Island of Dragons (14 page)

Aaron simply stared at the drawing for a long time. After a while he looked up and excused himself. “I'll be back soon,” he said. None of the others really paid much attention to him, expecting little from him design-wise, at least, for they hadn't witnessed him in action. So his departure went largely unnoticed.

He returned a short time later with several long strands of vines hanging from his shoulders, the ends dragging on the floor. He coiled them on his worktable and began to shape one into an outline of a dragon's wing. When he got to outlining the joints of the wing, he doubled up the vine and used ribbon and glue to keep it in place, for that part needed to be a little firmer than the rest. Eventually he was satisfied that the shape was correct. But would it move properly? He put his hands on it and closed his eyes, and whispered, “Live.”

The structure came to life, swishing gently on the table like Panther's tail. Aaron studied it, picturing the wing on a dragon and imagining the movements it would need to make in flight.

“Whoa!” said Lani when she noticed what Aaron was doing. “How'd you do that?” She dropped her sticks and went over to Aaron's table. “Vines! Where'd you get these? These are great.” She picked up a vine from Aaron's desk. “May I try one?”

“Sure,” said Aaron. “I brought enough for all the wings in case it actually worked. What do you think, Alex?”

Alex looked up from his project, and his eyes widened at the sight of the moving outline of a dragon's wing on Aaron's table. He stood up quickly, upsetting his chair in his rush to see what was going on, and hurried over. He studied the wing skeleton for a long moment, and then looked at Aaron. “It's great,” he admitted. “And you just did this instinctively? First try?”

Aaron blushed and looked down at the table.

“Can I pick it up?” Alex asked.

“Sure,” Aaron said again. “I'll help you.”

Alex picked up the base of the wing in one hand and lifted the first dart of the wing joint with his other. Aaron picked up the second wing-joint dart and the very tip of the wing. Together they held the wing loosely so it could continue to move as it wanted to.

“Hey, Samheed,” said Alex. “Come over here. I need you to be a dragon for a minute.”

Samheed frowned and put down his crafts, but once he saw what was happening, he came over willingly and turned his back to the brothers. “That's pretty cool,” he said begrudgingly.

“I know,” said Aaron, sounding a bit smug this time.

Alex stifled a laugh and pressed the base of the wing to Samheed's back. “Do you dare to let go of your end, Aaron? Or do you think it'll break without the added magic of the flying material?”

“It's pretty sturdy,” said Aaron, “but it'll need some more reinforcement before it's finished. I'll let go for a few seconds, and we'll see where the weaknesses are.”

Alex nodded, and Aaron let go of the tip of the wing, then the joint. The wing sagged slightly, but it continued to move in a swishing pattern that, with a little help from the cloth cover and the flower petals, would give the wings excellent movement and a great look. After a moment Aaron lifted the tip again and carefully bent the wing at the joints to make sure all of his measurements lined up and the movements were perfectly fluid.

“That's excellent!” Sky called out from her side of the room. “But how am I going to cover it with material while it's moving like that?”

Aaron pressed his lips together. “Um . . . I'm not sure,” he said. He tried fully folding the wing and it became still, but it only stayed still if he was holding the dart, as if the wing could sense through his fingers that he wanted it to stop moving. As soon as he let go of it, it began moving again. He had no idea how to make the wing stop moving for good. He'd never done a spell like that before. What was he supposed to say—“Die”? He looked at his brother. “Alex, do you know how to make it stop?”

Alex squelched a grin. He certainly did know. “Why yes, I do,” he said.

Aaron narrowed his eyes. “How?” he said, suspicious.

“You have to sing a song to take away the magic,” said Alex, clearly delighted.

“What?” cried Aaron. “I can't do that.”

“You have to. That's the only way you can get it to stop.”

Samheed and Lani began to chuckle, and Sky looked on, eyes filled with merriment.

“Well, then,
you
do it,” said Aaron. “I—I don't know how. I mean I wish I could sing. But I've never done it, actually.”

“You may as well learn,” said Alex. “Besides,” he lied, “only
you
can stop the magic since you're the one who made it alive in the first place.”

Sky almost called Alex out on the lie, but it was so entertaining to watch Aaron squirm that she held back.

Aaron gave Sky a pleading look. “Are you sure you can't attach the fabric when it's moving?”

Sky shook her head. “Nope. Sorry,” she said.

Aaron glanced at Lani and Samheed. He knew he wouldn't get any help from them. Finally he sighed and gave up. “Fine. What do I have to sing?”

Alex wrote down the lines to Ol' Tater's song, changing a few words to make the spell work for the wing. He handed the spell to Aaron and then hummed the tune for him. Alex was slightly off-key, but it was the best he could do.

Aaron read the chant. “Are you serious? This is absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “Who designed this spell?”

“Mr. Today, I think.” Alex shrugged. “It's the only way to fix it.”

“Well, it's a lot easier to make things come alive,” muttered Aaron.

“And you're awfully good at that for having no training,” said Alex, “so I'm sure you'll be great at this, too.”

Aaron didn't answer. He opened his mouth, and then he closed it again and sighed. He cleared his throat. He shuffled his feet, and held the paper at different distances from his face to find what would feel most comfortable. Then he looked at the wing moving around on the table. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

The others watched silently, exchanging mischievous glances.

Finally Aaron opened his mouth again and croaked out the words:

Dragon wing, dragon wing,

Too much sadness, no repeats.

I am sorry, more than sorry,

But it's time for you to sleep.

