by Patricia Bow
HEART OF A DRAGON
In the first two seconds she nearly lost Simon in the river. It wasn’t the gentle lift-off he’d been ready for. Ammy shot high into the air, and the leap continued into a back flip. The moon whirled beneath his feet.
For a moment, he felt himself sitting on nothing. Then he clamped on with his legs and got a good hold on some sticking-out things that he afterwards found out were her ears. When they came out of the spin they were circling the four people down beside the river. Four faces looked upward.
Steel whistled all around. A bolt hit Amelia’s armoured shoulder and bounced off. Another whizzed through Simon’s hair.
“Pier!” He waved wildly. “Stop the shooting! It’s me, Simon!”
That must have worked. The bolts stopped coming. One more circle and Amelia swooped down to land right between Mara and Pier. It was more of a crash than a landing, though. They both sprawled, and Ammy jolted back into her own shape.
But she didn’t let go of the Blade. She staggered up, rubbing an elbow, and grinned triumphantly at Mara, who was standing statue-still.
Then Ammy turned and looked at the three unfriendly faces on the other side. Pier still wore the jeans and oversized white T-shirt from Earth, and her hair was still a neon-red mop. Her face underneath was stark white. Amelia’s grin faded.
She took a deep breath and got a tight grip on the Prism Blade. She looked at Mara.
Then she handed the Blade to Pier.
“Traitor,” Mara said softly. Amelia flinched and didn’t look at her again.
Mara began to change. Pier stared at the sword that weighed down her hands.
Yulith and Gram whispered at her. She didn’t seem to hear them.
A burst of yellow-red light, high up, caught Simon’s eye. Then another. Some of the dragons on the cliffs and the hilltops were starting to flame.
“It is over,” said Mara in her dragon voice. She stretched out her wings.
Amelia grabbed Pier’s wrist. “Use it!” She yelled. “Now!”
Pier raised the sword and looked the dragon in the eye.
Light blazed.
Now Simon knew what it must have looked like to Amelia and Ike when he used the sword on Zeph. Up to a point, anyway. Pier and Mara stood frozen in a haze of rainbow light, their eyes locked. That lasted about a minute. Then the light faded. The tip of the sword thunked into the grass.
Strangely enough, Pier and Mara kept on staring at each other. Pier looked stunned. After a moment she bowed formally, head and shoulders. Mara dipped her head on the end of its snaky neck. Simon didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Then Mara spread her wings and flew away into the night.
And that was it. No more bursts of fire showed on the cliffs. Amelia held out her hand and Pier gave back the sword. Yulith yelped. “You can’t let it go now!”
“We must,” Pier said. “That is part of the bargain.”
“Bargain?” Gram snapped. “We do not bargain with dragons!”
Simon was afraid then that what they’d done was all for nothing. He opened his mouth, and Amelia started to speak, but Pier held up both hands. “We no longer need Wayland’s Prism.” She looked at Yulith and Gram, and then at Amelia. Her eyes were large and calm. “The dragon has given its word. Her word. I trust her. And you, you must trust me.”
Night darkened. The moon turned small and silver as it crept up the sky. Instead of falling quiet, the camp of the Casseri buzzed with excited talk. People built fires, brewed tea, packed bags of supplies for the explorers. A small child laughed.
It grew cold. A man brought blankets to Amelia and Simon, who were trying to stay out of everybody’s way. Wayland’s Prism lay on the ground between them, still looking like an ordinary, rather dull, steel sword.
“We’ve really done it!” Amelia rocked inside her blanket to keep warm. “The Casseri learned to trust the dragons. That’s all it took.”
“That’s not true,” Simon pointed out. “Pier trusts Mara, and the Casseri trust Pier. I don’t think there’s any more trust around than that. You notice? The warriors haven’t put down their arbalests.”
