Voices of Dragons (5 page)

He seemed smug. He had that look that adults got when they thought their kids were being cute. She sighed again.

He came over and kissed the top of her head. “I'm going to hit the sack. Don't forget to turn the lights out.”

“Night, Dad.”

She followed suit a few minutes later, carefully hanging her dress in the closet before going to bed.

The weather turned cold. Snow fell, and the edges of the creek at the border froze, forming a crystalline skin that crept out over the running water. Kay went to their meeting spot bundled up in her parka, with scarf, hat, gloves, and thermals under her clothes.

Artegal didn't seem bothered by the cold at all. His breath blew out through his nose in billowing clouds of fog.

“So I guess dragons are warm-blooded,” she said to him by way of greeting.

He tilted his head, curious. “Warm-blooded? Of course, blood is warm.”

“Well, yeah. But it means you're not really reptiles.” She tried to remember all those science class notes and wished
she'd paid more attention. “Reptiles are cold-blooded. They can't keep warm by themselves, so they have to sit out in the sun. Warm-blooded animals maintain their own body temperature, so they can be out in the cold. People have always wondered about dragons. No one's been able to get a blood sample or take their temperature or anything to find out.” Imagine getting a dragon to sit still for that.

“Reptiles. Small, scaled creatures. Snakes, lizards.”

“Yes.”

They sometimes still had trouble with vocabulary. But the more they talked, the more he learned. She could tell he was getting better. She wondered sometimes if she wasn't the best person in the world to be helping him—plenty of people were smarter. He could be learning so much more from them. Then again, the really smart people didn't do things like go climbing on the border of Dragon. Maybe she was exactly the right person to be here. She'd earned this chance.

“We are to them as you are to mice. Like them, but far removed. We have scales like them, but we have more.”

Like speech, for example, though only some dragons learned to speak human languages—like Artegal and his mentor. Kay was getting answers to questions her mother faced in her work monitoring the border, and the scientists would love this. As if she could tell anyone. She didn't even dare make notes, in case someone found them.

She said, “We see a glow sometimes, to the north toward
the mountains. Like something's on fire. It was there last week. I could almost see dragons flying around it.”

He rested, his wings folded to his side, propped up on his elbows, back legs tucked under him, and tail curled around his body. He nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing.

“Nobody knows what it is,” she said, hinting. “We know it has something to do with dragons, but we don't know what.”

“We see a glow all the time from your town. Lit up, all night long.”

“Streetlights. We can't see in the dark, like dragons can,” she said.

“Used to be humans didn't go out at night at all.”

“Well, now we do. Now we can.”

Artegal resettled himself, flexing his tail and shifting his forelimbs. He seemed to be considering how to answer.

Kay sat on her usual rock nearby, so they could look at each other at almost the same level. His expression seemed uncertain, though she could have been wrong. He couldn't think that she'd been sent to spy on him, any more than she thought he was sent to spy on her and learn more about people—right? They'd found each other by accident.

“You don't have to tell me if it's a secret,” she said.

“It's like singing,” he said finally. “Like a choir.”

She tried to imagine a dozen dragons like him, raising their necks, tilting back their heads, flames pouring from their open mouths along with music. Music that sounded
like roaring. It was an odd image.

“Is it like a celebration? It must be special. It only happens a couple of times a year.”

“Yes. A ritual. Births. Deaths.”

“What was last week?”

Again, he hesitated. This was one of the questions the scientists—and the military—kept asking: How many of them were there? How often were they born—or hatched? How much did we have to worry about them building up numbers and overwhelming us?

“A birth,” he said after a long moment.

She felt an odd thrill that he trusted her with the information.

“Congratulations,” she said.

He tilted his head in the way that made her think of a smile. “Thank you.”

 

“Have you done it yet?” Tam asked.

It was the first day back at school after winter break. Kay was reacquainting herself with her locker, wincing because she'd forgotten to bring home a baggie of cookies that someone had given her for Christmas. They were probably stale. Tam was leaning on the locker next to her, making demands.

Kay and Jon had gone out a couple of times during the break. They went to a movie and grabbed dinner at the Alpine Diner. They'd gone cross-country skiing the day
after a big snowfall on New Year's. They hadn't done anything they wouldn't have done when they were “just friends.” The presents they'd given each other were the same kind of thing they'd always given each other. She gave him a CD; he gave her a box of chemical hand-warmers, perfect for days of winter hiking or cross-country skiing. She hadn't expected anything like flowers or jewelry—she wouldn't have wanted anything like that, not from Jon.

