The Steele Wolf
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.
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.
I remembered what Adept Lorna said about Joss and his first day at the Citadel. How Joss had great potential and could reach High Adept, as long as I discouraged his advances. I was a distraction to his studies. I felt a hint of shame that I was seeing Joss and possibly ruining his future. After all, I wasn’t a pureblood.
“And that’s how our clan got our name.” Joss interrupted my melancholy thoughts and I snapped back to attention to catch the last bit of information. “Those that weren’t Denai thought that a piece of the sky fell from the heavens and that’s why it floats. So we’ve adapted the name: Skyfell.”