The Dragon Guard (28 page)

Jason watched the two of them, a thought nibbling on the edge of his mind, much as the pack rat did on her crumb of scone. “Nooooo,” he said, finally. “But . . .”

Trent's attention snapped to him. “But what?” He followed Jason's stare. “Oh. Ummm.”

Bailey scratched her pet's chin with a fingertip. “Umm, what?”

“Remember how you called the frogs? And Lacey? And Stef as a bear cub?”

“Cut to the chase,” Trent told him. He pointed at Bailey. “Jason wants you to call the dragon.”

“Oh.” Bailey rocked back on her elbows.

“I don't think you want to do that,” offered Henry.

Both Rich and Stef grabbed Henry up, mock growling at him, “Shaddup!” Henry made an aggrieved growl of his own and the three of them rolled around on the grass.

Bailey stuck her foot out and nudged at all of them. “Honestly. As if I can't make up my own mind.”

“Look,” said Jason to her. “This is what we came for. Now, I can't promise that the dragon won't eat every one of us, because I don't know what it'll do. But we've been talking for months and it should know what I won't do, and I won't harm it, not on purpose. Or any of you.”

“That,” said Bailey, “is good enough for me.” She uncaged her amethyst from its wire cage. “What do you think a dragon answers to?”

“Probably something sharp and scaly with fire-breathing jaws,” Trent noted.

“You think?”

He nodded sagely. Bailey snorted,
pfuffing
her bangs off her forehead as she did. “Give me a few minutes.” As she concentrated, her face knotted more and more. Lacey scampered back into the pocket of her shirt, but hung there, looking out, resting her chin on her tail tuft.

“Now is probably a really good time to work on your Shields,” reflected Trent.

Instantly other hands came out, gripping crystals, and light flared around them.

“Not that anything we can put out yet will stop a dragon,” added Trent, and he grinned. The Shields stayed up, sparkling in the daylight like some vast soap bubble.

Long moments crawled past. A cloud of gnats flew by after darting once or twice at Stef, circling, and then leaving as they all flailed about and waved their hands frantically to chase off the flying pests. A cloud drifted over and scattered in the bright sun. Rich wandered off to “visit a private bush” and came back and still nothing had happened.

Jason sat down, his knees under his chin. His rib cage still hurt from the various attacks and the soccer game, but not as much as the knowledge that he could never go back and be the same Jason he'd been before. He hadn't noticed it at the time, but, thinking about it later, he'd realized that his coach and Sammee had just walked away from the soccer field while everyone was still ranting and raving, as if he'd done something wrong. The memory was tucked in the corner of his mind and he hadn't even really seen it till he was trying to go to sleep on the Hall's wooden floor. That and other things had circled round and round in his mind, but the dragon had ruled everything.

Sun beat down on his sneakered feet in a warm band. He looked down and saw a small orange lizard lying comfortably across the laces on his right foot. A salamander, a tiny fire lizard, like he'd seen a few times at camp. He looked at it, smiling. It, too, seemed to enjoy soaking up the sun. Then the reptile lifted its head and looked right at him, and Jason froze.

“Nobody move,” he said quietly. “It's here.” He put his hands back, debating over standing or not.

“What is?”

“Dragon.”

“Oh-kay. How invisible is it?”

But Bailey followed his glance downward to his shoe. “Jason, that's a lizard, and it's not any bigger than Lacey.” The pack rat gave a chirp as if insulted. “Not that there's anything wrong with that, but . . .”

“It's not the size.” Jason looked at the salamander. “I know what I know.” He stood slowly. The lizard uncoiled, yawned lazily, and crawled off Jason's shoe. It stretched, catlike, in the grasses, and it began to grow.

And grow.

And grow.

Until it dwarfed all of them by ten or twelve times, its head alone bigger than two or three of them put together. It cocked its head, and rattled the spiny plates on its back. “Smart, lad.” Its crimson forked tongue slithered in and out of its teeth a few times, testing the air.

