The Dragon of Avalon

by T.A. Barron

  Basil's slim chest expanded as he drew a breath of air. Instantly, his nose tingled with a rich array of smells. Some of them he couldn't recognize, though he knew others from his encounters with the seabirds he'd met as a youth in Woodroot. For thousands of migrating seabirds had gathered there every winter in noisy flocks that filled the branches from the highest spruce tree to the lowest alder bush.

  He smelled sea salt, pungent and yet always alluring. Kelp, floating on the waves. Driftwood, along with a hint of algae. Fish, fish, and more fish. Plus the feathers of gulls—whose smell had long annoyed him, since seagulls made a habit of dropping their gooey guano on shrubs and stream banks . . . and sometimes on him.

  "HhhWaterroot," whispered the wind sister, her breath now scented by the sea. "Hhhwe have arrived."

  "So I see," answered Basil. "And what a journey you gave me, Aylah. I'll never forget it."

  "Nor hhhwill I, little hhhwanderer." Her airy voice gusted like a storm at sea. "Nohhhw I hhhwill leave you again, stretching myself to the very hhhwidest to search for Merlin! Even then, it hhhwill not be easy to find him, in a realm so huge as hhhWaterroot."

  "I want to go with you! To help find him." He shifted his broken wing only slightly, but that was enough to send a wave of pain through his whole body. "Please," he said through gritted teeth. "Take me with you."

  "No. This hhhwill be faster! I must look over vast distances. Hhhwhy, he could be anyhhhwhere from the Geyser of Crystillia to the magical hhhWellspring of Mist. He could be south, in the Rainbohhhw Seas, hhhwhere the hhhwater shines like liquid rainbohhhws. Or he could be far to the north, in the lair of the hhhwater dragons."

  "Water dragons?" Despite all the moisture in the air, his throat went dry. "There are dragons here?"

  "Yes, and hhhwhile they do not breathe fire, they are hhhwoefully fierce." She swept around him, reassuring him with her airy embrace. "But they live far ahhhway from here, little hhhwanderer. You need not hhhworry."

  "If you say so," he said doubtfully, as his eyes scanned the rolling waves for any suspicious shapes.

  "Besides, little hhhwanderer, hhhwe have something hhhworse than dragons to hhhworry about."

  "Right. Rhita Gawr."

  "Hhhwherever he may be nohhhw."

  She veered sharply to the right, sending up a spray of water. "I hhhwill set you here." Before he could say another word, she lowered him gently onto a gnarled piece of driftwood.

  Hurriedly, he inspected this little floating scrap. Though only slightly larger than himself, it did seem to be stable. It rode on the waves, bobbing constantly, like another kind of whitecap.

  "All right," he agreed. "Come back soon, though."

  "I hhhwill," she promised. With a sudden swirl of spray, she departed.

  "Good luck!" he called after her.

  He adjusted his weight on the driftwood. The motion, however, jostled his injured wing. A new burst of pain, sharper than before, exploded in his shoulder, and he groaned in anguish.

  Hoping to distract himself, he took another whiff of sea air. Salt, ever pungent, seemed to slap his nostrils. Seaweed deepened the smell, as did a sharp, silvery fin that rose briefly above the surface. Then a pair of wide-winged birds, as blue as the water, skimmed past, adding scents of wet feathers and webbed feet.

  Just then two waves collided, sending a spiral of spray into the air. As the droplets fell, they sparkled like shattered rainbows. Vibrant purple, yellow, green, and red shimmered all around, raining downward.

  My promise to Dagda! he suddenly remembered.

  Before the shining droplets all fell into the sea, he stretched out his tongue and caught one. Tiny as it was, he knew it was the true essence of this realm—the magical liquid soil that supported all life. Pulling back his tongue, he swallowed.

  I am water, announced a voice within his mind—a voice that roared and crashed like a distant waterfall, endlessly churning and splashing. I am all shapes, all forms, all places: as soft as mist and hard as ice, as thin as a stream and wide as an ocean, as high as airy vapors and deep as the ultimate abyss. I am boiling, bubbling, pouring, rolling, and ever flowing.

