After a few moments, she kissed his forehead, then released him.
“Why did you bring him?” she asked accusingly, looking past his shoulder, and he turned. Balor stood there, his shoulders back and head high.
“I told you before,” the man answered unapologetically, “We cannot do this without him.”
“I wanted to come, mom,” he said, suddenly finding himself a wall between the two. Her mouth tightened, but she did not reprimand him, nor did she countermand Balor. Finally, she spoke again, her voice now soft.
“I was too late to stop her. I’m sorry. I should have roared when she approached the barrier, but I didn’t want to reveal myself. I never thought she would touch it.” His mother nodded towards the blue-grey mist swirling above the hole in the ground left by the fallen tree.
“My daughter?” Balor asked. His mother nodded.
“She was sucked through the moment her finger contacted the mist, even as Àibell yelled at her not to. You should be proud of your wife. She did not hesitate but ran straight into it.”
They all glanced at the mist. Miguel was certain it was slowly growing.
“There was never an opening here before,” said Balor. “The barrier is weaker than I realized. We must destroy the gate now. There are only a few other humans in the campground, but they could already be up.”
“Or Skookum,” his mom answered. “I’m surprised none have arrived yet.” She studied Balor closely. “How can I possibly trust you?”
His mentor simply shrugged, but Miguel was confused.
“Wait! Aren’t we going to save them?”
“Not through here, boy. Even if this isn’t a trap, there are too many humans around to not have others stumble into the gate and be sucked in as well. We could all be killed simply trying to defend them. Don’t worry, there is a better entrance up there.” Balor pointed east, where he could just see mountains through the break in trees.
“But, Aileen…”
“We can’t risk it, Miguel,” his mom said sadly. “Fortunately, Àibell’s with her. The other faeries know her, and who she’s married to. They know the Lord Changeling will come for her and they will wait.” She looked at Balor, her lips tight, then added, “I have no choice, do I?”
“Trust is not easy to give, not to one who betrayed you, no matter how long ago that was, so I don’t ask for it. I ask for my wife and daughter.”
“Very well, but I will kill you the moment I think you threaten my son.”
“Mom!”
“Fair enough,” said Balor. “I will start then, but I think the strength of Wu Zhao is necessary.” He turned to Miguel. “Watch closely, boy, and learn, but do not join us. Stay alert for any magic that is not ours and destroy it.”
Without any further preamble, Balor raised his hands and pointed towards the blue-grey swirl. Purplish-tinged lightning crackled on his fingertips for a few seconds then shot into the mist like a battering ram. The gate staggered as it absorbed the magic, and the color darkened.
A shadow rose above him and he turned. His mother had transformed back into a red dragon. For a moment, her shape intrigued him, being much longer and narrower then dragons in the movies, and he suddenly understood where the Chinese part of him came from. As her long neck snaked protectively in front of him and a narrow blast of flame streaked towards the mist, something clicked into place inside him. He did not know why it was important she was a Chinese dragon and not a European dragon, but he felt more complete.
In that moment, he could see the different magics battling. His mother’s flame was not merely fire. It was like his magic, but more elemental. Balor’s was refined gold in comparison, with finesse rather than raw power. The mist itself was a mindless thing, a puzzle to be unraveled, but its resistance was strong. Each burst from his mother allowed Balor’s magic to work itself deeper, but never enough to disengage the lock.
Something struck the gate from the other side and he thought he would vomit. He could not see it, but rather sensed it was a pale magic, rotting green like a mockery of the moss on this side of the rain forest. It was ill and evil, and attacked their magic as if working the lock from the opposite end.
Without hesitation, he added his own magic, already ignited by the nausea. He tried to copy his mother’s narrow focus, but his first attempt was much broader. The other magic staggered. He tried a second time, this time aligning his magic with his mother' and Balor’s. It was far from perfect, but he could sense how it augmented theirs. The evil magic careened backwards, and Balor’s quickly reached the locking mechanism in the gate. It snapped shut and Miguel fell on his rear, soaking his jeans.
