by Finley Aaron
There’s a secret door that leads out of the castle. I strap my swords back on and head outside. I’m not used to hunting as a human. That’s not to say I’ve never done it—in fact, back in Montana, my mom taught us to hunt with bows and arrows. But I don’t have any archery equipment with me today.
I’ll have to use my swords…which makes things tricky.
Animals are roaming the woods in the pre-dawn cool of the day. With my extra good dragon vision, I can see them even from far away. It’s getting close enough to kill them with a sword that’s difficult. They spook at the slightest motion, so I carry my swords, already drawn, one in each hand.
Finally, as the sun is rising and I’m starting to fear Rilla will wake up hungry and have to catch breakfast for both of us (which seems so unfair after all she’s done for me already) I see a good sized deer ambling toward a small stream.
I’m ready. I already spotted deer tracks in this area, and figured animals would be drawn to the stream, so I’m in position, half-hidden by a large tree.
The deer seems wary. Can it smell me? There’s not much of a breeze, so even though I’m technically downwind, my scent might be lingering in the air enough for the deer to catch a whiff.
Or there might be something else bothering the deer. I hear a sound, not too far away behind me, but I don’t dare turn my head to look, not with the deer finally coming closer. If she spooks and runs, I’ll have to return to the castle empty-handed.
Call it post-traumatic stress, but I’m aware of the possibility that yagi might be in the area. We’ve never had trouble with them near this castle, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t show up at any time. And I do so deeply regret getting caught off-guard by them two weeks ago.
I sniff the air. Yagi have a distinct scent, mildly reminiscent of skunk or burning rubber. My mom says it smells like bugs roasting on a halogen lamp. That’s as close a description as any I can think of. They smell evil.
But I don’t smell skunk or bugs or evil or anything other than damp woods on a late spring morning.
As I’m sniffing the air and starting to wonder if maybe I should turn my head after all, since I can hear something moving again behind me, the deer bolts away.
There goes breakfast.
But now whatever was moving behind me is crashing toward me.
I spin, swords poised at ready.
It’s a bear.
I’ve never been afraid of bears before. Not really. Because, just as rock crushes scissors, paper covers rock, and scissors cut paper, dragons eat bears.
But I’m not a dragon now. I’m human.
Bears eat humans.
The animal is huge and fast and has enormously long paws with talons that rival even mine back when I was capable of sprouting talons. Unlike the deer, which I wanted to come within the reach of my swords, I don’t want the bear to get too close to me, because he can probably reach as far with his talons as I can with my swords, and even if he can’t quite, I don’t want to test to find out the real boundary.
Maybe I could try to outrun the bear, but having lived in Montana, where bear attacks, while not common, sometimes happen, I was always told bears are faster than humans.
Like, way faster.
In fact, a friend of mine who’s an Eagle Scout says you can’t even outrun them with a zig-zag pattern, or anything.
In retrospect, hunting for breakfast was a stupid idea.
Gripping my right hand sword tightly, I pull back, duck low enough that my blade is roughly aligned with the bear’s heart, and let loose, throwing the sword like a javelin with all my strength.
The blade heads toward the creature’s furry chest like a silver arrow. At the last instant, the bear bats it away.
Great. Now it’s angry. Like, angrier than it was when the deer got away and it decided to come after me like some kind of consolation prize.
What was it my mother said about turning into a dragon? That she wasn’t able to do it until she really needed to? I need to now.
I try.
I mean, I really, really try.
Now the bear is less than ten feet from me, and I’m still a human.
I raise the other sword above my head with both hands, scream, and run at the bear.
The screaming, of all things, seems to catch the bear off guard. It falters.
That’s all I need.
I slash my sword through its neck, just as I should have slashed those yagi heads two weeks ago.
The bear falls into a bloody pile.
For a few long, trembly minutes, I watch the bear to see if it’s really dead. All I can think is, this is what it means to be human. I mean, I don’t know if I’m technically human or just unmanifestable dragon, but I’m not nearly as invincible as I used to be.
It’s terrifying.
I need to learn to respect my limitations. All the risks I’ve always taken because I knew I could change into a dragon at the last second and fly away—I can’t take those risks anymore. Not if I hope to survive.
I clean and sheathe my swords, then drag the carcass back to the castle (I may be unable to take the form of a dragon, but I still have dragon strength. And dragon eyesight. And dragon eyes—which is why I have yet to give up hope that I might someday be a real dragon again). By the time I’ve splashed well water on my bloody arms and face, and stacked wood for a fire to roast the meat, Rilla’s awake. She breathes flames onto the dry wood, and by the time she’s done splashing water on her face, I’m carving off roasted strips of bear meat.
As we eat, we discuss how we’re going to find Wexler’s place.
“It’s in the Swiss Alps.” I relate what I know. “That’s not that huge of an area—like maybe the size of Vermont?”
“Eudora was talking about it in the kitchen yesterday morning. She said Hans Wexler’s castle is among the highest peaks of the Swiss Alps, with no roads leading to the castle. If the peaks are all white with snow, then we just have to look for a castle among the peaks. With our vision, we should be able to spot it while we’re still too far away for them to notice me. Or we might see Dad and Ion first, and then lie low and follow them there.”
