Beva sat on a small hill looking over the valley, Eldola resting peacefully next to her. It should have been such an ordinary, picturesque scene of a young girl sitting next to her favourite animal friend, a puppy perhaps, or a furry welton kitten, but the animal friend in question was so big, and the young girl was much smaller than just one of his front legs. Yet, here they sat looking over the valley while the girl chatted constantly and drew her village plan on a piece of wood with a burnt stick.
“Your house will be easy. Yona says we must build it exactly where your old one was, but she says it will have to be much, much, much, much bigger. You were very little when you were here. Mr Beak has measured it and says it is only ten paces long. That is only big enough for your tail now!” She had marked a square on her plan with a nose sticking out one end and a long tail the other. Callistons didn’t have very long tails, not like dragons, but the girl was nothing if not imaginative. Eldola just rumbled happily.
In the last week, the twenty villagers, Eldola among their number, had cleared a camping ground along the sparkling stream that ran through the small valley and then headed north-east across the Eastern Plains to join the great River Al-ne-Kelaine. No one knew whether this clean, fresh, tributary had a name, so they had named it themselves in the manner of the desert peoples; Fe-hen-Kelaine, child of the Kelaine hills. Beak and Daintine had made a very quick survey of the area and sketched out a rough map. The Kelaine hills were a long ridge that ran along the western border of the Eastern Plains for some one hundred leagues, Beak reckoned from memory, divided nearly halfway down by a group of lower, gentle hills. Their valley was within this region and though not especially secluded or hidden, they had found no roads other than the main route where they had crossed the Al-ne-Kelaine. They had seen a few small, plains deer, some smart, wild goats, which they had yet to catch, and a fierce, angry boar that lived in the sparse forests in the hills. For the moment, it was enough to keep them fed, but if they were to stay here, they needed to be certain that they could farm, build, and grow, not just survive. They had decided to make camp to give them time to rest, hunt, and survey. Tonight, they would decide whether they would stay or move farther south.
“I am not sure where I want my house,” said Beva, making a few squiggles to represent the larger trees. “I think Mummy Yona will want to live with Phoran as I think she likes him. So, do I live with Yona or have my own house?” She looked at the huge calliston who she had decided was her best friend. “I could live with you, but I’m worried about getting squashed.”
Eldola rumbled softly.
“Alright, I will stay with Yona then. I think she will like that. Will Phoran like that?” Despite the enforced closeness of the journey and the comradeship of the last week, Beva was still a little confused by some of the relationships. She was missing her real mother a lot, which is why she was spending every waking moment with the huge calliston, talking non-stop, rather than with the other two children who still had their mothers. On the first day after their arrival, with Yona desperately worried whether Eldola would want to stay in the empty valley of his birth, Beva had sneaked onto his back without asking and he had carried her up to the hilltops on his own. Beak, usually so in command of himself, had chased after them on a horse in a panic, but then had seen that the huge animal was going exactly where Beva was telling him, so he backed off and just watched from a distance.
“Do you want a wooden house or a stone house? Phoran says that we can use some of the stone blocks from the old village, but Hekon says some are very big and heavy. I think you can lift them, but I don’t know how to tell you to. Yona thinks you understand a lot of what we say, but you get confused. I get confused a lot too, especially with that oldy language that we keep finding on stones. Is that your language? Did you speak oldy-Adelan when you were a little… what are little callistons called?”
As Beva chatted on, Eldola lifted his head slightly and looked down to the east end of the valley. With a rumble, he rose to his feet.
“You jogged me!” complained Beva, rubbing out the errant line that she had drawn by mistake. Eldola harrumphed, reached down, and picked the small girl up, then, ignoring her protests, pushed her up onto his shoulders. “What are you doing? It is not lunchtime yet!” The huge animal huffed at her and headed quickly back down into the valley and trotted across to where Yona was sitting on one of the horses. The horse flinched backwards as the huge animal ground to a halt. Since arriving in the valley, the calliston had changed considerably. He now always had his head held high, and his eyes were bright and questioning.
“What is it Beva?” asked Yona.
“I don’t know!” the young girl called down from the beast’s shoulders. “He just picked me up and ran down here. I think he’s seen something.”
