The Yanti (32 page)

“I can’t take it off! She told me not to take it off!”

“I’m a high fairy, Nancy. You know I’ve come here to help you. Will you let me help you? Will you let me take the ring off you?”

Nancy shook her head. “No! She won’t let . . . No!”

“Keep your eyes shut and lie back on the bed. That’s right, lie back and put your head on the pillow and go to sleep.” Nancy did as she was told, even pulled a blanket over her body. Ali tucked her in as best she could and continued in a soft voice.

“As you sleep, you’re going to have a dream that your queen, Geea, came and visited you in the night. And when she visited you, she took away that horrible ring your daughter forced you to wear. That ring that’s made your mind so dull and confused. Do you understand?”

The woman spoke in a faint whisper. “But I can’t . . .”

“You can’t take it off, I understand. But Queen Geea can. You know Geea, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Ali put her hands on the woman’s heart and forehead, and felt the warmth, even without the Yanti. “Go to sleep now and don’t worry. In the middle of the night Queen Geea will take away the ring and destroy it. After it’s been destroyed, your mind will be clear. In the morning, when you awaken, you’ll feel better than you have in years. And you’ll call Queen Geea on this number I’ll tell you right now.” Ali gave her Hector’s cell number. “Can you remember that number?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no reason to fear. Geea will care for you now.”

The warmth grew to a powerful wave of heat. Nancy smiled quietly.

“No fear . . .”

“Sleep now, Nancy. Sleep.”

In seconds the woman was deeply asleep, snoring. Gently, Ali reached over to remove the ring. Nancy must have gained weight since Lucy had put it on her finger. The fit was
extremely
tight—Ali would practically have to break her finger to get it off. At least, a normal human being would have to do such a thing.

But Ali had a better idea. Since she had control of the fire element, she allowed a tiny but steady stream of heat to flow from her fingertips into the band. Naturally, the ring swelled in size, and with a sudden yank, Ali was able to pull it off.

Nancy stirred but did not awaken. Ali put the ring in her pocket.

Outside, once again high in the starlit sky, Ali took a detour over the black sea. There she crushed the ring until the emerald cracked and the gold melted beneath her fingers, before she threw it into the water. General Kabrosh of Washington, D.C. was next on her list, but she decided her friends and father deserved a brief visit.

The only problem was, when she got to the hotel, they were gone.

The guy at the desk said they had checked out two hours ago.

“Were the four of them alone?” Ali asked the guy at the counter. He had blond hair and looked like he surfed most of his free hours.

“Yeah. There was the two men, the blond chick, and the kid.” The guy added, “You know the girl? She was kind of cute.”

Ali was used to guys asking about her, not Cindy. Just another thing she was going to have to get used to, she thought sadly. The guy was at least eighteen, but Ali knew Cindy was often mistaken for someone older.

“She’s too young for you.” Ali was annoyed they had left.
Didn’t they understand how difficult it was to protect them? “Did they leave a message?”

He checked a row of mail slots. “You Ali Warner?”

“That’s me.”

The guy handed her a plain white envelope. Ali tore it open and read the paper inside. It was not in Cindy’s or her father’s handwriting. It did not look like grown-up handwriting at all. Simply holding it, Ali could tell Nira had touched the page.

The message was short.

Dad’s gone home. The rest of us have gone on an adventure!

It made Ali wonder. Was Nira already in charge?

F
or Ra, it was either a night to remember or else one that would be impossible to forget. Sitting beside Geea and Drash, and shielded by the queen’s powerful field from the smoke of the dust and the wild flames of the intoxicated dragons, Ra felt as if he had been the one who had inhaled a powerful drug. The hollow interior of the kloudar known as Denzy supposedly spent only six hours on the far side of the moon, Anglar.

For Ra, it felt like an eternity.

