[Oescienne 01.0] The Finding Read online

  Jahrra turned bright red and Gieaun and Scede moved in closer to her. This wasn’t the first time that Eydeth had snuck up on them, but Jahrra decided right then and there it would be the last. After Mr. Cohrbin came out to break up the commotion, Jahrra and her two friends remained on the rock for a little while longer.

  “I’ve had it!” she fumed. “How dare he? I only wanted you two to know about that dream!”

  Jahrra allowed one last tear of anger to run down her face, burning her skin like acid. Gieaun and Scede put their arms around her to comfort her and Jahrra took a deep breath.

  “I know what to do,” she said stoically after calming a bit. “I’m going to trick Eydeth, just like he tricks us. I’m going to build a mud trap and see how he likes to get caught!”

  Gieaun was surprised at Jahrra’s sudden thirst for vengeance. “Oh Jahrra, do you think that’ll work? What if he tells on us and we get in trouble?”

  “It has to work,” Jahrra insisted. “And I don’t care if we do get in trouble!”

  During the next week they worked quietly on Jahrra’s plan. They dug a hole behind their granite perch and slowly filled it with water from the school’s well, making a muddy, boggy mess at the bottom of it. Gieaun and Scede even gathered some rotting vegetables from their garden to make the mud even nastier.

  Finally they covered the gaping hole with branches and leaves and simply waited for Eydeth to taunt them again. They didn’t have to wait long. Two days after they finished their trap they got their chance. Eydeth snuck up on them again and started teasing them, but this time the three friends were prepared.

  “That’s right,” Jahrra said, shaking nervously, “we are the Dragon Dung Dweebs, and here’s some dung to prove it!”

  She scooped up a prepared blob of muck off the top of their granite slab and launched it at Eydeth, watching in delighted horror as it splacked against his white uniform shirt. Eydeth looked down at the black muck sticking to his chest in hollow shock. He turned his squinty eyes up at Jahrra, his alarm slowly turning to anger as his face flushed red.

  “You’ll pay for that Nesnan!” he breathed and rushed at the low stone.

  “Quick, down the other side!” Jahrra hissed giving Scede and Gieaun a shove.

  By now the whole class had noticed that something unusual was going on in Jahrra’s corner of the yard. Eydeth wasn’t chanting like he usually did after scaring the Dweebs. Instead, he was shouting and scrambling up the rock. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede slid down the back of their boulder, side-stepping their mud trap and secretly hoping that Eydeth didn’t notice.

  As they clambered up the trunk of the nearest oak tree, Eydeth heaved himself on top of the rock and it wasn’t long before he jumped down the side to follow them. He sprinted to catch up to his prey and as he made the last leap to snatch at Gieaun’s ankle, his own feet went crashing through the thatching that hid the mud-lined hole.

  The angry boy made a strangled screaming sound as he tripped face first into a trough of sticky, smelly mud. Jahrra watched breathlessly from a high branch in the tree as the boy started screaming and crying, his own sister reluctant to help him up out of the trap. Jahrra had to stifle a laugh as Eydeth dragged himself out of the filth, looking like an angry, muddy rat. The class sniggered and laughed at the fuming boy who was carrying on and on about how Jahrra and her friends had thrown mud at him.

  “Honestly Eydeth,” Ellysian said, her arms crossed and her face twisted in disgust, “you fell into the mud, you didn’t have it thrown at you!”

  Ellysian and the rest of the children slowly moved away, hiding their giggles as the filthy boy gaped and bellowed at them.

  Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede were beside themselves with glee. “At least he should leave us alone for a while,” Scede said between giggles.

  “Or he’ll be twice as mean,” Gieaun added nervously.

  “Either way,” Jahrra laughed, “it was worth it!”

  Though the attack on Eydeth hadn’t completely ended the assaults from either of them, it had put a dent in their dominance over Jahrra and her friends. They seldom ever came around the boulder any longer and only harassed Jahrra if she wandered too close to their side of the schoolyard. Whenever their behavior was particularly nasty however, Jahrra simply recalled what it had felt like to throw the ball of mud at Eydeth. That pleasant memory was usually enough to get her through a tough day.

