Voice of the Sea

There weren't always dragons in the valley. This was what the watchers knew, and Clandar had heard them tell the stories beside crackling Umari bonfires since before he could walk. The Umari were the "tall people," and everything they made was tall--their houses, their sea-going boats, their churches with soaring rooftops not even they could see the tops of, and their swords which were taller than he was.

Clandar was small, like all Eraduothi forest people, and his skin was light brown, not pale white like the Umari's. His hair was black like his father's, but his eyes were blue, like his mother's, making him a combination of Clan and Kin, the two forest tribes who had been at war with each other for forty seasons, according to his mother. That is, if you counted in circle-time like all forest people did.

His mother was Kindraka, who had been the girl-leader of the Kin after her father, the kingold, had disappeared. She and Clanjaroth, also the leader of his people, the Clan, had forged an unlikely friendship during the terrible war between the tribes, but they had realized the forest was not ready for peace. So, they had left quietly one night, paddled a canoe down the Mar--the great river that started high on the mountain and flowed down past the forest--all the way to the base of the mountain, to the great city of Umar on the shores of the sea. There, they had sought a new life, living first as friends and later as husband and wife. It was in Umar that Clandar was born, an Eraduothi--a forest boy--who had never seen the forest.

Now, he crouched behind the rocky ledge on the edge of the great chasm known as the Small Wasteland. Clandar was watching, trying to catch sight of the dragons that were rumored to exist here in this place. It was said that the Umari had brought the dragons here from far away islands in the middle of the ocean. But Clandar saw nothing, as usual. Still, he was happy here in a place he was not supposed to be playing, a place wide open and free and forbidden, so he stayed as long as he could and returned often. It was his secret place, and he did not even tell his sisters, who knew everything else about him, where he went on his "walks" alone.

The Great Wasteland, as both the Umari and Eraduothi called it, was far away, on the other side of the world, across the mountains, and so they thought of this nearby, rocky, and barren valley on the outskirts of Umar as the lesser version of the Wasteland. It was wasteland enough for Clandar. From where he sat, hunched over the ledge, peering down into the pit, it was like looking into a different world. There were no plants or animals down there that he could see, no white sand like on the shores of the ocean. It was filled with rocks--small ones like gravel, medium ones the size of his head, and occasional large boulders. It looked like a place where nothing could live. So, where were the dragons?

It was the Wastelanders who had shown the Kin how to live in the desert during their time of wandering. And it was there that his mother's tribe had learned the secrets of roc magic, like fire-powders, and where to find salt, oil, and water under the sand. All this knowledge the Kin had brought with them the day they returned to the forest. But the worst thing they brought, if you asked any Clan member, was fire. Fire in the forest was forbidden by the Clan. Fire was a danger to the great Jaroth trees which formed the forest canopy and provided the Jaroth fruit upon which both Kin and Clan depended for food. The flowers of the Jaroth vines were the secret to old forest magic and only the Clan knew what the flowers could do. The Kin were careful with fire, but the Clan did not trust them and, as the Kin, in their organized way, had begun not only eating but picking, drying, and storing Jaroth fruit, soon there was not enough fruit for the Clan. First fire, now starvation had come to the Clan. And the Kin were responsible. That was how the great war had started.

Clandar had learned all these things from his mother and father, as he grew. Though the forest was far away, the boy had been eager to learn forest magic. His Clan father could teach him. But, when they tried, Clandar could no more understand old forest magic than his Kin mother could. With all her Kin knowledge of both roc--the mineral realm--and roth--the world of the plants--and her great skill with fire-powders, she had no knowledge of the rosh--the world of the animals, to which the old magic was bound. Though Clanjaroth had tried to teach his family his secret, neither his wife nor his son nor Clandar's older sister, Kinlana, could understand it. Only Kintara, their dwarf-like, dark-skinned sister, had inherited the old forest magic. She and their father spent long hours together as he trained her in it's uses, and this made Clandar feel lonely.

His mother and his sister did not seem to mind. His mother was special, a great beauty who stopped the eyes of men when she walked through the wide streets of Umar. Her skin tatooed in pale blue, green, and pink, with gold markings, and her hair piled up high in her intricately braided Eraduothi familial array; she had no need of old forest magic. She was her own magic, and people made way for her. Plus, she had her secret writing, while Kinlana had her herbs and potions.

Kinlana, with golden-brown hair like her mother's, loved the roth and her skill with creating medicines from plants was already talked about, though she was but twelve years old. Kindraka had taught her all she knew, but Kinlana had extended her mother's teachings by experimenting with the Umari plants, too--the ones her mother, forest-born, did not know as well. Kinlana, gentle and quiet, spent her time gathering all kinds of plants and the Umari women would come, in the middle of the night, to knock on the Eraduothi family's door and ask if "the little one" had some plant for a sickness that had struck an Umari household. Then, Kinlana would go with them, taking her little pots and bags, and come back with Umari coins.

Only Clandar had no special talent. He felt like a failure. He sometimes wondered about the Umari gods. If he prayed to them, like the tall ones did, would they give him magic? Clandar knew there were no churches in the Eraduothi forest. His parents had said so, and they warned him to stay out of Eraduothi churches. They did not want their boy's head filled with superstitions. On many things, his father and mother--Clan and Kin--did not agree. But on this, they did: there were only four realms of the world and time. Time was what bound the whole world together. Time was greater than any one realm, and time linked them all. Minerals slept a deep and undreaming sleep, in long-time. Plants slept as if in a dream, and their dying and rising, again and again, marked circle-time. Animals lived in a waking dream, and humans were fully awake, in the present, and all things that had faces--that opened their eyes and woke--did not rise again after they died but lived only a set number of cycles.

