The noisy room filled with people became hushed. All of the many conversations stopped to hear what was about to be said.
Myrdinn stood in front of the crowd with his pipe in hand. He took a couple of puffs and blew them out slowly.
"It seems, as some of you may already know, we have had an incident. Someone unbeknown to us has stolen something precious. This morning during a random egg count, we found that five eggs have been taken. We do not yet know why they have been stolen or how the egg chamber was breached. We also do not know if the culprit will strike again. I assure you however, a full investigation will be held and we will do our very best to get to the bottom of this. I ask that if anyone has any knowledge of this matter they come forward immediately."
Davin felt Chloe grab hold of his shirt, as though she was telling him to stay seated.
Myrdinn paused briefly. "I can only hope that this was not an act committed by one of my fellow people here. However, please do not take personal offense if you are called in for questioning. Some of you may have seen something and may not know it's pertinence. I only ask that you assist us in any way possible. That is all I have on this subject for now. I urge you to go about your regular business and not worry as there appears to be no immediate danger at hand. Thank you all for coming."
Myrdinn took another puff off of his pipe, bowed his head slightly and walked back out the door from which he came. Lugos, Goban and Aiden followed in suit and shut the door behind them.
The room became loud with voices and conversations once again. Some people simply stood up and walked out quietly while others sat and argued about the situation.
Kimball stood up. Now noticing the two kids that had sat down beside him. "Davin, Chloe." He said. "Shouldn't you two be heading off to school now?"
Realizing it wasn't really a question the two kids nodded their heads in agreement and got up to head towards their class.
Kimball stopped Davin by grabbing hold of his arm. "If there is something we need to talk about, you will let me know. Right Davin?"
Davin shook his head again. "Of course Dad. But like I said...." He started.
"I know, I know. Everything is fine." Kimball interrupted. "Now, off to school you two."
Davin and Chloe hurried off towards their class.
Chloe looked over at Davin as they walked. "Do you think your Dad suspects something?" She asked with a worried look on her face.
"No." Davin assured her. "He has been asking me that a lot lately."
CHAPTER FIVE
ANOTHER PLAN
It had been a few days since the incident in the egg chamber. People had settled down and there was not much talk of it anymore other than the quiet investigation being held by Goban. Some folks were pulled in for questioning but nothing came of it. Nobody saw or knew anything, less Davin and Chloe. Davin had heard a little of the investigation from his Dad. Kimball had been called in to be questioned, seeing as he had some access to the area's around the chamber for his work. They had asked him some very basic questions. If he had seen anything suspicious the days prior to the eggs going missing and where he had been that night. Because of Kimball's standing, his honesty was not questioned when he had no useful information.
Davin and Chloe hadn't spoken a word of what happened to anyone or to each other for that matter. It wasn't until after class one day when Davin felt an unmistakable hand on his shoulder. "Davin." He turned his head to see Chloe coming up from behind him. "I have an idea." She whispered.
Davin came to an abrupt stop and turned to look at Chloe. "Are you serious? I'm not so sure I want to be a part of anymore of your ideas." He turned and continued walking again.
"Come on Davin. Don't you want to see where the tunnel leads?" A slight smirk turned up on her face.
Davin turned his head towards her as he walked. "What!" He continued in a very hushed voice as he looked around checking to see if anyone was in ear shot. "You mean the one we saw in the chamber?"
Chloe's face turned from a smirk, to an ear to ear grin. "That's the one."
"You have got to be joking me?" Davin questioned, pausing for only a brief moment.
"I'll meet you in the same place tonight at midnight." As quickly as she said it, Chloe went racing off down the hall.
"Hey Chloe....." Davin stopped midway speaking. His gut turned at the feeling of going back again. Knowing that if he didn't show up though, he would never here the end of it. His gut turned again as he headed towards his place.
Davin and Kimball had a normally quiet dinner. They both ate and began cleaning after finishing up. It wasn't until Davin and Kimball finished clearing their plates, when Kimball finally glanced over toward Davin. "So, did you do anything exciting today?" He asked.
Davin could not help but pause and think about the fact that he was planning to sneak out again tonight. He looked back towards his dad. "Just another normal boring day at school."
Kimball placed a hand on Davin's shoulder. "I'm turning in early tonight. I have an early day tomorrow." Kimball turned and headed off to his room, quietly closing the door behind him. "Good night."
When Davin went in his room, he left the door slightly ajar. Making sure to leave himself a quiet exit. He sat in his room quietly for the next few hours. He found himself gazing out of his window into the dark of the night. It was overcast and the moon was not very bright. He could hear his dad snoring. This was his clear sign it was time to go once again. He slipped out of his room and headed across to the front door. He paused. Waiting for the sound of his fathers deep sleep coming from his room. He cracked the door open and looked down the hall. He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. It wasn't long before he found himself in front of the small closet once again. Inside was evidence that Chloe had already been there. The grate had been pulled away already exposing the passageway through the ducts. Davin dropped down into the entrance and began crawling down the passage. He didn't hear anything at all. He slowed up, only while passing the the vent next to the guards that stood watch. There were at least six guards now, down below standing in front of the door.
