“No… We have no time.”
“Fine. As I said we need to try everything.”
Salanraja flapped her wings to get slightly above the demon dragon. From the other side of it, Rine tried sending off another stream of icy energy which this time hit it on the head. But that didn’t seem to do anything, either.
Salanraja soon entered a slight dive, and we accelerated towards the demon dragon’s head. I crouched down and watched it, ready to swipe at the most opportune moment. Then, I swatted the demon dragon right on the nose with my paw.
Because everyone knew, surely, that there was nothing more annoying than just appearing out of the blue and bashing you in the face. Salanraja then lurched to the right so quickly that I almost fell off of her head. I caught myself on one of the horns sticking out of her neck, and then I pulled myself to safety and retreated into her corridor of spikes.
Meanwhile, the demon dragon turned its head slightly and let out a horrendous roar that seemed to shake both the sky we were in and the earth beneath it. It turned around and followed Salanraja.
“See,” I said. “You don’t need magic to get underneath somebody’s skin.”
“I’ve lived through that, since the time I met you,” Salanraja replied. She tossed her head around to look at the demon dragon behind her. “Now, what do we do next?”
I rushed back towards Salanraja’s tail to see the demon dragon right on it. It opened its jaw wide and let out a roar that almost deafened me, I swear. Fires burned from inside its cavernous mouth, as if that great open gap was itself a portal to the Seventh Dimension. “Fly away,” I said. “Fly away very fast.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Salanraja said, and she flapped her wings hard. She gained a little distance, but then the demon dragon made its counterattack. From its mouth came another roar, and then out came a vortex that was spinning around so fast it engulfed Salanraja’s flight path, and we started to get sucked in towards the demon dragon’s maw.
“Fly away faster,” I instructed. I could feel the tug and the burning, and I couldn’t even see the demon dragon now – only the fires that wanted to consume me whole. The wind beat against my fur. I was using my claws to keep a grip on Salanraja’s scales. But the pull was so strong that they felt like they were going to rip out of their sockets.
“I can’t get any speed,” Salanraja said.
“You’ve got to do something,” I replied. “We’ll die otherwise.”
“All in good service,” Salanraja said. “As you said, it’s been a good life.”
“No,” I replied. “We can’t give up after coming so far.” I looked around for any sign of Initiate Rine. But all I could see was the grey air whirling around me so hard and so fast, and that great raging fire, so hot, so consuming.
“Hang in there, Salanraja,” I said, and I crouched, and then leapt upwards as high as I could. I put my whole spine into it, bending backwards, and then I stretched up my paws and extended my claws as far as possible. I found something, and I clung on with all my might. There was a large hole there, in fact two of them, and I soon realised these were the demon dragon’s nostrils. I pulled myself up and scrambled onto the demon dragon’s head.
Then, I swiped downwards once again at the beast’s nose, and it let out another great roar. Instead of eating Salanraja, it swiped at her in the air with its foreleg, sending my dragon tumbling away.
42
Speaking the Language
“Salanraja!” I cried out in my mind.
I watched her fall for a moment, wanting to dive back down and do something to stop her. The vortex coming out of the demon dragon’s mouth had cut off now, and Salanraja fell into a wall of grey and cold clouds. Another cloud hit us dead on, blanketing me in cold and sleety darkness.
“Salanraja!” I called again.
No response.
“Salanraja…”
“I’m alive, Ben,” she said. “Do what you have to do.”
Ben… She’d finally called me by my real name. But I didn’t have time to dwell on the victory because, just as we emerged from the cloud, the demon dragon let out another roar, and it jerked its head around sharply. I tumbled down its neck, thinking I was going to fall off this thing, then I found myself on the back of the beast. I almost fell right into one of the cracks in its skin, just managing to stop myself with my claws at the very last moment.
These gaps looked even more massive up close. Each one looked like gaps into the centre of the earth, with fires and magma raging beneath. I picked myself up and tried to get my bearings. But the demon dragon shook its body again, and I slid towards another gap. I leapt over it, and turned around, orienting myself.
I ran up the demon dragon’s neck again and looked down to see the lake and the beach and Aleam moving on the ground so far below now, I couldn’t see what they were doing. I needed to get the demon dragon down there. But it didn’t look like the portal was there yet.
