Secret of the Sirens

by Julia Golding

  “Miss Lionheart?”

  Connie almost jumped out of her skin. She had not heard anyone approach until a voice spoke close by her ear.

  “Mr. Coddrington.” Connie’s voice shook. “I’m here with permission—a dragon ride—a lesson.”

  “Do not be concerned, Miss Lionheart. I’ve not come to question you, but to tell you that the lesson has, unfortunately, had to be cancelled. We’ve had reports of a low-flying aircraft in the vicinity. I’ve been sent to bring you back safely to the van.”

  “Oh, thanks,” she said flatly, hurrying to get to her feet.

  “But perhaps we could have a little conversation now?” he continued, standing between her and the path back to the parking lot.

  “About what?” she asked, edging to one side to maneuver around him.

  “Well, things did not exactly get off to a good start between us, did they?” he said with an unconvincing attempt at a friendly tone. “I thought we should let bygones be bygones and begin over again....” Though he continued to speak, she was finding it hard to concentrate on what he was saying as a buzzing began in her head. He must have noticed for he was now looking at her as if he was assessing her again, smiling his cruel, thin smile.

  The buzzing grew louder, becoming so intense she felt as if something was drilling inside her skull.

  Connie put her hands to her ears. “I’m sorry, Mr. Coddrington, but I’m not feeling very well. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

  He was replying, but Connie could only tell this because his mouth was moving. All sounds were now blocked by the noise in her head, augmented by a shrill whistling that was building into a shriek. Her knees buckled and Connie fell forward onto the grass, clawing at the earth in agony. She knew what was happening: she was being assailed by the presence of creatures trying to link with her. She could not tell how many, nor what species, but they were crowding into every corner of her mind, crawling all over her like an invasion of ants.

  “Stop it,” she yelled. “Make them stop it!” But the presence did not relent—instead she felt herself being grasped by claws and lifted off the cliff. She clung to the grass but merely ripped tussocks up by the roots as she was dragged away.

  “No, no, leave me!” she begged both the presence invading her mind and the creature carrying her off. A seagull screamed a protest in her ear. “Mr. Coddrington! Help!” A leap into the night sky and the beast was airborne. Struggling to gain a glimpse of her captor, she squirmed around and saw above her the shadowy bat-like wings and long whipping tail of a black dragon. Looking down, Connie realized that they had flown out to sea and were now turning back toward land. Paralyzed by fear of falling from the beast’s talons, she ceased trying to escape and hung limply, sobbing with pain and confusion.

  The journey was mercifully brief. Reaching the top of a high cliff, the dragon swooped down to land. With consummate skill, it came to rest lightly on the ridge, despite being burdened with its prisoner.

  “I see you have caught her—just like a salmon in a fish-eagle’s grip,” laughed a smooth voice. “Put her here, Charok.”

  Connie dropped out of the dragon’s claws. She screamed as she tumbled over the cliff-edge, only to come to land in a nest of branches, bracken, and twigs a few feet down. Winded and grazed, she lay for a moment, though sickened by the foul stench of the debris beneath her. Steeling herself, trying desperately to silence the voices in her mind, she raised her head, scraping her hair from her eyes. Before her loomed a vast midnight-blue eagle with a hooked beak. Its eyes glinted, one yellow, one gold, as if it were considering her as a morsel to be devoured. She cowered back, scrambling to her feet, crunching on the bones of other meals as she did so.

  “Do not be afraid, Universal,” cackled the bird, “I do not eat such as you. You are a mere mouthful; my hunger cannot be sated by flesh. No, you are here as my guest. Welcome. Forgive the unexpectedness of my invitation but I had no choice. I could not hope to speak to you while you were surrounded by all those humans, and I have waited long for my opportunity. You have been well guarded. It was kind of the Society to organize such a big meeting in so remote a spot, allowing me to gather my forces unobserved.”

  “Get them to stop,” was all she could manage to say in reply, meaning the noises still drilling into her skull.