He came to the vent that looked out into the chamber. The cover was missing. He poked his head through the opening. A single rope hung down to the floor below. Davin pulled his head back in and took a slow deep breath. He turned and stuck his feet out through the opening and grabbed hold of the rope firmly with both hands. He slid down the rope and on to the floor below. Stepping out slowly in to the room he moved towards the first row of eggs and they all began to glow. He walked down the isle of dragon eggs across the room. The eggs that he moved further away from went dark and new ones getting closer began to glow in their place. The light followed Davin as he crossed the room. The stone in the wall had been moved out of place. It seemed rather large, but upon closer inspection Davin found that the back side had been hollowed out, leaving the appearance of a solid rock from the chamber side. Davin quickly ducked into the opening and peered down what seemed yet another long passageway. He could see the glint of light at the very end.
Davin had made his way through the small crawlspace of a tunnel. It had gone on for some distance and Davin had lost his sense of where he was at within the Keep. Or if he was still in the Keep at all.
He finally emerged out into what appeared to be an abandoned coal mine. Just as he stepped out into the light he felt a soft hand grab his shoulder. He jumped and turned, startled by the sudden touch only to see his friend standing in front of him.
Chloe giggle, at the sight of Davin's shocked face. "Didn't mean to scare you." She snickered. "What took you so long. I'm forever waiting on you."
Davin merely shrugged. "You're lucky I even came at all." He said.
Chloe looked at him still smiling. "Oh, you know you wanted to come just as bad as me."
"Not Really!" He paused. "I only came because I knew you would get mad at me if I didn't."
Chloe changed the subject and began examining the small cave like structure. "Wh
ere do you think this goes?" She said with a inquisitive tone.
Davin glanced down the widening tunnel that curved around a corner. "I don't know. It could lead anywhere"
"Why don't we follow it and see where it goes?"
Chloe started to follow the tunnel and Davin hurried to catch up to her. The two of them had walked a little ways through the rather dank and damp tunnel. They soon came to what seemed to be a very odd placed door. Both of the kids stopped and placed an ear to the door. It was silent. There was clearly no movement behind the door. Just to be sure, Davin dropped down onto the floor and peeked under the door way. There was light coming from the well lit room on the opposite side and he did not see anyone standing in the room past the door. He stood up and slowly grasped the handle on the door and began to turn it. It wasn't locked and the door opened slowly.
The door opened up to a small room with a table in the middle and a few shelves lining the walls, some packed with books and others holding different jars, containing a number of different colored substances. In the middle of the table was a large, leather bound book. It was opened up to a page containing a picture of a man and a dragon. The two were overlapping one another. Beside the picture was writing that neither of them could decipher. It was written in some foreign language. There were scribbles of notes written along the edges of the page. Davin began turning the pages in the book. One of the pages pulled from the book as he went to flip the page, falling to the floor. Chloe quickly leaned down and picked the page up from the ground. Chloe's attention turned to a small iron box over a wood burning stove in the corner of the room.
"Davin. Do you know what this is? It's a incubation box."
The small box was entirely made from a thick heavy iron. From the sides down to the hinges that held the lid in place. It was large enough to hold one dragon egg. They were used to incubate a dormant egg. The heat from the stove caused the box to heat immensely. The egg inside would change from it's soft leathery state into a hard stone like material. The heat would also trigger the embryo to begin to grow and slowly form into a small dragon. After weeks of intense heat the egg would crack and a hatchling dragon would emerge.
"Whoever is stealing the eggs must be hatching them." Davin said as he placed a hand up towards his face and began to scratch his head. "I wonder what they do with them?"
He looked to Chloe who had been examining the pages that had fallen to the floor. She stood completely mesmerized by whatever she was looking at. Davin reached over and pulled the pages from her hands. The page she had been looking at, had another image along with notes and scribbles. It was a rough image of a man. He was holding a knife in one hand and what appeared to be a hatchling dragon in the other. The man had the hatchling lifted above his head and blood was dripping from the dragon down to the man's mouth.
Chloe snatched the pages back from Davin. "We have to show these to someone. My brother or your dad. Somebody."
They both began to feel uneasy about the situation they had come to find themselves in. They rushed out of the room closing the door behind them. They ran as fast as the could back to the small passageway that lead back to the chamber.
Davin peered out of the opening and saw that the chamber was still empty, other than the eggs. He stepped out into the room with Chloe close behind. As they crossed the room, Chloe's eyes lit in amazement as the eggs lit up following Davin's position as he crossed the room. When they got back to the rope, Davin hurried up and held out a hand to assist Chloe up into the vent. Chloe pulled up the rope behind her and replaced the grate that covered the vent. They quietly passed by the guards once more, who had not even detected the hint of disturbance in the chamber behind them.
The two children climbed out from the vent and back into the closet. Chloe grabbed Davin's hand. "Don't say anything to anyone. I will take care of it. If you say something they might just accuse you of being the thief."
