Todd was the first among them to speak. “So you sent for us, then?” Obar waved his hands as if to rapidly dispel any such notion. “Oh, dear, no. I don’t have that sort of power. Even Nunn doesn’t claim that kind of control. No. I’m afraid you were chosen by the dragon.”
Even Nick felt compelled to speak at that. “The dragon?”
“A real dragon?” Bobby said immediately after Nick. “What’s the dragon?” was Todd’s question.
Obar sighed. “What is not the dragon?” He smiled at the expressions of the neighbors. “I do not try to be confusing. Well, perhaps sometimes I do, but that is another matter.” Obar opened his arms wide. “The dragon hides, somewhere inside this world, or maybe somewhere above it. Even the greatest sorcery cannot find him. And even though the creature sleeps, we are—still—all controlled by the dragon. The dragon, you see, has brought us here for its own reasons.”
He paused again; his eyes focused someplace far away from the tower room. “But we can fight it! The dragon is power. If we are to save ourselves, we will have to attempt to harness the power.” He shook his head. “Eventually, we will no doubt all be destroyed by it.”
He looked up at the neighbors. “We are not the first at this. Others have tried. Until now, every one has been destroyed.”
“Wait a minute,” Todd protested. “You’re telling us we’re going to have to do something that’s going to get us killed?” Obar chewed at a ragged fingernail. “Well, hopefully not. There is always hope, isn’t there?”
Charlie growled again.
“Hey,” Bobby broke in with a forced laugh. “Even the dog doesn’t like it.”
But Nick saw his dog staring out in the middle of the room.
“It’s the magic, no doubt,” Obar remarked. “The dog must sense it. It erupts with greater frequency, you know, as the dragon prepares to awake.”
Nick followed the dog’s gaze. There was a spot in the middle of the far wall that seemed hazy, where the sharp lines between stones blurred one atop another.
“You can use the magic sometimes,” Obar continued as he stroked his shaggy mustache. His tone seemed more distracted with every word. “Or it can use you.”
Magic. Nick saw a point of light growing on the wall, or maybe just in front of it, a point so bright it looked like the real sun had bored its way through from the outside world.
He turned back to Obar. Was this light the old man’s doing? But the magician had closed his eyes, as if remembering.
“What if we don’t want to use your magic?” Todd demanded. “What if we don’t want to have anything to do with this?”
“Oh, you will,” Obar replied with a quiet confidence, his voice now barely more than a whisper. “The magic is intoxicating.” He chuckled softly. “And, of course, quite habit-forming.”
Charlie started to bark.
The light burst forth like some tiny firework, except this was a firework with form, for the spreading light grew arms and legs and a head. The thing had lost its intense brightness now, but twinkled with countless points of light, like a creature made of stars. But it wasn’t human; not quite. To Nick it looked more like an ape.
“What?” Obar called in confusion as his eyes snapped open. “This isn’t—”
“Here?” Raven screamed on Nick’s shoulder. “He dares?” Charlie rushed the creature.
One of the creature’s arms flashed forward, the still-moving light catching the dog as he leapt. Charlie was thrown back across the room, yelping in surprise.
The creature of light moved quickly toward the neighbors.
“Hey!” Todd struck out at the thing as the creature enveloped him. Bobby screamed and lost his footing, falling backward toward the floor. The light swallowed him while he was still in midair.
“Raven will not let this be!” the bird called angrily.
Nick felt an instant of intense pain as the bird’s claws dug into his shoulder. The air nearby was filled with a great flapping of wings, mixed with the shouted words of Obar.
Raven cawed and flew straight for the thing.
Obar rushed after the bird. He stared at the light, both hands making rapid gestures as a hundred indecipherable words flew from his lips. There was an intensity about the wizard now that had been lacking before as he focused only on magic.
The light-creature stopped. Its hands flew up in front of what should have been its face.
Raven dived toward it as Obar made a noise so high and strange that it barely seemed human.