I’m relieved that Rilla sounds confident.
The bear makes a delicious breakfast, but I can’t enjoy it, because the sky is clear and the sun is out…which means we can’t go anywhere.
I wouldn’t be worried, except that, if Dad and the others stayed somewhere with cloud cover, or maybe even (it wouldn’t surprise me) tried to fly through the night to their destination, then Ion might reach Hans Wexler before I catch up to him.
And if that happens, well…Ion said he’d destroy the yagi operation, or die trying.
And considering that he’s lost his yagi immunity, and Eudora insisted only a female could get through, and if it was easy surely someone would have done it decades ago, well, I don’t want to doubt his skills…
But it seems he’s more likely to die trying than succeed.
Rilla’s hungrier than I am (she’s the one who flew all day yesterday), so I leave her with the bulk of the carcass while I climb one of the castle towers in an attempt to get a good look at the sky. We checked the weather report on Rilla’s phone while we were eating, but the radar only shows the clouds if they’re registering rain.
In this case, the radar was clear, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any clouds—just no rain clouds. The only way to know for sure is to look.
I climb the tallest castle tower, the one on the southwest corner, closest to Switzerland. As kids, my siblings and I explored this castle on our various visits. If my memory serves me correctly, at the top of the tower stairs there’s a door that was always locked.
But I never really wanted through until today. As before, the doorknob doesn’t move when I try to turn it. Instead of giving up and going back down, I push a little harder, and tug and wiggle. We’ve got a door that sticks at our place in Montana. Every winter it freezes up, and the only way to get the lock to engage or disenga
ge, is to lift up on the knob.
I try that trick with the tower door.
Nothing.
“Fine,” I mutter. “The other towers will serve the purpose more or less as well.”
I head to another tower, and try not to let my morning’s misadventures get me down. Just because I couldn’t open the door and nearly got killed by a bear, that doesn’t mean the rest of the day will go poorly.
The northwest tower isn’t quite so tall, but it’s got an open doorway at the top of the stairs, and wide open-air windows.
There are clouds to the southwest. They’re not particularly thick clouds, and they don’t start for a ways, but they’re clouds.
And Rilla is a pale blue dragon. Her color isn’t much different from that of the sky.
It’s enough.
I run down the stairs and report on the clouds. If I elaborate a bit on their volume, who’s to blame me? I might also hint that they could dissipate at any time so we need to hurry up and get going—which is also all more or less true.
We put out the cooking fire and gather our things. While Rilla peels off most of her clothes and tucks them safely into my backpack, I buckle my jacket and scabbard straps and leather cap, and Rilla changes into a dragon.
She picks up what’s left of the bear carcass and drops it some distance from the castle for the wolves to finish off. No sense leaving it to stink up the courtyard.
And we fly toward Switzerland.
Though our cloud cover gets a little thin in places, Rilla’s used to using her coloring to her advantage. She flies higher to avoid detection, and we spot the snowy peaks of the Alps in the afternoon.
Approaching from the east, as we are, the first Alps we encounter aren’t even Swiss. They’re Austrian. And while Eudora implied Wexler and his mercenaries have profited off their neighbors over the centuries, nonetheless, she was consistent in describing his current location as being within Switzerland.
So we fly on past the first of the mountains. Rilla slows her pace the farther we travel, sagging lower in the sky, even lower than some of the clouds, which are growing thicker here, and stormy.
The alpine villages are few and easily avoided. Besides, as the sun sinks toward the horizon, it casts a golden glow across the sparkling snow, creating a dazzling glare.
The odds of our being seen are small. The odds of being photographed are even tinier, since anybody who’s out there is probably not poised with camera in hand, ready to snap our picture.
At the very least, they’d have to take their gloves off.
So we fly low, skirting the mountaintops, swooping between the peaks to check all sides for castles.
Each time we spot something that looks promising, we fly closer. Each time, we’re disappointed. Either it turns out to not be a castle at all, just a tiny village of steep-peaked chateaus, or it’s a populated castle accessible by cars and tour buses and in at least one case, ski lift. Eudora specifically said the Wexler castle was remote, with no roads leading there at all.
Finally, I spot it in the distance. While we’re still far away, it looks like a child’s playhouse, or an illustration in a book of fairy tales. But the closer we get, the larger it looms. It’s deceptively lovely, but also, somehow, menacing. No roads. No sign of life, save for smoke rising into the sky, blending with the clouds that seem somehow darker here, and more threatening. A storm is brewing.
I shudder.
Rilla circles closer. The clouds are low and the mountains are high—the two nearly touch in places. We’re somewhat hidden, but it’s also difficult to see. The sun is sinking deeper, casting its glow through the narrow divide between the mountains and the storms that swirl above. The glare is more pronounced, disguising even Rilla’s natural dragon glow.
She swoops between two tall spires and lands on a ridge of roof.
I don’t see any sign of my dad or Ion or any other dragon, but one entire wing of the castle is a large stretch of building, like a long great hall, though it almost seems as if it belongs in an industrial park instead of a castle. The sloped roof is peppered with skylights, some of them open, venting steam to the sky.