The wing ceased to move. And the room exploded in laughter and applause for Aaron's terrible singing.

Aaron was surprised and confused by the outburst, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. He looked from one face to the next, at first thinking he was being ridiculed, and it reminded him of what things were like when he had been thrown out of the university long ago. But slowly it began to dawn on him that the people in this room were not acting mean-spirited. They were just plain spirited. And they had played a trick—no, not a trick, a joke—on Aaron.

The former high priest wasn't 100 percent sure what the joke was, but instead of yelling at them as he initially wanted to do, he sought out Sky to make sure this was supposed to be funny.

Sky smiled warmly at him. “It's okay,” she mouthed.

Aaron glanced at his brother, who was laughing and coming toward him.

“This is a joke on me,” Aaron said.

“It sure is,” said Alex.

One corner of Aaron's mouth turned upward as Alex slapped him on the back. Aaron risked a glance at Lani, and then at Samheed, who wasn't sneering.

“You're a pretty good sport,” Samheed said. “I'll give you that.”

Aaron laughed a little. “Thanks,” he said. “And the song worked. Maybe I'll take singing lessons since I'm so good at it.”

The friends howled in laughter, and encouraged him to do so.

Aaron smiled. He still didn't know precisely what he'd done that was so funny, but he was enjoying this new feeling inside him—the feeling that he was not only useful, but also that he was finally a part of something good in Artimé.

W
ith such a competent group of mages working on the task, the five sets of wings were assembled, tested, and covered in canvas in a matter of days. All that was left to do was to line them with flower petals and scales before the rest of the magic would be added.

Sky, Samheed, and Aaron were the most skilled at attaching the delicate petals and scales without damaging them. Once they finished each wing, Alex used the preserve spell on it, then added a shimmer spell he'd invented to make the wings as beautiful and iridescent as the bodies of the dragons. With a few final touches, the wings were perfect—lithe and beautiful and just the right dimensions.

At first Alex wasn't sure how he was going to attach the wings to the dragons, but he had a few ideas. He asked Samheed to make up a new variation on scatterclips and stickyclips, called superclips, a permanent spell that would attach one thing to another thing without harming either one of them. But it was troublesome trying to get the wings to seal completely to anything, and it left the base joint stiff and unwieldy, so they gave up on that idea.

Lani came up with a melding spell by using a bit of soft eraser from Ms. Octavia's cupboard as a component. She stretched and kneaded the eraser into a wonderfully pliable material, then instilled magic in it that would meld the wings to the dragon, making them appear continuous and leaving them perfectly flexible.

Alex tested Lani's spell by melding a flowerpot to a large rock outside and moving it this way and that. Then he fired all sorts of elemental spells at it to make sure it could withstand fire, storms, salt water, heavy winds, and anything else he could think of that the dragons might come in contact with. When he was satisfied with the results, he asked Lani to make up a large batch of melding components for him to bring along to the Island of Dragons. Finally they were ready to test out a pair of wings to see if they would really work.

“Do you want to test it?” Alex asked Aaron.

“Me?” asked Aaron nervously. “Oh, no thank you. I'm—I'm just fine here on the ground. And besides, I have a cooking lesson in the kitchen to get to.”

Lani jumped up. “I'll do it.”

“Sorry,” said Alex. “You're not heavy enough. We have to simulate a real dragon.”

“Drat!” said Lani, sitting back down. “Foiled again. I never get to do anything fun.”

“I won't remind you about driving the Quillitary vehicle,” said Alex.

“We agreed to never discuss that again, remember?” said Lani sweetly.

Samheed rolled his eyes and groaned. “Fine. I'll do it,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Alex.

They went out onto the lawn with one pair of wings. Alex instructed Samheed to take his shirt off so the wings could adhere to Samheed's back. Samheed shucked off his shirt, and Alex melded the wings to him.

“That feels really weird,” Samheed said. He shrugged his shoulders a few times.

“Does it hurt?” asked Alex. “Walk around a bit.”

“No, it doesn't hurt. They're not even all that heavy.” Samheed walked around and the wings, still folded, moved naturally with his stride. “It sort of feels like I have two extra arms.”

“Can you move them?” asked Alex. “Think about flying—they should be intuitive to you, at least a little.”

Samheed rotated his shoulders, experimenting with his new appendages and thinking about flying. After a minute he figured out the muscles he needed to move in order to make the wings unfold. He concentrated and flapped the wings in an awkward, jerky movement as he walked around. After several minutes, his motions grew smoother.

“Good,” said Alex. “Now take a running leap and start flying.”

“Yes, boss.” Samheed did as he was instructed. He ran toward the jungle as fast as he could, wings flapping, and jumped into the air.

He soared straight up two or three yards, his wings flapping wildly. Then he faltered and crashed to the ground.

“Ouch,” Samheed said. He spit grass from his mouth and pushed himself to his feet.

Alex frowned. “What did you do wrong?” he asked.

Samheed looked at Alex. “How should I know? You're the head mage.” He noticed a grass stain on his knee and tried to wipe it clean.

Lani stood quietly, arms folded, and then she brought one hand to her chin as she studied Samheed. She tilted her head slightly, watching the wings move as he walked around. Samheed started running again, soared up into the air like before, and then spiraled down to the ground in another crash landing. “Oof,” he said.

Samheed lay there for a minute, winded, then rolled to his side and got up again. “You know, I'm not sure how many more times I want to do this,” he said.

Alex shook his head. “You're flapping your wings. I don't know why they won't keep you up, unless they're just not strong enough. In which case we're in trouble.”