by D K Drake
So with a tearful goodbye, he locked Storm in his stall, made Mama Sandra promise to take special care of Storm and plopped in the back of the red rental car the Kaesemeyers had arrived in.
Javan didn’t realize it was a rental until they returned it to the rental company in town and left on foot.
“Uh, is this Zandador place close?” Javan asked as he followed Kenton and Esmeralda down the quiet street. He was carrying a backpack stuffed with two changes of clothes, his iPod and iPad, but he noticed they weren’t carrying any suitcases. Esmeralda had a purse and Kenton had a leather bag draped over his shoulder, but that was it. What had he gotten himself into?
“No,” said Kenton.
“Then why did we just give up our wheels? I’m not a big fan of walking long distances.”
“We won’t be walking far.”
“But you just said Zandador isn’t close.”
“It’s not.”
“Do you have another car stashed somewhere?”
“No.”
“Truck? Train? Plane? What’s the deal?” Javan stopped walking. “I can still turn around and walk the ten miles back to the ranch if I need to.” It was an empty threat. He wasn’t about to walk that far, but he could pick up the phone and call Mama Sandra for a ride.
Kenton sighed and walked back to Javan. Under his breath, he said, “Have you already forgotten the winged creatures you met an hour ago?” He grabbed Javan’s elbow, led him up the street to the big grassy field beside the tiny city hall building and pointed. “We travel by dragon.”
“I remember the dragons,” Javan whispered, “but you’re pointing to grass. The dragons aren’t there.”
“Skylark,” Kenton said, “show yourself.”
The grey dragon appeared for an instant, then disappeared just as quickly.
“Whoa,” Javan said. “She can do invisible.” Maybe the “dragons” weren’t just oversized lizards from a science experiment gone bad.
“Neat, huh?” Esmeralda smiled. “She can cloak herself and anything she touches. Once you touch her, you’ll be able to see her but will become invisible to everything around you. And when we fly, she’ll keep her tail intertwined with Silverspike’s. He doesn’t much like it, but it keeps us all from being seen.”
“Enough gawking,” Kenton said. “We need to get to the Everglades before Silverspike is ready to eat.”
“The Everglades? We’re going to Florida?” Javan hadn’t packed for a tropical trip. He needed swim shorts, sunglasses and some heavy-duty sunscreen. His fair skin would burn badly in the summer southern sun.
“That’s where the portal is,” Kenton said.
“Right.” Javan nodded. “The portal. To the Land of Zandador.” Despite the invisible dragon standing somewhere in front of him, Javan was still convinced that the “Land of Zandador” was some backwoods town in the middle of nowhere built to let these eccentric folks believe they lived in a different dimension.
“Exactly,” said Kenton. “Now let’s ride.” Kenton marched forward and disappeared into thin air within five steps.
“Our turn,” Esmeralda said. She linked her arm with Javan’s and led him to the place where Kenton had just vanished. “Put your hand out.”
Javan slowly lifted his right arm up and out. The second the tips of his fingers connected with a rough, scaly surface, he could see both dragons. He could also see Kenton perched at the base of Silverspike’s neck. When Javan pulled his hand back, they all disappeared. He repeated the process several times. “Weird.”
“Stop playing and climb up,” the cloaked Kenton said.
“You’re no fun,” Javan mumbled.
He can be a bit of a drag, Skylark said. But we do need to get going. We don’t want to be in the air when Silverspike gets hungry. He just gets mean. I’d be tempted to uncloak him and let the humans discover him.
Javan chuckled and touched Skylark’s thick leg again. Her grey body appeared, and he kept in contact with her as she leaned her head down. Just grab onto my lovely scales and pull yourself onto my neck. Then slide down to the spot between my wings. I think you’ll find that a fabulous seat for our cross-country flight.
“Yes, ma’am.” He grabbed onto one triangle-shaped scale after another and hoisted himself up. Before sliding down Skylark’s long neck to her wide back, he helped Esmeralda up.
