The Lost Lands

by Jessica Khoury

  With a grunt, Bellacrux extended a single claw and unrolled the parchment. The bone holding it together rattled on the stone floor.

  “Weird,” said Allie. “There are only two sentences written on it. The rest is blank.”

  She began to read aloud from the scroll: “This being the total and true account of the Tale of the Banishing of the Dragons from Earth.”

  “It says Earth?” interrupted Sirin. “Not the Lost Lands?”

  “That’s what it says,” Allie replied. “But … there’s no tale at all. Just this one last line: Enter two and two alone; part not till the tale is done.”

  “What does that mean?” wondered Joss. “Enter what?”

  Allie shrugged. “Maybe—”

  She was cut short by the rustle of parchment and clatter of bone, as the scroll began to move.

  Sirin jumped back, stifling a shout with her hands. The others drew back as well as the scroll began to unroll itself. The bones clacked and bounced over the stone floor, then one of them shot up into the air, drawing the roll of parchment with it like a banner.

  Joss was pale as a sheet. “What the—”

  “Shh!” hissed Allie. “Everyone stay quiet!”

  The scroll parchment began to bend in midair, zigzagging upward like a staircase. Then it stretched high, and on the blank, creamy surface, dark blotches of ink began to swirl and spread, as if someone were pouring a bunch of inkpots onto it. The black patches then coalesced—into the shape of a doorway.

  Sirin stared. The scroll didn’t just look like a staircase. It was a staircase, leading to that black, inky portal that led to who knew where.

  “Right,” said Allie. “Enter two and two alone.”

  “You’re not thinking of going in there, are you?” squeaked Joss.

  “Someone’s got to do it. You in?”

  “I’ll go,” said Sirin, the words leaping from her mouth before she could stop them. She didn’t even know why she said them.

  “Fine,” Joss sighed. “I’ll go with Sirin.”

  “What?” Allie shook her head. “No. No way. I’ll go with you.”

  “You’re forgetting the Banishing took place on Earth,” Sirin pointed out. “My world. If anyone goes through the creepy ink door, it should be me. Anyway, I read about something like this before—”

  “This is not one of your storybooks!” said Allie loudly.

  “Shh!” Joss and Sirin both said.

  High, high above them, they heard a groan, like shifting rock. Allie pressed her hands over her mouth. The only other sound was the light crinkle of the parchment stairs rising before them.

  They waited even longer than they had after Sammi had sneezed, but nothing more happened.

  “I’m going,” whispered Allie. “Joss, you come with me.”

  “Okay,” he said, though he looked uneasy.

  Allie planted her foot on the first step. The parchment, which should have torn, instead held firm. Still, Sirin held her breath until Allie reached the top, well above their heads. She paused only a moment in front of the black, inky portal, then glanced down at Joss.

  “Here goes,” she said.

  Then she stepped through the doorway and vanished.

  “Whoa,” said Joss. “My turn, I guess.”

  But the moment he set foot on the staircase, the scroll crumpled. With a gasp, he jumped back. The scroll rolled itself up as quickly as it had unfurled, until the two bones clacked together.

  “Allie!” Joss grabbed the scroll and tried to pry it open again, but it refused to even part an inch. Bellacrux plucked it from him with her talon and frantically tried to force it apart, to no avail. She looked at Joss with wide eyes.

  “You’re her Lock. Can you hear her?” Joss asked Bellacrux. “Can you sense her at all?”

  The dragon shook her head no.

  “I don’t understand,” said Sirin. “It said two must enter. But only Allie went in!”

  “Wrong,” said another voice from behind them.

  They all whirled.

  From behind one of the stone columns stepped a girl. Sirin vaguely recognized her.

  “You attacked us!” she said. “Your dragon injured Lysander!”

  “No,” said the girl. She was shivering, her arms wrapped around herself. “That’s my twin, Tamra.”

  “Mirra Lennix!” said Joss. “What—”

  With a terrible snarl, Bellacrux lunged forward, putting herself between Joss, Sirin, Sammi, and Mirra. At first Sirin thought this a bit over the top, considering the girl was only barely taller than they were, but then she glimpsed the pair of red eyes burning in the darkness behind the Lennix girl.

