The Steele Wolf (The Iron Butterfly) (17 page)

When we were on the road again, the trees soon became larger, greener and the valleys turned into mountains. The scenery was slowly changing before my eyes; the roads became steeper, rockier and harder to find.

We stopped at midday to feed ourselves and water the horses. Kael came over to me and handed me lunch. I looked at it despairingly, but Kael’s stern gaze left no room for argument.

“Do you happen to have that magic leaf again?” I sounded pathetic and I knew it. Kael pulled out the leaf out of his pocket and I followed the same routine as breakfast. He made sure I ate every bite and then he brought me a second plate.

When we stopped for the night and dinnertime came it was again the same routine. Joss and Hemi noticed the change in routine as Kael made sure to bring me dinner and once again babysat me while I ate it. My stomach was growling and for once I was actually hungry for dinner. I asked for the stupid leaf anyway just so I wouldn’t embarrass myself and get sick. Kael just laughed at me as I held out my hand for the leaf as soon as he brought me my plate. I saw Hemi give a nod of approval to Kael when he thought I wasn’t looking. I would have tried to think of a good comeback for Hemi if I wasn’t too busy shoving my mouth full of food.

Tomorrow we would reach Skyfell and I slept soundly that night. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had a full stomach or because a certain SwordBrother slept closer to my bedroll than normal.

Chapter 18

Joss was a wreck. We were almost to Skyfell and he couldn’t sit still on Arrow, his horse. I couldn’t blame him. It had been months since he had seen his family and there would be one less person to greet him on his arrival, the reason for this trip, Tenya. It would be a joyous reunion cloaked in sadness.

I heard rushing water and the sound of a waterfall getting closer and I felt my heart beat faster at the reminder of almost going over Kirakura Falls.
 
When we traveled closer I realized I didn’t hear one waterfall; I heard the thunder of numerous waterfalls. And the air was filled with mist that clung to every strand of my hair, branch and leaf. Birds of various colors flew from treetop to treetop singing a symphony of songs.

We finally came to a stop along a cliff that looked out into nothingness, just mists upon mists. I could see that the cliff stretched miles in the shape of a half-moon and that all around the various rivers spilled over the cliffs to create a meeting place of some of the most majestic waterfalls I’ve ever seen. The mists created a continuous cloud right in the middle of the crest.

“Well, here we are.” Joss said proudly, holding his hand out to the sky. “Isn’t it great?”

I was confused; all I saw was cloudy mists unless the Skyfell clan resided at the bottom of the cliffs. I leaned over and looked down the cliff to try and see the bottom below but all I did was drench my face with more drops of water. Hemi looked equally perplexed and looked around in wonder. Kael stood frozen, eyes darting back and forth looking for danger.

“Joss, where? I don’t see anything.” I looked up in the giant trees looking for any sign of life.

“Out there!” He pointed again, this time into the mists. I followed his finger and looked harder. I caught a hint of green and then it was hidden by the mists.

“There’s something out there,” I pointed excitedly. “I saw it.”

“It’s Skyfell, I told you.” Joss grinned at me, grabbing my hands in excitement. He released my hands to pull a whistle from his pack. Playing a fast trill of notes, he waited and then a call of a bird answered. A beautiful white majestic bird flew from the trees and came to land on Joss’ outstretched arm. The bird was at least two feet tall, with a rainbow of tail and a crown of feathers floated above his head. On the bird’s claw was a small tube in which Joss inserted a small note. Joss threw the majestic beast into the air and I watched as he flew straight into the mists. It wasn’t long before I heard a loud zipping noise and out of the mists flew what looked to be giant birdcage with people inside. Down out of the mists they flew at incredible speeds and only slowed when the line it was connected to evened out.

The square cage slowed and came to a halt a few feet from where Joss stood. The solid lines for the cage were hidden in the trees that led out and up into the mists. Two men disembarked the cage and came to greet us. One was the familiar form of Darren Hamden.
 
