The Saint of Dragons (6 page)

“What happens then?”

“They all go down differently,” said Aldric. “You’ll see it for yourself.”

Simon could hardly believe it. He was really going to hunt a Dragon. He looked at his silver crossbow and noticed for the first time that it was covered in spell-writing. Runes. An enchanted
protection of some kind.

Then he noticed a small piece of glass fitted over the middle of the weapon, and inside that glass was a small, burning light, a silver oval that was beating like a heart. The crossbow had a heart!

“It’s alive,” said Simon.

“Of course it’s alive,” said Aldric, “everything enchanted is alive. It will try to help you as best it can.”

The boy scratched his head, unnerved.

Fenwick sniffed at the crossbow. He seemed worried.

“Will you show me how to use it?” Simon asked.

There was a glint of pride in Aldric’s eye when he nodded.

“Our first and last hunt.”

T
HE
W
HITE
D
RAGON WAS
, indeed, purely white. Its leathery skin was white with tiny cream speckles, and it had small white plates on its back that stuck up in the air like the plates of a miniature stegosaurus. Its long fingers were tipped with white claws. Its teeth were white. Its amber-white eyes had a protective translucent white eyelid. Even when it closed its eyes, it
saw
whiteness.

It lived in a luxury building in New York City that overlooked Central Park. Everything in its very large apartment was white: the floors, the walls, the ceiling, the drapes. The furniture, including the chairs, the tables, the sofa, the bookcases (and the books in them), as well as the telephone, the television, all of the furnishings everywhere, all were shades of white. The kitchen and all of its tools were white. The bedroom and the bed and the nightstands were all white. So was the bathroom.

Nothing was ever written down in the home of the White Dragon. The White Dragon liked blank white paper.

Nothing was ever dirty. The White Dragon made sure anything dirty was thrown out unless it could be made clean and white.

Nothing was ever eaten that was not white. The White Dragon ate white cream soup or white clam chowder, stone-white crackers, white bread, white vanilla ice cream, white mashed potatoes. White meat. His favorite: white goats, swallowed whole. If the Dragon was eating a human being, he used his magic to grind it up until the person was a white powder that could be sprinkled easily over nice, white food.

It took great pride in its appearance. It spent most of its time in a massive white bathtub filled with white bubbles. The one reason it enjoyed going out into the world was to return home and wash it all away with white soap.

The White Creature had grown rich from criminal activity, mostly from the art world. Its human partners spent all day stealing money from people through art forgeries, and forcing other people to steal money from still more people. The White Dragon gave the orders, then all it had to do was sit back and receive reports of how much money it had made that day.

The rest of its day was spent contemplating whiteness.

All about the place were small white boxes with small white cloths inside that the creature could use to clean up tiny bits of dirt or dust that might somehow have fallen onto his pristine skin.

It spent hours polishing its teeth. It even scrubbed its eyes with soap, no matter what the pain. It had read somewhere that harmful dust can collect in the corner of the eyes and go unnoticed. It did not go unnoticed in the home of the White Dragon.

The creature stood eight feet tall, and could hide easily under heavy clothing and a long trench coat. It walked on two feet. Its head was fairly small, and though its neck was a bit longer than a human’s, it could retract.

The Dragon had a white tail, long, full, and strong. It kept its tail curled up against its back so it could be hidden under a coat. Its white wings could also be kept hidden, but it rarely flew. That required too much energy, and dirt particles would fly into his eyes.

When at home, naturally, the creature hid nothing. It stretched out its long tail and its baggy old body and lay around in its pricey little kingdom, listening to the radio tuned to no particular station. White noise, of course. The ultimate lounge lizard.

The only matter that troubled the Dragon was that it liked to sleep in flames. He would spew fire into the massive fireplace, and sleep inside of it, with fire all around him. This was delightful to him. In the morning, however, there would be all that mess to clean up. Fire makes things black.

