“Acts of God. Weapons designed to create natural disasters like tornadoes, tsunamis and earthquakes so that governments can wipe out entire cities without having to declare war.”
“That’s awful,” said Holly.
“That’s humans,” said Dirk.
“It’s dragons who have stolen it,” replied Holly.
“Fair point,” admitted Dirk, then turned back to the professor. “Who are you working for?”
“I don’t know who they are. I’ve never seen the man with the deep voice. The only people I’ve met are the two fools with the smelly car.”
Arthur and Reg remained oblivious to the insult.
“Where are they planning to attack?”
“I entered the coordinates but I don’t know where they relate to. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be responsible.”
“I see, so if an earthquake happens, you can just convince yourself it was a natural one and you’ll never know for sure if it was you.”
The professor nodded. “But they can’t make it work. I told them that.”
“Why can’t they make it work?”
“It can only be activated by one person.”
“Which person?”
“It was developed for the British government. Only the Prime Minister can operate it,” said the professor, swaying a little. “I told them, I can’t get around it. It’s programmed only to respond to his DNA.”
“Callum,” said Holly.
“Would it work with his son’s DNA?” asked Dirk.
“No, it requires a direct match and it scans for exact fingerprints. Only the Prime Minister’s hand will activate the machine.”
“What happens when the wrong person tries to operate it?”
“It shuts down and becomes impossible to touch for one hour.”
Holly could tell from the amount of white smoke coming from Dirk’s nostrils that he was getting angry. “And what did you get for your hand in all this, Professor?” he asked. “What does it cost to make you betray your country and your species, to break the law and put your job and your family on the line?”
The professor leaned forwards and whispered, “Proof.”
“Proof? Proof of what?”
“Dragons. I saw a dragon once, while holidaying in Wales as a child. My parents said I was making up stories, but I know what I saw and ever since then it’s been an obsession of mine. My wife has never understood it and my colleagues laugh at me behind my back, but now they will have to believe me,” he said. “Now I have proof.”
“What proof?” said Dirk calmly.
“Behind the TV. There’s a parcel.”
Holly dived to the TV and pulled out the parcel. She placed it on the kitchen table, opened it up and lifted out what looked like a piece of ivory.
“A dragon claw,” said Dirk.
“A dragon claw,” repeated the professor.
“If only he knew who he was talking to,” said Holly.
Dirk picked up the claw and said, “Professor Rosenfield, I want you to listen very carefully to me.”
The professor nodded and leaned forwards.
“When I say so, these men will take you back to the station. Catch a train home, go back to your wife and try to lead a normal, boring life. You won’t remember any of this conversation or the events of the last few days and when your wife asks, you’ll say the cryptozoological conference was a complete bore and gradually, over time, your interest in dragons will wane. You’ll find a new hobby. Holly, what’s a good hobby?”
“Skydiving?” suggested Holly.
“Something safe.”
“Bungee jumping?”
Dirk rolled his eyes. “You’ll become interested in stamp collecting instead, Professor.”
“Stamp collecting,” repeated the professor.
Dirk turned to the crooks.
“Arthur and Reg, take the professor back to the train station and when he gets out, slap him in the face, then slap each other.” He leaned forwards and muttered something in their ears that Holly couldn’t quite hear.
“What did you tell them?” she asked.
“I told Reg to drive carefully. Remember, they can see the world around them if instructed to look. He’ll drive more attentively than he’s ever done before.”
Compliantly, all three of them left the cottage and climbed into the car. As the car drove away, Holly scrambled on to Dirk’s back and he took to the sky.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m taking you back to school,” replied Dirk.
He tilted his wings to gain a little height. In the distance he could see the school. Holly saw it too.
“Why can’t I stay with you?” she said.
He dipped down again, flying close to the treetops. “I’m sorry, Holly,” he said. “I wish you could but I can’t protect you where I’m going.”
Dirk was telling the truth. He really did want to take Holly with him. On the whole, dragons were solitary creatures. Sometimes small groups would stick together for short periods of time if they had a mutual goal, like the Tree Dragons in the forest or the other Kinghorns he had encountered on his last case, but these unions would rarely last more than a few months. Dragons learned loneliness when they were abandoned as younglings. Dirk remembered the morning he awoke to find his mother gone. Barely ten years old, he had searched everywhere for her until, eventually, he realized she wasn’t coming back. He only ever saw her once after that and by then it was too late.
Maybe Dirk had spent too much time surrounded by humans, with their constant need for company, and perhaps some of that neediness had rubbed off on him because, since meeting Holly, he had come to enjoy having someone to confide in.
Dirk landed by the trunk of a large, fallen sycamore tree, near the perimeter fence of the school. Holly didn’t want to go back. She wanted to stay with Dirk.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Those Tree Dragons said the Dragnet were arresting Kinghorns. That means they know something. I want to find out what. I’ve got to go and speak to the captain of the Dragnet and tell him what I know.”
“What’s the Dragnet?”
“It’s the Dragon Council’s police force. Dragnet officers are Drab-Nosed Drakes: flightless, soil-eating dragons with a bad case of wing envy, but they’re tough. If they saw you with me, I’d be banished and you’d be killed.”
