Chapter 15: Headland Reunion

After four days at Llandorn Castle both Korwyn and Zyndyr felt rested enough from their wounds and ordeals to consider their planned visit to see his mother in Baldyah before launching onto their quest for the safe passage for Zyndyr to surrender her immortality before the birth of their child.

Zyndyr had explained to Korwyn that they both needed to visit her home world and the Realm of Gomdolphriad to meet with the Elf-Queen, with whom Zyndyr would undergo a ceremony that would allow her to become mortal but to stave off the possible effect of ageing for all of the 6000 years she had already lived. It was a process which involved some technique learning from her side and spells, lotions and treatments from the more knowledgeable minds in the Elf-Queendom of Gomdolphriad.

“So, you have recently been communicating in some way with your Queen, Zyn?” Korwyn asked.

“Aye, I do have an ear horn and matching mouth tube built into the helm of my Living Armour. My Queen recently started speaking to me for the first time in four years. Yes, for about a month now and I have told her about us and our baby; she is aware we have not yet made love three times but that we are close to that milestone.”

“How does she feel about us, you and me and our child?”

“She cursed me out at first, such marriages are rare and I know not of any Elves that wanted to willingly surrender their immortality, but in later conversations she hasn’t objected but I cannot contact her, she calls me when she wants to speak. Once upon a time I could freely use these aural and vocal portals to keep in contact with my father before he died, poisoned by our former world, then my brother, the very same Elf-King Evenmoz who was your ancestor, keeping me informed of my duties as Elf-warrior. But, after Hawkshart, where all my brothers and male cousins were killed by the fiery attack of the Black Dragon, I swore that I would have my revenge on the dragons, every single dragon.

“My sister Dhymonia was born five minutes before me and she was rightly crowned Queen after my brother perished. Like you, she had no thought or wish to be Queen. It was her decision to move all our people back to our original world Gomdolphriad. My brother had long been advised that our old world was safe to return to, the poisons in the atmosphere had been absorbed and rendered into harmless elements in the 5000 years that we had given the world time to recover. Most of the Sorcerers and Witches had already returned years before and urged our return, hoping that once the Elves were restored to that world that the other higher beings would shake off their reluctance to leave here and also return. My brother King Evenmoz was reluctant to leave this, your world, Wyn, the land of his first love, the Princess and later Elf-Queen Dhamatrya. Queen Dhymonia had no such ties, we were both born on Gomdolphriad and she doesn’t have the same emotional ties to this place that I now have thanks to your love. While Dhymonia prepared our people to return to our home world, I stayed and sought revenge on the dragons and I ignored my Queen’s orders not to and I was excommunicated and therefore my communication with my family ceased until recently.”

“Cut off from your family,” Korwyn said, remembering that his revenge in seeking out the Black Dragon had cut him off from his family. “We make a fine pair, Zyn, we both have many broken links to reforge in order to put our families back together again.”

They informed the other Co-Queen and Co-King of their need to move on and complete the path that the couple had already set out along, meeting them and their other close friends for hot chocolate the night before they were due to leave in the morning. They would start their journey with a visit to Korwyn’s mother, who he had not seen for almost ten years. Prince Bydon was no longer residing with them but in another suite with his mother and great-grandmother and was already asleep in bed.

Co-Queen Pleasmona received the news with sadness that they were leaving so soon but delighted that Korwyn was visiting home for a few days before porting to Gomdolphriad. “I would love to visit with your dear mother, Korry, I have not seen her since Hawkshart as she was unable to attend either the memorial parade held in honour of the fallen in battle or the Coronation, as she was completely devoted to your recovery during both those events. Nor can I stay there for more than a day, but I would love to see the Lady Gabriella again and introduce her as their only surviving great aunt to my children.”

