by Chris Ward
‘Hey, wait for me.’
He turned to her, but the look in his eyes was so horrifying, she stopped dead in her tracks. At first it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what had changed, until she realised it was an absence of everything. Instead of looking at her with interest and compassion, he stared right through her as if she didn’t exist at all.
Then he shook his head a little, as if waking up. ‘What?’
‘Wait for me,’ she said.
‘Oh. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.’
‘Cuttlefur—’
She stared as his feet disappeared onto the top deck. Then she looked around. She was nearly alone on the bottom deck, with only Jim Green sitting on a chair at one end, and Snout sitting on a bench with his hands over his stomach, for company.
‘Are we going back soon?’ Snout asked Jim Green. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
Jim Green smiled. ‘Hang in there. Let them get their thrill, and we’ll be back before you know it.’
‘There’s no real dragon, is there?’
Jim Green continued to smile. ‘Oh, I couldn’t tell you something like that. Let’s just say that no one’s ever seen it. Sometimes, the most exciting things are those in your imagination, aren’t they?’
‘I don’t have an imagination,’ Snout mumbled.
‘Hey,’ Jim Green said, turning to Miranda, ‘why don’t you go up and join your friends? You might not see any dragons, but there are some cool sea birds, and the edge of the world looks pretty spectacular from here.’
‘I’m cold,’ Snout said.
‘We’re on a boat,’ Jim Green answered.
‘No, I’m really cold. I think I’m getting sick.’
Miranda frowned. Snout was right. It was cold—really cold. And it had become cold really quickly, as though, in the last few minutes, a switch had flicked to turn summer into winter. She closed her eyes, and there it was, like a bank of fog rushing in from the sea.
Dark reanimate.
Miranda stood up. ‘We have to turn back. Something bad’s about to happen—’
The boat lurched, throwing all three of them sideways. Jim Green dropped his bottle of drink, and it smashed on the floor. From above came the excited screams of the other pupils, as if this were the beginning of a theme park thrill ride.
‘Turn the boat around!’ Miranda yelled.
As if it had heard her, the boat began to bank sharply to the right, its back end swinging out, and a groan came from the motor below her feet, followed by a sharp snap. The engine gave one last wheeze, then went still.
The calm left by the suddenly absent engine noise was quickly filled by the pupils’ screaming as several came running down the steps. Then, realising that the boat’s lower deck was no closer to an escape than the top, they ran back up again.
‘It would be a good idea for all of you to sit down,’ a voice boomed over a loud speaker. ‘You wanted to see Dragon Rock, didn’t you? Now’s your chance.’
Still unsure that this wasn’t part of the ride, several pupils cheered. Only when the boat listed sharply and a wave broke over the side did they fall quiet.
‘Everyone downstairs.’
Pupils crowded back down the steps to fill the lower deck, and Miranda pushed her way forward, looking for Cuttlefur, but found the way blocked by Alan Barnacle.
‘I told you to sit down.’
With a loud thwack, twenty bums hit seats, and Miranda scowled at Barnacle. The chill of his magic emanated from him like the cold water from an old well. Miranda tried to call on her own, but just as before, nothing happened.
‘What on earth’s going on here?’ Jim Green said, standing up. ‘Alan, what’s gotten into you?’
‘Oh, be quiet, you garrulous fool,’ Barnacle said, and he flapped a hand at Jim Green, who fell against the railings alongside the boat. A couple of pupils grabbed for his hands, but it was too late as he toppled over the side, into the water.
A couple of girls screamed. Miranda twisted her head, caught a glimpse of Jim Green lifting up on the rise of a swell off the port side, then he dipped over the top and was lost from sight. A long, mournful cry was the last she heard from him.
‘Barnacle!’
‘Take us back to shore!’ demanded Cherise, trying to stand but finding herself stuck. ‘I’ll see that Ms. Ito chops off your head for this!’
‘Oh, be quiet, you idiot. Ms. Ito won’t be finding out anything, because you’ll all be going over the edge in a couple of hours. Not much coming back from that, is there?’