As soon as they came to a sliding stop, Skylark flapped her round wings, and they began their invisible flight toward Florida.
◊◊◊
Flying across the country at twice the speed of an airplane on the back of an invisible dragon attached to another dragon carrying his triple great grandfather while listening to the telepathic banter of the dragons and making sure his long-lost sleeping mother didn’t fall seemed surreal. But Javan knew he was very much awake and actually experiencing this bizarre scenario.
He also knew he couldn’t tell anyone, or he would find himself locked up in the nearest insane asylum. When he returned to the ranch in three days, though, he would at least have a story about a trip to Florida to share. That story was sure to require some major editing, but for once he was glad to be in the role of storyteller rather than the unnoticed background listener.
It was just past nine when they landed on a deserted road in the middle of the marshy Everglades. Esmeralda woke up ; Skylark promptly zonked out. Apparently flying for several hours while invoking her invisibility (a feature, Javan had learned, that was unique to the Noon Stalkers), carrying several humans and keeping her tail attached to a dragon larger than her was exhausting.
“So,” Javan said, sliding off the sleeping dragon, “where’s this portal?”
“Close,” Kenton said. “First, we let Skylark rest and Silverspike eat.”
I am getting hungry. Silverspike stretched his legs and spread his wings.
“Hold on,” Javan said. He walked around Silverspike, certain his eyes were playing tricks on him. “I know it’s getting dark out, but are your scales turning black?”
Silverspike huffed. Yes. They do every night when I start to get hungry. If any more turn black before I get a snack, you’re going to start looking tasty. So if you don’t mind, I’m going hunting.
“Hunt away.”
Thanks.
Javan noted a hint of sarcasm in the dragon’s response and watched him fly away. “What does he eat?” he asked Kenton.
“Anything from grass to plants to animals. Here, he’s probably hunting alligators.”
Javan nodded toward Skylark. “Why aren’t her scales turning black?”
“Because she’s a Noon Stalker. Her scales turn a golden color when she gets hungry, which will be in about twelve hours.”
“So you know dragons are hungry when their scales change colors? That’s cool.”
“You have to make sure they eat as soon as their scales start to change,” Esmeralda said. “If they don’t get fed before all their scales change, they become crazy, food obsessed creatures. They’ll binge for three days before their appetite is satisfied and they return to their normal eating cycle.”
“During these binges,” Kenton added, “humans are especially appetizing.”
Javan gulped. “Good to know.” He hoped Silverspike was a good alligator hunter and wasn’t planning on returning until his scales were grey again.
“You also need to know about Dawn Stalkers and Dusk Stalkers,” Kenton said.
“What are those?”
“The other two types of dragons that aren’t part of Kenton’s collection,” Esmeralda said. “They’re smaller, have white scales and no wings. When they get hungry around dawn and dusk, their scales turn rainbow colors.”
“That I’d like to see.”
“You will. Once we get to Zandador.”
Javan rolled his eyes. She really believed this Zandador place existed. But it sounded more and more outlandish. Wingless, rainbow-colored dragons? Really?
Time to go, Skylark. Silverspike swooshed in and hovered just above S
kylark. Some humans in a boat spotted me and are headed in this direction.
A groggy Skylark opened her eyes. I’m too tired to cloak us.
Then just pick up your humans and fly. Meet you at the portal. Silverspike snatched Kenton with his front claw and flew into the dark sky above.
He’s so dramatic, Skylark said. Humans driving a boat in the dark aren’t going to be able to find us.
“What’s going on?” Esmeralda asked.
“Some people saw Silverspike, and he thinks they’re chasing him.” The sound of an approaching engine drowned out the last few words of Javan’s response.
Then again, maybe Silverspike’s hunch was right. Without warning, Skylark wrapped one of her claws around Javan and the other around Esmeralda and lifted them all into the air.
Javan hoped that so-called portal wasn’t too far away. He was finding it difficult to breathe with a dragon’s claw clutching his chest.