“Well, so long as ….” She flung off her blanket and jumped up as a silvery-green dragon settled on the meadow grass beside them. This, Simon knew, was what she’d been waiting for. It was the reason they hadn’t gone home an hour ago.
The dragon looked at her out of pale green eyes, and after a moment she nodded. “Mara wants me,” she said to Simon.
“And me?” He started to his feet, then caught his foot in the blanket and fell down again.
“No. Go home.”
“I can’t go home without you. You know that.”
“For heaven’s sake! Will you stop being such a ….” She saw his face and smacked herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh, Simon. I’m a jerk.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“And you’re a sweetie. But all the same —”
She drew in a deep breath and changed shape. It happened faster this time and seemed easier. It must have felt that way to Amelia too, because she sat up on her reddish-gleaming hind legs and did a silly little dance of celebration.
“How do I know you’ll come home?”
“Because ….” She tilted her head, listening. Then wilted. “Because Mara doesn’t want me to stay.” The silver-green dragon hissed. “Okay! Okay!” Amelia said. She pointed a claw at Simon. “You take care of the Prism Blade. Don’t take your eyes off it!”
They sprang upward, first the stranger, then Amelia, and vanished into the black sky.
Perched up here on the cliff top, the highest point of land for miles around, Mara looked more than ever her people’s chief. It was hard to imagine ever having hugged her, still harder to imagine that time, last winter, when Amelia thought she was protecting a helpless refugee.
Amelia kept wanting to scrunch down and make herself small. She forced herself to sit up and hold her head high.
First Mara’s eyes on her, bright and hard as emerald. Then the deep, sweet cello voice: “So you have truly become a warrior. Brave enough to defy even me.”
“I — I know you hate me now. I can’t blame you.”
Mara’s fearsome dragon mask didn’t change, but a smile warmed Amelia’s mind. I don’t hate you.
I never betrayed you!
I know that now.
You forgive me?
There is nothing to forgive, Amelia, more-than-sister.
Oh, I could dance!
But I hope you never know how it feels to have your whole heart and mind laid bare. To have no secrets left unseen. Not even the old chief, my grandmother, ever saw me as that ardin child saw me. Mara turned her head away.
I just knew she would trust you, if only she could see …
Yes. But now you know how dangerous that Blade is to us. It’s far worse than anything that could kill us outright.
Uh …
You don’t see. Mara narrowed her eyes. Not a dragon yet, despite your form. What makes us strong?
Amelia looked her over and grinned.
Mara shook her head. Not size. Not claws or teeth or wings. Not scales, though our skin will turn steel. Not even fire. On your world humans have weapons beyond dragon fire.
Then …
It’s our minds, Amelia. That we are masters of shapes, of illusions, that we can touch the minds of most other creatures. All that humans call magic. Our true strength. All that is of the mind.
So when Pier used Wayland’s Prism to see inside your mind …
At that moment a little ardin child was my equal. I could not touch her, not by mind, not by fire. My true strength was laid waste.
Her voice in Amelia’s mind was steady, but something of her pain and horror leaked through. Amelia wanted to hug her, the way you’d do if you were human, but that didn’t seem to sit well with her dragon form. Maybe with dragons the hugging was a mind thing, too.
I guess that’s what Wayland Smi
th meant to happen. I … I’m sorry.
Mara snorted a warm breath. I am not sorry. You did right. And most of the Urdar agree.
Most? Not all?
There are some who would kill you for giving the Great Bane to our enemies. I won’t be able to protect you always. So you must go home. But before you go, there is a thing you can do for us. It may change some minds.
What? I’ll do anything!
First, listen. And then rest. This will take all your strength.
Simon fell asleep wrapped in the Casseri blanket with the Prism Blade in his arms. He woke to find Amelia shaking him. She was back in her own shape. “Let go of the sword,” she muttered.
He sat up and uncurled his cramped fingers. The camp was quiet now, the fires were low. The little sequin moon shone right overhead.
