The Dragon of Trelian (14 page)

CALEN SAT ON THE OLD HALF-WALL
near the small gate, swinging his feet against the stones and watching for a familiar face. He hadn’t seen Meg in several days; security had been tight, to say the least, since the appearance of the monstrous creature in the royal garden, and she had been unable to find a suitable pretext for slipping away unsupervised. At least, that’s what her note had indicated, though Calen wouldn’t have been surprised if she just hadn’t
wanted
to go anywhere on her own. From the tales he’d heard from servants and some of the soldiers, she and her little sister had nearly been killed. Calen found himself looking over his shoulder half the time after just
hearing
the story — he wouldn’t blame Meg if she was frightened of leaving the castle after actually having lived it.

He had managed to miss the entire thing, for which he was profoundly grateful. Serek had been long in conference with the king and queen, and then stayed by the side of the wounded soldier late into the night, studying the continued effects of the poison and trying to ease the man’s pain as much as possible. That had left Calen free to begin his dragon research undisturbed — except by Lyrimon, who, after twice startling Calen so badly that he nearly fell off the ladder, found himself forcibly evicted from the library with the door slammed in his furry, annoying little face. Calen’s arms still showed the scars of that encounter, but it had been worth it.

He squinted up at the sun. Where was Meg? He pulled her note out of his sleeve and checked it again, to make sure he hadn’t misremembered the time. The note had come by way of Lammy, who demanded a coin for his trouble, and had been signed by “Mellie” in a rough script that Calen suspected bore little resemblance to the princess’s normal handwriting. He had been relieved to receive it. Not just because he wanted to see his friend again, but because he needed to tell her what he had discovered in his research regarding Jakl.

Soon.

Finally, he saw her dirt-smudged face appear among the passing servants and other castle folk. He jumped down from the half-wall and walked over to meet her.

“I’m sorry to be late,” she said. “Maerlie made me repeat every promise I made to her a hundred times before she’d let me go.”

“You told her where you were going?” he asked, surprised.

“No,” she said, falling into step beside him as they headed for the gate. “We have — an understanding. I told her I had something very important I needed to do and swore that I would be very careful and not place myself in any danger.” She flashed a grin at him. “And that I wouldn’t be alone.”

“Oh, so I’m your bodyguard now, is that it?”

“That’s right. So don’t let anything kill me, or you’ll have Maerlie to answer to.”

“She can’t be nearly as difficult to deal with as you are,” he said. “All your pushing and punching and the like.”

“Huh. That’s what you think.” She looked up at him again, smiling. “I’m so glad you’ve left behind all that ‘Your Highness’ nonsense. Sometimes it gets so tiring.”

Calen laughed. “Sure. Everyone bowing and doing everything you say all the time. Must be awful.”

She shook her head at him. “You’d be surprised. Outside of my immediate family, no one ever sees me as a person. Just a princess. Royal daughter number three.”

They stopped talking as they passed by the guard at the gate — not someone Calen knew by name today. Calen was glad for the chance to adjust his thoughts. He felt a little stupid. Again. It had never occurred to him that Meg might have wanted a friend as badly as he had.

“So — how are you?” Calen asked after a moment. “I mean, are you all right? You know, since the, um, thing. And everything.”

Meg nodded. “Yes. I think so.” She took a big breath and let it out slowly. “It was terrible. That creature. I thought it was going to kill both of us. And those screams . . .” She glanced at him. “Well, you must have heard them.”

He shook his head. She stared.

“How is that possible? Were you off the castle grounds?”

“No. In Serek’s library. I think it must be magically enhanced to block out sound. Once I closed the door, it was absolutely silent in there the whole evening. I didn’t even know anything had happened until the next morning.”

“Well, that’s probably fortunate. The sounds were . . . just horrible. I can’t begin to describe it.” She took another breath. “In any case, we were lucky, and it didn’t touch us. We both got back inside, and then the soldiers killed it.”

“Is it true that you ran right between its legs?”

