Meghan's Dragon (22 page)

Chapter 66

Juliana ran up to Bryan and Meghan, flushed and breathing hard from the exertion. “My father says the two of you need to hide, right now. Storm Bringer says there’s a dragon coming.”

“A dragon? I want to see it,” Bryan said, trying to shake off Meghan’s hands as she pulled him towards the ravine at the edge of the evening campsite.

“You promised on your word of honor that you’d follow Rowan’s orders as long as we eat his bread,” Meghan argued, holding on to his arm with a death grip. “We’ll get into those rocks and watch from there.”

“Please,” Juliana added, bringing to bear her formidable talents of persuasion. A goofy grin spread across the young man’s face and he yielded to Meghan’s tugging, all the while looking back over his shoulder at the beautiful twin.

“Stop it,” Meghan said, swatting him on the back of the head. “It’s not like you don’t see Nesta every day.”

“That was Juliana,” he replied, rubbing his hair where the pretend-wedding ring on her finger had bounced off his skull. “And I wasn’t staring. I just wanted to make sure she didn’t have further instructions from her father.”

“Stop lying and climb down there to check for snakes,” she ordered, adding a shove for good measure. Between the constant eating and his daily sword exercise with Rowan, Bryan was filling out rapidly, and pushing against him was like trying to move a boulder. But he followed her instructions without complaint in the hope that she would forgive his latest transgression.

There was a recently fallen pine, brought down by a combination of storm winds and soil erosion around the roots, bridging the narrow gorge. The broken branches on the underside held the trunk up off the ground, and the green nettles formed a nearly impenetrable curtain. By working their way under the toppled giant where the unbroken branches jutted down into the ravine, the two young people were completely hidden from view, yet still able to see most of the campsite.

After a short wait, a giant shape glided over the wagons and then rose again, as if the dragon was taking a precautionary pass to check for hazards. It wheeled about in the air, its leathery wings flexing and twisting, and then it went into a shallow dive, landing about fifty paces in front of the waiting reception committee. The dragon needed a few hopping steps to bring itself to a halt, its wings spread to their fullest extent and tilted up like a drag parachute.

Rowan stood at the front of the group facing the dragon, his wife on his right and Storm Bringer on his left. Although the big man wore the sword that he was never without, the others were unarmed. Meghan muttered something to herself that sounded like “louder” to Bryan, which he took as a cue to focus his own unnatural hearing on the far-away conversation. The sounds of the birds, squirrels, and insects around them seemed to fade into the distance as the dragon’s first words were spoken.

“Colder than I thought,” the giant reptile said in a deep bass voice. “Not too windy, though.”

“Sun is nice,” Rowan responded conversationally. “What brings you to New Land, Shorinth?”

“Always straight to the point, Rowan,” the dragon responded. “You’re as beautiful as ever, Isabella. Surely that’s enough reason for me to make the long flight.”

“And you remain ever the flatterer,” Rowan’s wife replied. “Have you angered your elders enough to be driven into exile?”

“This is more of a fact-finding expedition.” Shorinth blinked rapidly a few times and settled on his belly. He reached for his face with one of his forelimbs, which forced him to bring his head in close to his body. After a desultory scratch or two at his right eyelid, he extended his neck all the way out, with his lower jaw coming to rest on the ground just in front of Rowan’s wife. “Would you mind?”

Isabella sighed and leaned forward to rub the itchy eye ridge for the dragon. Then she turned to Nesta and said, “Go and get some axle grease from the wagon master. Somebody has been scratching to the point where the scales are flaking.”

Shorinth let out a rumble of pleasure and closed the eye that the woman was tending, but the other eye, as large as a child’s head, remained wide open. “Some interesting rumors have reached Old Land in recent weeks. Castles being torn down by magic, revolution in the air, the barrier between our world and Dark Earth being breached. It occurred to me that if anybody in New Land knew what was going on, it would be you three,” he concluded.

“And if you discovered even a speck of truth in those wild rumors, what would you do with it?” Rowan inquired.

“That would depend on the speck,” Shorinth replied. “Information wants to be expensive, and I happen to be in need of funds to woo Ethelinda. She’s finally left that insufferable flying whale of a dragon, Magnor.”

“Isn’t she a bit old for you?” Isabella asked.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, and she’s practically the only dragoness left in Old Land who isn’t a sister, an aunt or a cousin. I tried going east for companionship, and I have the scars to show for it.”

“So you wish information from us that you can trade for gold when you return,” Rowan surmised.

“Even if I could obtain a sufficient hoard here, it would be a tedious operation to get it home,” Shorinth said. “Renting a ship, escorting it all the way across the ocean, never knowing if the sailors below deck were dipping their grubby hands in my treasure. Information weighs nothing.”

