Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1)

by CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

  “Come on, Bobby,” Obar called. “We have to get out of here.” The boy looked up from where he knelt by Mrs. Furlong. “Can we take my mother, too?”

  “I don’t see any problem with that.” Obar looked at the two other men who had backed into the corner as the conflict began. “We can take you fellows, too, if you want to go.”

  The more nervous of the two looked at the other, a large man who appeared to be angry at everything that was happening.

  “What do you think, Carl?” the nervous one asked.

  “I’ve made my decision, Harold,” the angry Carl replied. “Nunn is going to win. Look at how messed-up these two others are, and they had surprise on their side.”

  “But something’s wrong with Nunn!” Harold’s shaking finger pointed at the wizard.

  “So we need to prove ourselves,” Carl said. He stepped toward the center of the room, waving for Harold to follow. “Come on. I think we can take them.”

  Oh, dear, Obar thought. This was getting a bit out of hand. “Mrs. Smith!” Obar called. “If you could gather the others around you, I’ll hold off Nunn.” And maybe, Obar thought, he could disable his brother for a while as well.

  “Hyram!” Mrs. Smith answered severely. “Stop there, or I’ll have to hurt you!” She held the dragon’s eye high above her head. It pulsed with power.

  “Green,” Sayre muttered in reply. “All green is mine.”

  “Now!” Carl called as he charged toward Obar. Harold followed, somewhat more hesitantly.

  “Please,” Obar remarked offhandedly. He caused a ring of green fire to seal him off from this foolish attack.

  Nunn stood suddenly. From the agony in his face, he was still struggling with whatever spell had attacked him. “I—will—not— be— overcome!”

  Oh, drat. This was getting worse.

  Sayre lurched toward the stone in Mrs. Smith’s hand.

  Carl screamed as he hit the wall of magic fire. He staggered back, beating at his chest as green flames enveloped his clothes. He started to scream and ran backward three steps, right into Sayre.

  Sayre fell forward, right into Mrs. Smith.

  She cried out in surprise as the dragon’s eye was knocked from her hand.

  “Green!” Sayre yelled in triumph as his rotting hand reached up to catch the stone.

  “Not that!” Mrs. Smith exclaimed as she pushed herself forward toward the stone. But Sayre was taller, his reach greater.

  Mrs. Smith’s hand knocked hard against the other’s rotting wrists as he touched the stone.

  Sayre grunted. The stone flew across the room. Straight to Nunn.

  He caught it with his right hand, closing his fingers so that the new jewel brushed against the dragon’s eye buried in his palm.

  Nunn started to laugh.

  There was only one thing left to do.

  “Bobby!” Obar shouted. “Here, now!” He threw his spell over the boy and his mother, whipping it around to cover Mrs. Smith before Sayre could renew his attack.

  “Go!” Obar screamed, pulling them all from the room.

  The spell worked. They were back in the clearing where they had started, although the other neighbors seemed to have left.

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Smith said softly. She stared at the hand that used to hold the dragon’s eye.

  It was only now that she probably really realized what had happened. They had lost a dragon’s eye, their only chance to fight Nunn on an equal footing.

  But they were safe, for the moment. Safe to think of anything they might do to survive, before Nunn learned to control all three of the eyes at the same time.

  Once that happened, Obar was quite sure everyone now in this clearing was dead.

  Forty-Five

  Mary Lou hoped Raven would hurry. There was no other way she would escape the Ceremony.

  “A little adventure,” the prince said by her side. “It must feel good to know that so many people care about you.”

  Mary Lou had had just about enough of her prince. “Why don’t you just shut up!” she snapped at the apparition. “If I’m going to die or something, the least you can do is let me have a few minutes’ peace.”

  “Oh,” the prince replied. He actually was silent for a moment as the People kept on with their task of carrying her higher and higher, sometimes toting her, at others passing her from hand to hand, but always holding her with so many of their tiny hands that she could never move her arms or legs. They kept on calling her name, too, she supposed. The chanting had gone on for so long that she was beginning not to hear it.