He was dressed impeccably in colorful clothing, his smile spread from ear to ear along with his gold hoop earring and blue bead he always wore. Darren was the epitome of the rover lifestyle, loving one woman, Melani, but spending his days traveling and looking for adventure. He was also Joss’ godfather. The other one with Darren was a young lad about fourteen who was called Geff.
 
He helped Joss unload his packs from his horse and then came over to get mine off of Faraway.

“Wait a minute, what are you doing?” I stopped him from grabbing Faraway’s reins. I startled the boy and he looked scared.

“I’m taking the horses, miss. They are too heavy for the skycage.” He nervously ran his hands down his pants and looked apologetically at me. “There are no horses where you are going; they don’t take well to the heights.”

“Relax, Thalia,” Darren came over and threw his arm over my shoulder. “Geff is taking them down the hill to the bottom of the cliffs to Skydown; all of the horses are stabled down there. Skydown’s a smaller village of people that live on the ground; not everyone is suited for life in the sky,” he chuckled at me.

I reluctantly looked at Faraway and then looked at the cage that looked barely big enough to hold four people. Darren was right; there was no way for him to travel where I was going. I pressed my hands along Faraway’s flanks and ran my fingers across his back. I felt if we were going to be parted I wanted to let him know I was going to miss him.

He already knows
. Faraway’s soft nicker reached me.
The boy’s right, I would not like to ride that box into the sky.
 
I will be fine.

Taking a deep breath, I took off Faraway’s pack and let the boy lead my horse and tie his reins around Joss’ saddle horn. The boy made a caravan of all four horses and grabbed Arrow’s reigns and began the long trek down a small hidden path in the side of the cliff.

“Come on, come on,” Darren called. “We must get going.” Hemi, Kael and I followed Darren into the cage and watched in fascination as he closed and locked the latch. There was barely enough room for the four of us to stand there comfortably.

“Joss, are you coming?” I called out to him nervously when I noticed he didn’t enter the cage. Joss was over by a very large tree and was unwinding a rope that was carefully hidden within the branches.

“Yeah, I’ll be right behind you. The dorabills can only pull at max four people, I’ll follow behind with a skite.”

I was at a loss as to what he was talking about. I had no clue what a Dorabill or a skite was but I wasn’t left to ponder long when Darren pulled out another flute similar to Joss and played a short melody. Whereas Joss’ tune brought a beautiful white bird called a Perot, Darren’s song brought on a fearsome creature of giant proportions.

I heard the terrifying scream before I saw the large birdlike creature dive out of the mists, his wings tucked close to his body in what looked to be a suicide dive. At the last moment he spread his wings and stopped, hovering above our cage. I backed away from the bird in fright until my back hit the back of the cage. I was so scared I actually latched onto Kael’s arm. Kael had pulled out his knife and was crouched, ready to attack the beast if necessary. Hemi just stared in wonder, never moving a muscle.

The bird, if you could call it a bird, was a deep red with blue plumes and a long powerful beak. The talons alone marked him for the predator he was, along with his close set eyes.

Darren laughed at us and reached into a bucket that was behind him on the floor and pulled out what looked to be a rabbit carcass. Darren tossed the carcass out the side of the cage high into the air and the bird dove after it and ate it in two bites. Screeching in what I could only presume was happiness, the dorabill flew back up to the top of the cage and grabbed onto a long extended railing with his talons. The bird flapped his giant wings and began to pull us back up the line.

The jostling of the cage to the beat of the wings made me sit down in the corner and grasp onto the sides. The up and down motion was making me dizzy and one look at Kael’s strong face turning pale made me realize that I wasn’t the only one with a fear of heights and falling. Darren grinned at me and told me to look over the edge.

“Are you CRAZY! I’m not doing that,” I yelled at him over the beat of the dorabill’s wings and the rush of the waterfalls.

Darren just laughed and pointed. “If you think this is bad, you could have taken the skite.”

I stood up enough to look over my shoulder at what I presumed was a skite and I about fainted. Joss was flying next to us on a crazy contraption built with poles and tarps. He was using the updrafts created by the waterfalls to fly what looked to be a toy that could fall apart any minute into the mists.