To keep things clean, a small army of workers was employed at all times. They did not know for whom they worked. They only knew that the fireplace must be kept perfectly clean at all costs, every single day. Only white ash was allowed to remain.

Even the creature’s fire was white. It was magic fire. The old Serpent liked to make the fire grow like a white vine, like ivy, in long strings that would crawl on the wall and branch out in thin, glowing strands. He thought fire was lovely. He could make it come out of his mouth or his eyes or his hands or his fingers, but after that, it might do whatever it wanted. Dragonfire is an unpredictable thing. After a few seconds in the air, it can actually
come to
life
. From time to time, the Dragon would unleash a fire just to have someone to talk to. The living fire would laugh with him, and speak of rotten things. It sometimes took the shape of a blobby man with no real face, and it would walk around the room, scorching everything. The Dragon hated the messes it made.

The creature had other ways of making messes. It had developed an interest in art. Its new joy was painting pictures.

They were pictures of the color white.

If his paint should ever drip off the canvas, it only added to the white in the room.

The painting he was currently working on was a pride and joy. Like the others, it used various shades of white to create a subtle white abstract effect. Blobs of colors from white to off white, to egg white, to cream, to vanilla, to ivory, to almost-a-color, to tannish white to grayish white, all fell together on a big canvas. A white canvas. It was wonderful. The creature was certain he was on the verge of something brilliant. Art
is
white. Anything else distracts from the art.

The creature cheated at his art, as he cheated at everything in life. No one else in the world would be much interested in a painting of shades of white. So as he worked, the White Dragon touched the art with magic. Anyone who looked at a White Dragon painting saw exactly what he wanted, dimly reflected under the white paint, and everyone saw something different. The artwork was just enchanted enough to capture your heart, without a drop of extra enchantment left behind.

Each one was worth a small fortune.

The Dragon smiled at its work. Captivating, even to him. The
only thing more marvelous was the work of that delicate woman across town, at the modern art gallery.

You see, the Dragon had one other interest. A lovely lady, an art collector. To him, she was as beautiful as the art that surrounded her.

The White Dragon had made himself somewhat well-known with his own paintings, and the woman had placed many of his art pieces in the gallery where she worked. She was a painter herself, so the two had much to talk about.

The pity was that no one else saw the quality of her paintings. The woman had displayed them in her office discreetly, and the Dragon passing through the gallery one day had taken note of them. Her paintings were scratchings of green colors laid out over odd symbols, runes that were brushed in with shades of gold. Most people thought her works were quite strange. Not the Dragon. He loved them. He made a habit of calling her to tell her how much he loved them.

The two had only spoken on the telephone. He had seen her only from afar.

He decided it was time to introduce himself formally.

But he was low on energy. He had used his magic quite a lot recently and needed to rest. The White Dragon had been to a town called Ebony Hollow, looking for a boy named Simon St. George. An amazing discovery: The Dragonhunter had a son. The White Dragon’s dying brother had sent him word through one of his spies. An unusual act of cooperation, but they were brothers, after all. It’s a shame the spies weren’t up to the task of
destroying
the Knight, but that was a pleasure the Dragon wanted for himself anyway. Always hunting each other, they were. The game
went round and round.

The St. George family was a curse to Dragons. St. Georges were faster, smarter, and stronger than other humans. They could see through Serpentine magic.

The true power of the child was not known. But it did not matter, thought the Dragon; the boy will no doubt amount to nothing. His Dragon spies remained on the job. They’d find him.

Or, better yet
, he thought,
maybe he will come right to me.

Across the City of New York, this was precisely what was going to happen.

Simon St. George was preparing for battle.

T
HE BOY AND HIS
father had docked the Ship with No Name in New York Harbor and made their way quickly—Simon would say
too
quickly—through the streets by taxicab to a perch in a giant tree in Central Park. Aldric scaled it quickly, but Simon struggled with the climb. No one could see them because they were so high up, and the tree was deep inside the park, thickly covered in autumn colors.