  Jahrra gratefully welcomed the winter break when it finally came, thrilled to have a long vacation away from the tension at school. She was able to enjoy her very first birthday party with her two best friends, and Gieaun and Scede were even allowed to stay the night.

  “I can’t believe she is already seven years old,” Lynhi commented to Hroombra as they watched the three companions chase each other around the orchard pretending to hunt the wild beasts of the forest. “It seems just yesterday she was a baby.”

  “It’s amazing how quickly the time goes by,” Hroombra agreed solemnly. He’d dropped by for the day to wish Jahrra a happy birthday and to tell her a special birthday tale, one about unicorns.

  Like all good things, however, the much appreciated time away from school eventually came to an end. The first several days back at the schoolhouse went well but it wasn’t long before the twins were back into the habit of tormenting Jahrra.

  “Nesnan girl,” Ellysian chirped the second week back, “we hear that you live in a house that’s as small as a dwarf’s basement.”

  They’d dropped the phrase “Dragon Dung Dweebs” and were singling Jahrra out by simply referring to her as the ‘Nesnan’, ignoring Gieaun and Scede completely. Jahrra couldn’t possibly imagine why two seven year olds, who should be more concerned with playing tag and hide-and-go-seek, would put so much effort into tormenting someone else. Her mother and father and Hroombra had always said that all the peoples of Oescienne were equal, but for some reason the twins didn’t think so.

  When the name calling started to wear off they moved on to more cruel tactics. For instance, they still found it shocking that Jahrra was being tutored by a dragon and didn’t hesitate to make their disapproval known, in less than kind terms of course.

  One morning, Jahrra was telling Gieaun and Scede about her lesson with Hroombra the weekend before: “Have you ever heard of semequins!” she breathed excitedly, thinking she was out of earshot of the evil twins. “Master Hroombra told me all about them. They’re the most amazing creatures! He told me that they’re horses that have a unicorn mother or father!”

  “You mean you didn’t know about semequins?”

  To Jahrra’s great annoyance, Eydeth had heard her. “How dumb can you be!” he laughed. “My father owns over a hundred of them, the best in the land!”

  Gieaun and Scede gave Eydeth an annoyed look and swiftly made efforts to ignore him, but it was what he said next that captured their attention. He was irritated that his initial insult missed its target, so he tried a different tactic, “Don’t you dummies know that dragons are evil creatures that steal treasure and set whole towns on fire!”

  Many of the other girls and boys who had at first ignored Eydeth’s usual tirade gasped at this remark and stepped away from Jahrra as if she were sick with the plague. Jahrra tried to remain cool and tried desperately to think of a good retort, but all she could do was hang her head low and walk away with her two friends. She tried so hard to enjoy school but the silence one day and laughter the next truly disheartened her.

  A few weeks later Ellysian made another nasty comment about Nesnans right in front of Jahrra, but this time she reacted. Just as Ellysian finished telling a group of girls how the Nesnan people never did anything worth praising, Jahrra shouted back without thinking, “I don’t care what you say! Master Hroombra told me that we’re all the same!”

  Oh yes, that showed them, Jahrra thought to herself bitterly as the laughter around her strengthened. She flushed terribly as she once again became a spectacle.

  Eydeth had been right across the yard and
quickly joined in the foray. “All the same?” he squeaked with delight, “You? The same as us? That dragon isn’t only horrible, he’s stupid too!” The evil boy could barely hold back his laughter.

  Jahrra just stood there, frozen in frustration and anger as the entire class laughed at her.

  “Stop it!” Gieaun shouted, seething with rage. “Master Hroombra isn’t horrible or stupid! You’re all just too afraid of Eydeth’s lies to believe anything else!”

  The laughter, if at all possible, grew louder. Jahrra felt like vapor being spread thin throughout the air around her. Gieaun quailed in shame. Almost every last person in the class was now surrounding Jahrra and Gieaun, pointing and making faces.

  “Dragon Dung Dweebs! Dragon Dung Dweebs!” they chanted again and again, resurrecting the old phrase once more. Eydeth and Ellysian stood back and watched with malevolent grins of satisfaction on their smug faces.