A couple of the smaller kids began to cry.
‘Where’s Cuttlefur?’ Amy said. ‘He’s not here.’
Several kids began to shout for him, and despite what Miranda had seen in his eyes, she began to wonder if it wasn’t all part of his plan to get them out of this. She’d caught him looking at Alan Barnacle, after all. Perhaps he had picked up on the fat innkeeper’s plan before the rest of them and was working on some form of escape.
Then, steps on the metal stairway made everyone fell silent. Cuttlefur appeared, face lit with an evil grin. The boat had spun around again so that the back end now faced Dragon Rock and was caught in the sunlight. Cuttlefur strolled to the end of the boat and propped one foot up onto the inside railing, like an ancient seafarer finally about to come home. He chuckled, then turned back to them, the sun glinting through his hair.
Miranda gasped. The vibrant aquamarine blue was gone, replaced by chestnut brown. He brushed it out of his face and cocked his head.
‘Oh, sorry, didn’t you know?’
‘You lied to me.’
‘Did I really? Sorry.’
‘You’re a pig! You’re not from England. You can’t take me back, and there’s no family waiting for me. You lied!’
Cuttlefur shook his head. ‘Oh, dear. Two out of three isn’t bad. No, there’s no family; I made that up, got hold of some photographs in the library. Fooled you, though.’ He flashed a smile. ‘However, I am from England, and I am taking you home, but not to the home you were expecting.’
He raised his arms above his head, and the boat heaved beneath a great gust of wind, lurching sideways and knocking several pupils off their feet. Miranda grabbed hold of a railing to steady herself, again hunting inside herself for her magic. Nothing. She glanced at the others. A slight warmth rose up from some of them, though none had learned enough about the magic to be able to use it.
She alone had the means to protect them, and she could do nothing.
‘Let us go!’ someone screamed.
‘Oh, you’ll be let go, all right,’ Barnacle said. ‘You’ll be let go right over the edge of the world. Once he gets what he wants of, course.’ The fat innkeeper turned to Cuttlefur. ‘Hurry up! I don’t want to go over with them!’
Cuttlefur grinned, and Miranda saw hate and madness in his eyes. ‘Goodbye, Miranda,’ he said. ‘It’s time to make good on my promise.’
At first she didn’t know what he meant, until a scream rose up from some of the pupils nearest the side of the boat. She looked across the water at the black lump of Dragon Rock, close enough now she could make out the jagged cliffs rising out of the water, and a swamping terror like a thick, black cape filled her heart.
The whole top of the island was lifting up—a great, black sheet rising into the sky. Miranda had the bizarre feeling that the world was turning upside down, when wings and a head separated from the black mess, and she saw the massive creature for what it was.
‘Shenlong,’ whispered Snout from beside her.
Miranda stared at the gigantic black dragon as he flapped his great wings powerfully enough to cause a wind to buffet their faces, then she did what many of the other pupils had already begun to do.
She screamed.
40
Reunion
Wilhelm cried out as the jagged rock edge cut through his trousers and into skin, deep enough to draw blood. Weariness had made him clumsy, and his forearms and palms were spotted with blood from
several other cuts and scrapes. With a sigh, he peered up at the summit of Source Mountain, wondering how much farther he had to go.
Lawrence had left him at the foot of the mountain, and Wilhelm didn’t want to look back down at the valley, but he couldn’t resist. As the yellow sun rose over the forests to the west, he tried not to trace Lawrence’s path of retreat, leaving Wilhelm to make the climb alone.
After another half an hour, he sat down for a rest, picking a flat stone with a view of the cliffs that marked the Bay of Paper Dragons. He couldn’t see the guesthouse from here, but the encircling twin headlands protruded into the sea like the pincers on a crab hiding under the earth. Behind it, the red sun made its circumnavigation of the horizon, and the edge of the world was a smudged pencil line unnaturally close to the shore.
