Dragon Tears (6 page)

Allard smiled, and patted the side of his bed. “That, my boy, is a very long story. But it’s time you knew the truth. Sit down here, and I’ll tell it to you.”

Chapter Five

Larkin couldn’t concentrate and his flying reflected his lack of attention. The dragon’s thoughts were a whirlwind of confusion as he tried to determine if the human, Patrik, was evil as he’d been told. With his mind on other things, his flying lessons were suffering as a result.

“I told you, close your left wing halfway and extend the right one as far as it will go,” Redwing snapped, unable to hide her frustration any longer.

Larkin tried the exercise again, making a conscious effort to keep his mind on the task at hand. It worked, and he caught the crosscurrent that turned him around and headed him back toward the council arena.

“There, that’s how it’s done,” Redwing said, as she flew next to his right shoulder.

Larkin gave her a toothy grin, curling back his upper jaw to expose a row of pointed, dagger-like teeth. The crosscurrent kept them soaring in the right direction, and it wasn’t long before they could see the council arena beneath them.

“I have guard duty this afternoon,” Redwing said in a voice that was mostly a groan.

“I’m sorry,” Larkin replied. All the dragonets hated guard duty. They weren’t allowed to sleep on duty, they weren’t allowed to leave the lookout post, and for over a hundred seasons nothing had ever happened that had made guard duty necessary. Yet the elders insisted that a sentry be on duty twenty-four sunmarks a day, and the unpleasant and boring task always fell to the dragonets.

“At least it’s not in the middle of the night,” Larkin offered.

“I guess. I suppose that would be worse.”

“It is, believe me it is,” Larkin said, his tone telling her that he had experienced many long nights without sleep, standing guard over an empty valley.

They circled the council arena several times, Larkin practicing how to catch the crosscurrents in order to make the turns necessary to fly back home. Redwing watched his technique, and when she was satisfied that he knew what he was doing, signaled that they should land. She couldn’t hide her smile of amusement as Larkin landed in his usual bump and scrape of green wings, jaw and tail.

“Next time, we’ll practice your landing,” she said, coming to a graceful stop beside him. “I have to go now or the elders will chew my scales off for being late.”

Larkin watched her go, half-glad and half-sorry to see her leave. He really liked her, but he wasn’t ready to tell her about the human he had met. As her tail disappeared from view, he headed toward the caves and his secret passageway.

∞

“Help me up, boy. I want to sit by the fire.”

Larkin rushed to his master’s side, pulling back the warm, multicolored quilts, and allowing the man to lean on him. Allard wasn’t that old, but the transport spell had completely drained him. He was as weak and helpless as a newborn kitten and would remain that way for at least another day.

Seated in front of the fire, a fresh cup of tea in his hands, the wizard sighed with pleasure.

“You were going to tell me why you don’t want to make war on the dragons,” Patrik reminded him.

“Yes I was, wasn’t I? Well there are two reasons. The first is very personal, and the second involves the whole world. Sit down, boy, this might take a little while.”

Patrik grabbed a stool, and pulled it close to Allard’s rocker.

“First, I have a purely personal reason to believe that dragons aren’t the big, dumb brutes most people think they are.”

Patrik had to bite his tongue to keep from blurting out his agreement. He wanted to hear what the magician had to say before telling him about his encounter with a dragon.

“I was just about your age, twelve seasons or so, when I took it into my head to go dragon hunting. It was against all my parents’ rules, you know, so I snuck away and didn’t tell anybody where I was going.”

His eyes bored into Patrik like a miner’s drill, and Patrik cringed. It was as if the man knew what Patrik had been up to while he was gone.

“We lived in this very house, my parents and I, so I knew roughly where to start looking. I set out in the morning, and by lunchtime had reached the end of the borderlands and the beginning of the mountains.”

A smile played across Allard’s face as he recalled his youthful adventures. “I wasn’t about to let a little thing like mountains stop me, so I began climbing. The rock cliff went straight up, or so it seemed to me, and I had to use both my hands and feet to scale it. I was almost to the top when the rock wall began crumbling beneath me. I lost my footing and hung there, holding on with both hands.”

