The Dark Shadow of Spring (27 page)

Daphne sat up suddenly, coughing and wheezing. “Hades’ hat rack!” Daphne barked. “What the gorp was that?”

Alex was so happy he found himself hugging Daphne before he knew what was happening.

“Alex,” Daphne said in surprise as she looked around. “Where am I? How did I get from my bed? And why does everybody look like I should be dead? And what’s wrong with Ben?”

“The Shadow Wraith had control of your soul,” Alex said. “It has Ben, as well.”

“Alex was able to free you,” Victoria said, her voice filled with admiration.

“But most of the town is under its power,” Nina said.

“Yeah, or trapped in sleep,” Clark said.

“Thank you,” Daphne said, placing a hand on Alex’s arm. “So what are we doing about it?”

“After I free Ben, I’ll explain,” Alex said.

“Then what the gorp are you waiting for?” Daphne said, punching Alex in the shoulder.

“Right,” Alex said, repressing a grin and turning toward Ben. Much like what he had experienced with freeing his sister and mother, the process of severing the link to the Shadow Wraith was easier the second time. A minute later, Ben was standing on his feet and grimacing.

“Yuck,” Ben said. “I feel like I need bath from the inside.”

“Ha,” Clark said as he patted his friend’s back. “You smell like you need one on the outside, as well.”

“I thought that’s what I was smelling,” Rafael said, casually bending down to pick up a baseball-sized rock from the ground and toss it gently in the air. Alex saw the hint of a smile on Rafael’s face and knew that his friend was up to something. Rafael suddenly spun on his heel and threw the stone with all his might into a stand of blackberry bushes thirty feet away. The rock struck something soft with a loud
thunk,
followed swiftly by the sound of something heavy striking the ground. “Then again, it might have been Dillon,” Rafael said with a wrinkle of his nose. “He’s usually in need of a bath and too stupid to realize when he’s upwind of us.”

“Nice work, Rafa,” Alex said, slapping Rafael on the back.

“Well,” Rafael said, “I can’t let you do everything.”

A few minutes later, they had pulled Dillon from the bushes, and Alex had severed the connection that allowed the Shadow Wraith to control the leader of the Mad Mages. Dillon coughed and shook as he sat on the ground, surrounded by his sworn enemies, while Alex explained the situation to him.

“We have to free them,” Dillon said, his voice trying to sound commanding, but coming out like a plea. “We have to free Anna and the others.”

“There’s no time to free them now,” Alex said. “They’re safe as long as no one attacks the cave.”

“I have to save them,” Dillon said, standing unsteadily to his feet. Alex was surprised. He had never liked Dillon and had always thought of him as a coward. That he was willing to go back to the cave and attempt to save his friends gave Alex a deeper respect for the boy than he would have ever thought possible.

“I promise you they’ll be safe,” Alex said, putting his hand on Dillon’s shoulder. Dillon brushed it off and faced Alex.

“This is all your fault,” Dillon spat, anger rising in his voice.

“You’re right,” Alex said, stepping closer to Dillon with his hands spread open before him. Clark and the others took a step forward as well, but Alex gestured for them to stay back. “This is my fault and only I can set it right.”

“How?” Dillon asked, his hands clenched into fists. For a moment, Alex thought the boy might try to strike him.

“That would take too long to explain,” Alex said. “But you can help. You can help save the town by warning them that an army of their friends and family under the control of the Shadow Wraith are marching down the mountain to attack them. You can save the town.”

“How?” Dillon asked again, his eyes squinting in curiosity.

“We hid our bikes back along the main path about a half mile from here,” Alex said. “If you run now, you can take a bike straight down the mountain, though the trees. You’ll be able to reach the town well ahead of the Shadow Wraith’s creature and the people it has under its spell. You can warn them what’s coming. Who is coming. If they fight back without knowing who is attacking, they could end up killing the people they love.”

Dillon thought about it a moment, his eyes searching around the faces of the Guild members encircling him. “What are you going to do?” Dillon asked in an accusing tone.

“I have a plan,” Alex said, “but if it doesn’t work, letting the town know what is happening may be the only thing that saves us all.”

“Fine,” Dillon said between clenched teeth after another moment’s thought. “Where are the bikes?”

Alex gave Dillon detailed instructions on how to find the bikes and wished him well as the older boy turned and ran toward the main path. Dillon didn’t say goodbye. And he didn’t say thank you.

