The Saint of Dragons (20 page)

D
ISGUISED AS A DOTTERING
old Chinese man by the name of Ming Song, the Black Dragon led Simon through the streets of London. It was dark by the time they arrived at the building where the gathering of the Light Dragons was to occur.

Before they left the ship, the Dragon had given Simon a very fine suit to wear that fit him fairly well, and he had cleaned up considerably.

The Chinese man led him to an immense white palace where an exhibit of modern art was under way. Well-dressed people moved in and out of a spacious gallery.

“A museum?” asked Simon.

“Private gallery,” said the Dragon. “The opening allows us cover for the arrival of so many. It is hoped no one will notice the Light Dragons slipping in to London.”

The ground shifted under their feet, rolling like a wave. A heavy earthquake. Simon looked at the Dragon in horror.

The Dragon was calm. “Inescapable side effect. The Light Dragons are meeting beneath us. We enter here….”

Art lovers roamed throughout the gallery. One woman near Simon was complaining that there were too many people here, rude people, such as that tall gentlemen with the ruddy face and a slight problem breathing—he seemed awfully uptight, she said. And the slim Frenchman—she was more than a bit perturbed to catch him nibbling at one of the paintings; at least, she thought that’s what he was doing. He turned around with such a handsome, innocent smile, perhaps she was imagining things. And then there was the Russian general. A plump man, he dressed drably, so it was hard to tell if he had any money to spend on art. But the nerve of someone bringing cats to a gallery…. She was saying all this, and Simon only dimly heard, for he was now quite distracted.

He had noticed a familiar kind of painting. It was a collection of abstract scraps, and he realized it was Alaythia’s, which someone must have salvaged from her New York apartment. He turned, and was surprised again. In a flowing evening gown, Alaythia was there, standing before a huge white painting. Simon ran to her.

“Alaythia?”

She stood, unmoving, eyes fixed to the painting. Spiritless.

“They caught me in Russia,” she said, as though half asleep. “As soon as I left you, their men found me. They’ve got me chained here somehow…. The painting has an enchantment to it. I can’t seem to get away from it. I just find it endlessly fascinating. Isn’t that so strange?”

In his confusion, Simon felt a sudden urge to pull her away, get her out.

“My proudest moment,” she droned on. “They’re displaying my work in a gallery. Too bad it’s only in this evil place. They were all in the art world, you know. The Venetian, the White, the Parisian, they all knew each other. It was only a matter of time before they brought in others.”

Simon struggled to understand, as she looked blankly away. He stepped in front of her. “What is happening?”

“Your father…he won’t be happy with this.”

“No,” said the Black Dragon, who had joined them, “he most certainly will not be happy.” With that he looked quite uncomfortable, and behind him, Simon finally saw the other gallery guests. He saw them for what they were.

Dragons.

He had walked into a gallery of Dragons. Simon almost lost his breath. The Water Dragon of Venice stood with the Parisian Dragon; the Russian Dragon, in a muddle of cats, stood beside them.

The sinister beasts closed in on him, walking slowly through the crowd.

“Do forgive me,” the Black Dragon told a shocked Simon, “but they would have killed me if I failed to bring you.”

The boy’s eyes widened with terror. “This was a trap…?”

“A thousand sorrys,” said the Black Dragon, and he did seem to mean it, “but my fear of you is greater than you know. My fear of your father greater still.”

“You lied to me,” Simon said. “Everything, from the beginning, it was all a lie…?”

“I am afraid, boy-child, that there are no Light Dragons. There is no such thing. Though I did enjoy your company,” he
replied. “And you did heal my wounds, for which I am grateful.”

“The least I could do,” hissed Simon, his teeth gritted.

The Black Dragon looked apologetic. “You are more than just a human. Your life has…value.”

“Not to me,” grumbled the French one.

“What do you want?” asked Alaythia, the spell she was under slowly being broken by the sound of Simon’s voice. She was desperately looking for an escape route.

“What we want is the boy,” said the Russian, “and his hateful father.”

“That’s what this is all about,” said Simon. “You want my father. And you know he’ll come for me.”

“
Très astute
. Clever boy,” said the Parisian. “Smart as your father. You would be dangerous if you were allowed to grow older.”

