The Dragon of Avalon (10 page)

"Well . . ."

"I'll take that as a no, you blister brain. For a start, the great white spider called the Grand Elusa—famous for her skill at splitting open living stones and swallowing them in seconds—has promised to eat any intruders. And if that's not bad enough, the hapless jester Bumbelwy, whose voice is so grating that whenever he sings, birds drop dead right out of the sky, has offered to serenade uninvited guests."

Basil gulped. "But I need to know what—who—I really am! This could be my only chance."

"Hmmmpff. You'll have many more chances to die, I assure you. And I haven't even mentioned what Merlin
himself
would do if he caught you."

"But—"

"Don't do it, Basil." The sprite's entire body pulsed scarlet. "Do you hear me?"

"Sure," he replied, with a somber flap of his wings. "I hear you."

"Good. Then you'll live to see another day."

Basil said nothing.

The sprite started to lean into his parachute, then glanced back at him. "If you ever do figure out what kind of creature you are, I'd like to know. Otherwise, I'm glad to say we'll probably never meet again."

Despite his disappointment, Basil couldn't feel offended. Nuic was almost amusing, in a tortured sort of way. Despondently, he watched the grouchy little fellow depart, floating down toward the summit, shifting color to vibrant green.

Abruptly, Basil jolted, as if a sudden gust of wind had blown against his wings. But the jolt didn't come from something he'd felt. Rather, it came from something he'd
seen
. From out of the clouds, a family of creatures appeared—one fully grown mother and seven or eight children. They soared out of the sky with mythic strength and grace, their jagged wings cutting through the air so powerfully that the very sight made Basil's heart quake with fear and wonder.

Dragons. They are dragons.

Basil watched the powerful beasts fly down to the summit, joining the rest of the invited guests. His gaze then turned to Merlin, the greatest wizard his world had ever known. And then, once more, he scanned the assembled creatures who had gathered—creatures of all kinds, from every realm.

In that instant, Basil knew what he must do. Banking his own minuscule wings, he swooped down to join them. Whatever the risks, he was going to watch a wedding.

11:
S
TRANGE
C
OMPANY

Never, until that day, had I realized that I could feel two opposite emotions at once. To belong to the immense, bizarre, riotous diversity of life—and still stand utterly alone. To feel wholly connected, and yet completely apart.

Basil plunged downward, the cold mountain air buffeting his wings. As he swooped closer to the snow-draped summit, he studied the creatures gathered there, creatures who had traveled from all across Avalon to attend the wedding of Merlin and Hallia. There were even more of them than he'd guessed from on high. Quickly, he lost sight of Nuic's small green form in the throng.

He couldn't miss Shim, however. The giant sat at the far side of the summit, wearing a huge scarlet snake around his neck. Though knotted up like a fat red bow tie, the snake seemed resigned to its fate and didn't struggle. (It did, however, rouse itself to hiss at a cheeky gull who dared to land on its forehead.)

As Basil approached from above, Shim leaned forward to scratch one of his immense toes, knocking several branches off his vest of woven hemlock trees. Though he didn't seem to notice, the family of centaurs walking beneath him certainly did: When the broken branches crashed down on their backs, they whinnied, cursed angrily, and galloped off to the opposite side of the summit. Meanwhile, Shim watched his old friends Merlin and Hallia step into the center of the circle of admirers—who by now covered the entire mountaintop. The enormous fellow's eyes glowed pink, and he chortled quietly, not much louder than an ordinary earthquake. Meanwhile, his long mane blew wildly in the mountain breeze, slapping unlucky birds out of the sky.

"Oh, I do muchily love a wedding party!" he bellowed. And at that moment, Shim's eyes swung from the wedding couple to the enormous vats of honey awaiting the guests.

Basil drifted downward, anxious to avoid attracting anyone's attention.
Mustn't be seen
, he reminded himself.
Not by anyone who might care about an intruder.
He kept a wary eye, in particular, on the great white spider who had just seated herself in the center of the throng. The crowd quite courteously parted to give the huge spider room to stretch her eight legs; a pair of living stones seemed especially eager to give her plenty of space, and rolled away across the snow.