  The splashing voice paused, as if listening to the continuous surge and swell of the waves. Magnificent am I! Wild and pure, furious and calm, violent and serene. I am home to giant whales and creatures as small as aquatic dust. Gentle as a bubble yet powerful as a maelstrom am I, ever changing, ever flowing. For I am the sea, the storm, the river, the glacier, and the cloud.

  Once again the voice paused, then spilled and gushed these final words: I am water.

  Gradually, Basil noticed something odd. The waves closest to his small shard of wood were calming, despite the constant motion of waves beyond. He peered closely, but the mystery only deepened. The water right around him was flattening—as if it were a small, quiet sea within the restless ocean. Soon his piece of driftwood sat motionless, fixed to the surface of the water.

  A sudden splash—and he was rising into the air! Somehow the driftwood was being lifted higher. What kind of wave is this? he asked, stretching his neck to peer over the edge.

  What he saw was no wave. Massive scales, the deep blue color of glacial ice, supported him—even as they pushed swiftly upward, rising out of the sea. The scales covered a huge, undulating surface that rippled like an ocean of muscle and bone. Rivers of water coursed off the scales, pouring down into the waves that receded farther below every second.

  It's a tail! I'm on the tail of—

  His mind froze as he realized the terrible truth. A dragon.

  Slowly, steadily, the enormous tail rose above the waves, bearing Basil and his shard aloft, Aghast, he watched as—just ahead of where he sat—the scaly surface broadened into an immense back as wide as an island, narrowed again into a powerful neck, then swelled into a gargantuan head. Countless teeth, shaped like titanic blue icicles, gleamed as water poured out of the dragon's perilous mouth.

  Higher and higher rose Basil, an unwilling passenger on the last creature he'd wanted to meet in this realm. Then, without warning, the dragon's tail tilted sharply. The shard of driftwood flipped, knocking Basil off. He skidded down the slippery scales, grasping desperately to keep himself from tumbling into the cold ocean where he'd drown—or he eaten—in seconds.

  His broken wing shrieked with pain as he bounced and slid down the tail, fighting to grab hold. Water coursed over him, stinging his eyes with salt. But he kept flailing, digging his tiny claws into the scales.

  There! One claw latched onto a row of barnacles that sprouted from a crack. Breathless, he dangled for a few seconds. With all his strength, trying to ignore the searing bolts of pain, he swung his body higher and pulled himself onto the barnacles. Just below, waves splashed against the immense tail, soaking Basil with spume.

  Groaning miserably, he tried his best to make himself stay hopeful. My wing may be useless . . . but at least water dragons don't have any wings at all. None that I can see, at least. So this fellow won't suddenly lift off and dump me into the sea. As long as he stays on the surface . . . I'm all right.

  He shook his head, having utterly failed to convince himself, let alone lift his mood. Then he'll dive down and I'll die as soon as water fills my lungs. So after all this . . . I'll never get to warn Merlin. Or help Avalon. Or do anything that really matters with my life.

  Trying again, he forced himself to think of something else. Aylah's coming back soon . . . I hope. He caught a glimpse, as the massive tail swayed, of the dragon's enormous purple eye. Seems to be looking for something. What, I wonder?

  All at once, another gigantic head lifted out of the waves only half a league away. Water flooded off its surface to reveal—

  A second dragon!

  The new beast, whose head was crowned with dozens of deadly horns, roared angrily. Then he slammed his titanic tail on the water, sending huge waves rolling across the sea. Basil's dragon turned and roared in reply, a sound so loud that Basil felt as if thunder had just crashed on top o
f him.

  Barely hanging on, he wrapped his own minuscule tail around the barnacles. Please, Aylah. Please hurry.

  Suddenly the dragon's tail beneath him pumped. It didn't strike the sea violently, but moved with mighty grace—and unfathomable power. The two beasts charged each other, a pair of armored ships sailing straight toward a collision.

  Basil, soaked with constant spray, clung to the barnacles. Yet every sway of the immense tail loosened his grip. He started to slide off . . .

  Roaring with rage, the dragons bore down on each other. Seabirds screeched and wheeled above, while schools of fish fled in all directions. Speeding to a crushing impact, the enormous rivals drew closer and closer.

