Dragonbreath #8

by Ursula Vernon

  The buzzing hadn’t gotten louder, but it was concentrating in a way Danny didn’t like at all. Now it sounded like a whole hive of hypothetical yellow jackets, who were directly behind Wendell’s headboard.

  The stench of lemon cough drop was so strong it was making Danny’s nose run. He scraped his shirt sleeve across his snout and it left a wet stain.

  “Wendell!” Danny grabbed the glass of water. “Get up, NOW!”

  He dumped the glass over the iguana’s head.

  Wendell flailed around and sat up in bed. The buzzing had stopped as soon as he had opened his eyes, and Danny was pretty relieved about that. It had not been a nice sound. It had been about as far from nice as a sound could get.

  “Oh, maaaaan . . .” Wendell looked down at himself. He was dripping wet and the sheets were soaked. It looked like he’d wet the bed, even if it was just a glass of water. “I’m gonna have to get this into the dryer or Mom’s gonna kill me . . .”

  “We’ve got bigger problems,” said Danny grimly. “You’ve got Night Mares, and something a lot worse.”

  Saturday morning came bright and early. Danny hadn’t slept well.

  Every time Wendell fell asleep again, the dragon lay there and waited for that awful buzzing to start up. By the time morning came around, he needed a nap very badly.

  Breakfast didn’t help. Danny and Wendell had been friends long enough that Wendell no longer felt obligated to apologize for what his mom served for breakfast. Fortunately Wendell’s mom was too busy to make bran waffles that day, and the granola was okay if you picked out the woody bits.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some brewer’s yeast, honey?” she asked Wendell, bustling around the kitchen.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” said Wendell.

  “Okay. I’m off to my drum circle. You boys have fun, and put your dishes in the sink when you’re done.”

  “What’s a drum circle?” Danny asked when Wendell’s mom had left.

  “A bunch of people get together and chant and bang on drums.”

  An hour of their favorite cartoons and some contraband cupcakes from Danny’s backpack revived them somewhat. “Anyway,” said Danny as they left the house, “we can sleep on the bus.”

  “What bus?” asked Wendell.

  “The bus to Great-Granddad’s house, of course.”

  Wendell sighed. Talking to Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath on the phone was bad enough. In person, he tended to be rather . . . overwhelming.

  There was also the slight problem that he lived in mythical Japan, which was not easily accessible from the real world as Wendell knew it, except by bus and only if Danny was involved. Buses just plain worked differently when Danny was riding on them.

  Still, he seemed to be the only grown-up who had any idea what might be tormenting Wendell. According to Danny, there were both Night Mares and Dream Wasps, and you probably couldn’t get rid of those with melatonin and brewer’s yeast.

  The iguana fell asleep on the bus. Danny sighed. It meant that he’d have to stay awake—you could completely miss some of the more mythological bus stops if you weren’t watching for them—but Wendell probably needed the sleep. There wasn’t any weird buzzing, anyhow, so maybe the monsters had a hard time getting to you if you were in a moving vehicle.

  That was a hopeful thought, but it seemed unlikely that Wendell’s mom would be willing to drive Wendell around all night so that he could get a decent night’s sleep in the back of the car.

  He must have dozed a bit, though, because it seemed like no time at all until the bus driver announced “Headquarters, Celestial Bureaucracy” at the edge of a large office park, and that meant the next stop was mythical Japan and Great-Granddad’s house.

  He thumped Wendell. Wendell went “Hrrazzzh!” and sat up.

  “Mythical Japan!” bawled the bus driver, and Danny yanked the cord to signal a stop. The bus halted in a thick forest of bamboo, and the dragon and iguana got off into the snow.

  “Why is it always snowy here?” asked Wendell, stomping through the light blanket of white. “It’s not even winter back home.”

  “Ask Great-Granddad,” said Danny. “I think it’s something to do with magic.”

  Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath’s house looked pretty much like it had the last time—a tall building with a layered roof and big statues out in front. The front walk had been shoveled recently. Danny and Wendell trudged up the steps and Danny banged on the door.

  “Great-Granddad! It’s us!”

  “Come in! It’s open!”

  Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath was an ancient dragon with long whiskers and antlers rather like a deer. He spent most of his time in an equally ancient recliner that appeared to have come from some Paleolithic dawn of time. It was lumpy and dusty and the footrest hung at a strange angle. The old dragon’s tendency to stuff his hoard into the cushions didn’t help.

  He got up out of the recliner now, however. “Danny! Oh, and . . .” He peered over his glasses. “. . . Wanda. Yes.”

  “Why is it always snowy here, Mr. Dragonbreath?” asked Wendell.

  “Eh? Doughy-ear? Kind of mushroom, isn’t it? Grows on old tree trunks or something?”

  “Snowy!” yelled Wendell. Danny’s great-granddad was getting deafer all the time. “Why is it snowy here?”

  “Mythopoetic influences!” roared Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “Vile things! Affect the weather. It’s always foggy and snowy. I had to put in a greenhouse and a space heater just to grow decent tomatoes.”

  “The bamboo seems to grow okay . . .” said Wendell, waving toward the forest.

  “Bamboo grows through anything,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath grimly. “Mark my words, Wanda. You could grow that stuff in a mineshaft a mile underground and water it with the tears of donkeys and it’d get twenty feet tall and need pruning. Now, you boys probably want some tea, and if you don’t, I do, so come on.”

  “Do donkeys cry a lot?” asked Wendell, following Danny and his ancient relative into the kitchen. “I’ve never seen one crying . . .”

  “In less civilized eras, they used to tie prisoners down over bamboo thickets,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath absently. Crockery rattled as he dug for teacups. “Stuff’d grow right through you given half a chance. Awful way to go.”

  Danny normally would have had a lot to say about death-by-bamboo-thicket, but his attention had been seized by something else entirely.

  Something wearing a black dress, sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book.

  She looked up.

  “Danny? Wendell?”

  “Suki?”

  The salamander jumped out of her chair and ran over to hug them both. Danny endured this stoically, and Wendell looked like he actually enjoyed it, but he seemed to have a hard time meeting Suki’s eyes.

  “So, um,” said Wendell, staring at his feet. “I, uh.”

  “I missed you!” said Suki. “Errr . . . that is . . . uh . . . both of you.”

  “Um, me too,” said Wendell. “Uh—not that we were both—I mean, I didn’t miss Danny—”

  Danny could only take so much awkward nerd courtship. “What are you doing here?” he asked. Suki had been an exchange student at his school last year, but she’d eventually gone back to Japan, and Danny hadn’t expected to see her again.

  “Your granddad got me a bus pass,” Suki said. “He’s teaching me meditative techniques. To help with being a ninja in a past life.”

  Danny was privately unsure how much help you really needed with being a reincarnated ninja. Suki had been the notorious assassin Leaping Sword in a past life, which had caused some trouble with a troop of ninja frogs who wanted to make her their queen. Danny and Wendell had helped her sort it out, with the aid of Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath and
a group of samurai geckos.

  As far as Danny was concerned, being a reincarnated ninja was awesome, and Suki had never seemed to appreciate it nearly enough.

  Wendell was equally skeptical. “Really? You want to learn more about being a ninja?”

  Danny snickered.

  “She’s at this stage where she thinks that being scared of things makes you interesting,” grumbled Suki. “So she’s all, ‘Oh no, I’m really scared of thunder!’ ‘Oh no, I’m really scared of ghosts!’ ‘Oh no, I’m scared of waterslides!’”

  Suki grinned. “It wouldn’t work. She just wants to tell you about some horrible traumatic thing that almost nearly happened to her. If nobody’s watching, she’s totally normal. She just wants attention.” The salamander shrugged. “Yesterday she decided she was scared of forks. It’s just easier to come hide out here than figure out what the phobia of the day is going to be.”

