Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (43 page)

“How about this one?” Mrs. Blake suggested, pulling out a knife big enough to carve a turkey.

“I don’t know if I could handle—” Mrs. Jackson paused as she took the knife in her hand. “This is very light, isn’t it?” She jabbed the blade up into the air. “Yes, this could do some damage.”

“Here,” Mrs. Blake added, offering her neighbor the sheath, fashioned from some mottled animal hide. “How about you, Rose?”

“I guess I could take a knife, too,” Mrs. Dafoe said softly.

“Just like working around the kitchen,” Mrs. Blake said with a smile. She looked back down at the knives spread out before her. She picked up a smaller blade and stabbed it into the air. “Who would think that preparing dinner would lead to a second career?”

Jason stepped over to the Oomgosh. “Is there anything we can do?”

The tree man glanced down at Jason. His smile looked tired. “We will be very busy very soon. For now we wait. Sometimes waiting is the hardest job of all.”

N
ick heard the shouts get closer as he climbed. These rugged vines had knots and branches that were easily used as foot and handholds. In a way, pulling himself up this vine was more like climbing a ladder than a rope.

As he climbed, the world changed. The perpetual twilight that surrounded them in most of the forest seemed to brighten with every step he climbed. The great trees seemed far more majestic up here, where Nick could see their limbs spread and cross, surrounded by great sprays of deep green leaves. There were trails through the trees below as well, well-worn paths that ran along the great branches and boles, leading, no doubt, to the same place these creatures were holding Mary Lou. He felt he had entered a world above the world, every bit as strange as the fantasy kingdoms he made up in his head.

He wondered how his father would react to a place like this. He’d hardly thought of his father at all since he’d come to this place. His father, who always yelled at Nick for not facing up to things, but who couldn’t face up to his family. His father went away before they’d had a chance to talk. Sometimes Nick was mad at him for leaving like that. And sometimes he just missed him.

“C’mon!” Todd whispered hoarsely. Nick started. He wasn’t paying attention to the signals.

Wilbert waved to him from up ahead. He’d gone from his vine to one of the paths that led upward, and wanted them to follow him. Todd joined him on the trail a second later. Nick nodded his head, swinging his weight around to move his vine so that he could join them.

He landed with a thump on the large branch. Todd grimaced at the noise. Wilbert only turned and led the way.

There could be no doubt that they were traveling the right way. The noise was overwhelming before them, a great crowd cheering in their odd, high voices. And the only thing that all the voices called, over and over again, was Mary Lou’s name.

M
ary Lou’s bearers stopped abruptly. They must be near their destination. Mary Lou leaned her head back to see what they had reached.

The crowd separated to reveal a great dark kettle hung over a moderate fire. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, all ready for Hansel and Gretel. Except this time the wicked witch was waiting for Mary Lou.

There were steps at one side of the kettle, and her bearers steered her there. The crowd noises were growing less intense, with most of the shouts coming from those People in the distance. Those in Mary Lou’s view seemed only to watch her in hushed silence, as if in awe of what was to come.

They mounted the steps, a dozen People pressed close against either side. They’d give her no chance at all this time to get away. She wondered if the Ceremony started with her being boiled alive. Part of her thought she should be more upset about this, but another part thought this was all inevitable. She was Mary Lou. She was born to be sacrificed.

She wondered if the prince was happy with this. She turned her head as best she could to observe the surrounding crowd. She couldn’t see him anywhere around. The thought that he might have deserted her upset her more than anything else about this.

“No!” she called suddenly.

Her voice seemed to wake even the respectful People nearby. “Merrilu!” they shouted back triumphantly.

She tried to wrench around, maybe jerk an arm free. “Let me go!”

“Merrilu! Merrilu! Merrilu!” The People were really happy to hear from her now.

Oh, God, she thought, this was impossible. She couldn’t struggle anymore. She felt like laughing. In a moment, they’d dump her in the kettle, to be boiled like a lobster. Mary Lou, the special of the day.

But her bearers didn’t stop at the lip of the kettle. They climbed higher, to a rickety-looking platform some ten feet above the pot.

