Aldric eyed Simon, doing his best to look soothing. “There will be a time for revenge,” he said quietly. “Don’t go off without thinking.”
“Do you understand what it means for a Dragon to love?” said the White Serpent. Simon didn’t look at him. “It means that the Dragon must cast the woman in flames. You see, Dragons can feel human emotion, so at the instant of the woman’s death, the Dragon knows what it feels like to vanish in flames. The Dragon shares the experience with his bride. It is a beautiful thing.
“Your mother,” he went on, “was no different. I saw all of her memories, all of her feelings. She is gone, but her dreams, her hopes, everything that she was, passed over my eyes to look over, like volumes in a library. Wouldn’t you like to have seen her mind? Wouldn’t you like to see what I saw?”
Simon watched the creature move his head back and forth beyond the bars, trying to catch his eye.
“Don’t you want to know what she thought of you? What she thought of your father?”
“Leave him alone,” said Aldric.
“I can see why you wouldn’t. I’ve seen her memories, child-boy,” said the White Dragon. “She grew to hate you like a weight around her neck. And your father was no better—”
Aldric moved toward him threateningly, but the Serpent went on. “Your father loathed you, I could see it in her mind’s eye—he couldn’t stand what you’d done to their happy existence. Before you, they lived well. Seeing the world, doing as they wished. But you made them poor. You made travel difficult. You made him feel guilty for not loving you, and for that, he hated you even more.”
Simon felt like he was drowning; the Serpent’s words were killing him.
“Watch yourself—” said Aldric.
“Oh, let’s have it all out now, shall we?” the Serpent taunted, turning back to Simon. “I took the Knight’s wife, and he was left with you, Simon-boy, a sniveling baby. A grown man doesn’t want such burdens. You know this, surely. When he left you at that school, he went off to celebrate.”
“They’re all lies, Simon,” said his father, looking nervous.
The Dragon smiled. “The Knight is not worthy of you, boy.”
“He will be. When he avenges himself on you,” said Simon.
“And I will have my revenge,” said Aldric, “for ending the life of my wife, and my brother.”
The Dragon’s neck recoiled. “We have both lost brothers. I hated mine, but his spies did find the boy and pass on the information, I’ll say that for him. So I seek vengeance as well, Knight.”
Behind him, rolling into the dungeon, was the Dragon of Venice, encased in his traveling water tank. “Kill them now, Venemon,” he hissed. “To keep them any longer is foolish risk.”
The White Dragon shot him a withering look. “I make the decisions, Brakkesh. Any more questioning of the plan, and I’ll torch you to ashdust, regardless of the fire risk.” A slight white glow in his throat removed all doubt. The Venetian pulled back inside his watery chamber, retreating.
The Dragonhunters watched this exchange very carefully.
Suddenly, Simon felt a tugging, and looked down to see the Dragonmap fly from the satchel he carried, straight into the White Dragon’s claws. The creature lifted the map.
“You played your part perfectly.” He smiled at Simon. “We lost track of you here and there, but when you were sighted in Beijing, it all fell into place. Rather than another messy battle—one the Black Dragon was far too feeble to win—I thought, why not bring him here? Make the Dragonhunter a gift to the others. Break him down. With all of us working against him, he could hardly escape. I thank you, boy, for helping me.”
Simon could not bring himself to speak.
“He wanted me as a father, Aldric,” said the White Dragon. “Me. I can see it inside him. The Man in White seemed like the right kind of father to him when I came to his school. And it’s true: I would’ve made a wonderful father.” Simon looked away from Aldric, embarrassed he’d ever felt that way.
Venemon grinned. “I knew you’d end up in my grasp sooner or later.”
“Don’t fear him,” Aldric said to Simon. “We’ll have our time.”
Simon was under control. It was Alaythia who was on edge, stinging with anger.
The White Dragon leaned close to the bars, whispering to her. “Now, the last Dragonhunter will die, along with the last magician. You will give light to the world, my sweet, your flesh, your skin, and your bones.”