The swirling mist was gone, but the base of the trunk was blackened as if struck by lightning. He glanced at the others. Balor’s grey hair was matted, strands sticking to his cheek and covering his eyepatch. Smoke twirled upwards from his mother’s snout.
Her snout! he thought as he rose and brushed leaves off his jeans, staring at her. My mother really is a dragon! I wish I could change like that!
“Wu Zhao!” Balor shouted. “There’s no time to waste. Take us to the gate at the Blue Glacier. We can enter there.”
Her voice rumbled, deep and rich. Her response seemed a mix of animal sounds and a foreign language. At the back of his mind, he sensed he should understand it, but he couldn’t figure out how.
“What humans?” said Balor, waving his arms. “Your storm ensured no one will be on the trail, and there’s almost no one in the campground. If we go now, any possible sighting will be laughed at.”
This time, her response almost made sense to Miguel. He was certain he understood a couple of words, but the rest were too muddy.
“Do you think Finaarva will wait while we hike up there? Do you think that was the only weak spot in the barrier? You are the only hope for my family.” Balor hesitated, then added, “Please.”
His mother kneeled. “Hurry up, then,” she said.
For a moment, Miguel didn’t understand what they were supposed to do. Suddenly, he thought, I understand dragon speech! just as Balor grabbed his arm, dragging him towards his mother’s long tail.
“Come on, boy. You might never get this chance again.”
He stumbled, then followed Balor, whose faery wings snapped open. The man flew up to the base of his mother’s tail, landing lightly.
“Climb up! Hurry!”
He paused for a moment. I’m supposed to ride on my mom’s back? Balor’s hand extended towards him, his mentor leaning down as far as he could. Miguel grabbed it, then used his other hand and feet to climb up the scales. They felt so strange, leathery, but warm and dry with a tingle he instinctively knew was her magic. He remembered the scale he’d found at his house. It was similar, but these scales were alive.
Balor hauled him up, leading him over his mom’s serpentine back until they stood just behind her head.
I’m going to ride a dragon! He grabbed her neck.
“Hold tightly,” she said. His whole arm rattled as she spoke. “Try gripping my scales.”
His mother’s scales overlapped almost like rigid, diamond-shaped feathers, with the bottom edge no longer attached. They were not easy to hold onto. He lay tight against her neck, his arms stretched around it as far as they could reach, each hand tautly clutching a scale. She tensed and he involuntarily squeezed his eyes shut as her legs pushed against the ground, then propelled upward, followed by the first stroke of her wings. The initial rocking motion nearly knocked him loose, and he gripped so hard the scale edges pressed sharply against his palms.
As the first gust of air blew his hair back, he opened his eyes. They soared past the tops of the massive trees, then his mom leveled her flight, angling east towards the mountains. The sun had not yet crested so only their ridged outline was clearly visible.
Then the world was suddenly silent save for the whoosh of the wind in his ears and the leathery snap of his mother’s wings. He imagined he now saw the world as a bird saw it. Relaxing, he lean
ed to the side so he could feel the wind on his body. It was chill but, at the same moment, made him feel weightless. At times, she skimmed so close to the trees he could graze his hand along their tops, then the ground would fall away in a sudden valley and he would laugh, especially when a hawk was beneath him. Even pressed against his mother’s neck, he felt tranquility and freedom he had not known existed.
Slowly, as they climbed towards the highest peak, he thought, This is what I want to do! When I get home, if I can’t become a dragon, mom and dad are going to have to let me learn how to hang glide!
After several minutes, the sun crested the ridges. Orange beams streaked towards them and the indigo sky morphed into butter yellow in the blink of an eye. He squinted as he looked toward the mountains; now he could see white snow between sharp grey rocky backbones instead of black silhouettes. Below, the land blossomed in myriad hues of bright green: mostly alpine pastures of long grasses and scattered copses of tall, thin firs, but also small aquamarine lakes and occasional grey boulders.