“Brave, at least,” Daphne said.

“But still an ungrateful lout,” Victoria added.

“And a smelly one at that,” Rafael said.

“Yup,” Clark added with a laugh and a clap on Rafael’s back that nearly knocked the smaller boy to the ground. “With a big knot on his forehead, too.”

“Plan?” Ben said to Alex. “What’s the plan now?”

“Now we wake the dragon for real,” Alex said, looking at the shock on the other’s faces as his words struck home.

Chapter 22: Dragon’s Fire

“One stupid thing after another,” Nina muttered as she looked up at Alex. “Mom and Dad are going to kill me if I live through this.”

“You can always head back home,” Alex said as he glanced at Nina.

“Stupid,” Nina said in reply.

They were creeping along the final hundred feet of the subterranean tunnel leading to the Dragon’s lair. Victoria and the rest of the Guild followed silently behind Alex, who held a barely lit glow-wand. The dim light of the glow-wand cast flickering shadows of the companions along the smoothly carved walls of the tunnel. Alex tried to ignore the shadows. They made him think of another shadow.

Alex had been relieved to find the entrance to the Dragon’s lair unchanged from their first adventure beneath the ground a few days past. He had worried that the dragon, Gall’Adon, might have altered the rune that opened the rock slab covering the entrance to the tunnel. Fortunately, the gigantic gate of granite had slid aside as soon as Ben and Daphne created the rune in fire along its surface. They had found the traps within the tunnel unchanged as well. The whole journey had taken them less than twenty minutes from the wooded glade where Alex had freed Ben and Daphne from the Shadow Wraith’s control. Now they were only paces away from the entrance of the dragon Gall’Adon’s inner sanctum.

Alex swiftly dropped back to walk next to Ben in the rear while letting Clark take the lead. “Are you sure?” Alex asked Ben, referring to a part of the plan he had discussed with Ben when running through the forest toward the dragon’s lair.

“Yep,” Ben said, staring straight ahead and ignoring Alex’s hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Alex said, quietly so the others wouldn’t hear. He felt torn inside about what he was asking Ben to do. “It’s very dangerous.”

“Done,” Ben said, a determined tone in his voice. “If it has to be done, no one else can do it.”

“I’m sorry I have to ask you,” Alex said. “I’d do it myself if I could.”

“Glad,” Ben said, looking at Alex with a slightly wild glare in his eyes. “I’m glad. It’s a chance to show him who I am and what I’m really worth.” Alex didn’t have to ask who Ben was talking about.

“You don’t have to prove anything to your dad or anyone else,” Alex said. “Especially not to me.”

“Sure,” Ben said. “But it’ll still be nice to rub it in his face when he finds out I helped save the town. Me. The failure of a son.”

“You’re not a failure,” Alex said. “You’re a hero.”

“Heroes,” Ben said with a tight smile. “We’re all heroes today.”

“Hopefully you won’t have to,” Alex said.

“Right,” Ben said with a laugh. “We’re always lucky like that.”

Alex patted Ben on the shoulder as Victoria let out a little gasp and they all came to stand in the entrance to the dragon’s sleeping chamber. Alex wasn’t sure if the gasp had been for the ornately decorated walls of the large cavity or the massive, red-scaled dragon curled up asleep on mounds of furs.

“He’s really rather larger than I expected,” Victoria said, her front hooves dancing briefly on the stone floor. “And who is his decorator?” she added staring up at the sky mural along the ceiling.

“Maybe we can ask him,” Rafael said. “Before he eats us, that is.”

“We have something more important to ask him,” Alex said and took a deep breath.

“Then let’s get it over with,” Daphne said, stepping forward and striding toward the immense form of the sleeping dragon. “We don’t have all gorping day,” she added as she reached up and swept her hair back out of her face.

Alex nodded in silent agreement and forced himself to follow Daphne. He was glad to see that her bravery hadn’t been affected by being held soul-captive by the Shadow Wraith. If anything, she might even have become more recklessly incautious. If that was even possible. She had been the first to back his crazy plan when he had explained it. While Alex knew that she was probably motivated as much by fear as by anger, he was thankful for her courage because his own needed bolstering. It was a wild and hazardous plan. And if the plan didn’t work, the backup plan was even more insanely dangerous.

