“She’s very close,” Garo announced before Mrs. Smith could speak.
“And the dragon is, too,” Obar added.
The stone felt warm in Mrs. Smith’s hand. Perhaps something would happen, after all. Now that they had gotten this close, even she didn’t want to turn back.
But how could they hope to find Mary Lou in a place as dark as this?
“Mary Lou!” Garo called out loud.
There was no answer but the rumbling, although that seemed closer now.
“I thought it was worth a chance,” Garo whispered. “Perhaps there is some way your eyes could lead us to her.”
Her dragon gem was pulsing, in time to that low rumbling that seemed to fill this world.
“What?” a voice called back, full of echo, as if the sound came from the end of a great tunnel. “Did someone call my name?”
“Yes!” Garo shouted. “Mary Lou!”
There was another pause before her voice shouted back. “Prince.
Is that you?”
The prince smiled. He was a very handsome young man when he smiled. “So you call me. We’ve come to rescue you!”
Another moment of silence, as if her voice came from a great distance. “Why should I trust you after what you did?”
What he did? Garo had neglected to mention anything about that. Mrs. Smith was beginning to like this less and less.
But the young phantom’s smile was gone. For the first time, he seemed genuinely worried. “It’s not just me!” Garo answered. “Obar is here! And Mrs. Smith!”
The pause seemed even greater this time. “Well,” Mary Lou replied at last, “maybe—”
Her voice was lost under another noise as the deep rumble rose to shake everything around them, and then rose some more, into a roar so deafening Mrs. Smith was afraid her ears would burst.
The roar ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving behind a silence that seemed even more terrible.
“Mary Lou.” Garo, her prince, mouthed her name silently, as if afraid to say anything else aloud. Perhaps, Mrs. Smith thought, he was afraid he’d never see Mary Lou again.
Not that Mary Lou was all they had to worry about. For, in getting her attention, Garo had also gained the notice of the dragon.
Fifty-Nine
“Mr. Mills, I presume.”
Evan Mills looked up with a start. He must have been dozing. He was astonished that he needed sleep. Funny, after all that had happened, that sleep would be the thing to surprise him.
It was Nunn’s voice that he heard. The cloud had opened his eyes as well.
“You can call me that, if you wish,” the cloud said solemnly.
“Then you don’t claim responsibility?” Nunn’s voice sounded amazed. “I know it was you who started all this, going where you didn’t belong.”
“So you say,” the cloud replied.
“This is absurd!” Nunn protested. “How can I have a conversation with a creature who’s invaded my head? I won’t feel right until I’m talking to you face-to-face!”
“We want no less,” the cloud agreed.
“We?” Nunn’s voice was growing more tense from one word to the next. “What is this ‘we’? I know you are Evan Mills, and I’ll have you out of there!”
“If you can do it,” the cloud replied in the same mild tone.
“If I—” Nunn sputtered. “No. This anger does neither of us any good. My creature Zachs comes and goes from me at my will. I am quite sure I can do the same for a common human being.”
“So you will set us free?” the cloud asked. “What happens then?”
“What happens? Ah, I see.” Nunn chuckled. “On my honor as a wizard, I will not lay a hand on you. Now, if you will excuse me, I must make preparations.”
Mills waited a moment before asking a question. “Does Nunn mean it? About not laying a hand on us?”
“Of course,” the cloud answered in that same maddeningly serene tone. “Not that we could leave his fortress alive. But he’ll let somebody else do the killing.”
“Zachs knew it!” the light-creature erupted. “When Nunn is angry, people die!”
“So he’s going to have us killed?” Mills asked, trying to stay calm himself.
The cloud made a soft tsking sound. “Just because Nunn wants something does not make it so, no matter what the wizard believes. I believe, Mr. Mills, that we will have some say in this as well.”
The lawn was everywhere.
Sayre opened his eyes. Everywhere but here, that was. The endless fields of green he saw when his eyes were closed, were replaced by these bare stone walls, walls where nothing would grow.
Sayre hated things that wouldn’t grow. He hated them almost as much as those who ruined his lawn. But Sayre did more than hate. Since the world had changed, Sayre made them pay.
He had a special punishment for people who’d defile his lawn. He’d pluck off parts of them the way they’d pluck his grass, smash them beneath his heel the way they’d smash down his grass with their tires, strangle their laughter and unkind words out of their throats. And, when he was done with them, he’d have the greatest lawn of all.
“Are you ready?”
Sayre jerked around to see the tall man in the dark robes. He didn’t like where the tall man had put him. But the tall man had filled him with the green. Yes. It felt so good. Sayre didn’t need to kill the tall man. Yet.
“I need you to get rid of somebody,” the tall man said. “An old neighbor.”
Neighbor? He hated the neighbors. They almost all made fun of his lawn!
“Once you’re done with that,” the tall man added, “you can have as much green as you want.”
“Green,” Sayre said. He frowned. If he concentrated, he could still make sentences. “I’d like to get to work on my lawn.”
“And you shall,” the tall man reassured him. “Now your neighbor is going to appear here suddenly. He may even look like he’s somehow coming out of me.” The tall man laughed as if this was the most foolish of ideas. “I don’t want you to be alarmed.”
