Dragonfell

by Sarah Prineas

  They are all staring at me. The dragons are all different sizes and shapes and colors, but their eyes are the same—they are shadow dark, and a flame burns deep within each one.

  The ground shakes under my feet. From behind me I hear a shift of scales over scales, and a hot whumph of breath. I spin around to see the biggest dragon of them all. I wish Maud were here with me. She’d be scared, I think, but she’d be fascinated, too, and whipping out her red book to take notes. The big dragon steps closer, its claws gouging the stone floor of the Ur-Lair, until it looms over me.

  It is the glass dragon. Its scales are clear, tinted a sun-dappled pink, and its wings are crystal edged with ruby, and its crest flows in ragged shards from its head to its tail. Deep within it, I can see its spark, a faintly glowing molten core of flame.

  With a sound like a groan, the glass dragon settles onto the ground, and then it cranes its neck down until its huge head is hanging right in front of me. I smell the hot thunder and lightning smell radiating from its scales, and feel the rush of its breath ruffling my hair as it sniffs me. Then it cocks its head, examining me from head to foot.

  I should be frightened. But I’m not.

  “Hello,” I say to it.

  At the sound of my voice, all of the other dragons flinch back a little, and then they draw closer to hear. The dull red dragon even lies down like a dog, resting its head on its front paws, its snaky tail curled behind it.

  What is it? one of the heads of the two-headed blue dragon asks, peering down at me.

  Shhhhh, hisses the other head.

  Both heads, I realize, are wearing woolen hats with pompons on them. Maud read it in the dragon book’s list of hoards: mittens and other knitted things. They have scarves wrapped around their snaky necks, too.

  The other thing I realize is that all the dragons, even the indigo one, are old, and their sparks are not as bright as they should be. Not as old and decrepit as the Coaldowns dragon, but not a whole lot younger, either.

  I take a deep breath and say loudly, “I am Rafi. I am dragon-touched. And I’m here to warn you.”

  Ahhhhh, breathes the glass dragon. It reaches out with a huge foreleg, and with the tip of a claw, it turns me around so it can see me from all sides.

  It warns us? asks the water dragon in a drippy voice.

  It warns us of the Flitch? the dull red dragon asks.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  The big indigo dragon who fetched me makes a snorting sound, and a billow of white smoke erupts from its nostrils. Dragons know more of the Flitch than this creature does.

  “No, you don’t,” I say, turning to look at them all. “One of Flitch’s hunters, Gringolet, is bringing a machine here, to the Ur-Lair. I think it might be a weapon, for killing dragons.”

  At my words, the dragons murmur to each other, and eye me as if I’m a bug, or something they could step on if it says anything else they don’t like.

  The indigo dragon reaches out with its forefoot, and before I can duck away, it puts its claw through the cloth of my coat and lifts me into the air. I struggle like a worm on a fish hook, and it suddenly gives me a shake that makes all my bones knock together, and drops me onto the hard stone floor of the Ur-Lair. It knows nothing. Its voice sounds scornful. It is too small and soft and squishy and stupid.

  I scramble to my feet. The indigo dragon isn’t wrong. I feel a sharp bolt of despair. I’m a kid. What can I actually do to help the dragons? What if . . . What if I can’t do anything? A little corner of my mind is worried about Maud, too. She’s down there alone on the side of the mountain. I hope she’s not too frightened.

  And then the flame in me flares up again, and I glare at the indigo dragon. My fists clench. “Listen,” I shout at it. “Flitch is dangerous. He’s driving dragons out of their lairs and . . . and collecting them. He’s collecting their sparks, their flames. He’ll destroy you all, every one of you.”

  The indigo dragon glares back at me. Think you that we do not know this? It snorts out another cloud of white smoke, but I hold my ground.

  Then the dawn-pink glass dragon makes a rumbling sound and surges to its feet. Your flame burns so brightly, it says to me, but you do not see. Come now, youngling. Come see this dragon’s hoard.

  Chapter 29

  The glass dragon lumbers around, and the other dragons open a path for it. It’s as big as a ship under full sail, with all flags flying, and I’m a little boat following in its wake. It leads me to the edge of the Ur-Lair, where the stone floor meets the walls in a smooth curve. The dragon settles there, curling its tail around a big wooden chest. With a claw tip, it opens the chest.

