her mind. He did not reply and he did not appear.

“He’ll turn up when he’s ready.” Konner shrugged and led the way to the uphill path.

“Somehow, I don’t think so.” Kat shivered with a new loneliness.

The flywacket has gone into hiding. We cannot find him. We cannot recall him to the nimbus if we cannot find him. He may have his uses yet. But he has abandoned his chosen one. She will flounder without his guidance. We have no other to send to the aid of the humans. We dare not allow any more of our numbers to be corrupted by them. Their taint is potentially more damaging than the one we may not name gone rogue, or the threat of the Krakatrice to our way of life. The humans must blunder their own way now. We may not interfere further. The nimbus has decided.