“And I too, would like to meet your mother,” Co-King Fydryk said. “Apparently, my brother Hadryn and I were very close. Our mother died when we were quite young and merely the mention of the name Hadryn sparks in me a feeling of well-being, of peace. I hope that meeting your mother may spark those memories that the healing webs are still shielding from me.”

“I would like to take this opportunity of your visit to your mother, Korwyn,” High Queen Myr said, “We would love to meet with the mother of our hero. Would you mind if we accompany you? I’m sure my grandmother would like to speak to Head Gardener Dhigham, if only to find out what progress he had made in your manor for the last five months or so. Wouldn’t you, Grandmother, dear?”

Korwyn may not have noticed, but Zyndyr certainly picked up the pink hue of the Queen Grandmother Urmah’s cheeks at the mention of the old gardener’s name.

“Aye, child, you are correct,” The High Queen’s Grandmother recovered her dignity and replied, “I do confess I have missed my team of gardeners, I think the sweet peas and roses have suffered this season in consequence of their absence.” Turning to Korwyn, she continued, “I am sure they have made a significance difference to the standing of agriculture in your Manor.”

“I’m sure they have, your majesties,” Korwyn replied with a smile, “I will always be grateful that you sent Colonel Dhigham and his troop to my manor. I was asking the General in charge of the cavalry yesterday and he told me he had sent a company of Hussars to Baldyah many weeks ago, as ordered by Goadrik, but they never returned. Two messengers were sent after them a week and two weeks later, who were also lost, so yesterday he sent a third messenger simply to carry the news that the world was no longer at war and that any prisoners from recent conflicts should be released and returned. The messenger returned late yesterday evening with the message that the injured would be released today but the other prisoners were needed for another week to get the peas picked, carrots and onions pulled and set out to cure in preparation for storage. Head Gardener Dhigham was adamant.”

They all laughed at that.

Early the next morning, Red landed at Llandorn Castle with between a dozen and half a dozen excited dragons of various hues. They had spent a couple of days and nights at what everyone was now calling Dragon Mount Korwyn, the new home for the dragons where most agreed to settle.

In the few days since hatching, with plenty of good food supplied by both the Dwarf spell that Urmah had given him and the generosity of the local townspeople who put out food for the baby dragons, they had grown enormous. The warehouse where the food had been stored in Dharibia had been continually replenished by the grateful Dwarves, so the food spell still worked and food for the Dwarves, Goblins and Dragons was still being supplied in this manner to prevent stressing the food supplies that were local to the Castle and the Dragon Mount.

Already, the Goblin Regiments, who were only a week or so’s determined march from their home barracks, were packing up their gear at dawn and readying themselves to move out. The City were aware that this part of Korwyn’s now disbanded army were moving out and even this early in the day the city folk were lining the main thoroughfares in party mood to cheer them on their way.

The Goblins were so used to seeing the many Dragons fly back and forth that their appearance flying in provoked little interest among the busy military Goblins. But they did take interest when several Giant Eagles also appeared in the skies above.

Queen Grandmother Urmah and High Queen Myr had flown all the way from Dharibia by Giant Eagles, admitting in a whisper to Zyndyr that they were “softer in the seating than the dragons,” so she summoned the Giant Eagles, which Korwyn noted appeared apparently as easy for Witches as they appear to do for Elf-warriors.

Prince Bydon, an accomplished dragon-rider, now had his own dragon, a sweet-natured blue female dragon who he called Chirot, which was a Dwarfish word for bright blue. Red had explained that Spirit had told him that the natural lifespan of dragons was about 200 to 300 years and that Chirot was proud to be chosen as the Crown Prince’s dragon, that she would have a home in Dharibia and have an occupation which would give her purpose and still have enough freedom to visit her brothers and sisters in the mountains of Mankind and have a particular affinity with the dragons in this team that intended to move to live on the Mountain of Baldyah.

“Although we are land-dragons, Korwyn,” Red had spoken in Korwyn’s head, “we are looking forward to learn how to dive and add fish to our diet on your Manor.”

