by Patricia Bow
“Simon!” came a whisper from near the ground. “Get away! There’s a dragon!”
“Wh— where are you?”
“Just get away! I’ll follow. Go!”
Simon rubbed his eyes, then his head. He took one more good look around. Still no Pier. And no dragon, so far as he could tell. Maybe the dragon was invisible, too.
He backed away, turned around and walked on clumsy legs back out to the street, invisible eyes boring holes in his back. A vaguely familiar brown-and-cream station wagon, a huge antique thing from the 1960s, was parked in the driveway, where there hadn’t been a car before. He was too staggered to give it more than a glance.
He stopped at the corner of Elgin and Hill and waited, but Pier didn’t show up. After a couple of minutes he headed on down Hill Street towards the games field.
Halfway down the block she popped into view beside him. Simon yelped and stumbled. “How did you do that?”
“It was a baffle spell, that’s all.”
“A spell.” He frowned. “Like what Gram did.”
“Yes, but much more simple. It was nothing.” She waved a hand. “Simon, there was a dragon near us! I think it was on the roof of that house. It was trying to squirm its way into my mind.” She shivered. “To stop me getting Wayland’s Prism.”
“Pier, we don’t have dragons here.”
“Maybe you had none before. You have one now. It came through the gate last night.”
“Okay, okay. But ….” He stopped. “Wayland’s Prism. You don’t mean —”
“Yes!” She glowed. Her mouth shaped something that was as close to a smile as he’d seen yet. “I found it! It is in that house. Now I must go back to it and … and ….” She frowned, then turned her head slowly, like radar tracking an incoming plane.
“What?”
“It’s moving again, but how? Moving fast!”
They looked back up the street. The brown-and-cream station wagon rounded the corner and sailed down the street towards them. As it passed, a face nodded out the driver’s window, a hand waved, and then it was gone. Pier turned as if she was on strings.
“It’s in that machine!” she breathed. “Quick! Follow!”
Simon trotted after her. “That was Mr. Manning’s car,” he said between strides. “That was Mr. Manning driving. And … and four guys, and … some kind of …”
“Car? He has the Prism in there with him,” Pier tossed over her shoulder. “It was in a box inside his house. Now it is inside his car. I saw it. I felt it.”
“In a box? Pier — you know what? Pier!” He grabbed her arm and slowed her to a walk. “Was it a wooden box, about so long?” He held his hands a metre apart. “With a steel lock?”
“Yes. The Prism Blade is inside there. I cannot lose it now!”
“We won’t lose it. I know that box. I know exactly where it’s going.” He laughed. “Pier, you don’t know how wrong you are. That’s not Wayland’s Prism. It’s —”
“I know what I know!” Pier marched on.
“All right, stubborn. I’ll just have to show you.” They were nearly at the games field. Kids were still running around in all directions. Simon wondered how much of the first event he’d missed, and how mad Ike would be.
“Ty, eh?” Amelia studied the boy who sat beside her on the roof. “That’s it? Just Ty?”
“That is all you need to know.”
This close, there was no mistaking it. Those cat-slit amber eyes were not contact lenses, the knife-sharp teeth were not filed, and the blue-green mohawk shimmered like dragon scales. “You didn’t even try to make yourself look human. How come?”
“But I do look human.” He blinked his dragon eyes at her. “I look like my friends, Erwin and Jeff and Xenon. They are human.”
“But they ….” She thought of explaining about punk styles, then decided it would take the rest of the day. “So, what’s your real name?”
She realized, next moment, that it was the worst possible thing to say. Dragon names are never given just for the asking, and the asking can be dangerous. But this one didn’t go all claws and fire; he just winked at her.
“The chief warns me about this. She tells me all about you ardini and your world. She says you don’t understand our ways or our names, and even if you did you couldn’t wrap your clumsy tongue around them.”
“Clumsy! When it was me who taught her how to speak English!”
He laughed. His human laugh was low and rusty, squeaky in spots, like his voice. His voice sounded like he wasn’t all the way grown up, she thought.