Aldric St. George had set the area up nicely for their needs long before his trip to the Lighthouse School. Stuck away here and there among the branches were little gunnysacks of food and water, small flashlights, a clock, some books, and below, at the trunk, two comfortable easy chairs that Aldric had salvaged in a trash bin off Park Avenue, and which would serve now as a place to sleep, something Simon found depressing. Lodged in the tree were two old brass telescopes, positioned to see in every direction around the Park.

“What are we looking for?” Simon wondered.

“The signs. He’s been here, you can tell. Lurking.”

“How do you know?”

Aldric’s eyes passed over the people below. “You can see it in people’s faces. Everything weighs heavy on them. Their hearts beat slower. The fire that drives them through life is burning low. Look at them, Simon. Nothing reaches past their sadness—not the landscape, not the movement of the city, not the souls around them…. They’ve lost something and they don’t know what it is. Some haven’t noticed what’s missing inside, but they know enough to suspect that the city has stolen something from them. You can feel their anger. These people don’t want to be alive anymore. The gloom is falling down around them like rain.”

Simon looked. He saw ordinary people, doing ordinary things.

Aldric pointed down. “The cabdriver at the corner, yelling at the woman crossing. The old woman in the gray coat. The priest. Don’t you feel it?”

Quiet filled the tree as Simon tried to sense what his father described. The city was just a city. Finally he had to admit, “All I see are a bunch of ticked-off New Yorkers. I thought that was supposed to be pretty normal here.”

His father frowned. “These are the signs of a Dragon presence. Be alert to them. Now, then: Over there, on the eighteenth floor of that building, is the home of a woman named Alaythia Moore,” said Aldric with a touch of sadness Simon didn’t quite understand. “She lives there alone, and rarely has visitors. She works for a modern art gallery. She is an art curator, and an artist in her own right, I understand, though I’ve never seen any of her
work. She’s too shy and private to show off her own paintings.”

Simon started to swing his telescope toward her building, but Aldric stopped him. “No, no, no! You can’t stare in people’s windows! Don’t you have any manners? Watch the street. We don’t bother the lady!”

“Then why exactly are we hanging outside her house?”

Moving to his own telescope, Aldric answered him. “Because she is in great danger. She doesn’t know it, but the Manhattan Dragon has taken an interest in her.”

“The White Dragon?”

“The very one. He is sending his paintings in the mail, for her to display in her gallery. And she has found them to be to her liking.”

“Hmm,” said Simon. “Are Dragons very good at painting?”

“Don’t be absurd,” snapped Aldric. “He uses enchantment to lure the woman in. She can’t help herself. The paintings are magic. He’s fallen in love with her.”

He’s not the only one
, thought Simon.

“Is she pretty?” he asked.

“Dragons don’t like ugly women,” answered Aldric, “unless it’s dinnertime.”

Simon laughed. His father didn’t.

“When a Dragon falls in love with a mortal woman, it is a terrible thing,” he told Simon. “Worse if he decides to marry. When a Dragon takes a human bride, he bathes her in fire, consuming her ever so slowly, until she is burned away. It’s an elaborate ceremony, a show of ultimate honor. The beasts have a strange way of showing respect.”

Simon grew somber.

“I don’t know where in this city the White Dragon lives,” said Aldric, scarcely taking his eye off the telescope, “but he’s here. His agents have been sending her artwork, but I haven’t been able to find out where it originates. I’ve been in that gallery, I’ve heard the woman talking to him on the phone. He won’t make a move on her there, with so many people around, and risk destroying his own artwork besides. But sooner or later, the thing is going to come to get her, and we’ve got to be here to stop him.”

They had no idea the White Dragon was just a few buildings away, across the Park.

All they had to do was turn their telescopes around.

Simon sneaked a look through his telescope and found Alaythia Moore’s apartment on the eighteenth floor. It had to be hers. Her home was simple and cozy, but filled with paintings, her own and others. They were leaning against the walls, hanging on the walls, propped up in easels and sitting in chairs, even lying on the floor. It looked like art ruled the house. But there was no sign of the woman.

