Dragon Kiss (9 page)

“Audun!” squealed Loolee, as she barreled off the ramp. “I heard you were back. Do you want to ride down the chute with me? I had so much fun last time.”

“I’m sorry, Loolee, but I can’t today. I have to go somewhere now. Maybe I’ll be able to slide with you when I come back.”

“All right,” the little dragoness said, her crest drooping. “And we’ll talk, too, then, won’t we, Audun?” called Hildie as he neared the door to the outside.

“Of course,” he said, but instead of thinking about talking to Hildie, he was already wondering what he could possibly say to a sea witch.

Nine

A
udun may not have had a map this time, but he did know how to follow directions. He flew due south for three days, stopping to catch fish and to drink from rivers, and later to catch even bigger fish from the ocean. He took time out to sleep twice, once amid the ruins of a castle, after getting permission from the banshee who lived there, and once on a tropical island whose only occupants were crabs and seabirds. Both nights he had difficulty falling asleep because he was thinking about Millie. Audun took good care of the egg, carrying it gently and making sure it was wrapped in the square so that the temperature was just right.

If it hadn’t been for the smoke, he would have missed the cone-shaped island that Wave Skimmer had mentioned. He’d been looking for the smoke for the last half day, but he smelled it before he saw it. Turning west, he began to look for the three islands all in a row, but didn’t spot them until late in the day.

Not wanting to face the sea witch in the dark, Audun spent the night on the island shaped roughly like a seagull’s head, although he thought it looked more like a crow. He was worried about the baby bird because it had been in the egg for much longer than its nest mates, so every once in a while he pressed his ear against the egg and listened. If he waited long enough, he was rewarded with the smallest of sounds, and so knew that the baby was still alive.

He woke early the next morning when the sunlight turned rosy outside his eyelids. After breakfasting on a plump fish, he flew out over the water, the amulet’s chain around his neck. Unlike the murky water in the Icy North, this water was clear and he could see far into its depths as he skimmed the tops of the waves.

Audun circled the island. When he reached the spot where he had started and still hadn’t found anything, he widened the circle and searched again. He did this three or four times, until he finally saw the wreck just beyond an enormous bed of seaweed. The ship had sunk in one piece. It had been a large ship, and sturdily built, although time and the sea had left gaping holes big enough for entire schools of fish to swim through. One fish was so huge that Audun was sure that it, at least, couldn’t fit through the openings. Nearly twenty feet long, the fish’s gaping mouth took up most of its pointed face and was filled with dragon-sized teeth. It swam with the confidence of being the biggest predator around. Audun watched as it passed over the wreck and back again. Finally, it seemed to grow bored and swam away, but the young dragon waited until it was out of sight before heading down to the wreck.

He didn’t want to startle the witch, so he swam around the wreck quietly, wondering how to find her. At the squared-off back of the ship he found the window that he’d seen in Wave Skimmer’s bowl of water. He peered through the window, trying to see the dim interior, and suddenly there she was, staring back at him with eyes like dark, bottomless pits. The witch’s pale, green skin looked taut and ageless, but it was her cloud of nearly colorless hair and her horrifying eyes that made her look so old.

“What do you want?” Nastia Nautica demanded.

A jellyfish undulated past Audun, trailing ribbonlike tendrils behind it. Squinting her eyes in annoyance, the sea witch pointed a finger at the creature. The tendrils flailed and began to tie themselves in knots while the jellyfish wobbled in agitation.

Unable to bear the creature’s agony, Audun hoped that distracting the sea witch would make her leave the jellyfish alone. “I’ve come to trade something for a musical instrument that you have in your possession. I have something I believe you would like.”

“What musical instrument?” asked Nastia Nautica, turning back to Audun and letting the jellyfish get away. “I have lots of them. I’m a very musical person.”

“It’s called the Sea Serpents’ Flute.”

“Really? Now why would a dragon want to torment a sea serpent until it flees? Is it anyone I know?”

“I doubt it,” said Audun. “Are you interested in making a trade?”