  It occurred to Danny that being an only child, while it had its drawbacks, also had a lot going for it.

  “Suki also helps weed the tomatoes,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath, plonking down the teacups. “You’d think the mythopoetic influences could keep out the weeds, but nooooo . . .” He slid a cup toward Wendell. “Here, Wanda, you look like something that’s been living under the refrigerator for a week. Have some tea.”

  Wendell resigned himself to his jasmine-scented fate.

  “So.” Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath folded his claws around his teacup and leaned forward. “Tell me what happened.”

  Danny frowned. “Well . . . once Wendell fell asleep—which took ages—”

  “Did not,” muttered Wendell.

  “—first there were these glowing hoofprints coming down the wall.”

  “Night Mares,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath with satisfaction. “Knew it.” He slurped tea loudly from his cup. “Well, they’re not a big deal. They’re attracted to bad dreams, but they don’t do any real harm.”

  “But that wasn’t all!” said Danny. “There were the hoofprints first, but then there was this smell—”

  Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath’s head snapped up. “A smell? What kind of smell, boy?”

  “Lemony,” said Danny. “Like floor cleaner or cough drops or something.”

  The elder Dragonbreath’s face looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.

  “And then the hoofprints ran away, and there was this buzzing . . .”

  “NRRRGHGHHK!” Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath slurped tea wrong and sprayed it out across the kitchen. Suki jumped up and began to pound him on the back.

  “Oh god,” said Wendell. “It’s bad, isn’t it? I’m going to die. Things are going to eat my brain. It’s bad.”

  “It’s not good, Wanda,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “If Danny could actually hear buzzing, then that means that the Dream Wasp is a lot more . . . um . . . present . . . than it normally is. It’s trying to actually get into your head, instead of just siphoning the nightmares off the top.”

  “Why would it want into Wendell’s head?” asked Danny, feeling rather jealous. “Does it need somebody to do its homework?”

  “I suspect that it’s looking for a place to lay its eggs,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “And if it lays them in Wanda’s dreams, he’ll go mad and never wake up again.”

  For a long moment, the only sound in the kitchen was the rattle of teacups, and then Wendell let out a squeak and fainted dead away.

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath, when they’d brought Wendell around. The iguana was sitting up, looking woozy. “I didn’t say it was hopeless. Did I say it was hopeless, Suki?”

  “No, Dragonbreath-sama.”

  “That’s right. Don’t make assumptions. You young people today, always assuming things.” He poked Wendell in the chest with a claw.

  “Yes, well, these things happen.” The elder dragon folded his arms inside the sleeves of his robe. “Fortunately not very often, but there are plenty of options. What you need is a baku.”

  “What’s a baku?” asked Danny. “Is it like a super-magic sword of Dream Wasp slaying? ’Cause I could totally use one and drop on it from above and go ‘Snicker-Snack!’ and whack its head off—”

  “There will be no whacking heads off!” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “This requires delicacy, not brute force. Start swinging swords around inside Wanda’s head and you’ll give him all kinds of problems! And a baku’s not a what, it’s a who.”

  “Well then, who is it?”

  “A dream-eater,” said Suki, while Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath rinsed out the teapot and started another cup brewing. “They eat nightmares. They’re nice.”

  “Well, where do we get one?” asked Danny. He was a little disappointed that it was not a magic sword, but a dream-eater did sound interesting.

  “Oh, that’s the easy part. Suki, take them to the baku’s pool, will you? I need to think for a bit.”

  “Sure!” Suki slid off the chair. “Are you going to be okay, sir?”

  “Fine, fine . . .” He waved a hand distractedly. “Go bring back a baku, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Eggs . . .” said Wendell, staring into his teacup. “In . . . my . . . head.”

  “Aw, c’mon.” Danny grabbed Wendell’s arm and hauled him upright. “You’ll be fine. We’ll go find one of these baku and it’ll put you right as rain.”