Dark figures moved at the edge of the firelight. The warriors, still keeping watch. He guessed they wouldn’t stop doing that until they were safely through the new gate, and probably not even then.
“What did Mara want?”
“To give me a job.” She hoisted the sword to her shoulder and walked away across the meadow towards the cliffs.
Simon scrambled up and stumbled after her. “What job?”
“Can’t tell you. It’s a secret. From humans.”
“Oh, so you’re not human anymore?”
“Well, of course I ….” She shrugged, and had to prop up the sword again on her shoulder. “I’m not sure.”
“Look at you!” He stabbed a finger at her. “You can carry Wayland’s Prism and it doesn’t bother you at all. That proves you’re not a dragon, so quit pretending!”
She looked straight at him, finally. In the light of the overhead moon, her face was all scowls. “I think I’m both. Sort of.”
“Wonderful. My cousin the dragon.”
“But I’ll still come home. Mara says I have to, just as soon as I do this job.”
“We need to talk about things. We need to know what this means, you being part dragon.”
She sighed. Then grinned, and without warning wrapped her free arm around his neck and squeezed.
“Ow! What’s that for?” He pulled free and frowned at her.
“That was a hug, sort of. Simon, you’re such a geek.” She sounded fond. “Always wanting to know what it means.” She walked away into the darkness.
While he was thinking whether he should go after her again, someone touched his elbow. When he turned around, there was Pier. She was easy to see in the moonlight, all pale clothes and skin and eyes and hair. Then Simon realized.
“You got rid of the Earth clothes. And the red!” He pointed at her head.
She tossed her head to flip back the silvery mop. “All of that made people look at me in a strange way. As if I was not me at all. I am their Seeker, I need them to know me and trust me.”
“Oh, right. Makes sense.”
They stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then together they said, “I forgive you.”
Simon laughed, embarrassed. Pier frowned. “I forgive you for breaking your promise to me,” she said.
“Okay. And I forgive you for lying to me. About the Prism Blade, I mean. About what you thought it could do.”
“That is good, then.”
Another uneasy silence. Simon thought: Here’s some body who’s even worse at talking to people than I am. The thought cheered him.
Pier fixed her solemn eyes on him. “You will go home now.”
“Yes. I should go right now. I just ….” Worry about leaving Ammy/Amelia.
“We — I and my people — we will leave here, too,” Pier said. “Soon, I hope.”
“For a world of your own. Right. That’s good.”
She nodded. “Soon there will be only dragons here. You may never come back.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Then there is a thing you should see.”
CHAPTER 21
THE STARRY WINDOW
Pier led the way out of the camp and up the steep hill to the west. She wouldn’t say what it was all about, so he stopped asking and watched his step instead. The moonlight was just bright enough to cast confusing shadows.
When they reached the shelf where the Hall of Gates was, and walked in through the archway, at first he couldn’t see a thing.
“Um, I can’t go home this way. You know? I’d break my neck at the other end.”
“I know,” came Pier’s voice from the darkness. “Something else is here.”
“But there’s nothing here but windows.”
The dark wasn’t so dark now. Pier was a ghostly figure standing near the western wall. She was gazing up at one of the unbroken stained-glass windows. “Look and see,” she said.
Even standing beside her, at first he couldn’t make out what she was trying to show him. Then his eyes adjusted a little more, and the moon, which had inched to the west, touched the edges of the lead strips with silver and traced the shapes of the glass pieces.
The window showed a boy climbing a hill or a mountain — something steep, anyway. Stars glinted in the dark blue sky above the boy’s head. He was reaching up with his right hand as if to pick the brightest star.
“It’s nice. I like it.”
“It is you.”
“Huh?”
Pier gazed from him to the window, solemn as ever. “It is you, true as life. That was why I trusted you when I first saw you. I knew you were meant to be here, and meant to help us.”
“But — but it can’t be me!”
“Why not? These windows show heroes fighting monsters, mostly.”
He laughed. “I’m no hero!”
