The Saint of Dragons (10 page)

Aldric said nothing more. The three sat in silence in the rocking, reeling ship, and after many hours, the storm passed, and they continued on to Italy.

They docked the ship in Venice.

Where mysteries waited to be solved.

S
IMON LOVED
V
ENICE
. I
T
was a city where the streets were made of water and people rode in boats instead of cars. All the buildings were old and fantastic-looking. Arching bridges, ancient and beautiful, stretched over the liquid streets.

In spite of all that, Simon couldn’t help feeling a general sense of dread.

Something was very wrong here.

It wasn’t just that Simon didn’t speak the language and didn’t know the customs. As he walked beside the canals, he heard the passing people chattering in Italian; it was a language that sort of hopped along, looking for a way to end. Everyone had an angry expression, as if accusing Simon and his companions of bargaining for something they didn’t want to pay too much for. Simon thought there was something in the air that sizzled your skin and brushed invisibly on the hair of your arms, like a spider.

The creature responsible for all this could hide among the people. Simon found himself looking hard with a sickly suspicion
at every face he saw. Clues were scarce.

They had only Alaythia’s guess that the medallion came from here, nothing else.

Aldric took them to the largest newsstand in the city and paid for every newspaper on the racks.

“What are you doing?” asked Simon.

“Looking for things no one sees,” said Aldric.

He took them to a dark café, where he laid out all the newspapers. They began going over them, looking for anything strange or bizarre that might have happened in Venice in the past few days. Anything that might indicate a Serpent was in the area.

They paid a man in the café to translate the headlines into English. He was a gaunt, old man with an eerie voice, though his eyes were kind and he did his best to help.

“‘Brawl at local bar,’” he read to Simon.

“Not significant,” said Aldric. “People are always brawling.”

“‘Priests leave the church in droves,’” he read to Alaythia from another article. “‘Lose confidence in giving sermons.’”

“Could be something there,” said Aldric. “When a great number of people lose faith, it usually points to a Serpent. Where was that?”

“The church is on the west side of the city,” answered the translator, confused over exactly what Aldric was talking about.

Aldric stared at the photograph beside the article, squinting closely at a strange blur just behind the priests. The photo had caught someone in motion, passing by the church. “Interesting,” said Aldric. “Something was there. Something that didn’t want to be seen.”

The translator looked at him like he was insane.

“There was another article about that area,” Simon remembered, “about dogs that are losing their fur. Most of the dogs are completely bare, it said.”

Aldric nodded. “Sounds like a Pyrothrax to me. You and I will start in that part of town at jewel and art shops, any place that might know about the medallions. Alaythia can go snooping about the church. Be careful. We’ll meet back here.”

Alaythia went off down the street alone, wearing a long blue cloak and hood that gave her an old-fashioned look. The cloak blew about her in the wind, her long hair lashing wildly. Simon watched her go with a pang of worry. Aldric said she could take care of herself, but it seemed to Simon that she had already gotten lost.

Aldric was in search of a jeweler’s shop in the suspicious part of the city, looking for someone who might have seen the Dragon medallion, perhaps even the maker. Unfortunately, the first shop they went to gave them no help. The owner could not even tell them where else they might look, and he seemed somewhat spooked. Such a curious token they had found.

Later, as they were crossing a bridge, Simon began to notice a terrible stench coming from the water. The smell got stronger the closer they got to the western part of the city.

“That’s the smell of a Dragon,” said Aldric. “An overfed Dragon, left alone for too long.”

“What are we going to do when we find him? We don’t even know his deathspell.”

Aldric nodded with a worried look. “
We
aren’t going to do anything,” he said, lifting a long black case he’d been carrying. “A weapon like this, I handle alone.”

He was trying to look sure of himself, Simon thought. But nothing had ever worked to eliminate a Dragon except the ancient deathspells. Now they had no such magic to use.

Miserable, hunched-over, hairless dogs passed by, searching for hiding places, their eyes tainted white. The dogs looked pitiful and ashamed, their ribs sticking out of thin skins.

