by Laurence Yep
“Of course,” I said, but good manners also made me add, “and the other magicals too.”
I could see in her eyes that she was growing excited, but she made a big show of not caring. “You mean, there are other magical people in San Francisco?”
“More than you know.” I laughed. “A mountain nymph may live for free in her cave, but she still has to eat. Perhaps she becomes a waitress or street singer for part of the day. You can never be sure when you meet someone for the first time—which is why it’s always wise to be polite.”
“You weren’t very polite to me,” Winnie claimed.
I tapped the side of my nose. “I could smell that you were trouble right away.” I paused and leaned over her solemnly. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone about me or about all this—not even your mother,” I said as sternly as I could.
“Why?” Winnie asked.
“Once, dragons and other magicals lived openly with humans,” I explained. “Sometimes it worked out fine, like it did for dragons in China. We were usually treated there with respect. But in Europe, people assumed dragons would burn down their homes and grab the nearest person for supper. For them, the only good dragon was a dead one.”
Winnie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That’s awful.”
“Dragons weren’t the only ones who were mistreated,” I went on, “so the different magicals agreed to keep their powers secret or hide from humans altogether. Over the centuries, we’ve done such a good job that most humans consider all us magicals imaginary.”
“But you showed yourself to Great-Aunt Amelia,” Winnie said.
“If we’re careful, we’re allowed to reveal the truth to a few special humans like your great-aunt Amelia,” I said. “But other humans can’t know, or we could both be in big trouble.”
“How much trouble?” she asked curiously.
“Lots,” I said. “So much that you and I will wish we had never been born.”
She stared up at me defiantly. “You can’t scare me.”
“Probably not,” I agreed, “but what would your mother do without you?”
That made her hesitate. Finally she shrugged. “Well, Great-Aunt Amelia told me to keep you a secret. I guess I can go along with it for now.”
As we entered the lobby of a ten-story glass-and-chrome building, she looked around. “The shops are in a hospital?” she asked. At least she had enough sense to speak softly.
“Don’t be so thick,” I said, heading for the elevators. “I can hardly take my true shape in the park, but no one will notice me transforming up high on the roof.”
We joined the crowd getting into an elevator, and no one commented when I pushed the “R” button.
The winds on the hospital’s rooftop were just as strong as ever, and I was eager to let them lift me skyward. The shed for the elevator mechanism, the water tank, and some other machinery occupied the left side of the roof, leaving the right flat and unobstructed. I hurried over to the empty space.
Winnie watched intently as I drew the fingers of my right hand horizontally through the air while I swept the fingers of my left hand vertically, as if I was weaving fabric. I reversed the motions, as if I was unweaving it, and then repeated the first motion, as if I was weaving a new pattern. At the same time, I murmured the spell, and the world swam in a golden haze. The next moment, my human form and clothing had disappeared and I was my proper shape again. I picked up the purse full of pearls and placed the strap around my neck.
Winnie started to put out her hand but hesitated. “Can I touch you?”
“If you must,” I said.
I craned my neck over to watch as she brushed her palm over my scales and then traced the edges of one. “They’re so smooth,” she marveled. “And they shine like jewels. I think you look nicer when you’re yourself.”
“So do I,” I said. “If you’d been this respectful the first time we met, you would have gotten off on a better paw with me.”
“I was sort of disappointed in your den, not you.” She waved her hand over her head. “Maybe it’s how the sun makes you gleam now.”
“Humph, yes, it’s all in the lighting.” I suspected there was more to it than that: Winnie was careful to hide her true feelings when meeting someone for the first time. Now that she felt more comfortable with me, she was showing what she really felt. Well, you haven’t seen anything yet. Crouching, I said, “Hop on.”
When she clambered up between my wings, I twisted my long neck around and saw that her hands had clasped two of my scales. “Squeeze your legs tighter against me.”
“I know how to ride,” she answered. “But I’ve never ridden bareback before.”