Alex and the Guild strode over to stand in front of Gall’Adon’s car-sized head and stopped. Alex stared at the leathery lids that covered the dragon’s sleeping eyes. He could not forget that he had stood in just this same spot less than a week before. And he could not forget that that the dragon’s words to him had revealed a destiny that he was only just beginning to fully comprehend. It was a destiny that would take years to unfold. But destiny was not fate, Alex reminded himself. His future and the future of the whole valley, if not the whole world, could be decided by his actions.

“Gall’Adon!” Alex said in a voice much louder and more confidence-filled than he had suspected possible in that moment. “Gall’Adon, Dragon Lord, it is I, Alex Ravenstar, come to beg your assistance in defeating the Shadow Wraith. Awake from your sleep, Dragon Lord. Awake and help us in our time of need.” Alex held his lungs breathless, fearing to breathe in as he waited for the dragon to wake. Waited for what he would say to the request Alex had to make of him.

The dragon breathed deeply, his mouth spreading wide open in a yawn so powerful it seemed Alex and his companions might be sucked inside the dragon’s maw by the rapid inward flow of air. As his mouth closed, his wheel-sized eyes opened wide. They did not wander about the room, but instead locked upon Alex, remaining steady and unmoving even as his tree-sized tail swished about the chamber a hundred feet away.

“Why have you risen me from my slumber a second time, Alex Ravenstar?” the dragon Gall’Adon asked, the power of his voice shaking Alex’s body like a storm wind.

“The Shadow Wraith is breaking its bonds,” Alex said. “We need your help to seal it back in its prison.”

“How is this my concern?” Gall’Adon rumbled.

“The Shadow Wraith will destroy the valley,” Alex said, surprised by the dragon’s seeming indifference. “It already has half the town under its control.”

“The affairs of humans are of no importance to dragons,” Gall’Adon said.

“If the Shadow Wraith destroys the humans of the valley, it will surely destroy you as well,” Victoria said, seeming slightly surprised that she had spoken. The dragon’s great eyes shifted to her before he spoke.

“Humans created the Shadow Wraith,” Gall’Adon said. “It is for humans to deal with.”

“We need your help to defeat the Shadow Wraith,” Alex said, trying to understand the dragon’s reluctance. “Only the magical power of dragon fire can seal the Shadow Wraith back into its prison.” Alex hoped that this was true. In the same book he had read about dragons being able to reveal the destiny of those who could wake them only slightly, he had also read about the magical power of dragon fire. He knew, in the same way he had known the rune-magic to free his sister and mother and Ben and Daphne, that the dragon’s fire was essential to pushing the Shadow Wraith back into its magical penitentiary.

“Ah,” Gall’Adon said, a rumble of laughter shaking the room. “It was dragon fire that was used to create the Shadow Wraith. How fitting that dragon fire should be required for it to be held at bay.”

“Then you will help us?” Alex said, feeling hope rise and begin to dispel his fear.

“No,” Gall’Adon said. “That I will not do. I have told you. This is for humans to deal with.”

“Why in the name of Gaia’s gallstones not?” Daphne said in a growl. “What are you afraid of? Are you a dragon or a salamander?” Alex glanced in horror at Daphne and then looked back to see Gall’Adon pulling himself up to his feet and stretching to his full height.

“I am Gall’Adon!” the dragon roared, the dust shaking down from the ceiling. “I am Lord of all Dragons and I will not be spoken to thus by a sliver of a tree nymph.”

“I am sorry,” Alex said, stepping even closer to the dragon, placing himself between the beast and his friends. “We mean no disrespect, but our valley and our world are on the edge of destruction and only you have the power to save us.”

“If it were not the Shadow Wraith you fought, I might consider your request,” Gall’Adon said. “For the right exchange.”

“We can offer you an exchange,” Alex said, wondering what sort of payment a dragon would request for its services.

“There is no price high enough to settle a dragon’s revenge,” Gall’Adon said, his thick, leathery lips spreading wide to reveal long spiked teeth. The dragon’s statement made Alex even more nervous than his teeth.

“What could a dragon of your power need with revenge?” Alex asked. “And revenge against whom?”

“Humans,” Gall’Adon said with disgust as he settled down to rest on his belly once again. “You pass nothing on to your offspring. Your lives are so short that your memories become dust. Do you think the Shadow Wraith was created out of shadows? Do you think it was conjured out of smoke and air?”