Greystone Valley

by Charlie Brooks

  A roar of cheers and applause came from the crowd. Over the din, Sarah shouted to Dax, “This is who we’re waiting for? A beast tamer?”

  “Of course not,” the warrior answered. “We’re looking for one of the beasts.”

  “And what beast is that?”

  The ringmaster answered Sarah’s question for her. Once the crowd had died down a little, he shouted through his cone, “As I was saying, please welcome to the arena Noron the beast tamer, and the most dangerous creature of all… the fire-breathing dragon!”

  Eleven

  Sarah nearly lost her breath at the ringmaster’s words. At last, she was going to meet a real, live dragon! She had to pinch herself to make sure she really wasn’t dreaming.

  “Why are we looking for the dragon and not the tamer?” Kay asked, apparently not as excited as Sarah was.

  Dax squinted toward the lights of the stage, taking an extra moment before answering him. “What would a dragon tamer know about finding fairy creatures? Foolish people like that usually don’t know anything at all, except how to get gobbled up by a dragon who doesn’t want to follow your commands. No, we need to talk to the dragon herself.”

  “Talk to a dragon?” Sarah shifted eagerly in her seat. She didn’t even know dragons could speak. In the stories she had read, they were usually too busy breathing fire and gobbling up damsels in distress to concern themselves with talking.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Dax said, either not noticing or flat-out ignoring the anticipation in Sarah’s voice. “I’d prefer to do something else, too. But there are only so many people who know about the fey. I do wonder if I have the right place, though. This one’s usually a side attraction, not the main event.”

  Sarah simply shook her head. Why wouldn’t a dragon be a main event? What could possibly be more thrilling or dangerous than one of those legendary creatures?

  While Sarah looked on breathlessly, a huge black iron cage was wheeled onto the stage by four stout-looking assistants. A canvas tarp covered the cage, casting it in shadow so nobody could see what was inside. By the sounds of growling and the rattle of the thick metal bars, though, everyone knew it had to be a dragon. The crowd redoubled its cheers as the cage came to a halt at center stage.

  The crowd hushed as a single man stepped into the ring in front of the cage. He was a slender man, dressed all in black. The whiskers on his face were singed, and his hair was mussed. He looked nervous and sweaty. As he gazed out at the crowd, he shifted anxiously from foot to foot.

  “That’s not the dragon trainer, is it?” Sarah whispered.

  “I think it is,” Kay responded.

  Sarah frowned. She had expected a dragon tamer to be larger and more magnificent-looking. Her mind had given her the picture of someone who could be a knight or a king, who walked into view with a sword in one hand and a whip in the other, and who was tall and almost as dangerous-looking as the dragon itself. The beast tamer she saw now looked more like a man who had eaten too much seafood.

  Taking a deep breath, the dragon tamer began to speak. “Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice came out as a squeak, so he cleared his throat and started over again. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he repeated, louder this time, “I am sorry to say that we have a slight problem with today’s performance. As it happens, Dramadia the dragon has… well, she’s escaped into the mountains.”

  An angry murmur ran through the crowd. Sarah’s own face fell in dismay. Dax, however, didn’t look surprised at all. If anything, his nod of understanding meant that things now made a little more sense to him.

  “Please, please, please,” said Noron the beast tamer, patting the air in front of him in a desperate attempt to calm everybody down. “We know the show must go on, so we have found a suitable replacement. She isn’t quite the same as the great black-scaled dragon, but she is a dragon nonetheless. And it’s without any further ado that I present to you all … Keeley, the dragon of the Northwood Caves!”

  The crowd quieted a bit with the promise of at least some sort of dragon. Still, it seemed to do nothing to calm Noron. He fidgeted, took a deep breath, and smiled nervously. Finally, he walked to the cage and opened it. From inside, the snarl of the dragon could be heard.

  The crowd cheered. Sarah joined them. Then the dragon emerged from the shadows of the cage, and the cheers died down immediately.

