Dragon's Heart

by LaVerne Thompson

  Maya sat back on her hunches. She couldn’t see his face clearly anymore, but she could tell his head turned at the sound of her voice.

  “I…I don’t know. I…I’m not sure,” he said.

  “Just relax. Give it a minute.”

  “Oh…my head hurts.” The young man groaned again and held his hands to his temples.

  Before Maya could ask any more questions, he fell sideways and passed out. She couldn’t get him to wake up again. Pulling her backpack off, she placed it near the boy, and took out her cell phone. The red glow over the bar on the phone showed her she had no service. She frowned in frustration. “Just great. I spend all this money for a state-of-the-art smart phone that’s supposed to provide international service so I can be connected from anywhere in the world. Anywhere, of course, but wherever I need it most. This sucks!”

  The mist lifted. Maya glanced down, the young man’s features looked clearer, but the night grew darker. She shivered and zipped up her vest. The temperature in the mountains dropped quickly. Looking around she saw nothing but shadows. She didn’t want to leave him; it would take her at least a two hour walk to the nearest house and help. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go so far. Maybe if she moved around a little she’d be able to pick up a signal so she could call for help.

  Leaving his side, she walked around a couple of feet away from the young man but still no signal. Maya kept going until she went beyond the standing stones. Once she did she got a signal and the call went through.

  The emergency people would be there as soon as they could. She put her phone in her cargo pants side pocket and returned to the boy’s side. They could send a chopper in but the low-laying fog presented a visibility problem. They’d fly in as close as possible to her coordinates then walk their way up to them. She’d described the area to the operator and had been a little taken aback when the woman claimed she’d never heard of the standing stones. Shouldn’t they have maps of the various hiking areas on the mountain? She even checked to make sure she’d dialed the emergency number for Sperrin County. After all, she had programmed the number into her phone while on the first hike out here.

  Maya gave the operator the name of her inn and the name of her hiking guide. She tried to describe how to get there, the way her guide had done, but she didn’t seem to be very helpful. Hopefully, they’d get a hold of her guide who could bring them to the right spot or they could call her cell and try to track her location from the signal.

  Nothing had changed with the young man’s condition. She tried to wake him up again by gently shaking his arm, but he wouldn’t stir. Pressing her fingers between his jaw and the side of his neck, she checked his pulse. It beat strongly against her fingers; at least confirming signs of life. Next, she checked his pockets for a wallet or any type of identification, but they were all empty. Maya searched near his body for signs of a backpack or any kind of clue as to who he might be or what happened to him, but she could find nothing. The fog continuously rolling around the stones didn’t help visibility much.

  She got up, extended her search, and walked within the circle of stones to see if she could find anything. Her hand reached out to touch one of the stones. “Ouch! What the…” Maya couldn’t believe what she saw. The stone glowed, and she’d definitely got an electric shock, just like before. Only this time no dirt marred the stone. The glow helped highlight a discernable pattern etched into the rock. “My God! What…what is that? A dragon? So I did see a dragon before. But…but this is impossible. First it’s there then it’s not.”

  A moan from behind her caused her to turn around in time to see the young man trying to sit up. She ran over to him. “Hey, it’s okay. Stay still. Don’t try to move. Help is on the way.”

  He ignored her. He sat up and drew his legs to his chest. “Oh my head.” His head fell forward until it almost touched his knees, and he brought his hands up to cradle his temples. His motions drew Maya’s attention to his hair. It was so long that when he leaned forward it cascaded past his shoulders until it completely covered his elbows. “What…what happened?” he stammered.

  Momentarily lost for words, Maya kneeled down beside the young man. “I don’t know.” She almost lifted her hand to touch the waterfall of hair. “I found you unconscious here in the middle of the stones.”

  “S-stones?” He lowered his arms and raised his head to look around him.

