This was fire like nothing on earth; a grand, twisting, sinuous lifeform; a single, thinking, eating, hating destroyer. A colossal tornado made of fire.
The Japanese Serpent calmly smiled. “There is no escaping this,” he said calmly. “You witness the power of the ancients. The firespinner will devour all things in its path. I alone shall live through it.”
Issindra glared at him, hissing vengefully in the Dragontongue, and blasted him with her black-orange flames.
Her tigerfire was met on the floor by a tide of nearly formless men made of metallic flame. Najikko’s fire was coming to life, combatting Issindra’s blaze! Serpentfire hates Serpentfire, and Simon feared their contact.
But the two fires actually merged, melding into one, the flames married together. Then the burning figures seemed to drift, carrying all the flames outside through the open windows, into the path of the returning cyclone of fire.
Simon watched in wonder as the huge twister, now burning its way back toward the palace, sucked up the flames, joining with them, as oxygen was pulled away from the chamber and into the burning whirlpool.
The sound the cyclone gave off was of millions of roaring tigers.
Everyone fell to the ground. Simon could see in dreamlike splendor the silver-gold light flashing on the awed face of his father.
But he could also see the most astonishing thing of all: Key had run toward the levers rising from the floor, and, seizing his chance, shoved them back.
The Tiger Dragon screamed as she was sucked down by a trapdoor and fell into her own trap. The glass shield slammed shut, and, although she blew fire at it, the flames helplessly burned away, starved of oxygen. She was caught.
Her own trap held her now.
But the Dragon of Japan was in his glory. Leaning back, his sterling tail flashing in the light of the cyclone of fire, he closed his eyes and fell into a meditative state. The beauty of it all, he was thinking. The cyclone shall burn away all but my own life….
The beauty of it all, thought the Ice Dragon. The Japanese Dragon must be teaching her the ancients’ secret power. Their unity is sealed. And once the offspring are created and hatched, the Tiger Dragon shall surely destroy her Japanese mate, and I shall be here, ready to raise the children, advise them, make them do as I wish. As I die, they will carry my history books out into the world. I will never be forgotten.
He sat perched on a ledge outside the palace, watching the cyclone of fire grow and gyrate, whipping up new cyclones in its wake. Perhaps he should be leaving now; perhaps the Tiger Dragon should stop this fire from going too far. The people down below were getting sucked into the flames. They were so small, so very small. He was staring, eyes wide, his freezing hands scribbling down everything he could think of…
Meanwhile, the Chinese Dragon fired a slender, careful beam of blackfire at the Serpent of Japan, but the fire simply twisted away, shooting off toward the cyclone, which was now traveling backward, almost playfully, taking in the ebony burn with a scream of joy.
Simon took hold of Key and pressed him against the wall, grabbing onto the curving iron base of a light fixture, desperately resisting the howling tornado.
Amid the whipping winds, Taro charged.
The Japanese Serpent saw the motion and, with a wave of his hand, simply cast Taro down.
Seeing her husband had fallen, Sachiko closed her eyes. Using a mindspell, she drew the shattered glass from all the surrounding buildings—thousands of glass shards swirling around outside—all together. To Simon’s wonder, the shards formed into dozens of animal-like beasts, vague wolflike creatures all loosely held together, which flew toward the palace with a vengeance.
Alaythia saw what Sachiko was up to, and closed her eyes. Working in unison, she and Sachiko pulled the glass predators into the palace to slam furiously into the Japanese Serpent. The jagged glass creatures began snarling and biting at Najikko.
There were so many.
Simon watched in awe as the glass predators rushed at the Serpent in waves, throwing themselves against him, tugging at his metal leg with teeth made of shards.
The Dragon began tossing the glass creatures away, spinning with his blade-wings, cracking their clear flesh apart.
Seeing an opportunity, Aldric threw his sword, which spun around and around before the Dragon’s unconcerned eyes, before being pulled into the firestorm and melting in the air.
Simon’s father was disarmed.
