by Joan Lennon
The Preceptor turned away.
‘The Dragon City. My, my. Haven’t they made good time.’ The Preceptor’s voice was ever so slightly unsteady.
Cordell said nothing.
‘Perhaps… leaving them to their own devices… is not as efficient as I had surmised…’
Cordell coughed. The Preceptor went very still.
‘Well?’
‘They have not been… completely left to themselves,’ Cordell murmured. ‘I have had a word. With a… friend.’
The Preceptor walked over to the chair and sat down again.
‘How delightful. Tell me all about it.’
39
In Dagrod’s Cave
‘My little brother, the Prophet,’ said Madlen, cosying down. ‘Fancy that.’
‘Yes,’ Cam agreed. ‘I’d have treated him with more respect, if only I’d known.’
Bryn growled at them.
They had come by back ways to Dagrod’s sleeping cave, and the dragon had curled herself to form a warm slope for them to lean against.
‘Look, Dagrod, I admit I draw pictures.’ He peered round at her urgently. ‘But I’m not a prophet – I can’t see into the Future or anything like that – it’s just this…’
He was interrupted by the sound of snoring.
Madlen laughed. ‘There you have it – Dagrod’s answer. Can’t argue with that!’
‘I’d no idea you had as much stuff as that, though,’ said Cam thoughtfully. ‘I mean, you’d whip your book out, draw something and then it was away again before anybody could say, “Hey, whatcha drawing?”’ It looked over at its brother. ‘You’re actually really very, very good, aren’t you. Pity about your World’s prejudice.’
Bryn didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. He got up and began to pace; then, finding himself facing an ice wall, he kicked it.
‘And it’s all so unnecessary,’ Cam continued calmly.
Bryn stared.
‘Unnecessary!? What’s unnecessary!?’
Cam looked over at him. ‘All the fuss,’ it said. ‘If you didn’t decide on your sex right away, you’d have tons of time to grow up, find out what you’re good at, what you like doing, let yourself sort of evolve into –’
‘I don’t want to be a girl!’ Bryn yelled.
There was a tight pause. Then Madlen spoke, her voice quiet.
‘I’m a girl,’ she said. ‘I can’t draw.’
Bryn glared at her.
‘That’s not the point,’ he growled.
Madlen looked down at her hands.
‘Maybe,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe not.’
‘But it’s not flipping far off it,’ commented Cam, and, turning its back on the others, it snuggled into Dagrod’s warmth.
‘It doesn’t understand,’ muttered Bryn.
‘No, well, it wouldn’t,’ said Madlen, still studying her hands.
‘But you do, don’t you?’
‘Me? Understand about other people making up your mind for you, telling you who you are? Oh yeah, sure. Full of understanding, me.’ And Madlen too curled up and closed her eyes.
Bryn couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that he wasn’t tired enough – he was knackered. But every time he shut his eyes, he could still see the way the walls and ceiling flickered with light. He felt as if his whole body had begun to pulse in time with it. It was as if he’d become a two-legged version of the detector, but without an ‘Off’ switch.
He rolled over again, trying to find the magic position that would let him escape into sleep. A minute later he shifted on to his back, slowing his breathing, forcing his eyes to stay shut, thinking sleepy thoughts…
It was hopeless.
He sat up and moved as quietly as he could away from the others. He pulled on his boots and crept out of the room.
He didn’t notice the two sets of eyes that watched him go.
40
The Touch of the Crystal
There was a silvery, twilit sheen to the corridors. Bryn felt very small in the wide tunnels; he stayed close to the wall as he walked along. The restlessness inside him had seemed unfocused when he was trying to sleep, but now that he was up and on the move, he felt a purpose solidifying in his mind.
He was going to the Great Hall. He was pretty sure he remembered how to get there. He’d be careful. No one would see him. He wouldn’t get himself or Dagrod or the others in trouble.
But he had to find out. He had to see the Crystal for himself.