They rose higher. Patches of snow appeared in some of the nearby meadows, and he shivered. He lay tight against his mother’s neck. Despite the warmth of her scales, his back felt as if icicles were forming. Then she angled downward towards a svelte waterfall that tumbled into a small lake. The green-blue water was so clear he could see fallen logs crisscrossing its bottom.
His mom’s wings spread wide, rapidly slowing their descent. He tensed, expecting a jarring thud like an airplane touching down. Instead, she landed so gently on the rock-strewn lake edge that the gravel did not crunch. She knelt and Balor vaulted down immediately while he stretched his arms around his mom’s neck, hugging her.
“Thanks, mom,” he whispered. Her body rumbled like a purr and he looked up. Her green eyes met his. A strange sensation passed through him; it was odd to see his eyes staring back at him from a dragon’s face.
Jumping down, he glanced about. The thin waterfall cascaded noisily, lightly churning the far end of the lake. A stream wandered out the near end, casually meandering down the gentle slope and disappearing into the meadow. Large boulders lay strewn as if some giant had tossed dice. Trees were few—mostly slender firs—and stood like lonely sentinels or in small copses. The sun had fully risen above the mountain ridges, and purple lupines and white avalanche lilies burst into bloom as if welcoming a dear friend.
“They are here,” his mother growled, or at least that’s what he thought she said. Her speech was clearly not English; it was not even human, but he was somehow certain it was what she meant.
“I sense them as well,” Balor muttered and his dragonfly wings sprang open. “They’re in that copse over there.” He nodded towards a stand of trees twenty or thirty yards away and down the slope.
“There are faeries here?” Miguel asked.
His mom shook her head and Balor said, “Not faeries. Skookum. Guardians of the great spirits. What most humans call Sasquatch.”
He whirled, half expecting a pack of Wookies from Star Wars to march out.
“Quiet, boy. I doubt they’ve ever seen a dragon, a faery, and a human together.”
“Why are they here?”
“They’re always here. The primary gate into the faery reality is behind that waterfall. If it wasn’t for your mom, they’d have already attacked me.”
He turned to the one-eyed man. “Why? What did you do?”
“It’s what I am. Faeries are not allowed to exist in this reality, and the great spirits created the Skookum to ensure we stayed in our prison. Only changelings could get past, if we concealed ourselves as animals. Only one faery have they ever allowed past, at a very great cost to her.”
“You mean Àibell, don’t you?”
Balor nodded.
He wanted to know more, but shadows in the copse shifted, and a half-dozen dark creatures emerged. Their bristly fur was black and short like a wolf’s, as were their long snouts and black noses. At first, he thought they were oversized wolves, walking cautiously on all fours, until they rose onto their hind legs. Their arms or front legs were so long their knuckles brushed the grasses like the arms of gorillas.
Their eyes, however, caught Miguel’s attention. They were round with white sclera and blue irises. Human eyes, not animal at all. As the Sasquatches halted several feet away, all he could think was, They don’t look one bit like Chewbacca!
The Sasquatches inclined their heads towards his mother; not bows of servitude but an acknowledgment of her superiority. Then one spoke, its voice guttural. As with his mother in her dragon form, he understood the words even if he knew they did not speak any human language.
“Thunderbird. Welcome. We are ready to serve the spirits.”
“You serve well,” his mother answered. “These with me also serve. You will allow them passage.”
The Sasquatches fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable.
His mother stretched her neck to its full length. “I am a great spirit. You will obey.”
The creatures bowed as one, but the speaker said, “Bear must be told.”
She nodded, quite regally he thought.
“I would speak with Bear and Salmon. These would speak with the slaqs who are friends of the mountain.”
The Sasquatches looked at each other. Miguel was certain they were worried. Finally, they turned to his mother again.
“We cannot enter. The citx is sick. We will do as you ask, but the other spirits may not come. There is more. The gate is poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Balor asked disbelievingly. “That is not possible. A thing of magic cannot be poisoned.”
