by John Conroe
The second row was himself, Declan, and Stacia. There was almost no way to talk above the cold rushing air, although Stacia could probably hear a word or two from Declan. It was the cold part that was the most shocking. The temperatures at ground level had been moderate, maybe sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Up here, in the clouds, it was colder than a witch’s tit—not that Mack had ever fallen so far as to experience such a thing firsthand. No way. Scary broads that could mess you up six ways from Sunday. No, the only witch he was going to hang out with was sitting next to him, and said witch had made the amulet that protected him from direct magic assault from other witches.
Declan’s power and skill at crafting wards was so high that none of the witches at school could hit Mack with a spell directly. Indirect was another story, though. Luckily, he’d learned that lesson without physical harm. An oh-so witty comment about Erika’s slut outfit of the day had resulted in the statuesque Swedish witch setting up a spell that levitated a bucket of cow shit over the door to the Arcane school cafeteria. Cow shit was in tremendous supply at UVM’s CREAM dairy project.
Everyone without a ward passed through the doorway unscathed. Anyone with a powerful, mega-Declan ward would trip the spell, tipping the bucket. Mack had been first through the door that day, like most days, as dinner was his favorite meal and he had a habit of leading the friend group charge for food, a habit Erika counted on.
That evening, he’d dined on cow crap and humiliation. Not much else, as the fresh offerings from the UVM college farm had pretty much stripped him of his appetite.
Declan had magically removed much of the shit but it had taken a thirty-minute shower to remove the bulk of the stench and three times through the laundry to get it out of his favorite pair of jeans. The nickname Manure Mack had lasted much, much longer.
Being one of two non-supernatural kids at a supernatural school was hard; learning to control his mouth had been harder. Standing, covered in shit, his anger had been scary. But the future had rolled out before his eyes. With Declan’s unswerving help, he’d prank Erika back. Then she’d come at him again, likely dragging her sister or one of the really scary witches into it. And so it would go. Then someday, a piece of heavy furniture would replace the bucket of soft, smelly cow poop and he’d be dead or paralyzed. He had no doubt his roommate would avenge him, but that would likely leave the school nothing but a crater and a whole bunch of college-age witches suddenly dead. He envisioned all of that in the first few seconds after impact. So he settled for walking up to the blonde bombshell and shaking some brown liquid love off himself and onto her plate of food, before letting Declan lead him away for clean up.
After that, he got careful. Real careful. Mr. Jenks, their survival instructor, already trained them like CIA recruits getting ready for a spy mission. Mack took it all directly to heart. He conditioned himself to watch everything and everyone. He learned everything he possibly could about magic without ever being able to use it himself. He learned about magic artifacts and began to collect them. The fact that his roomie was the undisputed grand warlock of their little school hadn’t hurt. If Declan couldn’t make something, say a water-spelled ring, Mack could easily trade for it from one of the water witches. Trading was easy. Most of the witches would give him stuff just for inside info on Declan. Anything he told them was already cleared by Declan, so he wasn’t going behind his buddy’s back. And he’d avoided talking to Erika since the incident. Not a big deal; he just figured it was wiser to avoid the temptation of letting his fast, wiseass mouth dig him a hole. But the unexpected side effect was that Declan followed suit. Every witch in the school noticed that consequence. Hard to get with the most powerful male witch in the world if he wouldn’t talk to you, look at you, or spend more than a few seconds near you on behalf of his roommate, although truth be told, not a one of them had a chance to begin with. Not over Stacia.
So the end result was Erika going out of her way to be nice to Mack just to earn the right to at least talk to Declan. But Mack had never forgotten the shit spell and never forgot that magic amulets can’t protect you from everything.
Anyway, dragon riding was cold. At Ashley’s suggestion, every one of them had donned sunglasses, but the biting airflow still made his eyes water so he mostly kept them shut.
His stomach told him that the dragon had begun to descend, so when he felt his sister shifting about in front of him, he opened his eyes. They were below the cloudbank and still over the endless plain. Ian had told them that the open grassland bisected Fairie’s main supercontinent. The northern half was Winter’s realm, all forests and mountains. The southern jungles and marshes belonged to Summer. The dividing belt of flatland was a neutral zone, and their destination lay in that zone, a hundred or so miles west of the portal rocks.
The sight that greeted Mack’s eyes was a massive white city smack dab in the middle of flat green. Below the clouds, the air wasn’t as cold and his sunglasses gave him enough protection to pick out details as Trygon began to circle.
The city was a perfectly symmetrical circle of white marble with main thoroughfares laid out from the center like spokes on a bike’s tire. The connecting streets between the spokes were gentle arcs that formed concentric circles around the massive round hub building that occupied the exact center of the city.