I could have told her that riding a dragon was going to be quite different from riding a horse. But I knew she would find out soon enough. I stood still so she could find her balance on my back, settle in, and grip my sides as well as she could.
When she had done so, I raised a foreleg and turned in a slow circle, as if I was drawing a curtain around us, at the same time that my claws drew the signs.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
It’s just as well that I have such excellent powers of concentration because I finished the spell flawlessly. “… antartis!”
It was only then that I twisted my neck so I could stare directly into her eyes. “Never, never interrupt me when I’m casting a spell. Some of them have dire consequences if you make a mistake or stop in the middle.”
She swallowed, but even now her fear couldn’t overcome her curiosity. “What would happen?”
“We could turn inside out,” I snapped, “or worse.”
Her eyes grew big. “Worse?”
I turned my head so I faced the edge of the roof. “Real magic has consequences. If I make a mistake, I can’t undo it by pressing a button like on a video game and returning to an earlier stage. Instead, you might never be able to speak again, and then you’d explode because you couldn’t pester me with any more questions.”
“Ha! I’d write my questions instead.” She was a plucky little thing.
“Undoubtedly,” I said. “As it happens, I was casting a spell so only magicals could see us.”
Then, with a majestic leap, I sprang into the air and unfurled my wings. I’d lost interest in flying when Fluffy was ill, so it was invigorating to feel the wind lift me on invisible hands.
Behind me, Winnie let out a whoop. I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. Taking a pet flying for the first time always reminds me how wonderful it is to be free in the air.
As I glided above a nearby house, the wind from our passage panicked a line of pigeons perched on the roof, and they flapped their wings in a noisy, frantic escape. High above me, I saw the white contrails of a jet plane, and in the first rush of exultation, I thought of soaring upward and circling round and round it.
But I caught myself in time because, as excellent a flier as I am, I might have accidentally bumped the plane. Thanks to the spell, though, I was free to play in the air currents, jumping from one to another like a dolphin leaping in the ocean. The currents carried me in the direction of Clipper’s Emporium. She must have been feeling medieval because her cloud rose in cottony spires and battlements. Finer bits of mist whipped about like banners. Though it looked as soft and wispy as any cloud, her store was as secure and sturdy as magic could make it.
We’d arrived too soon for my taste, and I almost went on, but then I remembered I had a pet on my back. “Do you want to fly some more or shop?” I asked as I craned my head behind me.
The winds this high were biting today, but I was dressed in scales and not thin cloth. Winnie’s teeth were chattering from the cold. “I th-think I’d l-like to sh-shop.”
I scolded myself for not dressing her properly for the chilly higher altitudes. Skipping any more aerobatics, I made a quick, if boring, landing. “We’d better get you inside,” I said to Winnie.
When she slid off my back, she was shivering, and when she tried to walk, she
lurched on stiff legs.
“Next time tell me if you’re cold,” I said.
She wrapped her arms around herself for greater warmth. “And give you an excuse to leave me behind?”
“Don’t turn into an icicle just because you want to show me how tough you are,” I scolded, and moved alongside her to shield her from the worst of the wind.
I saw an old friend, Britomart, Clipper’s Mistress of Security, barring the doorway, which her massive body did very well in its chain-mail shirt. She had raised her battle-ax to her shoulder, ready to swing at the slightest provocation.
Glaring up at her were the nastiest little kobolds I’d ever had the misfortune to meet. They only reached as high as her kneecaps, and their hair was as thick and bristly as the whiskers on a pig’s snout. Somehow their pipestem necks supported their large-eared heads. It was rare to see any of them in the daylight, let alone up in the sky. Both dwarves and kobolds are underground creatures, but kobolds are to dwarves as bottom-dwelling catfish are to trout, living and working at depths in the earth that even dwarves regarded as dangerous because of the shadowy creatures there.
Small as they were, the pack of them could still give Britomart a hard time—but not with a dragon on her side.