  To put it mildly, the dragon wasn’t what anyone in the crowd—except for Dax, of course—had been expecting. It was white and lizard-like, yes, and it had wings and a tail. But it was no more than six inches long from the tip of its snout to the end of its spiked tail. Its emerald-colored eyes seemed to be the largest part of its body. With a sound like a wounded hummingbird, the tiny dragon flitted out of the cage and came to perch on a nearby stool. It let out what Sarah thought was supposed to be a roar, but without the echoes of its cage, the noise really sounded more like the mewling of a kitten.

  Sarah frowned in disappointment. The crowd shared her sentiments, but the other people in the audience didn’t keep their feelings to themselves like she did. While Noron tried to speak, the tent filled with boos and jeers.

  “That’s no dragon, that’s a newt!”

  “Some beast tamer! Do you train bumblebees, too?”

  “I could find something more frightening back on my chicken farm!”

  “Please, please don’t yell,” Noron cried, waving his hands in the air. “You’ll anger the dragon!”

  “Oh, and what will it do then?” shouted someone behind Sarah. “Will it nibble our fingertips? Or maybe blow a smoke ring?”

  As the laughter continued, Sarah began to feel genuinely sorry for the beast tamer and the tiny creature. She had hoped to see a real dragon, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to make fun of the small winged lizard just because it wasn’t big, dangerous, and breathing fire.

  The tiny creature did seem to be spooked by all the noises. It flapped its wings nervously and turned its head away from the jeering audience. Finally, its snout began to twitch, as though it were stifling a sneeze.

  “Oh, no,” Dax said. “Get down!” Grabbing Kay and Sarah by the arms, he pulled them out of their seats and pushed them to the ground.

  No sooner had Dax spoken than a burst of flame erupted from the tiny creature’s mouth. It wasn’t the small smoke ring one of the hecklers had expected—it was a fireball almost as wide as a fully grown man. The burst of dragon’s fire shot over the crowd and hit the far end of the tent, where it immediately caught the canvas on fire. The crowd fell silent. The tiny white dragon looked as shocked as everyone else did.

  For a moment, no one moved.

  Then panic erupted in the arena. Everyone in the audience jumped up from their seats and ran for an exit. The stagehands dashed for buckets of water and began dousing the spreading flames. All the while, Dax kept Sarah and Kay down. He didn’t let them up until the arena was almost entirely emptied out.

  “We’re ruined!” the ringmaster cried out.

  “I told you Keeley wasn’t ready,” Noron said, patting the small dragon on the head. The creature responded with a purring noise and then flew on its short wings back to the iron cage, where it perched at the opening.

  The ringmaster said nothing. He just put his head in his hands and occasionally peered between his fingers at the damage that the now-extinguished fire had wrought upon the tent. Finally, he spoke again. “We need to gather together an expedition. We’ll have to find some new beasts for the act.”

  “More dragons?” Noron asked.

  “No, not more dragons!” The ringmaster grew red in the face as he shouted. “I don’t ever want to see another dragon as long as I live! As far as I’m concerned, those creatures are nothing but nuisances!”

  “Well… what do we do with Keeley, then?”

  The ringmaster’s face grew dark. “Just… just get it out of my sight. I don’t care what you do with it, but I don’t ever want to see it again. If I had my druthers, I’d feed it to my cat!”

>   The tiny dragon squealed in fright and retreated further into the cage.

  At about this time, Dax stood up and walked out of the stands toward the arena. Not knowing what else to do, Sarah and Kay followed him.

  “Excuse me,” Dax said, trying to force himself between the arguing pair. “I don’t mean to be any trouble, even though I almost certainly am. And I don’t mean to intrude upon your argument, but my companions and I need to speak with the dragon, if at all possible.”

  Both the ringmaster and the beast tamer stopped and looked incredulously at Dax.

  “Speak? With the dragon? Are you mad? When she’s in this mood, she’ll hiccough up fireballs until you and your friends are all fricasseed!” Noron cried.

  “Oh, come on now,” Sarah said. All this while, her eyes had been on the tiny white dragon. Now Keeley looked back at her curiously, like a bird that was about to fly away. “She can’t be all that dangerous. She’s more frightened than anything else—aren’t you, little one?” Sarah made some cooing sounds and walked slowly toward the cage. The dragon reared back, spread its wings, and let out a hiss that was supposed to be menacing. But since the dragon’s wingspan was no wider than that of a canary’s, Sarah found the little creature too cute to be frightening.