  Then, without warning, Scede did something no one was expecting. He’d been sitting on the great granite boulder beneath the oak tree when all of this had started. He’d watched helplessly as Jahrra walked over to defend herself and remained seated in fear as his sister joined her. But as the cacophony unfolded before him, his fear slowly turned to rage and he just couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Stop it! All of you stop it right now!” he screamed as he jumped off the stone slab, looking as dangerous as an angry wasp.

  Scede’s sudden outburst caught everyone off guard and the laughing ceased instantly.

  “Master Hroombra is much smarter than any of you, and he’s nicer too! We know you don’t like us or him, and we don’t care. So why don’t you just leave us alone! And you had better watch out,” he pointed a shaking finger at Ellysian, “or you’ll end up getting a mud bath just like your brother!”

  Scede was breathing hard and his teeth and fists were clenched. Even Gieaun and Jahrra backed away, slightly afraid he might explode. Ellysian had turned white and the smile on Eydeth’s face became a hard frown as he recalled the memory of falling into the mud.

  Scede darted his eyes around, trying hard to think of something else to say, but nothing came to mind. Every child in the schoolyard, oldest to youngest, stood still as if waiting for him to strike at them like a snake.

  When he finally spoke again everyone cringed, but the only words he could muster were, “Why don’t you all go wait for your stupid wagons over there!” He pointed furiously towards the front of the schoolhouse and surprisingly, everyone obeyed.

  “Yeah, we will, and you can go wait for your hay cart over there,” Ellysian said, sounding like a deflated balloon as she and her brother turned and headed towards the front of the yard.

  Gieaun, Scede and Jahrra slowly walked back to their oak tree, the two girls keeping their distance. Like the victims of a massive earthquake, they waited for Scede’s aftershocks but they never came. They sat a long time, watching as all of their classmates quietly climbed into their respective carriages or rode off on their own horses they kept in the school stables.

  Finally, after what seemed like ages, the mail cart came creaking up the path. Gieaun, Jahrra and Scede climbed up next to Mr. Dharedth as if under a spell, content with riding all the way home in complete silence. The two girls had no idea what to say to Scede, but finally Dharedth, sensing the strange tension surrounding the three friends, spoke up, “What seems to be the problem? Ever since I started taking you to and from school eight months ago, you always talked up a storm on the way back. Why are you all so silent?”

  Scede was the one to answer, his voice strangely calm, “The other children were saying some mean things about Master Hroombra and Jahrra, so I yelled at them.”

  “Is that all? Well, ‘tis about time those ruffians get told a thing or two. Don’ worry,” Dharedth said seeing the look of dread on the children’s faces, “I won’ tell anyone you did it.”

  He smiled, and the icy silence surrounding the three friends melted away.

  “Did you see the look on Eydeth’s and Ellysian’s faces when you yelled at them? It looked like they’d seen a ghost!” Jahrra said, relieved Scede wasn’t going to erupt again.

  “I know. I was so afraid of you Scede! I’ve never seen you so mad, even after the time I kicked apart the sand castle you made at the beach,” added Gieaun, stifling a giggle.

  By the time they reached the crest of the Sloping Hill an hour later, they were their normal selves again. Dharedth pulled the cart to a groaning stop and the three of them jumped out, waving goodbye as they began walking towards the Castle Guard Ruin. The school week was over and Jahrra had invited Scede and Gieaun to stay over for the weekend. But before they went home for the night, Hroombra had asked Jahrra to stop by after school on her way home.

  They trekked down the narrow dirt path leading from the main road to the Ruin, engrossed in a discussion about what had happened at school that day. Jahrra looked up and saw Hroombra standing beside the crumbled building and her heart leapt. She was hoping that the old dragon had a special story to tell them today, for why else would he ask them to stop by after school? She waved vigorously at her mentor’s figure and got back to her friends’ conversation. What Jahrra hadn’t noticed, however, was the other dragon waiting patiently just inside the Ruin and out of view, his eyes fixed entirely on her.