Chapter 5
Through the Portal
The lack of oxygen during the abrupt night flight left Javan feeling woozy when Skylark dumped him on a sandy shore beside Esmeralda. He coughed, rubbed his chest and looked around. He couldn’t see Kenton and Silverspike, but thanks to the low tide and bright moon, he could make out a fossil reef interspersed with mangrove trees spread out before him. He also noticed the lights of a city skyline in the distance.
“Where…are…we?” he finally spit out. “Is this Zandador?”
“Of course not,” Kenton said, approaching from behind him. “We’re in Bear Cut Nature Preserve in Key Biscayne. That city across the bay is Miami.”
“We have to go through the portal to get to the Land of Zandador,” Esmeralda said.
“Right.” Javan nodded, playing along. “The portal.”
You’ll believe soon enough, Skylark said.
How absurd. Silverspike spit a lightning bolt into the sand. Flying with dragons and reading their minds apparently isn’t enough evidence to convince the fake-eyed kid that our home is real.
Ignore him. He’s grumpy because he’s still hungry. Skylark lowered her head so that it was even with Javan’s. I look forward to someday meeting the dragons you collect. Good luck to you.
She lifted her wings, but Javan stopped her from taking flight. “Wait! Aren’t you coming with us?”
Not this time. We’re wanted creatures in Zandador. It’s too dangerous for us there until you win the throne. Right now I need to help Silverspike hunt or his mood is going to become unbearable. If that happens, I’m never going to get any sleep. Skylark bowed her head as she wrapped her tail around Silverspike’s tail. Farewell, young Collector. With that, both dragons vanished.
Once the breeze from their departure subsided, Kenton spoke. “Come. Let’s get you two through the portal.”
“You’re not coming either?”
“I’m an outlaw in Zandador; I have to hide here on earth with my dragons.”
“But aren’t you supposed to teach me how to do the whole dragon-collecting thing?”
“Ravier—my grandson, your grandfather—will teach you.”
“My grandfather?” Javan froze at the thought of meeting yet another blood relative. This sudden influx of relatives after a lifetime of loneliness was difficult to process. At least the prospect of meeting a grandfather was believable; Javan still didn’t understand why Kenton claimed to be his grandfather’s grandfather.
“Yes,” Esmeralda said. “He’s been expecting us, and we’re wasting time here. Let’s go.”
They made their way across the tide pools of the bumpy fossil reef to a lone mangrove tree. Three paces from the left of the tree, Kenton pushed a chunk of fossil about five feet long and four feet wide to the side to reveal a dark hole in the ground. “Down we go.”
“Down there? Into the dark, scary hole?”
“That’s where the portal is.”
“No way.” Javan wasn’t about to jump to his death. Or into a trap. For all he knew, Kenton and Esmeralda were human traffickers who wanted him stuck in this cave until they found a willing buyer for a teenage boy. Or they could be using him as a guinea pig for psycho experiments no company or government would ever approve funding for. “You go first.”
“Just jump,” Kenton ordered. “It’s not that far down.”
Javan crossed his arms and sat down. “No.”
“Javan, if you don’t--”
“Boys, now is not the time to act like…well…boys.” Esmeralda pushed past Kenton and lowered her legs into the hole. Looking directly into Javan’s eyes, she said, “I expect you to follow me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” With a curt nod of her head, Esmeralda jumped into the darkness.
Javan heard a thump. Great. That meant it was his turn. “I’d prefer to see what I’m jumping into.” Thankful he had a flashlight app, Javan retrieved his phone from his pocket and turned its flashlight feature on. Once he could see the ground below, he jumped down.
Kenton landed seconds after him.
“Where are we?” Javan looked around to find himself in a cave about twice the size of Storm’s stall. Only this space had stone floors and walls. The only way out was up or through an ominous-looking tunnel at the end of the room to Javan’s left.
“This way,” Kenton said, pointing to the tunnel that Esmeralda was already walking toward.
