Bad News

by Pseudonymous Bosch

  Cautiously, Clay pushed open the door—

  Then pulled himself up into the tower room. Nobody was there. Cass must have escaped.

  No, actually, she’d never been there. And I’m an idiot, he thought, shoulders slumped.

  It had been silly to think Cass might be inside; he had obviously misunderstood the message that Gyorg whispered to Ms. Mauvais. Far from having the walls of a prison cell, the room had a 360-degree view of the crater around it. The interior was filled with computer screens and surveillance monitors and various other blinking and beeping machines.

  “Well…? ” asked Leira, startling him.

  “It’s some sort of control tower.” Clay sighed. “Definitely not a place where you’d keep a hostage.”

  The largest screen showed what appeared to be a digital relief map of the crater. A thin red circle in the center pulsed with light. Within the circle, three flashing orange lights were moving erratically.

  Clay squinted to look more closely. “I think this is where they monitor the dragons and the dome—that’s the electric force field that keeps them from flying away and terrorizing the world.”

  As he examined the confusing array of technology around him, Clay was suddenly aware of a terrible sound:

  ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAWRRRRRRRRRR!

  His heart racing, Clay dropped to his knees so he wouldn’t be seen. Then he peeked out a window.

  About twenty yards away from the tower, Snowflake was crouched on the ground. The dragon’s big yellow eyes were staring straight ahead, its bristly tail swinging back and forth, like a cat stalking a bird.

  Still trying to stay out of sight, Clay cracked open a window so he could better hear what was happening.

  “Mr. Schrödinger, no!”

  A safe distance away, right behind the perimeter marked by the blinking dome posts, Ms. Mauvais was beckoning to a scraggly old man who was standing directly in front of the dragon. He wore a straw cowboy hat and had a big, drooping handlebar mustache.

  “Be reasonable and back away from the dragon right now,” said Ms. Mauvais, her voice calm but strained.

  Gyorg stood beside her, shaking his head solemnly. “Mr. Schrödinger, you listen to the lady!”

  Ignoring them, the man they called Schrödinger stepped closer to Snowflake. In one hand he was holding an apple; in the other, a riding crop. He looked ready to break a pony.

  “Here you go, Snowflake. There’s a good girl,” said Schrödinger. His voice was warbly and uneven, and he had a raspy Old West sort of twang. “Old Schrödy’s got an apple for you! We’re going to go on a little trippy-wippy.”

  He tossed the apple at the dragon, which was something like tossing a raisin at a horse. Uninterested, Snowflake let the apple fall on the ground. The dragon’s tail continued to twitch back and forth.

  Clay watched in horror. Any moment now, Snowflake was surely going to pounce, and the old man was going to be chewed up or ripped to shreds.

  “I know you can’t wait to get on that dragon again, Mr. Schrödinger,” said Ms. Mauvais. “You want to go back—we understand that—but the conditions aren’t right at the moment. We are conducting controlled experiments.”

  Clay scrunched his face in confusion. It sounded as if this guy had ridden the dragon before. Where did he want to go back to?

  “But don’t you see? I never left,” Schrödinger shouted back nonsensically. “I’m still there—I’m not here at all!”

  “Have patience, dear. Soon you’ll be yourself again, I promise. And when we get you back there, you’ll be better than that. You’ll be a young man.”

  Young man? What did that mean? He looked plenty old to Clay.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” yelled Schrödinger. “And you can’t stop me!”

  Gyorg leaned into Ms. Mauvais. “Madame, let me go inside and grab him—”

  “No, let him be,” she said wearily. “No sense in your dying, too. If he wants to feed himself to a dragon, that’s his affair. We can always find another test subject.”

  She took a last look at Schrödinger and turned as if about to leave.

  Then a Land Rover screeched to a stop in front of Ms. Mauvais, and Vicente sprang out.

  Spurred to action, Schrödinger yelled, “Yeeeeehawwww!” and started running toward the dragon, clearly intending to leap right onto its back, although there was little chance he could actually jump that high. Clay held his breath, ready for the worst.

  But just before Schrödinger could reach Snowflake, Vicente sprinted toward him and grabbed him around the waist.