  “Watch yourself, Sarah,” Kay said. “We don’t know where she’s been.”

  Ignoring her companion’s warning, Sarah reached out toward Keeley.

  The dragon lowered her head and sniffed Sarah’s outstretched fingers. Then she bit down on the ring finger, which caused Sarah to squeal in surprise and jerk her hand away.

  “See?” the ringmaster said, waving his hands in the air. “That thing’s a menace. I won’t have it in my circus. We’ve already got enough fire damage to deal with from the salamanders, and they draw a bigger crowd!”

  “Oh, come on,” Sarah said, feeling very frustrated with the way the ringmaster was treating the tiny creature. “That barely hurt. It more surprised me than anything.” She held out her finger, where the tiny teeth hadn’t even broken the skin. “See?”

  Sarah moved back toward the dragon, which was breathing more slowly now. “I know you’re just frightened, little one. My name’s Sarah.” She held out her hand again.

  This time, Keeley didn’t lunge at it. She sniffed it and then butted her forehead against it, getting Sarah to pet the little creature. Much to Sarah’s surprise, the dragon’s skin didn’t feel scaly at all. It felt smooth and cold, like a well-polished gemstone.

  “Yes, well, please forgive my companion,” Dax said. “She’s still young of spirit and all. She doesn’t know what a terrible burden we as adults must bear. Why, I imagine just keeping this circus running keeps you from sleeping at night.”

  “It absolutely does,” the ringmaster said feelingly. “I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep since we had to close down for repairs last winter.”

  “Believe me, I know how you feel,” Dax said, putting on his most woeful tone. “And you”—he pointed to Noron—”you’ve got to deal with such dreadful beasts all the time. How do you manage to keep your nerves, knowing that any one of them might gobble you up at a moment’s notice?”

  The beast tamer looked nervously at the ground. “Well… um… yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell me about it,” Dax continued, putting a hand to his forehead. “I don’t know why anyone our age even bothers to get out of bed in the morning. It seems like life gets harder and harder every day. No wonder old men end up all hunched and hobbling. The weight of the world just pushes them down, down, down.”

  The other men just nodded wearily.

  “Fortunately for you two, there are people like me in the world. I’m a magnet for misery—it just follows me around everywhere. That means that everywhere I go, I make other people’s lives happy by comparison. You’d think that would be something to make me at least a little happy, but it only adds to my many burdens.

  “Anyway,” the old man continued, looking less and less cheerful with every word, “right now, my companions and I are here to help you. We’re willing to take the dragon off your hands, since we need her annoyingly cute presence for something else. Just the added benefit of not having to take care of a dragon should make you feel a little better, right?”

  Both of the other men seemed to perk up at the suggestion. Finally, the ringmaster nodded. “The damage she does on a weekly basis, combined with the amount of food she eats, is enough to drive us to ruin,” said the ringmaster. “If you want to take her off our hands, she’s yours.”

  “Excellent,” Dax said, although the look on his face and his tone of voice suggested that he was anything but happy about it. “We’ll be on our way promptly, then.”

  Dax led the way out. Sarah scooped the now-friendly dragon into her hand and followed.

  “Dax is quite a bargainer, he is,” Kay said, bringing up the rear. “Just the prospect of not having him talk to you anymore is enough to make you agree to whatever he wants.”

  Indeed, everyone seemed happy—except for Dax himself, of course. The ringmaster and beast tamer were pleasantly chatting to each other about new, safer creatures they could make a part of the act. And Sarah herself was happiest of all. The dragon might not have been what she expected, but she was an easy creature to like.

  Keeley scurried up Sarah’s arm and perched on her shoulder, wrapping her relatively long tail comfortably around the back of Sarah’s neck. “How do you do, Sarah?” the dragon whispered in a high-pitched voice. “Keeley is happy to meet you.”

  Twelve

  Sarah’s eyes lit up. She looked at Keeley with a smile. The miniature white dragon was sitting happily on Sarah’s shoulder. “You can talk?” Sarah whispered.