The water in the canal next to Simon had turned an odd greenish color, though he barely noticed it. His mind was fixed on how to eliminate a Dragon with no spells and no books.
What if this Dragon has powers we have never seen before? He did not notice
that people were staring at huge numbers of oddly colored fish that had gathered in the canal. The water was a thick, ugly green, but still you could see the sea life down there, swimming in patterns, creating giant figure-eights and circles within circles. The fish were upset at something. Something was driving them a bit mad, you could see it at once.

If you looked. Simon didn’t, distracted by the noise of the people up ahead. It didn’t matter that he didn’t speak Italian; he could tell they were arguing. Aldric was looking across the street where beautiful women were crying, huddled alone in corners of the cracked-brick buildings. Sadness and depression had taken hold here strongly.

The next jeweler’s shop was owned by a large man in a bad mood, like everyone else. He had a face like a huge plum that had sat in the sun too long but wasn’t yet a prune. Purplish splotches were spread over his face. Over the years, he had tried many lotions and treatments to get rid of them, but nothing worked. He stared suspiciously at Aldric and Simon from a protective, bulletproof glass booth that enclosed him completely.

Aldric produced the medallion from his pocket. “Have you ever seen this?” he asked the jeweler, and the jeweler opened a slot in the big booth.

“I can’t tell if you don’t give it to me,” he said glumly. “My eyes aren’t that good since I moved to Venice.”

Aldric reluctantly passed it to him. The jeweler squinted, and looked more prunish. Then he looked up nervously.

“This is very fine work.”

“Did you make it?”

“This is the only shop that could have made it. That’s how fine a work it is.”

Aldric had played a hunch; now he controlled his excitement. “Who did you sell it to? Can you help us find him?”

“He wished to keep this a private matter,” said the jeweler, rubbing a spot on his face.

“Well, that’s to be expected,” said Aldric. “What’ll it cost me to learn his whereabouts?”

“You think anything is for sale?” grunted the jeweler.

“Let’s put it this way,” said Aldric, in such a way that Simon could tell his anger was about to show itself, “it had better be for sale.”

The jeweler stared back, judging him. He was starting to sweat.

“You
know
, don’t you?” said the jeweler, and his eyes flicked sideways, at an eel in a nearby aquarium. A strange pet, thought Simon.

“He left that for you, didn’t he?” Aldric asked. “That eel. You’ve noticed he watches you through the eel’s eyes?”

The jeweler’s attitude quickly changed, and he leaned
forward. “There is a killer in Venice,” he hissed. “He crawls into basements from the canals, he uses the waterways. He burns people away and pays the newspapers to hush it up. No one knows. He has powers. Ungodly powers.”

Simon was riveted. “He wanted many medallions, as gifts, and he wanted them done very carefully, to very specific requirements,” the jeweler told them quietly. “He said if each one wasn’t a work of absolute beauty, I’d pay a painful price.”

Aldric snatched the medallion back through the small door in the glass, asking hurriedly, “Just tell me, where is the man who bought this?”

Suddenly, the glass box the jeweler was sitting in began filling with murky green water. The doors had somehow locked, and the jeweler could not get out. Soon he was drowning in the glass tank, banging for release, looking much like the eel in the aquarium.

Aldric drew his sword and smashed open the glass, and the jeweler fell out, gasping for air, the water pouring from his booth.

“He lives underneath the city,” he coughed.

“Under the city is nothing but water,” said Aldric, trying to help him stand.

The jeweler choked. “That’s where he lives. That’s where he lives.”

Simon felt a cold shadow and turned—but before he could yell to his father, a man clapped a hand over his mouth and grasped his arms. He struggled, trying to kick free, but the thug was too strong.

There were seven men. Six of them rushed at Aldric. Aldric’s sword was up in a split second, but there were too many thugs,
and one of them managed a punch to Aldric’s stomach. Simon watched his father double over in pain. The thug who had hold of the boy laughed, saying something in Italian. Simon kicked him in the groin—and the Italian yelped.

Simon jumped free and ran across the watery floor to his father’s side. The thugs were coming back at them, but then a voice, speaking in rapid Italian, stopped them.

The thugs turned. Their master had entered the shop.