Nesta returned with a tub of axle grease and held it for her mother. Isabella stuck her bare hand in the thick mess without hesitation and began slathering it over the dragon’s eye ridge, working it into folds in the hide where the scales chafed. Her daughters watched with interest, as if rubbing down dragons was a useful skill to be acquired.

Back under the pine, Bryan complained to Meghan, “You never do anything like that for me, and we’re supposed to be married.” Meghan shushed him frantically, but Shorinth had already shifted his gaze towards the ravine. He blinked slowly, and then turned his open eye to Storm Bringer.

“I don’t suppose you know any young dragonesses on this backwards coast who would be interested in meeting a sophisticated drake such as myself?”

The shaman snorted and shook his head. “I’m afraid the only dragons on this coast are male, and I doubt they would be pleased by your prospecting on their grounds.”

“Narl is an outlaw, and his brother, Barth, is mentally defective,” Shorinth said. “Besides, they’re both up north at the moment. Back when it happened, there was a rumor that a young dragoness was at stake, which was the only thing that could explain Narl’s behavior. But five decades is a long time to remain in hiding, so maybe he broke the pact for a pile of gold after all.”

“You’re more generous with information than the last time we met, Shorinth,” Rowan observed. Isabella moved in front of her husband to work on the eye ridge on the other side of the dragon’s head, her daughters following in tow. “Could it be that you’re choosing sides already?”

“Oh, I’ve always been on your side,” Shorinth insisted. “But if, for example, a mage in New Land did figure out how to reopen the passage to Dark Earth, I’m sure it would come to your attention. I only ask that you remember your humble servant to said mage as an eligible bachelor.”

“And you flew all the way from Old Land just to make that request?” Rowan asked skeptically.

“I believe I’ve learned what I came for,” the dragon answered cryptically. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I should think about hunting something up for dinner and heading back. Ladies, always a pleasure,” Shorinth added, nodding at Isabella and the girls. “Wisest thing I ever did was rescuing your great-grandmother from that pack of idiotic wolves. She was such a little thing that they would have been hungry again an hour later in any case.”

The dragon turned and took a few steps into the gentle breeze, flapping his wings lackadaisically. His long neck curled back around his body and he addressed Storm Bringer. “A little help? I usually prefer to land near cliffs to make it easier to get airborne, but your campsite was chosen without me in mind.”

The shaman shrugged and made a winding-up motion with one arm, creating a vortex of dust between the humans and the dragon. Then Storm Bringer cast his arm forward, and the miniature tornado seemed to flatten out and spring up under the dragon’s wings. Shorinth soared into the air, pivoted, and swept back across the campsite, flying directly above Bryan and Meghan’s position as he headed for the nearby hills to hunt.

“Laziest dragon I ever met,” the shaman commented. “No wonder he never found a mate.”

“He did fly all the way here just to warn us,” Isabella said reprovingly. “If rumors have reached the dragons in Old Land, they’ve certainly come to the ears of the false king.”

Chapter 67

“Just try putting it on and flapping a little,” Meghan pleaded. “I’ve got the reversion-to-human-form instructions memorized, even if you couldn’t be bothered to read them. I’m sure I can walk you through it.”

“The twins did seem pretty interested in that dragon,” Bryan mused. “If I was him, I would have changed back on the spot.”

“Maybe he can’t, or maybe he’s saving the human time he has left,” Meghan said. “Dragons can live for thousands of years, even longer if nothing kills them, but they can only spend a human lifetime in human form. And once that time is past, they can no longer breed.”

“You mean that dragons all start as humans, and they don’t breed as dragons at all?”

“Did you think they laid eggs?” Meghan laughed out loud. “That’s why there are so few dragons around. That and the fact that the males fight over the females, and the females fight over hoards. All of the original dragons date back to when your world gave up its magic. A group of the most powerful mages who wouldn’t give up their powers left Dark Earth and came here. To prevent those who remained behind from profiting on the treasure they couldn’t bring with them, they caused the magical land they inhabited to sink into the sea. There’s a play about it that gets performed in Old Land, but the staging is too complicated for the traveling troupes.”

“So the mages from Dark Earth came here and created dragons?”

“They came here and became dragons. Didn’t you see Shorinth? As large as his wings are and as strong as I’m sure he is, a creature like him could never fly without magic. If dragons were wholly dependent on their wings to stay in the air, they’d be flapping like bumblebees.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Bryan allowed. “So you’re saying that all the dragons around today are descended from Dark Earth mages?”

“A few of the oldest actually are Dark Earth mages, but they tend to lose interest in human matters after such a long time in dragon form. What I didn’t know until Shorinth let it slip is that they’ve lost the ability to bring new dragons from Dark Earth. I shouldn’t be surprised, since dragons are so private, and whatever scrolls they might have recorded while in human form didn’t end up in my baron’s collection.”

“But you figured out how to reach Dark Earth and pull me through.”