“Our Manor, son,” Korwyn smiled to himself as he replied in his head, “your are family.”

“I am,” Red’s voice boomed in in pride and joy in Korwyn’s head, “Father, we are ready to go.”

Korwyn looked around. Zyndyr was mounted on a Giant Eagle, as were the Dwarf Royals. Co-Queen Pleasmona sat aboard a Yellow Dragon, sitting in a new saddle with Prince Fantym in her chest held by a sling around her shoulders. They were only flying to Baldyah for the day, so they had no need for supplies. Red was carrying Princess Glendora, because she cried when she was offered another dragon; Red was her first love, but while Red was away inspecting the new Dragon home in the Mountains, a playful tiny Orange Dragon had been introduced into the royal household and was flying with them carrying gifts for the Lady Galadriella and hoping that being around the Princess may persuade her to switch her affections. The ramrod-straight Co-King Fyrdrik sat saddleless on a Green Dragon, but he did smile and nod his preparedness to fly as Korwyn’s eyes alighted on him.

Three other dragons were loaded with weapons and supplies that Korwyn and Zyndyr expected to need when they used a portal that Zyndyr assurred him were in one of the stone cairns on the largest mountain in the range on the coast of Baldyah. Korwyn remembered the four cairns there, having played around them in his youth without ever imagining one of them could be used to visit another world, one apparently so different from his home world.

Gently using his knees on her neck, Korwyn urged his mount, a female Black Dragon, to lift off into the air. Looking around, he noted that the others had also lifted off, to the cheers of courtiers and guards at the castle. Korwyn unconsciously counted the three Giant Eagles and seven dragons to ensure that none were left behind. When Red had told him that one of several volunteer Dragons wishing to live on Baldyah with him was a black female, helping to form a little colony of dragons, and also being aware that the young Princess wanted to make the most of monopolising Red as a mount, Korwyn insisted on riding the one who preferred to be called ‘Dark’ rather than ‘Black’. She was fully aware of Korwyn’s history with the Black Dragon that killed his father and many of the young men in the land where she wanted to call home, and was sure that in her eagerness to please her new Lord, that he would learn to grow fond of her in her own right.

Beneath his knees, he could feel the excitement trembling through Dark as she soared above the Castle.

Red laughed in his head, “She’s so full of pride at carrying you, Father, she’s almost fit to burst!”

“I know,” Korwyn laughed back, “I can feel it. How can anyone not love such a creature that is so powerful that she could crush me or burn me to a cinder in seconds, yet be filled with such joy to be carrying not only me home but going to what will be her own home. I can imagine her gathering sticks and twigs and soft downy gull feathers for her very own nest.”

“Aye, Father, she is eager to please and she is already proved good at nest-building.”

“Really? You’re nest-building with Dark already? Be careful, I’m sure I’ve read somewhere, or your mother may have mentioned something, that dragons mate for life.”

“Father, it is too early to speak of such things, we are still babies! Spirit tells me that dragons do not mate until they are between 25 and 50 years old, we do not go into season until 25 to 30 and the female can lay up to five or six eggs maybe once or twice a year, in early spring. The eggs are laid one or two days apart and can be left still viable, as you know for thousands of years.”

“Yes, it is amazing how all those eggs hatched in minutes and you were fully formed. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed your birth. It was a miracle, a frightening one, when I kicked out all those embers, afraid I’d be buried in dragon welps.”

“Ha! Don’t you know that Dragon eggs can be abandoned immediately after being laid? Within the egg the embryo forms to almost completion over a period of a couple of months, until the heat of summer triggers the exposed egg to hatch. If the dragon’s nest is hidden, in say a mountain cave, then the embryo goes into a hibernation stage until the parents return and use breathing fire to hatch the egg. Spirit doesn’t know why, but he believes Man and Dragon are somehow linked in a symbiotic relationship. It is why you and I formed a parent-child relationship rather than than of master and pet. All those Dragon eggs in that vast nest were laid by many dragons, perhaps every female dragon laid at least one there, to protect the diversity of the species, as if the wiping out of all living dragons by my Mother was foreseen, as was your spell of heat to melt the floor of the dungeon. Father, Spirit cannot get into the minds of any Dragon in the Otherworld, and he can reach you and me, only because Queen Grandmother Urmah made it possible.”