“GET OFF ME, INFIDEL!” the demon dragon said, and its voice was so loud and booming inside my mind, that I thought for a moment I’d heard it in my ears.
It shook its head again, and this time I dug into the skin with my claws. It wasn’t leathery like Salanraja’s, instead having the texture of porous rock, and I could feel the intense heat rising from it through the pores in my skin. If I tried staying in place for too long, it would scorch me to death. So, I ran down the demon dragon’s neck again, and navigated my way across its back. But it shook its back again, throwing me around like an unwanted child’s toy. I found it hard to keep purchase and not fall into any of the cracks.
Initiate Rine on Ishtkar levelled out next to us, and he let off more magic, which this time came out of his staff as a block of ice. It hit the demon dragon right on the side and shattered. Some of the ice went inside its body and rose as steam from the vents. A few of the other shards broke off around me, and one hit me right between the eyes.
“Ouch,” I shouted. “That hurt, Rine!” But I wasn’t sure whether he heard me. Whiskers, I wasn’t sure he even knew I was here.
Then, the demon dragon had the smart idea of rolling, keeping its wings outstretched as it went. It sent me sliding down, and I tried to grasp on with something, but the skin on the wings was smooth like hardened obsidian. I managed to catch myself on some kind of spike that stuck out from the end of it, and from there I dangled. The demon dragon had brought itself down low towards the forest, and he was about to send me smack into a pine tree.
I pivoted out of the way just in time and kept holding on with all my strength, while the dragon lifted me back into the air, going up and up. It lifted me so high my ears wanted to pop. That was when I realised what it was up to. Up there, there wouldn’t be enough air for a poor Bengal cat to breathe. But this creature didn’t need air, it seemed. Even as it rose, the fires still seemed to rage out of the cracks in its body.
The air became thinner, and my ears hurt even more, and I felt faint. I imagined myself floating even higher in the air, finally carried up by the wings of two beautiful angel cats.
“You can’t,” a voice came in my head. It wasn’t Salanraja. It wasn’t the demon dragon. It wasn’t Astravar. It was that melodic and lilting female voice that I’d heard in my crystal. “I gave you your gift for a reason. Trust yourself.”
I hesitated, as I tried to understand exactly what the crystal was getting at. Then, it became clear what I had to do.
I had the gift. The ability to speak to all creatures. I could speak the language of any sentient creature. I could command this demon dragon. “STOP!” I screamed out in my mind. I knew the language instinctively. I just needed to work out what to say.
“I AM DEMON DRAGON,” it replied in my head. “THE WARLOCK ASTRAVAR IS MY MASTER… MY PURPOSE IS TO DESTROY ALL LIFE UPON THIS WORLD…” I wasn’t sure whether it was speaking in my mind or out loud anymore. My vision had already gone completely blurry and the world around me was spinning from lack of good air. But I let my instinct
guide me. I had to trust something.
“NO,” I said. “I AM YOUR MASTER. NOW, LOWER YOURSELF SO I CAN GIVE YOU YOUR COMMANDS.”
“I AM DEMON DRAGON…” it replied, then it paused a moment as if uncertain. “I AM DEMON DRAGON… AND DRAGONCAT IS MY MASTER… ASTRAVAR THE DRAGONCAT IS MY MASTER… MY PURPOSE IS UNCERTAIN.”
Well, whatever I’d done, I’d certainly confused it. I held on for dear life, hanging from the horn at the end of the demon dragon’s wing. My vision got less bleary, and I could breathe again. I panted hard, and then I checked down below to see Aleam pointing up at me with his staff. Next to him, glared an oval-shaped eye with a white cornea and fire and magma burning within. The portal. Aleam had summoned the portal. Now, all I had to do was bring the demon dragon back to it.
Now, I could hear the demon dragon’s primitive thoughts in my own mind, and I knew exactly what Salanraja meant about screaming these thoughts in her mind. Because that is exactly what the demon dragon did.
