The Dragon in the Volcano (10 page)

“Wow!” He didn’t know what else to say. He looked like a Las Vegas performer.

Daisy stood back and squinted. “Needs a little something else.” She weaved her hands some more and sparkly white trousers with a knife-edge crease replaced his jeans. A sweep of her hands across his chest left tiers of jeweled medals in its wake. Now he looked
really
ridiculous. But Daisy seemed so pleased with her handiwork, he didn’t want to spoil her mood.

“Thanks, Daisy. I look … 
resplendent
,” he said.

“You look better than that, Jesse Tiger!” Emmy said with a grin. “You look
hot
.”

“Um, news bulletin, Em?
Everybody
is hot here in the Fiery Realm,” Jesse said. Then to Daisy, he added: “
Now
can we talk?”

“No time now to talk!” Emmy said, clapping her talons together briskly. “We’ll be late for the Fire Ball. Come along, you two wow-wows. It’s red carpet time in the Ruby City!”

“Isn’t Jasper coming to pick you up?” Jesse asked.

“Jasper said he would meet me at the dance,” Emmy said.

Jesse frowned deeply. Weren’t dates supposed to pick you up at your house? Jesse would have to have a little talk with Jasper.

Jesse trailed behind Emmy and Daisy along the diamond-paved path that led beneath the city gates. Daisy kept running ahead and leaping, clicking her heels, spinning in midair, and landing with her arms raised as gracefully as a prima ballerina.

“Admit it, Jesse Tiger. I’m amazing!” Daisy said, happy and breathless.

“You’re amazing,” Jesse said. “But we still need to talk.”

“Later!” Daisy said, bounding off. “Don’t you want to dance?”

“No, thanks,” said Jesse. As much as Daisy wanted to dance, Jesse did not. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t wearing dancing clothes. He peered beneath the white trouser cuffs and saw that he still wore sneakers. For a minute, he thought about whomping himself up some dancing slippers so that he could keep Daisy company, but then he thought again.
I don’t want to dance. I want to talk to Daisy about what I saw and heard on the Fire Screen
.

The streets of the Ruby City were teeming with dragons all converging on the same spot. Now that Jesse knew the ratio of male to female dragons, it seemed like every dragon he saw was female. Like Emmy, all had draped jeweled veils over their horns. They looked like hefty maidens from the Middle Ages. The males strutted along with medallions on ribbons around their necks, looking like ambassadors on their way to a diplomatic banquet.

Golden light blazed out of a building that looked like a towering ruby-bricked silo. The front doors, carved in the shape of two golden harps, stood wide open. Jesse and Daisy and Emmy entered and looked around. Daisy wondered how all the dragons were going to fit in the small amount of floor space, much less dance together. Rising to a dizzying height were tier upon tier of balconies draped with garlands of sparkling crystals. Mysteriously, there were no doors or stairs or ramps leading to the many balconies. Were they just for decoration? Then she saw that one balcony held a quintet of fire fairies playing crystal instruments that produced a sprightly melodic tune. It sounded like wind pinging a row of icicles.

“Come on! Let’s dance,” Daisy said, her feet already moving. Then she saw a dragon couple dancing, their feet hovering six feet off the ground,
and her feet stopped in their tracks. Jesse saw, too. How odd to see dragons, so huge and heavy on the ground, floating gracefully and gravity-free.

“Emmy, I thought you said the dragons of the Fiery Realm couldn’t fly,” Jesse said.

“They can’t. They’re just floating,” said Emmy, a crafty gleam in her eye. “Follow me.”

Emmy led them over to a small fountain in the wall spouting bluish-green foam. Next to the fountain there was a stack of large crystal bowls. She held first one bowl, then another, beneath the outflow until they were filled to the brim with the blue-green foam.

“Have some bubbly!” Emmy said, holding out the bowls.

“We’re way too young for champagne,” said Jesse.

“It’s not champagne,” said Emmy. “That’s what it’s called.
Bubbly
. Try some.”

Jesse and Daisy each gingerly cradled a sloshing bowl. Jesse brought it to his lips. The bubbles tickled his nose. He flicked his tongue in and instantly puckered up. The drink possessed the gland-prickling tartness of fresh limes.

“Interesting,” said Daisy, nose wrinkled, taking another sip. Jesse watched as Daisy’s feet rose up off the floor.

“Whoa!” said Jesse, his eyes following her. “Don’t look now, Daze, but you’re airborne.”

