Awakening

by G Clatworthy

  Marco nodded then slammed the book down and raced upstairs. I turned back to my book, which despite being billed as a Quest for Dragons, was an incredibly dull account of the author’s travels around Europe. I heard Marco’s steps returning and looked up expectantly. He was carrying an A0 size poster of the UK and a lot of pins.

  “It was a gift when I moved here,” he explained as he attached it to the cork notice board on the wall of the kitchen. It overhung by a lot so we pinned it into the wall as well. I hoped the pin sized holes wouldn’t affect their student deposits but I knew how picky landlords could be. As we were attaching the map to the wall, I heard a raised voice in the hall before Lorandir marched in.

  “They don’t believe me,” he said incredulously, glaring at his phone before throwing it on the table. “Two of our own kind, maybe more, ignoring all warnings and trying to wake a dragon, and those bloody idiots won’t do more than try to contact Espretha!” Lorandir was exasperated and it was the first time I’d seen him express so much emotion.

  Smothering the British instinct to offer him a cup of tea, I shoved the Elvish book that the Professor had given us towards him. “We’d better try to find the location then, so we can get it watched,” I had no idea how we were going to do that, but the Dwarves might be more amenable to helping.

  As we read, we pinned any UK location that the authors had marked as a potential for a location for a sleeping dragon. There were some general consistencies around them needing a lot of space, peace and quiet and likely to be underground, but there were a lot of discrepancies between the experts who wrote the books. Browne focused on hills and cave networks whereas Petrovsky was more concerned with fairy circles and places of power. This led to a lot of seemingly random pins placed into the map.

  After three hours of speed reading and many cups of tea, I had had enough. I blinked at the map trying to focus when something occurred to me. There were a small number of locations that had several pins in them and two were near Cardiff, with lots more single pins dotted around the city as well.

  “Guys, I think we should focus on Cardiff…” Lorandir and Marco looked up and I indicated the pins. “There could be a dragon under us!” The thought was uncomfortable but my gut told me I was onto something, why else were the elves here? Marco grabbed a load of post-its and handed them out. Any time Cardiff or a nearby location was mentioned, we placed a post-it in the book and I dropped a pin into the map app on my phone. An uncomfortable pattern emerged.

  I held up my phone. “It looks like there could be a dragon under Cardiff Castle…”

  Marco swore softly in Italian while Lorandir furrowed his smooth forehead. “Are there any other places with as many pins?”

  I zoomed the map out so it covered most of South Wales. “Actually, yes,” I surprised myself and zoomed in on another location nearby, “it’s another castle, Castell Coch.”

  I supressed a snort of laughter, I’d lived in Cardiff long enough to have heard the castle’s name many times but Coch, pronounced roughly as cock by those who tried their best and meaning “red” in Welsh, still sounded funny to me.

  “Did Espretha mention anything about either castle?” I asked.

  Lorandir shook his head. I shouted for Aloora to come in. She almost ran in then stopped when she saw our map and faces.

  I cut to the chase. “The dragon might be under Cardiff Castle or Castell Coch.”

  She considered then shrugged. “There’s a theory that certain monuments might be designed to protect dragons or prevent them from waking. Castles would fit that. And it makes sense it would be in Cardiff, else why wouldn’t the elves take me somewhere else or pick someone else, I’m not the only person proficient in Draconian.”

  We all stared at her, she knew that all along! “You are the only person who regularly broadcasts their location on social media though,” I felt I had to claw back some of our triumph at finding two likely locations.

  Aloora nodded, “I don’t think we can do much more tonight, I’ll text the Professor with what we’ve found and my progress on the translation and we can meet up tomorrow.”

  Lorandir shifted uncomfortably, “Actually, I was hoping to stay with Espretha, but…”

  “Where did you stay yesterday?” Aloora asked curiously.

  Lorandir looked at me, “With Amethyst…” Aloora shot me a curious look.

  I folded my arms. “It was….well there’s no room really,” Great. That made it sound more suspicious.