  The fog had rolled off a little more and Maya sucked in a breath. Oh wow, handsome, and breathtakingly so. He must drive the young girls crazy. The face of an angel stared back at her, a sixteen or seventeen-year-old golden angel with long blond hair. And those eyes. They were eerily familiar. A lot like the eyes from her dream, like emeralds, and they even glowed.

  Wait a minute.

  They glowed! Light shone from them, like the stone. Maya’s head whipped around to look at the stone she had touched, and sure enough it continued to glow. The emerald eyes of the dragon shone, just like the eyes of the young man. Like the eyes of the dragon in her dream.

  “Wh-what the hell is going on?” Maya looked back and forth between the teenager and the stone. She stood up abruptly and moved away from both the young man and the shining stone.

  The young man looked at her, then at the stone. “I-I don’t know. I don’t know. Is it supposed to do that?”

  “Hell no! Stones don’t just start glowing.” At least she didn’t think these kinds of stones did. “Who are you? What happened here?”

  “I told you. I don’t know.” The young man’s frame trembled. “I-I don’t remember.” He looked at her seemingly pleading with his eyes for her to help him, to help him understand.

  She took a deep breath. Some instinct told her he would not harm her, and he appeared to be genuinely confused. “Okay, okay calm down,” she said to him but she spoke to herself too. “What’s your name?”

  “I-I don’t know. Why don’t I know? I don’t remember anything.” He dropped his head down and placed his hands over his face. “What’s wrong with me?” His head snapped up as he looked at her. “Do you know what happened to me? Do you know who I am?”

  Maya could read the turmoil in his weird gaze and felt sorry for him. She slowly returned to kneel beside him, still a little wary of those glowing eyes of his. Maybe they were some kind of bizarre colored contacts.

  “No. I’m sorry. I found you lying here. My name’s Maya Trent. I’m just a tourist. Maybe you were in some sort of accident and you have temporary memory loss or something.” She shrugged.

  It seemed to be the most likely scenario. In such a small community, surely someone would know the young man—she hoped—even as a visitor to the area. Which he could be. He had an American accent for sure.

  “Help should be here soon. Why don’t you just try to relax?” The young man reached out and grabbed her arm. When Maya tried to pull away, he immediately released her. He barely held her but his touch startled her. His warm hand a contrast against the chilly night air.

  “I’m sorry. I meant no harm.”

  Maya raised her hand and waved his apology away. “It’s okay.”

  “Please, I’m just trying to understand. I don’t know why I can’t remember anything. I don’t know who I am. I don’t even know where I am.” He looked around at the stones and his gaze paused, focusing on the glowing dragon. “What’s that? It looks like some sort of dragon. Dragon. That seems familiar to me. Aarrg!” The young man slumped forward again and grabbed his head. “The pain…”

  Maya reached out and wrapped her arms around him. “Shhh, it’ll be all right. It’ll be all right. We’ll find out who you are.” At least she prayed they would. This went way beyond strange.

  “Will you stay with me please, Maya? Will you stay with me until I remember?”

  She looked into those eyes, eyes so like the dragon in her dream and nodded. She would stay with the young man until he returned to where he belonged. For some reason her instincts warned that he didn’t belong here.

  The stone conti
nued to glow as she held the boy, but a whirling noise in the distance broke the silence on the mountain. Only now did she realize how quiet the mountain had become while she sat in the circle of stones and darkness descended upon them. Not even the sound of the wind passed through the trees. She tried to see between the stones and beyond the trees but the fog remained thick there.

  “I think help has arrived,” she told him. “I think I hear a chopper, but they may not be able to land near us. The fog’s still thick around the stones. They’ll probably have to find a clearing in order to set down. Then they’ll walk up and hopefully be here soon. I’m going to walk beyond the standing stones and see if I can reach them on my cell. I’ll be right back.”

  “Al…all right.” He glanced away and then back at her.