Only casters could jump time. Clandar's father, Clanjaroth, was an animal caster. He could enter the waking dream of an animal's mind and run with the animal, see through its eyes, while his own body stayed sheltered somewhere in a safe place, as if asleep in a deep trance. Clandar had tried to learn, as his father had tried to teach him, to cast using rabbits--the easiest animal of all. Clan parents taught all Clan children using rabbits. The worst that could happen was the rabbit would run away with the child and the child would wake up later in a strange spot and have to find their way home. Back in the Clan camp, everyone would laugh and the jokes would be many. But little by little, each child mastered the art of keeping their human consciousness awake in the fast little animal's dream. It just took practice to keep awake at the speed with which the animal moved. And when they could travel without falling asleep to the animal's will, they were ready to learn to cast into different animals more foreign to humans than a small mammal like a rabbit. His father had ticked off the types: the reptiles were difficult because they were cold blooded. If the temperature dropped, a person could get stuck for days inside the slowed-down mind of a cold snake or salamander. Fish and birds took skill, also, but larger animals, including the Eraduothi predators, such as the panther and the jaguar, were the hardest to inhabit; they had strong wills of their own which must be directed by an even stronger human mind.

Clandar felt restless, thinking of Clan members casting into animals and killing Kin in the dark of the night, and Kin killing Clan with sharp weapons during the day, when all forest animals slept. His parent were supposed to be such great warriors, but Clanjaroth spent all his time with Kintara, and Kindraka spent hours with her secret writing that she always said the children could read "someday," when they were "ready." Ready for what? Clandar was ready for battle. He practiced every day with his child's Kin-style bow and arrows his mother had made, and the Clan-fashioned wood spear his father had carved for him. The spear was heavy, as his father said all spears should be to make a boy strong, and Clanjaroth had indeed grown strong lifting the weight of the young sapling trunk his father had used to make it. Clandar at times thought about whom he might have to kill. That would be a problem, as he was from "both sides." He vaguely thought he might defend people, not kill them.

His father and mother loved peace, not war, as they often told the children, and the Clan did not kill animals, so there was no reason for Clandar to carry his weapons on his walks. But he loved his weapons, so even if he left his heavy spear at home, he always carried his bow, "just in case of attack," though who would attack a small boy who posed no threat to an eight-foot-tall Umari giant? So it was that Clandar with just a child-sized bow and a few not-so-long arrows found himself on this day, climbing over the ledge and descending into the Small Wasteland for the first time. If there were really dragons below, in the valley, he was going to find out! He had to get closer. Maybe they were hiding underground, as the Clan people had hidden, in caves, to save themselves from Kin hunters who ruled the treetops and could rain their arrows down on Clan heads, according to the watchers' stories.

Clandar stumbled and tripped down the rocky slope, into the valley. When he finally stopped falling forward on his feet, he found himself at the bottom of the cliff, looking up at the ledge where he had just been. There were no footholds he found that would not disintegrate into pebbles when he tried to climb back up. He was stuck. He looked around, then, and saw cliffs all around him on three sides and a small opening like a low doorway carved out of the last wall of the valley. It was under an overhang of rocks that jutted out from the fourth wall and had been invisible to him up on the ledge. It looked like it led to a field of more rocks, but it must be the way out. He walked toward the opening.

It was then he heard a sound like thunder and water, like the crash of the sea in a storm. The sound echoed all around the three walls behind him, and he felt like his head was being smashed against those rock walls. He lay down flat, with his face pressed into the gravelly ground. Was the sea about to pour into the valley and drown him? No water came. Minutes passed, and the sound continued reverberating, making his head feel invaded and empty at the same time. He could not think or move. Then the sound died away, and he raised his head. There, in front of him, was a tiny, bird-like creature.

It was blue-greenish, with a greenish-gold head. Its wingtips were light, seafoam-green. It had clear eyes, and feathers that seemed hardened, like gems, and its body glowed with a golden shine. It was looking at him--a boy who could not cast, who could not talk to animals, who had no animal magic. Clandar sat up and stared at the shiny avian, which was perched on a rock in front of him. It would fit in his two cupped hands. An Umari could have held the small, glittering body on one palm. Keeping an eye on its sharp, little claws, Clandar inched a bit closer.

Then, the thunder returned. The great sea roared in his head, and he fell to the ground, but this time he kept his head lifted and saw a great cloud of gold spread out from the creature. The cloud took the shape of the bird but was huge--as high as the cliffs--and it sparkled like a million water droplets caught by the sun on a great, crashing wave. The wave bore down on him, then, and again he was lost, his face once more pressed into sharp rocks and choking dust. He fought to breathe. And then it stopped, like before, and in that moment Clandar understood that this was a dragon, and the dragon had spoken. He also knew more about dragons in an instant than most people ever dream of, forward and backward in time, or in stories of any age. He knew why dragons were supposed to live deep down in darkness, and why it was said that you could find buried treasure under a dragon. He knew why it was told that dragons were big. He had gotten bits of truth in those stories, like everyone else, but now he saw the whole truth about dragons. They were the soul and the voice of the sea.