He took a sip of tea and looked straight at Patrik. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my entire life. But what happened next scared the magic right out of me. As my fingers slowly lost their grip, I heard a roar. I thought it was going to shake the mountain to pieces it seemed so loud. There, right above me, was a dragon peering down at me. He was huge, beautiful, and as bright and golden as the king’s crown.”

“What happened next?” Patrik asked breathlessly.

“Well,” the wizard said, setting his empty mug down on the floor next to his chair, “the dragon’s head was right next to mine, and his large yellow eyes flashed and whirled like a shooting star. I thought he was going to eat me right then and there, but instead the dragon says, ‘Need some help?’”

“I was sure I’d lost my mind. Dragons don’t help people. They eat them. At least that’s what I’d always been told.”

Again, Patrik had to bite his tongue to keep from blurting out his own story. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to keep it secret, but something told him that this was not the time. He still didn’t trust the wizard’s good mood and was afraid of being punished.

“What happened then?” he asked.

“Well, I was so scared I could hardly talk, so I just nodded my head. I saw this huge claw reach out for me, and then I screamed. But instead of being torn to pieces, the dragon hooked his claw in the back of my shirt and pulled me up next to him.”

The wizard had a faraway look on his face as he continued to talk. “He was the most magnificent creature I had ever seen, all glittery and shining in the sun like the purest gold in the world. What happened next, I don’t think anyone would believe.”

“I’ll believe it,” Patrik said.

The wizard looked down at the boy on his stool. “Well, the dragon said to me, ‘Climb on my back and hold on.’ I wasn’t about to argue with him, so I did as he said. And then he flew me down to the valley floor.”

“Wow, you flew on a dragon’s back?”

“Yes, boy, I did, and I have to tell you I was frightened nearly to death. But it was also the most fun I have ever had. Everything looks different from dragon-back. You can see forever, and everything seems so small. It sort of puts things in perspective, you know. What’s really important and what’s not.”

“So that’s why you don’t want to go to war with them? Because you know they’re not all evil?”

“Yes, but there’s another reason, too. Do you remember what I told you about how magic works?”

Patrik nodded.

“What do you think would happen if the whole world went to war using magic as a weapon?”

Patrik’s tongue stuck out between his lips as he thought. “Everyone would be tired and exhausted, like you are,” he said at last.

“Worse than that, boy. Everything would be drained from the last blade of grass to the rocks themselves. There wouldn’t be a single thing or person that would remain unaffected. It would destroy the world completely, and it would take hundreds of seasons for it to recover.”

Patrik couldn’t fathom that type of destruction, a worldwide draining of energy that would affect every living and non-living thing. “There’d be nothing to eat?” he asked.

“That’s right. The crops wouldn’t grow because both the seeds and the soil would be affected. There’d be no rain to make them grow even if they could. The cattle would die, as would the horses, the deer, the butterflies. We’d have a wasteland, like the Valley of Death.”

Patrik’s face paled at the mention of the most frightening place on the planet. “What about the people?”

“The people would recover eventually, but then they’d starve to death. This is what I tried to tell King Harrold, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“What will happen to the dragons?” Patrik asked.

“Now that is an interesting question. Ever since I was saved by one, I’ve studied every scroll I could find about them. From what I’ve gathered, they are immune to magic.”

Patrik’s mouth pursed up into a question mark, and the wizard, seeing it, quickly added, “Don’t get me wrong. Humans can cast spells on them, can kill them with their magic, but humans can’t use them as a source of magical power, the way they can use everything else.”

“So then, the ones that aren’t killed in the war will be okay?”

“Yes, but…they will also eventually die from starvation just like the humans will.”

“What can we do?”

“That I don’t know. I wish I did.”

∞

Larkin wasn’t doing anything in particular. He lay, wings outstretched, enjoying the warm spring sunshine. He was so still that the birds and animals of the forest had forgotten he was there and filled the glen with their calls and songs.

