Lohikäärme: The Dragon's Descent (Revised)

Chapter II - Evenfall

Chapter II - Evenfall

Evenfall came.

Father gave us the best rowboat he had, with four good oars. I didn't know many things, but I did know a few. I knew how to row a boat. Father was a fisher, and he had taught me about boats and fishing when I couldn't sleep at night.

"You come back when you're okay, alright?"

"Yes, Mother."

She held my face again and planted a kiss on my forehead. "That's my good girl."

"Remember what your mother and I have taught you, Safia," Father reminded me. "And never forget, we love you."

I nodded, holding an oar with each hand. "I'll do my best to convince them to send me back."

"We'll be waiting for you."

"I'm afraid it's time for us to leave. Child, you will see them again in the future. For now, we should go."

Then we rowed the boat away from home. Because a rower faced the opposite direction of where he was headed, I was able to watch home fade into darkness as we rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed.

"Where are we headed?" I wanted to ask the physicker, but when I turned around and saw his quivering eye, I decided against it. He would take me there, wherever there was. Whether I knew where we were going or not, I couldn't change a thing. So I kept rowing without a word.

"We'll boat to Fisher's Bend," he uttered between wheezes and pants, "then we'll buy a horse and ride up north to the dragonswood. We'd be much safer there than in the villages where people could discover what you truly are. From there, we head to Alasdair Plains, where they're all waiting for you."

I nodded, knowing I had no say in the matter. It was a plan, not an idea nor a suggestion. "Yes, physicker."

"Never tell anyone you're sick."

"Yes."

"And never tell anyone where we're headed." He spoke even slower than usual, his voice even weaker than before. "Telling anyone that you're going to Alasdair Plains is sentencing yourself to death. A single man is enough to turn you over to the village people, and then..."

"How do they...?" Oh, why did I have to blurt out the question in my mind? I chewed my lip. "How do they deliver death?"

He weakly shook his head. "It's best not to know."

It was a long and quiet night.

Before the sun rose, the rowboat bumped into something. The physicker grunted with effort so I figured I should help. When I looked over my shoulder to see what I could do to help move the boat around the rock we may have stumbled upon, I saw the cloaked physicker heave himself off the boat and wind the rope around the rock so the water wouldn't carry the rowboat into the sea. We were finally ashore.

Holding my sacks close to me with one hand, I stepped out of the rowboat and dipped a booted foot in the water to check how deep the water was before I left the boat. It went up to my chest, but the ground was solid enough to support me as I waded to dry land.

The physicker hobbled on and I followed behind him without a word. He gave me instructions about what to do and what not to do, and I nodded no matter what he said. It was nearly sunrise. Where would we be sleeping? I wondered, but thought against asking the physicker. He had never hurt me, but his quivering eye scared me all the same.