“Of course!” Korwyn realised, “Urmah is the keyholder of my destiny! Over the last few months I have come to realise that even if I’ve never voiced it before. There have been too many old women who have crossed by path and influenced me. Ever since Hawkshart, I have been helped by various old crones who have approached me in taverns and inns, warning me of ambushes and traps. It was an injured old lady who I found laying on the road, who sent me to Dharibia. She had collapsed because, she said, her walking stick broke. I helped her to the roadside, cut her a fresh walking stick, lit a fire to warm her, brewed her some tea and shared bread with her; it was she that told me that the King of the Seven Kingdoms was offering a reward of gold for rescuing his daughter from the Orcs of Blearn Mountain. Another old lady from the crowd in Dharibia pressed me to take the Dwarf sword that wounded the Black Dragon and Prince Bydon used to kill King Klandrak and render Goadrik helpless. I would bet my next hundred home-cooked breakfasts that Urmah had a hand in banishing Zyndyr from the Elf-Queendom into King Klandrak’s service, and I’ve just remembered that the time-portal hidden in that dwarf sword deliberately sent the Black Dragon back in time just before Hawkshart.”

Korwyn stopped his mind communicating, his attention diverted.

“Are you all right, Father?”

“Aye. It is a shock when you realise that the choices I’ve made, my supposed independence of thought and action, my determined revenge, even the love of my wife, my coming child, you, are not of my own making but the results of the whim of a Witch wanting revenge on her wicked father who kidnapped and raped her grandchild. I’m as a much a slave as the then Princess Myr and Prince Fydryk were.”

“No, Father, you were never a slave, you are the bravest and truest knight ever,” Red protested in Korwyn’s head, “I have seen your every thought and feeling, you trust me enough to open your mind to me, to the Spirit too. He is here, listening to us and reassuring me that what Urmah has done to manipulate us was probably the only way out of the evil that the Black Dragon had set in train. Spirit is Urmah’s grandfather and he approves of everything she has done and is aware that she no longer interferes in your life. Urmah is restored to her titles, her granddaughter is free to make her own choices and she has chosen to serve her people, and the Dwarf Kingdoms will have a High King one day who has been influenced with all Urmah’s witch power and also with all your sense of what is justice and right. You will be Bydon’s model for the perfect kingship, Father, as your influence will affect how the new Dragons will interact in future with mankind. You are no slave, Father, it is you that played full part in thwarting the Black Dragon’s plans and your actions will affect the history of this world for many centuries to come.”

“I will still find a quiet moment to speak with Urmah, when the opportunity arises.”

“Aye!” Red laughed, “Spirit knows that Urmah seeks the same quiet moment too. You know, she loves you like the grandmother you lost too soon and she knows how desperately you seek peace for you and your new family on your home manor. Spirit assures me that she will give you some tools to help you when you travel to new worlds, as travel you surely must. Mother is relying on you to help her transition to mortality and I would like to help. Can you take me with you on your journey, Father?”

“I will ask, but the portal to the Elf-Queendom is in your Mother’s control alone.”

“Then I will ask her through you, Father, for I know how persuasive you are, she is like potter’s clay in your hands.”

“Ha! I think you have that completely the wrong way around, Son, I’m the malleableclay in our relationship. Hey, look ahead, I can see your new home the Mount of Baldyah on the horizon. We’re almost home!”

Deidre woke up alone in the strange bed feeling wonderfully warm and relaxed and it only took her a moment or two to remember exactly where she was.