And then he was there. He wasn’t sure what he would do if the huge double doors were locked, but it wasn’t a problem. They slid apart with the lightest touch, frictionless on the glassy floor. Bryn slipped inside and pushed them to behind him.
Then, for a moment, he stood and stared.
The Great Hall soared. White ice, veined with silver, carved and shaped so that the vaulted ceiling seemed to float, resting only for courtesy’s sake on the fluted columns and curved walls. Even in the dim light of dragon-sleep, the size and height and luminosity lifted the heart. To be capable of constructing such a space was almost inconceivable, but to be able to imagine it in the first place…
And then he forgot about everything except the Crystal, glinting there at the far end of the chamber.
It was faceted like a diamond, clear and brilliant as the ice pedestal that held it up. It was a cage of freezing light that flickered and pulsed. It drew him, and he walked the length of the Hall. It was calling to him, to an empty place inside him, and it promised him such things…
It was the perfect Quest object – beautiful, powerful, mythic. It made Madlen’s manky little hatchet look pretty sick, that was for sure. How could he not have known immediately that this would be it?! He could see himself already, back at the London House, revealing the Crystal to the Council, to Mrs Macmahonney, to Kate – he’d be the Hero, while the others would still just be children. It wouldn’t really be stealing, because Heroes don’t steal – they find…
Without pausing to think, Bryn reached up and took it from its pedestal – and the instant the Crystal met his skin there was an icy, almost electric shock that exploded up his arm and into his brain. He staggered and blinked hard to clear his sight. Then…
It was as if Bryn were recognizing himself for the first time. He saw himself as he’d always wanted to be. He was so much taller than he’d ever realized, and stronger – he was powerful, a warrior, and anybody who said otherwise would regret it. He knew just what he’d do to them, to all of them, one after another: he’d throttle the life out of them – for every sneer he’d squeeze and for every taunt he’d squeeze and for every failure he’d –
– who was that?! There was someone trying to sneak up behind him, someone trying to catch him unawares but he was too smart for them he was too –
With a shriek, Bryn dropped the Crystal, spun on his heel and attacked. He had his hands around that someone’s neck and was tightening, oblivious to anything else, oblivious to Cam yelling in his ear, to Madlen’s hands scratching at his, Madlen’s face reddening in a grimace of fear as his grip on her throat –
Reality flooded back into his brain and he flung himself away from his sister. She collapsed, dragging air into her lungs, staring at him in horror. Cam had grabbed up the Crystal as the only weapon to hand and was now standing over Madlen, with it raised above its head, ready to protect her from him.
‘I… are you… I didn’t… no…!’ Bryn panted. Then, when Cam thrust the Crystal at him in a warning gesture, he flinched away and curled in on himself on the floor. ‘Put it back,’ he sobbed. ‘Get it away from me!’ He pointed towards the pedestal and then buried his face in his hands, shuddering.
Cam looked at him and then at the Crystal, uncertain at first that it was safe to give up its weapon. But there was nothing in Bryn’s huddled figure that suggested he was about to erupt again. Besides, the Crystal was disturbing to hold, unpleasantly demanding in a way the Dalrodian didn’t understand. It trotted over to the pedestal and plopp
ed the thing unceremoniously back in place.
‘Right,’ it said firmly. ‘Just what was that all about?!’
It was some time before Cam could persuade Bryn to even look up, let alone speak to them.
‘I’m fine, really!’ Madlen kept insisting. ‘I was only scared for a second. We thought you knew we were there – it’s our fault for scaring you!’
Finally, Bryn was coaxed into trying to explain. He told them about his restlessness, the sense of time passing and the Quest still to be done, and his decision to see for himself if what the Great Hall contained was what they were seeking.
‘The…’ He waved a hand towards the pedestal, but kept his head turned away.
‘The Crystal, yes?’ prompted Cam.
Bryn nodded.
‘As soon as I saw it… It’s so beautiful,’ he said huskily. ‘Just to look at it made me feel… I don’t know how to say it. It made me feel I could do anything, you know? I was really strong, really powerful… and then it made me do that awful thing to you –’
Madlen made an impatient gesture.