“What are your plans for him?”

“I should think that obviousssss,” smiled the Venice Water Dragon. “We’ve been trying to get at him for agessss. Now we have you as well. We can destroy the last of the Dragonhuntersss all at once.”

“Don’t fear,” said the Black Dragon, “I will see to it you feel no pain.”

The Paris Dragon glared. “Nonsense,” he said. “He will feel great pain.”

Simon and Alaythia were surrounded. Simon could feel his weapons under his long coat, but getting to them would be impossible. He couldn’t move that fast. The creatures would burn him in an instant.

“We have tried to remove your father for many yearssss,” said
the Dragon of Venice, moving closer, steadily closer, “and never had any luck. Now we know his weaknessss is his child. He will come for you, and when he doesss, we will capture him. From there, death will come ssslowly, not all at once. Where’s the fun in that, after all?”

“Not likely. He’s beaten you before,” said Simon bravely.

“Oh, but not all of us together, little child,” the Venice Water Dragon said with a sickly cough.

“He won’t fall into your trap,” said Simon. “And when he gets here, he will bring your plans crashing down on you.”

“The skinmonkey’s brave,” said the Russian coldly. “How sad that his bravery will win him nothing.”

“There was nothing I could do, Simon,” said the Black Dragon, “I cannot defy the master now—he has far too much power.”

“The Masquerade is over,” said the Parisian, and the Dragons let go of their disguising magic.

The Dragons were now revealed.

Alaythia just stood there, wanting to faint.
Please faint,
she told herself,
faint so you don’t have to look.

The sight of the creatures sent the crowd running from the room with shrieks of terror.

Simon took the chance to whip out his crossbow.

The Dragonmen stopped their approach.

“Don’t touch her,” Simon said.

“Oh, no,” said a voice. “We have plans for her….”

Alaythia and Simon knew the voice.

Everyone turned—and it seemed to Simon that the Venetian cowered a bit from the new presence. And it was clear
why he was cowering. From out of the chaos, behind the other Dragons, with great authority, strode the Man in White. He was dressed in a white suit and white cloak. Beneath his feet hordes of white lizards crawled, and high above his head white bats swarmed.

To Simon’s eyes, he became the White Dragon, undisguised and very much alive.

The Master.

“We have been having a wonderful time with you,” said the White Dragon. “But all good things must come to an end.”

Now you have to faint
, Alaythia told herself, but still she did not.

Simon did not think he could stand the horror a moment longer when suddenly the huge gallery windows behind the Dragons shattered gloriously and in crashed Aldric St. George, riding his furious steed Valsephany.

The horse was outfitted with a special harness—a new weapon Simon hadn’t seen before—with little pipes attached, pointed forward. The pipes fired arrows automatically. The bolts blasted out at once as Aldric rushed the gallery. But he couldn’t aim anywhere except straight ahead, and most of the arrows fell short, slamming into the floor. Simon gasped as several stabbed near him. The Venetian caught one of the arrows in his jaws and spat it away.

Aldric swung his sword down first on the Paris Dragon, but the blue-yellow Serpent shot back away from him, scurrying to the wall.

Aldric galloped to the end of the gallery, where Simon and Alaythia cowered. “Are you all right?” he asked quickly.

“We’ll live,” said Simon.

Alaythia looked relieved. Hearing Aldric’s voice had erased all traces of the spell she was under.

Aldric paced the horse in front of them to keep the Dragonmen back.

The White Dragon stepped in front of the others.

“Welcome to my humble home,” he said. “It’s open to the public tonight, but you seem to have scared most everyone off.”

“You live,” Aldric said with astonishment.

“I have risen from the ashes,” the White Dragon said, and smiled.

“Then I shall have the pleasure of killing you twice.”

“You never really gained anything, Dragonhunter. My death was an imitation, of course. A bit of drama, a flash of fire, and the illusion was complete. A risk, to be sure, but I needed to buy myself some time to put my plan in motion. You should have realized it. When a Serpent dies, his ashes turn red to the touch. The clues were all there. You hadn’t even finished saying my deathspell.”

“I thought I was unusually lucky,” said Aldric, “and you unusually weak.”