  Marco offered up the sofa in their shared house and we said our goodbyes after I turned down Lorandir’s offer to walk me home. I wanted to walk alone in the fresh night air to clear my head from the wine I had been drinking and the discovery that we could be walking on top of a dragon.

  I decided to walk past the museum and Town Hall to get home rather than follow the road to the main pedestrianised area. It also took me past Cardiff Castle and I had a strange desire to see the building and reassure myself it was a castle, not a dragon’s resting place. The best I could do was look at walls and the keep that peeked over the high walls. I walked quickly, staying alert for rogue wyrms, my hand on Bane.

  As I walked past the museum, I looked up at the flags swaying in the light breeze which displayed the show piece of the current exhibit. It looked like a large claw or tooth mounted into a golden hilt that had a single emerald placed into its front. I read the name of the exhibition spelled out in both English and Welsh and then the smaller text about the dagger with a sinking feeling.

  Dragons - The Exhibition – Dragon-forged Fang Dagger.

  I took a picture on my smartphone and sent to Aloora. She immediately texted back. I’m on my way.

  This was bad; an artefact that could be used in the ritual was being stored here in Cardiff in the National Museum. I walked closer, heading up the steps to the imposing stone columns that fronted the museum. There was no one around that I could sense. I tried the heavy wooden doors at the front entrance. They were locked and judging by their size, the only way someone could break in was with a small battering ram. Good. My phone buzzed. Another text from Aloora.

  Meet me at the Professor’s office.

  Now I had no idea what was going on, but I jogged the few minutes back from the museum to the main University building practically next door, signed in again as the security guard joked that I couldn’t stay away and ran upstairs to his office. I couldn’t remember exactly where it was along the corridor so I slowed down to read the name plates until I found his office. Low murmuring from inside suggested Aloora was already there. I knocked then pushed the door open.

  Aloora was indeed sat down in Professor Maron’s office, as were both Lorandir and Marco. The Professor was standing by his kettle, in the process of making tea.

  The Professor clapped his hands together gleefully as I entered. “Well, well, well. The group of adventurers has found an artefact, and so soon! It could of course be coincidence…but it is entirely possible that this could be used in the ritual, especially because I have made progress with the translation. It seems that blood must be spilled to awaken a dragon, they are predators after all. This dagger could do that.” Aloora nodded, confirming his grim assessment of the translation. The Professor handed out well-brewed cups of herbal tea to all of us.

  “We need to warn somebody,” Lorandir stood as if he would march out of the room right now.

  The Professor gestured dismissively, “Yes, yes. I’m good friends with the curator of the exhibit, I was planning to go myself actually. It’s rare to see so many pieces of dragon history together, ironically to celebrate the Spring Solstice, rebirth and all that. The dagger is to be the showpiece….” He seemed to realise he was rambling. “Anyway, I’ve called her and the dagger is so valuable they aren’t putting it on display until the start of the exhibition. It’s locked up at the owner’s vault until then and will be travelling under top security.”

  I thought back to the dates on the flag. “The exhibition starts on Monday!” />
  “Exactly, my young half-dwarf. So, Mei, that’s the curator, will meet us tomorrow afternoon and we can tell her all about our fears. We can stop this particular artefact from getting into their hands. We must hope this is what they are after,” he gazed into middle distance for a time before rubbing his hands together, “now, it is the witching hour. I suggest you all return to your beds and get some rest. I will see you in the museum lobby at four p.m. sharp.”

  I was about to apologise for disturbing him, but the old elf seemed excited and Aloora had been the one to contact him, so with a smile from the Professor and worried glances between the rest of us, we left the messy office and exited the building. I felt a pang of loneliness as the other three went back to Aloora and Marco’s house share but squashed it down and kept my goodbyes light and breezy before walking very quickly home. This time, I chose the slightly longer route through the main pedestrianised centre, I wanted bright lights and people around, even if it was drunken students on their way between clubs. I had never been gladder to see Errol than when I rushed into my shop cum home and let him curl up in bed with me that night, a welcome hot water bottle soothing the anxious thoughts that were whirling around my head.

