“NOW, JUST STAY like that. Rest and don’t move. I’ll try to find more food for you.”
“Very well.”
Sedric looked again at the dragon on her bed of logs and marveled at all of it, at the logs they had moved together, at how he had visualized it and created it, and how he had managed to get her up and out of the water. In the process of finding logs he could move and shifting them toward her, he had discovered several large dead fish floating in the water, and one carcass that might have been a monkey. Touching the soft dead things had been disgusting. Not fresh, she had complained, but she’d eaten them. Then, despite the sting of the water, he’d scrubbed most of the stink from them off his hands.
“We work well together.” She spoke in his ears and in his mind.
“We do,” he agreed, and he tried not to wonder too much if that were a good thing.
It had taken the morning and half the afternoon to achieve this. He’d seen that if he could force several of the larger logs up against the trees, he might be able to secure them there and make a dragon-size raft. He’d begun with one log that was already butted firmly against several thick trees. The eddying current held it there. He’d moved the brush, small branches, and other debris that was packed between it and another log. It had been wet heavy work, and his soaked clothing still chafed against his river-scalded skin. Long before he had finished, his hands were stiff and sore, his back ached, and he felt almost dizzy from the effort. Relpda had been impatient as he worked, mooing her distress and fear. Slowly her anxiety had crept into irritation and anger.
Help me! Slipping. Help. Not do wood. Help ME!
“I’m trying to. I’m building something for you, something you can get onto.”
Anger made her thrash both tail and wings, nearly knocking him into the water. “Help now! Build later!”
“Relpda, I have to build first, then help.”
NO! Her wild trumpeting split the sky, and the force of her thought staggered him.
“Don’t do that,” he warned her. “If I fall in the river and drown, you’ll be alone. No one to help you.”
Fall in, I eat you! Then no build trees. She sent him the thought silently but with no less force.
“Relpda!” For a moment, he was both outraged and terrified that she would threaten him. Then the cold current of fear that underlay her words snaked through his heart. She didn’t understand. She thought he was ignoring her. “Relpda, look: if I can push enough of the big trees together here and make them stay, then—”
Help Relpda NOW!
She pushed him again with her thought, and he almost blacked out. He responded in anger. “Look at what I’m trying to do!” And he shoved back hard against her stubborn little lizard brain, sending her the image of a thick raft of logs and branches, with Relpda curled safely upon it.
She snorted furiously and hit the water with her wings, splashing him. Then, Oh, she exclaimed. Now I see. It all makes sense. I’ll help you.
Her sudden fluency astounded him. “What?”
I’ll help you push the logs into place. And clear the brush that blocks them from fitting snugly together.
She was in his mind, using his vision, his thoughts, his words. He shuddered at the sudden intimacy, and she shivered her hide in response. He tried to pull back from her and couldn’t. On his second effort, she reluctantly parted her thoughts from his.
Relpda help?
“Yes. Relpda help,” he’d replied when he felt he could form words of his own again.
And she had. Despite her weariness and the soreness of her clawed feet, she swam about, pushing debris out of the way and shoving logs where he indicated. When their first effort came to pieces, she’d given one shrill trumpet of protest and despair. And then, when he called her back to their task, she’d come. She’d listened to him as he directed her to sink logs and push them under their row of timbers. When he told her she’d have to tread water while he roped their latest effort with their pitifully short piece of line, she’d done it. And then, cautiously, she’d clambered up onto her uneven bed of logs. And rested. Her body began to warm. He hadn’t realized how much her exhaustion had been affecting him until she suddenly relaxed. He nearly fainted with her relief.
Sleep now.
“Yes. You sleep. It’s what you need most right now.”
He himself needed food. And water. How pathetic to long, not for wine or well-prepared food, but a simple drink of water. And now he was right back to where he had been hours ago, except that most of his daylight was gone. Soon darkness would fall, and he’d be back to huddling under a smelly blanket in a small boat. He glanced at the sky and decided that he had to at least try to find where Jess had found the fruit.