‘You didn’t know it was me!’ she protested. ‘It doesn’t count.’
Bryn looked sadly over at the marks on her neck.
‘I didn’t know it was you,’ he said in a small voice. ‘But I knew it was somebody.’ He scrubbed wearily at his face. ‘It counts.’ He began to swear quietly into his hands. Then, ‘And it didn’t make me,’ he said, muffled. ‘That’s a lie. The Crystal didn’t make me try to kill you. It just made me feel as if I could. I always thought I’d be too scared, too soft.’
Cam put its hand on his arm.
‘There’s could,’ it said, ‘and there’s would.’
Madlen came up and patted him on the other arm. ‘And there’s bed,’ she said. ‘And that’s where we should be. Now!’
Bryn grinned weakly and let them lead him away.
41
Dragon Assembly
The three Questors were still deeply asleep when Dagrod burst in on them.
‘Get up! Get up!’ she trumpeted. ‘The Assembly has been called – they’re already gathering!’
Shoving and chivvying, she got them up, out and to the entrance to the Great Hall. Then, like an oversized sheep dog herding diminutive sheep, she separated Bryn out from the others and pushed him towards the big double doors.
‘We’ll be in the Gallery,’ she whispered loudly. And when he just stood there, she frowned and urged him, ‘Go ON!’ before hustling the others away.
‘Do as the female says.’
Bryn almost jumped out of his skin. An elderly dragon lord had come up behind him. He towered over the boy, but seemed more curious than aggressive.
‘Heard about you, human! Long time since we had one of your sort about. Should make for an interesting Assembly!’ The lord wheezed out a chuckle and then looked pointedly at the doors.
‘After you, sir?’ quavered Bryn.
The dragon wheezed again and shook his head.
‘After you, Spaener,’ he rumbled, as the doors opened from within.
Bryn never knew how he got his legs to move, but somehow, shakily, he managed it. As he entered, he found that the Great Hall was even more astonishingly beautiful than before, lit now by the reflected colours of hundreds of dragon eyes, as great heads turned and emotions interacted and changed. The luminescence reached up to the heights, and even the few shadows that remained had flickering colours to them. At the far end of the chamber, one of the ornate thrones was no longer empty: the biggest dragon he had yet seen – the King – sat there, and next to him was the Crystal.
Bryn looked away from it quickly – and realized that his entrance had been noticed. Gulping convulsively, he walked the gauntlet of staring faces to the foot of the throne and gave a clumsy bow.
‘Sire,’ he squeaked, and then could think of nothing else to say.
There was a pause, in which he didn’t dare look up. Then, ‘Keeper?’ The King spoke over his head.
‘Sire?’
He heard the Keeper’s voice clearly from the Gallery. Evidently the builders had been masters of acoustics as well.
‘This is the Spaener?’
‘Yes, Sire.’
‘And you would present him to the Assembly?’
‘I would, Sire.’
‘Proceed, then, Keeper of Memory.’
Bryn felt a claw on his shoulder. One of the dragons near the King was indicating he should stand aside, which he was only too grateful to do.
The Keeper stood up. She spoke from the Gallery, as befitting a female, but it was clear that she had the male Assembly’s respect nonetheless. There was barely a fidget during her long and detailed review of past Spaeners and their effect on the Paths of dragonkind. Even the puffin was mentioned.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘a new Spaener? We have followed the Path of the Crystal faithfully and now it is time to find another way? Is that what this human and his artefacts mean to us? I have searched the Memory for precedents and this is what I have found.’
This is it, thought Bryn, but even as the Keeper drew breath to speak, another voice cut across the expectant silence.
‘Why don’t you ask the human why it’s really here?’
An enormous copper-coloured dragon separated itself from the crowd.
‘Lord Rad?’ said the King. ‘You wish to speak? Before the Keeper is finished?’
The dragon lord bowed low, acknowledging the criticism, but he did not withdraw from his position on the floor.