Venemon laughed, the skin of his long white throat shuddering. “You should have studied the lore more carefully…but then you had only half the story.”

He pulled from his white cloak the Lost Book of Saint George.

The room was filled with madness now from the conflicting Dragon-magic. All of the paintings showed images of faces suddenly forming under the paint, and the faces were screaming. Pieces of glass from the shattered window were floating about, or ticking on the floor like nervous claws. Earthquakes rum
bled under their feet.

“I am sure you are expecting,” said the White Dragon, “a most climactic showdown.” His white reptilian feet tapped the floor with a nervous arrogance while he continued, “But I am sorry to disappoint. There will be no fight to the death. This is not a battleground. It’s a trap.”

He chanted a quick spell. The other dragons’ hoarse and cloudy voices laughed in the background. The top of the gallery became a smooth, pearly mist.

The humans looked up in horror.

The white mist descended on them; the ceiling of fog simply fell, like a great ivory curtain. Valsephany gave a neighing cry. Aldric tried to control the horse.

As it fell, the huge curtain became solid, turning into bars of white iron. Simon and the others were now in a huge white prison cell that quickly sunk into the ground, below the gallery, into an all-white dungeon. Alaythia had managed not to faint. Instead she was struck by falling debris from the quaking room, and fell unconscious.

It would seem they’d been captured.

The game was up.

T
HE
D
RAGONMEN WERE NOWHERE
in sight.

No one spoke for a while. There is a certain level of shock involved with failing to save the world and being captured against your will.

Wind whistled through the white dungeon. The prison was huge; it had been made to contain other enemies of the White Dragon, of which there were many, and whose bones now littered the floor.

The white-iron dungeon lay under the Great White Palace, and the Great White Palace lay in the heart of London. It was not hidden away, but protected by magic, which kept people from asking questions. No one knew the Dragonhunters were being held there. No one would hear their calls.

Alaythia remained sleeping. Simon checked to see she was unharmed.

Valsephany neighed, shivering from the chilled dungeon air. Aldric was still atop the horse, letting it wander within the
dungeon so it might feel warmer.

“She’s sort of beautiful when she’s not talking,” said Simon, putting his coat over Alaythia. “Don’t you think so?”

Aldric sighed. “Will you let me deal with our little mistake here?”

“Mistake? I’d call this a failure.”

His father gave him a most unappealing glance. “We aren’t finished yet,” he said, “despite your best efforts.”

Simon looked up with a touch of anger. “What I did,” said Simon, “I did for everybody here. I was doing what I could to keep the world out of their claws.”

“By joining with them?”

“I didn’t know the Black Dragon was with them!”

“You
should
have known. What have I been telling you since we began? The Dragon is the source of all that is rotten in the world. It can never be trusted.”

“I didn’t believe that. Nothing is completely evil. No race, no species, no thing on earth is totally filled with darkness.”

“Idiocy. You could see the good in anything.”

“Yeah, everything. Everything but you.”

The horse stamped its foot, discomforted with the fighting. It quieted them.

Alaythia awoke, and regarded the argument with annoyance. “Are we working on a way out yet?”

Aldric swung his sword against the white cage. Metal rang against metal. But the cage stood firm.

“They’ve made something that can withstand our steel,” said Aldric. “Our weapons are useless. And there are many magics weighing down on us at once. It’s making us weak. It’s making our
bones brittle. They’re going to break us, in every way possible.”

Simon could sense it as well, as if gravity itself were getting heavier. He could feel himself growing tired and the bones of his body almost seeming to shrink inside him. “How long can we survive it?”

Aldric dismounted and looked him in the eye. “Not sure. Days, perhaps. I have to say I’ve never felt the effect of their magic so strongly. There must be many of them.”

He was quite right.

Somewhere above them, in the Great White Hall, a gathering of Dragons was taking place. Nothing like it had been seen on earth in centuries. The White Dragon had sent out word that all the Pyrothraxes were to come together. He had personally journeyed to the homes of most of them and convinced them he could be trusted. He had invited them to his grand ancestral home in England, and he had laid down its protective magic so that all could enter. He was about to reap the rewards of all his work.

The Dragonmen were finding their places in the immense hall above the dungeon. The huge, echoing ceilings weaved their voices together so that the noise was like a terrible music.