“Joss, don’t!” I yelled as he waved and then caught an updraft and disappeared into the mists. That was it. I thought, he’s going to kill himself. My heart raced with fear and I forgot all about my fear of heights as my fear for Joss’ life took precedence. But I didn’t have to wait long to find out what happened to him because the next moment we entered the densest part of the mist.

I thought we would be assailed with water that would surely bring down the dorabill and send all of us crashing to our dooms. In reality, we parted through a silvering veil and the mist vanished. We came face to face with the most awe-inspiring view I had ever seen in my life; more beautiful than the city of Haven and the Citadel itself. I was looking upon a floating city suspended in midair. There were brightly colored houses, towers, windmills, and flags flew freely in the air. I could see that along the bottom of the floating city were various plants, crops and flowers growing in the crevices and people were dangling above the mists, harvesting the plants using a variety of ropes and pulley systems.

A few waved at us as the dorabill flew higher and brought us level to the city. The line the cage was attached to led to a tall watchtower and the bird flew straight to the tower and gently deposited us on the ground. Another man in the tower came out and gave the dorabill another dead animal for a treat. I grimaced as I heard the crunch of the bones. I could see the beautiful perot sitting on a perch by the watchtower. I much preferred the smaller, less intimidating perot to the powerful dorabill. When Darren opened the cage, I rushed out and firmly planted my feet on the solid ground, and Kael was right behind me.

Joss had already landed his skite and was hanging it up in the tower. He came over to me, his hands open wide, his face a triumphant grin of achievement. He was expecting me to congratulate him or admire his flying abilities. I did the opposite. I punched him.

“What were you thinking; you? You could have been killed!” I screeched in a very high-pitched voice. I wasn’t expecting it myself and I startled the dorabill, who shrieked in answer to my yelling. I jumped backwards in response.

Joss pulled his hands up to defend himself against my onslaught, which had ceased as soon as the dorabill startled me. “Thalia, don’t be mad; I’ve been flying a skite since I was eight. You will find that many people of Skyfell prefer it as a mode of transportation instead of the skycage and the dorabill.” At the mention of his name the giant bird squawked again and cocked his head to the side as if looking for another dead animal treat. I just gave the bird an ugly glare.

“You should have warned me about that.” I pointed at the giant red bird who was now also giving me a funny look back.

Joss laughed again. “And miss seeing the scared look on your face, not a chance.” When he settled down he gave me a sad look and motioned for us to follow him. “Come on, it’s time to meet my family.”

Kael, Hemi and I followed Joss through the floating city. Darren had disappeared among the mass of brightly dressed people. Hemi surprised me with his continuous slew of questions regarding the city and Denai. I had forgotten that this was his first experience in a Denai city other than his one trip to Citadel.

“How does it stay up in the sky?” he asked as he looked over the stone fence that surrounded the city.

“It’s what’s under the city. It is a certain mineral that the earliest Denai, or as we call them the great ones, stumbled on hundreds of years ago.
 
They experimented with it and came across a huge deposit here at the bottom of the waterfalls. Using their gifts, they were able to pull the rock out of the ground and set it to floating in the air. I’m not sure exactly what the mineral is, but I can tell you that there isn’t another deposit this big anywhere in Calandry.” Joss was bursting with tidbits of information and continued to fill us in.

“The first Denai were strong enough to send whole objects and people from place to place instantaneously. So it wasn’t anything for them to make a giant rock float in the air. Today there isn’t a single Denai alive in Skyfell that is powerful enough to do what the first ones did. We’ve adapted our lifestyle since then and many of us can only mimic what the old ones used to do. But we have since added and control the misty veil that hides our home from outsiders.”

Joss words weighed upon my heart. He had saved me by grabbing me as I went over the waterfall and sending me back to the top using his Denai power.
 
But the effort left him drained and sick.
 
It was too much for even a descendent of the great ones. That has been a problem throughout every clan in Calandry. The Denai were slowly becoming extinct. There were fewer and fewer people born each year with the Denai gifts.