“Welcome to Idiria, the Middle City,” Ashley yelled over the much-decreased wind. “Its whole purpose is diplomacy between the realms. The central building is the conference center, with the rest of the city being mostly support systems for the delegates.”
“Who runs it?” Stacia yelled back.
“It was originally staffed by rotating members of the realms. Over time, some of the staffers stayed on past their shifts and eventually, a permanent population was the result. City staff and inhabitants all wear either white clothes or white armbands. They are supposed to be neutral, but don’t trust anyone. The queens’ influence runs deep,” Ian said loudly.
Trygon floated down, circling toward the massive central building, and Mack could now see enough detail to realize the upper sections of the building were mostly open archways occupied by enormous reptilian bulks.
“The dragons have the upper half of the building, and the bottom section is split between Winter and Summer. The very center, under that stone dome, is a massive amphitheater,” Ashley said, pointing everything out.
“Where do we go?” Jetta asked.
“Although the entire top ring of the building is for the dragons, the dragon’s leader always keeps the same roost. My apartments are directly below Gargax’s, just a small arc between the two Courts,” Ashley said.
“Apartments?” Jetta asked. “I like the sound of that.” Ashley grinned back at her, but then giant wings flared backward and the dragon dropped twenty feet in altitude.
“Hang on tight,” Ashley yelled. “Landings are kind of a bitch.”
Dragons, it seemed, did more falling than gliding when it came time to touch down. Mack had seen many big hawks and owls backwing before falling onto helpless prey, and that’s pretty much how the dragon landed. Oddly, he’d seen Declan’s mini-dragon do exactly the same thing.
Massive legs and feet reached down to grip the scarred stone of the top ring of the round building. Then, with a hard pull onto the ledge, Trygon stopped all forward motion in one giant yank.
How Ian Moore hung onto his sixty-pound dog in the face of that was beyond Mack, but somehow he did it. When Trygon settled down on all fours, tight to the stone, Ian let go of Charm and the dog raced down the side of the dragon and bounded around the landing area, barking. The rest of them followed much slower and far less gracefully, with the exception of Stacia. So while the other five picked their ways carefully down the rock-like scaled side of the beast, she jumped twice, lightly landing each time.
“Show off,” Declan said to her before turning and looking the dragon in the eye. “Thank you, Trygon, for allowing us the honor of your flight.”
Ashley looked surprised and
her father, whom Mack had immense respect for, wore an expression of approval. “I thought we weren’t supposed to say thank you? Ashley even used Pig Latin—sort of, right?” Jetta asked.
“Dragons aren’t elves and not really even native to Fairie. And they appreciate graditude,” Ian said.
“Yes, thank you, Trygon,” Mack said, jumping onto his friend’s example, earning himself a nod from Ian. His sister and Stacia followed suit, as did Ian, himself. Ashley, however, walked right up to the giant head and hugged it, speaking too quietly for Mack to hear.
“She’s thanking him for giving her friends such a smooth flight,” Stacia, head tilted slightly, whispered to Declan, Jetta, and Mack.
“That was pretty friggin awesome,” Jetta said. “Do you do that all the time, Mr. Moore?”
“Trygon always gives us a lift to and from the Portal stones, and a couple of times we’ve ridden with him to other sites for various reasons. Most of the time, just the portal stone trip, though,” Ian said.
The Sutton kids were very comfortable with Ashley’s dad. Mack and Jetta had housesat for the Moores last summer, and Ian had taught Mack knifesmithing to keep the forge in operation when they were gone to Fairie.
For Mack, learning to forge, and forging blades in particular, was like finding a long-lost part of himself. He had helped farriers at his parents’ horse ranch as a much younger boy, but learning to take a billet of steel and make a beautiful blade from it was an awakening. He took to it like ducks and water, rapidly becoming skilled at the art. Jetta, for her part, had grown close to Ashley, and Ian Moore treated her like she was an extra daughter. For both of the Sutton children, Ian Moore had become something of a father figure.
They gathered their packs, looking around the landing area as they did. Giant arches in the building’s façade let the dragons land and stay under cover while giving direct access to the the amphitheater inside. Ashley pointed out different features, like the twin speaking ledges across the vast open space.
“Those are for the queens. The left is for Winter, the right for Summer,” she explained.
“Why do they face this way?” Jetta asked.
“Because Gargax roosts in the arch next door. The Speaker’s ledge is right here, accessible from Trygon’s side or Gargax’s side,” Ashley said, leading them to a carved marble platform formed on the interior side of the building. It reminded Mack of private balcony seats in an old-time theater, except that you could fit about twenty people in it.
Stepping down into the balcony, Ashley waved them to follow. Mack noticed that they were a good fifty feet above the amphitheater floor. A shadow fell over them and they all turned to see a massive black head loom out of the darkened arch next to Trygon’s.