“So are you!” said Daisy, pointing at him and giggling. They each took a couple more sips and rose several more inches off the floor, until they were level with the first balcony tier. So
that’s
how you got to the balconies!

“Look at us!” said Daisy giddily. “Now I’ll be
really
light-footed! Let’s dance, Jess!”

They parked their bowls on the balcony rail and launched into the kind of dancing Jesse liked best, hooking elbows and swinging each other around and around. Unhampered by gravity, they threw in backflips and somersaults, laughing fit to burst.

The silo was now dense with dragons. Most of them were hovering in the air, stacked up clear to the ceiling. Jasper and Emmy were in the thick of it, spinning each other around like sparkling tops.

Breathless, Jesse finally managed to reel Daisy over to the side of the room, where they bumped up softly against the balcony like a couple of stray helium-filled balloons. “I saw Miss Alodie on the Fire Screen earlier,” Jesse said breathlessly.

Daisy’s eyes went wide. She grabbed him by his gold lamé lapel and hauled him in. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do, but you’ve been too busy having fun to listen,” Jesse said.

“I’m listening now,” Daisy said.

Jesse said, “Miss Alodie wanted to warn us that Sadra escaped from the Toilet Glass.”

“Yikes! We’ve got to get home fast and find her,” Daisy said, race-walking in midair, as if that might bring her back to the Earthly Realm or, at the very least, down to the floor. It did, in fact, do neither of these things.

“That’s just it,” Jesse said. “She was just about to tell me more when someone licked in and blocked her out. And, Daze, I had the feeling it wasn’t an accident.”

“You mean someone from here?” Daisy looked around, as if the ballroom had been transformed into a nest of spies. “Jeez! How are we supposed to get down from here? We can’t do anything until we get our feet back on the ground.”

Jesse spied Opal and Galena, who were standing over by the door. Skating through the air, he towed Daisy along behind him until they were directly over the heads of the boons. Opal’s horns were dressed with pearls and Galena’s with beads of pale pink. “Hey, pssssst, ladies!” Jesse called down to them.

Opal looked up. “Hello, Keepers! I see you’ve joined in the festivities!”

“Yeah, but can you help us get down?” Daisy asked.

Opal reached up and hauled Jesse and Daisy down to earth by their ankles. Then she kept them anchored with a paw on each head.

“Thanks, Opal. But it looks like you’re going to have to hold us down for the rest of the evening,” Daisy said.

“No, she won’t,” Galena said, and that’s when she began to pound Jesse, then Daisy, hard on the back as if they were a couple of babies with the colic. Soon enough, first Jesse, then Daisy, let out with a rippingly large and very loud belch.

Opal removed her paws from the tops of their heads. All four of their feet remained flat on the floor.

“Neat trick!” said Daisy.

“Easier than I thought it would be!” Jesse said.

“I stay away from the bubbly myself,” said Opal. “Me, I like to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.”

“Me too,” said Galena. “Especially tonight.”

Jesse was just about to ask Galena why especially tonight when the golden harp doors swung open.

A statuesque smoky-green dragon strode into the room and looked around. She had not just two but seven horns sprouting from the top of her head in a sort of spiky crown, like the Statue of Liberty, only a great deal less warm and welcoming-looking.

Four more dragons, with three horns apiece, followed the smoky-green dragon into the ballroom and lined up along the walls, two on either side of the doorway, staring at the gathering with cold eyes.

The music collapsed like a wall of breaking glass. The dragon dancers shrank away against the walls, stuffed themselves into the nearest balcony seats, and looked down in nervous anticipation, transforming the space almost instantly from ballroom to arena. Emmy and Jasper continued to spin each other around, even after the room had fallen into silence.

The smoky-green dragon with the crest of horns narrowed her eyes at the lone dancing couple. She walked over to the fountain and drank from it. The crowd gasped as the smoky-green dragon rose up several heads higher than the dancing couple and stared down at them in distaste.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Daisy whispered to Opal, looking up with dread.

“That’s Malachite, all right!” said Opal.

“Mean as a fire lion with her mane caught in an
air vent,” said Galena. “And she’s brought her rumble with her.”

“What’s a rumble?” Jesse whispered.

“Her boons. They go everywhere with her,” Opal said.

“Those four tough dragons standing against the wall with the smoke curling out of their nostrils?” Daisy asked.

