The Saint of Dragons (4 page)

“What is it?” said the next boy.

“It’s a horse,” said Simon, “somewhere out there.”

Everyone turned around, searching the foggy night. They could hear the thunder of the horse’s hooves getting closer and closer.

The lighthouse spread its beam across the cloudy field. Suddenly a shape launched out of the fog. A man on a great horse. In a second he had swooped up Simon into his arms and thrown him atop the horse.

The boys screamed and ran. Lanterns were dropped. Before anyone knew it, the horseman had rumbled off into the fog. The librarian called out to Simon, but no answer came. As the lighthouse beam swept past the boys again, the light showed them nothing but the whiteness of the fog. The beam did not fall on the horseman, nor on Simon St. George.

Both of them had vanished.

S
IMON COULD NOT YELL
. He was in a panic, with no air in his lungs. The horseman’s face was nearly all covered in a long black scarf, and his great black trench coat was fanning out from the wind, like giant black wings.

Simon clung to his back, afraid of falling. In that quick moment, Simon felt a strange flash of fear that the horseman was the hideous creature he had seen crossing the street—a creature with a long snaky tail. But now the horseman’s scarf fell down from his face, and Simon could see it was the shabby man who claimed to be his father.

For some reason, this made Simon feel better.

Suddenly, he heard sounds up ahead. Shouting. In the grayness near the cliff, he could see three men rushing at the horse.

The horseman drew a long sword, heading for the first man, who may have held a gun. It was hard to tell.

But then,
behind
the three men, came another, out of the fog, who slashed at the attackers with a long wooden staff. The staff
slammed into the first two men, throwing them to the ground. Then the man with the staff attacked the gunman, knocking loose his weapon.

It was the old lighthouse keeper, there, in the thick of the battle, brandishing his long walking cane! The old man was holding back the three attackers! Simon gaped in surprise as the horse galloped past the fight.

“Go!” the old man shouted.

The horse galloped into the safety of the fog shroud.

Gone into the night.

When Simon finally found himself able to breathe and speak more than a whisper, he was a long, long way from the Lighthouse School for Boys. The horseman said not a word, urging his horse on through the fog. He must have gone a very long way, because Simon did not hear any sirens, and he knew the principal would have called the police immediately.

“Where are you taking me?” Simon managed to say.

“Don’t worry now,” said the horseman comfortingly. “You’ll be safe.”

That was all he said, and the horse galloped onward, down the coast, through muddy forests, empty fields, and past lifeless piers, with the dark ocean calling after them.

Simon had no chance to yell for help. They did not go near any houses. Even if he was able to call out, Simon wasn’t sure he wanted to. Once the shock wore off a bit, he started to think this was the most exciting thing that could have happened. If this was his father after all, what exactly did he have to tell Simon?

They reached a long, empty dock. There were no buildings
around, just a big sailboat that looked like it had been made a long time ago. The horse trotted over the wooden pier and stopped at the boat with a snort of exhaustion.

“Rest now,” said the man, and Simon thought he was speaking to the horse. “There’s a place to sleep onboard,” he went on.

“You’re talking to me?” said Simon in amazement. “I can’t just…I’m not going to…”

“You know who I am,” said the man. “And I’d like to stand here all night and tell you the story of my life, but it’s not safe here. We’ve got to move on.”

He led the horse on board. Standing on the dock, Simon looked around. He could make a run for it, but he doubted he would get very far. He didn’t even know which way to go; the fog had obscured everything around them.

“Are you coming?” said the man, annoyed, and he put out his hand for Simon to take it.

“I didn’t know I had a choice,” said Simon.

“You have a choice if you want to get
eaten
out there” was the reply.

Not sure what he meant by this, but knowing that indeed he meant it, Simon turned to look behind him. He heard a rattling in the bushes, and fearing that it was the dangerous men from the lighthouse, he reached out and took the man’s hand. He was pulled aboard the ship, and they set sail.

The thing was, Simon thought he might be able to trust this man somehow. Without knowing why, the boy was willing to go with the unknown….

It was too foggy to see the cliffs as the boat drifted away, but Simon could see the giant light-beam from the Lighthouse
School, slicing through the darkness. It got smaller and smaller as the night went on. Ebony Hollow was being pushed away, and with it, Simon’s old life.