  The Red Raptor emerged slowly from the shadows, and Sirin could swear the creature was grinning. Her scales glimmered like dark, polished ruby as she moved, her long claws gouging the floor.

  “Valkea!” hissed Bellacrux.

  The Red dipped her head in a mocking greeting. The two dragons began circling each other like alley cats, their scales prickling and their lips pulling back to reveal their fangs. The library echoed with the sound of snarls.

  “Quiet!” warned Sirin. She looked up anxiously. She’d always been one to respect the rules of libraries, but this was the first time her life had depended on it.

  “Calm down, Valkea,” Mirra said, also looking nervous. The two big dragons hadn’t struck at each other yet, but they looked on the verge of ripping out each other’s throats.

  “This was a trap!” said Joss. “Where are the rest of you?”

  Mirra Lennix shrugged. “It’s not a trap. Just me and Tamra are here. Or Tamra was, before she went into the scroll, like your sister. I … opted to stay behind.”

  Meaning she was too scared to follow her twin, Sirin could easily guess.

  They all turned to stare at the tightly sealed scroll on the floor.

  “Wherever Tamra and Allie are,” said Mirra, “they’re there together.”

  Allie swam through ink, forcing herself not to panic. She’d already tried going back to the scroll door but found only swirling black liquid. Eyes squeezed shut, she pointed herself in the direction she hoped was up and swam with all her strength. Memories surged through her, of swimming in the sea by her family’s old village, searching for pearl oysters and pretty shells to take back to her mother. The water had been clear and warm, nothing like this strange, inky sea in which she now found herself.

  Finally, she burst through the surface and saw a pale shoreline ahead. Allie dragged herself out of the black water and found, to her shock, that she was completely dry.

  The world around her looked like nothing she’d ever seen—there was no sky, no land, no walls. Only endless beige blankness, a world of parchment. She swallowed hard and looked back, to see the water she’d swum out of shrinking, swirling inward until all at once it was gone.

  Bellacrux? Bell, can you hear me?

  She got no reply. She couldn’t sense anything of her Lock.

  It was a nightmare. It had to be. She must have hit her head in the library and now she was stuck in some awful dream world. Where was Joss? He didn’t surface from the inky sea as she had. What if he’d drowned? What if something had gone wrong in the library? What if, what if—

  Focus, Allie, she told herself. You can’t help anyone if you’re panicking.

  She had to keep it together or she’d break apart completely. So what if she was alone? Joss was probably sitting comfily against Lysander, waiting for her to get back. They were all waiting for her, counting on her, trusting her …

  Allie felt panic spike in her chest again.

  And again she forced herself to breathe it out.

  The sooner she figured out where the Skyspinner had died, the sooner they could all leave Raptor territory and disappear into the Lost Lands. There, at least, they wouldn’t have Raptors on their trail everywhere they went.

  Shivering, Allie began to walk. There didn’t seem to be much else she could do. Her steps crinkled, as if she were
stepping on paper.

  “You’re not Mirra,” said a voice.

  Allie looked around, and behind her, having appeared from nowhere, stood a girl.

  “Tamra Lennix!” Allie’s heart skipped a beat. She wished she had a weapon, a knife or even a rock to hold, but all she could do was raise her clammy fists. Glancing around, she waited for more Lennixes to come scurrying out of hiding, like cockroaches. But all was still. “Stay away from me! Or I’ll—I’ll—”

  “What?” Tamra scoffed, her arms folded on her chest. “What’ll you do, Allinson Moran?”

  “You tried to kill me!”

  “You stole our Grand.”

  “After you tried to feed me to her!”

  Tamra snorted. “Looks like you didn’t take too much damage.”

  “How did you get here?” Allie asked, her scalp prickling. She still wasn’t convinced Tamra was alone. She didn’t lower her fists.

  “Same way as you, I would imagine. Creepy library, magic scroll, a door made of ink … Been waiting a couple of hours, I’d guess. Mirra was supposed to come in after me, but I’ll bet she chickened out. Typical.”