  Dax overheard her and groaned. “Of course she can talk,” he said, hurrying the group outside the tent and then off the circus grounds. “I don’t think there’s anything in this valley that can’t talk. The problem is getting her to say something meaningful, instead of just being her usual annoyingly cheerful self.”

  Keeley took to the air again and flitted like a white bird around Dax’s head. She let out a laugh that sounded like the titter of a church mouse. “Oh, Dax, Keeley’s glad to see you, too. She was a little worried you wouldn’t want to talk to her after what happened last time.”

  “What happened last time?” Sarah asked.

  Dax gritted his teeth and kept walking. They were well away from the fairgrounds before he answered the question. “Nothing worth talking about. It was all quite forgettable, really.”

  Keeley chuckled and began flying in circles around the group. She moved so quickly that Sarah got dizzy just watching her. “Some of Baelan’s beast-men had found Keeley sleeping in the woods, and they wanted to hurt her, yes, they did,” said the dragon. “They wanted to turn her pretty hide into a bracelet. They chased Keeley all through the woods until Dax found her. Then he bravely saved the day and chased the beast-men off.”

  Keeley then landed on Sarah’s shoulder again, looking a little sheepish as she ended the story. “Unfortunately, all the excitement had given Keeley an upset stomach. She burped and accidentally lit Dax’s pants on fire.”

  Dax moaned. “They were a good pair of pants, too. If any woman had ever given me the time of day, I suspect I would have been married in them. But I suppose there’s no use in dwelling on the past. A good set of clothes just goes to waste on someone like me. Better a suit of rags for poor old Dax.”

  “Um… excuse me,” said Kay, who had been silent for quite a while. “I don’t mean to pry, but are you really a dragon? From everything I’ve read, I expected a real dragon to be… well, quite large.”

  Keeley hopped and turned around on Sarah’s shoulder. Her tiny claws dug into Sarah’s pajamas a little bit, but they were too small to really hurt—though they did itch slightly. “And who is this one?” asked the dragon as she peered at Kay. “He looks quite handsome, even if he does wear funny-looking robes.�
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  “This one’s name is Kay,” he said. “I’m a wizard. Or at least, I’m working on becoming one.”

  “And he does have a point,” Sarah added. “You do seem rather, um, shorter than one would expect of a dragon.”

  “Well, that’s easy to explain,” Keeley said, bobbing her head from side to side. “Keeley’s only ten years old. She’s still a growing girl. Someday, she’ll be bigger even than Dax. She just needs to start eating more.”

  “Even if she does get that big, that’s still pretty small for a dragon,” Kay whispered. “And for some reason, I don’t think it’s her diet that made her so small.”

  If Keeley heard those comments, she gave them no heed. She had already hopped off Sarah’s shoulder again. Now she flew in circles around Dax’s head. The old warrior was marching the group back toward the site where they had lost track of Kay’s book. He didn’t look like he wanted to talk all that much, but that hardly seemed to stop Keeley, who chattered, “Where are we going, Dax? What are we going to do? Will there be good food there? How have you been? Does Keeley look like she’s put on weight since last time?”

  Dax, for his part, answered the questions politely—or, at least, what seemed to pass as polite for him. He nodded or grunted to most of the questions, seemingly spending the rest of his energy trying to mask his irritation at Keeley’s cheerful and energetic personality.

  “We’re trying to find a book,” Kay explained, jogging a little bit ahead of Dax to get the dragon’s attention. “It’s a very important spellbook, and we think it was taken by the fey. Dax told us you could help track them down.”

  Keeley nodded so furiously that Sarah feared her head might fall off her stringy neck. “Oh, yes, Keeley is quite a good tracker, she is. The fey are hard creatures to find, but Keeley knows just how to talk to them. She’ll find your book for you, because you’re friends of Dax. And if you’re friends of Dax, that means you’re friends of Keeley, too.”

  Kay seemed satisfied with that answer and trailed back in the group toward Sarah. “I’ve never really met a dragon,” he whispered. “Keeley wasn’t exactly what my father taught me to expect, and I’m not entirely sure she’s all there. But she’s our best hope to find the book right now, so we’ll have to trust her.”