Her mouth couldn’t seem to decide whether to smile or smirk. “Not really. More like under its neck.”

Calen could only shake his head again. “Gods, Meg. I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.” Not that that was such a big sampling, but still.

She laughed. “Hardly. I was so scared I could barely think.”

“But to run right toward it —”

“There was no other choice. It would have torn us apart if we had stayed where we were.”

Calen felt his face go a little green. Meg must have noticed, because she quickly moved on. “Anyhow, it’s done now, and the creature is dead, so there’s nothing else to worry about. I’m just glad I could finally get away today. Poor Jakl must think I’ve forgotten him entirely!”

“I’m glad, too. I have some things to tell you.”

She looked at him, studying his expression. “Tell me.”

Now it was his turn to take a deep breath. They had reached the meadow and were getting close to the edge of the forest. Calen fought the urge to turn his face up to the warm sun and kept an eye out for ill-natured rocks instead. He took a quick moment to organize his thoughts.

He had not been disappointed with the wealth of information available in Mage Fredrin’s library — his biggest obstacle so far, other than getting to and from the library without being caught, had been choosing which references to pursue. The Erylun had a wonderful summary of information on dragons, and it had taken him several visits just to finish scanning through it. Most of it was fascinating but not immediately useful: common sizes and colors, various mages’ historic confrontations with specific dragons, uses of dragon scales in spellcasting, and so on. Apparently dragons were highly resistant to magic, or mage magic at least, which was probably good to know. There had been some information about growth rates, which indicated that Meg was going to have to find another place for Jakl very soon, probably before another month went by. And then he had finally found an entry on something called linking.

“All right,” he began. “The good news is that you were not imagining things regarding your connection with Jakl. You really are sensing his feelings. And he should be beginning to sense yours, if he’s not already doing so.”

She nodded, her eyes guarded. “What’s the bad news?”

“It’s not — it’s not
bad
news, exactly. Just, um —”

“Calen.”

“Right. Okay. This connection that you have, it’s called linking. Dragons usually link with other dragons, if they link at all — many don’t — but sometimes they can be led to link with humans instead. Hundreds of years ago, there were people who regularly stole baby dragons from their nests and attempted to link with them. Actually, I think this might be the source of some of the legends we have today — I found a whole book of those, mostly nursery stories, and you probably heard some of them yourself when you were little — those tales of people enslaved by dragons, like that one about the woodcutter’s son who goes off and . . .” He noticed Meg’s impatient stare, which seemed to be deepening toward more of a glower, and skipped ahead. “Well, anyway, those people who stole the babies, depending on how successful they were, either they raised the dragons into a sort of symbiotic partnership or, uh, the dragons killed them.”

“Oh.”

“But you’re definitely past the stage where Jakl would have killed you if he were going to. So don’t worry about that.”

She looked at him in exasperation. “So
what’s the bad news
?”

“Well, so you’re linked with Jakl, right? Somehow you managed to do whatever needed to be done to forge the connection without, um, getting killed, and so now the link will continue to get stronger over time. You won’t be able to sense what he’s thinking, exactly — dragon’s brains don’t work like ours that way — but if the link gets strong enough, you’ll be able to sense what he’s feeling so clearly that it will
almost
be like you can hear his thoughts.”

He glanced at her and went on, quickly. “The bad news, if you want to call it that, is that dragons, if they link, link for life. It can’t be undone. You and Jakl will stay connected, no matter what.” He swallowed, watching her face. “Even in death.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Do you mean that if one of us dies, the other dies, too?”

“Um, well, not always,” he said weakly. “The book definitely mentioned a few cases where the survivors, um, survived.”

She looked at him. “But?”

“But then they went mad.”

“I see.”

They kept walking. Calen was quiet. He thought Meg could probably use a few moments to digest what he had told her. He knew he had needed a few moments when he realized what the book was saying. She and Jakl were connected in a way most people would never understand. He imagined parts of it must be powerfully appealing — to be so close to someone that he or she could actually feel what you were feeling, to never, ever be alone — but there were risks as well, and Meg had taken this on without the slightest idea what she was getting into.