  “Mirra’s in the library?” Allie felt a chill of alarm. “Are there more of you in there?”

  Tamra just smirked.

  Allie imagined Joss surrounded by slavering Raptors. The library had seemed empty when they’d arrived, but it was so vast, who knew what was hiding in the shadows. She hoped Bellacrux and Lysander would be enough to defend her brother until she returned … if she returned at all. She had no idea how to escape the scroll, and even if she figured it out, there was still Tamra to deal with.

  Allie felt nauseated with fear. She had to get out of here now.

  “Why are you here, anyway?” asked Allie. “What do you care about the Banishing?”

  Tamra scowled. “I’m not telling you anything. If it weren’t for the whole two and two alone thing, I’d be wringing your neck right now.”

  “Together till the tale is done,” Allie remembered, groaning. “I guess we do need each other. But why? And what are we supposed to do now? How do we get out?”

  “No idea,” Tamra growled. “This day just keeps getting— Whoa!”

  All at once, a dragon swooped over their heads.

  Tamra and Allie yelled, ducking low. The dragon, which was made of swirling, smoky ink, swooped and dived but didn’t seem to notice them.

  “Look,” said Allie.

  She pointed down, where below them a coastline was taking shape as if painted by an invisible hand. It made it look as though Allie and Tamra were standing on a high cliff, the jagged line of the bluff’s edge just inches from their feet. Little blade of grass sprang up under Allie’s shoes and all around, sweeping away to a tall forest of pine trees behind them. The colors were faded and watery, the lines like black brushstrokes.

  “There!” said Allie. “More dragons.”

  Ahead of them, in the parchment sky, a battle was taking shape. Dragons clashed and clawed, while papery flames crinkled from their jaws.

  “This must be the Battle of Banishment,” said Tamra. “The final dragon battle in the Lost Lands.”

  Allie studied the inky dragons, wondering which one was the Skyspinner. According to the legend, she fought and died in this battle.

  Hearing a rustle of paper to her left, Allie turned and got a shock—a Green was standing on the cliff beside her, so close that she could see the individual brushstrokes of his inked outline. He snorted out two streams of watercolor smoke and looked at her.

  Have you come to bear witness?

  Allie started; she heard the dragon the same way she heard Bellacrux—like another voice in her head. “Um … I suppose I have.” Allie hesitated a moment, then put her hand on the dragon’s side. His scales were washed in light green and felt like parchment paper.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Allie climbed onto the paper-and-ink dragon and settled into the rider’s dip.

  “What are you doing?” Tamra gasped.

  “C’mon. Like the scroll says—together till the tale is done.”

  “I’m not riding on a dragon with you!”

  Allie clenched her fists. “You’re not exactly my first choice either. But we’re in this together, like it or not. If we’re going to get out of here, we have to do it as a team.”

  “I’ll come,” said Tamra. “But we are not a team. And I’m riding in the front.”

  Allie groaned but scooted back to make room for her. Tamra sat stiffly, her black hair twisted into a severe braid, but a few curls had escaped and tickled Allie’s chin.

  “So … now what?” said Tamra. The dragon just stood there, his talons curling over the edge of the cliff.

  “I don’t know,” said Allie. “It’s not like I’ve done this bef—ooohhhhhhhh!”

  The paper dragon didn’t take off from the cliff so much as fall off. It dived straight down toward the rocky sea below, then spread its wings with a crackle of parchment to lift up again.

  “What,” said Tamra, “is that?”

  A shadow had begun to darken the sea below, as if a massive cloud were moving across the sun.

  But when the girls looked up, they saw not a cloud—but a dragon.

  The largest dragon Allie had ever seen.

  It was easily twenty times the size of Bellacrux. Her Lock could comfortably carry three humans if she wished; this beast could carry a city. Its scales were obsidian black, its wings so wide they seemed to touch either horizon. The talons curled beneath its belly were each larger than Fortress Lennix.

  The Skyspinner! thought Allie. She was certain this was the dragon from the legend, the great queen born in a star, with a heart full of magic.