Eldola rumbled and raised himself up, looking down the valley. He seemed to be trying to say something, but all he managed was a few mumbles. Yona didn’t think he sounded frightened or worried, but she turned her horse to see what he was he was looking at. Beak trotted over, seeing the odd behaviour of the calliston.
“What’s happening?” he asked, pulling his bow instinctively.
“I’m not sure. I think he has spotted someone. He brought Beva back without her asking.”
“He has better eyesight than us, I noticed.” Beak turned to the calliston, reaching up for one of his big hands. Eldola, without taking his eyes from the end of the valley, grabbed the man by the arm and pulled him up onto his back.
“He is changing so fast,” commented Yona. “Can you see anything?”
“Yes. It’s a group of men, I think.” Beak was straining to see. “No horses. I think they might be Pharsil-Hin.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, they are too far away. Go and fetch Phoran and the others.”
Yona turned her horse and rode off to gather those that were closest, telling the few archers to fetch their bows. When they returned, the nomads appeared through the trees, moving gracefully and easily, and strode up to them. There were ten of them; six of the tall warriors and four women.
“Mena-Yona,” said one of the warriors to the young woman, still sitting on her horse. “I am Kie-so-Marena. We are travelling south and Han-so-Terena asked that we should find you to see if you survive.”
Yona smiled warmly and climbed down from the horse. “Thank you. Will you stay and eat with us? We have a boar we are cooking for lunch.”
The tall warrior bowed. “We will happily share your hunting. Please, our wives will help.”
Yona had noticed that the women had a slightly second-class role in nomad society when they had met them in the Kerron Hills, but also that they could be quite bossy, which she liked.
“Beva, climb down and take our friends up to the camp, will you?”
“Yes, Mummy Yona!”
Yona winced. Beva had started calling her that as soon as they had arrived at the village and she was not totally sure what she felt about it yet. At only twenty-six, she felt that big sister Yona might have been better.
“You have camped well,” said the tall warrior, strolling alongside Yona and Beak. “I see you have horses.”
“We were attacked by the Keffra on the way here,” explained Beak. “Just by the river.”
“Did you kill them all?” asked the nomad.
“Yes. We had to.”
“Good. They will not know you are here for a time, I think,” said Kie-so-Marena. “You will stay, Mena-Yona?” Mena meant mother in the old desert tongue and the Pharsil-Hin men often used it for a woman who had higher status than perhaps they were used to.
“We will decide this evening between us all. We have been trying to find out more about this valley and the hills, but with so very few of us, we have not been able to sit and exchange all we have learned yet.”
The warrior looked thoughtful for a moment. “We were to travel on today, but it is not necessary,” he said. “We will stay with you tonight and tell you more about the peoples of the plains, of hunting, of the seasons, and of the forests and hills. Although we are nomads, we are cautious about where we camp, and I understand your concern. You are right to debate this by a fire.”
“Thank you,” said Yona. “The Pharsil-Hin have been very kind, and your knowledge will be welcomed.”
“Let us join your people,” said the nomad. “The women have brought a gift for you, mother.” He lengthened his stride, leaving Yona standing by the river with a stunned expression on her face. Beak grinned.
“Did you not know what Mena meant?”
“No!” She glared at him. “But you did. How much else do you know that you are not telling me, again?”
Beak sighed, knowing what was really going on. “Are you going to force me to stay?”
“Is there no other way?”
“No.”
“Then yes, I will.”
Beak twisted his mouth, and then, most uncharacteristically, he took the young woman’s arm. “Then yes, I will stay.” He started walking towards the camp. “But you even once call me father, uncle, or any other ridiculous title, and I will leave the next day. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The gift was a rug and a knife. The women told Yona she was head of her tribe and when at the fire, she should sit on the rug. The knife was symbolic. Women, they told her, were cherished and protected by the men of the Pharsil-Hin. Sometimes, they explained, they can be overprotective. These small knives with delicate engravings were given to women who were forced to take on what was seen as a man’s role. It was always given by other women and was a sign of strength. The women had laughed, and Toli-so-Fina, Kie-so-Marena’s wife, had said that should a man tell her that as a woman she could not make important decisions, then she could stab him with the knife. Yona decided that the Pharsil-Hin’s idea of humour was a little different from hers.
