If you're not into Deverry you might find this story incredibly confusing - and I would advise that you read the actual series to completely understand what I'm going on about. Or what certain words mean.
Set during the final book in the series and will also later involve events that take place after the book has ended!
A stick that broke beneath a foot was what made Ebañy Salamonderiel tran-Devaberiel look up from the rabbit that he was roasting above the fire. Even though he had the dragons close by, the sound made him uneasy; who could it possibly be up here except for some Horsekin renegade?
Therefore he was surprised when a woman carefully stepped out through the bushes close to the old watchtower. She was wearing a long-sleeved, grey shirt embroidered with horses and dark trousers much more tight-fitting than any brigga ever sown. Ebañy slowly rose from his place and the girl took a step back, her eyes wide with fear and her lower lip trembling a bit. From the looks of her she had been out in the wilderness for a while; her light-brown hair was full of leaves and branches and her clothes were torn. A fresh wound could be seen on her left cheek; he noticed a drop of blood falling from it.
"I'm not dangerous", Ebañy said and smiled. "You are welcome to share my meal with me, you look exhausted."
The girl just looked at him and he realized that she did not understand what he was saying. That she did not know the Deverrian tongue. This confused him, but as he felt that he needed to help the girl he pointed at himself.
"Salamander", he said. To this she frowned, before he saw her mouth forming the word as well, but without letting any sound out.
"Amanda", she said after a while and pointed at herself. Salamander smiled and pointed at the rabbit being roasted, then gestured as if he was eating before pointing at the girl once again. To this she nodded and with one hand he beckoned her to come forward. She did and sat down opposite him, her eyes darting from the meat to his face and back again. He carefully removed the animal from its place and cut it in two pieces with his knife, handing one of them to Amanda. Her hands trembled as she grabbed the meat, but she didn't eat it until he himself had taken his first bite. Then she started gnawing with such hunger that he knew that he had been right about her being out in the wild for some time.
Still, he noticed that once she had quenched most of the hunger she ate at a slower pace, obviously knowing that her stomach needed time to get used to food once again. When half of the meat was gone she stopped eating and looked at him. He motioned to her to throw it away and she gave him a quick smile before she did so. Then she studied him while he finished his own portion, her head slightly tilted to one side. When also he threw the rest of his meal away, she pointed at her own ears then towards him and said a word that he did not know. He shook his head at it and she said it slower once before frowning, re-thinking the word she had used before she looked at him again.
"Elf."
He blinked at her in surprise, then nodded. To this she grinned for the first time that evening. Obviously she had noticed that his ears were of a slightly different shape than her own, but how she had connected that with elf he did not know.
"Salamander", she then said and pointed towards the fire between them, where Salamander knew that several of the salamanders dwelled. The fact that she also saw them made his jaw drop. To this she froze slightly, realizing that he might not see what she saw. He quickly smiled.
"Magic", he said and pointed towards himself. She shook her head, showing that she did not understand him. He then waved his hand over the fire, making it disappear, then waved it over the logs again to light it once more. This time it was her jaw that dropped and once she composed herself, she mouthed a single word over and over again, but the motions were too small for him to understand.
Then she pulled up something from a pocket on the back of her trousers. It seemed to be a book, but so different from anything he had ever read himself. The front was in different shades of purple, along with a female, human-like being, a silver dragon and a black raven. When he walked over to her side of the fire she tensed momentarily, before letting him look at her treasure as well.
What he saw on the cover surprised him. The female was not a human at all, but an elf with pale hair and storm-grey eyes.
"Dallandra", he blurted out before he could stop himself. Amanda nodded to this and opened the small book to reveal line after line of perfect letters, but they shaped words and symbols that he did not know how to read. This she didn't seem to care about, however, because she kept flipping the pages until she found one that was empty. She flipped the page back, then forth again, reading whatever the lines said. Salamander wished that he knew her language, or she Deverrian, so that he could ask her to translate what she read.
After a while she pointed at a word on the page.
"Amanda", she said and then pointed at herself. Then Salamander noticed that new words appeared as she did so. He blinked, then looked at the girl.
"Can it translate what I say to you?" he asked in Deverrian and saw in the corner of his eyes how the book wrote out the new words. Amanda nodded in response, then showed him the book, pointed at the text and raised a questioning eyebrow. He shook his head.
"I can't read the letters", he admitted. "They are different than my own."
Amanda grimaced as she read the response as it was typed down by an invisible hand. Then she flipped the pages and pointed at another word.
"Rori?" she said, then raised her hand to point at the dragon's cave above their heads.
"You know about him?" Salamander asked, trying not to sound surprised. Amanda blushed slightly and nodded.
"He's with his family, up there", the elf continued after a while. "His current family, that is…"
"Arzosah, Medea, Mezza, Devar", Amanda filled in with a smile. Salamander nodded and smiled back.
"Here, you must be tired, having been out in the wild for a while", he said. "Take one of my blankets and get some sleep."
She hesitated and gazed up at the cave again. He realized that she wanted to meet the wyrms up there.
"It's alright; I'll wake you if Rori comes here, or any of the others for that matter."
At that she nodded and accepted the blanket he was giving her, wrapped it around herself and then lay down on the ground, her face still turned towards the flames. Salamander studied her from his place and saw how a soft smile started to show, then heard how she mumbled a sentence before she turned around and closed her eyes. He had been able to distinguish a couple of words; Deverry and, surprisingly, his own full name. He shook his head in wonderment, then turned towards the flames to try and get in touch with Dallandra.
