Rhiannon - Dragonrider

Chapter Twenty Three - Attack in the Dark

I looked at him for a few moments. "You're from the Outside too, aren't you?"

"How did you work that one out?"

"I dunno, maybe the way you talk about this place as if there is somewhere else. People who've always been here don't think like that. I guess I only noticed because I'm from Outside too."

"I try and avoid mentioning it as much as possible," Geraint said thoughtfully. "I don't suppose it would make all that much difference any more but, when I first got here, it was made quite clear that, if the wrong people found out about it, I'd find myself dead."

We paused for a moment to catch our breath and enjoy the view. I also had a quiet hunt around for Psion but couldn't spot him.

"How come you managed to get here without being eaten?"

"I was still quite young then so I don't really remember all that much about it,. As best I can work out, my family was on a sailing holiday up round the Scottish Islands and there was an accident. I vaguely remember a fire and shouting and some sort of explosion and then it all went dark. I was wearing a life jacket when they found me and I'd had a whack on the side of my head." He showed me a scar just behind his ear.

"You reckon you were attacked by one of the patrol guards, then?"

"I've thought about that too and decided that we probably weren't. Don't forget that, even then, I'd have had considerable latent cerebral potential..."

"Cerebral what?"

"Sorry!" he said with a bit of a laugh. "I keep forgetting. You don't really know any of this stuff yet, do you? There are quite a few people on the Outside who can do some of the mind stuff but they're not really properly aware of it. They've got 'latent cerebral potential'."

I nodded, thinking about the fisherman.

"Anyway, if I'd run into a serious mind bender... like one of the border patrol dragons, there's no way he'd have missed me and I'd have been combusted. So I guess our boat was wrecked in some sort of accident and I got knocked out. Because I was unconscious, I managed to drift past the patrols and got washed up here without being noticed. My master found me on the beach and, as most of his Family and retainers had just been wiped out in the Year of Flame and Sword, he wasn't particularly fussy. He was just happy to find a new servant. He kept me pretty much out of sight until people stopped asking where I came from."

"What about you?" Geraint asked. "How did you end up here?"

"I was on holiday in a nearby village," I explained. "I could see this island that nobody else could and, for some reason, I just couldn't get it out of my head. In the end I stole a boat and came here."

"I've heard about that sort of thing before. For some reason, latents are pulled towards powerful minds. How did you get past the patrol?"

I went quiet and intense for a few moments as the horrible memories of Megan's fluttering body flashed across my mind. "I don't want to talk about it," I answered simply. "It's all too close and..."

"It's okay," he replied. "We've all got things in our past that we don't want to think about too hard. Let's try an easier one. Would you go back if you had the chance?"

The answer, "No," just popped out... sort of surprising me. I'd not really thought about it since I'd been here. "It's a brutal place but I love how simple it all is," I tried to explain." You're responsible for yourself... and there aren't all those people telling you what you're supposed to be thinking... and I really love the flying."

"You seem to have a special knack with the dragons," Geraint laughed. "It's hard to believe you've only been riding for a month."

'Besides,' I added, but only to myself, 'I've got a score to settle before I can leave.' Again, the image, seen through Rhiannas's eyes, of us stooping down on Megan's helpless, fluttering body, flashed through my mind.