Morgan scanned for that army. His gaze fell on the silver dragon struggling to get on her feet. He leaned over her. Her burns were in her heart, mortal wounds. Only a dragon bite could save her. But if he did this, he would be forever bound to her. Since he would never take a slave, this meant they’d be wed one day. He’d never thought to make this promise so soon, but who would he rather spend his life with someday than a dragon so brave she would give her life for him?
He bent and tenderly bit into the Silver’s slowly pulsing throat. His saliva washed into her. He waited holding on. Could he do enough? A royal bite was supposed to—
“Okay, make-out king, you can cut it out now!” the raspy but snarky voice coming from the silver dragon sounded very familiar.
Morgan sat back staring. “You?”
“Quick, aren’t you? We’ve been watching you for … six months.” Chrys, the silver dragon sat upright.
“We?”
“I take it Myrlin failed to mention the Warriors of the Silver Guard are the army you need?” Her eyes pinned him as he shook his head. “And he didn’t mention that we were keeping watch on you and your family?”
He shook his head again.
Chrys, the Silver, sighed. “I think sometimes Myrlin is getting … a little forgetful?”
Morgan laughed. “Most assuredly. But…” He frowned. “He said today I would find the Crystal we need to gather the army, return, and defeat Uthur.” He pointed at her. “Do you know where it is?”
The Silver morphed into the human form of Chrys. “Really? I have to explain this to you? Chrys. Chrystal?”
“Okay.” He tried to look like he’d already put that together. “But why the wait? You introduced yourself to me the first day of school. Why wait to reveal yourself and almost die at Mordred’s hands?”
“I think Myrlin will answer that one. It was his plan.” She dusted off her jeans and looked at the bleeding Mordred. “We need to get him out of here. No way can we explain a dying dragon.”
“He won’t die. Royals don’t die unless you pierce their hearts.” Morgan looked down at the gray dragon and scowled. “But you’re right; we will have to get him out of here unnoticed.” He looked up at the skylights, open over the pool, huge wide windows that a couple of dragons could navigate.
Chrys sighed and morphed back to dragon. “Okay. Where do we take him?”
“I think to Myrlin. So home.” Morgan grabbed a towel and stuffed it onto Mordred’s chest to staunch the blood. He took Mordred’s head and Chrys took his feet. He was pretty sure if he let a Silver take Mordred by the head, there might accidentally be some neck-breaking by the time they got to Myrlin.
They were airborne and above the giant skylights as a group of students flowed into the pool area. No one should have been coming to the pool area since the parctice was cancelled. One of them looked up as Morgan beat his wings to break for the skies. The boy grabbed hold of another.
“Oh, no,” Chrys said. “That’s his army. Fly like you never flew before.”
“Keep up!” Morgan spit, as he beat his wings and grabbed Mordred lower on his body in case she let go. They were over the first tree-line before he heard the other dragon wings following. She’d been right.
“Distraction,” Chrys said.
He was afraid she was going to use herself, but she said it louder, and two silver dragons broke from the trees and headed back toward the chasing dragons.
“Your army?” Morgan asked.
“Yours,” she said. “We’re almost there. Slow down, and let’s be sure this is not a trap.”
They landed in the woods on the other side of Morgan’s house. Chrys tied Mordred with Virginia Creeper vines and kicked him in the head. “To make sure he sleeps,” she said, but she grinned.
Morgan tried not to smile too. They shifted to human form, better to slide unnoticed through the trees on foot.
When they were at the edge of the woods, they stopped and listened. “Three in the house,” Chrys held up her fingers. “I count three heartbeats.”
“Plus Myrlin,” he said. “Who is as usual talking too much. And is he … cooking?”
They looked at each other and shook their heads in mystification. For a moment more they listened. No other voices, no other hearts beating. All accounted for including the three who must be Mordred’s men.
“How are we going to sneak up?” Chrys asked. “They can hear as well as we can.”