And with that, a torrent of shimmering heat waves rushed up his body, as he revealed his true self to her for the first time. The white-haired man who had stood before her now flickered into the shape Aldric and Simon had known all along: a white-skinned reptilian beast the size of a man, but with all the fearsome aspects of a Dragon.
The Venetian laughed.
Alaythia screamed.
Moments later she was dragged out by the White Creature, the bars of the cage vanishing for her and quickly re-forming, slamming shut, as she was brought up the stairs to the Great Hall. She was bound with heavy ropes to the long white table.
When she turned to see a court full of hideous Dragons, she screamed again.
Then she tightened her eyes shut, trying to breathe. She would find a way out of this. And she was not going to rely on a Knight in shining armor.
Chapter Thirty-Four
THE HONOR OF DRAGONS
BELOW THE GREAT HALL, alone in the dungeon, Aldric lifted Simon’s sword from the stone floor and slowly passed it to him.
Simon’s hands closed around the hilt. The heart inside it beat firm and steady.
“You are more than I ever deserved,” said the Knight with no trace of doubt. “Nothing that creature said was true. I know you don’t understand the sacrifice I made in leaving you, but we have to see our way out of this together now. There’s no room for error.”
The responsibility made Simon’s sword feel heavier.
“Use your sword,” he told Simon. “But follow my instincts. Not yours. Work with me, not against me. Try to believe in me.”
I do, thought Simon, but a new arrival, outside the cage, kept him from speaking.
“You,” said Simon, turning, surprised at seeing him.
Ming Song, the old Black Dragon, kept his eyes lowered. “Honorable St. George family,” he said. “It is my duty to send the Knight to the Great Hall, where he will be witness to the ceremony for the Serpent Queen.”
Simon glared at the Black Dragon. “I never should have trusted you. You’re all liars.”
The Black Dragon turned his head away, not able to stand Simon’s fierce gaze. “I had no choice in the matter,” he answered. “It is with some regret I tell you this.”
“I’ll teach you a thing or two about regret,” said Aldric.
The Black Dragon ignored the Knight. “The Queen of Serpents awaits us all,” he said.
Aldric swung his sword at the bars in anger, but suddenly white iron chains came out of the floor and clasped his arms and legs. Then Aldric was pulled upward, flying toward the ceiling of the cage, which opened for him.
“They are sending him to his death,” the Black Dragon said to Simon, bowing his head.
Simon called out, watching helplessly as Aldric ascended to the upper floor and the ceiling slammed shut.
Aldric landed in the Great Hall in front of the White Dragon. The Knight stood in chains before his enemies. Alaythia looked to him worriedly.
Below in the prison, Simon tried to climb the bars, terrified, listening desperately for what would happen. The crowd was quieting. He could hear only what Aldric was seeing: The White Dragon stood over Alaythia, full of confidence and power.
“Tonight, comrades and brothers, we look upon the future,” said the White Serpent.
The reptilians rustled with interest.
“For too long, we have been needless enemies,” he went on, “our powers at odds with each other because of what the humans did to our Great Queen. In this very hall, even as we are
gathered together in goodwill, our magic quarrels against our mingling.”
Indeed, the hall was slowly filling with beetles. They seemed to have been generated out of nothing. Beetles of every color went rolling over each other, crawling over the toes of the Dragons. Earthquakes continued to shake the palace. Lightning moved over the Dragons, fitfully biting at their snouts and necks.
“All of this will end soon. The great tragedy that befell the Serpent Queen has too long defined us,” the White Dragon bellowed across the hall, “and we have been too distrustful to realize it. With the union of our strengths, we will bury our differences and seek a new life under a common queen.”
The reptilians began murmuring approval.
Simon heard the serpent’s words from the dungeon, his mind on his father. We are going to die, he thought, because I wanted to prove you wrong.
The Knight was plagued with his own worries.
His hopeful eyes fell to Alaythia. And beyond her he saw the Lost Book, useless to him now, under the clawed foot of the White Serpent.