“What do you have? That flute is one of my most prized possessions. I won’t let it go for just . . .” When Audun held up the covered egg, Nastia Nautica leaned out the window saying, “What’s that? Unwrap it and let me see.”

Audun was reluctant to unwrap the egg. After seeing what the witch had done to the poor jellyfish, he knew that she liked hurting living creatures. But he had been sent to get the flute and he wasn’t going to go back without it. Gritting his teeth, Audun slowly unwrapped the egg, revealing the distinctive mottled shell.

Nastia Nautica gasped. “Is that what I think it is?” she said, crawling halfway out the window. “Give it to me! I have to see if it’s alive.”

“The instrument . . . ,” said Audun.

“I’ll get it! Just let me see that egg!”

Audun would have held on to the egg, but he was taken by surprise—the sea witch snatched it from him, and shook it hard. Placing her ear against the egg as she retreated into her wreck, she listened for a moment, then chortled with glee. “I’ve finally got it! Now that little witch will learn a lesson she’ll never forget.”

“About the trade . . . ,” said Audun.

The sea witch sneered at him. “You’re a fool, dragon. You should never have given up the egg so easily. Here’s your trade!” Holding the egg with one hand, she made circling motions with the other and a dark, solid- looking bubble formed on her palm. Audun was backing away when she hurled it at him. The bubble exploded, its force flipping the dragon head over tail all the way to the bed of seaweed.

As a black fog dragged at his mind, he thought about Millie. She’d never let magic stop her and neither would he. Shaking with the effort, Audun fought against the darkness, willing it away until he was able to raise his head from the silt of the ocean floor. Looking around, he spotted Nastia Nautica swimming in the opposite direction with the egg clutched in her hands. He would have to follow her, but first there was something else that he needed to do.

Audun was angry. The sea witch had taken something he wasn’t even sure he wanted to give up. Knowing it was a living creature that she would probably mistreat made it that much worse. And for all he knew, she might have swum away thinking that she had killed him.

Audun didn’t have time to find his way through the witch’s ship to the room where she kept the flute, so he decided to use the window. It wasn’t big enough for a dragon Audun’s size, but he drew away from the wreck, tucked his wings tight against his body, and used powerful strokes of his legs and tail to propel him through the water and smash through the window frame, splintering the wall around it.

In an instant Audun flipped open the lid of the trunk he had seen in Wave Skimmer’s image. What he hadn’t seen in the image, however, was the nest of sea snakes writhing in the bottom of the trunk.

The snakes hissed and stared up at the dragon with their cold eyes.

“I don’t have time for this,” Audun growled, as he reached toward the trunk. The sea snakes might be venomous, but they would break their fangs before they’d ever pierce his scales.

“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t say anything,” said one of the snakes, raising its head above the rest, “but you’re one of the great ones and worthy of our respect.”

“The sea witch has cast a spell on us,” added another. “We must stay in this chest and guard the flute. Please don’t blame us if we can’t let you have it.”

“What if I set you free?” asked Audun, his talons poised over the chest.

The snakes shivered in ecstasy at the thought. “Can you really do that, Great One? Do you really have the power? We would be forever grateful if only you could help us!”

“Just watch me,” Audun said, as he turned around. Dragging his tail in front of him, he swung it around with a
whump
, pulverizing the chest and sending the sea snakes flying around the room.

“We’re free!” cried a snake. The other snakes cheered.

Audun plucked the flute from the shards of splintered wood while the sea snakes gathered around him. The flute was bigger than he had expected, but he was still able to fit it in the pouch under his wing. Squeezing back through the hole where the window had been, he turned to follow the sea witch’s scent through the water.

“What about us?” asked the snakes. “What should we do now?”

“It seems to me that you have two choices,” said Audun, glancing at the little faces clustered at the splintered window. “You can stay here and let the sea witch know how you feel about being locked in a chest, or you can go back to wherever it was you came from and get on with your lives.” Audun could hear them hissing among themselves as he swam away.