His natural curiosity made him wonder what was over there. If you went right to the edge, did you just look down into space, or was something else down there, like a secret world? The teachers, as usual, wouldn’t talk about it, which only made it worse. For a long time he had thought they were hiding something. Now, he knew better. They didn’t know. They had just gotten old and had lost their desire to care.
As he watched, a fog bank that had covered the yellow sun broke apart. Light spread out across the water, yet something lumpy not far from the edge glinted black.
Wilhelm frowned. It looked like an island, though he didn’t remember seeing it before. It was definitely there now—a black lump sitting in the water about three-quarters of the way out to the horizon.
He shivered. Resting too long had made the sweat on his back go cold. He pushed himself to his feet, but before he turned back to the rocky slope, he took one last look at the black island out on the sea.
Something definitely wasn’t right about it.
By midmorning, Wilhelm had finally crawled, battered and bruised, over the edge of the crater and found himself looking at a grey moonscape with a lake in the middle. No vegetation grew here, except for a few wind-battered bushes, but at least the huge waterfall gushing over the edge just a few paces to his right offered something to drink.
He crawled to the edge and scooped up cold handfuls of the water. It hurt as he gulped it down, but once it was nestled in his belly, he began to feel better.
Then he stood up and looked around. The waterfall was fed by a river flowing out of the crater lake, where in its centre bubbled a whitewater fountain. Random objects floated around, bouncing on its swell. As he watched, a fridge-freezer, followed by a handful of books, drifted past to the waterfall on the crater’s rim, where they paused for a moment, then dropped out of sight, beginning their journey down the spiral of Source Mountain to the flatlands far below.
There was no sign of Benjamin, so Wilhelm started walking in the direction of the river gully and the lake beyond, wishing he had more of a plan.
A man named Jeremiah Flowers had come here looking for a way back to England, yet all Wilhelm saw was a grey landscape of volcanic rock. Besides the lake and the river, nothing moved, nothing was alive, nothing was—
Far across the lake, a tiny figure appeared from between two large rocks of the bland moonscape, following a path, climbing over one boulder, then going around the outside of the next. He was heading for the crater rim on the far side of the lake, the side that faced the coast.
‘Benjamin!’ Wilhelm screamed. ‘Wait!’
At first, Wilhelm was sure Benjamin hadn’t heard him. After all, he had the continual splashing of the bubbling fountain to contend with. He screamed Benjamin’s name again, and this time Benjamin half turned, though he didn’t look back.
Wilhelm’s voice was already hoarse from the arduous climb, and Benjamin was getting farther and farther away. Wilhelm had two options. Swim across the lake, or run around the side.
Neither was particularly appealing. Wilhelm swore under his breath and headed for the shore.
There was not a lot to do other than to head back to the Bay of Paper Dragons and do his best to enjoy himself. Benjamin knew he could stay and wander around, picking up rocks like some self-chastising monk, but it wouldn’t solve anything. If he had found out about Source Mountain from it, perhaps more information could be had in the library. When he got back to the school, he would head straight there to see what he could find.
He sighed. He felt like a failure, and he worried both about getting in trouble with the teachers and with having to face his friends. Miranda liked to hold a grudge anyway, but she also seemed to have given up on everyone else in favour of Cuttlefur. And how would Wilhelm react to Benjamin running back with his tail between his legs? He had tried to abandon them all. Wouldn’t they feel like second best? He would end up shunned by everyone. Perhaps even Snout would refuse to hang out with him.
He picked up a rock, turning in one motion to heave it into the lake.
‘No!’
Benjamin stared, arm raised, poised to throw. Someone was swimming across the lake, flapping their arms wildly as the current tugged them toward the mouth of the river. As the arms flailed and the person briefly bobbed up out of the water and waved, Benjamin’s eyes widened.
‘You’ve got to be joking….’
‘Benjamin!’
‘Wilhelm!’
He broke for the shoreline as fast as he could, heedless of the shifting rocks underfoot threatening to trip or injure him. He reached the water’s edge and dived in before he could even think about using his magic, wading out as deep as he could, then swimming the last few feet to grab hold of Wilhelm’s arms.