Without thinking, Simon yelled, catching the Japanese Serpent’s eye, and it moved for him, reaching out past the glassy creatures around him.
Shocked, Simon’s hold weakened, and he nearly slipped away—but he was shoved back into place by Akira.
The fiercest Samurai fighter had managed to fight the winds and step in, raising his sword to protect Simon. He rushed forward, straight for the Dragon and the orbit of glittering glass around the Creature. The glass-shard animals, now completely out of control, were ripping into everything in their path. And they found Akira.
Sachiko screamed.
Fighting the crackling shards, a savaged Akira managed to block the Dragon from reaching Simon and Key, striking it twice. But now caught in the swarm of flying glass, Akira fell to the ground, his armor pierced by the glass splinters, his body unmoving and lifeless. He lay in a heap, rattled by the wind.
Key and Simon clung to the wall, watching in horror.
The other Samurai called out in shock, but amid the spinning glass shards, the Dragon’s glare turned to Key.
“They have to hit the Dragon’s heart, weaken him—we can still get him into one of the traps,” Key said, his voice drowned in wind and chaos. Simon was already yelling to the other fighters. “Fire at the Serpent’s heart!” he shouted. “Everyone fire! Aim for the heart!”
But Taro was getting back on his feet and shouting over him, “Don’t fire—it’s a waste, move in, move in!”
Aldric was hollering at the same time, “Fall back! The fire’s too strong! Fall back and regroup!”
“Fall back! Get out while we can!” Alaythia echoed him. “We’ll get another chance!” The air was getting thinner as it was pulled into the fiery cyclone, all sound dimming and becoming absorbed.
If either side had trusted the other, either plan might have worked.
Instead, the Dragon of Japan calmly stalked through the wind-blown hail of glass toward Akira.
His gold-clawed foot kicked the Samurai’s body out of the way, heading relentlessly for Taro. The beast threw out its hands with renewed energy, and under its spell, the shards of glass separated like chaff and blew away into the cyclone. Taro braced for a one-on-one attack.
“They’re not listening,” cried Simon, and he exchanged looks with Key, the two realizing what needed to be done. Key let go of the wall, and was dragged upward, clinging to a chandelier of molded brass—a tiger’s claw.
The Dragon of Japan immediately moved toward him, his eyes excited by the easy kill. The Samurai instantly rushed forward in defense, but their bodies were pulled and scraped across the floor in the wild winds. They grasped for anchors, or stabbed at wood with their blades to avoid being sucked out of the building by the growing twister.
Key dangled above them, as Aldric reached out to help him.
All attention was riveted on Key, up high.
Simon saw his chance, kicking free of the wall, and sending himself rushing into the Japanese Dragon from behind. He landed at the Creature’s back, and the Serpent tripped, his wounded leg giving in. Simon took advantage. He reached around the shocked Serpent and locked his hand directly on its heart.
If he had forgotten the words, the split second would’ve cost millions of lives.
But he did not.
Simon called out the deathspell, and the Japanese Dragon’s heart seized up.
The Serpent’s body went limp and flew backward, its shocked eyes collapsing into resignation as it was pulled toward the cyclone of fire. Simon screamed in exaltation. Suddenly afraid he�
�d be sucked out of the palace, he tumbled end over end, and found a hold at the top of a pillar. He watched as the Serpent clawed desperately, on all fours, fighting the vacuum, snarling, roaring, jaws gleaming, teeth gnashing. With no energy left, it spat—and a silver-black residue splatted onto Simon’s face, burning him. Simon cried out, but he had won. The Japanese Dragon’s claws scraped across the floor as it was suctioned away, exploding in silver-gold energy, pieces of its body spinning, burning, in the twister of flame.
Meanwhile, the glass-shard animals turned into a glassy liquid, their bodies fusing together and then dripping apart in the dizzying fire.
The Ice Dragon saw it all happen. He realized his masterpiece of horror had turned into a complete failure. He watched his books, laid beside him on the ledge, sixteen magnificent volumes, get pulled into the cyclone and burn. He could not believe it. He had enchanted those pages never to burn. He could not be this weak.