However, he had Geea and Drash for company, and that was never a bad thing. The fairy queen gave them many insightful observations about power, and its corrupting influence, as they watched the dust spray from the gigantic inverted umbrella on the ceiling of the kloudar. The dust emerged brown, but as the dragons set it aflame, the smoke turned purple, and the dragons sucked it up as if it was heaven’s very nectar.

Perhaps to them it was, for after reveling in the smoky cavern for only a few minutes, the dragons’ behavior underwent a distinct change. They flew wildly through the enclosed space, smashing into each other, but laughing all the while. Well, Ra
thought they were laughing—it was hard for him to say exactly what a dragon sounded like when it was happy.

Yet Geea cautioned that they were not happy at all, only satiated.

Ra asked what was the difference.

“Joy does not come from pleasure,” Geea said. “That is a lesson the dragons—as well as your world—have yet to learn. Joy is an internal state separate from all sensation. Joy is the nature of the soul, and is only found in silence. Not that there is anything wrong with pleasure. It has its place in life, as much as pain does.”

“Drash prefers pleasure to pain,” the young dragon said.

Geea laughed. “Of course you do. But as we grow, and come closer to the blue light, we learn that intense pleasure is inevitably followed by a sense of disappointment—even loss. Few on Earth would agree with me, but it is true. At this time, on Earth, the majority of humans have a bit of dragon in them. They want power and pleasure, and they want it now.”

“Aren’t you being a little harsh in your judgment?” Ra asked.

Geea shook her head. “I do not judge. I merely observe. Look at these dragons. They live longer than any other elemental. They consider that a blessing, but because of that fact, they end up living fewer lives on Earth. And when they are born on Earth, they crave positions of power and authority. The majority of your politicians are descendants of dragons, which is a pity.”

“Why?” Ra asked.

“Because the last person who should be nominated to a position of power is the person who craves power.”

Ra had to laugh when he thought of Earth’s leaders. “That’s so true! There should be a law that says that if you really want to be president, you’re immediately disqualified.”

“Drash does not want to be king of the dragons,” Drash said.

Geea patted the young dragon. “That’s why you’ll make a great king.”

“Is this desire for power the reason Doren went after the dragons as allies in the first place?” Ra asked.

Geea nodded. “Doren knew they would be susceptible to her offer. But right now, Chashar thinks—with the other elementals gone—he’ll rule the green world.”

“Despite Doren?” Ra asked.

“He thinks he can take her.”

“Can he?”

“With the Entity at her back, he doesn’t stand a chance.”

Drash stared at the purple smoke. “Would it be wrong to try the smoke for a moment?” he asked.

“It would be a mistake,” Geea said. “You would enjoy it tonight and miss it tomorrow. Each day, thereafter, the dust would give you less pleasure, and yet you would miss it more. That’s a bad deal, Drash. As the new king of the dragons, it’s important you set a good example.”

“Drash is not king yet.”

“Drash is going to be king before we leave here,” Geea promised.

By the time the kloudar reentered the green world’s atmosphere and the steel doors opened, the smoke had been flushed from the interior of Denzy. By then the vast majority of the dragons seemed asleep. But Ra worried as he studied them. From his experience, most dragons slept with one triangular eye open—yet a quarter of them had both eyes shut. Worse, they did not appear to be breathing. Ra mentioned this to Geea and she nodded solemnly but said nothing.

Geea allowed her shimmering green field to decrease, and
came near Chashar’s throne. She went so far as to wake him up with a gentle kick to his right wing.

“King Chashar, we have a serious problem,” Geea said.

The dragon raised his head from his stupor. “What now, Geea?”

“The Shaktra gave you a parting gift that contained an extra powerful dose of the dust. It was too much for many of your dragons.” Geea paused. “A lot of them are not sleeping. A lot of them are dead.”

Chashar stared at the cavern with uncertain eyes. “Is this true?” he asked.

“Check on your spouse, and you’ll see what kind of ally the Shaktra has turned out to be. I’m sad to say, Tashi was one of those who inhaled too much dust.”