“I think that’s why Myrlin’s keeping up the non-stop chatting, to distract. Let’s go.”
They ran across the grass and slipped in the back and up the basement steps. The door to the kitchen was cracked open. Morgan saw the three dragons, carefully keeping their wings tucked, drooling at the food that was being prepared, but not letting go of the swords they had drawn from their scabbards.
Before Morgan could think of a way to get in, Myrlin said, “Could one of you go down into the basement refrigerator?” He pointed at the kitchen refrigerator. “Like this one but at the foot of the basement steps. There should be a whole two pounds of bacon to go with the pancakes. I thought maybe I’d put bacon in the pancakes.” Dragons were fools for bacon.
Morgan and Chrys hurried down the stairs and waited for the dragon to come down. But two stomped down the steps arguing. “Mordred said to kill the wizard. Why aren’t we?”
The other, now at the refrigerator said, “Because he can cook bacon. How long since you’ve eaten?”
The other dragon shrugged and moved in on the first, elbowing him to get to the bacon.
As the two stood for a moment in front of the refrigerator, Chrys and Morgan clobbered them with iron poles from a stack beside the stairs.
“We need to bind them,” Chrys said. “But without Virginia Creeper vine …”
“You’ll have to settle for a spell.” Myrlin’s voice came from the top of the steps. He snapped his fingers, and the two enemy dragons were covered in ropes of cold-fire.
Chrys and Morgan hurried up the steps. The third dragon was face down on the kitchen counter, snoring.
The wizard smiled. “I suppose he should have asked if it was pepper or cinnamon that I put in the pancakes.” He snapped his fingers, and this dragon was bound in cold-fire. “I take it you have Mordred?”
“Yes. And I have a lot of questions,” Morgan said.
“After.” Myrlin pointed to the kitchen clock. “Your mother and sisters will return in three hours. Enough time to usurp the usurper. Right?”
Morgan looked at Chrys and then at Myrlin. “Well…”
“Look outside,” Myrlin and Chrys said together.
On the lawn a hundred silver dragons stood, spread-wing to spread-wing. A sound like the song of the wind before a tornado worked up its fearful destruction gathered louder and louder as the dragons stomped and spit flame.
“You’ve proved yourself to be the proper successor to Arthur,” Chrys said. “So the Warriors of the Silver Guard will fight for your kingdom.”
“Proper because I bit you?” Morgan smiled.
“Why of course, you dummy.” Chrys smiled as she led the way outside.
“She’s going to be a handful as Queen, don’t you think?” Myrlin said.
Morgan laughed. “You know it. But I can handle …”
Myrlin held up a finger. “Don’t finish that. No male dragon has ever ‘handled’ a Silver Warrior. You make her your ally, your companion, you earn her respect, but you never handle her.”
Morgan nodded, morphed to dragon and stepped out to co-lead the Silver Warriors and regain the Dragon Throne.
At seven years old Kath Boyd Marsh self-published her first fantasy on lined notebook paper, stapled together by her grandfather, and starring a creature based on her little sister—the ‘PB.’ Before Kath moved to Richmond, KY to write about dragons, wizards, and other fantastic creatures, she lived in seven states, Panama, and one very haunted house. The Lazy Dr’gon and the Bumblespells Wizard was her debut novel.
Techn
ological Magic
Susan Bianculli
When humans finally colonized the Moon in 2137, all Earth rejoiced that one of Mankind’s oldest dreams had been achieved. When the colonists had finished building the infrastructure, they then began to do what humans have always done: have children. Though the adults had been the first extraterrestrial colonists, it was Amalthea and the children born on the Moon who were the first true extraterrestrial humans. They grew up attuned to the sounds of the colony station in a way their parents could never be; so when the familiar thrums that underlined their everyday existence changed, the children noticed.
“Did you hear that?” Amalthea asked, opening her eyes where she sat.
She and the twenty-one other teens sitting together in the Contemplation Studio had been doing a guided group meditation, but everyone had stopped concentrating at the exact same moment.
