by Joseph Davis
They were all very glad to be able to get up and move around; unfortunately, they were still locked in the prison cell, and the lock in the metal door could only be accessed from the other side.
“Do you have any words from the Bible that could help us escape?” Cornelius asked.
“Well,” said Edgar, “one week in Sunday School we read about Paul and Silas. They were in prison like us, and just like us, they hadn’t done anything wrong. But even though they were in prison, they kept on trusting God. They sang worship songs and prayed, and suddenly, the prison door opened, and they were set free! But they didn’t even try to escape, now that I think about it. Instead, they told their prison guard about Jesus.”
“All right then,” Cornelius said, “let’s try it.” He got down on his knees and began to pray. “O God,” he prayed. “Please open our prison door. We trust you, even though we’ve been imprisoned. Amen.”
Cornelius waited on his knees for a minute, but nothing happened. “Hmmm. . .” he said finally. “Now why didn’t that work?”
“Maybe trusting God means waiting for him to act,” Lucretia said. “When I trust someone, that usually means I can wait for them to do what they’re supposed to do.”
“Maybe if we sing some of those warship songs Edgar mentioned,” Cornelius suggested. He began to sing: “Oh, warships are big, and they have many cannons. . .”
“No, no, no!” Edgar interrupted. “Not warship songs, worship songs. Here, I can teach you one.” With that, he began teaching Cornelius “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High.”
Lucretia and the dragon also learned the song as they went along, and soon they were having a great time singing together.
Then, just as they got to the chorus for the third time, the heavy iron door to the cell flew open.
“Oh,” Cornelius said as he saw the three figures who stood out in the corridor. “Maybe I should have been more specific about how I wanted the door opened.”
The three figures who had come for them were three dragons. Two of them wore the armor of royal guards.
The one who had opened the door was a shadow dragon.
Chapter 17
“Quick!” urged Cornelius. “Do what Paul and Silas did!”
“What?” said Edgar. “Travel around the Roman Empire?”
“No,” said Cornelius, “tell them about Jesus! A Bible verse, quickly!”
Edgar thought fast. He knew that he had learned a Bible verse about Jesus a few weeks before, when they had played that game with the eggs. It was John 3 something. If only he had still had the Bible so that he could look it up!
As Edgar struggled to think of his verse, the two guards and the shadow dragon came into the prison cell, followed by three more shadow dragons.
“What is the meaning of this?” Edgar demanded as they began putting handcuffs on him, Cornelius, and Lucretia, and a steel muzzle on the dragon. “We haven’t committed any crime!”
“You are to be brought to the King,” said one of the royal guards. “Now get moving!”
The guards and shadow dragons led the four friends out of their cell and down the corridor, pushing and shoving as they went. As they walked, Edgar tried to remember his Bible verse.
“For God so loved. . . For God so loved. . . Oh, how did that verse go?” For the life of him, he could not remember.
“So why help the shadow dragons?” Lucretia asked one of the guards. “Weren’t they destroying the kingdom?”
“Yes,” said Edgar, “isn’t that why you lot sent for me to come and help you?”
“Silence!” the guard roared, smacking Edgar with the tip of his tail.
The blow made Edgar stagger, but the guard pulled him upright again and forced him to keep moving.
“For God so loved the world,” Edgar muttered. “For God so loved the world that he gave. . . Oh, why didn’t I pay more attention that Sunday?”
After a few minutes of navigating the dungeon’s maze of torch-lit stone corridors, the guards and shadow dragons led the prisoners up a flight of stairs and into the castle proper. Now Edgar began to recognize some old, familiar sights. The armory, the hall of paintings, the exercise room. . . At last they were led to the great golden double doors of the throne room. Two of the guards opened the massive doors, and Edgar looked in across the vast marble floor to see the King sitting on his golden throne.
The King was exactly as Edgar remembered him, except for a single detail. He was completely and utterly black, like a living shadow.
Chapter 18
“Impossible!” Edgar cried in astonishment.
The shadowy King laughed, a dark, chilling sound that was nothing like the jolly chuckle of the Dragon King that Edgar knew. “What’s so impossible?” the inky black reptile demanded. “That we could take over? That I could replace the King of the Dragons? Or that I could have this?” As the Shadow King said these words, he held up a familiar book.
“The Bible!” Edgar cried. “But how did you –”
“That was no problem at all,” the Shadow King said with a laugh. “Shadow Edgar, whom you were kind enough to create with your unkind words, brought it to me. And now that I have the source of your power, the only weapon that could defeat the shadow dragons –”
“But how did you know about –”
“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” the Shadow King said. “My friend the magician told me all about your little quest to find the Book of Power. But now that I have it in my hands, I know exactly how to make sure that you can never stop me.” With these words, the Shadow King opened the Bible roughly to the middle, and, with a sudden violent jerk of his dark claws, ripped it in half.
“No!” cried Edgar, throwing himself at the dark king’s throne.
A royal guard seized Edgar and held him in an iron grip.
The Shadow King laughed.
Edgar struggled to remember his Bible verse. “For God so loved the world that he gave. . .”