Venemon, showing his white fangs with pride, continued to address the crowd: “With the rebirth of our Serpent Queen, our power will be infinite. We will begin with a fire built on magic, built here in this palace, by all of us in unity, a fire that will reach out and grow, minute by minute, hour by hour, to encompass the entire world. This fire will swallow cities and towns, lakes and bridges, mountains and valleys. It will be an inferno the likes of which we have never been capable of in the past.”
Simon listened with growing horror.
“Flames the size of skyscrapers will rush across the continents, dancing over the oceans, burning away all of that wretched, degenerate pestilence called humanity. No more will we have to fear that our beautiful, graceful fires will be erased by the human animal. No more will we have to worry that our artful flames are only a temporary and always-dying creation. Fire will live forever now. We will live in a heavenly landscape of fire.”
The creatures erupted into a growling, screeching cheer, a disorganized howl of total jubilance. All doubts were blotted out. All skepticism whisked away. They were overjoyed with the White Dragon’s vision of a new world. Fire Eternal.
“We will go, then, in fire, to each of our territories, and they will become kingdoms we rule under the Serpent Queen. We will never be dominated by man again.”
Simon felt his knees weaken at the thought of such a future.
“Few humans will survive,” Venemon sneered. “There will be just enough to enslave for our domestic needs. They will serve us as the inferior, weak creatures that they are. They will count themselves lucky for every day they survive to scrape the muck from our claws, or polish our teeth, or bathe us with wine, which they will toil to make for us. And when they get old, we will find them useful as nourishment for our stomachs.”
Below them, the hissing of their sickly laughter pulled Simon deeper into misery. In the white, carved-wood hallway beside the prison, the Black Dragon tapped nervously at the floor with his feet. Simon thought he seemed alarmed at Venemon’s words.
“Such a triumphant age must begin fittingly,” said the White Dragon, “with the death of a great hero of mankind, and a great enemy of Draconians. We have all waited for this moment. I have already destroyed his great weapon, and now we will fear the flash of the Knight’s sword no more. The last of the Dragonhunters stands before us.”
He turned to Aldric. “As you can see, he is held and weakened by metal we have constructed, a symbol of what we can do together. The union of Dragon magic is no myth.”
“I wish I had taken a thousand more of you down!” cried Aldric.
Simon’s heart rose.
The White Dragon pressed his white claw down on the man’s chest, pushing him against the wall, grinning wildly. “Sir Aldric St. George, I hereby sentence you to death by fire.”
And then the most amazing thing happened.
Simon couldn’t believe it.
In awe, he stared as the Black Dragon opened the door to his cage. He was releasing him from the cell. The beast had a mournful look in his eyes. “Run, boy. I cannot bear to see your agony.”
He didn’t have to say it twice.
Simon ran past him, his sword in hand.
The White Dragon was addressing his army. “Let us make the last Knight the first to die in the flames of the Dragon Queen’s mouth. Let us join our magic in the chant of the Unum Draconum, the legendary spell that will release our Imperial Majesty from her slumber.”
The White Dragon began chanting a strange language, and the others joined in, a rambling, rumbling mass of words and gnashing teeth.
Simon was running down the long corridors, chasing the sound.
In the Great Hall, Alaythia opened her eyes, waiting fearfully for Aldric’s death. But he remained defiant.
“The enemy of the Dragon IS the Dragon!” bellowed Aldric. “It has always been so, and it shall always be so!”
As Simon ran down the white stairs of the meeting room, he could hear his father’s brilliant ploy:
“The White Dragon has led you into a trap,” Aldric told the Serpents, “and my presence here has been the bait. He is going to eliminate you once and for all!”
The White Serpent turned on him with a snarl. The crowd of Dragons whispered with hostility. The chant began to fall apart.
“Are you so blind that you don’t see it? Ask yourself why he hasn’t shown you this Great Weapon that I’m supposed to have. It doesn’t exist!” said Aldric. “Reviving the Serpent Queen is a fantasy. It can never happen—because the White Dragon wants to be lord and master himself!”