“I could keep watch over those Tree Dragons while you’re gone,” suggested Holly.
“Holly, you saw what they did to me. Besides, they don’t even know what they’re involved in. I need to get to the dragon behind all this.”
“You mean Vainclaw Grandin?” said Holly.
“Exactly.” Dirk sat with his back against the trunk, scanning the surrounding trees for green eyes.
“If the Kinghorns want a war, why would they choose a weapon that makes it look like a natural disaster?” asked Holly.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re looking to weaken the human armies before the main attack. They’re gaining in numbers but I doubt Vainclaw has a big enough army yet to take on the whole of humanity. He needs more supporters and the Council will never sanction war.”
“I don’t want to go back,” protested Holly. “I want to come with you, to help stop the war.”
Dirk craned his neck and looked her in the eye. “I’ll come and see you as soon as I’m back, but I can’t take you with me. I can’t risk losing you.”
Holly could tell there was no way she would be able to persuade him. Quietly she said, “OK. I’ll go but you have to promise to come back.”
“I promise,” said Dirk, and he stood up and held out his paw, which Holly took and held to her cheek.
“Wait five minutes before leaving,” she said. “I’ll draw the guard away from the main gate, so you don’t get seen.”
“Take care, kiddo,” said Dirk, “and stay out of trouble.”
“Trouble?” Holly smiled. “Me? Never.”
&nbs
p; She hugged him one more time and ran into the woods.
Dirk sat back down and considered the case. It was the second time he had found himself up against the Kinghorns and yet he was still no closer to Vainclaw Grandin. All he knew was what Karnataka had told him, that Vainclaw was a Mountain Dragon, that he was cautious, smart and extremely dangerous, and that he claimed to be the first in the air, voting to declare war on humanity.
Deciding that enough time had lapsed, Dirk stood up and stretched. He spread his wings, flapped them a couple of times and took to the sky.
Flying south over the forest, towards the caves, Dirk felt almost as though Holly was still with him. He looked over his shoulder to check but she wasn’t there. She was back at school, probably making some poor teacher’s life a misery. He supposed that this was what it felt like to miss someone.
He glided towards the base of the hill, making sure there was no one around. For human visitors, the caves weren’t very exciting, being neither particularly big nor deep. Humans considered rock to be a very solid, non-communicative substance.
Dirk, on the other hand, knew that rock was actually quite malleable and, although not the world’s greatest conversationalist, it was, at least, capable of understanding and following simple instructions, providing they were spoken in the ancient language of Dragonspeak and said very slowly.
Dragonspeak was beautiful to hear but it lacked the richness and subtleties of human languages, which was why dragons tended to use human language when talking to each other. Rock, on the other hand, had resolutely refused to learn a new language in all the billions of years it had been hanging around.
At the entrance of one of the caves, Dirk crouched down on a slab of stone and made a strange growling, muttering noise, which roughly translated meant, “Down, please.”
The rock shifted with ease, lowering Dirk into the ground like an organic elevator. His head disappeared beneath the surface and the rock re-formed above him, cutting out the daylight and thrusting him into darkness.
After several hours descending through the dark, it grew lighter and Dirk felt the surface he was standing on pull away from under his feet. He braced himself. Orange light appeared beneath his claws and he dropped down into a vast tunnel, landing heavily and feeling a twinge in his back. He looked over his shoulder. At first he saw nothing and then he noticed the faint outline of a girl, barely detectable, but there if you looked for it, blended to match his red scaly back.
“Holly?” he said disbelievingly. “But how?”
A pair of brown eyes appeared.
“Hi, Dirk.” Holly’s mouth materialized.
“I don’t understand…” he started. “You can… You can blend like me … even your clothes. How are you doing that?”
“I don’t know. At first I thought that hiding from the security guard during my escape was lucky but when that Tree Dragon looked straight at me in the forest and didn’t see me I began to understand what was happening. I was doing it without realizing. Like you said, you just have to think like whatever you’re trying to blend with. It’s easy, really, isn’t it?”
“It’s easy for Mountain Dragons. It’s not supposed to be easy for humans,” countered Dirk.
“I thought you would feel me on your back when I climbed on.”
“The skin on my back is pretty tough. I suppose that’s why you asked me to wait five minutes before leaving the clearing, giving you time to sneak back on.”
Holly nodded. “But how come I can do it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, confused. “Unless…”
“What?” she asked.
“Knights used to drink dragon blood to steal their powers.”
“Yuck!” exclaimed Holly. “I haven’t been drinking your blood. That’s disgusting.”
“When I came to the school, I was still injured. Some of my blood had rubbed on to your shin. You put it to your tongue to see what it was.”
“Would that be enough to do it?”
“It would seem so, wouldn’t it?”
Holly glanced around at the tunnel. “What is this place anyway?” she asked.
“We’re just off the north-western arm of the lithosphere tunnel.”
“Where does the light come from? I can’t see any lamps.”
“This is earthlight.”
“Earthlight?”
“The Inner Core gives off light and heat. It’s where dragons get their energy, just like humans can’t live without the sun. That’s why we cast shadows upwards. The nearer you get to it, the lighter it grows.”