Part of him was sorry to see it go. He had few friends, but the Lighthouse School was his whole world. He had no idea where he was headed.

He had a moment to think about his schoolmates, the lighthouse keeper, and to wonder just for an instant about the name of the girl at the novelty shop, but as that thought flitted away, he felt ready for whatever came his way.

The man behind Simon coughed. “Well,” he said, “if you’re not too tired, we may as well get some work done.”

He went inside the cabin.

Simon turned back, not sure he wanted to follow. But the time for regrets had passed. Simon went in.

In the tight quarters of the galley, Simon found the man hard at work, making something to eat. “First things first. I hope you like eggs,” grunted the man. “That’s all I’m cooking.”

“I’m not very hungry,” said Simon.

“You ought to eat whenever you can,” the man replied. “You never know when you won’t be able to.”

Simon was confused.
Is he ever going to explain himself?
He went to sit at a tiny table, not knowing what else to do. The ship lurched a bit, and Simon fell, embarrassingly.

“Don’t tell me the tide knocked you over,” said the man. “The water’s calm as can be tonight.”

“I’m fine,” said Simon, and he started to realize the man might be insulting him.

“You’re small,” the man added, sizing up Simon’s frame, and
he seemed touched by that. “I didn’t think you’d be small.”

Simon decided to be direct.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Then he added a threat. “My father is waiting for me back there. He isn’t going to like this. He’s a very…he’s a very wealthy businessman. Very powerful.”

“Businessman? Is that what you were hoping?” said the man disdainfully. “Would’ve expected more imagination from you. You’re not going to spook me. You can stop with the petty threats. Next time use a little foul language, put a bit of punch in it, so you don’t sound like such a prep-school toughie.”

He broke eggs into a bowl. “Old Denman, your lighthouse keeper, he might’ve gotten hurt out there tonight, protecting you. He’s done a good job looking after you all these years—wish I could have thanked him proper. He knew the enemy might come looking sometime, with its spies out all over the world. He’s a good man, a good warrior. I hope he’s all right.”

The lighthouse keeper, working for this man? Nothing made any sense. Simon decided just to listen.

“I don’t want to scare you off, but this isn’t like playing war in the woods. You need to be sharp. Pay attention. Listen and learn every step of the way. There is a hallowed place for each one of us after death, but I don’t plan to get to mine for a very long time, so you better not hasten my passage. Certain people have a mission in life, and there’s no changing it, halting it, or reasoning with it. It’s just the way it is.”

Maybe the man was insane. He acted like it. This fancy way of talking about his work, whatever that was, and the way he grunted his words. He did not look very clean, either. His clothes
were ragged and dirt-ridden. He seemed distrustful of everything. He was like a homeless man, Simon thought. His eyes did not seem crazy, though. They seemed kinder than his voice. Did he think he needed to be harsh with Simon?

“Eat.”

Simon followed his orders. Scrambled eggs. Plain, unsalted, but they tasted good. Turned out Simon was hungry. How late was it now?

“You’re going to need all your strength,” the man said again, gobbling his own meal with a wolfish hunger, “and all your skills. Do you have any skills?”

Of course he had skills, Simon thought. What skills would this man find useful?

“I can do…woodworking,” Simon tried.

“Don’t need it.”

“I can read French.”

“French?”

“I speak fluently. My teachers say I’m very good.”

“Probably not helpful. What else?”

“I don’t know. I can pretty much operate the lighthouse. I had to cook sometimes in school, so I know a little about that. And I’m good with horses.”

“Good, I guess that’s something,” the man said. “That school had the best fencing instructors in the country—you never took fencing?” The man’s eyes shot over to Simon.

“Fencing was going to be next year. This year I took art.”

“Art.” The man sighed. “Didn’t you take anything practical? What about archery?”

“Since when is archery practical?”

The man almost smiled. “Depends on your line of work.” He looked at Simon for a long moment, taking him in. “Denman must’ve kept you away from all this sort of thing. We never thought you’d come into this.”

“Do I get to know your name?” said the boy.

“My name is Aldric St. George,” he answered. “And I am your father.”

He seemed proud of the fact. But it also seemed to be a warning.

“You’ve said that before.” The boy eyed him. “I don’t suppose you have any proof.”

“Proof?” The man looked angry. “We’ve got the same eyebrows, the same nose…You hear it in your voice, you see it in the way you move—the proof is in your blood, boy! You are a St. George!”