  “All right, ya rodeo clown,” Vicente said, dragging the old man outside the dome perimeter. “That’s enough action for you for tonight.” He gave Ms. Mauvais a sharp look. “I told you it was too soon to put anybody on a dragon’s back. Those were just supposed to be speed trials. Not a round-trip ticket to… wherever the heck it is you’re trying to get to.”

  “Thank you for your help, Vicente, but please keep your opinions to yourself,” said Ms. Mauvais. “You may drive me back to the castle now. Gyorg will make sure that Mr. Schrödinger is settled in his quarters—and that he stays there.”

  Vicente nodded and released Schrödinger.

  The old man lunged toward the dragon, but Gyorg grasped him firmly by the shoulders and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed no more than a child.

  “How dare you!” shouted Schrödinger. “Unhand me, sir!”

  Clay descended ten minutes later, the scene he had witnessed still replaying in his mind.

  “This old dude, Show-ringer—you think he really flew on that dragon’s back?” Clay whispered.

  “How should we know?” said Leira. “But come to think of it, wouldn’t this be a good time to try to make friends with the dragon—what’s his name, Snowball?”

  “Snowflake. And you don’t make friends; you make an alliance. But, yeah, I guess I could try.”

  As terrifying as the idea was.

  By the time he got to the bottom of the tower, however, Snowflake was no longer in the clearing. Clay stepped up to the dome line and peered into the darkness, wondering whether he should look behind the trees for the dragon, but he decided against it. Running into Snowflake was one thing; running into Bluebeard was another.

  Feeling as though he was disappointing Brett and Leira, he headed back down the road. I’d like to see you guys walk into that jungle, he thought. Funny how even when his friends weren’t providing running commentary, he still felt like they were inside his head.

  What next? Cass could be anywhere, he thought glumly. He’d been so excited when he thought he overheard Gyorg saying she was in the tower. Now he had no idea what to do or where to go.

  When he got near the tents, he heard more outraged shouting.

  “Inside-outside-you-side-me-side! Don’t tell me to stay inside! There are no sides here!”

  Schrödinger. The man’s raving made even less sense now. He sounded insane.

  As Clay listened, somebody coughed. He wheeled around and saw Gyorg walking up the path from the castle.

  “Why you are still outside?” said Gyorg sharply.

  “Sorry, just, uh, getting some air.” Then, remembering he was supposed to be cocky, not defensive, he added, “Is that a crime?”

  Gyorg said nothing.

  “Hey, what’s with that guy shouting back there? Who is he?” Clay figured it was a normal question to ask under the circumstances.

  Gyorg looked at him as if debating whether to answer. “He is first guest at Keep,” Gyorg said finally.

  He stared, unmoving, until Clay said an awkward “good night” and headed for his tent. Further investigation would have to wait.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  THE DISCOVERY IN THE BARNYARD

  Clay’s eyes blinked open.

  Heart racing, he lay stiff in bed, not daring to move.

  It had been a roar that awakened him. A loud, angry roar. A much-too-close-sounding roar
.

  He waited for a monstrous silhouette to appear on the walls of his tent. Or for a long sharp talon to tear into the canvas. Or for a burst of fire to burn the whole thing down. (Sure, Dr. Paru had said the fire-breathing was a myth, but he still wasn’t entirely convinced.…)

  The minutes ticked by. And… nothing.

  Perhaps the dragon had been farther away than Clay thought. Or perhaps he had dreamed the roar.

  Some Dragon Tamer he was, shaking in his bed, afraid of shadows.

  Clay shook his head in dismay. He had been crazy to come here alone. Crazy to think he would be able to save Cass. Crazy to think he would be able to fly away on a dragon. He was no better than that kooky old cowboy, Schrödinger. He was stark raving mad.

  With a shiver, he remembered how Ms. Mauvais had been ready to leave Schrödinger to die. And Schrödinger wasn’t even a spy. He, Clay, would be lucky to get out alive.

  Clay had intended to get up at dawn to search for Cass, but the sun was high in the sky by the time he exited his tent and headed to the castle.