CHAPTER FOUR
Avoid spoiling your pet with too many treats; however, spoiling yourself is all well and good.
“Stay close to me,” I murmured to Winnie. I was grateful that she didn’t argue but slipped in close to my right shoulder.
Then I trapped the nearest kobold in my claws and dangled him a few feet above the cloud surface. “Excuse me, but we have business inside.”
He grunted and squealed something in Low Kobold, and the other five kobolds turned as one to glower at me.
Pursing my lips and aiming carefully, I breathed a narrow spear of fire that singed the hair off my captive’s shins. The big baby screeched as if I was actually barbecuing him instead of giving him a dragon’s beauty treatment.
When I dropped him, he scrambled away on all fours, and as I took a step forward, the pack of bullies shoved one another in their hurry to get out of my way.
I raised a paw to my mouth as I gave a little burp, and a wisp of smoke rose into the air. “Next time my fire will reach deeper than your hair,” I warned them.
Britomart was chuckling as she bowed and then turned sideways to let me pass. As I went by her, I whispered, “Let me know if this lot gives you any more trouble.”
“Aye, and thank you, Miss Drake,” she said with another bow.
Just inside the doorway was a small copper pyramid. I could see the tips of scarlet claws peeking from inside. Then the two-inch-long lobster-like pemburu crawled forward to bar our way. Its segmented shell was an iridescent blue-green and its tail a brilliant scarlet too. Its eyestalks shifted the spherical gold eyes from Winnie to me, and it strained at its silver collar and leash, which were tied to the pyramid by a slender chain.
Fascinated, Winnie squatted down. “It looks like a piece of jewelry.”
I put a paw on Winnie’s shoulder. “Stay still.” The pemburu began to glow inside, pulsing rhythmically for a moment before the light dulled. When the pemburu crept back into its home, Britomart said, “Okay, you can shop now.”
“What was all that about?” Winnie asked.
“The pemburu can sniff magic,” Britomart explained. “We had to get one after a shoplifting wizard tried to sneak in an enchanted sack—a truly bottomless one.”
“What are things coming to?” I sympathized.
It was as warm inside as it was breezy and cold outside. A floating cloud emporium posed certain challenges in climate control, but high in the misty rafters, clusters of fluttering sapphire bats and glowing air snails worked together to keep the temperature suitable for Clipper and her customers.
At the moment, Clipper was above chilly San Francisco, but the air currents could carry her shop wherever she wanted, from the Bering Sea to Zanzibar—and her merchandise reflected it too.
Elegant and bold banners hung from misty hooks hidden from view, flooding the air above with floating trails of color. Each time I visited the Emporium, it seemed to have more and more merchandise, scattered in displays all around, and more things drifting down from the heights above. Bundles of sweetgrass might lie next to a tower of artfully arranged scimitars. On one table, random jars of polishing cream were stacked neatly—one or another would brighten up tarnished armor, moldy merman scales, or a pirate captain’s hook. I’d spent many an afternoon browsing and getting delightfully lost before asking for help. Yet the organization all made sense to Clipper, and she always knew where anything could be found.
“Look!” cried Winnie as a small shadow glided over our heads. “It’s a little pteranodon. Wow!”
Clipper also had a small menagerie of creatures suitable as company for the lonely sorceress or as guardians for the frightened lord of a castle. They were all rare and magical—most with very limited skills, but pleasant to watch since they could change colors or do something amusing. In one cage, a fuzzy lavender lemur stared at us with eyes that seemed to cover half its face, and it opened its muzzle to trill an aria. Inside a tall glass column full of exotic plants, dream-casting moths and other rare insects drifted from blossom to blossom, and neon lizards basked on crystal branches. I’ve always enjoyed watching the amphibious warbling doves glide through the air and swim across their tank, their gills fluttering around their necks. Nearby, lithe Lady Jane salamanders raced around and around on wheels, and fluffy pink carousel mice spun like tops in a dome of their own.