  Chapter 10

  I awoke early. My dreams had been confused visions of massive dragons trying to eat Aloora and fire surrounding me. I shook my head as if that would get rid of the uneasiness I felt. Errol grumbled as I pushed him aside to get some cereal. I had forgotten to get milk with all the excitement yesterday, so made do with toast and some out of date jam. I figured it had so much sugar in it, it was bound to be OK.

  I took a long shower in peace before shoving on an oversized iron man t-shirt and black jeans and heading down to the forge. The Royal Arcade didn’t open until eleven a.m. on Sundays so I had some time to myself before I would open the shop. I gave Errol a bucket of coal and refilled his water bowl as I contemplated my tools and materials. I wanted to make something that would help us, but what could help against dragons…if it came to the worst.

  I chewed my lip as I thought, and eventually decided that protection from fire would be useful. With Errol’s help I forged five flame-shaped golden charms, imbued with magic to stop the wearer being burned. I had given them a cartoonish shape and they looked quite sweet, so I made an extra couple to sell in the shop, glad that my dwarven heritage meant I was a quick crafter. I strung my charm onto my key chain alongside the anti-elvish glamour charm that Gunther had given me and decided to test it. I gave Errol the command for “Fire” and pointed to my shoe. Errol was well trained but he gave me a look and didn’t spout any flames until I gave the command a second time. Then he blasted out a spurt of fire that flickered on my boot. It felt warm, but not unpleasantly so and I was pleased to see that the rubber sole on my leather boot was undamaged. The charms worked. Errol snorted and I rewarded him with a piece of charcoal and a scratch behind his ear before he curled up and went back to sleep.

  It was with a self-satisfied smile that I opened up my shop that day. It was slow trading compared to Saturday but I still managed to sell a few pieces of jewellery including one of my new fire charms. The hours passed slowly, but finally it was time to close up and get to the museum.

  I arrived at the same time a number of tourists were leaving but the steps outside were so wide, I avoided them easily and stepped inside. I scanned the lobby. It was surprisingly light for such a large building. Pale coloured columns drew the eye upwards to the light open galleries upstairs. My eyes alighted on the huge black dragon skeleton arranged as if it were about to take off. I gaped, it was larger than Dippy the Diplodocus who had been doing a tour of the UK and I thought had filled the space when I had seen it in the museum last year. Next to the ominous skeleton, I spotted the Professor talking to a small Chinese lady with a neat black bob and a fitted jacket over tight jeans. I wandered over and in a broad Scottish accent, she introduced herself as Mei, the curator of the new exhibit. She smiled as we shook hands, and then we waited awkwardly for the others.

  Fortunately, they arrived soon after and interrupted the start of what looked like becoming a discourse on the intricacies of historic elvish politics as the Professor began to fill the awkward silence.

  After introductions, Mei cut to the chase. “Elrond tells me you’re interested in my new exhibition. I’m really excited about it, let me show you around.” She waved away the member of staff who had been heading in our direction to ensure we knew it was almost closing time and led us briskly past the gift shop into the Evolution of Wales gallery.

  “We’ve completely reorganised this gallery so all the dragon fossils found in Wales are together and the British Museum has loaned us the complete skeleton you saw in the lobby. This is the first time so many dragon related pieces have been together at any museum,” she noticed we were all staring upwards at the massive skull suspended from the ceiling and smiled like a fond mother, “We call her the Meglodragon. Or Meg for short. She’s the largest known dragon skull ever found and she was found not too far from here, in Llantwit Major.”

  “She?” interrupted Lorandir.

  “Oh yes, dragons were matriarchal, the largest were always female. They also had the venom – look closely, can you see the arc in the top jaw there? Well that’s where the muscles attached to the venom sac would have connected. Males don’t have them. Now after this, you can see a bit of dragon and other species interaction through the ages as we carry on this way.” Mei led us around the gallery, commenting on various dioramas and other finds throughout the Evolution of Wales. We ended up back in the lobby and Mei gave a bright smile as she followed large red dragon footprints stuck to the floor to a smaller gallery.