  He would have to find an excuse to slip away later. Then again, he thought bleakly, what was the point of finding her when he had no idea how they were going to get out?

  Breakfast, he was relieved to discover, was a more casual affair than dinner. There was a buffet on the patio behind the castle, and he gladly filled his plate with waffles and eggs and bacon and sausages and then more waffles and a pancake for good measure.

  “Feeling better this morning, I see,” said Mr. Wandsworth, looking at the pile on Clay’s plate. “Too bad you didn’t recover in time to play bridge last night. Maybe this afternoon?”

  “Don’t badger the boy, Reginald. He obviously doesn’t want to play with us,” sniffed Mrs. Wandsworth. “No doubt he prefers video games or some such.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said Clay, forcing a smile. “Er, sorry.”

  He grabbed a table by himself, then tapped the side of his hat. “Leira? Brett?” he whispered, covering his mouth. “You there?”

  “Yeah, and guess what—camp is safe! Everybody got together and built this crazy-big dam. And with a little bending of the no-magic rule, we diverted all the lava to the ocean.”

  “Hey, that’s great!” Clay felt himself relax a bit. “So Owen can come back here, then?”

  “Well, that’s the thing.” Leira’s tone changed. “We kinda sorta forgot to tell Owen about the lava situation, so he just, um, landed in the water where he always does.… And he’s totally fine… but the lava sort of hardened around the plane? They’re trying to salvage it, but it might be a while.…”

  “Oof.” Clay’s relief evaporated.

  “I know, it’s a serious bummer,” said Leira. “How’d it go with Snowball? Any chance that dragon could be your ticket out of there?”

  Before Clay could respond, there was a loud squawk.

  Satya had stepped up behind him. Hero, sitting on Satya’s shoulder, studiously ignored Clay, as if she had not just squawked in his ear.

  “Talking to yourself again?” said Satya. “It really is a thing for you, huh?”

  Quickly, Clay pulled off his ski hat. No doubt he had terrible hat head, but he couldn’t worry about that now. “Why not. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m really great company.”

  “Can’t say that I’ve noticed that, no,” Satya said.

  Clay didn’t want to stare, but he was pretty sure she was trying not to smile.

  “You should see me around llamas—they love talking to me,” said Clay, as if he were joking (although, as you know, it was the truth).

  “Riiight.” Satya laughed. “Actually, we do have some llamas here.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. A lot.”

  “Why?”

  Satya made a face. It was too gross to say aloud.

  “You mean, they’re… dragon food?” said Clay, his mouth suddenly dry.

  “Kind of horrible, huh? But it’s the circle of life, I guess. The lions eat the antelopes, and the antelopes eat the grass or whatever.”

  Clay thought guiltily of Como. If he ever saw that llama again, Clay owed him an apology.

  “Seriously, the llamas don’t have such a bad life—I mean, until… Anyway, I can take you to see them if you want.” Satya smiled mischievously. “So you can talk to them.”

  Clay paled, then realized she was referencing his joke. “Ha-ha.”

  “No, really, you want to go?”

  Clay hesitated. It would be awful to see the llamas, knowing what their fate was going to be. On the other hand, he wasn’t helping them by pretending they didn’t exist. If he went, at least he might learn a little more about the dragons. And he was going to have to know a whole lot more about the dragons if one of them was going to be his ride out of there.

  “I’m not gonna force you—”

  “No, no, I want to,” said Clay hastily.

  “Okay, but we’d better ask her first,” said Satya, indicating Ms. Mauvais, who was standing some distance away, in conversation with Charles. “I don’t want to make her mad. Well, I do, but I don’t. If you know what I mean.”

  Happily, Ms. Mauvais thought a tour of the barn was a great idea.

  Unhappily, she thought the idea was so great that she insisted everyone go. Everyone but her. She didn’t want to get her clothes dirty. Amber would lead the group in her place. “Gyorg will give you his keys,” Ms. Mauvais told her.

  And just like that, Clay’s hopes of a solo trip with Satya were dashed.