  All around them, in the Skyspinner’s shadow, dragons battled viciously. Some fell from the sky, blazing with flames, and when they hit the water the fire extinguished and great plumes of smoke rose up. The air stank of smoke and blood and death. Allie could taste ashes when she inhaled. She had lived through two dragon battles, and neither of them had been anything like this. This was a full-scale war.

  The Skyspinner screeched suddenly, a sound that drowned out all else. Allie and Tamra clamped their hands over their ears until it ended, but even still Allie reeled at the immensity of the sound.

  Several flights of Raptors—Allie made out their tattooed bellies—had peeled away from the battle and begun an assault on the Skyspinner, harrying her like bees. The dragon queen’s size made her slow and unwieldy in the air; she grabbed a few Raptors from the sky with her talons and hurled them into the sea, but most buzzed around her, out of reach of her claws and teeth. Then they darted in and raked their own talons into her vulnerable points, then filled the gashes with dragonfire. From her wounds, rivers of dark blood spilled.

  “They’re killing her,” said Allie, her heart breaking.

  Allie would have expected Tamra to take savage delight in the Raptors’ destruction of the queen, but the girl was quiet and wide-eyed.

  In the corner of her eye, Allie saw a blur of movement—a dragon hurtling toward them. “Watch out!” she cried.

  Without even thinking of what she was doing, she grabbed Tamra and pulled her down, just as an out-of-control Blue zoomed over their heads. If she hadn’t grabbed Tamra, the girl would have been knocked into the air.

  “Let go of me!” Tamra snapped.

  “I saved your life!”

  “Don’t expect a thank-you.”

  “Trust me, I don’t.” Wishing she’d just left the girl to be smashed by the Blue, Allie looked down to see the dragon tumbling snout over tail through the sky. Then she saw why—his wings had been torn off entirely. The poor thing couldn’t fly. But as Allie watched, the dragon managed to straighten itself, and it dived like an arrow into the sea. Moments later, it popped up again and swam away, undulating through the waves. Blues were, she remembered, as at home in the sea as in the sky.

  Another trumpeting screech sounded from the Skyspinner, and again Allie c
overed her ears. This time, the dragon queen’s cry was racked with pain and agony. It was the most horrible thing Allie had ever heard. It tore at her very soul.

  Then a strange thing happened: The queen began to shine. Her black scales flooded with light, and she burned whiter and hotter until Allie was forced to look away. The Skyspinner shone like a star, and from her mouth and eyes and the tips of her claws, brilliant beams of light shot out. They lanced through the sky, and every dragon they swept over jerked in the air. Then they turned and fled, high, high into the air. And there they … vanished.

  Into portals, Allie realized. She recognized the pops of light where the dragons disappeared. But she tore her eyes from them and looked instead at the Skyspinner, whose light had begun to dim. As quickly as she’d shone, she flickered out. The only light that burned in her a moment longer was a bright red glow in her chest—her heart.

  “She’s banished them,” she whispered, horror knotting in her throat as the great queen’s heart finally faded. Then she fell, plummeting into the sea like a crumbling mountain, sending up an enormous splash. The wave bore down on the girls’ dragon.

  They didn’t even have time to scream.

  Bellacrux did not once take her eyes off Valkea the Red.

  The Green was furious with herself for having not noticed the dragon the moment they’d arrived at the library. How could she have failed to detect the stench of savagery that clung to Valkea like a miasma? When they’d come slinking out of the shadows, Bellacrux’s instinct had been to spread her wings and reduce them both to ash in a torrent of dragonfire.

  But the gleaming runes above the library door burned brightly in her mind: Silence in the library.

  So she had stilled her rage and let it harden instead, like a hidden dagger ready to be pulled the moment she sniffed aggression from the Red.

  Now they all sat in a circle around the Scroll of the Banishing, waiting, in the flickering light of the bone torch that Joss now held.

  They had, remarkably, struck a temporary truce.

  “There’s nothing to be done but wait,” Bellacrux had pointed out in dragonsong, and though she could see it made Valkea furious to agree, the Red had no choice. Both of their Locks were trapped in the scroll, and neither of them could abandon them there.