Mary Lou realized she wasn’t going to be boiled, after all. She was going to be steamed.

She laughed at last.

“Merrilu!” the People cheered.

N
unn was quite pleased with himself. By making a few simple adjustments on that pitiful wolf, he would develop a new soldier to rid him of petty distractions like his brother, so that he could go after the other jewels.

He had already planted the seed that would transform the wolf in a matter of hours. He should seek out the jewels now, while the others were occupied. The three remaining dragon’s eyes were in three far different places, a time-consuming quest even for someone who held three of the eyes already. He would go, as soon as he completed some unfinished business.

He would reclaim Mary Lou.

No one ever escaped from Nunn. And no one ever would.

T
odd had never seen anything like the Volunteers. The four of them had formed a loose half-circle approaching the Annos’ camp. They had tightened that circle, slowly and steadily, calmly and quietly killing any member of the Anno that happened to get in their way. They wouldn’t even let any of the dead bodies fall, instead securing them to branches with lengths of vine. Then all four Volunteers would creep forward again.

Nick and he weren’t so quiet. Todd didn’t know why the Volunteers had to be so stealthy, either. The tribe of creatures ahead was making so much noise; Todd could barely hear his own clumsy footfalls and branch-rustling.

Wilbert put up a hand for the two boys to pause again. The trees broke open a bit ahead, and beyond them, Todd could see a great log platform built high up here, sort of like a tree house gone crazy. And every inch of that platform was covered by the Anno, all facing away from them, pushing toward some spectacle that Todd couldn’t see.

Todd was sure it had something to do with Mary Lou. They should be rushing forward to help her. Why were the Volunteers still being so cautious?

Wilbert looked back at Todd and pointed, twice. There, in two different trees, were two Anno, each one sporting a drawn bow. Both glanced back often at the platform and the celebration, but both also turned from time to time, as if reminded that they were supposed to act as lookouts.

“M
errilu! Merrilu! Merrilu!” the People cried.

Thomas and Maggie drew out arrows of their own, each aiming at one of the two lookouts.

They launched their arrows as the People began to shout again. “Merrilu! Merrilu! Merrilu!”

The lookouts’ screams were covered by the ecstatic crowd.

Wilbert waved Todd and Nick forward, until all three had reached a hidden place only a few feet from the platform.

“What now?” Nick asked as he nervously fingered the hilt of his sword. Todd touched the handle of his knife as well, just to be sure.

Wilbert looked to Stanley, crouched in a tree on one side, then to Maggie, who kneeled on some sort of rough-hewn bridge of logs and vines on the other. Both nodded as if they understood.

“Now we wait for an opening,” Wilbert replied very softly. “There are too many on that platform, even for us. We need a diversion.”

What did that mean? “What kind of diversion?” Todd demanded.

“I think I see one now,” Thomas replied. He pointed to the sky above the trees, where a great black bird had swept into view.

“Merrilu! Merrilu! Merrilu!”

The People were growing so excited; she could swear she heard a couple of them scream.

Her personal guard had climbed high above the kettle. They had finally had to release their grip as they pulled and pushed her onto the rickety pile of twigs that hung above the great black pot. For the first time, Mary Lou had some freedom to move. She thought about struggling, but realized all that any fight would bring was the platform’s collapse, and her quick trip into the boiling liquid below. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

She wasn’t at all surprised when the People quickly bound her arms and legs to the branches. So much for her break for freedom. The People who had escorted her scrambled off the platform and back down the stairs.

“Merrilu! Merrilu! Merrilu!”

She could already feel the heat from the kettle. She imagined that the branches below her were widely spaced so that the steam from the kettle could do just that. They had left her head free. If she craned her neck as far as it would go, she could just barely see the edge of the kettle.

“Merrilu! Merrilu! Merrilu!”

The Chieftain raised a great pole adorned with elaborate carvings she couldn’t quite make out at this distance. A pair of the People walked forward, carrying a platter covered with a pile of fine leaves, which they proceeded to dump into the pot.