  - Chapter Six-

  Phrym

  Jaax wasn’t surprised the children hadn’t spotted him; he was standing behind the great wall, his head barely stretching through the large side entrance of the Ruin. His blue-green scales, like chips of aquamarine granite, blended seamlessly with the lichen plastered stone, his eyes standing out like pale emeralds set in a statue. The children were much too far away to notice that particular detail, however, but the young dragon’s silvery-green gaze remained unfalteringly focused on the little girl walking between the two dark haired Resai children.

  Jaax smiled, grateful for his keen eyesight. It gave him a chance to sum up Jahrra from afar, to get a sense of what she was made of before meeting her. He’d heard much praise from Hroombra already, but he had to make this judgment for himself.

  More than seven years had passed since he’d left her in this land and he watched now in amused amazement as she approached. She still had the same golden hair that he remembered but she looked much different from the infant he’d left behind. She was tall for her age and from this distance he could see that she was going to be strong and sturdy, not petit and delicate like the races of elves. Strong and sturdy, just like a human, he thought. He narrowed his intense eyes, pulling the young girl’s face closer into his vision. Her eyes were still blue, but now they were the blue of rainclouds retreating over the ocean after a storm, a blue that was only a shade or two away from gray.

  Jaax took a breath and focused his attention on her face. It was a determined face, slightly rounded with high cheekbones. He noticed a few freckles and a dimple when she made a comical face at what her friends were saying. She pulled at her collar unconsciously and he couldn’t blame her. The uniforms the children were wearing looked absolutely uncomfortable.

  As the companions drew closer to the Ruin, Jahrra shot Hroombra a cheerful look, but beneath the look of happiness Jaax detected something more. Fear, sorrow, anticipation, all of these emotions fought behind her eyes like swarming fish in a clouded pool. He cast these aside as simple childhood whims: a stubbed toe, a lost game, a beloved pet gone missing.

  What captured most of the dragon’s attention, however, was the fire and spirit he saw residing there.

  When the children were about a hundred yards from the Ruin, Jaax decided to leave behind his safe hiding place and face the child he had come to see. He felt a little guilty, for he only planned to meet Jahrra and then be on his way. For the past several years he’d been trying to find time to check in on Jahrra and Hroombra, but something had always delayed or thwarted these plans. Hroombra had been ecstatic when he’d received word of Jaax’s planned visit and the younger dragon now wondered if
maybe he should’ve told Hroombra this stay would be an extremely short one.

  Jaax took a deep breath, set his thoughts aside for later, and stepped out from behind the stone wall. He moved gracefully for such a large and powerful creature and was so silent that the children didn’t hear him at first. To his great delight, however, Jahrra was the first to look up and see what had moved in the corner of her eye. She gasped, and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Jaax merely gazed down at her with a look of interest. Her blue eyes changed in an instant, moving closer to that shade of gray he’d noticed earlier. Jahrra was frozen in place and the two other children walked right into her, knocking her slightly off balance. When they looked up to see why she’d stopped they also caught sight of the Tanaan dragon that had appeared out of nowhere.

  “Whoa!!” yelped Scede, unable to stop himself. He quickly clasped his hands over his mouth and ogled up at the strange dragon towering above him. Gieaun stood rigid, mouth hanging open, looking very much like she did earlier in the schoolyard. The children were used to Hroombra’s calm presence but they could all tell right away that this younger dragon was nothing like Hroombra.

  Although slightly smaller than the Korli dragon, Jaax moved with the fluidity of a warrior, all well-controlled strength and raw power. It was clear that this dragon was a determined, dominant and clever creature with shrewd eyes that did not easily betray what he was thinking. Next to the placid and gentle soul that was Hroombra, Jaax was a lion poised for battle.

  “Hello children,” Hroombra’s greeting rolled through the awkward silence like distant thunder. He turned and acknowledged the dragon behind him, “I’d like you all to meet Raejaaxorix. He was once a student of mine.”

  Jaax kept his gaze locked on Jahrra’s face the entire time Hroombra spoke, making her feel uncomfortable. When she heard her mentor speak his name, however, she miraculously found her voice. “Raejaaxorix?” she repeated almost indecipherably, gaping up at Hroombra. “Like the Raejaaxorix in the stories you told me?”