To the Italians, the master was a big man, tanned from the sun, with a heavy brow, a large nose, and black-gray hair shaven short. His eyes were cold, like a sniper’s. His dark green suit resembled the sludge in the canals. He had the look of a sleek international hit-man.

But to the St. Georges, he looked very different.

He was a tall, swaggering Dragonman with green and yellow skin, and his reptile face sagged with wrinkles. His clothes barely covered him. Simon could see that slugs were attached to his skin, living off the scum that thrived there. He bared his long yellow teeth, and Simon detected seaweed stuck inside his mouth.

Naturally, Venice would have a Water Dragon.

“I will deal with thissss one,” said the Venetian Dragon.

Simon understood enough to be afraid.

The black weapon case had fallen away in the fight.

But Aldric still had his sword, and it flashed in the light as he raised it.

“Come forth and meet your destiny,” he told the Venetian.

The Serpent breathed deeply, with a wheezing, sick sound. Either the air was making him sick or the thought of battle tired him out.

“A Knight from the time of mmmmmagic,” he said, this time in heavily accented English. “How ssssadly out-of-date you are. Unfortunate that you would ssseek me out. I might never have believed there wassss one of you left out there.”

His voice reeked of hatred.

“And now I will take my property back, pleassse…,” hissed the Dragon, staring at the medallion, still in Aldric’s hand.

To Simon’s surprise, Aldric began to move forward, the sword extended before him. His chance of destroying the Dragon was slim, but his bravery was unfaltering. “When you are faced with absolute evil,” he said, “there is no choice but to oppose it, absolutely.”

One of the thugs tried to attack Aldric from the side, but the Knight slammed him with the side of his sword, knocking him to the ground. Aldric continued his approach to the Venetian.

The Dragon tilted his head to one side. “You could run, and there’ssss a chance you’d live. I might not even bother to go after you. If you try to reach my heart, I’m afraid I’d have no choice but to feed you to the fire.”

“I love a good fire,” said Aldric.

“Then I won’t give you the pleasure.” The Dragon reached out a lean, slimy claw and called out a spell—and a greenish, garish rainstorm suddenly erupted indoors, blowing back at Aldric as he advanced. The thugs fell back behind the Venetian Dragon. They knew the dangers of being at the receiving end of Serpentine sorcery.

A green mist filled the shop. You couldn’t see much of anything. Simon fell to the ground and got hold of the weapons case, but the gale swept him back against a counter. The jeweler
crouched down with him, muttering Italian prayers.

The Dragonman called out another phrase and swept his slimy claw around the room. All of the jewels in the shop suddenly ripped from their settings and smashed out of the cases they were held in. Spiked diamonds whipped around in the wind like glittering flies, slashing into Aldric as he came forward.

His face was cut in ten places at once, and his fingers, gripped tightly to his sword, were sliced by soaring emeralds and jewels, as if the gems were tiny razor blades.

Simon heard his father yell in pain. The wind, and the rain, and the dozens of jewel tornadoes spinning about the place made it difficult to see, but the howl of agony was too much for Simon to stand. He pulled up his crossbow.

He had a choice. Fire his arrow into the storm, at the vague shape up ahead he thought was the Venice Dragon, or wait, and hope his father could survive on his own.

He chose to act.

Simon’s arrow flew through the storm and got caught in a spinning eddy of ferocious gems. Simon could do nothing but watch. The silver arrow spun about in a frenzy of sparkling jewels and then somehow shot free, swooping across the shop and into a dark shape at the end of the room. There was a howl, and Simon saw the figure slump to the ground. Then he saw the figure raise a shining sword and rush for the door, shouting angrily.

The storm started to slacken. Some of the little tornadoes lost strength. Gems clattered to the floor, and the green mist that filled the shop began to flow outside. Now Simon could see a little better.

He did not like what he saw.

T
HE
W
ATER
D
RAGON OF
Venice and his ugly henchmen were making a run for it.

Simon’s father was yelling at them, brandishing his sword. He had been stabbed in the arm by a silver arrow, which could only have come from one place.

Simon had nailed his dad.

Aldric took the black weapon case, and begged Simon to stay put. Then he was gone.