“Not smart enough, sometimes. Anyway. It's like this. I want the Gate.”

“You cannot pass.”

He shook his head. “Not good enough. This isn't a game anymore. Our lives depend on it.”

“You cannot pass.” The dragon's eyes glared a bit, but he did not dare look straight into them, wisdom passed on from Trent and the tricky ways of mythological beasts.

“You cannot stop me. I opened the Iron Gate, and the Water Gate, and I'll open the third Gate, too.”

The dragon bellowed. The noise shivered off the very mountains, sending clusters of rocks tumbling down, and thundering off their eardrums, all but Jason throwing their arms about their heads to shut the sound away. He took a deep breath.

“I know what I know.”

“You know nothing if you do not understand what you are opening this time.”

“A sanctuary, a haven, a school.”

“Think that, do you?” The dragon shifted around, coiling its tail across its haunches. It hunkered down, chin on the ground before Jason. “Are you a warrior or a guardian?”

“We've talked about this before. I'll fight if I need to.” He rubbed his hand across his ribs. “If I need to,” he repeated.

“Find the Gate if you can,” hissed the great beast. “And my wrath if you cannot, because a Gate is the only way you'll escape me.” His gemlike eyes blazed with defiance, and heat rolled off the creature's body like a cloud of steam. The dragon could be deadly, and left no doubt of that.

Jason opened his mouth to retort again, then closed it. His crystal felt hot in his hand. He turned his head slightly. “Get back, all of you.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Open a Gate.” He stepped forward. He put his hand out, on the Dragon's head to steady himself, as he leaned in and looked deeply into the gleaming eyes of the beast. “You, my friend, do not only guard the Gate. You
are
the Gate.” And he fell into its depths.

H
E FELT the heat. Amber color swallowed Jason whole, and it carried the warmth of a fiery forge with it, shimmering off his skin like the sun off a sandy beach. That was the first essence of the dragon he perceived. Hidden inside the warmth came a sharpness like that of knives, slicing against him, not deep enough to cut but enough to feel their many edges. The dragon's talons and teeth, he thought. And more than that, he felt the profound intellect surrounding him, weighing him, judging him. He walked carefully forward, making sure not to slip, for any false move would drop him into the fire, into the sharp edge, into trouble.

He walked into an inner chamber and stood inside the lanternlike glowing amber, and stopped there. He could hear the thunderous yet slow and steady beat of a faraway drum. It pulsed with a steady sureness. Jason listened, baffled a moment, and then realized it was the dragon's heart he heard.

He wondered what was happening outside. Had he disappeared to them or did he stand paralyzed next to the beast, drawn in by its glorious eyes? And were they safe? Had he abandoned them?

Jason frowned and turned around slowly, looking all about the honey-gold cavern. He had not a clue what to do next, but he knew he had to be right. The dragon was the Gate itself, or at least so deeply wound into it that he could not separate one from the other. The rightness of it seeped into him.

Golden-orange coils began to separate from the wall facing him. In a moment or two, the sinuous beast extracted itself to face Jason, just a little taller but a Chinese dragon of length and grace as well as strength, its jaws and claws no less impressive as it studied him.

“You cannot pass.”

“No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true.” Jason looked at the dragon.

“Then you will have to fight your way through.” The dragon had whiskers, not at all catlike, but fine, strong whiskers for all that, and they bristled as it looked at Jason.

Jason shook his head. “I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“You're my friend. At least, I always thought you were. But even if you weren't, I can't just attack something. I fight if I have to, not before.”

“Warrior or guardian,” the dragon stubbornly insisted.

“There's no right answer there.”

“There is more of an answer than you think.” The dragon reared back, then struck at him.

Jason threw himself to his right. He slid on his elbow and came up rolling. As soon as he could get to his feet, the beast struck again. He dodged in the other direction. Its fang caught his sleeve as he did, ripping through. Pain scraped him as he landed on one knee and thrust himself out of range as the dragon recoiled and then snapped at him again. Its scaly body cut the air with a sharp hiss. It missed him again and again and again, every strike closer and faster until he panted.