Seasonings? thought Mary Lou.

The liquid below was boiling. And, instead of invisible steam, it was producing a thick, green smoke.

Mary Lou started to cough as the smoke reached her. Maybe, she thought, they would choke her to death instead.

All of the People called her name. And then they started to call another. “Ontawa! Ontawa!”

The People punctuated this new cry with a quick stamp of their feet. “Ontawa!”
Stomp.
“Ontawa!”
Stomp.

They had set up a rhythm, a rhythm to call something.

For some reason, Mary Lou was sure they were calling the dragon. The prince could read the People’s minds. Maybe this Ceremony gave her that talent, too.

“Ontawa!”
Stomp.
“Ontawa!”
Stomp.

Is this what the prince wanted? Would the dragon make him flesh and bone again? From everything she had heard about this dragon, though, Mary Lou imagined it did not make that sort of bargain.

Or perhaps, she thought, the prince was mistaken, and the People were conducting a Ceremony all their own. Maybe that was why the prince was nowhere around. Maybe the prince was still far too much the People’s subject, after all.

The smoke was making her dizzy. She thought she saw shapes in the roiling green around her. People fighting, screaming, dying. What happened, she thought, the last time the dragon came? Why would the People call to something as destructive as that? Did they think Mary Lou could control it?

“Mary Lou!” called a hoarse voice, as different from the cries of the People as Mary Lou was from that high school girl she used to be. She looked up in the sky.

A black shape swooped down toward her. She had trouble focusing on it. Something about the smoke.

“Stay with us, Mary Lou! Help is on the way!” Raven. It had to be Raven.

But why did she see the great leathery wings of a dragon above her?

“H
ello,” the thunderhead said.

With that, the blinding light went away. Mills opened his eyes and saw that he was in the room filled with clouds.

“Zachs did good!” the light-creature cheered.

“Zachs opened the way,” the cloud agreed. “Now we have to take care that Nunn can never close it again.”

Mills was amazed by all of this. “Can we do that?”

“With someone as careless as Nunn?” the cloud asked disdainfully. “It’s barely worth asking the question. He gains power without limit, assuming he will easily learn how to control it. More likely, it will end up controlling him!”

The cloud wizard sounded like he could do anything. “So how do we get out of here?” Mills asked.

“A delicate matter,” the cloud replied after a moment’s hesitation. “We will need something of Nunn’s cooperation. I believe we should first teach him a lesson.”

“A lesson?” the creature of light shrieked with glee. “Zachs will teach Nunn a lesson!”

“We all will,” the cloud agreed. “We simply have to wait for Nunn to overreach himself.”

“And when will that happen?” Mills asked.

“Oh,” the cloud replied mildly, “I should say any moment now.”

N
unn did like it when his coming caused people to scream. It was reassuring. And when they scrambled like mad things to get out of his way, well, that really showed a wizard his worth.

Of course, these small, weaselly Anno made awfully easy prey. Nunn could crush a dozen of them without even noticing. But even obvious superiority could be the most positive of feelings.

Of course, he wasn’t here for the Anno. He was here for Mary Lou. He looked across the platform, finally able to see with his human eyes what his dragon’s eyes would not show him. They had propped the girl on some platform made of twigs, above a great cooking pot. Where would someone as primitive as the Anno get a pot like that? Did they have allies Nunn didn’t know about? “I wouldn’t do what you’re thinking.”

Another human here? Nunn spun about to confront the other. He didn’t like being startled this way. He was the one who always brought surprise.

It took him a second to recognize the other man, perhaps because the other looked more ghost than human. But it only took a second.

“Garo!”

“Is that my name?” the other replied with a smile. “Thanks for telling me.”

This was most disconcerting. “You should be dead.”

“And I very well may be,” Garo agreed jovially. “Good of you to notice. All thanks to you and your brother.”

This was taking Nunn away from the real reason for his appearance. The People had stopped calling Mary Lou’s name and had begun calling the dragon. It was time for Nunn to take her and leave this place.

“It was you,” he said suddenly, “who kept me from seeing Mary Lou.”