“The very ones,” said Galena. “Oh, I wouldn’t tangle with any of them. Trounce you as soon as look at you.”

“Emerald of Leandra!” Malachite spoke in a loud, clear voice.

Jasper stopped midspin. “Malachite!” he said, looking up. He quickly put Emmy behind him as if attempting to shield her.

“Stand aside, Jasper,” Malachite said. “My business is with Emerald, not with you, my foolish, philandering mote.”

“Hello, Malachite!” Emmy said, gazing upward with touching eagerness. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

Malachite said coldly, “Are you ready to submit yourself to a trouncing to back your claim on the fiery mote of my heart?”

From their balcony seats, the dragons murmured amongst themselves.

“Of
your
heart?” Emmy said. “That’s funny. I
thought he was the mote of
my
heart.”

“I keep telling you,” Jasper muttered from behind Emmy. “We’re just boons.”

“Boons don’t dance together at the Fire Ball,” Malachite said. Then, eyes flashing at Emmy, she said, “I challenge you, Emerald of Leandra, to a trouncing.”

Emmy shrugged and said, “Then I guess I accept.”

The dragons howled and hooted in approval, banging the tops of the chairs in front of them like unruly children at a movie matinee.

Jasper spoke up, his voice soft and pleading. “Malachite, I beg you to understand. Emmy doesn’t know what she’s saying. She is a stranger to our ways.”

“I think not,” said Malachite, sizing up Emmy. “She may be small and an insipid shade of green, but she is nobody’s fool.”

She flexed her forepaws and eight black talons shot out, as sharp and lethal-looking as the barbs on a set of medieval battle clubs. Then Emmy shot out her talons, sharp and green as rose thorns. Talons splayed, the two began to circle each other.

Up in the balconies, the dragons buzzed, speculating as to who the winner would be. Surely Malachite, with her size and experience and her
dozens of victorious trouncings, had the edge. They continued to circle, Emmy looking up at Malachite, her green eyes alert and wary.

“Malachite’s higher. This isn’t a fair fight!” Jesse whispered furiously to Daisy.

“I know, but what can we do about it?” she whispered back.

Jesse ran over to the waterfall of bubbly and filled a bowl full. He drank enough of it to bring himself up level with Emmy, then quickly air-skated over and delivered the rest of the cup to her. “Quick, Em!” he said. “Drink it down!”

Without taking her eyes off Malachite, Emmy emptied the cup and handed it back to Jesse as she rose up level with the smoky-green dragon.

Jesse swallowed air and coaxed out a burp. He fell a few inches. Another burp came and he fell a few more inches. Before long, he was back on the floor next to Daisy, who patted his shoulder and said, “That was good thinking, Jess.”

“Oh, I am afraid she’s going to need more than bubbly to withstand a trouncing from Malachite,” Opal said with a worried rattle of her headdress.

Just then, Malachite snarled and hurled herself at Emmy. There was a loud crackle of scales colliding, followed by a blur of limbs and tails, flashing dull and emerald green. Finally, they drew apart,
their breath rasping in their chests, eyes fiercely locked.

Daisy cried out. Emmy had three long scratches down her front. She was bleeding!

“Don’t worry,” Galena whispered to Daisy, but she didn’t sound very convincing.

Opal leaned in. “You should know that Malachite has never failed to triumph in a trouncing,” she offered.

“Does this kind of thing happen here all the time?” Jesse asked.

“Trouncing is the way she-dragons prove their worthiness to their motes,” Opal explained. “Malachite knows she must fight to hold on to her mote. She is happy to defend what is hers.”

“What a world!” Daisy muttered darkly.

The dragons closed in on each other and tangled once again, tails thrashing. When they separated, Emmy grabbed hold of Malachite’s tail and swung her around. She let go and sent Malachite flying, smashing headlong into the nearest balcony. Malachite sagged against the rail, panting.

Daisy, Jesse, Opal, and Galena cheered, while everyone else was still and silent, watching and waiting. A dragon in the balcony leaned forward and poked at Malachite, urging her to return to the fray.

Malachite shook her great horned head, drew herself up, and flew at Emmy, scratching and punching and kicking and pummeling, driving Emmy down and down until Emmy’s tail rested on the floor.

Malachite drew back. Slowly, Emmy began to rise up the wall. But it was the bubbly moving her, not her own power. Emmy looked beaten and completely done in. One beautiful emerald eye was nearly swollen shut.