“I should practice my flaming,” he muttered to himself, but he just didn’t want to. The sun felt so good, and after the long cold winter, he wanted to soak up as much of it as he could. He hated winter, as did all dragons; the cold, the snow, the long nights, all these things made winter almost unbearable. And for Larkin, it was worse because he couldn’t flame his firestones to keep himself warm.

“Thank you, Skyhawk, for Redwing,” he said. Since she had come into his life and started flaming the stones in his cave, at least his nights had been warmer.

He closed his eyes, content to let the sun warm him, and was drifting off to sleep when his keen nose picked up a strange scent. He recognized it immediately, and rose to a sitting position, waiting. A few minutes passed before the human walked into the clearing.

“Hello, Patrik,” Larkin said, as the boy approached him.

“I see you made it back okay. I’m glad,” the boy replied.

The dragon snorted his amusement. “Yes, I did, and today I learned to use crosscurrents to fly against the wind. That way I won’t have to do what I did yesterday ever again, I hope.”

Patrik smiled. “That’s a good thing. So you come here every day to eat? Aren’t you afraid that someone might see you?”

Larkin was afraid that he’d be caught eating, but not for the reasons Patrik gave. “It’s a chance I have to take. What about you? Do you come here often?”

“I only found this place the day before yesterday.”

“That explains why I never smelled you before.”

“You smelled me?”

“Sure, I can smell things long before I see them.”

Rat bounded from the bushes, snarling and hissing.

“Flaming cat!” Patrik yelled. “Get back! Where did you come from, anyway?”

The animal crept up to Larkin, all the hair on her back standing straight up. She put her nose to the ground and sniffed around the dragon’s great body.

“She’s just curious,” Larkin said. “She doesn’t bother me.”

“She bothers me. She’s always showing up where she shouldn’t be.”

“What’s her name, or does she have one?”

“Her name’s Rat, because she looked like a drowned rat when we found her hiding under a bush during a thunderstorm. We were on our way back from town, when we heard this strange noise. And there she was. We don’t know how she got there, or where her mother was, so we took her home. Big mistake, if you ask me.”

At the thought of town and all the people there, Patrik remembered his conversation with Wizard Allard. He should warn his new friend about what the king was planning to do. But wouldn’t that be betraying his race? He couldn’t decide. However, if the whole world was going to be destroyed, then it didn’t matter anyway, did it?

He scratched his head, not knowing how to tell the dragon his news. Finally, still undecided, he simply blurted it out. “There’s going to be a war.”

Larkin’s great eyes, shaded with the orange of confusion, began spiraling like a miniature whirlpool. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the king has decided to get rid of all dragons, once and forever. He called in every magician and every human to go to war against you. My master says that the whole world will be destroyed, and that nothing will survive, not the humans, not the dragons, not the plants, the trees, nothing!”

“Why is that?” Larkin asked.

Patrik explained how magic worked. How the magic user drew magical energy from every available source, and how it left that source drained and exhausted.

“That’s terrible,” Larkin said. “No wonder the elders believe that magic users are evil. Also, if we went to war, then that would make us enemies.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be enemies, anyway?”

“I guess. But I don’t see things that way. You’re not a magic user, are you?”

“No, I don’t use magic,” Patrik said with a sigh.

“And I don’t eat people. No dragon does, that I know of. So I don’t see any reason why we have to be enemies. I like talking to you.”

“I like talking to you, too. But if there’s a war, that will change things, don’t you think?”

A cloud blocked the sun and a shiver went through Larkin as a cool spring breeze rose up. “I don’t like being cold,” he explained, “and I don’t like this idea of a war.”

“That’s how I feel about it, and that’s what my master says also.”

Larkin drew his wings close into his body, trying to retain some of the sun’s warmth. Seeing the dragon shiver the way he was, Patrik moved in close, letting his body touch the dragon.

“Wow, you’re nice and warm. How’d you do that?”

“It’s just the way humans are.”

“I like it. You can touch me anytime you want.”

Patrik reached out a hand and scratched Larkin’s head ridges the way he would scratch Rat’s ears. A low rumble rewarded his efforts, and he jerked back his hand in surprise.