  “You do know that I meant it,” the prince added a minute later. “What?” Mary Lou demanded. Actually, she thought, maybe some talk would take her mind off what was going to happen next.

  The prince looked down at her with his transparent eyes. “About a lot of people caring for you. I have the feeling that might be something you’re not used to.”

  Mary Lou felt she was going to blush. She decided it was better to be angry. “Sure, you care about me! The People care about me! Otherwise, you can’t go through with your stupid Ceremony! It doesn’t matter that the Ceremony is going to kill me!”

  “I never said the Ceremony would kill you,” the prince replied softly. “I quite actually don’t know what it will do. I only know that it’s necessary.”

  “Necessary?” Mary Lou demanded. “Necessary for what?”

  “For the next stage to begin, for us to gain some power over the dragon. For me to regain some bit of the real me that was lost so long ago.” The prince shrugged. “At least that’s what I think it’s all about. I didn’t feign my forgetfulness, you know. And there are still huge parts of my past that I still know nothing about.”

  “What do you know?” Mary Lou found herself interested despite her anger.

  The prince gave her the intense look that would have melted her heart only a few hours ago. “That I was one of three wizards that came here, except we didn’t start out as wizards.” He paused, looking down at his insubstantial robes. “Actually, there were five of us at first. A barber, two shopkeepers, a banker, and myself. I was a customer, just passing through San Francisco on my way to Alaska and gold. I found gold of another kind.” He smiled. “Once we got here and found what little the dragon left, we also found that three of us had certain powers. It was a shame that the remaining two had to die along the way.

  “And an old wizard died, too, one that held three dragon’s eyes. Once we’d put him out of the way, of course, that meant there was one eye apiece for the three of us. Or there was, until the other two killed me. Or at least thought they did.”

  “So they murdered you for the eye?”

  The prince smiled down at her. “Oh, I would have killed them, too. The stones meant that much to all of us at first. And we could only find the three. The dragon was keeping the others hidden, keeping the power of the final four for itself.” He hesitated for a second, his ghost face graced with the slightest of frowns. “For some reason, that isn’t true anymore. A fourth eye has been found, and I’m beginning to feel the others.”

  Mary Lou had never seen the prince look troubled like this before. “Feel?” she prompted.

  He stared off into the trees, his face still solemn. “Once you have had a dragon’s eye, you are very close to them, forever. You miss them, you want them, and you’d do anything—” His voice drifted off into thought. He suddenly looked back at Mary Lou. For the very first time, he seemed a bit self-conscious. “Sensing these eyes—perhaps it has something to do with the dragon’s reappearance. But I think the remaining eyes will be ready for the taking, if you’re fast and clever enough.”

  Mary Lou didn’t care much for the eyes. Instead, she asked, “If they murdered you, why aren’t you dead?”

  The prince laughed at that. “Well, I don’t know if I’m precisely alive. And I have the most trouble remembering those days just before I was attacked. But I imagine I guessed that Nunn and Obar—they are brothers, you know, and
in those days their family feeling ran rather deeper than it does now—I guessed the brothers would kill me for my gem. And I somehow concocted a spell that would help me survive.”

  Mary Lou still didn’t understand. “But what does all this have to do with the Ceremony?”

  “Forgive me, but it’s all part of the spell. To complete it, we must have this Ceremony.”

  “Your spell? But the Anno seem to think the Ceremony will give them something they always wanted.”

  “That’s what the Anno do believe,” the prince agreed. “The People are a single-minded species. Once they get something in their head, there’s no getting rid of it.”

  “And you used that,” Mary Lou said. “You put that something in their heads, that Ceremony!”

  The prince spread his translucent hands. “Guilty. I had to find something that would bring me back. What better than someone brought by the dragon?”

  “So you’re the one I should hate,” Mary Lou said softly, as if she might keep herself from that emotion.

  “Hate me or not,” the prince said, “I think all of this was destined to be.” He laughed softly at a private joke. “All the time, I think it was the People who used to work for me.”