  “He’s absolutely right, Wanda,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “You’ve got the least dangerous job.”

  Wendell relaxed a little.

  “Danny and Suki are going to have to go into your dreams to help the baku find the Wasp, and there’s a much better chance they’ll be horribly lost forever.”

  “Awesome!” said Danny.

  “What if she gets hurt?” asked Wendell worriedly. “I mean—um—if they get hurt?”

  “Smooth,” muttered Danny. Wendell kicked him under the table.

  Suki blushed and stared at the tabletop. “You guys helped me with the ninjas. I mean, it’s the least I can do.”

  “The baku only live about half a mile away,” said Suki, shrugging into her jacket. “They like the hot springs. If we’re lucky, we can find one that will be willing to help us.”

  “What if we’re not lucky?” asked Wendell.

  “Well . . . I suppose we could hit one over the head and stuff it in a sack, but it’d be awfully rude . . .”

  Danny grinned. He remembered why he liked Suki.

  “I don’t know if I want you two going into my dreams,” said Wendell, walking down the path with his tail dragging. “I mean, you’re my friends and all, but . . . what if there’s . . . y’know . . . I mean, it’s kinda personal in there . . .”

  “I already know about Mr. Higgins,” said Danny. “What more could you possibly—”

  Wendell kicked him in the shins. Danny hopped on one foot, grinning.

  “Mr. Who?” asked Suki.

  “Nothing!” said Wendell, giving Danny a Look.

  “Aw, it’ll be fine,” said Danny. “We’ll be so busy looking for the Wasp, we won’t have time to explore any of your weird fantasies about long division.”

  Danny wondered what a dream-eater would look like. It’d have fangs, right? You probably needed fangs. Dreams could be scary. And claws. Definitely claws. Big ones like eagles, to grab the wily dream and pin it down. Maybe it would have a giant beak instead of fangs . . .

  The reality, as it turned out, was somewhat different.

  “So, we’re here,” said Suki as the bamboo opened up into a clearing.

  The clearing was full of rocks, and the rocks were full of pools of water, and the pools of water were full of . . . creatures.

  The baku were smalle
r than Danny, and they had neither fangs nor beaks nor talons. They did have stubby little tusks on their very long snouts, but that was as far as it went. They were white with blue manes, and they all looked about two-thirds asleep.

  “They look like tapirs,” said Wendell. “Um . . . short little tapirs?”

  “I think they’re related,” said Suki. “The words are almost the same in Japanese. Anyway, these are baku. They eat dreams.”

  Steam rose from the pools. The little tapir-creatures were basking in the hot water. Danny could hear distant squeaks and murmurs as they bathed.

  Several baku had noticed them. A row of long snouts poked over the edge of the nearest pool.

  Suki nudged Wendell. “Go up and bow. Introduce yourself.”

  Wendell took several steps forward. “Er. Um. I’m Wanda. I mean Wendell. Um.” He bowed jerkily.

  The baku exchanged looks with one another.

  “Uh. Yes. I’m having . . . um. A problem.”

  “He’s really a wreck,” whispered Suki.

  “Yeah,” Danny whispered back, “normally he’s great at this sort of thing. Must be the lack of sleep.”

  “Dreams. It’s the dreams. I’m having them. Um. They’re not good. Bad. Very bad. Yes.”

  A couple of the baku turned away and went back to soaking in the hot water.

  Danny decided to take matters into his own hands. He stepped up next to Wendell and bowed.

  “My buddy Wendell here has a real problem. There’s a Dream Wasp trying to lay eggs in his head!”

  A murmur ran through the assembled baku. It wasn’t exactly words. Suddenly there were a lot more snouts aimed at poor Wendell, and they looked only half asleep instead of two-thirds.

  “So, uh, yeah.” Danny looked across the sea of snouts. “We were hoping one of you’d be able to help. My great-granddad sent us.”