The smell is thick, wafting in waves from the open skylights.
It’s an unmistakable stench.
Yagi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rilla cranes her head around and gives me a look that’s clearly asking what I think we should do next, and hinting that the best choice might be to get out of here.
I glance around, taking stock of everything. The sun is nearly gone. There’s no sign of life anywhere around. No villages, no people…and not even a hint my dad and Ion might be anywhere nearby.
From what I can see of it, the castle is huge. Lots of towers, multiple levels, all clinging to a mountainside, and who knows how deep it goes underground? If Wexler is anything like every other dragon I know, there’s a weapons store and a treasure trove somewhere deep in the mountain beneath me. It’s a vast complex, both above and below ground.
There’s no point going in there, not unless we know what we’re doing.
But at the same time, the yagi stench rising from the skylights is a clue I can’t ignore. If this is Hans Wexler’s place (and from the smell, I’d say it certainly is), the yagi operations are somewhere on the other side of those grimy skylights.
I can’t see through them from here.
Scooting higher on Rilla’s shoulders, I get as close as I can to her ears. “I want you to take me to the ridge of that roof.”
Rilla gives me a startled look that accuses me of endangering myself.
“Reconnaissance,” I promise. “I just need to see what’s in there.”
Though Rilla narrows her eyes at me, there isn’t much she can do to argue with me—not unless she wants to turn human so she can speak.
Obviously this isn’t the time or place for that.
Rilla beats her wings, rises just higher than the rooftop, and glides to the ridge. Carved figures adorn the castle peaks, especially here. Crouching griffins, glowering guardsmen…they almost look real. Tall metal poles jut into the sky along the ridge. One, two, three. Lightning rods?
What is this, Frankenstein’s castle?
I slide from Rilla’s back and hand her the backpack before making sure my swords are still secure in the double baldrics at my shoulders.
The touch of cold steel is reassuring. I killed a bear with these swords this morning. Okay, the bear very nearly killed me first, but still. I’m pretty tough.
Rilla tilts her head to ask me what I want her to do.
“Go someplace safe. A nearby mountain ledge? Wherever. I’m going to check things out.” I whisper close to her ear. “If you see me wave my arms at you, come get me.”
Rilla gives me a look that says I owe her.
“Yeah, I know. I’ll do your dishes all next semester.”
She smiles. It’s a dragony smile—mostly sharp, pointed teeth—but it’s also my sister’s smile.
I grin back. “Thank you.”
Rilla lifts off into the darkening sky, her scales now slightly lighter than the darkening twilight.
Still no sign of my dad and Ion.
It’s cold up here on the roof in the blasting wind and pelting snow, but I’m wearing my leather gloves and jacket—even leather pants. So I’m not just reasonably warm. I’m practically armored. If I’d worn this outfit to seduce Ion, the yagi would not have pierced my skin.
With the heel of my boots on one side of the ridge, and the toe on the other, I’m effectively tightrope walking by my instep, all-but-anchored to the roof by my footwear. Silently, I shuffle down the roof toward the closest open skylight.
The stench is thick. It’s enough to make my eyes sting, but I blink back tears and peer through the open vent.
The opening is at least six feet across; the room below, bigger than a football field. The vast space is mostly dark, except for the glow that comes from—whoa, what are those things, anyway? There’s a huge glow
ing greenish murky tank at one end of the room, its glass peppered with dark oblong shapes that are moving.
Cockroaches? Yagi are a crossbreed of cockroaches and mercenary soldiers. So it would make sense those are cockroaches.
It’s gross and creepy, but it makes sense. Still, that is by far not the grossest, creepiest thing.
Filling most of the room, row upon row of glowing red—what are those?
They’re about the size and shape of coffins.
But they’re tanks, either open at the top or with clear lids or something, because I can see inside. Row upon row of reddish, glowing tanks, each with a dark, human-like figure floating face down inside.
I kind of need to puke.
Instead I blink away the stinging yagi vapor and peer down. Dragon vision or not, the pungent steam makes it difficult to see. It looks like the top row of figures is more human. Their skin is pale, their shape, more distinctly human, with necks and thighs and real skin, not an exoskeleton.
The next row of tanks holds creatures with slightly darker, more exoskeleton-like skin, more yagi-like in shape.
And so it goes. Row on row of tanks, each of them holding a couple dozen bodies, each row less human and more roach-like, until the last row appears to hold, not bodies, but yagi.
This is it, then, hmm? This is where they make the yagi. I guess I always figured they hatched from eggs like the cockroaches they’re bred from. But obviously not. It looks like Wexler actually uses the corpses of real mercenary soldiers. He must have an enormous storage room of their cryogenically frozen bodies somewhere. By the looks of the tubes and pipes running from the greenish tank to the red tanks, the bodies get marinated in cockroach DNA.
Is that all?
A whirring noise draws my attention, and I look to one corner of the room. A huge metal disk has been spinning almost silently, but now it slows until I can see the globe-like bulge in the middle and the individual rivets that dot its sides. A centrifuge?
I follow the tubes and pipes more carefully from station to station.