  “I won’t go far. You’ll still be able to see me.” Maya got up and walked toward the stones, but stopped. The stone no longer shone. She rubbed her eyes and continued moving forward. The nearer she got the more the etching of the dragon faded away, until it disappeared entirely. “What the…!” she exclaimed.

  “What? What’s wrong?” the boy asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Th…the stone. The stone is no longer glowing.” She stepped back so he could see for himself. As she looked over at him, she made another discovery. His eyes weren’t shining anymore either. “Your eyes…they…they aren’t glowing either.”

  “What?”

  “Your eyes. Your eyes were giving off a light like the stone. Who are you?” she finished on a whisper. What are you? she silently questioned.

  “I don’t understand. I…”

  Maya shook her head. “It’s okay. We’ll get to the bottom of this. There must be some sort of explanation.” Or she was losing her mind.

  “Why would light shine from my eyes? Why don’t I remember anything? Arrrgh!” The boy shook his head, sending hair flying in every direction. “This makes no sense. Why can’t I remember? I should be able to remember. What’s happening to me?” He tried to rise and got as far as all fours.

  Maya rushed over to help him.

  “Hey, hey, hey, take it easy,” she said helping him to straighten. “Do you think you should be standing up?” She placed an arm around his waist and he looped his across her shoulder.

  He turned to look at her and had to look down. She was no slouch at five eight, but this boy, this young man stood over six feet and was probably still growing. “I think I can stand. It’s only when I try to remember anything my head hurts.”

  “Well, just take it easy. I still think you should sit back down.”

  “No, please. I want to see that stone. Can you help me over there?”

  “I…”

  “Please. I feel like I need to see the stone.”

  “Okay, but if you feel dizzy, we stop.”

  “Agreed.”

  Maya helped him walk over to the stone, aware he tried not to put any weight on her. She simply guided him. Once they faced the previously lighted stone they stopped. It looked dark now, just an ordinary looking piece of rock.

  The boy raised the arm at his side and laid his palm against the stone. When his hand touched it, both he and all of the stones glowed. They found themselves surrounded by light in a rainbow of colors. Maya could have sworn she heard a low hum coming from all directions just as the boy’s body trembled beside her. He threw his head back and roared. Not a scream but a guttural primal cry. The vibration of which burrowed into her soul. The sound of a wounded animal.

  Scared, Maya dropped her arm from around his waist and stepped away from the boy, forcing him to release his hold on her. Without her support, he fell to the ground, unconscious again and the light coming from the stones winked out, as if it had never existed.

  Looking down on the boy who lay at her feet, Maya gasped. She was indeed losing her mind.

  Chapter Three

  The good news, despite running into some bad weather, flight forty-seven arrived right on schedule. Best of all, the passenger in seat 14A slept through most of it. He didn’t see anything else blocking out the sun. The bad news, he dreamt. He dreamed of a circle of emerald stones, dragons with hides of gold, and a dragon so dark no light reflected off it.

  The voice of the pilot came on announcing they were in their final descent over Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The passenger woke up abruptly, dazed at first, then glad when he realized they’d reached their destination. Well, the first part of it. His wife pulled her seat upright, and he did the same then put on his jacket. Already he lost the gist of his dreams until they were all but forgotten. He didn’t remember anything odd happening during the long flight. He just looked forward to spending time with his daughter.

  He’d divorced her mother two years ago and then moved to London. A long time in the life of a child. He hadn’t seen his daughter since, but he’d kept in touch with her. Recently remarried, he very much wanted to be a part of his kid’s life. She would be ten tomorrow and he wanted to surprise her.

  When the emergency and rescue people finally found them, Maya didn’t know how long she’d sat on the cold unforgiving ground with the young man’s head in her lap. At least long enough for her butt to go numb. She’d dragged herself and the boy to the outer perimeter of the stones so her phone would work and for the rescue team to be able to locate them. Odd, beyond the stones the noises of the mountain came alive, startling her for a moment. This entire day and evening went under the heading of bizarre. She should have run back down the mountain at the first sign of weirdness, but she didn’t. The young man, regardless of all the strange things going on, needed help. Needed her. She could not abandon him.