Things like that would never alarm Sayre. Nothing in here could compare to his lawn.
“And then I want you to kill him.”
Sayre nodded. It seemed simple enough.
“It will only be a minute,” the tall man murmured, “and everything will be yours.”
Everything was ready. Nunn looked inside. “Mr. Mills, are you there?”
He saw the image of a man, almost lost among the thousand other images that waited in this corner of the brain. He saw a flash of light, a reflection of Zachs, perhaps? And there was something else, behind the tiny Mills, something that looked like a cloud.
“I’m here,” Mills answered.
“Good. I think I see you. Stay still, please, and I’ll bring you out.
This may hurt a bit.”
Nunn concentrated, repeating the same pattern he used to withdraw Zachs from his inner self.
He thought he heard a single word, in a different voice. The word was “Now.”
Nunn couldn’t let his concentration waver. Who knew what fragmented personalities remained in that corner of his cortex? He had to bring Evan Mills out of Nunn’s separate reality, and into the reality of this greater world.
There. He had him.
Mills screamed in pain as he was reborn.
He looked up from where he crouched on the cold stone floor. “Can’t be helped, I’m afraid,” Nunn murmured. He couldn’t help but grin.
Mills groaned as he pushed himself to his feet.
“See?” Nunn remarked, to show he had kept his part of the bargain. “Safe and sound.”
Mills nodded doubtfully. He looked down at his body, perhaps to check that all the pieces were there.
“Oh,” Nunn added casually, as if it was an afterthought. “One of your neighbors is here. I’m afraid he has a little unfinished business.”
The thing that was once Hyram Sayre shuffled from the shadows. “Lawn,” Sayre said.
Nunn had no time for small talk. “Make short work of him. You know your reward.”
With that the wizard stepped through the wall, headed to his next task. Even if Mills was somehow important to the dragon, he was too much of an irritant to let him live.
Enough of Mills. It was time for Nunn to do something important, not just for himself, but also for the dragon. One more short stop, to make sure there would be no more interference, and to regain those other humans who were the dragon’s pawns.
Then, even if it meant snatching her from under the nose of the dragon, it would be time to retake Mary Lou.
Sayre stared at Evan Mills. Mills never had any time for his lawn. “Hyram?” Mills asked. “What have they done to you?”
Sayre looked down at his hands. They glowed green in the dim light.
“Only made me better,” he said. “Haven’t felt this good in years. In fact, I’ve never felt this good.” Somehow this feeling seemed even bigger than his lawn. New thoughts were flooding into him, one jumbling in after another. He looked up at his neighbor. “Evan, I don’t even know if I’m human.”
Mills yelled as his hands started to glow as well with a bright, yellow light. He shuddered. “Zachs,” he whispered.
“Are you listening to me?” Sayre demanded. He hated when people didn’t listen.
“So,” Mills muttered. “This was what the cloud meant by ‘we.’ ”
Mills obviously wasn’t listening. Sayre found he was getting angry.
“Evan!” he shouted. “Let’s talk about my lawn!” But Evan Mills had started to laugh.
“No!” Sayre screamed. “No one laughs at my lawn!”
He threw out his arms, letting his anger burst through his fingers. A bolt of green flew from his hands, soaring above Mills’ head to crash into the wall beyond.
Mills had stopped laughing. “I’m sorry, Hyram. What did you say?”
“Never mind,” Sayre replied. His bolt of energy had smashed a hole through the wall, showing the outside world. The green outside world. He didn’t need to fight in a musty old castle when the outside world waited for him.
“Excuse me, Evan,” he said as he let his power lift him from the ground. He floated toward the opening. It was a huge gaping hole; he’d fit through it easily. If he was going to fight anybody else, though, he’d have to work on his aim.
He floated through to the other side. Floated right off the ground! He was right. He was no longer human. He felt more like a god, surrounded by green.
It was time to leave foolish things like Evan Mills and the wizard Nunn behind. Hyram Sayre set himself down beyond the walls of the fortress. He sighed. There were far too many trees.
The lawn god had work to do.
Sixty
The human who was not quite human had come back to the King’s prison.
“Come,” Nunn said to the King of the Wolves. “You’re ready. It’s time to leave this place and make you king of all the woods.”
He would be free. This wizard would keep his word at last. The King threw back his head and roared. The sound shook the walls. Sparks flew as the King scraped his fine new claws against the stone floor. The King knew he only had to reach out with his powerful new arm, and he could slice the wizard in half.
“I willl be grreeaterr thann alll humanns,” the King declared. “I willl roamm the woods forreverr!”
“Yes, you will,” Nunn agreed, “after you complete your promised task. I will come with you. After this is done, the island is yours.”
“Miinne!” the King agreed.
“I will need you to kill a few humans, and someone who is not quite human. There will be others that have to be delivered to me. But after that, your debt is paid.”
The King of the Wolves barely listened to this wizard prattle on. He would be free. He would taste fresh blood. He would find his pack and rule to the end of time.
What more could there be to life?
The walls faded around them as the wizard called upon the stones in his hands. The King would do what he had been called upon to do.