After a night of pleasant dreams about the far west, Salamander woke only to find Amanda gone. He considered this for a moment, wondered if this had been yet another dream, before the girl stepped out through the bushes. She smiled shyly and put down some firewood on the ground.
"My thanks", Salamander said and grinned. Then he picked up the left-over rabbit, which he had wrapped in a bundle of cloth the night before, and split it in half, handing one piece to her yet again.
As they ate their cold breakfast the steady drumbeat of dragon-wings was heard overhead and sure enough, there came Rori, the silver wyrm, gliding down to join them. Amanda's eyes widened before she grinned in excitement. Rori considered her for a moment before he walked over to the spring close by to drink.
"Who is your guest?" he asked as he waddled back to them.
"This is Amanda", Salamander answered, noticing that Amanda had once again picked up her book. "She showed up last night… what I do not know is where she is from. She does not understand any language I've used."
Amanda rose from her place and smiled towards the dragon.
"Rhodry", she then said. Both elf and dragon jumped at the name.
"How much have you told her?" Rori asked and swung his head towards the elf.
"Honestly, my scaly brother, I have told her naught. She has all the information about us in that book."
Curiously, Rori then waddled forth. Amanda took an involuntary step back, before she looked down again and flipped the pages so that she was on the last one.
"You may read that to me", the silver dragon said. Salamander frowned and walked over as well as Amanda pointed at something.
"Rhodorix, Blaen, Gweran, Ricyn, Maddyn, Maer, Meddry, Rhodry, Rori", she said and trailed her finger along a line of names. Salamander blinked at them, then looked at the dragon, who looked just as surprised.
"By the Black Sun, she knows all of the names I've carried in past lives", he hissed. Amanda flipped back towards the empty page and read the translation, then nodded.
"How is that possible?" Salamander asked. Amanda made a gesture with her hand, then groaned and closed the book.
"The book", Rori said. "Where she is from, we are but a story, and she is reading it…"
"So she knows everything that has happened to us?" Salamander asked. "Wait, how do you know this?"
"She uses her mind to tell me", Rori said and snorted. "And not to wonder she does not understand you, she's from Alban!"
Salamander's jaw fell down yet again and Amanda covered her mouth to force down a giggle.
"How come she can contact your mind but not mine?" the elf asked and pouted.
"Maybe dragons have an easier time with different minds talking to their own", Rori answered and shrugged. Then he became silent.
"She feels torn between what she can say and what she has to keep away from us", he explained. "She knows a bit more of the story than where we are now and she is especially worried about your trick with the Alshandra illusion."
Salamander raised both of his eyebrows at this and Amanda blushed as she looked away from his gaze.
"Well, good dame, I can assure you that I will be most careful with my stunt", he then said, wondering why he really enjoyed seeing her cheeks turn red. "And in any case it must be done to keep the Horsekin away from Cerr Cawnen."
Amanda shrugged and looked worried, as if she had just received an omen.
"She will stay here and await our return", Rori translated. "Obviously she is fond of the three others, so they can keep her company."
He laughed his rumbling laugh, then helped Salamander settle between two of his thorns. The elf turned momentarily to look back at Amanda, who met his gaze and shook her head. She was worried for his life, he realized.
"Don't worry", he said. "We will both be back."
Then Rori took flight. The thunderous sound of wings behind them told Salamander that the three younger ones had flown down to greet the newcomer, but he did not look back; he needed to focus on the task at hand.
The three younger dragons, especially the golden Mezza, quickly got to like Amanda a lot. Thanks to that they could speak through their minds she could tell them stories about other dragons, not such that she had met but that she had read about. Mezza kept close by the whole time, resting her massive head next to Amanda while her brother and sister took the places in front of her. While Medea went out hunting, Devar flew up to the cave to get some rest, leaving the two friends alone for a couple of hours.
"Do you think that Riders really exist?" Mezza asked in her mind. Amanda shrugged.
"I'm not sure that the Riders like those in that book do exist, but people that ride dragons, definitely yes. Rori is the proof of that."
"But there are no dragons where you are from?" Mezza continued.
"Nope", Amanda answered and sighed. "Only in stories and fairytales. There might be dragons flying past when they cross the worlds, but none live in mine."
"Then can't you stay here? You obviously belong here, having dweomer and loving dragons and all of that."
Amanda smiled a gentle smile and placed a hand on Mezza's golden head.
"I have my family to get back to, you know", she said. "They'll wonder where I've gone if I do not return. But I wish that I could stay…"
She sighed again and wrapped both of her arms around her knees.
"Life here in Deverry is so much more exciting than my own life in Alban. I mean, yes there's a lot of danger here, but what life do you live if you do not face danger from time to time? The only danger I'm facing is getting bad grades and no job. Not exactly much compared to this."
"But you'll stay for a while, won't you?" Mezza questioned. Amanda nodded and managed to smile yet again.
"For as long as I can stay, I will."
They shared a hearty afternoon-meal, the four of them, after Medea had returned with a fat deer. Then the story-telling continued until the night fell and Medea announced that they'd better get some sleep. She and Devar flew up to the cave yet again, while Mezza stayed with Amanda, curled up around her even to keep her warm.
"You're a great friend, Mezza", Amanda thought to her and smiled. "Absolutely amazing."
Please comment what you think!