  See? it asks.

  I step over the tip of its tail and look into the box. It is lined with green velvet, and displayed on the velvet . . .

  I reach out, then stop and glance up at the dragon. It is watching me, and I can see the fire in its deep, shadowy eye. “Can I?” I ask.

  Yes, it answers.

  I reach into the box and take up part of the dragon’s hoard. It is a circular, polished piece of glass about the size of my hand. A lens. For looking through, and seeing more clearly. I return it to its place. Next to it is a mirror, backed with silver and reflecting the sky, which has turned blue with morning. The chest is full of other lenses and mirrors and a few pairs of spectacles.

  Oh. “I don’t have a propitiation for you,” I say to the glass dragon.

  It cocks its head. Dragon-touched, brightly burning, it asks, and its voice sounds like the ringing of bells, what do you see? What is a dragon?

  I’m not sure what to say. Maud would have an answer. She could pull out her red notebook and tell them everything she knows. The other dragons have gathered nearby, listening. “A dragon is big and powerful,” I say slowly. Then I remember the Skarth dragon. “Or it can be tiny and a little cranky. Or weary, like the Coaldowns dragon.” I remember what the Ratch book said about dragons, how they were evil. I remember that my da was burned by a dragon.

  I gaze up at the glass dragon, and I can see—this is what a dragon is. Huge and glorious. Not something that can be collected by a man like Mister Flitch. It lowers its head until I can look right into its eyes. Its spark is in there, deep inside. It hoards mirrors and lenses. “What do you see?” I whisper.

  With a claw tip it hooks a mirror from its hoard, and holds it up in front of its big eye, looking into it. Dragon, it says. The mirror looks tiny in its enormous claw. Then it reaches down, holding out the mirror to me. Does it see clearly? it asks. Does it see what a dragon is?

  I take the mirror. It’s perfectly round, and as smooth as a pool of water. I hold it up and look into it. It’s my face, just as I saw it in a mirror before, when Maud disguised herself.

  What are you? the glass dragon asks.

  I peer into the mirror. My hair is the bright crimson and gold of burning embers.

  What are you? the glass dragon asks again.

  My mouth is set and stern, and the lines of my face are fierce.

  Can you see what you are? the dragon asks a third time.

  And I stare into my eyes. My dark, dark eyes that Tam Baker’s-Son said were full of shadows, and that Maud said looked like they drew in the light. I still remember how she leaned close and peered into my eyes and said softly, “There’s a spark in there, Rafi.”

  My eyes are not the eyes of a human boy.

  I know what they are. I can see it in the mirror.

  They are the eyes of a dragon.

  “But I can’t be a dragon,” I say. Looking up at the glass dragon, I step back and spread my arms to show it what I am. “I’m . . . I’m a boy.”

  The bells ring in the dragon’s voice again. Can you not see what you are?

  I look down at myself. I’m the son of Jos By-the-Water, and I’m homesick for my village, and worried about it, too. I have one shoe off and one shoe on. I’m wearing the ordinary clothes that Maud gave me. My human heart is banging away in my chest, my hands are trembling until I
have to grip the mirror so that I don’t drop it. But the spark inside me. It’s burning hotter than ever.

  “How?” I whisper. “How can I be a dragon?”

  Come, the glass dragon says, getting up and uncurling its tail from around its hoard of lenses. It rests its foreclaw on the ground and turns it. After putting the mirror back with the rest of the hoard, I climb on and it holds me around the middle; there’s a rush of wind, and it lifts from the floor. A thunder of wings, and a moment later we land on the rim of the Ur-Lair. From far away it looks like the edge of a teacup. When I climb out of the glass dragon’s claw, I find that the rim is ten feet wide, covered with broken rock. The other dragons fly up, too, and land, all perched in a line along the rim like a row of huge, colorful birds.

  The Ur-Lair is behind me. The sky is a clear blue bowl overhead. From here I can see that a morning mist is lifting from the folds of forested, snow-dusted hills below me. The faint line of the road leads out of the hills and away over a distant plain. The air is icy cold and the wind blows hard, making me stagger, and then I brace myself against the glass dragon’s leg. Its scales are warm and smooth under my hand.