From the doorway, Simon watched as the thugs ran down the brick street and the unnatural green storm rattled windows in buildings near the jewelry shop. Jewels still spun about in the air. People grabbed for the flying diamonds but found their hands were snipped and sliced by the buglike jewels.

Aldric snapped off the wooden part of the arrow in his arm and winced as the silver barb dug in deeper. In the confusion, he had given the Dragon a wound of its own, and he wanted the creature to move fast, hoping to weaken it further. The
Dragonman, clutching the steaming injury at his leg, snarled in rage at a street vendor who got in his way, knocking the man down. The Dragon was headed for water.

Looking up the street, Simon just caught sight of the Dragon plunging into the green waters of the canal. Its green-yellow tail sunk into the water with a slurping farewell. Aldric ran down the walkway, trying to follow the dark form in the canal beside him, but the chase was unfair. The Dragon, at home in the water, was moving far too fast.

Simon could see his father leaping onto a gondola and yelling to the rower to chase the beast. Simon ran to help, jumping into the boat and taking over the oars from the shocked Italian, who fell into the water. The boy got the gondola moving, using all his strength, but this boat was not like the ones back in Ebony Hollow.

Aldric pulled from his pocket a fist-sized silver gadget. To Simon’s amazement, he fastened it onto the gondola, and the boat lifted just slightly off the water, wrapped in waves of magical heat. Then the gadget pushed them forward with a jolt. Simon nearly fell out. The boat floated and flew just above the canal, taking corners like a speedboat.

Simon took a deep breath. They were swooping through Venice, fast and low, like a seabird skimming the water. Buildings hummed past as the hovering gondola veered down the watery boulevards.

Simon could see the Dragon’s shape just below them in the canal, moving very fast. Suddenly, the Dragonshape took a sharp turn and shot back
under
the gondola, as Aldric tried to reverse the boat. But the flyer-gadget soon gave out, sputtering, and dropped them back into the waterway.

“Bloody thing,” cursed Aldric, banging it with his sword, “doesn’t work like it used to.”

As Simon rowed to keep the boat going, the greenish shape of the Beast slipped quickly under a group of gondolas coming the other way, and Simon could not get through the other boats easily. The St. Georges’ gondola collided with the crowd of boats in the tight, narrow canal.

The traffic jam of trapped gondolas became a shouting match in English and Italian. Aldric watched helplessly as the Dragon of Venice, far ahead of the logjammed boats, crawled out of the slimy canal and spidered up a wall, disappearing into the window of a house beside the water.

Aldric was furious.

“You SHOT me!” he hollered at Simon. “What were you trying to do?”

“I was trying to hit the Dragon,” the boy explained. “I couldn’t see a thing in there!”

“Then why were you firing in the first place?”

“I thought you needed help!”

“You are supposed to follow orders!” shouted Aldric. “You are supposed to do what I tell you and only what I tell you!”

“What if you’re not there to tell me? What if I can’t hear you? If I don’t think for myself, we could get into real trouble,” protested Simon.

“What do you call this?!”

Simon looked down at his father’s wound. Suddenly, Aldric spun around and aimed his crossbow at a man running past the windows of the building above them.

The man was the Venetian Dragon.

Aldric fired, striking the Dragon in its chest. The Dragon fell back against the wall.

Aldric hopped off the boat and onto the road, headed for the downed beast. He raced up the stairs of the building, smashing into the apartment where the Venetian had taken refuge. Running with the weapons case, Simon couldn’t keep up. His father was up ahead, sword ready, but as he passed through the doorway, he was ambushed by the giant Venetian, who swung a fireplace poker down upon Aldric, knocking him to the floor. As Aldric brought up his sword, the heavy weapon came down again, clanging against the sword with force so strong it knocked the wind out of the Knight. He gasped for air, as the Dragon’s clawed foot came down on his chest.

Simon notched an arrow to his crossbow. He had to do something!

But Aldric somehow wrenched his sword free, slicing the Dragon’s foot as he pulled the blade loose. The Venetian screamed, and now the Dragon and the Knight were fighting in close quarters with a flurry of incredibly quick moves. Simon stood in awe.

Now the creature had fallen back to a window, as Aldric, exhausted, prepared to swing his sword again.

“Simon—the weapon case! Bring it up!” ordered Aldric.