Following a scent through water wasn’t much harder than it was to follow one through air. It helped that the amulet made breathing underwater so easy. Sea creatures gawked at the blue and white dragon as Audun coursed back and forth, tracking the sea witch. Her smell was slightly sour and distinctive enough that he didn’t confuse it with other odors.

Moving as silently as possible, Audun followed the sea witch into a cave. After only a few yards, the cave narrowed into a tunnel that headed downward before abruptly changing direction and angling up. He moved more cautiously as the tunnel became so narrow that he feared he might get stuck, but it soon widened into a high-roofed chamber. The tunnel had been dark, but the chamber was filled with a pale green light that seemed to come from green stones embedded in the walls. Strange plants and animals grew in the cave, but any creature that could move fled when it saw Audun.

The dragon had gone only a few feet into the cave when he saw the sea witch. She was crouched beside the egg, which had already begun to crack.
I’m too late,
he thought, certain that the baby bird would drown if it hatched here, at the bottom of the sea.

A hole appeared in the shell and the baby’s yellow beak poked through. More cracks appeared and the baby emerged, its beak opening and closing as if it were gasping.

Audun rushed farther into the cave to try to save the baby bird but slowed as he realized that the hatchling was growing rounder and fatter. By the time Audun had taken three steps, the baby that had started out smaller than a human boy’s fist was as big as Audun’s head. Three more steps and the bird was twice that size. It was soaking up water just as its siblings had at the oasis, but with water all around, this baby was doing it much faster.

“You’re going to kill it!” Audun shouted.

Nastia Nautica whipped her head around, making her hair swirl behind her. “So you followed me. And I thought my sharks would be fighting over your carcass by now.” The baby bird continued to grow as Nastia Nautica swam back and forth in front of Audun, blocking his way. “It might die, it might not. It will soak up some of the water; the rest it will turn into air. What difference does it make as long as it does its job before it dies?”

The little bird burped and a bubble floated out of its mouth. Suddenly, the sea witch darted forward and ripped the amulet from around the dragon’s neck. With a flick of her fingers, she encased the amulet in a bubble and sent it shooting out the entrance of the cave. Sneering at the dragon, the sea witch said, “You’d better hope that the bird doesn’t die until it empties this cave or you’ll die with it. What a dilemma—save the bird and you die, or let it finish soaking up the water and filling the cave with air and you live, for a little while at least.”

Audun knew just how long he could live on the air in his lungs. It was enough to let him get to the surface, if he left right away. “You can’t do this,” he said, and watched the precious air bubbles trickle past his lips.

Nastia Nautica laughed. “I can do what ever I want, and you won’t be able to stop me. You’re going to be too busy sucking up air,” she said, pointing at the ceiling where the water level had already dropped.

Audun growled at the witch as she swam to the side and let him pass. He was picking up the baby bird when Nastia Nautica backed into the cave entrance, saying, “You really aren’t very bright, are you? I wanted this cave empty of water so I could use it as a cell for a little thief who thinks she can get away with stealing my pearl. Do you see those green stones in the walls? They give off light, but that isn’t all they do. They wipe out any magic used around them, so neither my prisoner’s spells nor your magic will work down here. I bet you didn’t know that your amulet stopped working the moment you entered this cave. You’ve already used up most of your air! Once again, you’ve helped me out through your stupidity. You’ll be my test case. If the cave will hold you, it should hold my little prisoner as well. Oh, and by the way, you won’t be able to get out even if you can breathe underwater. Not after I do this!”

With a flick of her tail, the sea witch turned and darted down the tunnel. A moment later, Audun heard the rumble of stones falling as she blocked off the entrance to the cave.

They were trapped! Now Audun would never see Millie again and . . . He took a deep breath of the air at the top of the cave and tried to calm himself. The baby bird made a chirruping sound and waddled a few steps closer. The little creature didn’t seem to mind being underwater. His body was so big now that his head looked like a tomato resting atop an enormous pumpkin and his legs were two little twigs that probably couldn’t have held him up if he had been on dry ground.