“Anyway, next time ask before you fly anywhere with me, okay? I hate being grabbed like that!”
He arched a sea-green eyebrow at her. “Next time you can fly yourself, then. See how far you get.”
Amelia shifted position to keep her bare legs off the hot shingles. She’d expected it to be cool, up here on the highest peak of the house, next to the little round tower with the cone-shaped roof.
From her perch she watched four husky teenage boys wearing “Proud to be a DAWG” T-shirts come out of Mr. Manning’s house, followed by Mr. Manning. Two of them carried a big wooden case between them. They loaded it into the car, with Mr. Manning fussing around them like a stork herding four bison. Then they drove away. None of them had looked up at the roof.
“This must be Mr. Manning’s house,” Amelia said. “I wonder what was in that box?”
“Something the little pale one wants very badly. I caught that much from her thoughts before she set up that shield. Maybe it’s the Great Bane out of the tales.” He turned his head to study her with his amber eyes. She looked away. She felt uncomfortable looking him right in the eyes. Unsafe.
“Tales? You have old stories, too?”
“All our stories are old. Dragons have long memories.”
“So, what’s this Great Bane? You gonna tell me?”
“Why not?”
In the beginning (said a voice in Amelia’s head, a voice that sounded like Mara’s. That is because she was the one who told me this, when I was little, Ty said.) In the beginning was All-mother, and she was alone. All-mother paired with Night, and the first hatchlings were fire and water and earth and air, and so the world was shaped.
Then All-mother paired with Sun, and the first dragons were hatched. First and wisest was Draum Dreamshaper. As soon as Draum broke from the egg he ate all the others of that clutch, and so he grew strong.
Then All-mother paired with Moon, and the first humans were hatched. First and cleverest was Volund Swordmaker. After Volund broke from the egg he waited until his brothers and sisters hatched, and then he made them work for him. And so he grew strong.
Now, each brother ruled half the world, and for many long years there was peace.
But Volund was not content. He said, “Why should I rule only half the world?” So every morning he lit his fire and took his hammer and hammered out a new sword. Each sword was stronger and more terrible than the one before.
One day, Volund made the strongest and most terrible sword of all. And Draum knew it in his dream. He named it the Great Bane. That night as Volund slept, Draum stole the Great Bane. And because he could not destroy it, he hid it.
Years passed, and Volund’s children grew clever and strong and many, and their weapons grew more deadly. Then the children of Draum departed, because their home had become Ardrin, a world of demons, and they came to a new world and took it for their own. They named it Mythrin — Our World.
The Great Bane that Volund made and Draum hid was never found. But to this day it troubles the dreams of the Urdar.
Amelia opened her eyes. Mara’s voice faded from her mind. “Never found,” she murmured. “But now Pier’s found something. Could this be it?”
“She thinks it is,” Ty said.
“Then we’d better go after her. Just in case she’s right.” Amelia gripped the hot metal roof peak with flinching hands. How was she going to get down from here?
“You know w
hat we have to do, of course. We have to kill her.”
“Wha—!” Amelia lost her grip, slid down the steep pitch, scrabbling all the way, and came to a stop with her heels in the eavestrough. She sat breathing hard, her heart pounding. Ty slid down beside her.
“No,” she said, very quietly, when she had enough breath to speak.
“No?” He gaped at her. “Why not?”
“Why not? Are you nuts?”
“But she wants to kill all the dragons! She is an enemy!”
“I know, but … you just can’t. I won’t let you.”
“And how could you stop me?” He laughed and ran his nails over the wooden shingle between them. It shredded into toothpick-sized pieces. “Still … to please you, I’ll just take away a piece of her mind so she forgets all about it. That would work as well.”
“Not that, either! You can’t mess with her mind, especially not about that. It would hurt her too much.”
“Ah, I know all about this. The chief told me you ardini all have minds like cobwebs. Not to worry. I have a light touch.”