“What have you done with the real Dragon King?” Edgar’s dragon suddenly demanded, her voice somewhat muffled by the steel muzzle.
“Oh, rest assured, he is quite safe in his dungeon cell,” said the living shadow. “We try to keep all of our prisoners alive and healthy so that we can make them produce more shadow dragons. If I want another one of me, I just need to tell the Dragon King something that will awaken his pride, and voila! Another Shadow King is born.”
“Is that your plan for us?” said Lucretia. “To keep us in your dungeon and try to make us give you more shadow monsters?”
“Actually, no,” said the Shadow King. “My friend the magician wanted you for himself. He said that you could help him with some difficult quest – but first, he wanted you to understand that this adventure is over. The Dragon Kingdom is mine, your magic talisman is destroyed, and there is nothing more you can do.”
Edgar struggled mightily to remember his Bible verse.
“For God so loved the world. . .” Suddenly, it all came back to him, and he shouted, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life!”
The room erupted into chaos as all the shadow dragons screeched and writhed in pain. Edgar and his friends took the opportunity to run past the confused guards, out into the corridor.
“To the armory!” shouted Edgar, leading the way. “I know a good hiding place there!”
They made a dash toward the armory, turned a corner – and stopped short. A figure had appeared in the hallway in front of them: an old man dressed in a blue robe decorated with silver stars. The magician!
Chapter 19
Edgar’s mind raced. What could he do against this evil magician, whose dark powers had struck the whole kingdom with the plague of shadow dragons? Would a Bible verse stop him as it would stop a shadow dragon?
Maybe not, but Edgar was willing to try. He opened his mouth to say, “The Lord is my helper, therefore I will not be afraid.” As the verse
filled his heart and prepared to come out of his mouth, he did feel a bit braver. But before he could say it, Lucretia rushed forward and tried to embrace the old Magician. Her handcuffs made this a bit difficult. “Virgil!” she cried.
“We’ve not much time,” the magician said, slipping out of Lucretia’s embrace. “I can feel that your pursuers are closing in. Quickly, get close together and hold still, all of you – I’ll make you invisible!”
“But wait,” Edgar said, “are you the one who—”
“No time!” said the magician. “Get together and hold still!”
“Do it!” Lucretia urged, and she, Edgar, Cornelius and the dragon huddled close together and stood perfectly still while the magician made some gestures around them.
He finished just as the sound of heavy footsteps approached around the corner.
Edgar struggled to hold still. He trusted that the magician was powerful enough to make them invisible, and he trusted Lucretia when she said they should do as the magician said – but the problem was that he could still see Lucretia, Cornelius, and the dragon. They were not invisible for him! Could he really trust that the magician’s spell was working, even when his eyes told him otherwise?
As he thought this, a Bible verse from Sunday School came to him: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”
Edgar chose to trust that they were invisible, and at that moment, a crowd of royal guards and shadow dragons came pouring around the corner.
“Your Excellency,” said one of the guards, stopping and bowing to the magician. “Four prisoners have escaped. They—”
“They ran that way,” said the magician, pointing to the armory door. “I’ve locked them in, but you had better hurry before they discover the secret passageway that leads down to the tunnels!” He unlocked the door to the armory with a magical blue spark, and all the guards and shadow dragons charged into the room. The magician slammed the door shut behind them and locked it.
“Wow, they really didn’t see us!” Cornelius said.
“We must hurry,” the magician urged. “The guards can also escape through the tunnels, and the shadow dragons have other ways of escaping.”
“But why did they call you ‘Your Excellency?’” asked Edgar.
“No time,” the Magician said, opening a secret door in the wall of the corridor and gesturing for them to enter. “Come – I can bring you to a safe hiding place. Once we are there, I can explain everything.”
The four friends hurried in through the secret door, followed by the magician, who closed it behind them.
Chapter 20
The magician led them, by the flickering blue light of a magic crystal, down a long flight of stone stairs. After a considerable downward climb, they arrived in a rather comfortable room, thickly carpeted and furnished with couches, bookshelves, a small table, and a fireplace which the magician lit by magical means.
Noticing their handcuffs and muzzle in the firelight, the magician set them free with a few magical blue sparks. Then, when they had made themselves comfortable in the couches, he finally explained in detail who he was, why he was there, and why the guards had recognized him.
His name was Virgil. He was indeed the same magician who had rescued Lucretia from the fairies’ stony curse, and he was determined to free the Dragon Kingdom from the plague of shadow dragons. He felt partially responsible for the problem, as the rogue magician who had cast the spell was his twin brother. This was why the guards had thought that they recognized him; the two looked exactly alike.
Many months before, his twin, whose name was Homer, had found a group of dragons mining for gold on a piece of land that belonged to him. This had made Homer furious, and he created two magical toys—a singing doll and a ball that could disappear and reappear on command – and put a curse on them so that any dragons who were greedy or angry when they touched the toys would produce greedy or angry shadow dragons. If these scratched anyone, then the next time that person did something wrong – something selfish or hateful, prideful or dishonest – they would produce a living shadow connected to the evil in their heart.