“Great,” Javan mumbled. He never understood why idiots in movies walked unprepared into strange, foreboding places. Now he was doing exactly that, and he was with two people who had yet to gain his trust. He hung his head as he walked toward the tunnel, chastising himself for becoming one of the idiots he yelled at.
With Esmeralda leading the way and Kenton keeping Javan stuck in the middle, they walked down a steep flight of narrow stairs much farther below ground than Javan was comfortable with. He was starting to feel too claustrophobic to breathe when the stairs dead-ended into a room the size of his twin bed.
“We’re here,” Esmeralda said.
“We’re where?”
“The portal room.”
Javan wanted to point out that they were surrounded by rocks at the end of a cramped staircase with no portal in sight. Instead, he focused on something just as obvious. “If this is the portal room, how do the dragons use the portal? They could never fit through that hole we jumped through or navigate these stairs.”
“There’s a larger entrance to the room from the other side,” Kenton said, “but you have to do a bit of swimming to reach it.”
“The other side? There is no other side! There aren’t any doors or windows or ways for any fresh air to circulate to keep us all alive! So let’s be real. Meeting you was interesting and riding the dragon was fun, but there’s no portal here.”
“You don’t see the portal because it’s shielded,” said Esmeralda.
“Shielded?”
Esmeralda reached in her purse, grabbed a handful of dust and threw it in the air. The stone wall in front of her vaporized, revealing a much larger cavern filled with light behind the doorway she just created. She walked through and urged Javan to follow. “Quickly. The shield will repair itself in less than a minute.”
Javan couldn’t make himself move. “What just happened?”
“She threw stalker dust on the invisibility shield to create an opening for us. Move.” Just as Kenton guided Javan through the entrance, the shield reformed.
“Now this is a cool room.” The space was easily the size of his high school gym but much more impressive with its ragged rock walls and smooth stone floors. But the central focus of the room—a colorful octagon glowing on the wall straight ahead—left Javan too awestruck to remember to turn his flashlight app off. He simply stood as silent as a statue shining his light at the octagon that dominated the twenty-foot high wall.
“If you think this is impressive,” Esmeralda said, “just wait until you see it activated.”
“How do you activate it?”
“By inserting the
four types of dragon stalker scales on the dial in the right order using precise timing, turning the dial right three clicks, then left seven clicks, then…how about you just watch?”
“Good idea.”
Javan felt like a midget as he approached the glowing wall. Once he was in arm’s reach, he could see that the massive octagon was actually a mosaic of dragon scale pieces of varying shapes and colors.
On the wall to the left of the octagon was a much smaller circle that looked to Javan like a pie plate with four triangle-shaped slots. That’s the circle that captivated the attention of Esmeralda and Kenton.
“Kenton,” she said, “the scales.”
Kenton reached in his bag and retrieved four scales, two white ones and two grey ones. Esmeralda took the white ones first and inserted them simultaneously in the right and left slots. She waited for ten seconds, then simultaneously inserted the grey ones in the top and bottom slots. After ten more seconds, she turned the dial to the right. It clicked three times. She paused for five seconds and turned it to the left until it clicked seven times.
Three seconds after the final click, she pushed the dial in. A low hum followed by flickering scales within the octagon caused Javan to take a few steps back. He wasn’t sure if this thing was about to explode or suck him in.
“Can you read the pattern?” Kenton asked.
“Shh,” Esmeralda whispered. “I’m concentrating.”
Javan watched Esmeralda watch the flickering lights on the octagon. He bit his lip to keep himself from asking what she was doing. Whatever it was had her complete attention.
After several minutes, she finally spoke. “Got it.”
“You’re sure?” Kenton asked. “It’s been a while since you’ve deciphered the code. If you don’t get it right…”
“I’m well aware of the consequences, Kenton. Just trust me.”
“What code?” Javan asked. “What consequences? What’s going on?”
“The portal to Zandador is set up in a triangle network,” Esmeralda explained. “I believe you here on earth call it the Bermuda Triangle. The network is always on and will take us to North Zandador which correlates with your Bermuda or South Zandador which correlates with your Puerto Rico.