  Basil slipped off his precarious perch. Whipped by salty spume, he hung on with just three slender claws. One tore loose. Then another. By the last tip of his last claw, he still held—just as the dragons came together in a slew of spray.

  From each of their cavernous mouths came roars as deep as the ocean. And from their nostrils came jets of blue ice that slammed into each other with a shattering explosion. Bodies, ice, and waves all collided at once.

  Basil broke loose. Helpless, he spun downward through the spray and flying shards of ice. He hit the surface of the ocean.

  Cold water enveloped him, filling his mouth and ears, stinging his eyes, clogging his lungs. He tried to gasp for air, but only swallowed more seawater. A final, gurgling cry came from his throat.

  Then he sank.

  29: DEEPEST FOREST

  Magic, I have concluded, is one part wisdom, two parts mystery, and three parts—now for the big surprise—well now, come to think of it, I'm just not telling.

  The tip of Basil's snout sank beneath the waves. He disappeared, swallowed completely by the sea. No marine life took any notice: not the fast-swimming fish, not the gulls wheeling overhead—and certainly not the two battling dragons. Only a thin thread of bubbles marked the spot where he dropped into the depths.

  It's over . . .

  An intense, gale-force wind suddenly struck the water. Waves parted, briny curtains sprayed, and the drenched body of Basil lifted out of the sea. Surprised by the fury of wind and water, the dragons briefly paused to see if another foe had joined the fray.

  Seeing no one else, they resumed their battle, hurling jets of blue-tinted ice and slamming each other with massive tails. Meanwhile, Basil's tiny limp form rose higher into the air. A warm breeze, smelling of cinnamon, carried him upward. At the same time, sharp currents of wind poked at his chest, trying to force the water out of his lungs.

  Yet his eyes remained closed. His head drooped forward. He showed no sign of life.

  "Hhhwake up, little hhhwanderer." Aylah sent the strongest gust yet into his chest.

  Basil coughed, spewing seawater. His eyes opened and he shook himself dazedly. Again he coughed, and again. Then he vomited another gush of water.

  At last, he drew a rattling breath. "Aylah . . . you . . . saved me."

  "Only hhhwhat you did for me," she whispered, drying his body with her whirling wind.

  Regaining his wits, he demanded, "Merlin? Did you find him?"

  The wind blew chillier. "Alas, no! Hhhwherever he is, it's not this hhhwatery realm. Nohhhw hhhwe must try hhhWoodroot."

  Basil tossed his head, flapping his ears to rid them of water. Even after the shake, though, they hung down from his head like a pair of drenched leaves. "What if he's not there?"

  "Then hhhwe hhhwill keep searching until hhhwe find him."

  "And what . . ." He winced and coughed again, though he wasn't sure whether that was because of the water still dripping down his throat—or because of the thought that had just occurred to him. "What if Rhita Gawr has already found the kreelix? And attacked Merlin?"

  "Then hhhwe hhhwill . . ." She hesitated, unsure what to say. Turning to the north, she flew faster. Her wind made a wake upon the waves, carving a path across the sea. "Hhhwe must hurry!"

  Swiftly they soared, racing over the shining waters. In time, the brightness faded, as mist thickened around them. Though not as dark and dense as what they had found beneath the roots of the Great Tree, this mist still shrouded them. Like a vaporous veil, it fluttered and billowed, scattering the starlight. Hard as Basil peered into it, he couldn't see more than the veil itself.

  Finally, the mist began to thin. Shafts of light tore through, shredding the clouds.

  "There!" he cried excitedly. "I see Woodroot."

  All he'd actually seen was a vague hint of color. But that was enough. For this was a color he knew well, a color he'd missed more than he even realized.

  Green. All shades of green. The color of the forest. The color of his first home.

  Slowly the mist revealed the rich green of spruce trees lined with moss, the golden green of meadowsweet sprinkled with fern, and the glistening green of rain-washed hawthorn, maple, and oak trees. Willows swayed gracefully as Aylah passed overhead, while tufted grasses bent their heads in greeting. Everywhere, birds fluttered, deer sauntered, insects whirred, woodland faeries gathered fruit, badgers burrowed under roots, and squirrels leaped from branch to branch.