Chashar prodded his spouse with his snout, but there was no response. Tashi was not breathing, and her flame had gone out.

Then seeing that Geea’s words were true, Chashar rose suddenly into the air, and let out a loud roar, and a mighty flame, that woke all the other dragons—at least the ones still left alive. Then Chashar bitterly cursed the Shaktra. He swore that the dragons were no longer her allies, but her deadly enemies.

Geea pounced on his announcement.

“Then you must throw your power behind us!” she shouted.

Chashar was too upset to be reasoned with. “You? Who are you? Your army and Lord Vak’s army have already been defeated.”

“Nonsense. We’ve only begun to fight. And with you on our side, our chances of victory are excellent.”

Chashar continued to beat his wings above his throne.

“Chashar has just lost his queen. Chashar does not want to talk of battle.”

Geea came closer. “I grieve with you over your loss. But we
have to talk now, if we’re to avenge what’s been done to Tashi and the others. We don’t have much time.”

Chashar considered a long time. “What does Geea want the dragons to do?”

“Come with me and help me intercept Vak’s army. We need to steer it toward Uleestar. The Shaktra will send scabs and scaliis and marked elementals to stop us, but with the help of the dragons, and a fleet of ships that lies docked on the west shore not far north of Elnar, we can gather our forces in the fairy capital. There, I believe, we can make a decisive stand.”

Chashar considered, then asked a most unexpected question. “How did Geea’s human child defeat Chashar’s brother?”

“She used the Yanti as a weapon,” Geea said.

“How come Geea never used it as a weapon against her sister?”

“The Yanti was not made to destroy but to heal.”

Chashar glanced at his dead spouse, and sighed. “Can it be used to bring Tashi back to Chashar?” he asked.

“No.”

“Could it be used to heal dragons of the sickness caused by the dust?”

Geea nodded. “Yes. That much I can promise you.”

That appeared to seal the deal. He went to shout out to the thousands of dragons that they were switching sides in the war. But Geea had the nerve to interrupt him once more.

“The dragons are to join the side of the fairies and all other elementals who fight the Shaktra,” Geea said. “But you are no longer to lead them.”

Chashar was insulted. “Who would dare take Chashar’s place?”

“The son of your last king. The only dragon untouched by the dust. Drash.”

Chashar stared at his nephew in amazement. “Didn’t Chashar almost kill Drash a couple of days ago?” he asked.

Drash spoke with pride. “But Drash recovered.”

A shocking wave of belches and fiery snorts swept through the hollow kloudar—what Ra now knew to be dragon laughter. Apparently Chashar was not popular with his constituency. There was no vote, but it was clear they wanted the big guy out and the little guy in. Ra would not have believed it possible.

The dragons had a new king, and the Shaktra had a new enemy.

When they were once again high in the sky, flying toward Tutor, Geea began to prepare Ra for what appeared to be a critical task.

“You didn’t agree with everything I said in the kloudar,” she said. “That is fine. On Earth, each of your religions teaches that their holy books are the final word of God. In their minds, the truth is set in stone, and that makes most of your people comfortable. They can point to a source of inspiration and say to themselves, there, in that book, is the supreme truth.”

“I prefer a set truth,” Ra admitted.

“Well, you’re an elf,” Geea said. “Fairies prefer to see truth as fluid—more like a river that flows along twisting bends. We see truth as too sacred to define. It’s one way today, different tomorrow.”

“You wouldn’t last long on Earth,” Ra said.

Geea smiled. “But fairies are the least dogmatic of all the elementals. Our favorite tenet is to say, ‘We know that we don’t know.’ Does that make us so radical?”

“No. I can see the wisdom in that. But . . .”

“But you don’t see what this has to do with saving the Earth?”

“I trust you’ll get to your point when it suits you.”

Geea nodded. “As queen of the fairies, I was something of a renegade for having an elfish companion, Jira. You’ve heard his name?”