The creature screamed.
Raven struck the creature beak-first as the light broke apart like a glass shattering into tiny shards. One by one, the fragments of light flared and vanished.
The creature of light was gone as suddenly as it had arrived. But it seemed to have taken Todd and Bobby with it.
“Once again, Raven has saved the day,” the bird announced as it attempted to resettle on Nick’s shoulder.
“Raven had very little to do with it,” Obar replied, trying to shake his brown costume more suitably back onto his shoulders. His efforts did little more than rearrange the wrinkles. “Nunn was simply not ready for my counterattack.”
“But where’s Todd?” Nick insisted, shaking off the bird. Raven squawked, either at Nick’s unwillingness to be a resting place or at Obar’s insistence that a wizard’s magic had saved the day.
“And Bobby?” Nick continued. “And what’s happened to Charlie?”
The dog lay against the far wall of the room. Charlie still breathed in heavy, rapid gasps. He whimpered softly, his eyes closed.
“Your dog I can cure,” Obar remarked as he strode over to the fallen animal. “After ridding ourselves of Nunn’s magic, patching up this canine will be the easiest and most delightful of tasks.”
“But what about Bobby and Todd?” Jason insisted.
Obar blinked as if he had forgotten all about the two others. “Oh, yes. I imagine they’ve been shifted somewhere by Nunn. Perhaps not where Nunn wanted them. We did get to that creature well before he was done. It’s always very satisfying when you can foil something nasty like that, don’t you think?”
He knelt down by Charlie. Nick realized there was blood on the floor below the dog’s forepaws. Please. He wanted Charlie to be all right. He hoped that this time the magician knew what he was talking about.
“Then you’re just going to leave Bobby and Todd out there?” Jason demanded.
Obar placed a finger to the spot where his nose met his brow, and paused a moment in thought. “We will find them as soon as the effects of the spell dissipate.”
Obar glanced up from the dog to give his remaining guests his very best smile. “Until then, we can but pray that they protect themselves.”
Nick did not find the wizard’s smile at all reassuring.
Nine
Mary Lou was talking about the neighbors.
Afterward, she couldn’t remember how she had gotten started. Well, she began by describing her parents and her brother, but that wasn’t exactly what she meant. (And how about her sister? Somehow, because Susan wasn’t there, she no longer seemed worth talking about.) She talked about how her parents were happier when she didn’t bother them, and how they always paid so much attention to her brother, Jason, and his science projects. And that led to descriptions of Jason’s friend Bobby, with his weird, braying laugh, and the two other teenage boys in the neighborhood, the cute (but shy) Nick and the handsome (but conceited!) Todd. She began to talk about Nick’s mother, and the assistant principal, Mr. Mills, and how they seemed to be spending more and more time together, when another voice interrupted.
Mary Lou opened her eyes. When had she closed them? For an instant, she felt as if she had lost not only her voice but her breath as well, as if a tiny piece of ice had lodged in her lungs.
“That’s quite enough, my dear,” a third voice added.
She blinked and saw a smiling Nunn in front of her. Mary Lou found herself getting really upset. Why should she ha
ve wanted to say anything to him?
“Do you have any sense of them?” Nunn asked. His smile was gone; his brow wrinkled with a hundred creases.
Mary Lou didn’t understand him. Was he still speaking to her?
A halo formed around the magician’s head. Nunn’s face relaxed as the light rose to form first a separate skull and then a body beneath.
“Oh, I will find them quite easily,” the child voice replied as it hovered above the wizard. “Mary Lou is so helpful. We must find a way to thank her.”
“Oh,” Nunn agreed, “I think she will have a most important role in what’s to come. Especially if she continues to cooperate. But why don’t you bring her friends to her now?”
“Then they will all be together?” The creature slowly became more solid as it hovered above the magician’s head, so that its face now featured vague shadows for a mouth, a nose, and the sockets of the eyes. It glanced down at the still-unconscious Captain. “Well, almost all.”