He could see the Black Dragon staring at him from the Tiger Palace, an angry smile on his face.
The Ice Dragon did not react. He had only one power left in the world. To choose his moment.
He stepped forward off the ledge, and let the cyclone pull him into oblivion.
Fire, loss, death and flame, burn the bones, end of game….
He died instantly, though the hellish whirling pillar of fire was losing strength. Its master had died, and so the cyclone began to fall apart, becoming mere flashes in the night, horrible flames turning into tiny wisps of fairylight in a cascading, spinning fall to earth.
Air rushed back into the palace.
At the top of the pillar, Simon breathed. His arms were wrapped around the coils of a Serpent statue. Small areas on his cheek and neck had been burned, but he could hardly feel it under the shock of victory.
Aldric stared at his son.
Simon stared at Key. The boy still clung to the vine-wrapped chandelier, his knuckles white. Beneath him, Issindra remained locked in a very small cell, staring up out of the glass. Trapped.
The Dragon was in terror.
Chapter 36
THE WAY A FIRE DIES
TOKYO’S SUBTERRANEAN FIRES FIZZLED out at exactly the moment of the Japanese Dragon’s death in Bombay. The nightmare was over.
For days afterward, the sound of the screaming flames stayed in people’s heads, lingering even in their dreams, until at last subsiding.
In Bombay, recovery was already underway the morning after the cyclones struck.
When Simon and Key went back through the streets to get to their ship, they saw rubble being cleared. It was apparent, as Sachiko and Taro trailed a distance behind, they were giving their son more space than he’d ever been given before. He’d earned it.
But everyone’s mood was dark; the Samurai had been deprived of giving Akira a proper funeral. His body had been thrown to the fire by the Japanese Serpent, and nothing remained of him but a memory. No one spoke of it. The pain was too fresh. They were simply relieved to be going home.
As the boys weaved through the crowds, they were startled as Fenwick and Katana leapt from the Ship with No Name and darted past them. The creatures had seen the Indian girl who had led them to the tiger trap, and who was now shadowing them as a pickpocket.
“Let me go,” she moaned, kicking at the snarling bobcat. Indignantly, Aldric took his wallet back from her. She explained that she and her father worked in the Tiger Palace caring for the big cats. They had begun doing the tiger feedings on the side because they were in terrible need of money.
Evil has so many colors, thought Simon. So many layers.
They left her behind in the street without a word, hoping she would find a better way of making a living than robbing or killing people for profit.
Simon and Key traveled the street in quiet back to the docks.
Trying to catch up, Fenwick climbed a crate and shot Simon a glance, a burning link to his mind, allowing him the fox’s version of all that had happened: the animal’s travels through Bombay, trying to find help for the boys, his own view of the terrible storm, and how he ended up returning to the ship for shelter.
Fenwick leaned forward to lick at Simon’s burned cheek, which hadn’t yet healed completely under Alaythia’s power.
With a sigh, Simon lifted the fox, and in this way they forgave each other for the mutual abandonment. Key’s bobcat nuzzled his legs. Neither boy wanted to admit their closeness to the animals. They’d headed over to the Ship with No Name, which was battered from the storm but seaworthy. As he made his way impatiently, Simon heard a street vendor’s radio.
BBC News was reporting on the atmospheric disturbance that had hit Bombay and Tokyo, “a mystery scientists will puzzle over desperately for many, many years.”
The Black Dragon had been given the task of disposing of the Tiger Serpent of Bombay. He asked for it, as a sign of trust, and the Warriors had agreed; it was the ultimate show of confidence in him that they would let him do it alone, keeping themselves free of danger as he requested.
However, while she remained trapped in her own palace, Issindra was still useful. She possessed information about all manner of illegal and wrongful operations around the world.
But it was no simple matter, stealing information from a Tiger Dragon.
It was a high-risk business.
It required touch.
The Dragonhunters had been sent away, to protect them from a dangerous—and, in fact, secretive—endeavor. Dragons did not like to give away the secret to thought-theft, a most shameful practice in their culture. The Black Dragon would meet the Hunters in three days’ time to share information.
