Laric just stood there. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do, nor was he sure whether there would be any way that he would be able to figure out what it was that Sashaak wanted from him. And he guessed that, more than anything, Sashaak did want something from him because he had a goal in mind. However, for Laric’s part, he had no idea what that was going to look like, nor did he know whether there would be anything that he would be able to do when it came to Sashaak or what he wanted from Laric. But if it was a matter of trying to understand that power and draw from it, could he master some of that potential?
As he stood there, however, something came to him.
It was almost like a series of images flooded into his mind.
He froze, transfixed.
“Laric?” Malcolm said.
He couldn’t move. He was aware of the ground flowing beneath him. He was aware of the mountains sweeping on either side of him. He was aware of places that were charred. And then he was aware of Sashaak using dragon fire. He could feel it.
It was almost as if the connection between them linked them in such a way that he was supposed to feel these things. But it was more than just what he could feel of Sashaak and how he was aware of that power. There was something almost freeing about it.
He licked his lips, and everything within him started going cold and still. Sashaak had said that Laric would have knowledge, but Laric would never have imagined that something like this would even be possible.
How could he have? The idea that he could connect and communicate with the dragon seemed almost too much to believe.
“What is it?” Rowan said, looking at him.
He didn’t know what to say.
“I can feel it,” he replied after a few moments. “I can feel the dragon. I can see what the dragon sees. I can…” He licked his lips again. “I can feel all of it.”
“How?” Rowan said.
It was dizzying, and he struggled to maintain a sense of separation, though he knew he needed to try to figure something out. What was more, there was some distant part of him that recognized that Sashaak was not giving him all of the understanding that he could. Sashaak was granting him only the slightest bit of information. There was more—much more.
“I can see what the dragon sees, and I’m feeling some of what the dragon is feeling.”
Laric was aware of the wind, the humidity, and even the heat of the air. He was aware of smells, though they were subtle. He knew how Sashaak’s wings stretched out to either side, and how he had to float, catching different currents of wind. He was aware of how Sashaak shifted his wings, doing so with slight changes so that he could adjust his position and float much more effectively. He was aware of how the dragon would hold himself, but more than that, of how Sashaak circled.
This was what Sashaak wanted him to see. This was what Sashaak wanted him to know.
“Your connection allows you to feel all of that?” Rowan asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“I guess,” he said.
“How did we ever defeat one?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t. The mages did.”
“But we were using something similar.”
“We brought down a small dragon,” Laric said. And as he said it, he felt a surge of anger flowing. It came from Sashaak, a rage and a reaction to what Laric had just said. He couldn’t help it, as he felt almost as if he wanted to withdraw, and he wanted to apologize, but what was there for him to say, especially as he couldn’t even imagine how he had done what he had done.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sashaak continued flying, but some of the information that Laric had been getting started to fade, if only a little bit. He strained, hoping that he might be able to hold on to that information, and wishing for Sashaak to provide something more, some greater connection, but gradually, the sense of Sashaak, the sense of everything Sashaak had been offering him, disappeared to the point where there was nothing left.
And then Laric felt it fade to emptiness.
He took a deep breath and he looked at the others. “Well, now I’m not sure what to make of all that.”
“What happened?” Malcolm asked.
“It seems the dragon knew what I was saying.”
Malcolm frowned. “How could the dragon have known what you were saying when it was out there, and we were in here?”
“I have a feeling that the dragon is better connected to me—and to the others—than believed,” Laric said. “To be honest, I think that connection will probably be helpful, but I’m going to have to try to find some way of understanding what it is and figure out whether or not I’m going to be able to connect to it. That way I don’t lose some part of the dragon and it doesn’t grow increasingly frustrated with what we have done. I need the dragon to know that what we did was only out of necessity, because we didn’t know who we were working with.”
There was a bit of a flutter inside of him. But more than that, he started to recognize something else. It was almost as if Sashaak were chiding him, warning him that he should have known, and that ignorance was not an excuse. How could ignorance be an excuse when Laric would’ve been able to feel something?
And yet, did he?
He felt some of the energy here, but the real challenge, and one that he didn’t have a good answer for, was that what had taken place was tied to what had happened to him when they had been in the city. But what would he be able to do about that?
Would they be able to do anything?
He thought it was tied to the glyphs, and he thought that the familiarity that he had, the familiarity that Sashaak wanted him to have, was also tied to the glyphs. But Laric didn’t know, and unless Sashaak granted him a way of knowing, he wasn’t sure he would be able to understand anything more about what the dragon was doing, and whether or not there was anything more he could do.
Perhaps his ignorance would be the downfall of them all.
Chapter Two
“We’re going to need to use the dragon to understand what we can do with the glyphs,” Laric said.
The dragon connection still hadn’t returned, though he was growing more optimistic that it would. He kept trying to dredge up memories of what had happened in his town, and the way that the dragons had been used. Not to try to convince Sashaak that he knew something that Sashaak didn’t, but to mingle the two so that Sashaak would understand the reason Laric had done what he had.