“No,” she said again, and turned and looked him straight in the eyes. For a moment, it was like looking into the sun. Her mind was full of glare. Then she thought, I won’t let him do this. Something in her head shuttered down and cool darkness fell. She could see again.
He blinked slowly. That surprised him! she thought cheerfully, and saw him frown. “You learn fast, ardin child.” He shrugged. “But you still shout like a hatchling.”
“Never mind that. Just get this: you’re not going to do anything to Pier! Promise you won’t!”
“Promise? Promise?” He looked down his nose at her, and suddenly it was a long and pointed nose. “Who are you to tell me to promise?” A wisp of smoke floated out of one nostril. Amelia waved it away.
“I’m the one Mara gave this job to. She gave it to me, not you. So that means I’m in charge.” Then she thought of something. Her heart sank. “Unless … she …. She didn’t send you here because she thought I couldn’t stop Pier, did she?”
“Uh ….” He looked away. “No. In fact, she didn’t send me at all. I … just came.”
“What, all on your own? Why?”
“Why not?” He laughed and leaped to his feet. “For the adventure! Who among the Urdar have been here, to this demon world we left so many ages ago? Three or four, no more. Each one a hero.” He poised on the edge of the roof, his Doc Martens airy-light on the shingles, sunshine bouncing off his spikes and studs and rings. He looked like he could dance. Or fly.
Amelia astonished herself by standing up beside him. Astonished, yet she couldn’t resist. While her stomach curled up in horror at the sight of the paved driveway forty feet below, another part of her, a part that had always been there, knew she could lift off any minute now.
“Besides,” Ty added, “who among the warriors would dare? None! Except me. Wait till I go back and tell them!”
“So that’s it.” Amelia teetered on the edge of the roof. “You’re doing this to impress your buddies! That’s so not cool.”
“And because you need me. You can’t destroy the Great Bane on your own.”
“Wha—? I need you?” She widened her eyes at him. “Like h—”
“Hey! You kids!” a voice called from below. A woman across the street was waving a straw hat at them. “You get down from there right this minute!”
“Right, we’d better get down.” Amelia no longer felt like flying or dancing. She sank to a crouch and quivered. The pavement looked miles away. “I’ll break my neck!”
“Not to fear.” Ty reached, hoisted her up, and pinned her under one arm. She squawked, but didn’t dare struggle. Ty walked up the slope of the roof to the peak with Amelia tucked against his jacket like a long, droopy parcel, and then walked down the other side. When he came to the eavestrough he stepped out into air and dropped. Amelia shut her eyes and opened her mouth, but before the scream could escape she felt herself spun upright and plunked on her feet.
She opened her eyes. They were standing on the patio behind the house. She swayed, then caught her balance. Took a deep breath. Faced Ty, who stood grinning at her.
“You’re insane. What did you do to those punks?”
“Do?” He looked surprised. “Nothing. I liked their looks, so I watched them for a time, to know how to shape myself and how to speak, and then I came where they were. ‘Where you from,’ they said. ‘I am from another world,’ I said. ‘I am not human.’ ‘Cool,’ they said.”
“Yes, well, you keep it like that. Cool.” Amelia headed around the house to the front, waved to the woman who frowned across the street at them, and started back towards the games field. “Remember, we’re going to do this the way Mara would.”
“She is a great chief.” Ty looked serious. “She is one of the wisest ever, some say, even though she is still young.”
“Right. Well, Mara wouldn’t kill Pier. That’s not her way. She wouldn’t just throw her weight around. She’d think of the smart way out.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Ty swaggered beside her, clinking and flashing. “And then what?”
“What do you mean, ‘and then what?”
“When we have the Great Bane, what will you do? How will you destroy it?”
“Good glory, I don’t know! One thing at a time!”
CHAPTER 12
WEIRD GAMES
“You see?” said Simon. “That’s what was in the box.”
Kids jostled each other in front of the platform. Simon held his place like a boulder in a stream and stuck out an arm to keep Pier from getting squashed. Everybody wanted to gawk at the Hector Manning Trophy. In Dunstone, only the Stanley Cup would make more of a stir.