Holly gazed up at Dirk’s shadow. “It’s amazing,” she said. “I’m probably the only human ever to have been here.”
Dirk smiled. He would never have admitted it but, deep down, he was pleased she was with him.
“Hey, Mountain Dragon, what are you doing?” called a voice.
“Quick, blend,” ordered Dirk. Holly imagined she was made out of the same red scaly skin as Dirk’s back and her body changed colour to match it.
A dirt-brown creature appeared round the corner. It had a large belly, a long droopy nose and a dark metal chain attached to its short tail, with a heavy-duty neck cuff held in its paw. In the other paw was a burger-shaped lump of mud. It waddled forwards, sniffed the mud burger, then nibbled it and grunted approvingly.
“Identify yourself and your purpose.”
As he spoke, tiny bits of mud flew out of his mouth.
Dirk wiped his face. “My name’s Dirk Dilly and I want you to take me to the Dragnet captain,” he said.
The Drake puffed out his chest, showing his metal badge. “I’ll do no such thing. I don’t know what the world’s coming to, civilians ordering Dragnet officers around. I never could have believed it. In my day, dragons showed a bit of respect.”
Dirk hated Dragnet officers. Drakes went into the Dragnet for one reason. Power. They were smaller than winged dragons but the neck cuffs they carried enabled them to capture and arrest even the largest dragon. They were stupid, petty-minded and corrupt; they were almost always looking for what they could get out of any given situation.
“All right, what will it take to persuade you?” asked Dirk.
“How dare you?” said the officer indignantly. “Are you attempting to bribe a Dragnet officer?”
“What’s your name, Drake?”
“You are addressing Officer Balti Grunling, six hundred and thirty-two years wearing the badge.”
“Well, Balti, I’m sure there’s something I can persuade you with.”
“Dragnet officers do not take back-handers. I would cuff you for suggesting it, except I’ve got this mud burger on the go.”
Dirk waited, saying nothing.
Balti lifted the unappetizing burger and opened his mouth to bite, but stopped. “Actually there is one thing I’d like,” he said quietly.
Dirk smiled. “What’s your poison?” he asked.
Balti pulled out a small glass pot. He lifted it up with careful reverence and whispered, “Pepper.”
“Pepper?” exclaimed Dirk.
“Dust of the gods.” Balti showed him the old pepper pot. “Can you imagine what it’s like eating soil all your life?”
“Lacking in variation?” ventured Dirk.
“It’s so boring. What’s for breakfast? Soil. Fancy a spot of lunch? That’ll be soil then. Dinner? Soil. Midnight snack? Soil. Soil, soil, soil. Then I discovered pepper. It doesn’t half liven up a meal. This one’s running out though.” Balti shook the pot. It was almost empty.
“Well, Officer Grunling, you’re in luck.” Dirk smiled. “As it happens I’m rather well connected in the condiment world. Obviously, I don’t have any on me, but take me to your captain and I’ll bring you more pepper than you can dream of: black pepper, white pepper, garlic pepper. And not just pepper. How about some mustard?”
“Mustard? What’s that?”
“Oh, you’ll love it. English, French, Dijon. I’ll bring you a selection.”
Balt
i’s small piggy eyes darted around, as though concerned someone might be watching, then he extended his paw and said, “OK, it’s a deal, Mountain Dragon. This way.”
Dirk followed Balti down the corridor.
“Why do you want to meet the captain?” asked the Drake.
“I want to ask him what he knows about the Kinghorns.”
“Oh, he knows lots about them. Since becoming captain he’s made hundreds of arrests. He’s cleaning up this place.”
For Holly, clinging to Dirk’s back, trying to keep still enough to stay blended, it seemed like ages until eventually Balti stopped at a dark iron door. “All right, mountain lad, we’re here.”
“Where’s ‘here’?” asked Dirk.
Balti banged on the door.
“Euphorbia Falls Prison,” he said as the door opened.
They entered an enormous cave and Holly marvelled at the scene in front of her. They stood on a wide path that circled an expansive underground lake, which must have been over a mile wide. On the far side of the cave was a huge waterfall making the water choppy and tumultuous. In middle of the lake was a round island with six large, rocky mounds.
Rough, craggy walls sloped up from the path at a steep angle. The cave reminded Holly of the inside of an amphitheatre she had once visited while on holiday in Greece, but ten times as big, and instead of seats for spectators, the walls were lined with dark metal-barred doors. And rather than sunburnt tourists taking photos, the path around the lake was lined with Dragnet officers, some dirt brown like Balti, others different shades of grey or dull greens, all staring across the water at the island.
“Wait here, we’re in time for a trial,” said Balti excitedly, shuffling to the edge of the path.
Dirk moved backwards, away from the Drakes.
“What’s going on?” Holly whispered in his ear, being careful to keep her head as still as possible when she spoke to prevent it from reappearing.
“This is a prison. These cells are full of dragons awaiting trial.” Dirk spoke out of the side of his mouth.
Holly looked up and saw hundreds of eyes, some yellow, some green, a few red, staring out from behind the cell doors.
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