Fortunately, no one seemed to notice the approach of a scrawny little lizard with batlike wings and oversize ears. Most of the guests were focused exclusively on the wedding couple in the middle of the ring. The only exception was Shim, whose gaze remained fixed on the vats of honey.

As Basil descended, he scanned the wedding guests who stood, sat, or crawled upon the snow—and, in a few cases, hovered or glided above the crowd.
People of all kinds are here!
he thought excitedly.
Every size, shape, and color. Every possible description.

He paused, swallowing.
But is there someone—anyone—who looks like me?

Floating nearer, he suddenly spied a lone creature bounding up the snowy ridge—and the sight made him gasp. The Sapphire Unicorn! She seemed to flow up the ridge, moving as effortlessly as the breeze itself. Her powerful muscles flexed as she loped to the summit, kicking up clouds of snow with her hooves. The unicorn's spiraling horn, like her coat and mane, radiated blue even deeper than the color of Hallia's dress. For this blue sparkled as if alive. One by one, each of the wedding guests turned to watch her arrival. For they, like Basil, knew that she was the only one of her kind in all of Avalon—the creature bards called
the most elusive beauty in all the lands
.

Drawing closer, Basil saw a pair of women approach the wedding couple. One, an older woman whose flowing blond hair shone like the stars, wore a silvery gown that shimmered as she moved.
That's Elen, mother of Merlin
, he realized. Though he'd heard about her High Priestess gown, woven entirely from spider's silk, it was even more beautiful than he'd imagined. As Elen moved, the gown seemed more rays of light than thread, more air than substance.

The other woman Basil also recognized: Rhia, Merlin's sister, clad in her famous suit of woven vines. What had he heard? That she'd grown up living in a great oak tree. And she moved, indeed, like windblown boughs; her feet left hardly any marks upon the snow. Her curly brown hair, decorated with blossoms, bounced with every step. Around her head and shoulders flew dozens of light flyers, their little wings glowing so bright they looked like floating candle flames. And upon her back lay beautiful, translucent wings—a gift, it was said, from the great spirit Dagda himself. As he drifted lower, Basil gazed in awe at Rhia—her garb, her wings, and most of all, her radiant face, which glowed even brighter than the light flyers.

I can't believe I'm here
, he thought.
Seeing these people . . . this place . . . this gathering. It can't be real!

But Rhia's bell-like laugh, released when she embraced her brother, removed any doubt. No imaginary laughter could radiate such joy.

Then another sound caught Basil's ear. From right below him came the deep, echoing hoot of an ancient owl. Though missing many feathers, the old owl could still hoot loud enough to frighten the silver stallion on whose back he was sitting, as well as the family of eiderdown geese nearby. The horse neighed and swished his tail, while the geese honked and fluttered with annoyance.

By contrast, a golden-feathered phoenix, seated on a jagged stone beside them, didn't even seem to notice. She continued to stare at Merlin and Hallia, never blinking. Even when she was almost stepped on by the splayed roots of a huge, branching figure—a tree spirit, Basil guessed—the phoenix didn't bat an eye.

Basil circled the summit, looking for someplace he could land and remain inconspicuous. Meanwhile, he also searched for anyone below who resembled himself, who might help explain the mystery of his origins. As he listened to the crowd's swelling din—all the neighing, bellowing, growling, singing, chattering, hissing, and buzzing—he could only wonder whether he would hear, sometime today, a voice that sounded like his own.

He watched the last guests arrive. A pair of ragged-winged vultures gave him a start—they strongly resembled dactylbirds—but he was relieved to see them perch peacefully on an elephaunt's back. A group of gnomes straggled up the ridge of bright snow, very different terrain than their dark underground tunnels, then reluctantly obeyed a centaur's command to leave their weapons in a pile away from other guests. Nowhere, though, did Basil see the family of dragons who had arrived earlier. That puzzled him, but not enough to be concerned. After all, the mountaintop was teeming with Avalon's diversity of life. Even in the final few seconds before he landed, he saw many creatures he hadn't noticed before.

Elves from Woodroot, clad in woven barkcloth, stood as tall and graceful as the trees of their homeland. Deer people of Hallia's clan, all with slender chins and rich brown eyes, stayed near each other, often glancing over their shoulders to check for any signs of danger. And human men and women, many with children, were scattered throughout the ring of guests. One of them, a jester wearing a floppy hat rimmed with tiny bells, caught Basil's eye. Could that be Bumbelwy, the one Nuic had warned about?