It was out of its wooden box now and inside a heavy Plexiglas case, which sat on a table on the platform, next to Mr. Manning’s chair, so everybody could see it — the slightly dented but brightly polished silver cup, really more like a wide, deep bowl with handles, on top of the two-foot-high round wooden base, also highly polished and almost completely covered in small silver plaques. The four beefy teens, football players all, stood guard, one at each corner of the case.
The newest plaque on the bottom tier of the base was engraved with Kevin Purcell’s name and last year’s date. The one next to it was blank, but Simon could easily imagine his own name there. Ike’s too, of course.
“You see, that’s what we’re all competing for. To have our names on that trophy.” He looked at Pier. “You, um, get that, right? About competing, I mean?”
“Of course!” She shot a frown at him, then switched her eyes back to the trophy. “The warriors compete often, the weavers too, when there is no danger from dragons.”
“Okay, so now you see ….” He waved up at the trophy.
“I see what you see.”
“Oh, good —”
“When my eyes are open. But when my eyes are closed,” and she closed them, “I see then what it really is.”
Simon watched Pier’s face. You’d think a light had turned on under her colourless skin. “You’re saying that’s a disguise,” he said flatly.
“What’s a disguise?” asked Ike, edging in next to Simon with a large watermelon under his arm.
“That.” Pier dipped head and shoulders respectfully at the trophy.
Simon whispered in Ike’s ear, “She says it’s Wayland’s Prism.”
“The Hec Manning Trophy?” Ike giggled. Pier just kept gazing up at it. Ike’s grin faded.
“Not all of it,” she said. “Not the bottom wooden part. Just the silver thing like a cup.”
“Huh.” Ike stared at it. “Well, you know what Mr. Manning always says — how his grandfather dug that cup out of lava from a volcano. I always thought that was made up. Anything silver that got stuck in hot lava would have melted, you’d think.”
“Wayland Smith himself forged it. Nothing can harm it, not even dragon fire. That is why Wyrm hid it, and disguised it. Just as the st
ory says.” Some kids next to them were giving Pier funny looks, but she didn’t seem to know they were there. She switched her eyes back to Simon’s face. “You will win it for me. I will wait here until you do.”
“Second senior event in five minutes!” Mr. Manning was at the microphone again. “Competitors to the starting line!”
“Come on!” Ike dumped the watermelon into Simon’s arms and dragged him towards the centre of the field. “We’re ahead, no thanks to you, so let’s keep our lead.”
“We’re ahead?” Simon looked back at the platform, but he couldn’t see Pier’s small shape in the crowd. He felt uneasy leaving her alone. He felt still more uneasy when he saw Amelia staring after him. She’d been standing close to him and Pier. She could have heard all that about the trophy. Still, guarded the way it was, there was no chance she could steal it.
Something else about the trophy bothered him, but he didn’t have time just then to work out what it was. He set the problem aside and told himself he’d dig it out later and give it a good think. “What’s with the watermelon?”
“That’s for the next event. Your turn now, Hammer. I won the first event!” Ike turned around and trotted backwards ahead of him. “Ran out of time looking for you, so I just did the quickest thing I could think of. See, the challenge was to carry a drop of water from the south-west corner of the field to a bucket in front of the platform without using hands or an artificial container, and without spilling any. All the others were rigging up fancy ways of carrying water. Like, the Gingrich brothers tried carrying the smallest of them with water in his belly button. Silly things like that. Know what I did? I just ran to the bucket and spat!”
Simon laughed. “Smart!”
“Yeah, and I even got us a ten-point bonus for ‘elegant simplicity.’”
They were at the starting line now. Only ten competitors were there, all boys, milling around in front of a sand pit. They all had watermelons. Simon hefted his in both hands. It had to weigh at least ten kilos. What the heck would he have to do with it? The loudspeaker crackled again. “Oh, no,” Simon muttered as he listened.