“I AM DEMON DRAGON…” it continued. “WHO IS MY MASTER? DRAGONCAT… ASTRAVAR… MY FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN…”
It sounded like it needed a little identity reassurance. “I AM YOUR MASTER,” I said in the hideous language of the Seventh Dimension. “THE WAY BACK TO YOUR WORLD IS NOW OPENED. RETURN AND NEVER COME BACK AGAIN.”
“RETURN… PORTAL VISIBLE… ASTRAVAR… I SERVE ASTRAVAR… BUT ALSO DRAGONCAT…”
I knew that this ruse wouldn’t last forever. I didn’t have the powerful magic that Astravar had to control this thing. But all I needed to do was fool it for long enough to get it inside.
The demon dragon spiralled downwards towards the portal. As we got even closer, it felt like the portal latched on to us like a vacuum. It was almost as if the Seventh Dimension felt that I belonged in there. Meanwhile, the demon dragon had started to work things out.
“DRAGONCAT… ASTRAVAR… DRAGONCAT IS AN IMPOSTER… YES, ASTRAVAR…. I HEAR YOU, ASTRAVAR, MY MASTER… DESTROY DRAGONCAT… DESTROY THE WORLD…”
Whiskers, he’d woken up out of his state. Just as I was about to bring him down to the portal.
“Just hold him a little longer,” Salanraja said.
“I don’t know how,” I said, and it was as if I could feel someone prying inside my own head. Something was trying to stop me speaking, and to take control of my thoughts. It was as if the vengeful eye of Astravar was watching me from inside the portal. I could see it, I swear, hovering above those raging fires. That cruel grey eye that knew nothing of comfort. The one I’d seen in my dreams.
The demon dragon started to lift, as consciousness continued to rouse. At the same time, the portal was closing, and we were so close to being sucked in. But if the demon dragon continued its current course, we would miss the portal by a paw’s span.
“Ben,” Salanraja said. “Don’t lose control. You can do this.”
Then, I heard the voice of the crystal in my head again. “Remember your destiny,” it said. “You must save the world.”
Those words were enough. The language, the commands, what I needed to do, it came to my mind as clear as lightning. “I, DRAGONCAT, COMMAND YOU!” I screamed, and I screamed it out loud. “RETURN TO THE SEVENTH DIMENSION!”
My thoughts took control of its mind. They snapped on to it, and it felt like I’d leashed invisible reins around the creature’s muzzle. The demon dragon’s mind suddenly went quiet, and it turned its lumbering form back towards the portal.
I prepared to get sucked in and to join my new world, the Seventh Dimension. I would probably die in there. If everything in there was a demon, then there was absolutely no way I’d find the food I needed to survive. I felt as if I was passing through an incredibly hot waterfall. It seared my skin, and I was prepared to accept my own fate.
“No, Ben,” Salanraja said in my mind, and her voice snapped me back to the present. “Choose life!”
I screeched and remembered who I was. I wasn’t a Dragoncat, whatever a Dragoncat was. I was a Bengal, descendant of the great Asian leopard cat. I was wild, and I was free. Those thoughts gave me enough power in my hind legs to leap off the demon dragon and roll over in the sand.
I turned to face the portal then, the great eye with the raging fires within. It led to a horrific place, one I never wanted to remember seeing, even in nightmares. The demon dragon flew towards a burning sky and then seemed to realise it had been duped. It turned its head, and it looked at me with those empty eyes of fire.
It flew faster in there, or maybe life inside that place was accelerated, because it did a half loop-the-loop and barrel roll within seconds, and for a moment it looked like it would fly right out again. From the direction it was heading, I could tell it wanted to eat me whole.
But Aleam was watching it with one eye, his staff raised as the portal leached energy from a crystal on a pedestal made from a tree trunk. He knocked his staff to the side, to send the crystal toppling to the floor. This cut off the portal just before the demon dragon could emerge.
All that remained was an ear-piercing roar. It sent a massive gust of wind out through the forest, and it shook the trees and brought the sand up from beneath my feet as if it were dust. It whisked it up into suffocating eddies, and it caused the air to howl through the trees. The noises and the crying winds built to a climax as if calling out from the oblivion beneath the world. It screamed out like a massive and very, very angry hippopotamus.
And then, all was still.
I blinked twice, and then I looked back at my fur. It looked charred; it looked beaten. But I was alive, and I couldn’t believe it. We’d defeated it. We’d won.