  Mary Lou looked up and saw the never-ending leaves give way to a vast expanse of blue sky. They had almost reached the People’s village at the top of the trees.

  This was it, then. The Ceremony would begin; the prince would get whatever he needed. And what of Mary Lou?

  She was surprised to find she wasn’t that afraid. In fact, she felt very little at all. She simply knew that, a few moments from now, she might not fear, or hate, or hope ever again.

  Forty-Six

  The Oomgosh had no doubt as to what would happen eventually, for he could talk to every tree.

  The land, the trees, and the sky—these always prevailed. And the Oomgosh was a part of this order. Wizards came and went. Even the dragon spent most of his time in hiding. But nature was forever.

  Unfortunately, the Oomgosh was not as certain about what would happen now. The world was a much faster place in the presence of these newcomers.

  He had not spent much time lately around humans. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed their company. Not that Raven wasn’t a joy. He and the Oomgosh were fated to be companions, after all. But even one as ancient and patient as the Oomgosh found Raven’s boasting irritating on occasion, despite the fact that boasting was a fine part of the great black bird’s nature. Humans, however, were unpredictable, and this newest batch, courtesy of the dragon, seemed to be a particularly contentious and talented lot, especially the children. The Oomgosh always cared about growing things.

  And the Oomgosh hated the taking of life without good cause. When he thought of what might happen to Mary Lou, he grew angry. And when the Oomgosh grew truly angry, he could move the trees, the earth, and the sky.

  He listened to the cries in the trees overhead. At first, the Oomgosh thought, the way the Anno chanted on and on, they would lead them straight to Mary Lou.

  But the Anno, although they sometimes appeared to have a single mind, were not single-minded. Some of their number split off from their main force above, calling Mary Lou’s name to the right and left of them, spreading out so that they might be taking Mary Lou to any part of the forest.

  But the trees told the Oomgosh the Anno’s secrets. Their trunks groaned under the weight of the hundreds of little ones as the Anno carried Mary Lou higher. The branches whispered as they shook with the Anno’s passing, “This way! This way!” And, as surely as water flowed from root to trunk to limb to leaf, the sighs and groans and whispers of the trees were carried the other way, down to the great mass of roots that covered the whole island. And the Oomgosh could hear these roots, talking far underground.

  “This way,” the Oomgosh instructed. Jason waved for the others to follow. Of all the humans, the Oomgosh liked Jason best of all. The boy was full of an energy the likes of which the Oomgosh could barely remember, and that in another lifetime. And Jason and he got on well with each other from the first, like old friends from the moment they met. Although they had lived in different worlds, the Oomgosh and Jason were a match.

  The Oomgosh looked to the Volunteers, hard humans who knew the way of the wood. “They are taking Mary Lou to their city. I imagine the Ceremony will begin there.”

  “I’m the best at climbing trees,” Maggie announced. The Volunteers still hadn’t introduced themselves to the others, but the Oomgosh knew them from long ago.

  “And the rest of us are bad, hey?” Stanley chided. “We’ll go up there and make short work of them.”

  “Well, I’m not so good, at least at climbing trees,” Wilbert admitted with a pat to the stomach. “Perhaps I can take up the rear.”

  “Can you tell us where this city is?” Thomas asked as he scanned the trees.

  “It covers a large area,” the Oomgosh answered, “but I believe it begins quite nearby. I trust that Raven will return shortly and tell us more about appearances.”

  The remaining neighbors, three women and two boys, caught up with the forward party.

  “What’s going on?” Mrs. Blake demanded as they approached. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “I think the best strategy for now is to stay together,” the Oomgosh cautioned.

  “Once we know Mary Lou’s whereabouts,” Maggie began, “those of us who can climb trees”—she smiled at Wilbert—“can form a raiding party.”

  “Hey, I can climb a tree,” Nick offered.

  “So can I, jerk,” Todd said, more to Nick than the rest of the group.

  “Better if you climbed vines,” Thomas interjected. He nodded at the thick vegetation hanging from the lower branches. “That’s how we really travel.”