“Today you fought a dragon with a magic sword. What is that but a hero?”
He couldn’t make out whether she was kidding him or not. She just stared back at him. He wasn’t sure she was capable of kidding. “But — it’s impossible! This, I mean.” He waved up at the window. “I mean, when was this place built? The dragons didn’t build it, so it must’ve been here — what, ten thousand years, Mythrin time? At least.”
“Time in this hall is strange.”
“Even so —”
“It is you, believe it. Look closely.”
He stood right up against the window and stared up at it. “Well, maybe it looks a little bit like me. But —”
“Same hair,” Pier said. “Same eyes. Same nose. Same chin. And see, the shirt.”
The view showed the boy from the side, facing left. The shirt was loose and looked like a T-shirt. It was red, even in this silvery dimness. And something was written on the front of it — some letters. He could just make out “to be a” and below that, in larger letters, “W G.”
He shook his head, then his brain prodded his eyes and he saw. The letters were just one half of something. The other half was on the boy’s other side. “Proud to be a DAWG,” he said flatly.
“There, you see it?”
“I, I don’t have one of those shirts.”
“I expect you soon will have one. And see the shoes?”
The shoes were high-topped sneakers with a star shape on the ankle. “Ha! See, that can’t be me. I don’t have shoes like that, and I never will. Not my style.”
Pier shrugged. “Leave it, then. It frightens you. You know it means something.”
He had no answer. The more he looked at the window, the more it looked like him. Reaching up to pick a star from the sky. Which star? Why?
They were out on the shelf again before he knew where he was. He turned his back on the dark archway. The moon shone bright out here.
“Well. Uh, thank you.” He looked at Pier. “I think.”
“You will want to come back, now that you know about the window.” She held out her closed fist. “Here, take this.”
He held out his hand and she carefully set a small bundle on his palm. A piece of cloth wrapped around something hard. “What is it?”
“It is from here, so it will help you return. And it is
more. Look.”
Pushing aside a fold of the cloth, he saw a small stone marked with a dark star.
Pier leaned close and breathed in his ear. “That is dragon’s blood! Very powerful. Quick, hide it, or they will take it from you.” She folded the cloth back over the stone and closed his fingers around it. He slipped it into his pocket.
They walked back together to the camp of the Casseri, and past it, to the river. “Here is a place for you to cross.” Pier pointed. “See, there is a gravel patch, and there is a flat stone, and two more after that. Your gate is straight up the hill from there.”
“Um, goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye.” She folded her hands and watched him as he jumped from the bank to the gravel patch and then to the first stone. It stood up between two glistening arms of water and it was dangerously slippery. He waved at her from there, then jumped to the next stone.
It was a long jump. He didn’t quite make it. When he pulled himself out on the far bank and climbed to his feet and turned around again, Pier was still watching. As he stood there with water streaming from his hair and clothes, he thought that at last she was smiling.
Simon had gone just a few paces up the hill when a gust of hot sulphur-smelling air made him whirl around again. The silver-green dragon settled behind him. It’s come for the star stone, he thought, shoving his hand in his pocket. He didn’t know what the stone really was, or what Pier meant by “powerful,” but he didn’t want it snatched from him.
But the dragon only squinted at him. A voice whistled in his mind. I am sent to see you leave.
It prowled behind him all the way up the hill, crushing yellow-flowered bushes under its clawed feet. He wished it wouldn’t walk right there, where he couldn’t see it. It made his spine go tight. He expected to feel fire on the back of his neck any moment.
When he was within a few strides of the two trees, the arched space between them filled with sapphire light. He stopped.
The dragon slid past him and crouched behind one of the trees. It looked like an ambush with Simon as bait. There was no time to warn Ike.
The sapphire passage opened and Ike stepped out, holding something under one arm, and the passage faded behind him. His face lit up. “Hey! It’s you! Am I in time? Why are you all wet? What’s hap—”