He couldn't do this all day until it caught him. Jason rolled over and gathered himself, watching, waiting for the next snap. When it came, he leaped, not away but at it, catching the beast at the back of the head and wrapping his arms and legs about its body with all the strength he had left.

The dragon reacted like a bucking bronco. It reared and flung him back and forth to shake him off. Jason clung with everything he had. He pushed his voice through clenched teeth.

“This . . . is not . . . about fighting! If it were, you'd . . . have me . . . beat!”

The dragon rattled him as though he were a rag doll. He couldn't let go now. If he did, he'd be thrown across the cavern with such force, he'd break in two when he hit the wall. “Listen! You win!”

The dragon reared up, balancing on its haunches, panting a little itself, its blood racing like fire through its scaly body. Jason felt as though he were hugging a furnace. “But it is you who has me.”

“I'm just holding on, trying not to get hurt.” Jason sucked in a breath. “You're my friend! There has to be a way to make you see what I have to do.”

“Get down,” the dragon ordered quietly.

After a moment of hesitation, Jason let go and slid down. His arms and hands felt as though they had been sandpapered with a thousand small, stinging cuts. He'd read once that a shark's skin was like that . . . tiny scales that were miniatures of its dangerous teeth.

“Tell me.” The dragon settled then, curling up in front of him.

Jason fell onto his butt, too weary to stand. He tried to sit cross-legged. “This Haven feels right. I can't explain it better than that. It's like when you walk into a room, and you know you belong there. Not because you own it, but because you . . . created it. And you love it, and you care for it. Does that make any sense?”

The dragon pulled at a whisker, curling it against its sharp obsidian claw. “And?”

“And whether you try to deny me or not, you can't deny the rightness of it, do you see?”

The beast lowered its head until their chins were nearly level. It said quietly, “Warrior or guardian?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “How should I know? You're the being with an ancient mind, full of riddles and history.”

“Ah!” It drew back, grinning in a draconic way. “A riddle then? I win, you go, you win, you . . . go through. Agreed?”

Jason rubbed his eyebrow. He could almost hear Trent in the back of his mind saying, “Careful!” Maybe he did hear Trent. And Bailey, too, saying, “You can do it.” He nodded. “Okay.”

“Good. This riddle is a story.” The dragon rubbed his claws. “Centuries ago, in a land you may or may not have heard of, a mighty emperor was told by his astrologer that his days were coming to an end. He was a great ruler, and a great warrior, and had lived long, so he was not sad. But he had a burden in picking someone to rule after him, as he had no family. He had built an empire that was good for its people, and he wanted that to live on after him. After thinking long, he devised a test. He picked six candidates for this test. One of his generals, one of his priests, one of his accountants, two of his mayors, and the sixth, a common man who had been in his army and was now his gardener.”

“All were humbled at being summoned to the emperor's court. Even more humbled when told why. ‘But,' he said to them, ‘I have a test and the one who passes best will be my successor,' and they all agreed to abide by it.

“To each man he gave a nest with an egg in it. ‘Take care of this egg, and hatch it, and return in six months' time with what you have nurtured.' And he sent each man away, even the gardener who was named Ding.

“Ding had traveled far and been a solider and knew the ways of the civilized world before returning to the land and becoming a gardener. He knew how to care for his nest. He kept the egg just warm enough and turned it as a mother bird would, and yet it never hatched. Long day after long day passed and nothing emerged from the emperor's egg. The dawn came when all the candidates were summoned back to the emperor's court, and each was to present his nest with its bounty.”

The dragon looked keenly at Jason. It indicated him with a toe claw. “Think of what you would do if you were Ding.

“The general came forth. He showed the emperor a mighty falcon, hooded and resting on his wrist. ‘Young but eager for the hunt,' the general said proudly. The emperor nodded and waved the general to one side.