  “In here are the crown jewels so to speak. I’ve been persuading private collectors to loan us their dragon objects for years.”

  “Don’t museums have the right to first bid on dragon artefacts?” I asked, recalling something I’d read in the paper a few years back when a large hoard of treasure had been discovered in a field.

  “Well yes and no. If the item was found post 1996 then yes, but before that it went to the highest bidder and dragon forged items are not only rare, they are extremely valuable. We’ve got the dragon blade from a family that has had it handed down through generations. It’s been a real coup to get all of these together,” she gestured to the gallery and we all split up to look at the pieces.

  One side was titled Inspiration from Dragons and included modern art sculptures, clothing from a famous fashion designer and older renaissance artworks that looked vaguely familiar. The other side held dragon related items. I paused in front of a football sized fossilised dragon’s egg with a blue tinge to it that had been mounted in a silver egg cup covered with sapphires. No wonder Mei was pleased with her exhibition, I thought, as I read the plaque noting it was on loan from a private collection. I contemplated the weapons that claimed to have slain dragons that lined the wall. There was a mix of swords, including one shaped like a scimitar and even an axe. I wondered if that might be the real Bane of legend but there was nothing on the small plaque next to it.

  The blades all still looked sharp from what I could tell, indicating dwarven craftsmanship, and I was giving them a critical eye when I noticed Lorandir next to me.

  He smiled, “Almost as good as the one you made for me.”

  I bristled, as much on principle as anything else, but I could be in real trouble with the Dwarven Arms Council if they thought I was advertising my goods as dwarven. “My skill is nothing like what would be required to make a blade capable of killing a dragon. See how the metal glints on all of them and the blades are still sharp, that’s blue forged steel, a secret only known to master dwarf smiths. It can take a hundred years to produce. I can feel the enchantments on some of them from here, these are powerful blades. My weapons can put down more mundane threats but not a dragon!” I realised my voice had risen and I had said too much as I felt everyone else’s eyes on me.

  The Professor coughed.
“Well, that’s all well and good my fair half-dwarf, but it seems to me that there is one glaring omission in this exhibit,” he waved towards an empty podium in the centre of the room.

  Mei smiled again. “Yes, the Fang Dagger. This is the only known example of a dragon-forged blade in the UK. It’s unique and very valuable, not just because of the jewels in its hilt. Legend has it that it was an incisor from the famous emerald dragon Baskelique herself. She gifted it to the elf king Lunaster to thank him for fighting alongside the dragon against the Mostrim in the battle of Babylon. She worked with the elvish smiths to forge the ceremonial Fang Dagger to commemorate the alliance and bring peace with the elves. Of course, that was when dragons and other races still co-existed with relative harmony, the Mostrim aside. That race seems to have fought everyone, which is probably why they were hunted down all those thousands of years ago.”

  “You said ceremonial?” I interrupted what was building into a discourse on ancient history.

  Mei’s look turned thoughtful. “Yes, but it was still used as a weapon. Lunaster allegedly used it as his second favourite weapon after his sword, Novestri. That is said to be an exquisite sword but the elves guard it preciously, I haven’t even been able to see it,” she finished wistfully, looking at Lorandir, who looked away.

  The Professor picked up the conversation. “The Fang Dagger is indeed an important exhibit, and its history is illustrious, but why isn’t it here?”

  Mei shrugged, “The collector was very particular about security, it’s arriving at nine a.m. tomorrow morning with an armed security escort. They are also providing two additional security guards to man the exhibit at all times and of course our museum security has been upped as well. That’s a pressure release pad on the podium that will trigger an alarm and a lockdown if it is released, and of course we’ll have bullet proof glass around it once it’s in place. It’s a real rarity that it’s on display at all, this is the first time it will be in public for nearly a hundred years, so I’m happy to accommodate the extra security. You’ll come and see it tomorrow I hope,” she smiled round us and then faltered at our grim expressions.