  “Oh, yes. I apologize for my friends’ eagerness: they all want to meet you—as do I.” The eagle let out a piercing screech that echoed off the cliff. Immediately the invasion ceased. Though feeling groggy, Connie was now able to take in her surroundings. She was trapped in a nest on a rock ledge. Above her perched the black dragon, its red eyes glowing like coals, surrounded by other creatures, all looking down on her. She could not tell what manner of creatures they were—glimpsing a silhouette of a thin arm here, a flash of bared teeth there, her imagination supplying the rest in the shape of banshees, ghouls, and werewolves. Behind them stood a darker shadow blotting out the stars, armed with an iron-tipped club: Shirley’s weather giant.

  “Who are you?” Connie whispered, her throat constricted with fear.

  “Do you not know?” the eagle mocked. “You a universal and not know!”

  The bird bent forward; Connie backed away, but she had nowhere to go except over the edge of the nest and down into a black chasm below.

  “Do not be afraid. I will not harm you—much,” the bird said ominously.

  Connie stopped moving and waited in terror as the bird touched her with its beak. Immediately, a rush of emotion smote her. Swept up in the vortex of the creature’s mind, she felt hatred, anger, malice, and despair ripping into her. It was as if she had suddenly fallen through the bottom of the world and was spinning in an endless void with no star to relieve the utter darkness.

  The eagle lifted its beak, and instantaneously the sensations left her. Connie panted, trembling from head to toe.

  “Do you still not know who I am?”

  “You’re a mythical creature but no bird,” Connie began weakly. Her perceptions were starting to clarify. “You’re not like any other I’ve met: you are broad—like an ocean.” As she said those last words, she recalled Morjik saying something similar about her. If the creature resembled universal, what did that make it? “You’re Kullervo.”

  The bird ruffled its wings, pleased by her discovery.

  “It cannot be hidden from you, just as you could not be hidden from me,” it said. “I am all things; but one name I have is, indeed, Kullervo.”

  As she watched, the great eagle reared up, spread its wings, beating them as it shifted shape into a cloaked figure, taller than even the weather giant, rising up to the clouds. A mist swirled around him, clinging to him, like ivy to a tree. Only his eyes remained the same, burning above her, acid yellow and lava gold, with black slits for pupils, like twin stars.

  “This is how legend speaks of me.” Kullervo’s voice thundered in the clouds above. “A dark shadow on the edge of man’s world. But I am no longer going to live in the margins. I am coming nearer; my anger cannot be turned back.” He dropped his arms and bent toward Connie. “And you must help me.”

  “Me?” Connie gasped, wondering what a being of such power could want with her.

  “Yes.” As he spoke, Kullervo was diminishing in size like water pouring into a transparent vessel until he stood only three feet taller than Connie—taking a form so sharply defined that she could trace the veins in his muscular arms. He was now like a living statue of a satyr carved out of blue-gray marble by a master sculptor. “You’ve no need to be afraid. Ha!” He laughed scornfully with a toss of his handsome head, stamping his cloven hoofs. “I can read your mind, Connie: I know what you are thinking. You are thinking of all the warnings and terrible things you have heard about me from those fools in that precious Society.”

  That had indeed been what Connie was thinking; she was alarmed that she could not hide her thoughts from him.

  “They have had you so worried, have they not? They have been stopping you at every
turn—keeping you in the dark. That’s not how I would treat you. I know you are special. You’re clever. I know you’ve seen through their lies.” His voice had sunk to an urgent whisper, sounding both sorrowful and gentle. His words entered her thoughts like a light breeze filtering into a stuffy room, tempting her to leave these confines and taste the fresh air with him. “It is time to put away your fear. You know I am right. The mythical world must act to save the Earth from humanity.” Connie raised her head and looked into his eyes—it was not cruelty she saw now but pain: his eyes were the eyes of all the creatures she had known who had been mistreated or hunted into oblivion by humanity.

  Connie shook her head automatically, but part of her heard in his words her own thoughts. Hadn’t Shirley said the same? Wasn’t Axoil just a small part of what was destroying the Earth and had to be stopped? It was hard now to remember all that Dr. Brock and others had told her. All she could think of was the dark soul before her. He contained such power—such rage—it was as if the anger of the whole Earth seethed inside him. Wasn’t he right to be angry? Shouldn’t she help him?