Simon tried not to react to the man’s thundering.

“And if I had any proof with me,” Aldric continued, calming, “it could prove deadly to you. Why do you think I haven’t been able to talk to you all these years?”

“I figured you didn’t want to.”

Aldric St. George looked very upset for a moment. “Of course I wanted to talk to you,” he told Simon, “but it wasn’t safe. I’ve been wondering about you since the day we said good-bye.”

“
You
said good-bye. I was too little to talk,” Simon said plainly.

Aldric didn’t like to be corrected. “There was no other way,” he said, and then his anger came back a bit. “The Lighthouse School had the best reputation anywhere. I trusted Denman. Didn’t that school take care of you?” At this he seemed to lean
forward, worried about the answer.

“I guess,” the boy admitted.

“Well, all right, then,” said Aldric, relieved.

“But I would have liked it if someone had told me who my mother and father were,” Simon grumbled, not wanting his father off the hook so easy. “I would have liked it if I knew where they had gone. And why.”

“The ‘why’ is easy,” said Aldric. “You’ll understand all that soon enough. It’s the reason I’m here now. I need you to join me on my quest to fight the evil that dwells among us. It has been with us for centuries. It was with us when you were born. We had to send you away to protect you from it.”

“From
what
?”

“From the Serpents. From the Draconians. Whatever name you choose to use.”

“Choose a name I can understand,” begged Simon.

“Dragons.”

There was a moment now when no one said a word. It was such a bizarre thing to say, Simon almost laughed. But his father said it with all the truth he had in him, he said it with such fear and disgust and such wildness in his eyes that it was clear he truly meant what he said.

“You were protecting me from Dragons?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Aldric. “I am telling you the truth. A truth few people in this world have ever heard.”

“I’m listening,” said Simon.

“The Dragon is a creature of unspeakable evil. It is a monster. A wretched liar, an insatiable thief, and a despicable killer. I say ‘is’ because this creature isn’t an animal made up out of the
imagination, or from the distant past. It is real, it is alive, and it is at work in the world today. Living out there somewhere in the shadows.”

He pushed away his plate. “Fact is, up until recent times, there were great numbers of them. I’ve spent my life hunting them down, one by one.”

“You hunt down Dragons,” said Simon doubtfully. “The giant scaly reptiles. With big wings and huge teeth.”

“No,” said Aldric. “They haven’t looked like that for centuries.”

“What?”

“Well, Dragons haven’t stayed the same since the dawn of time,” he explained. “They’ve moved on like everything else. They’ve changed, evolved. They look like men now, mostly. They stand two or three feet taller than an average fellow, unless they’re hunched over. They walk like men do, on two feet. They have two heavy, muscular arms. Their bodies are smaller than they used to be, so they can hide under a big coat, but their skin is reptile skin, and their blood is green, and warm to the touch. Their heads are man-sized, and their faces reptilian. Their eyes are glassy green or yellow or pitch-black ugly.

“We don’t even call them Dragons, that’s how different they are now. They’re more like Dragonmen. We call them Draconians, or Reptellans. Some people call them Serpentines, or Pyrothraxes.”

“Pyro…?” Simon tried to say it.

“Pyrothraxes. Pyro, meaning fire,” Aldric rattled on, as if all of this was everyday knowledge. “They use fire as their chief weapon, but not because they need to. These days, Dragons have
hundreds, sometimes thousands, of ordinary people working for them. Dragons can be found in business, in politics; most are in charge of organized crime at the top levels. They can be found in every country on earth. Their men do their bidding now with knives and guns and bombs just like all criminals, but the Dragon has a special place in his heart for fire. They simply love fire, and can never get enough of it. You can never be sure what they’ll do with it. You’ll learn about that.

“Most of them are rich, too. That makes it hard to find them, to catch them. But they like to walk the streets—most people have walked right past one without knowing it—and sooner or later I pick up on where they’ve been. Their magic leaves behind unwanted side effects. Wherever there are strange things going on, you can bet a Dragon has been in the vicinity.”

“And you destroy them?” asked Simon.

“Every single one of them I find,” said Aldric, with a gleam in his eye. “In fact, I think I’ve gotten just about the last of them.”

“Sounds like you’ve done pretty well out there on your own,” said Simon, trying to humor him. “What do you need me for?”