She had taken a spur of the moment risk, getting her married sister to look after her son for a few days and booked her flight without even considering where she’d stay if Clive rejected her. She had wanted to wait until Clive’s marriage was completely dissolved but recent conversations with Clive had confirmed that the couple had stopped short at legal separation until his job was secured and he would then look for a permanent base in the States and then cut the ties completely. Deidre knew that the impression Clive had already made on his bosses and colleagues at Acme were such that his job was assured. And Clive had made such an impression on her that she felt that she needed to stake a claim before Clive rooted himself too firmly in his new surroundings. It was a risk she felt that was worth taking; if it failed she would drop out of the shared meetings and someone else from her firm could occupy her space. That it had worked out perfectly made her smile with pleasure, but then, where was Clive?

She could faintly hear Clive in the kitchen, which was comforting, but it was noticing the smell of bacon which shook her out of her ennui. Getting up she could see Clive’s white collared shirt that she had so eagerly and quite violently stripped from his torso last night and tossed to the floor. She decided to put it on. With both arms in the long sleeves she noted that she needed to roll up a couple of turns to free her wrists, she pulled the button ends together, enveloped the shirt right around her by hand and pulled the closure up and just over her nose. Deidre breathed in Clive’s smell, a mixture of his cologne, his aftershave, his deodorant and his natural musk, which brought a deeper loving smile to her face. She even managed to find a couple of the shirt buttons intact, of which she did up one of them only, the rest had pinged off last night, probably to all four corners of the bedroom.

“I’ll take this shirt for my own,” she said quietly to herself as she walked with the confidence of a well-loved woman out of the bedroom, “who needs buttons when there’s just the two of us here today?”

“What was that, Dee?” Clive looked up from the frying pan where he was swizzing round some button mushrooms, as she approached.

“Just claiming your shirt for my own, dear,” she smiled as she neared his outstretched arms, putting both her arms around his neck as they kissed. He pulled her into him with one arm around her waist and the other hand behind behind her head, the kiss deepening in passion until she broke it off.

“You can claim anything of mine, Dee, it’s yours.” Clive grinned with the light of overwhelming pleasure dancing in his eyes.

“Sorry for kissing you with my morning breath mouth, hon,” Deidre grimaced. “You taste beautifully sweet and minty. Honey, I must go and clean my teeth.”

“Never apologise for a searing morning kiss, sweetheart. You can kiss me anytime, I certainly want to kiss you all the time. But, if you insist on oral hygiene, there’s a couple of new toothbrush heads for the electric toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet, just choose a different colour tag to my blue one. But, hurry, Dee, breakfast won’t be long,” Clive said, “Oh, how do you want your eggs, poached or fried?”

“Whatever’s easiest,” she turned her head and smiled.

“Well, I’m poaching, the healthier option, the kids always prefer them that way, actually they never have been given a choice.”

“Breakfast smells delish, what else do you have?”

“Grilled bacon and tomato, mushrooms fried in butter, a tin of baked beans that I brought from home because last time I was here on holiday I discovered hated American baked beans, and toast, with butter, jam and marmalade. I even packed us some marmite.”

“You think of everything, I love marmite on toast, especially if I’m in a hurry during the working week and only have time for toast. I won’t be long, I’m already comfortably dressed as you can see,” she giggled and ran to the bathroom, with Clive’s smiling eyes on her all the way until she was out of sight.

“So,” Deidre later asked coyly over breakfast, with emphasis, “What are OUR plans for today?”

“Well, I was hoping for a lazy day relaxing at home, but...”

“Oh me too, I do more than enough rushing around during the working week.”

Clive, in a tee-shirt and shorts, “Yes, sightseeing’s overrated and you lived here once and probably seen everything. We’ve even got warmed up pizza in hand that we can have for lunch.”

“Perfect.”

“Staying in, we don’t even need to get dressed.”