“I am worried about trade most of all,” said Phoran as they all gathered around the warm fire. This had been a constant discussion over the week. “I know we have nothing to trade at the moment, and no coin at all, but eventually we must trade, and we are a long way from other communities.”
“We have horses,” pointed out Hekon. “But we don’t have wagons or a cart. I know how to make one, but I need more tools and the wheels need iron on these rough hills.”
“You are not as far from trade as you believe, Phoran,” said Kie-so-Marena. “You are on the border of Desson, and though many are in the West of the country, there are farms and tiny communities not many leagues from here.”
“What have we around here they would trade?” asked Yona.
“Hide has always been an important trade for us,” said the nomad. “The sun of the plains is excellent for drying and you will be able to produce fine tanned hides, staked out to dry on the hilltops.”
“Do we not need salt?” asked Phoran. As coastal people, they had always used salt for curing.
“We can teach you how to tan the hides using the brains of the animal,” said Toli-so-Fina cheerfully, followed by a sound of disgust from Beva.
“Well, that is one thing we can look to do,” said Phoran.
“There are other items you can trade,” said Toli-so-Fina. “Things we do not. Because we are nomadic, we grow few crops, only those that grow quickly. There are peppers that grow in these hills that you can either harvest or cultivate. Some are very hot and are much favoured.
“We used to buy pepper oil in our village,” said Daintine. “Only a little, because it was very expensive.”
“Some of the larger villages and towns in Desson would certainly buy pepper oil,” said Kie-so-Marena. “You have clay in the hills to the south here and to the north. I saw how much stone you have. Could you build a kiln? I am sorry, I know nothing of pottery as we buy what we need.
“I know how to make pots,” said Merra, the mother of one of the other children. “We lived near a small clay pit and my mother made pots and bottles.”
“Would you buy pottery from us?” Yona asked the nomads. Kie-so-Marena looked to the women who all nodded.
“We can trade pottery for many things. Especially if you make small jars that are suitable for travelling,” said Toli-so-Fina with a chuckle. “We break quite a few when journeying across the plains. My husband is exceptionally clumsy!” The nomad women laughed at the expense of their men.
Yona, sitting on her rug, looked around at this mixed group and then over to the large calliston who was sleeping peacefully on the edge of the firelight.
“We have all spoken much tonight and I think everyone has been very honest,” she said. “We still need to make the decision to stay or not, though I know some have made up their minds already.” She smiled, looking over to Beva, who had been showing everyone her plan for her village all afternoon. “But there are so few of us that it is a very hard decision. Please, we must choose.”
Yona picked up a pot and passed it around the fire. Each of them had a short stick and a longer stick. The short stick was to stay and the long stick was to move on. Even the three children had been given a choice. As the pot was passed around, the nomads stood quietly and moved away from the fire. This was not their decision to make.
When the pot had finished its journey, Yona emptied it by her feet and sorted through the sticks. She sighed and then smiled. “We stay. You all chose to stay.”
“Eldola didn’t choose!” said Beva suddenly, and she rushed over to the big calliston, pulling his ear to wake him up. “Eldola! We are choosing to live here or go somewhere else. What do you choose?”
The calliston lifted a dozy head and looked at the small girl, putting his head on one side.
“Do you want to live here with us?” she asked slowly, looking suddenly frightened about what the reply might be.
Eldola looked at her and frowned. In the last week, in his slow, tired head, he had felt something lift from him. Vague memories of hundreds of years before had been drifting through his mind. Not all were welcome, and some were terrible. He knew, somehow, that he was horribly damaged and was not sure really what he was or who, but some things were returning. In the very back of his mind had been a soft voice, and the image of a small, gentle, white dragon. The voice had been patiently encouraging him league after league, day after day, and slowly, a little of the calliston of old had reawakened. He looked around at his friends, all turned towards him, watching the small girl standing in front of him biting her lip, and he felt warmth and comfort. Reaching out, he pulled the girl close and using the few words he had been trying to remember while sitting on the hill looking over the valley, he whispered to her.
“Eldola home.”