After a conversation with Homer, Virgil suspected that his brother was planning some terrible revenge on the dragons. He could feel the dark magic gathering around his twin, and he could feel the distant presence of a talisman that could undo the enchantment. And so he began the long and difficult process of creating a crystal that could track down the talisman. He needed some ingredients from the merchant who had bought Lucretia’s statue. When he had met her and set her free, he brought her along on his journey to the Dragon Kingdom, to find the last ingredients and either confront Homer or warn the dragons.
They arrived too late. Homer had already delivered the magical toys to the royal dragonlets, knowing that they would fight over them and trigger the enchantment. His plan had worked, and the shadow dragons were multiplying quickly.
Virgil realized that something had to be done before the shadow dragons became so strong that they took over the kingdom. So he finished the crystal quickly and sent it – despite a few imperfections – with Lucretia so that she could search for the talisman while he went after Homer, who had disappeared.
He never found his brother, but after a long search, he sensed that the crystal had located the talisman and that both were headed toward Draconia. And so he returned to the city to meet Lucretia. When he arrived, he found that he was again too late. The shadow dragons had already taken over the kingdom, with the help of Homer, who had returned while Virgil was away and had given one of the shadow dragons intelligence and magical power to rule over the kingdom. With the Shadow King on the throne, the royal guards were forced to serve the dark creatures, for they had sworn an oath of loyalty to whoever sat on the throne. Many other dragons followed their example. All who refused to serve the Shadow King were thrown into the dungeon, where they were used to create more shadowy monsters.
Virgil had discovered that Lucretia and her friends had been captured along with the talisman, and so he pretended to be his twin brother and waited for a chance to rescue them.
“Thank you for that,” Edgar said when he had finished his story. “But now that you’ve rescued us, what can we do? We had the talisman, and we saw that it worked. The shadow dragons ran away when I said words from the Bible, and my own shadow twin disappeared when I said a Bible verse. But now that the Bible is destroyed and a shadow dragon is on the throne, is there any possible way that we can save the Dragon Kingdom?”
“Well, that depends,” said the magician. “How many Bible verses do you remember?”
Chapter 21
With a little help from Virgil’s magic, Edgar was able to remember quite a few Bible verses, which he then taught to his four companions. Thankfully, the room where they sat was completely safe; the magician had cast a spell so that no one but him could find it. And so they were able to take all the time they needed to learn their Bible verses by heart. They wrote them down, said them aloud, sang them, quizzed each other. . . Edgar used every method that his Sunday School teacher had used to help him, and he found that his four students learned quite quickly.
After mastering their fifth verse, they took a break to let what they had learned sink in. The magician was able to conjure a set of teacups and a kettle with hot tea for them.
Edgar accepted his cup politely, trying to be as grateful as he could, even though he did not like tea; he did not want to risk creating another Shadow Edgar by being ungrateful. Give thanks in all circumstances, he thought to himself as he sipped his tea. Well, at least I can be thankful that I have something to drink, even if it’s not my favorite. And I can be thankful that the magician was kind enough to share it with me.
“Tell me about the second Shadow Edgar again,” Virgil suddenly said. “You said that he disappeared.”
“Yes,” said Edgar. “Normally, when I quote Bible verses, shadow dragons act like they’ve been hit, but they don’t disappear. But that shadow Edgar – I quoted the verse that say
s, ‘Don’t let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths. . .’ And he just vanished.”
“Interesting,” Virgil said. “And how did this Shadow Edgar appear in the first place?”
“Well. . .” Edgar looked down at his boots. “I got a bit frustrated hunting after the first shadow Edgar, and so I said –” He suddenly caught himself so that he would not say the same thing again and create a third shadowy twin. “I said a bad word,” he concluded.
“A bad word,” the magician repeated thoughtfully. “Which is a kind of unwholesome talk. . . The verse you used spoke specifically to the sin that created Shadow Edgar, and he disappeared. I wonder if the same thing would happen with a shadow dragon, if one were to quote a verse about the particular sin that created it.”
“That would be great!” Edgar said. “But how could we know which sins created which shadow dragons?”
Virgil turned to the dragon. “Do you know of any sins that are common among dragons?” he asked.
“Greed,” the dragon answered. “Dragons love gold and treasure, tennis balls, magical toys – anything rare and beautiful and valuable that we don’t need. The lust for treasure can make us do wicked things.”
“Like the dragonlets,” said Lucretia. “They fought over their toys and started this whole mess.”
“Or like the dragons who trespassed on your brother’s land,” said Cornelius. “They wanted the gold.”
“Do you know any Bible verses that would be work well against greed?” the magician asked.
Edgar thought about it. “Well,” he said finally, “we once had a verse about being happy with what you have. Let’s see, how did that one go? Oh, yes: Be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ Could that work against greed?”
“Emma and Ploddy quoted that verse to me once!” exclaimed Cornelius. “The last part of it, anyway. Actually, it was just Emma who said it; Ploddy didn’t really say much of anything.”
“What do you think?” asked the Magician and turned to the dragon. “Could that work against the greed of dragons?”