‘Very well.’ The King indicated his permission, and the Keeper reluctantly sat down. Bryn felt the blood drain away from his face as Lord Rad bowed once more and then, with exaggerated slowness, straightened. But for a long moment the dragon ignored him and just looked at the floor, as if deep in thought.
‘Why is the human here?’ Rad began to pace the Hall, wondering aloud. ‘Is it out of its deep-felt desire to aid dragonkind?’ The lord tilted his head coyly to the side. ‘Did it say to its little self, “What shall I do today? I know – I’ll go to the City and tell the Dragon High Assembly how to do its job.”’ His voice dropped down from whining mimicry to a deep warning growl. ‘No. The creature has desires of its own. It planned to steal the Crystal… for itself.’
There was a shocked gasp from the assembled crowd.
‘That’s a lie!’ cried Bryn, fists clenched.
‘Oh?’ Lord Rad’s syllable dropped, like a malignant toad, into a pool of sudden silence. For the first time, he was staring directly at Bryn, and the loathing in his eyes terrified the boy. ‘So you can tell me in all honesty that you’ve never been in this place before, then, can you? You never came to the Great Hall, alone, in the dead of night, uninvited, unobserved? You never crept the length of our most sacred Assembly chamber, hugging the shadows, sneaking as close as you dared, and reached out your little hand towards the Crystal, our Crystal, with thoughts of theft seething in your human mind?’
Bryn was white-faced. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
‘It wasn’t… I didn’t… not exactly…’ He stuttered to a halt and hung his head.
Watching from the Gallery, Madlen couldn’t bear to see him looking so guilty, so defeated. She leapt up.
‘It’s not true!’ she shouted furiously. ‘You’re just twisting it! And anyway – he wasn’t alone! We were there too!’
As soon as she’d said it, she knew she’d made a mistake. You could feel the shock in the air. Madlen cursed herself for forgetting the taboos against females. She’d spent her whole life following the rules and now…!
Very slowly, Lord Rad swung his head round towards the Gallery
‘Ah yes,’ he drawled. ‘The female. And… the other one. Now what is the term for a grouping of this kind … a collection of humans who are after something that doesn’t belong to them… is it a gang of thieves? Liars? Tricksters? No, no, these humans are Questors.’
‘How do you know this? My Lord?’
Ever
yone’s attention turned back to the Gallery.
‘As the Keeper of Memory,’ and she put a slight emphasis on the words, to remind him of her status, ‘it is essential that all information come to me, to be recorded and stored in the appropriate fashion. I have no record of you coming to me, to tell me about Questors or Quests or the threat of theft. A number of questions arise from this. One of these is, are you in possession of any other information I should have? And another, as already asked, how did you find this out?’
Cam was impressed with the way the Keeper had shifted the moral low ground back to the lord so neatly and, without needing to actually lie, had hidden the fact that she had much of the information already.
‘She’s very good at this,’ it whispered to Madlen.
‘Yeah – but how did that Lord Rad know? We didn’t tell him!’ she hissed back. ‘I thought the London House was supposed to be keeping us a secret?!’
Rad’s copper skin had darkened, but Bryn spoke before he could find an answer.
‘I was going to… take it,’ he admitted hoarsely. ‘I thought it was what we needed – what the Worlds needed, to bring them back into balance. It’s what we’re supposed to do. You understand about Quests – you must! I thought I’d found what we’d been sent for. But I was wrong.’ He hung his head wearily. ‘I really wanted it to be it – the thing we were looking for. It seemed so easy – how could I blow something so easy? I just had to walk in and take it.’ He drew a ragged breath, then let it out in a wail. ‘But it wasn’t it!’
This was clearly not what Lord Rad had been expecting to hear.
‘Are you saying the Crystal is not the object of your Quest?’ he blared.
Bryn shook his head miserably.
Then the King spoke. In spite of its depth and volume, his voice was not ungentle. ‘Are you sure? It is an object of great power.’
Bryn shook his head again.
‘But… how could you know?’ the King persisted.
Barely above a whisper came the reply.