The day passed slowly. The pale sun snailed across the sky and was nearly on its way to bed, and still there was no woman in the house.

Simon was getting bored. He opened up one of his father’s old, old books that he’d taken from the ship. The Book of Saint George was filled with information on Dragons. It was mostly out-of-date, though. The book had been written by the original Saint George and the Knights who came after him. There were parts of it in Old English, and some in Latin and a runic language Simon didn’t understand. But it was clear the Dragon of the modern world was very different from the giant monstrosities
that had roamed about in olden times. Simon looked at the pictures of the immense flying beasts. Too bad they hardly ever used their wings nowadays, he thought; it would have been amazing to see one fly. It drew too much attention, it seemed, and was too exhausting. The White Dragon was not likely to leap into flight, and it was the last one left.

There was no illustration of the Serpent Queen in the book. He wondered if anyone knew what it looked like.

He paged through the book, munching on a crunchy little food he’d discovered on the ship. Turns out that Dragons’ nails are absolutely delicious when they’re broken up into a bowl and salted and peppered. At first they stung his tongue, but after a bit, he started to like them. Only problem was, they left him with a terrible case of Dragon-breath.

“You’re not at your post,” Aldric rumbled, and Simon scrambled back to the telescope.

“Well, there’s not much happening.”

“There
will
be,” his father said urgently, “and we’ve got to be ready. You have a mission to fulfill. This isn’t a father-son picnic.”

No
, Simon thought,
it’s definitely not that. We don’t want to spend all this time getting to know each other. That would be a real waste of energy.

Aldric added quietly, “It will surely be a waste of effort if we both end up dead because we aren’t ready for the Enemy.”

What do you need me for?
wondered Simon, but he couldn’t say it out loud. “You seem to have everything under control,” he said at last.

His father leaned closer to Simon and looked apologetic. “I know this isn’t the best way to start things off. I wanted it to be
different, but we’re here now. If anything goes wrong, I want you with me. And right now, I need you to use your eyes. I can’t see
everything
that goes on. I need you to look for anything unusual.”

“Like what?”

“Beetles.”

“Beetles? You mean, like bugs?”

“Yes, like bugs, insects. They tend to swarm all around whenever a Pyrothrax is present. Haven’t you been listening?”

Simon remembered the beetles that had swarmed over the streetcar back in Ebony Hollow. He had a sinking feeling he’d been close to this Dragon before.

“I don’t see any beetles right now,” said Simon, staring through the eyepiece.

“Not just beetles. Anything strange or out of the ordinary,” said Aldric. “A Pyrothrax can’t contain all his magic—it flows out of him in heavy, invisible waves, like heat waves. Because of this, there are side effects wherever the Dragon goes. Odd things happen to nature. Dogs and animals get frightened or behave in strange ways. The weather can go crazy.”

“How?” asked Simon.

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Well, that’s no help,” Simon complained.

Aldric looked at him in frustration. “I’m not a teacher, I’m a warrior. You seem more comfortable with your nose in a book than a sword in your hand.”

Simon was offended. “Well,” he said quietly, “I
would
have a sword in my hand, but you haven’t
given
me one. You seem to be afraid to let me use them.”

“Nonsense,” Aldric groused, and he threw Simon one of the
scabbards hanging on the tree trunk. He seemed to regret doing so, as Simon carefully drew the sword. “Be careful not to cut yourself. And watch you don’t cut me, either. And don’t drop it on someone’s head down there.”

Am I supposed to be a Dragonhunter or not?
thought Simon, trying not to look too excited. “Dropping it on someone’s head,” he muttered doubtfully. But then, it almost slipped out of his hand.

After a moment, he realized the base of the hilt had a tiny silver heart inside that was beating.
Of course
, he thought,
it’s alive, it’s enchanted.
And then it occurred to him, proudly:
It’s mine.