So Ming Song, the Black Dragon, now stood alone before Issindra, the Tiger Dragon of Bombay, watching her from above the glass-roofed cell.
“You know what I’m here to do,” he said.
“You have to touch me,” she purred. “And to do that, you must open my cage.”
“You have, by now, exhausted yourself of fire. My own flames can destroy you if you try to escape.”
“So you say.”
The Black Dragon pondered the predicament.
“You have left me no choice, Issindra,” he said in sorrow. “If you will not speak, I must break your mind.”
He opened the cell, and clambered down, blocking out the light, filling the cage with darkness. She was weak, and he moved fast. His claws struck at her head, and tore at her thoughts. What he saw surprised him, for there was a loneliness and sorrow that filled her, and—if it were possible for a Dragon—he saw gentleness, even playfulness. She was not a kind soul, but over the centuries, she had killed relatively few, and that mattered to the Black Dragon. He knew the taste a Serpent had for pain and misery—they fed on it to survive—he knew how difficult it was to resist these hungers, because he had them himself. She could have done far worse to the world.
And then he saw in her mind’s eye that over the years, she had captured several Indian police investigators and left them imprisoned somewhere in the jungle. They had to be freed. The problem now, of course, was how to locate them? Where were they? He could not find it in her head.
In the end, she agreed to show him, if he spared her life. “Even if it means living in a prison forever,” she pleaded.
He gave in to her demands. But as she gave up the location of the imprisoned men, he climbed away, and with the cage open for a mere instant, she called a spell to her ancient palace.
The Black Dragon found himself hypnotized and convulsed, as the enchanted hissing of a thousand snakes echoed in the vine-wrapped chamber. Cinders blew from the mouths of the carved snakes. As his canary twittered helplessly, the old Dragon rolled in the ashes of the burnt jungle plants, folding his arms and legs up into his chest, unable to move.
“How they despise you out there,” Issindra said, rising, coming close to his face, “but I have come to respect someone of such cunning. You have bested the greatest of the Dragons, and you have won over the hearts of human beings—no one else h
as achieved such greatness. I think…perhaps…there is more to you than treachery.”
Bestilled by magic, he looked into her eyes, and only the fire within him moved.
“Such genius should not be lost,” she said, “but passed on.”
She purred, a rasping sizzle in the throat, like a cat and a snake together. “Don’t trouble your mind. I don’t plan to kill you, old one. But I do have need of you. The goodness in you can be a blessing…”
The Black Dragon’s skin wanted to shudder, but he could not even blink.
“You still have a use to the Dragon world,” she said, and her tail looped around his, coiling…
Simon and Aldric, along with Alaythia, escorted Key and his family and protectors to Kyoto on the Ship with No Name. The way back was heavy with grief. Simon and Key promised to keep in close contact; having gone through battle together, they had new common ground. Key couldn’t wait to get back to his Windmill School. He began writing in a journal. The Ice Dragon had given him the idea.
Alaythia was protected now from her emotions by the power of the Black Dragon’s spellcasting. The Serpents would no longer find it easy to locate her. She told Simon she had learned the Dragontongue words, and the secret of the “turning,” as she called it. She said it was something you did in your head, like trying to imagine what your heart looked like as it was functioning. Simon didn’t really know what she meant, but he understood what she’d done was difficult.
In his hand, Simon had a letter from the Black Dragon, left behind to be read later. “The cost of fighting evil can be great, it can be small; it can take something from you in a quick, iron grip or in a slow, greedy pulling out, as from a needle taking blood; but there is always a cost. To fight the darkness, you must enter the darkness. What you lose first is the foolishness that says evil is far away, that evil will always be vanquished and destroyed. You rid yourself of that. And then you become a man.”
Simon looked up, not sure what he was getting at, and read on: “The purpose of all you are doing is not to make you more closed-off, closed-in, and selfish, but to get you to serve others…without losing yourself. You need not become your father.”
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