  Stanley squinted at the two boys. “We might be able to use the two of them, hey? There’s an awful lot of Anno up there.”

  “Awful lot of ways for them to get killed, too,” Thomas added. “Don’t know about this.”

  “I don’t know about this, either,” Mrs. Blake said. Her son, Nick, barely glanced at her. He turned back to the Volunteers, his hand on his sword.

  “I’ve learned how to fight with this thing,” he said, patting the hilt. “I’m ten times the fighter he’ll ever be!” Todd protested. “Fighters?” a harsh voice cawed overhead. “We’ll need plenty of fighters!”

  “My Raven!” the Oomgosh called.

  “Tired Raven,” the great bird squawked as it swooped down toward them. “Even the most superlative of creatures can find this work trying.” He fluttered his wings, landing gently on Nick’s shoulder. Nick shuffled a bit under the additional weight, but didn’t say anything about the imposition.

  “Now, Nick,” Mrs. Blake began again.

  “You’re Nick’s mother,” Raven said abruptly. She stopped whatever she was going to say and stared at the bird, openmouthed. “Don’t be surprised. Raven knows everything. Your son is the most comfortable perch. And young Nick has many other talents nearly as valuable.”

  “We all have to work together here, Mom,” Nick added before his mother could say more. “Otherwise, we won’t survive.”

  Mrs. Blake’s frown deepened. She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Remember, Nicholas Blake, if you get yourself killed, I’ll be very mad at you.”

  Nick smiled at that. “I’ll try to remember, Mom.”

  But there was a life to be saved. “Raven,” the Oomgosh insisted. “What did you see?”

  “Raven has never seen these creatures so excited,” the bird replied. “They have thrown all their caution away! The whole tribe has gathered on the platform, except for those carrying Mary Lou. And those who carry her have almost reached their destination.”

  “What will they do with her?” Mary Lou’s mother asked anxiously.

  “The Ceremony,” Jason answered, then asked, “What’s the Ceremony?”

  “Raven saw a great pot up there, filled with a steaming liquid.”

/>   “Are they going to boil her?” Jason asked.

  “The Anno do like to eat,” Wilbert offered.

  Mrs. Dafoe gave a small, strangled cry. She put her hand to her chest, as if even she was surprised by the noise. She looked to the Oomgosh. “You’ve got to do something.”

  “We will all do our part,” the tree man agreed. “Raven, do you recall how many lookouts they had? And where they were placed?”

  “Raven thinks they’re too excited for lookouts!” The black bird flapped his wings as though that excitement was contagious. “A few watched the edges of the platform, but even they could not help but look around at the festivities behind them.”

  “Maybe we can sneak up on them, after all,” Maggie said softly. “Never expect attack from the trees,” Thomas agreed. “Least not from humans.”

  “So we go now, before the Ceremony starts?” Wilbert asked. He looked doubtfully at the nearby vines. “I could use whatever time’s available.”

  Nick glanced at Todd. “We’re coming, too!”

  “If you’re set on it,” Stanley agreed. “But let us take the lead, hey?”

  “What about the rest of us?” Joan Blake insisted.

  “We will all be needed,” the Oomgosh replied gently. “If we do manage to rescue Mary Lou, we may all have to defend ourselves against the Anno.”

  “Defend ourselves?” Todd’s quiet mother spoke up for once. “How can we do that?”

  Stanley threw his pack on the ground. “I’ll leave this behind for you. There’s a few things inside you might find useful. Hey, it’s too heavy to climb with, anyways.”

  “Where are the edges of their city?” Thomas asked as Mrs. Blake knelt by the pack.

  “Careful not to cut yourself, hey?” Stanley suggested quietly. Mrs. Blake unfolded the animal skin to reveal half a dozen knives and hatchets and twice as many arrowheads. “Split the weapons up as you see fit. Save the arrowheads for later.”

  The Oomgosh listened to the trees. “The city is very near.” Raven cocked his head, looking first at the trees above, then at the humans gathered around them. “Raven thinks the platform begins twenty paces from where you stand.”