‘Didn’t you hear me shout?’ Wilhelm gasped. ‘You ignoring me or something?’
Benjamin laughed. Water splashed into his throat, and he started to cough. Wilhelm clapped him on the back as they helped each other onto the shore, and before Wilhelm could even find his feet, Benjamin grabbed him in a fierce hug.
‘I’ll never ignore you again,’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Collecting rocks for Dusty. Not. Came to find you, didn’t I? What do you think?’
‘Why?’
‘To stop you from being an idiot. And because you’re in trouble. You and Miranda both.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘That shifty so-and-so, Cuttlefur. He’s plotting to kidnap her in order to set a trap for you.’
‘Cuttlefur? That blue-haired punk?’
‘Yeah, not working on his own, is he? I’d put money on that he’s working for the Dark Man.’
‘The Dark Man?’
‘Yeah. Come on, we don’t have much time. Today’s the day.’
As they hurried up the slope to the crater’s edge on the seaward side, Benjamin kept glancing at Wilhelm as if refusing to believe he was really here.
‘How did you get up here?’
‘Same way you did. I walked. I tried to get Lawrence to help me, but he won’t come near the place.’
Benjamin looked down. ‘I don’t blame him. I wish I’d never come here, either.’
‘What did you find?’
Benjamin sighed. ‘A graveyard of dreams.’
‘So no sign of Jeremiah Flowers or where he went?’
Benjamin opened his mouth to tell Wilhelm what he had seen … then closed it again. Didn’t matter. Jeremiah had chosen his quest, and now Benjamin had to choose his.
‘Tell me what you know about Cuttlefur.’
Wilhelm scowled. ‘I don’t even want to think about him, only about what I’m going to do to him when I catch him, if no one else gets there first.’
They reached the crater’s edge and paused. Below, the grey rock sloped down to the first twist in the river’s spiral. Benjamin was still staring down the slope, wondering if the journey down would be easier than coming up, when Wilhelm grabbed hold of his arm.
‘Benjamin, look!’
This high up, the views stretched right to the edge of the world, and there, on the horizon, something black and terrible had risen up into the sky.
41
>
Attack
The pupils screamed. With a screeching roar, Shenlong flapped his massive wings and rose high over the boat. Miranda gripped the railings behind her, so terrified, she could barely breathe. Beside her, Snout repeated a desperate mantra: ‘Close your eyes, don’t let it in … close your eyes, don’t let it in…’
The great dragon was the length of a swimming pool, and he was shaped like the dragons from fairy tales: pointed, fang-filled jaws in a triangular head at the top of a long, curved neck, with an elongated, almost snakelike body. Two wings the size of a yacht’s sails rose from his back, and four powerful legs ended in vicious claws.
‘Who’s first?’ screamed Barnacle. ‘Shenlong’s hungry!’
A hail of screams rose up from the boat. Only Cuttlefur and Alan Barnacle were laughing now, with the others in various stages of distress, from casual, are-you-sure-this-isn’t-part-of-the-trip disbelief, to outright hysterical terror. Despite everything, part of Miranda was secretly happy to see Cherise retching over the railing while Amy, practically hyperventilating, picked pieces of vomit out of her friend’s hair.
‘You fat pig!’ Miranda glared at Barnacle. ‘The only one who could fill him up is you.’
‘I always admired your mouth,’ Barnacle spat back. ‘Luckily we don’t have to put up with it much longer.’
With a scream, Tommy Cale darted forward to pummel Barnacle’s stomach with his little fists. The fat man wobbled, then scowled, and Tommy bounced back against the side of the boat, held fast. Miranda closed her eyes, sensing the ebb and flow of the magic. Barnacle was a powerful Summoner, though inexperienced—while attacking one pupil, he would lose his grip on another. Cuttlefur, on the other hand, was a Channeler like her, able to use the magic, but only in small amounts. Between them, it didn’t seem likely they could have created a dragon out of nothing.