“Yeah, I did,” said her friend Deimos. “Computer, off.” The soothing voice that had been conducting their mental exercises vanished.
All the other teens started talking over each other about what they’d heard. Amalthea called for silence, got it, and tapped her parents’ code on her wrist computer.
“Dad? Mom? Did you just hear that?”
“Hear what?” her father replied through the speaker.
“Can you describe it?” her mother chimed in.
“I, uh, dunno. The background noises just went kinda off. We heard a change.”
Amalthea could hear the frown in her father’s voice. “I’ll need more than that, young lady.”
“I heard it too, Mr. Richard, Mrs. Jane,” Deimos leaned over and added helpfully.
“Do you have a better description, Deimos?” asked Jane.
“Well, no …,” he replied, his voice trailing off.
Jane inhaled sharply, and Richard said hurriedly, “We’ll look into it,” as he cut the connection short.
“No, the Chief Engineer wasn’t being at all suspicious just then,” a boy named Suttung said sarcastically.
“There’s definitely something going on,” Amalthea agreed.
“Should we investigate too?” Deimos asked.
“Investigate what and where, exactly?” Suttung asked. “We don’t know what could be wrong, and the Moon colony is a huge place. It could be anywhere and anything.”
“Maybe we should get into our space suits?” a girl named Bestla said.
“Why?” Deimos answered. “If the station implodes or anything, it’s not like Earth would send up a rescue ship for the survivors.”
All the teens exchanged solemn glances. Getting Mankind to colonize space had proven beyond the capabilities of the Earth’s governments, so it had fallen, like so much had, to privatization. Eventually many of the smaller religious organizations had come together under the umbrella name Ancient Faiths Association and pooled their cash to achieve the space dream. But since the station was a privately funded enterprise it had always been understood that, despite the pride that the average Earth citizen had in the Moon colonists, no government down there would stir to rescue them if a life-threatening problem happened. That this could be an issue had never even crossed the teens’ minds—until now.
“Well, we can’t just sit around here,” Amalthea said. “Let’s split up to look around. Whether the adults like it or not, the more of us looking for something out of whack, the more chances it’ll be found.”
Everyone agreed, so Bestla projected a holo-map of the colony from her wrist computer into the center of the Contemplation Room so it could be divvied up among them. After a few confused minutes, eleven pairs of teens left for their self-assigned sectors.
“Come on, Amalthea! We have one of the furthest places to get to!” Deimos said.
“Let’s grab a station scooter,” Amalthea replied.
Stations scooters were communal property, so there were lots of them scattered all over the colony. Anyone could use one at any time as long as they knew how to drive. Deimos beat her to the last scooter and grabbed the driver’s seat. Amalthea scrambled up behind him, and they sped down the hallways. After a few minutes, though, Deimos slowed to a stop.
“Deimos? What’s wrong?” Amalthea asked.
“We haven’t passed a single adult on our route, and we should have seen at least a dozen by now,” he said with a frown.
“Hmmm. You’re right.” She scanned the empty corridor. “Where is everyone?”
“Maybe they’ve already found out what’s wrong and fixed it?” he suggested hesitantly.
“My Dad would have made a station-wide announcement in that case. Or at least told me about it, since I’m the one that brought it to his attention. And this place wouldn’t be empty.”
“Then maybe they’ve found out the problem and are having trouble fixing whatever it is?”
“But that still doesn’t explain all the absences,” Amalthea argued. “Parents of small babies should still be around, for example. And they’re not.”
“Hey, look, there’s an adult,” said Deimos.
Mrs. Sally, one of the teachers, was herding a big group of children across the corridor towards one of the playroom/gymnasium combinations. The group was made up of children from infancy to eight Earth rotations of age, with the older children leading the younger ones.
“That’s not at all suspicious, either,” Amalthea frowned. “Why are all those ages together like that? Where are Mrs. Sally’s co-teachers, or the caretakers of the babies, at least? And where are the older kids?”