“The crossbow is more suited to you,” said Aldric, pointing at Simon’s silver weapon. “You use it at long range. It helps you stay clear of the Pyrothrax.”

“I can’t practice with the crossbow,” said Simon. “I can’t shoot arrows around Central Park. People would have me arrested.”

“At least you can get used to carrying it,” replied Aldric, “so it’s not so heavy in your hands.”

“I like the sword better,” Simon said, and he slashed the sword over Aldric’s head, fighting the evening air.

“You don’t need the sword,” said Aldric. “Most likely, I will do the fighting. I need you to watch for the Dragon’s approach.”

“That’s boring,” said Simon.

“It’s part of the job!” snapped Aldric.

His voice rocked Simon, who immediately put the sword away. He slunk over to his telescope. He knew he’d said too much. He knew his father meant only one thing:
Take this seriously.

Neither spoke for quite a while, and then Simon got up his nerve.

“There’s only one Dragon left, right?” asked Simon, and Aldric nodded. “Then, what do you say after this one, you let me go back to Ebony Hollow? If I help you now, you let me get back to school.”

School, he was thinking, was not so bad after all. He could deal with being lonely and not fitting in.

“Fine,” said Aldric, sick of talking. “The one Dragon, and then you go back.”

Simon didn’t answer. He had just noticed that it was starting to rain, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

“It’s the Serpent,” hissed Aldric, rushing to the telescope. “It’s around here somewhere. It’s on the move.”

Of course the thing was close; it was after the woman, and she was just now coming home from work.

“There she is!” Aldric cried.

Simon turned his telescope toward the street to see her. She was very pretty, dressed nicely in a gray dress and a gray coat, with her hair pinned up, and she walked in a slow, thoughtful way.

Indeed, her mind must have been miles away, because she walked past her own apartment building and would have kept going, but the doorman shouted to her. Simon liked her at once. He almost didn’t notice that the green grass of Central Park was now completely covered in worms.

“It’s the Dragon,” he realized. “We’ve got to warn her.”

His father looked pale. “You mean talk to her?”

“Yes.” Simon was bewildered. “You have to tell her what’s going on, don’t you?”

Aldric looked at the woman. He seemed terribly reluctant. Simon’s thoughts immediately returned to the girl at the novelty
shop. It seemed the St. Georges were not very good at dealing with females. Brave in battle, timid in love.

“It would just scare her,” said Aldric. “I’ve tried before. I only got a little out. She seemed to think I was crazy.”

That was logical enough. Simon figured Aldric’s ratty outfit alone would make the woman think twice. He swiveled the telescope to look at her again.

He could now see wisps of hair that seemed to be spraying out rebelliously. Her coat had some odd little shoulder and elbow patches. It was homemade, or a repaired hand-me-down or something. Besides that, she did not seem to notice there was a dollop of paint on her cheek, perhaps from some after-hours painting she’d done. She was half elegant career woman, half out-of-control mess. But she carried a kind of casual strength, like someone who could take on anything.

“Our best strategy is simply to wait,” said Aldric, “and go on the assault when we see the beast.”

As the St. Georges continued their vigil, the woman disappeared inside, entering her apartment just in time to receive a most interesting phone call.

From the White Dragon himself.

It was a pleasant voice. A friendly voice. It sounded like someone you’d want to invite for dinner.

“I was thinking maybe I would invite you over for dinner,” said the woman.

“If you did,” said the playful Dragon, “I would be there in an instant. With my latest work, by the way.”

“You have a new painting?” said Alaythia, bursting with curiosity.

“I’ve just finished it,” said the Dragon. “I think, if I do say so myself, it is my finest yet. That’s no small accomplishment. There are so few artists who move the art form to a new level. I, on the other hand, have a way of doing just that every time I create a new work. It’s because I’m in touch with the animal inside me. All the great artists have to tame the wildness in them. This latest painting is even more beautiful than the others. It may actually change the world. And no one has seen it yet.”

“No one has seen it?”

“You would be the first,” said the White Dragon, who went by the name Venemon.