  “Come see with my eyes, Universal!” he said softly. He reached out his hand. Connie paused and then took it tentatively in hers. This time she was ready for the wave that swept over her, and she tried to imagine herself swimming with his dark mood rather than being swamped. Kullervo was showing her the world as humans had made it—once fertile plains gasping for water; ice melting under a hot sun; floods bursting the banks of rivers. She began to waver: she could see these things his way. Hadn’t her own heart prompted her to ask what use the Society was in the face of all this death and destruction? The world would be better if it was scoured clean, so it could teem with life once more, not gasp for its last breath under man’s smog. Humankind needed to be taught to respect the mythical creatures by seeing their power unleashed.

  Just as she was about to slip into the current of his mood, surrender herself to his force, her mind snagged on something, caught despite itself on an unseen obstacle. Beneath the surface, she sensed he was hiding something from her. What was it? He was right that humanity was criminally foolish in its headlong pursuit of gain, but didn’t Kullervo revel in this destruction? Didn’t he feed off the imbalance in nature created by humanity, spinning the world into yet more cycles of devastation and death? Didn’t he seek the end of humankind itself?

  The moment she saw this, Connie realized that she mustn’t allow him to perceive that she had read more deeply than he intended; but his was such a powerful mind, how could she keep anything from him?

  An island—I need an island, she thought to herself. Painfully, against the tide of his perceptions, Connie imagined herself piling stone on patient stone so just the tip of dry land emerged above the waves. On this frail isle, she placed her secret. Then Kullervo released her hand, the floodtide receded, leaving her knowledge untainted by his mind.

  “You understand,” he said with a smile. “I can sense that, Universal—and you will agree with me in time.” He spun away from her, lifting his face to his supporters, arms outstretched. “She understands, my friends, as I said she would!” he cried triumphantly.

  Before he spoke, Connie had already turned her mind to escape. Even if the Society was wrong, she knew now that Kullervo was not right. Sooner or later this interview would end in her refusing to help him, but she couldn’t see how she could escape with her life unless she could summon help. She peered over the edge of the nest cautiously: nothing but a ledge and then a sheer drop to the waves clawing at the cliff bottom many feet below. If only someone knew she was here! But who would? Unbidden, Gard’s face appeared in her mind. As long as you are standing on the earth, we rock dwarfs will know where you are, he had told her. If she could stand on firm ground, would that alert Gard to her danger? Surely it was worth a try?

  “Are you ready to pledge your allegiance to me?” Kullervo asked, swinging back to face her, holding out his arms as if preparing to embrace her.

  “I’m afraid,” she replied, trying to buy herself some time. “I need to think about it—about what you’ve said.” She swung one leg over the side of the nest, trying to gain a foothold on the narrow rock ledge. “Your ideas seem so new to me.” Her boot caught a hold and she filled her mind with her memory of Gard’s presence, managing it only for a second before the presence of Kullervo dashed down on her once more.

  “What are you doing? Get away from there!” he boomed, his gentleness cast aside. He thrust out a powerful fist and hooked her roughly by the jacket. Lifting her up as if she weighed no more than a doll, he dangled her carelessly over the edge for a moment. “There is no way you can escape from here unless you have wings,” he mocked. “Do you still want to go that way?”

  A small white dart plunged out of the night sky to peck at Kullervo’s fiery eyes, screeching with fury. It was Scark.

  “What? Protecting your human chick, are you?” crowed Kullervo. He batted the annoyance away, sending Scark crashing into the cliff with a sickening thud. The bird slid into the nest and fluttered to his feet, wing drooping at his side. Undaunted, he attacked the shape-shifter’s cloven hoofs, screeching with anger. Kullervo looked down with amusement at the tiny creature scratching at his feet and raised his hoof. Connie realized what he was about to do. Thrashing helplessly in his grasp, she opened her mouth and screamed and screamed, “No!”

  Fixing his eyes on her and smiling, Kullervo stamped his foot hard on the seagull, crushing the life from him.

  “No!” Connie’s cry tore at her throat until she had no voice or breath left. She kicked and punched, but couldn’t reach him.