  It turns its huge head and looks down at me.

  When I speak, my words are snatched away by the wind. “Are you going to turn me into a dragon?”

  You already are a dragon, it tells me.

  “How?” I shout.

  It looks outward again. Fly, it says.

  I gulp. “You want me to jump?”

  No, the glass dragon says. Fly.

  Carefully I step to the edge and look down. The side of the mountain is steep, bare rock and ash, with snow lower down where it can cling to the slopes. And below that, the dark tree line.

  Next to me, the indigo dragon snorts. A long way down, it says. Squishy boy will fall on the rocks. Make a mess.

  It is a long way down.

  See, says the glass dragon, and points with a claw.

  I turn to look. Far below us there’s a puff of black smoke. Faintly, on the wind, I hear the rattle and clash of a steam engine. And then Gringolet’s convoy emerges from the trees and onto the road leading up the side of the mountain. First comes the big vaporwagon that is crowded with men. Then comes the huge canvas-covered mystery machine pulled by two more vaporwagons.

  There is no time, the dawn-pink glass dragon says. You must see what you truly are. You must decide now. Fly.

  So I take a deep breath, and I say goodbye to Rafi Bywater . . .

  . . . and I jump.

  Chapter 30

  I remember the day when Gringolet and Stubb first came to my village, and I was up on the Dragonfell and wanted to leap off it, into the wind. If I had jumped that day, would I have turned into a dragon? Has my dragon self been waiting all this time?

  Or would I have plummeted down off the Dragonfell and died on the rocks below?

  I fall from the edge of the Ur-Lair. The steep, ashy gray walls of the mountain flash past, and the wind howls in my ears.

  My body feels heavy, like a stone, falling straight down. Sparks gather around me, streaming away in the wind of my fall.

  The rocky slope gets closer. Closer.

  I shut my eyes. The wind buffets me, and I tumble, head over heels, and any second I expect it all to end, for the earth to pull me into it. Then time slows, just as it did when the Coaldowns dragon held me under its claw. Between one tick of a pocket watch and the next, the sparks around me burst into flames. I burn as I fall; I am a shooting star, I’m a comet, I’m a bolt of lightning. My skin and bones and muscles burn away. My head goes down again, and I tumble, and when I come around again, my wings open with a mighty clap, and my whole body jerks as I tell the earth No, you can’t have me yet. My eyes pop open and I see the ashy rocks of the mountain just a foot below me, and a second later I’m soaring away on wide, wide wings.

  I am fierce, powerful. My muscles shift under my burning-hot scales. Testing my wings, I bank and soar higher. I give my tail a twitch, and it pushes the wind away, and I change direction. The air feels thick, solid, holding me up, almost like water.

  High above, I can see the other dragons, all lined up on the rim of the Ur-Lair, watching.

  My mouth opens, and I shout out a roar of joy. I am a dragon! At the sound, rocks tremble, and swags of snow slide down into the tree line.

  And then my keen eyes see a small shape climbing the side of the mountain toward the Ur-Lair. It’s Maud. I can see that she is shaking with cold, and her hands are scraped and bloody, and she is limping. But she is still coming. Then she straightens and looks up at me, shading her eyes with her hand to see better.

  She is my Maud, and that means I know exactly what she is doing. Her friend Rafi was taken away by a dragon, so she is going to rescue him.

  Also she’s a scientist of dragons, so she wants to see them up close. Well, she’s about to get her chance.

  I angle my wings and lower my tail, and go into a dive.

  Seeing me, Maud shrieks and falls to the ground, curling into a ball with her arms over her head.

  As I swoop over her, I reach down with a claw and snatch her up, cradling her gently, like an egg, holding her against my chest to keep her warm so the icy air doesn’t freeze her. I point my snout at the top of the mountain and pump my wings, gaining height effortlessly, until I glide over the rim of the Ur-Lair. Almost lazily I spiral down to the stone floor. The other dragons follow, making a circle around me.