“I think the Captain will call back the other one without any further aid,” Nunn answered with a chuckle.
The Captain nodded again, and smiled, as if he was glad to be part of the fun. He still didn’t open his eyes.
“I’ll bring them all together,” the creature said in a voice that was almost singing. “Then, once we’ve made our choices, I can have some real enjoyment.”
Two points of light flared on the creature’s face, two red orbs where eyes should be. They stared at Mary Lou. “It’s amazing how hungry you get when you’re not allowed to feed.”
“No complaints,” Nunn reprimanded the thing, as if he was, indeed, talking to a five-year-old. “You always get what you want.”
“I do, don’t I?” The creature almost purred as its form, never that substantial, seemed to fade from where it hovered. After a moment, only the two glowing eyes remained. Then those blinked out as well.
“Now we wait,” Nunn said. “It won’t be very long. Zachs can be quite efficient when he is properly motivated.”
Nunn turned away to examine a collection of vials crowded on one of many shelves.
Mary Lou felt like she had been dismissed. She was used to that; her parents were very good at dismissing her, getting her out of sight and mind. Except she was afraid that this time, Nunn didn’t want her to leave.
But this time she wanted, more than anything, to be out of here. Nunn laughed softly as he picked up a jar filled with dark liquid.
The Captain started to kick his feet out as if he was marching through the air. He still hadn’t opened his eyes.
“I would like to see my parents,” Mary Lou said.
Nunn turned to look at her. “You would?” Her remark seemed to have greatly amused the magician.
“I heard you say all the neighbors were important, at least for now,” she continued quickly, knowing that if she stopped talking now, she might not have the nerve to start again. “Wouldn’t it be better if my parents weren’t worried about me?”
“A very persuasive argument,” Nunn continued in that maddeningly agreeable tone. “I imagine you are very important.” His smile turned down slightly at the edges; “I will speak frankly with you, Mary Lou. As you can see from our friend the Captain, I generally am able to get what I need from anyone, at any time.” He nodded thoughtfully, and the Captain, still marching, nodded along. “However, I will admit that things go more smoothly when people are willing. Tell me, if you were to see your parents, would you be able to keep our little secret?”
“Secret?” Mary Lou asked.
Nunn swept his right hand in a great arc before him. “All of this. People are so much easier to deal with when they’re not aware of complications.”
She did not know if she could agree. She never wanted to say yes to anything this man might suggest.
“You are probably wise to be careful,” Nunn said. “Not, of course, that it matters. Once you, or anyone, enters my castle, there is no leaving. Well, perhaps for someone very special. But you would have to prove yourself extremely worthy.”
Special? She thought of the creature that had seeped out of the Captain’s insides. Maybe there was something worse than being trapped here, after all.
“What?” Nunn asked sharply. Mary Lou hadn’t said anything.
Light filled the room, followed by a high scream that slammed into her with a solid force, lifting her from her feet and tossing her backward.
She landed flat on her back, stunned, the air knocked from her lungs. “Hurt!” the child voice screamed.
She pushed herself up on her elbows. The magician’s creature had returned. It sat huddled on the floor, its skin glowing a dull orange. The area around it was a mess of fallen shelves. The Captain’s chair had tipped over on its side, so that his continuous stiff-legged marching pulled him around in a circle every time his left leg dragged along the floor. Nunn picked himself up and stared down at the thing.
“Where are the boys?” he demanded.
The thing looked up at the magician. “Hurt!” it screamed again, a great tongue of orange flame flew from its mouth.
Nunn staggered away from the fire. He lifted both his hands. Mary Lou thought he would cover his face. Instead, he clapped them together, and a spout of green flame lanced forward to strike the creature’s skull.
The thing’s screams redoubled as it shrank close to the floor.
“There is more than one kind of hurt, my dear Zachs,” Nunn said softly.