“Oh, my dad would have loved these,” Winnie said, drawn to a tower for the dragonets, each in its own separate compartment. “They’re like you … but teeny.”
“Watch your fingers,” I told her quickly. “Or they’ll be toasted.”
I did not approve of keeping dragonets as pets. Still, Clipper treated all her little friends well and called them her guests. And she always verified that their new owners knew what they were getting into and would provide good homes.
Charmed by the aisles of beasts, Winnie would never have gone any farther, but I gently pushed her to the left, where Clipper was hovering.
Clipper was an air sprite, thin and light as a wisp of smoke, so she always seemed about to be blown away by the next breeze. Over four hundred years ago, when I had been in London with my pet Renwick, I’d introduced her to a neighbor, an actor named William. Her large eyes and delicate features had inspired him to write a funny little piece about the midsummer that still seems to please audiences today.
Looks aside, she was no pushover and a tough negotiator. I could see she was in the middle of a transaction with a customer haggling for a bargain.
“I’ve offered you a fair price for the carnelian,” the creature said, pointing to the stack of gold coins on the counter. He looked roughly like a human, though most of his weight was in his large hips and thick legs. He had hunched forward so the large eye on the top of his head could look at her. Even without the clan markings tattooed around the eye, I recognized him as a drought demon. His kind could turn a watery paradise into a desert, but I’d never known any to be interested in semiprecious gems.
“Not for a stone from King Solomon’s ring,” Clipper said. The carnelian glowed like a winter sun, deep orange with a blush of red, as it nestled on a black velvet cushion. She held a magnifying glass over it. “You can see the marks left by the worm that cut it.”
Winnie started to turn her head to ask me about a gem-carving worm, but I held up a hand. My friend Clipper might be in trouble.
The drought demon didn’t bother looking through the magnifying glass. “Clouds are made of water, and water can dry up, as I know all too well,” he warned.
Clipper put down the magnifying glass and picked up a delicate porcelain cup. “Don’t you dare threaten me on my property,” she said, taking a sip of tea.
“I was just giving some friendly advice,” the drought demon s
aid. “You won’t like it if I become unfriendly.”
Winnie tugged at my wing anxiously. “Do something, Miss Drake,” she whispered urgently.
As dainty as Clipper looked, she had not survived all these centuries without learning a trick or two. “My friend can take care of herself,” I whispered back.
“The negotiations are over. Get out.” Clipper’s long, slender fingers fished a slice of lemon from the cup and flipped the lemon right onto the exposed eyeball of the demon.
As the creature clutched at his eye, his screech made the merchandise sway under the rafters, but he shut up when he felt my paws grip his head like a vise.
“Blink your eye rapidly, and you’ll be all right,” I instructed.
The eyelid fluttered up and down quickly, and when the creature could focus his eye again, I made sure he got a close-up view of me and my fangs. “I think you left some kobold trash outside. I suggest you take them and yourself away from here and never come back.”
With a gulp, the creature sidled around me and scurried down the aisle. Britomart heard him coming and stepped aside so he could hurry past her.
“A drought demon with a gang of kobolds.” Clipper sighed. “San Francisco never ceases to amaze me.”
“The whole world comes here,” I sympathized, “and unfortunately that includes the scum. Have they been giving you a lot of trouble?”
“This is the first time I’ve seen them, and I hope it’s the last.” Clipper set her cup down. “But I’m glad to see you. I was so sorry to hear about—”
“Amelia?” I said before she could say “Fluffy.” “Yes, many people were.” I put a paw on Winnie’s shoulder. “This is her great-niece, Winnie.”
“Winnie, WIN-nie, win-NIE.” Clipper chewed the syllables as if testing them for flavor. Then she shook her head. “I think you can find a better name for her than that.”
“What does she mean?” Winnie asked.
“Just a little sprite humor,” I said with a warning look at Clipper. “Do you have a pound of my usual tea?”