It was an amazing sight.

To begin with, everything in the palace was the color white. The white walls were supported with the sculpted beams of a Gothic cathedral, like a great animal’s rib cage. It was like being in the belly of the White Dragon himself. Which was exactly his intention. Guests of the White Dragon had only two purposes: either to be eaten and served to him, or to be beaten so that they would serve
for
him.

Huge chairs had been set out for each of the reptilians. The White Dragon had placed his chair at the end of the hall, before an altar that held a long banquet table. Piles of medallions lay at the foot of his chair.

And then there were the Serpents.

Counted together, the creatures appeared to number about a hundred. In fact, there were many more who remained invisible, still distrusting the others. Of the ones that could be seen, many had to be seen just to be believed.

The Red Dragon of Russia and the Blue-Gold Dragon of Paris looked quite different now, in their ceremonial armor. The Russian had brought three prized cats, who gnawed on the bones of something unknown, and the Parisian had painted a wonderful but somewhat terrifying abstract collection of red and yellow splotches over his chestplate for decoration. These Creatures were joined by the other French Dragon (of Calais), who smelled of cheese that had spoiled centuries ago, and the other Russian Dragon, a Bear Dragon of Siberia, who was as gray as stone, with a personality to match.

Unable to endure the breathing of air for long periods of time, Brakkesh, the Water Dragon of Venice, had come encased in a giant water tank that moved about on wheels. He looked out on everyone from the murky green water in his glass bubble, munching seaweed. One could dimly hear his favorite opera music playing inside his tank.

And there were others. The Sand Dragon, Mistral, whose leather-skinned reptile children surrounded him, fanning him with palm leaves to cool him from his own, always-smoldering red heart under his skin. White robes covered his head and his
body. His children were dressed just like their father; they were proud to be following in his footsteps. Their mother, of course, was nowhere to be found. They had eaten her up years before.

The Tiger Dragon, Issindra, was a female Serpent from jungle-land India, whose title derived from her tiger-striped hide. Issindra was beautiful. Even humans might have thought so. But her habit of scorching those who fell in love with her kept most suitors away. At the moment, she was whispering in the ears of the Parisian Dragon, and he was liking what he heard. When another female, the Fox Dragon of Quebec, looked in the direction of the Parisian and purred, Issindra became jealous, growling and wishing she could shoot a hot stream of flame at her rival’s face. She couldn’t, of course, it was too dangerous, so all were spared the sight of her fire. Issindra’s fire was tiger-striped like she was: Red-black stripes ribboned the flames whenever they flew from her mouth. Quite beautiful.

Watching the Tiger Dragon with equal jealousy was the Spanish Lasher Dragon, who had numerous slim, whiplike tails jutting from her back. Her arms were like two bullwhips, and they were usually set afire. Her snout and her mouth were covered in tiny, hanging whips, and scars where the whips had cut her. When she was agitated or upset, she would slither and slash her whips around angrily. The other Pyrothraxes kept a good distance from her.

The guest list went on. There was the heavy, baggy-skinned Elephantine Dragon, who had gray, sagging skin, a long elephant’s trunk, and huge ivory tusks. Even heavier was the Nine-Ton Dragon, an obese Belgian monstrosity so fat she could barely move, and was bed-ridden for life. There were the diminutive
Midget Dragons, who had come from Romania and who were unhappy that their morsel-sized bodies had been seated next to the Nine-Ton Dragon; seated next to them were their exact opposites, the towering, slim African Tall Dragons, whose long black hair was coiled into braids of astonishing workmanship; there was the Spider Dragon of Brazil, who had a strange feature at the top of her head, something that looked like a giant spider turned on its back, with its eight legs opening and closing grotesquely.

Mind you, these were not the most fearsome in the group. Those creatures remained invisibly safe and watchful, expecting to be double-crossed by their own kind.

Only the Black Dragon held himself apart. He sat without speaking, looking at the little canary in his hand, his dearest companion and the closest thing he had to family.

The chattering, arguing Pyrothraxes all quieted as the White Dragon finally entered and took his chair.

“This is an historic moment,” he began, “and one which will never be forgotten. The raw talent in this room numbs the mind. Never have so gifted a group been gathered together for so significant a purpose.”