When they reached the cave, Meg sat down near the entrance with her back against the rocky wall. Calen sat beside her.

“You said it was a symbiotic partnership,” she said. “How so?”

“Each of you can draw on the strength of the other. I’m not sure if that means physical strength, exactly — although you will be able to lend each other healing energy if one of you is sick or injured. But also emotional strength. Force of spirit.”

Meg nodded. She hesitated, then asked, “Will it — will it change me? Change who I am, I mean? Will I start to think I’m a dragon?”

“Oh, no. No. I don’t think it works that way. I mean, I’m sure it will change you in certain ways — obviously, someone who’s linked with a dragon is going to be different from someone who is not — but you won’t lose your personality. You’ll still be yourself, and Jakl will be himself. You may just . . . overlap at times.”

“But you don’t really know that. You can’t really know.”

Calen sighed. “I don’t know it from personal experience, no. Of course not. But nothing I read made any mention of that sort of thing happening. And there are ways to shield your emotions from your link, to a degree. I read about those. I can’t see how that would be possible if you weren’t still a separate person.”

“And you can teach me? About shielding? And . . . and everything else you found out?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’m not sure I dare remove any of the books from the mage’s quarters. But I can take notes, and maybe we can find a way to sneak you into the library, if we know Serek will be away.”

She took another deep breath. “Well. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” Some of her usual confidence was edging back into her voice. She smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you, Calen.”

He smiled back. “You’re welcome.”

They stood up. Meg stepped into the cave entrance, then turned back. “Does Jakl know? Did he do this on purpose?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s probably something dragons know how to do instinctively. Maybe when you found him, after he was alone so young, he latched onto you the only way he knew how.” He hesitated, then went on. “Meg, there are some other things I need to tell you about.”

“I’m sure there are. But tell me inside. He knows we’re here, and he’s impatient to see me.” She shook her head, her expression a mixture of wonder and chagrin. Then she disappeared into the dark.

Calen hurried after her. He didn’t want to navigate that passage alone.

Jakl didn’t look impatient to Calen; he looked asleep. But of course Meg would know better. As Calen emerged from the darkness into the dim light, the dragon uncurled and wrapped himself around Meg, who laughed and hugged him. Calen remained a respectful distance away, not wanting to intrude on their greeting. He squinted, trying to discover if he could actually
see
anything to indicate the link, now that he knew to look for it. There was nothing — at least nothing that his inner eye could make out.

His regular eyes, however, noticed that Jakl was larger than he’d been only a few days ago. His wings were especially changed. They were larger, fuller — more like the wings of the adult dragons Calen had seen drawings of in the library.

“I think you’re going to have to move him, Meg. Very soon.”

She glanced at Calen and then extricated herself from the dragon’s embrace, stepping back to take a good look at him. Jakl sat and looked back at her calmly.

“You’re right, Calen. Gods, he’s growing so fast. Is that normal?”

He shrugged. “I think so. Everything I read indicates that they grow quickly in the first year.”

“Look at his wings! Do you think he’ll be able to fly soon?”

“Meg, I’m not suddenly some kind of all-knowing dragon expert, you know.”

She turned to look at him. “Well, you know more than I do. Can you try to find out? I want to know everything. Oh, I wish I could look through those books myself.”

“All right. Give me a list of questions and I’ll try to find the answers for you. I do know that he should be able to fly before he gets his fire.”

Meg tapped on her chin, thinking. “Where can we put him where he won’t be discovered? Especially if he does start trying out his wings. I can’t have him swooping around the castle! My parents would have him killed.” She didn’t say what they were both thinking — that her parents would be killing her as well.

“You’ll definitely want to keep him far from the castle. And far from any outlying farms, too.”

“Why farms?”

“Well, think, Meg. He’s probably been surviving so far on small animals in and around the cave. As he grows, he’s going to start needing larger, um, meals. You don’t want angry farmers complaining to the king about missing sheep. Or, um, shepherds.”