The Venetian growled. Mistral, the Sand Dragon, was provoked. He stared down the White Dragon with a venomous glare. “Is this true?”
“Of course it’s true,” Aldric answered. “The chant is a diversion. Once your mind is on this all-mighty Serpent Queen, the Great White Liar will throw a flood of fire on all of you.” Aldric laughed savagely, looking at the Venetian. “He’s so arrogant he had to tell me about it. He’s proud of his work. You’re all going to die. He has you right where he wants you!”
The words rang true for at least one Dragon. The Venetian clanged in his water tank, furious. This set off Issindra, who screeched over the crowd with anger for ever believing in unity.
Aldric turned to the group. He’d saved the best for last. “He’s already told the Venetian—he doesn’t fear the fire going wild! He’s going to kill you.”
The creatures went wild.
“He is a human!” shouted the White Dragon. “Don’t believe a word he says!”
“Don’t believe it, then,” Aldric echoed him. “Go to your deaths quietly.”
The Venetian called out, and Mistral howled with a burst of sound that set the others into a frenzy of furious cries, feeling betrayed by the White Dragon, knowing their fear of each other had always been true.
“Madness! Do not listen to him!” the White Dragon thundered. “We have come here to unify our sorcery—”
He could see the group was losing faith in him.
Enraged, he spun around and snapped at Aldric’s chains, breaking them in two. “I’ll tear you to ribbons myself,” he snarled.
Simon burst into the room just in time to see the White Dragon dive with his sharp jaws for Aldric’s chest. Simon let loose a silver arrow from his crossbow that slammed into the Dragon’s snout, forcing him away from Aldric.
The Dragons were now fighting fiercely among themselves, each accusing the other of treachery.
Simon drew his sword and rushed for the White Dragon. There was no time to think—his father would be mincemeat at a moment’s hesitation….
SLASH! Simon whipped his sword at the White Dragon, driving him back, mostly from surprise. Then the boy turned and cut open the last chains left on his father’s wrists.
“Go!” Simon yelled.
Aldric grabbed for his own sword, slung around Simon’s shoulder. “Vengeance is an ugly t
hing,” he growled, swinging his sword at the white beast. “It makes a man a devil.”
The White Dragon fell back against the wall, stunned for the moment. He pulled a sword from the palace wall, smiling with a gleam in his eye, and flew into a punishing attack against Aldric. “I shall take my time with you,” he said with a snicker. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”
All the while, the Venetian was moving toward Venemon.
“Simon, free Alaythia,” shouted Aldric, dodging the White Dragon’s sword.
Simon leapt upon the table and slashed at Alaythia’s binds.
Eeer, tik, tik, tik—suddenly the Parisian rose up behind Simon and pulled him to the ground, snarling in rage.
Alaythia took Simon’s fallen sword and swung it at the wretched Dragonman, but his back was armored and the blows glanced off.
Across from this pandemonium, the White Dragon and Aldric were locked in conflict, swords clashing. Now the Russian Red Dragon moved in toward the White, preparing to crush him in his heavy arms. But the White Dragon threw a claw at his rival and forced him back by magic. “First the human,” he growled, “then I’ll deal with you.”
The Russian was blown back into the thicket of Serpents.
But still the Venetian moved toward Venemon.
As the swordfight continued, as Simon and Alaythia both fought off the Parisian with swords and battle-axes taken right from the palace walls, something even more horrifying began to happen.
The palace grounds began to rumble.
In a moment the hall changed under them; the entire floor was becoming invisible, so that now beneath them in the heat of battle all you could see was a long, dark tunnel, a cave that led straight into the darkness of the earth.
A huge batwing shape, lying with its back down, was levitating out of the darkness into the white light of the palace. Many of the Serpents stopped their quarreling to stare down at this gargantuan, monstrous figure.
The Queen of Serpents was rising.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Saint of Dragons Page 22