Davin once again agreed not to say anything to anyone. Really he wanted to forget all about it. When he got back to his room and got into his bed it was late, but he did not have school the next day. So he wasn't worried about being exhausted and would have the leisure of a late morning. As he lay there halfway into sleep, he felt his stomach begin to turn again at the thought of the image on the page Chloe had picked up. Why would anyone want to drink the blood of a hatchling dragon. The thought alone made Davin sick to his stomach. He squirmed a bit in his bed and fought the images in his head as he drifted to sleep.
Little did Davin know that Chloe had no intentions of revealing their secret. Even though she did not show it, she was as terrified of the situation as Davin. She too had been sickened by the thought of the image. She glanced over to a trunk at the foot of her bed. She had tucked the pages in a small diary and stuffed it in the trunk as soon as she had gotten home. There they would lay safe, hiding the secret only she and Davin shared.
CHAPTER SIX
THE FESTIVAL OF THE EGG
It was just becoming summertime and with the summer, came the festival. Everyone from the Keep gathered in the town square for the annual celebration. This was the time when children who were to become bonded received their egg. And this year, was the year Davin himself had been waiting for. He woke up early, even before the sun lifted into the sky. Davin had finally turned thirteen. Even though he clearly had the gift of being bonded, he had to wait just like all the other kids. He had a rather obvious bounce to his step and was not the least bit worried about making too much noise. Eventually his father stumbled from his room.
"Do you have any idea what time it is boy?" Kimball said in a grouchy voice as he rubbed his eyes. "Shouldn't you be in bed still, like all of the other teen aged boys."
Davin looked at his dad. Determined not to let anything falter his day. "Really dad? You know how long I have been waiting for this day. The day I would finally be like the other kids."
As the years had passed Davin had grown out of his withdrawn childhood state. He was more outgoing and definitely more self confident. He had even started talking more with his dad. Their relationship had grown substantially. It was like the shadow that covered them both had finally been lifted. They no longer sat in silence when they ate and instead laughed and joked with one another.
Kimball finally smiled. "I know, I know. Big day and all. Now lets eat some breakfast already."
Just then there was a rapid knock at the door and in flew Chloe. She still knocked, she just didn't wait for anyone to open the door for her any longer.
"Morning Mr. Willis." She shouted as she burst through the room. "Let's go Davin. You promised you would come to town with me today before the festival started. Sorry Mr. Willis, but he has to go." Chloe grabbed Davin by the hand and before either he or his dad could get a word in, she had pulled him back through the front door and they were gone.
Kimball gave a slight chuckle before turning and walking toward the kitchen and sitting at the small table.
Davin and Chloe were both receiving eggs this year, along with several others from their school. There were also many new pupils that were coming to the keep for the ceremony and to be accepted in. They both had to attend special classes that were only completed by the kids that would be receiving eggs. They were informed of all of the formalities and traditions that went along with the annual celebration. Myrdinn had specifically gone over what would take place in the chamber and what they were to do. Myrdinn's words hung clearly in Davin's mind. "You will each enter the chamber, one at a time. I will be the only one to accompany you inside. You will wander the chamber until your egg calls out to you. You will know it's call, by it's illuminating glow."
Davin thought on those words for many days. He had wondered what it had meant that when any of the eggs Davin came close to, had illuminated the way Myrdinn said only one egg would. Did that mean Davin would get to pick from any of the eggs? He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard Chloe's voice.
"So. Have you decided what you are going to wear tonight? I
know, not really a question for one of the boys, is it?" She only giggled a little as they walked along towards the gate that lead into Keep Town.
Davin didn't pay much mind to what he considered a girl question. Even though he actually knew what he was wearing already. He had laid out his nicest pants and shirt. He figured Chloe would surely overdress. She still thought of herself as a princess and wouldn't pass up an opportunity to get all fancied up.
As they passed through the gates and onto the main street that ran through town, it was clearly evident a party was going to take place. There were all sorts of decorations scattered along the street. All of the shops had set up special outside booths, which gave the appearance of a fair. They had set up a large dance floor and stage where a small orchestra would be playing that evening. Chloe had actually put in a lot of time helping set up for the festival. Seeing as how her dad was Mayor, it pretty much went how she wanted.
There were more people in town than usual. Family members came to watch their loved ones who would be in the ceremony, as well as random travelers that came to watch and partake in the festival. Davin and Chloe made their way through the busy streets.
"What did you need me for again?" Davin asked, not realizing what he was in for.
Chloe only grinned as she continued to walk along. She lead him through the town, weaving in and out of people walking up and down the streets. It wasn't until they came to one of the small shops that Chloe finally stopped.
"I don't know which one to get." She had a very indecisive tone in her voice. "There are two that I really like and I just can't decide which one to get."
Davin looked at Chloe. Then he looked at the shop she was about to enter. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Really. You couldn't come up with anyone better to help you with this?"
"You promised Davin." She darted off and into the dress shop before he could say anything else. Davin just shook his head and followed her in. He walked through the door and a small bell gave a ring as the door opened and closed. Chloe had disappeared somewhere into the shop. Davin was walking through, past racks of dresses heading towards the back when Chloe popped out from behind a corner.
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