Phoran held Yona close, listening to the wind blowing gently through the trees under which they lay. There was just one moon tonight, Megan Mona, the morning moon, as it was called.
“You are good with words, Yona. What are we going to call our new village?”
“I am not sure it is for me to choose,” she said with a sigh. “But if it were, I would choose Dena y Draigfan. Vale of the Callistons. Eldola, as he said, is home. It is his home first, the home of his people.”
“Do you think he will learn to talk more?”
“Yes, I do. Though I think it should be impossible. Something has happened to him that I do not understand, and I think I never will. Beak doesn’t either and I think he is closer to understanding these things than the rest of us.”
“He is staying?”
“Yes,” she said, chuckling. “He got me to order him to stay!”
“He did what?”
“I think he needed it. I think he has travelled so long and has been without a family for so many years, that he did not know how to stop. He needed someone to tell him. So, I did. I am not sure how long he will stay, but it will be for a while.”
Phoran smiled and stroked her head. He loved Yona more than anything, but he knew her and knew that sometimes she hid things.
“I saw the sticks when you emptied the pot,” he said. “There was one long one. That was yours, wasn’t it.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I knew everyone would choose to stay so I was not risking anything.”
“Why did you choose to go?”
“Oh, Phoran!” She laughed and rolled over on top of him, looking into his eyes. “I miss the sea!”
“Mum!” Beva burst in through the door of their cottage. “Mum!”
“Here, Beva. What is it?” Yona walked in from the back of the cottage where she was baking bread made from their first wheat crop.
“It’s Eldola. He is ill again.”
“Oh, no. Do you want me to come?”
“Please. He’s down by the stream.”
“He finds it cooler there. Come on.”
In the couple of years they had lived in the valley, they had changed it beyond recognition. Taking advice from their nomad friends, who had become regular visitors and had even camped with them for a few months the previous season, they had learned how to tan hides, smoke meat, make fine pottery, and were now trading with several villages in Desson. Their strings of dried peppers and pepper oil had been especially popular. Everyone now had a cottage, though admittedly very primitive, and they had built an enormous wooden shelter for their calliston friend. But in the last months, Eldola had begun to fall ill, and they had no idea what to do about it.
“Eldola, what is wrong?” asked Yona, taking his huge hand.
“I don’t know, Mena.” He had called her Mena from when he had first started to talk again. He said it was because she sang to him like he remembered his own mother singing, centuries before. They still did not know how old he was, and he could not tell them. But they knew that as dummerholes, he and his brother had been bought and sold a countless number of times, and had spent decades working in the mines of the North Hoar Ridge in freezing conditions. “I am so tired and my breath hurts.”
“I wish I knew what to give you, dear one. If you were a human I might know, but…”
“I know. I am too big.” Eldola looked over at Beva; so much more grown now. And yet, when not doing the hard chores that all in the village must do, she still spent as much time with him as possible. “Mena,” said Eldola to Yona. “I think I am dying.”
“No, why do you think that?”
“I am not sure. I tried to catch a deer today, but I could not run fast enough. My legs hurt.”
Yona stroked his face. “You are always welcome at our fire. We shall cook for you. Come. Walk up to our house and sit with us.” The great calliston nodded, and slowly followed the two humans up the northern slope of the vale to where they had built their small cottage.
Eldola was still unclear what had actually happened to him. He and Beak had spoken quietly for many hours about dummerholes before the man had left after the first year. Beak had been troubled by many memories too, and had eventually decided to leave. He had not told them where he was going, but he had hugged Yona tightly and called her daughter on the morning of his departure, and thanked her for giving him purpose again. Eldola thought that perhaps the man had not been entirely honest about his life, and that he was going to find his own family. The calliston wished he could do the same. His memories of when he was young were dreadful. He and his brother, the calliston turned into a war dummerhole, were orphaned when their village was attacked. He did not know who the raiders were though he was certain that it was none of the desert peoples, even the Keffra-See. They had been sold to a group of men who had then maimed them. From then on, his memories were like a dense fog, and his mind had become slow and cumbersome, and he had lost all ability to speak. He also remembered being frightened all the time.