I turned to Aleam, and I meowed and I brushed up next to him. I was purring so loudly, happy just to be alive. He laughed, and he reached out and scratched me under the chin.
“Now,” I said. “Maybe Initiate Rine would be so kind as to go out there and catch me a fish.” And Ta’ra leapt down from a rock and also looked up at Aleam with wide eyes, as if to tell him she quite fancied fish too.
43
Invisible Fish
It took a while to return back to Dragonsbond academy, and we took the journey slowly. We had plenty of stop-offs, which gave me time to talk with Rine, Aleam, and Ta’ra about their adventures. They told me about the experiences they’d had throughout the world, and for the first time I gained stories that would make the Savannah cats back in South Wales weep in disbelief.
Salanraja was right, the hippopotamus was nothing compared to the chimera.
We arrived in Dragonsbond Academy later that night, and I’m not sure anyone saw any importance to our return. Aleam suggested that I could spend the night in his study, and Rine seemed to think that was a good idea.
It definitely was a good idea, because the next day I awoke lying on Aleam’s sofa, snuggled up next to Ta’ra. I woke naturally, not because of the light, but the delicious aroma of chicken liver coming from two bowls on the floor. They were both white. One had a black cat painted on the front, with a tiny, winged human perched on her shoulder. The other had a cat that didn’t look too different from me, with a red dragon flying over his head.
I rushed over to the bowl, purring, and I gobbled up the chicken liver. It tasted so good, and I’d forgotten how much I liked liver. I was so hungry that I was tempted to eat from Ta’ra’s bowl as well. It would have been her own fault, really, for wanting to sleep through such a tantalising aroma. But somehow, I resisted. She needed to eat as well, and it took all my willpower, I’m telling you, to pretend that the food wasn’t there and to sit in the corner and groom the dust off my fur instead.
Soon, heavy footsteps approached the door. Initiate Rine stood at the entrance. He scanned the room, then his gaze fell on me in the corner. Meanwhile, Ta’ra opened her eyes and yawned.
“Freshcat Ben,” Rine said. “You have been called by the Council of Three, and you are to come to see them immediately.”
“What do they want?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rine s
aid. “Once the Council summons you, you must come at once.”
I looked over at Aleam, who was working away at his alembic apparatus, as if he did anything else. He peered down at me over his glasses. “Initiate Rine is right, I’m afraid,” he said. “But once you become an Initiate here, you will be able to apply for a small amount of paid holiday, with the number of days increasing as you rise up the ranks.”
I lifted myself up on all fours. “Does that mean I’m about to be promoted?”
Aleam looked at Initiate Rine, and he shook his head. “Just go, will you?” he said. “And don’t tell them I said anything.”
I stalked towards the door, even if my legs were hurting so much that I thought I would collapse. Aleam had applied some of this so called white magic, but he said it could only cure the bone and it wouldn’t soothe the bruises.
I followed Initiate Rine out into the bailey, which was empty. There wasn’t a servant, a cat, or even a rat in sight. But after looking around a bit, I noticed a few guards on the chemin de ronde, and two stationed by the portcullis.
A light wind rushed through the castle, sending fallen leaves up from the ground. Rine led me across the yard, and then underneath the archway that led to the courtyard.
Which was exactly where the rest of the residents of the castle had gathered, with the exception of Aleam, Ta’ra, the cats in the cattery, and the stationed guards. Everyone had gathered in two clusters, leaving an aisle at the centre which Rine led me through. The servants and the kitchen maids stood at the back, including Matron Canda who turned to regard me with stern eyes. Then we passed the guards, and then the students. Rine’s girlfriend, Bellari, was near the aisle, and she backed away from me as I passed, looking down at me with wide eyes. Ange was on the opposite aisle, and she gave me a cute pout, then looked up at Rine and smiled.
Closer to the front, we passed some older dragon riders I’d not even met yet. Some of them looked close to Aleam’s age. Prefect Lars and his two friends – Calin and Asinda were also there. But only Asinda turned and looked at me, an expression of mistrust in her narrowed eyes.
A Cat's Guide to Bonding with Dragons Page 18