  Carefully, I set Maud on the ground. She’s curled up tight, still holding her arms over her head. “Is it really you, Rafi?” she asks, her voice muffled. Trembling, she peers out at me.

  How did she know!?

  And then I realize. Maybe she’s always known.

  I can’t talk to her in this shape. I reach out and poke her with the tip of a claw.

  She gets to her feet, and I can see how hard she’s shaking with cold and with fright. She clasps her hands together and looks around at all the other dragons, then gazes up at me, her eyes wide. “Oh my g-goodness,” she murmurs. “It really is you.”

  The little human is cold, says one of the heads of the two-headed blue dragon.

  Give it some hoard, says the other.

  They take off one of their knitted hats and drop it onto Maud’s head.

  She meeps because it’s so big that it covers her face, and then peers from under it as the knitter dragon takes a scarf from one of its necks and, crouching gingerly, holds it out to her.

  “Thank you,” Maud says, and with shining eyes she takes the scarf and wraps it around her. Both the hat and the scarf are made of blue yarn, and they look like they will keep her warm. Then she steps closer to me and rests a hand on my leg, and I realize how big I am. I am not huge like the glass dragon; I’m not even as big as the Coaldowns dragon. For a dragon, I am little, but for a Rafi, I am enormous, taller than any man. Maud doesn’t even come up to my wings. My scales are ember-bright, the same color as my hair. I crane my head to look over my shoulder, and see wings that blaze like fire, and a long tail that ends in wicked spikes. I can feel the white-hot molten heat inside me, too. It’s hotter than any coal-fired steam engine. My spark burns hotter than all the other dragons’ sparks. If I wanted to, I could open my mouth and breathe out flames, and they would turn everything they touch into ash.

  “You’re so, so beautiful, Rafi,” Maud says. She takes a ragged breath. “I had a feeling, you know.” Then she gives me such a Maud-like look, bright-eyed and curious. “It was the goats.”

  I cock my head. The goats?

  “All the goats,” she goes on, “following you anywhere you go.” She smiles up at me. “They’re coming here now, aren’t they?”

  They are, I know it. I miss them, and I hope they catch up to me soon.

  She leans against my shoulder. “The goats are your hoard.” A laugh bubbles up in her throat. “A herd-hoard. There’s no precedent. I mean, I’ve never read anything that said a person could be a dragon at the same time, but see
ing you with the goats, that made me suspect what you really are.” And then she does the most Maud-like thing she’s ever done, which is to dig through the scarf covering her to reach into her pocket and pull out her dragon notebook. “Rafi,” she says. “I think I’ve figured out why Mister Flitch wants your spark.” She looks around at all the dragons. “And what he’s really been collecting from the dragons that he’s killed.” From the back of her book she takes a folded piece of paper. “Look. Can you understand this?” she asks, kneeling and spreading it on the stone floor.

  I crouch and peer at it, and it’s as much a blur to my dragon eyes as it was to my human ones. I snort out a frustrated puff of smoke. And then I remember what the Skarth dragon said to me. Rafi sees far, cannot see to read. The Skarth dragon had tiny spectacles on a chain.

  I get to my clawed feet and face the glass dragon, who has flown down with the rest of the dragons to crouch nearby.

  Can I borrow one of your hoard? I ask.

  As an answer, it holds out a pair of spectacles, just the right size for a very large person or a somewhat small dragon. I take them into my claw and try putting them on, but they tip off and fall, and Maud only just manages to dive and catch them before they shatter on the stone floor of the Ur-Lair.

  “Here,” she says, standing and polishing the lenses on the knitted scarf. “Let me try.”

  I lower my head and she stretches up and balances the spectacles on my snout. I look through them, at the paper that Maud spread out on the floor, and it comes perfectly into focus.

  Maud edges closer. “Rafi, I was planning to show this to you this morning,” she says quietly. “I . . . Well, I lied to you about Mister Flitch’s workroom in the factory. I didn’t want you to think that I knew too much about it, but I have been into it before, and I have seen the machines that he’s been building. Back then I drew a picture of them, and I kept it in my notebook. I figured they must be another kind of factory machine, but now I know that they’re not. I thought you might be able to make sense of it.”