Then there was that morning when the dragons had attacked Tekkinmod’s hall in the gorge. His brother had become enraged and lost all control. He did not know what had become of him, but deep inside he hoped he had not survived. His brother had always been in far more pain than he, and had suffered so terribly. And yet, for all the sadness, that morning had changed Eldola’s life for the good. At the moment of his greatest fear, a soft voice had spoken to him to calm him and had asked him to wait for the slaves. Then, when they were all on his back, the voice had opened his mind just a little, had found his memory of where he was born, and told him to go home. That voice, though just a memory really, had been with him ever since, and he had used it to free his mind. Oh, he knew he could not think like a calliston should, and he had trouble following complicated conversations or if Beva spoke too fast, which was often. Callistons were good farmers, but he did not really understand how to grow things. He was powerful, though, and he had ploughed their fields, felled the bigger trees in the forests, and helped carry stone down from the hills.
As much as possible he had been independent. He insisted on hunting rather than the villagers hunting for him or feeding him from their goat herds. He had learned to cook and to forage, and had helped to build his home. The villagers treated him as one of them, and he treated them as his family, but now it was becoming too hard and he was too tired.
Yona and Beva cooked him a goat wrapped in his favourite herbs, and they and Phoran sat down by the fire outside the one-roomed cottage and talked.
“I can read every stone we have found now,” said Beva. They had found many stones like the one he had first dug up, each a sign for one of the old ruined buildings.
“You are clever with words, my sister,” said Eldola. He loved this small girl so much.
“I try, but I am not like mum. Or like Beak was.” She twisted her nose. “I miss him.”
“I do too,” said Yona. “I always knew he wouldn’t stay, but I wanted him to try.”
“Why, mum?” asked Beva.
“Because he needed to. He has been lost or losing himself for most of his life I think. He had to stop and think for a while.”
“Like me,” said Eldola. “I was lost too.”
“You are not now, my friend,” said Phoran. “You have a family.”
“I do.” The Calliston stretched and rolled over onto his side. “It is a warm night and I do not need my house. Can I sleep here by yours?”
“Of course!” said Yona. “I don’t have a big enough blanket for you, so I can’t tuck you in.”
Eldola looked puzzled and Beva shuffled over next to him and cuddled into his arms. “When I was very little, my mummy used to tuck me in when I went to sleep. She would pull the rugs over me and tuck them under so I was warm. Mummy Yona does that still sometimes. I like it!”
“It sounds very nice,” said Eldola, dozing off slowly.
Over the next two months, Eldola became tired more often and could not hunt at all. He spent most of the days either in his shelter or sleeping next to Yona’s cottage. Yona was desperate to do something for him, but she did not understand what was happening. Perhaps he was just old, she did not know. Beva took to telling him stories that she made up, and the other villagers came to tell him all kinds of meaningless things; what they had been doing, what they were trading that day, anything and everything so that he knew that he was one of them. They all owed him so much. The young man had released them from the cold, dark room, but the great calliston had carried them the nearly three hundred leagues from their hell to his home, and none of them would ever forget it.
One day a shadow brushed across the valley and a great dragon landed by the stream.
The Draig yr Anialr looked at the woman standing in front of her and smiled. “I know that creature who is sleeping over there,” she said. “And so, I think I know who you are too.”
Yona frowned. “My name is Yona and he is Eldola.”
“Old Friend?” The dragon chuckled cheekily. “He has a name now then.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Be-Elin and I was one of those who attacked Tekkinmod’s hall. I watched you all escape on his back.”
“You helped us.” Yona nodded in understanding. “Thank you. Do you want to speak to him?”
Be-Elin blinked. “He speaks? He’s a dummerhole!”
“I know, but he is more a calliston now again. We do not know why, though I think he might have an idea.” Yona looked sad.
“What is it?” asked the dragon.
“He is dying, but we don’t know why.”
“Oh.” Be-Elin looked down. “I will talk to him then. Can I do so alone?”
“If you like.”
The beautiful desert dragon walked over to the huge calliston and sat by him. Gently, she touched his face and he awoke slowly.
“Cyfar Draigfan,” she said.
“Cyfar Draig,” he replied softly.
“You remember our language?”
“A little, I think.” He sat up stiffly and blinked at the dragon. “Who are you?”
“I am Be-Elin.” The dragon looked uncomf