“Hurt!” the thing screamed sullenly.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Nunn continued in the same quiet tone.
“Slipped away,” the creature replied quickly. “Zachs had them, the first two. But the magician– Hurt! Hurt!”
“You let them get away?” Emotion was returning to the magician’s voice.
“No one hurts Zachs like that!” the creature continued its tirade. “I’ll hurt them! Eat them slowly. Keep them awake so they know, so they see. Eat the head last!”
“Zachs!” Nunn’s voice rose to meet the other. “You will answer my question!”
“Hurt!” The thing shot out another spit of flame. This one hit the pile of fallen shelves, setting them ablaze.
Mary Lou was afraid these two would destroy the whole place. She looked around for somewhere to hide, and saw that she had been thrown only a few feet short of the doorway. Carefully, she rose to her hands and knees.
Nunn clapped his hands again. This time his green fire was met by the creature’s orange.
The second explosion caught Mary Lou as she rose to her feet, propelling her from the room, until the stone wall opposite the doorway stopped her abruptly. She managed to take a breath, swallowed, willed herself not to fall.
She stumbled to the side, trying desperately to get away from anything else that might erupt from the battle. She looked back the way she had come, but she knew that corridor ended in a solid wall. The hallway stretched off the other way as well. Mary Lou walked as best she could, fright making her forget her hurts. She would find some way out of here.
The way was quiet. As the cacophony behind her faded with distance, she could once again hear the slap of her heels against stone. She found it reassuring. Since that sound came from her, she felt once again in some control of what would happen to her.
The floor beneath her shook, as if Nunn’s battle might destroy the castle.
She saw something flickering ahead, a light of some sort with a greenish tinge. She thought of the wizard’s fire and almost stopped, propelled forward only when she heard another muffled explosion at her back. Maybe, she thought, there was window up ahead, obscured by a drape of some sort, blowing in the wind.
The light made her want to ignore her bruises even more, and she managed to break into a slow run toward the illumination. The fight behind her would not go on forever. If she was to get out of this place, it would have to be now.
The light flickered before her again, and she saw that it wasn’t a window, after all. It was a
door, and beyond that door were the trees and shrubs of the open woodland. But the door wasn’t always there. When the light vanished, she saw a stone wall ahead of her instead.
She realized that these must be the only ways in and out of Nunn’s castle: doorways controlled by the magician’s sorcery. Nunn must have wanted her to join him inside his retreat; otherwise, she doubted if she could have gotten into the hut. For all she knew, he could also twist the corridors of this place around so that he could lead you to any place he wanted.
But, for a moment at least, Nunn had lost control. His spells flickered as he used his energy in a personal battle.
Mary Lou had no doubt it was a battle that Nunn would win.
The door flashed into existence before her again, looking bright and real and inviting. She broke into a full run toward it as the seconds fled by.
It vanished before she could reach it. Before her was the never-ending wall, stretching out into a new corridor both left and right.
From somewhere behind her, she heard a great, booming laugh, the sound, perhaps, of the magician’s victory.
Then the doorway was back. Nunn hadn’t had time to regain control of all his spells. If she was going to run, it had to be now. She had no desire to pass through that space as the magic stone wall solidified around her.
Mary Lou jumped forward, diving into a somersault as she had been taught in gymnastics. She hit the ground and rolled onto her back.
She looked back to where she had come from and saw nothing but a sheer cliff face. But she heard no sounds of battle, nor the magician’s laughter.
She did hear a great rustling in the trees overhead. She looked up and saw the branches bouncing about in an agitated fashion, far more than could be explained by a passing wind.
She screamed as something jumped from the tree, falling straight toward her.
Ten
Now Todd was pissed.
Hey, he thought, maybe this whole thing was a way out, the kind of thing he’d always wanted to do, a way to get away from his bastard old man and his crying mother and all the things he couldn’t stand in that house on Chestnut Circle.
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 9