The response from the crowd was a rumble of skeptical approval.

It was heard, down below, in the white dungeon.

It sounded like a million rattlesnakes, a million tapping spiders, a million growling wolves. If it was possible for a noise to be
scaly
, this was it. The entire palace shook from the presence of so much evil.

“Incredible,” mumbled Aldric. “How many of them are there?”

“More than I want to see,” said Simon. His lack of faith in
himself frightened him. His father’s fear frightened him. He felt hopeless.

Alaythia felt a different anxiety. Her growing power had come with a price. The Dragons were now able to
talk
to her inside of her head, something they could not do to the St. Georges. She could hear the low rumble of their voices, taunting her, telling her she should have fled when she had the chance, trying to wear her down. There were more than she had ever dreamed. She had been ignoring the sound for some time, and now she decided to challenge it directly.

Just by concentrating, she pushed the noise out of her head and slammed the doors of her mind. With effort, she’d done it. She surprised even herself.

She simply wasn’t going to be afraid.

“They’re going to kill us,” she said plainly. “That much is clear. I hate to think how. My vote is that we break out of here, and take some of them down with us.”

Simon and Aldric looked at her incredulously. Their artist had become a warrior.

“How do you suppose we get out of here?” asked Aldric doubtfully.

“Well, the first order of business is to snap you out of this trance you’re in,” said Alaythia. “The two of you look like fish in a basket, waiting to be cleaned and gutted.”

“I’m just being realistic about our chances,” said Aldric.

“Enough of that,” said Alaythia. “We’re not exactly useless, Simon and me. I’m not going to hand myself over to these things to be burned, or swallowed up, or whatever it is they plan to do.”

“What they plan is more terrible than you can imagine,” said
Aldric. He’d pieced the plan together by now. “They’re planning to unleash the Serpent Queen.”

Simon felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.

“They’ve been at each other’s throats for centuries, ever since the Serpent Queen was banished to the shadows. Ever since the Great Egyptian Sorcerers sentenced her to a dark sleep in the core of the earth. Now…the White Dragon has hatched a scheme to get all the Dragonmen to unite for their queen. They think they can revive her, with all their magic combined.”

“And you think they can do it?” asked Simon quietly. He already knew the answer.

“Yes,” said Aldric. “And if they succeed, their strength will be beyond anything we can hope to fight. They will rule the earth. Right now, they have one difficulty, and we have one advantage: Their powers react and chafe against one another. Bring two Dragons together, and their magic becomes hard to control. Bring this many vile Serpents into one place, and there is bound to be chaos on a grand scale.”

Aldric was right. Simply by having this many Dragonmen collected in the White Palace, the world had begun to react in unnatural ways. The rippling in reality fanned out from London, where there was a calm in the eye of the magic storm: mere earthquakes and foul weather, and a wicked yellow fog that swallowed up the sky.

But in Oslo, Norway, people were already reporting vast rat populations infesting the city, so many they were like a flood in the streets. In Holland, butcher-shop animals, already quite dead, rattled and moved around; fish flopped off of the chopping block. In Ireland, snakes by the hundreds slithered out of the ground
and emerged from people’s chimneys and sinks and toilets, and any opening into the world a home might have. In Germany, bats by the millions ripped over the sky and glided low through Berlin, squealing ferociously.

Massive earthquakes hit cities throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Some people caught fire randomly and quickly burned beyond recognition.

Across the world, storm winds began to blow, then would suddenly stop completely, and start again.

Dragon magic was everywhere at once.

In Paris, lightning rattled nearly every building, and flames shot from the ground mercilessly.

As far off as Australia, millions of people felt weak, angry, and depressed. The clouds made vague and angry shapes: wolves and lions and evil, humanlike faces.

A giant eye made of clouds peered down over the quaking skyline of New York.

Shapes of Dragons could be seen in storm clouds across America.

“All of this,” continued Aldric, “happens because the Dragons cannot live together. But if the Queen of Serpents is raised from the shadow world, the Dragons will live in harmony. Her magic will unite theirs. The danger to humankind has never been greater.”

No one needed to say this. They knew it in their bones.

All the world was depending on them.