Mrs. Sally saw the pair of teens down the hall. Her face scrunched up into a nervous expression as she called out to them. “You teens should be still in the Contemplation Room, shouldn’t you? Your meditation exercises are not supposed to be done yet!”
“Mrs. Sally,” Amalthea began, but Sally interrupted her.
“Sorry, I don’t have time to chit-chat. I’m taking the youngsters for a special treat today. Go back to where you’re supposed to be!” she ordered as the group disappeared into the gym.
Deimos started the scooter again. “I somehow don’t think we’d get a straight answer if we try to ask her anything. We should get going on our search, pronto.”
The pair finally reach their destination, which was the section with the astronomy lab. This part of the Moon base was located near the terminus line that separated the light half of the Moon from the dark half. A lot of transparent steel had been used in its making to afford the best view of the stars from different angles.
“Look!” Deimos said, torn between wonder and fear as he pointed out a see-through wall panel.
Outside, well into the dark side of the Moon, an amorphous something was fading in and out of sight. The question of where all the station personnel were was now answered because it seemed that nearly every adult was out there on the terminus line wearing spacesuits and holding their hands out to it as if to physically stop the blob. What was even stranger was that some sort of energy was coming out of their hands to flood the area the shapeless thing kept trying to appear in!
“Do–do you see what I’m seeing?” Amalthea asked Deimos hesitantly.
“If you mean ‘do I see a swirling rainbow-colored energy coming out of all the people we’ve known all our lives that is apparently stopping some sort of alien monster from materializing’, then yeah, I do,” he replied with disbelief.
The see-through wall they were looking through suddenly turned opaque as a familiar voice called out, “Amalthea? Deimos?”
The teens turned to see Amalthea’s mother Jane removing her hand from a wall control panel before running down the corridor towards them.
“We’re …,” Deimos began.
“I felt, errr, saw you approaching. Never mind whatever it is you’re about to say. We need your help. Come on!”
“Mother! What’s going on?!” Amalthea exclaimed.
“Get off that scooter, and I’ll tell you as we go!”
Jane led them into the nearest set of laboratory rooms as she relay
ed to them a somewhat different version of the history than the one they’d been brought up with. Amalthea and Deimos were so shocked by what Jane told them that they remained silent until she’d finished speaking.
“I’m glad you two can understand what’s going on now,” Jane said when they’d reached the outside of the colony’s northern-most airlock. “Get into the spare space suits here, and let’s get out there! Two more fresh individuals might be just what we need!”
“Mother, we have to call in the other teens, at least,” Amalthea demurred. “They deserve to know what’s been going on, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them finds out what’s happening outside without having either you or us around to explain.”
“And wouldn’t having even more help be better anyway?” Deimos added.
Jane looked hesitant, but Amalthea filled her in on how the others were searching, and Jane nodded a reluctant acquiescence. Deimos quickly tapped a sub-circuit to reach the other teens and urge them to come, with spacesuits, to where he and Amalthea were.
“What?” and “Why?” were the responses he invariably received, but they each agreed to come, lured by the promise of information. Jane unwillingly left everything in their hands and went to rejoin the adults’ endeavors. When the last of the other teens arrived at the airlock, Amalthea took a deep breath before letting loose the torrent of information she’d been entrusted with.
“Okay, everybody, listen up,” she said. “We’ve a lot to tell you. One hundred years before the AFA that sent our parents here was formed, there had been hundreds of witches’ covens, druids’ groves, Norse circles, and whatnot all over Earth who’d been for years getting psychic indications of trouble. From casual talk after a public drumming circle, some of the groups found out that others had been having the same feelings of generalized danger. When enough leaders of neo-Pagan organizations had been made aware of the experiences, a call was put out to have people come together in a conference about it.”
“Why’re you talking about history?!” Bestla demanded. “You called us off the search for this?”
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