Simon already had the case open. He pulled out a torch, glowing with bright yellow serpentfire, and tossed it to Aldric. The Venetian eyed the torch with fear.

The firelight gleamed in Aldric’s eyes.

“Where’s your fire?” he taunted the Dragon. “Out of water, out of strength?”

The Venetian sniped back in his hideous Dragon language.
The Dragon bowed his head, as if gathering strength, and outside, the storm began to rebuild its anger.

Lightning racked the green clouds behind the city. An
intense
magic was brewing.

But the dragon opened his eyes, smiling at Aldric, and let himself fall backward into the canal.

Aldric rushed for the window, Simon right behind him.

The Venetian Serpent dropped into the water backward, splashing into the green canal as his henchmen swarmed the street below. The wind picked up powerfully.

The Dragon’s friends began storming the building, some climbing the vines on the wall.

“Get ready,” said Aldric unhelpfully.

Simon felt anything but ready.

Hungry winds smashed along the canal, throwing boats aside. The winds roared between the buildings, howling down the watery avenues, curling the water with extreme power. The green-hued storm had built up a furious, horrific strength.

Simon was torn from the window by the power of it, dropping his sword to the street. He was swept down the block in the rage of winds before landing. He stared down helplessly. For a moment, it was like flying!

Meanwhile, Aldric was clinging to the window frame, as the water Dragon’s henchmen tried to grab him from their wind-blasted perches on the wall. They couldn’t reach him yet, but they were climbing.

The day had turned nightlike, the greenish pall filling the entire city. Lightning flashed behind the mist, and soon it was raining heavily.

Across the street, Simon was still caught in the winds, buffeted around amid the chaos, as people around him were thrown down and dragged on the street by the brackish hurricane, and boats smashed into windows.

Turning, Simon saw one of the evil men climbing the trellis wall pulling a pistol from his suit. Aldric was his target. Thinking fast, Simon raised his crossbow, fighting the wind.

Meanwhile, Aldric shoved over the trellis, sending all of the henchmen tumbling backward into the stormy canal. But Simon saw this happen too late. He fired his crossbow.

And struck his father
again!!

He screamed when he saw it.

The arrow had slashed right into Aldric’s leg.

And for no reason. Most of the Dragon’s men were in no condition to fight now anyway. It took everything they had just to swim the rioting waters!

Aldric yelled, dropping the torch. It fell to the ground with a shower of sparks.

As Simon braved the blasting winds, running to his father, he rushed straight into Alaythia, who was fighting off two thugs of her own!

“You leave him!” she shouted to the men, defending Aldric. “Don’t touch him!”

One of the thugs grabbed her by the neck and plunged her into the canal. Simon ran to her aid, but he had dropped his crossbow and sword—and if it hadn’t been for the torch rolling down the street, he would have had nothing to fight with. He swung the torch threateningly, forcing the thug to let go and step back.

Alaythia thrashed underwater, trying to get free. She could see her attacker’s face above the water as he held her throat, and suddenly she could read the rune medallion he wore. She could
read
the Dragon writing!

Alaythia read the medallion’s words, “Loyal Slave to the Serpent,” just as Simon forced the thug to release her. She burst from the water, gasping.

Simon hurled the torch at the first attacker.

“No, Simon—get away from it!” called Aldric.

The thug ducked as the torch hit the water. The torch fire swirled around in a ring and then exploded—as if the canal water were made of kerosene! The inferno whooshed down the canal in a wall of yellow fire that rose high and then quickly fell, lashing the street with drops of liquid fire.

The thugs ran.

Simon gasped.

He had set fire to Venice.

The flames swooped down the waterways, swiftly covering the city, but soon ran out of strength, breaking up into little puddles of fire that died out under the rain from the hurricane. The tiny embers drifted about like fairies, and Simon could swear he heard the little flames
hissing,
like animals of some kind.

He looked back at Alaythia, who was staring in absolute amazement.

She sat by the water, nearly breathless. “Are you all right?” cried Simon.

It took her a moment to tell him in plain English.

Behind them, the canals were in chaos, the fires dying. Above them, Aldric fell back into the apartment, completely worn out.