  “Here lass,” the first man said to reach her, dressed in a padded red jumpsuit with a yellow vest and a patch proclaiming him part of the Irish Mountain Rescue. “What happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. But he’s hurt,” she said indicating the still unconscious boy.

  Another paramedic stood right behind the first. The other man checked the young man’s pulse then shone a light into his eyes. Thankfully, the only glow this time came from the pen light in the medic’s hand.

  The second man had a radio attached to the helmet he wore, and she heard him tell the person on the other end to call off the other teams; they had found the lost hikers. “Let’s get him on the stretcher,” the first man said. “Can you tell us what happened, Miss? Is this your hiking companion?”

  Maya watched as they efficiently and safely strapped the boy onto a stretcher. The second medic helped to lift him to begin the walk back to the helicopter. Both men were past middle age, but even in the padded suits they appeared built like linebackers. They had no trouble lifting the boy.

  “Ah…no. I don’t know who he is. I-I found him unconscious in the middle of the stones. He came to a little while ago and spoke a bit. He didn’t remember what happened or who he was.” She’d decided not to mention anything about his glowing eyes or the glowing stones. Other than sounding crazy, something else compelled her to hold her tongue.

  “Stones? What stones?” The first medic asked, pausing in stride to turn his head to look around, then continuing forward.

  She shifted her body to gesture the way they’d come. “They’re right…” But the area now lay in heavy fog revealing no sign of the stones. “There are about ten of them, right over there.” Puzzled, she looked back and forth between the two men who had kept walking and she hurried to catch up to them. “Come on, you had to have seen them when you found us.” She raised her hand up to her waist. “The stones are about this high!”

  “No.” The first man glanced at his partner, a look of confusion on his face. “You see anything?”

  His partner wore a similar confused express on his face Maya could clearly see because of the LED light flaring from the helmet he wore, and shook his head in the negative. “We barely spotted the two of you,” he said. “Maybe the fog blocked our view. Anyway the important thing is we found y
ou thanks to the GPS signal from your phone.”

  Maya couldn’t understand why they hadn’t seen the stones. Granted, the thick fog might obscure their vision but they should have at least seen the stone they found them near. It had only been a hand span away. Another unexplainable thing she decided not to pursue for now. She looked down at the teenager on the stretcher.

  “Will he be all right?” she asked, worried.

  “I didn’t see any evidence he took a blow to the head,” the first medic said. “But don’t worry. We’ll get the lad to hospital in no time and the doctors there will take a look at him.”

  “May I come with him to the hospital?”

  “Of course you can.”

  Talon glided out of the cloud to land in a circle of stones that looked very much like the stones of his home world. He had never been here before but he knew he’d made it through the portal. Terra, called Earth now. The land of the Forgotten Ones.

  His golden dragon form shimmered even as he landed on the ground. If human eyes had been present to observe the change, they would have thought they stared at an image coated in fluorescent silk, as a male in human form emerged from the center of the shimmer. But in truth the only human essence existed in the center of the stones in the body of a young man who appeared to be about seventeen earth summers.

  Too late, Talon realized time moved differently for dragons on Akgon. Then again maybe not, at home even at four hundred years brethren considered him barely past hatchling, still young. As a human, he would appear a mere teenager. Those thoughts were of no consequence. He heard whispers. Ones he couldn’t ignore.

  The Earth and the Stones of Power called to him. They recognized him and welcomed him as the son of one of their own, long gone from this world. They lulled him with their song of the ages. They had a lot to tell him.

  The first thing the Stones made him aware of—his nakedness. He enjoyed the feel of air brushing against his skin, but his body temperate warmed the chilled air around him so it felt more like a warm breeze. In this land, his entire body needed covering in some form of cloth, and not the loin covering he usually wore. Mother Earth guided him in what he needed to do.