The Sasquatch shrugged. “It is what it is, and that is what we understand. We will not enter.”
Miguel turned to Balor. “What are they talking about?”
The one-eyed man frowned. “They say that the faery reality is sick and something wrong with the gate.” Balor pointed towards the waterfall.
He saw the gate the instant his mentor pointed it out to him. A hint of swirling blue-grey mist where the water plunged into the lake, easily hidden by the spray. Other than being harder to see, it looked no different from the gate they had destroyed earlier.
“I feel nothing,” his mother rumbled, and Balor nodded, who raised his hands. Purplish-tinged lightning jumped on his fingertips. The man looked up at his mother, who bent her head slightly in assent.
The lightning leaped, piercing the middle of the mist. Instantly, Miguel felt what the Sasquatch had called poison. Before he could yell, the waterfall detonated in a deafening eruption of emerald green light, a boom that echoed, bouncing down the hillside into the valley below. The stream sprayed straight towards them like a firehose, the droplets as shiny as gold coins in the early morning sunlight and accompanied by shards of rocks spewed from the hillside. He threw his arms over his head and dropped to his knees, hoping that they wouldn’t hurt too much.
Surprisingly, all he felt were a few beads of cold water. He could hear dozens of tiny thuds as rocks struck flesh then fell to the dirt. Cautiously, he glanced up. His mother had spread her wings to their full extent, absorbing the damage. He had no idea how she could move so fast, then noticed the pinpricks of light, dozens of them, that shone through her membranes.
“Mom!” he cried.
Her dragon head swiveled.
“Miguel,” she growled. “The mist. Use your magic now!”
She lifted one wing and he glanced towards the ruined waterfall. There was a gaping hole in the hillside just above the tiny lake like the missing eye in Balor’s face. Water still flowed from above, now falling like a gauzy curtain, but it was not enough to cool the damaged rocks and dirt. Smoky tendrils curled upward. Blue smoke, he realized. The magic was escaping.
He had no idea what that meant, except that it couldn’t be good, and reached out with his mind, releasing a thin trickle of his magic into the mist. No hint of the poison remained, but something else lurked, a dark evil like a crouching mountain lion with its teeth bared, waiting fo
r enough of the magic to escape so it could leap through. Fear filled him as he wondered if the barrier Balor had spoken of was breaking apart, then anger at the thought of his mom’s injuries. Aileen’s face floated in his vision, her eyes sad like her mother’s and her red hair limp. The dark evil held her prisoner.
Fear and anger transformed into fury. His belly growled as if he hadn’t eaten in a month and he opened his mouth, his eyes focused on the mist. He roared and magic spewed out of him until he gagged. Dropping to his knees, he wiped his mouth. His hand came away sticky and wet, and he glanced down. Greenish-yellow vomit dripped. His stomach ached and he panted, desperately wanting water.
“Well done, boy!” Balor exclaimed and he glanced at the mist. It swirled like the gate in the Hall of Mosses. He did not want to touch it again, fearing the dark evil, but forced his magic to weave through it in a narrow thread, knowing the danger Aileen was in. A fresh scar held the mist together, raw and red in his mind, but the dark evil had retreated.
“I saw your daughter,” he said breathlessly. He could taste the bile now and tried to spit it out. “I think they’re hurting her.”
Suddenly, a raspy voice howled with maniacal laughter from somewhere above them and Balor’s face turned ashen, his eyes grim.
“I thought to never hear that voice again,” he whispered hoarsely.
A small, grey-skinned figure stepped to the top of the broken waterfall. It wore a bright green top hat and an elaborately brocaded vest and breeches. It bowed deeply, removing its hat to reveal a bald head.
“Welcome home, Lord Changeling!” it mocked. “Welcome, oh mighty Wu Zhao, terror of the skies.”
“Hagr Twyllo.” Balor spat.
Blood of the Dragon Page 32