  With a cruel laugh at her grief, Kullervo dropped Connie back on to the floor of the nest, and once more assumed the form that towered over her. A chorus of howls rose from the onlookers. Connie cradled the broken body of her friend, moaning in despair. Scark was still warm, but even as she held him she felt his heartbeat fade and his wings sag. His spirit had flown, never to return. Scark had come to save her. She was the reason he was dead.

  “My followers grow tired,” announced Kullervo. “You do not have long to make up your mind. Kullervo’s wrath is coming in any case: you either join me and ride out this storm, or you perish with all others who stand in my way—like this bird of yours.”

  Connie remained crumpled at his feet. Her situation seemed hopeless. She did not know what to say.

  “But I’m still a child,” she pleaded, sobbing again. “Please let me go.”

  “You are a universal. And I have no pity—just as humankind has no pity on the world.”

  “But not all of us are like that. Some of us want to stop the destruction. I don’t want to join you. I just want to go home,” she cried out in desperation.

  “Your home is by my side—there or nowhere.”

  Kullervo swirled his cloak around him and raised his arms to strike her, but a harsh screech above distracted him from his purpose. The black dragon had launched itself into the air.

  A green flame streaked across the night sky and bore down upon Kullervo’s encampment.

  Morjik!

  The black dragon rose to meet him. They clashed in mid-flight, scorching each other with bursts of fire, the shock of their collision echoing like a thunderclap. All eyes turned to witness the combat as the beasts wound themselves together, shrieking, writhing to find a hold that would bring the other crashing down. In an instant, Kullervo assumed his eagle shape and launched himself off the nest to aid his servant. Lightning seared the dark, narrowly missing Morjik, as the weather giant added his might to defeat the interloper.

  Transfixed by the fight above, Connie did not see the pegasus until it landed behind her.

  “Climb on!” Col hissed in her ear, grabbing her arm to pull her to her feet. This was her one chance. She had to take it, even if it meant leaving Morjik to battle, outnumbered by Kullervo and his followers. But what use was she in any case? She scrambled on to the pegasus and clung on to Col’s waist one-handed, s
till clutching Scark.

  “But Morjik,” she shouted desperately as Skylark swooped off the ledge.

  “Help is coming!” Col replied, urging Skylark away from the nest as fast as he could fly.

  A fizz of light and a blinding flash erupted a foot from Skylark’s nose. Connie closed her eyes seeing the jagged trail of the lightning still etched on her eyelids.

  “Keep low,” ordered Col grimly. “The giant’s seen us!”

  Skylark dipped sharply to the left, avoiding by a hair’s breadth a ball of ice that exploded on the cliff face, showering them with tiny shards of rock. Connie twisted to look over her shoulder just in time to see Morjik diving at the giant’s head, jaws blazing white-hot fire. Above, Charok and the eagle ripped at him with furious swipes of their claws. The giant threw a second bolt, which went wide as he fended off Morjik’s attack, but the flash revealed the pegasus to Kullervo. Turning in mid-air, the eagle sped toward them, screaming to his followers to join him. Skylark was flying as fast as he could burdened with two passengers, but his speed would be no match for Kullervo’s.

  “Col,” she screamed, “behind us!”

  Col glanced over his shoulder and saw the pursuit was on.

  Dive! he urged Skylark. Dive!

  Skylark dropped like a stone toward the waves, his riders clinging to his back, barely able to hold on as he hurtled down. All went wet, cold, and damp as they plunged into the ring of cloud the giant had spun to conceal the camp. Connie could no longer see the waves, but she could hear them breaking on the rocks below.

  Climb now! commanded Col.

  Still wrapped in the obscuring blanket of vapor, Skylark leveled off and began to beat his wings, straining with the effort to gain altitude as fast as possible. Connie could swear she heard the rush of passing wings close below them, followed by others, but she could see nothing.

  As they broke out from the top of the weather giant’s storm cloud, Connie saw a squadron of dragons silhouetted against the moon, led by Storm-Bird and Argot. Half peeled off in pursuit of Kullervo. The rest rushed to Morjik’s aid. It was like the opening of the celebration, but this time in deadly earnest. With brilliant precision, they flew like two arrows into the cloud and were gone. Connie heaved a sigh of relief: with such forces on his side, Morjik would surely be victorious. Kullervo would be beaten back.