After this, the King would take orders from no one, not even a wizard.
This, Garo realized, was where he belonged.
The three of them—Garo, Obar, and Constance Smith—stood in a place that seemed different from all the places he’d ever seen, and exactly like every place he had ever been.
If you looked at this spot in a certain way, it seemed like a featureless plain, some corner of a never-ending desert. There was light in the distance, light so bright Garo had to squint even at this range. But the spot where they stood was lost within a great shadow, a shadow of something unimaginably large.
But his view of this world was different when he closed his eyes. Every time he blinked, he saw a different place, a different world, skies of blue and green and red and yellow, trees with violet leaves and seas of molten gold. He saw a crowd of the People, and then great hordes of humans rushing who knew where, and next a field full of strange, two-legged beasts covered with yellow fur, all standing perfectly still, except for the movement of their eyes and tails. Every time he blinked, he saw a different scene, a different reality, maybe every world the dragon had ever seen. Because he had no doubt that these visions came from the dragon, visions far more real than the place where they stood, as if he could only see the truth when he closed his eyes.
He looked at the others. They seemed frozen, uncertain of what to do before the dragon. Could they see these visions as well? Or did the dragon mean these things only for him?
He blinked his eyes and saw Mary Lou. She looked even more frightened than she had when the People had taken her. Garo frowned. He had never meant for her to suffer like this. But then, he had never thought of her suffering. He had only thought of becoming human again, leaving this twilight world no matter what the cost.
He thought of Mary Lou’s smile when she used to look into his eyes. A way she would never look at him again. His fever to become human had cost him something, too.
He blinked. She was still there, in the space behind his eyelids, but now a vast shape towered behind her, hoarding her, keeping her for its own.
He opened his eyes and saw shadow all around him. How could the creature be standing with Mary Lou, and still be hovering overhead? Somehow he couldn’t look at what hovered above, as if looking directly at the dragon might be as blinding as looking into the sun.
He closed his eyes, and Mary Lou stared straight at him. She smiled at him suddenly, in that open way she had. After all that he had put her through, she still smiled.
He felt emptiness then–an emptiness that he longed to have filled. He realized how much he felt for her. That maybe Mary Lou, and not the dragon, had been his key to becoming human.
“Constance!” Obar said suddenly.
Garo was pulled back to that place that he shared with the others. “We have to leave here quickly,” Obar said. “We have gotten too close to the dragon.”
Mrs. Smith grimaced at that. She lifted her head, but stopped before she truly looked above her, as if she shared the same fear with Garo.
“What will it do to us?” she whispered instead.
Garo thought of all the stories he had heard of the dragon. “Devour us, no doubt. Even a dragon needs a snack.” He grinned despite himself. This moment was as funny as it was terrible. “It goes ages between meals.”
Mrs. Smith didn’t see the humor. “So we came all this way to be devoured by a dragon?”
Garo shrugged. “Who knew the dragon would treat Mary Lou as property?” Who had known anything about the dragon? he now realized. Certainly not Garo the ghost-wizard. Then why had he felt it so important to lead the others here?
The other two cringed as another roar shattered the world around them. Obar looked like he wanted to run.
Mrs. Smith shook her head. “We’re not going anywhere.”
She waved for the others to look behind them. Somehow they had reached a wall, a wall th
at seemed to go up forever.
Garo suddenly felt cold, as if this wall had sucked all the warmth from this place. “I think this is from the dragon,” he said softly.
“Perhaps it is simply one of the dragon’s claws,” Obar agreed.
“We only see bits of the dragon,” Garo explained, surprised at how much he knew. “It is not truly ready to come back to the world. But we have disturbed it.” He sighed and smiled. “Someone will have to pay.”
“Pay?” Mrs. Smith repeated. “So that’s what the dragon wants? A sacrifice?”
It was so obvious. Garo abruptly stopped smiling.
“No,” he replied, “the dragon wants a particular sacrifice.”
He closed his eyes and thought of Mary Lou and her smile. They all had their purpose under the dragon. His purpose was about to be fulfilled.
“I’m the one who should do this thing.” He spoke slowly, but his voice gained power with every word. “I led us here. And I led Mary Lou to this place as well. All in an attempt to regain my physical body. The dragon should take me.”
Mrs. Smith wasn’t so certain. “Are you sure this is what the dragon wants?”
Garo tried to smile again. It almost worked. “With the dragon, who knows? But I am the only one who cannot hide. The dragon has already half claimed me. I am the only one who can’t escape into the physical world.”
With that, the roar came again, so loud that Mrs. Smith fell to her knees. Even Garo covered his ears, but the roar seemed just as loud, as if the sound started inside his head instead of without.
“No matter where I go,” Garo said softly, “the dragon will find me.” He wondered if, with that roar, the dragon had agreed to his offer.
“Maybe,” he added quickly, “if it takes me, it will spare Mary Lou. I’ve spent too long as a wizard. Let me do something honest for a change.”
“Very well,” Obar said for both of them. “Constance, it’s time to leave this place.” He grabbed the old woman’s hand before she could object. There was a flash of green, and they were gone, jumping to another reality.
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 39