“Hello Gargax. Thank you for your welcome,” Ashley said calmly to the dragonhead that was three times bigger than Trygon’s. It was bigger than a compact car, Mack thought, his body moving itself backward until it was stopped by Stacia’s arm. Glancing back, he saw he was at the low railing wall that barely separated him from open air.
A nod to the wolf girl for her timely intervention and then all his attention was back on the enormous predator before them.
“And this is Mack and his sister Jetta, and Stacia, who is paired with Declan,” Ashley said, continuing the introductions that Mack had missed when his fight-or-flight instincts had frozen up. “Yes, Declan’s the witch,” Ashley said, answering the giant reptile’s silent question.
Gargax’s yellow eye, bigger than a serving platter, studied all four young people with interest.
As his body began to relax from not being eaten, Mack suddenly realized how much intelligence was gleaming from that giant eye. Yes, the dragon was a super predator, one that could prey on whales, but it was also very obviously a thinking being.
Declan, he noted, was much closer to the dragon, looking very interested and relatively calm, but Mack could feel the static-like charge that told him his friend was holding vast amounts of magic at hand.
“He says you don’t need to be worried,” Ashley said, speaking to Declan. “Although he is fascinated that you can hold that much power.”
Clearing his throat, Declan tried to speak. “He, ah, can sense that, can he?”
“Yup. By the way, it’s considered kind of rude, like brandishing a gun, but he realizes you haven’t seen an adult dragon before,” the teenaged Speaker to the Dragons said with a grin.
There was a sudden buzzing noise and a bird or bat or something came zipping through the air around them.
“Hello Pancho,” Ashley said, grinning in amusement. The flyer swooped to a stop, hovering in mid-air, and Mack saw it was a tiny man, about six inches tall, with dragonfly wings and black fur. The little man spoke in a fast, high-pitched twitter and Mack saw he had a really large jaw, which was filled with saw-edged shark teeth.
“Slow down. I can’t understand you,” Ashley said, frowning at the little flyer, who was in turn glaring at all of them. “These are my friends. The ones I told you about, remember?”
The nails-on-blackboard, high-pitched twitter stopped and the furry little man hovered over Jetta, then came near Mack, sniffing him from two feet up in the air. His flight swung him over Stacia and he sniffed again… and freaked out. Blurring almost too fast to follow, he shot right at the blonde werewolf. Stacia’s own arm blurred and the black-furred flyer was thrown fifteen feet away, hitting Charm in the middle of her back.
“Stacia!” Ashley said.
“What? It attacked me!” Stacia said, defensive. “I didn’t hit it that hard—it was a reflex. What the hell is it?”
Pancho, the little flying man, jumped back to his feet, holding his head with one hand and Charm’s fur with the other. The brindled dog was spinning in place, barking, and the motion seemed to add to the flyer’s addled condition.
“Pancho is a puck. He and his clan are loyal to me. He thought you were a threat. Pancho, that’s Stacia. We don’t attack her,” Ashley said, turning to the puck, but the little creature had jumped up into the air and was staring daggers at Stacia.
“Uh-oh,” Ian muttered, “He’s gonna call for backup.”
Pancho tilted his head back and let off a shriek that ranged up through glass shattering and straight out of human range. Charm whined and pawed her head at the sound and Stacia winced.
There was a pause and then the noise of Pancho’s wings was drowned out by a louder, deeper buzz that sounded like some kind of power saw. Motion caught Mack’s eye and he turned to see a small cloud of dark flying creatures come arrowing right at his group.
Pancho was, one moment, by himself, and then suddenly surrounded by a dozen or more of his own kind.
“Pancho, NO!” Ashley yelled, but the little man ignored her and led his cohort of toothy pucks in a blurry cloud right at Stacia—and promptly bounced off an invisible something a foot from her face. Declan was holding up a hand, and he turned to Ashley. “Ah, what do we do?” he asked, concerned but unworried. Gargax the dragon was still watching, head tilted and neck arched with interest.
The puck clan regrouped about ten feet away and before they could attack again, Ashley put herself between them and Stacia.
“STOP!” she yelled, her voice reaching, in Mack’s opinion, a truly impressive volume.
The horde of piranha-jawed mini-people froze in midair. Ashley brushed back a strand of black hair and took a breath. Then, without turning around, she backed up till she was almost right against Stacia, the blonde girl just watching calmly over Ashley’s right shoulder.
“These are my friends. They are all my friends. They are here to help protect me,” Ashley said.
Pancho, still hovering in place, lowered his gaze from a death stare with the were girl to look at Ashley, an expression of dismay and hurt on his human-like face.
He twittered a question.
“You and your clan are also my protectors,” Ashley said, nodding. “When I’m on Earth, my friends help protect me. You know this—you sta
yed in my room the first semester. You smelled all of them before,” she said.