  With Ms. Mauvais absent, Satya felt comfortable bringing Hero along. When Clay got into the Land Rover, his ski hat now firmly back on his head, he found Satya sitting next to her dad, with the bird on her shoulder. Hero leaned around the seat and stared right at Clay. I will peck your eyes out, she seemed to be saying, if you come a single inch closer.

  They drove off in the opposite direction from the laboratory, and Clay tried to keep track of their twists and turns on the map he was building in his mind. And tried not to think of how itchy his scalp felt under the hat.

  Vicente pulled over in front of a tall wire-mesh fence that ran the length of a large barnyard—the very one Clay had seen from the chopper the day before. No doubt the fence was sturdy enough to keep animals inside, but Clay couldn’t help thinking it would be of little use keeping out certain predatory beasts. If for some reason a dragon couldn’t fly over the fence, the dragon could slash right through it.

  As Clay walked through the gate, he thought again of Como. There were at least two dozen llamas, a few that Clay would have trouble telling apart from his llama friend back at Earth Ranch. They lazily chewed grass and rolled in the dirt, seemingly unaware of the dragons that lurked not so far away. The llamas shared space with a handful of other animals, including one pig, two goats, and nine or ten chickens that scuttled between the llamas’ legs, pecking at the ground.

  “They tried other animals—goats and sheep and whatnot—but the dragons liked the llamas best,” Satya explained matter-of-factly.

  She pointed to an adjacent, smaller barnyard in which several flightless birds could be seen standing around. “Emus. For the eggs.”

  Past the barnyard and the enormous barn were three tall gray cylindrical structures—storage silos. The silos formed a semicircle and looked a little foreboding and fortress-like. At the bottom of each was a pair of double doors, closed with heavy chains. Clay stared at the silos. The more he looked at them, the more they resembled prison towers.

  “What’s inside those things?” he asked Satya as casually as he could.

  “Those silos? Feed for the animals, mostly. You know, grain and hay and stuff… Oh, no you don’t—” Satya put a hand on Hero, who was looking very purposefully at a nearby chicken. “Not now…”

  As Satya tried to keep Hero from making a meal out of the chicken, Clay slipped away from her and sidled up next to a pair of llamas that were grazing on their own, near the barnyard’s back gate.

&
nbsp; “Hola. ¿Cómo estás?” said Clay in Spanish because that was what he was used to speaking with Como.

  The llamas looked blankly at him. But one cocked its head, as though trying to figure out what sort of animal he was.

  “Yo me llamo Clay. ¿Habla español?”

  The llamas said nothing.

  “Is English better?”

  He wasn’t certain the language selection mattered—he was pretty sure that his communication with animals operated on a different, more telepathic level—but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  One of the llamas nodded. Or maybe it was just chewing.

  Clay plunged ahead. “So how’s it going? How’s that grass?”

  The other llama snorted and spit.

  “The grass gets a little warm this late in the morning, doesn’t it?” Clay guessed. “But what can you do, right?”

  This time, the llamas definitely seemed to be nodding.

  Encouraged, Clay leaned in and lowered his voice. “So, hey, you know those buildings over there, where they keep your food?” He discreetly tilted his head in the direction of the silos.

  The llama on the left made an inquiring noise.

  “No, no, I can’t open them for you—wish I could!” Clay smiled apologetically. “I was just wondering if they might be keeping anything else in there, like a two-legged animal, maybe? You know, like me. A human. But a girl human… or a woman human, I mean,” he corrected himself. Cass was twice his age, after all.

  The llamas exchanged a glance before the one on the right spit casually and whinnied.

  “So you think somebody does live in there?” said Clay, trying not to sound too excited.

  The llama on the right conferred with the other, then whinnied again.

  “You don’t know what they look like, but they smell like a two-legged animal? And they get special food delivered in the mornings?”

  Yes! He made a fist. At last he knew where Cass was!

  The llamas whinnied again, but now their whinnying was beginning to sound like whining.

  “What? Why don’t you get special food like she does?” Clay shook his head sympathetically. “I don’t know. That’s a bummer. At least you’re not stuck inside a silo though, right? You have your freedom… sorta… for a while.…”