“I explained how I figured it out, and I don’t know for sure if I could repeat it with anybody else,” Meghan said. “It took a lot of energy, and if you hadn’t grabbed my hand, I don’t know what would have happened. Maybe a dragon has to be in human form to open the passage to Dark Earth. There are few dragons young enough to have any human time left, and maybe that’s not how they want to spend it.”

“So now you want me to crawl into this mound of silk and flap my arms like an idiot.” Bryan rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek, considering the idea, and then asked, “What are you going to do for me?”

“I bring you extra food all the time, and I’ve let you keep my share of our tips, which ended up on a string around your neck,” Meghan pointed out. “What else do you want?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about us being with each other like husband and wife, and it doesn’t make sense,” Bryan replied, stepping closer to the girl. “If our magical energy is going to average out, it means that one of us will become stronger. You keep telling me that you’ve never heard of anybody learning to channel their magic as fast as I have, and I’m better than you at most of the things you’ve taught me. If I’m stronger than you, it means you’ll be taking from me, and I’m cool with that. And if I’m wrong and it’s the other way around, maybe that extra boost you can give me is just what I need to become a real dragon.”

Meghan backed away. She recognized the green flames dancing in his eyes as a sign that he wasn’t entirely in control of himself. Sneaking away from the camp to a field of clover to lay out the silk dragon suit for Bryan to crawl into suddenly seemed like a bad idea. “Maybe we should just go back,” Meghan suggested uncertainly.

“For all your talk about our future together, you don’t care as much about me as I do about you. Maybe you’d be happy if we spent the rest of our lives as best friends sharing a tent, but I’m going crazy here, and it’s your fault.”

“Hadrixia warned me that all boys say that,” Meghan retorted, but her voice sounded weak to her, and she felt her pulse racing at more than twice its usual pace.

“I’m not a boy, I’m a man,” Bryan grated out in a low voice. “I’d be a man who’s killed other men if you didn’t keep stopping me. I’ll put on the dragon nightgown and dance around like a clown if that’s what you really want, but first I need to hear you say that when this quest is over, you’ll be mine for real. No more acting.”

Meghan swallowed dryly and suddenly found herself falling backwards, thanks to placing a foot in the burrow of some small mammal. Bryan grabbed her shoulders and pulled her upright before her own reactions could even kick in to brace her for the fall. He held her so tightly that she thought he would crush her, and if she had moved her head forward just a hair, their noses would have been touching.

“Deal,” he demanded rather than asked.

“Deal,” she whispered back, closing her eyes against the brilliant green flames dancing in his pupils. Her heart pounded in her chest and the blood rushed in her ears, drowning out the night sounds of the meadow. Then she suddenly realized that she was standing on her own feet again and that Bryan had released her. She touched her lips and wondered if she had imagined the kiss.

When Meghan finally opened her eyes, a monstrous white shape was moving to engulf her, and she instinctively reached for her pendant to call upon her magical reserves. Then she heard Bryan’s muffled voice from within the mass of swirling silk and came back to her senses.

“Get me out of this thing. I can’t find the right opening and this stuff keeps wrapping itself tighter.”

“Stop struggling,” she called back. “It must be magically form-fitting and it’s trying to shrink down to your size.”

Bryan stood still for a moment, but the wind was picking up and the silk wings of the garment streamed out behind him. It was enough to pull him off balance, and he fell with a thud.

“Get it off of me or I’m going to start burning holes,” he shouted.

“Don’t! You’ll burn yourself if the silk catches fire. Just lie still and I’ll get you out of there.”

Meghan snatched at handfuls of the heavy silk wrapped around Bryan, searching for the hole intended for the dragon’s head and neck. The silk had thickened as the garment resized itself to human form, and she supposed the wings might have done the same if he had ever gotten his arms through those slits. Finally her hand worked its way into an opening in the silk, allowing her to root around inside until she found his face.

“Hey, stop poking me,” he complained in a muffled voice. Meghan began to use her other hand to roll the silk down her arm, effectively bringing the opening towards his head. “And hurry up, I’m sweating buckets in this thing.”

“Stretch,” Meghan muttered under her breath, hoping that the same magic that controlled her native-produced moccasins was in play here. The silk seemed to resist her at first, but then the hole began to grow, and Bryan quickly squirmed out.

“I had just found the wing holes and was beginning to flap my arms when the extra silk I was standing on pulled my feet out from under me and began tightening around my legs,” he complained. “I pulled my arms out of the wing openings to try to get my legs free, but instead the stupid silk bound them against my sides. I think it’s some kind of weird dragon restraint device,” he added, kicking the now quiescent mound of silk. “Where were you all that time I was struggling?”

“I was right here, watching,” Meghan said, too embarrassed to admit that she thought they’d been kissing the whole time. “I thought you were, like, making progress.”