A few guests Basil recognized from the tales of Merlin's youth. There, wasn't that the queen of the dwarves, Urnalda? Her earrings of gnomes' teeth clinked ominously whenever she moved. And over there—Cwen, last survivor of the treelings, who lost an arm, along with Rhia's trust, in a fight with warrior gobsken. Upon a large yellow snail sat Lleu of the One Ear, scribbling madly on a tattered piece of parchment. It had to be him: the lad who fought so bravely alongside Merlin at the final battle of Fincayra, and who later became one of Elen's first disciples in the new order.

There! Basil spied an excellent place to land, the moss-draped boughs of a grove of pine tree spirits. Hidden amidst all that greenery, he could remain safely undetected, yet have a superb view of the crowd. He banked, gliding toward the nearest branch.

Suddenly he saw, just beyond the trees, the mother dragon and her brood. Abruptly, he veered aside.
Much too close! I don't want to be near any dragons.

Flapping vigorously, he flew off. As he passed over the dragons, he watched the mother, whose orange eyes glowed like molten lava, entertain her seven children by swatting them with the tips of her wings. Then, to the dismay of the tree spirits, she started spitting small bursts of flame at their bellies. From the way her children squealed and shrieked with delight, they seemed to enjoy this game. The tree spirits, though, backed away.

Looking more closely, Basil noticed that the mother dragon had two long blue ears—one of which stuck straight out sideways, as if it were a misplaced horn. Peering at her iridescent purple scales flecked with scarlet, he suddenly felt a surprising—and inexplicable—urge to come closer. Was it some sort of evil magic? Some way dragons lured their prey to come near, much as the portal's green flames had drawn him into danger? His heart beat harder . . . yet he slowed his escape.

What was it about this beast that tugged at his curiosity? Surely he knew enough about dragons already! Especially the most important thing of all:
stay away
. Yet somehow, this dragon seemed interesting. Alluring. Almost . . .
familiar
. As if he'd met her before this day.

No, he hadn't. Impossible. He'd never met any fire-breathing dragons. Fortunately!

Must be those wild stories from the crows
, he assured himself.
Yes, that's it.

He started to beat his wings faster. Air, warmed by the dragon's breath, rushed past his face. Below, the sounds of her children squealing, and of snow sizzling from the bursts of flame, began to fade away. Even so, he couldn't keep from looking back at the mother dragon. Wait. Could it be? Was it possible she was the famous Gwynnia, the only surviving child of Wings of Fire, the most dreaded dragon in history? That dragon had been the scourge of Fincayra—until he'd joined forces with Merlin.

Basil, in mid-flight, shook himself sternly.
Forget your curiosity! Land as far away as possible from those beasts. And don't go back.

And so he did, setting down on a snow-streaked boulder across the circle from the dragons. From this removed perch, he could still watch them, but at a safe distance. As he folded his leathery wings against his back, he noticed that he had landed in the middle of an especially bizarre group of onlookers.

Just to his left stood a group of four stern faced people, three men and one woman, whose eyes smoldered like hot coals. Flamelons, that's who they were. From the scorched realm of Fireroot. He wondered whether they truly worshipped Rhita Gawr. Ignoring the warlord's urge to conquer, they supposedly viewed him as something good—a force for renewal.

Suddenly he started. There, behind the flamelons, stood a man who was actually on fire! His entire muscular body, including the broad wings that sprouted from his back, burned bright orange, sizzling and crackling—as if he were made more of flames than flesh. Though he couldn't take his eyes off the man, Basil backed away to the other side of the boulder. Unlike the flamelons, whose expressions were so grim, this man looked utterly peaceful.
He seems
, Basil thought,
like an angel. An angel of fire.

Not far away, a pair of long-limbed hoolahs wrestled in the snow. They punched, kicked, hurled clumps of snow, stabbed fiercely with icicles, and ripped at each other's baggy tunics—laughing hysterically all the while.
Hoolahs
, thought Basil glumly. Having run into them a few times in Woodroot, he knew that they had no sense of dignity, no sense of honor—basically, no sense at all.