  Woodroot. Remembering that its elvish name, El Urien, meant deepest forest, Basil nodded. For nothing could better describe this place. Here grew all kinds of trees—trees so tall that they brushed the clouds, so transparent that they seemed almost invisible, or so liquid that their wood could actually be poured.

  But Basil was scanning the forest for something else. Let's hope, he wished fervently, that Merlin is here!

  "Listen," said Aylah suddenly.

  Basil's ears cocked. Beyond the continuous rush of the wind across leaves and needles and stalks, he heard a different sound, a song so haunting he held his breath, straining to catch more. Somewhere in the glades below was the source of this soulful, sweeping music. But what was making it?

  The trees themselves! Their whispering boughs, vibrating with the wind, made this soft, magical music.

  "Harmona trees," said the wind sister. "The elves, I am told, are learning hohhhw to craft that hhhwood into lutes and lyres, flutes and hhhwondrous horns."

  Instead of replying, Basil took a deep breath, savoring the smells of this realm. Smells he hadn't known, except in memory, for many years. He caught scents of ripe plums, spicy pepperroot, and larkon fruit—whose bright aroma reminded him, somehow, of starlight. He found a hint of the rare Shomorra tree, whose every branch produced a different kind of fruit. And then he caught a trace of an old favorite: the musty, murky smell of deer prints in a marsh.

  Drawing another breath, he inhaled more smells—along with something else, something he hadn't expected. A tiny fleck of dirt, caught up in Aylah's wind, had risen into the air just as they soared past. And so, when Basil took that breath, he also took into himself some of the magical soil of this realm.

  I am wood, spoke a richly resonant voice. It sounded like someone's breath blown through a leagues-long wooden flute. And to Basil, who had lived so long among the trees of this realm, it sounded, too, like the voice of a friend.

  I am the circle, I am all—life into death, death into life. I am fragrant as crushed spruce needles. Fresh as rain-washed maple leaves. Full as the ripest apples, the stream in spring flood, the doe carrying her yet-unborn fawn. And I am deep, very deep, as the memories of fallen boughs that have landed on my face, melted into me, and made a womb for countless new seeds.

  My essence is a book, whose story is life, and whose language is time. The long, rounded notes of the wooden flute faded, echoing in his mind. Then they rose again for one final phrase: I am wood.

  For a moment, he listened to the echoes of that voice. His broken wing didn't pain him; the search for Merlin didn't call him.

  "This realm is your home, little hhhwanderer." Aylah's gentle breath stroked his ears, lightly brushing the small green hairs inside. "You should return here, after hhhwe . . ."

  Her voice trailed off. He felt a cold shiver in the air around hi
m.

  "I see Merlin!" she cried with a sudden gust of words. "In danger—the hhhworst kind."

  An ear-shattering shriek filled the sky. It came from somewhere in the forest below, stabbing at the air like a dagger of sound.

  30: ONE LIFE

  Dying really isn't so bad after the first time. But I still prefer to do it as infrequently as possible.

  Aylah instantly veered in the direction of the shriek. She turned so sharply that Basil rolled onto his side, jostling his broken wing. Blades of pain sliced through him, cutting from his shoulder down to the wing's bony tip.

  "Where is Merlin?" he called through the gusting wind. "What made that sound?"

  Below, branches waved and tossed violently as the wind sister swept over the forest. But she didn't answer.

  Just then Basil noticed something strange. Far ahead, on a ridge darkened by thick groves of spruce and pine, hundreds of birds took flight. Hawks, larks, terns, sparrows, geese, owls, and more winged creatures rose into the air like a ragged, feathery cloud. Screeching and honking, whistling and hooting, the mass of birds lifted out of the deep green trees.

  Flying straight into Aylah, the birds were knocked in all directions by the force of her wind. Feathers flew, while birds squawked and piped and screeched in alarm. Yet she didn't slow down at all, carrying Basil at gale speed toward the tree-covered ridge.

  "I still don't see him! Aylah, can you tell me where—"

  His words halted as he glimpsed, through the mesh of branches on the ridge, a wing—huge, jagged, and dark. The kreelix! An instant later, the distant branches shifted and covered the wing completely. Yet even though Basil could no longer see any part of the monster, he could still hear the echoing memory of Dagda's words: A kreelix—the greatest mortal foe a wizard can face.