It didn't really feel different. They hadn't done any more than kiss good night.

Kay decided to pretend that she didn't know what Tam was talking about. “Done what?”

Tam rolled her eyes in disgust. “Come on, you know. You've been going out with Jon for like a month. Have you slept with him yet?”

“Oh, I thought maybe you were talking about math homework,” Kay said, grinning because she knew that would infuriate Tam.

Tam huffed and stomped her foot. “I've been dying to talk to you about it.”

“Ah, so that's why you've been so anxious for me to get a boyfriend.”

“Kay, come on. It's not normal. You're supposed to, you know…
want
to.”

Was she? She supposed so. “Can't you find someone else to talk to about sex?”

“Sure. Like,
everybody
. Everybody except you.”

It was true. Out of the corner of her eye Kay spotted three couples walking hand in hand. One of those stopped to kiss. She never knew whether to believe all the rumors about how far who had gotten with whom. Tam was right, though. Sometimes it seemed like it was everyone but her.

“You're a junior in high school. You're way too old to be a virgin,” Tam said.

Kay stared. “Seventeen is not too old to be a virgin.”

“Whatever.”

“We're taking it slow,” Kay said. Tam just huffed in irritation again. That made Kay frustrated. This was supposed to be about her, not what Tam or anyone else thought. “What's the big deal? Why do you even care whether or not we've slept together? It's none of your business.”

Tam looked hurt, and Kay realized she'd spoken more harshly than she'd meant to. But she didn't apologize. She bit her lip and wouldn't look at Tam.

“Don't get angry,” Tam said, shrugging, brushing it off. “You can do whatever you want to.”

“Then why do you keep asking me about it?” Kay said under her breath.

“Because I'm worried about you.”

“Well, don't be,” Kay said. “I'm normal. I'm perfectly normal.” She didn't sound all that convinced.

“Are you sure about that?” Tam shot back.

Kay wasn't sure—because she wasn't normal. Normal people weren't friends with dragons—and were she and Artegal really friends?

“I'm a little stressed out right now,” Kay said, sighing. “That's all.”

“Why? What's up?”

The whole story ran to the tip of her tongue. She'd say,
Can you keep a secret?
Then everything would come out. Tam had never blown a secret Kay had told her. And Tam must have known something was up, the way Kay looked at her, her lips parted, her gaze pleading. Kay almost told her everything.

Then she shook her head and looked away, because this was way too big. Kay breaking the law by crossing the border was one thing, but asking Tam to break the law by keeping a secret? She'd keep the secret, Kay believed. But Kay didn't want to get her in that much trouble. “Never mind. It's nothing.”

Tam lowered her voice to a sly whisper. “You're stressed out because you're not sleeping with Jon. That'll clear it right up, I bet.”

“Jeez, Tam, give it a rest!” Kay slammed shut her locker door.

“I'm just trying to help!”

Thankfully, the bell rang, and they couldn't argue anymore. They walked side by side to first-period chemistry and pretended the conversation never happened.

As usual, Kay sat at lunch with Tam, Carson, and Jon. As usual, Tam and Carson greeted each other with a long, enthusiastic kiss. These moments, which had been merely annoying before, had become uncomfortable with Jon sitting next her, and she and Jon sort of being together. She could only glance surreptitiously at Jon and wonder if he wanted her to kiss him like that, out here in front of everyone. She felt his warmth next to her. She'd have to move only half an inch to be touching him. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him glance at her, then look away, blushing.

“Hey, get a room,” he finally said, turning a lopsided grin. Tam and Carson gave each other one of those sly looks that suggested they were way ahead of Jon and thinking hard about that room. Or maybe they'd already been there. Kay had heard stories about the janitor's closet.

After lunch, Kay and Jon left the cafeteria together.

“You okay?” Jon said. “You're kind of quiet.”

She shrugged, not sure how much she wanted to say. Here she was, not able to talk to Tam
or
Jon. “Tam and I kind of had an argument. She seems to think that two people who are going out should carry on just like them. She can't understand why we don't.”

“I guess you guys talk about everything,” he said.

She thought of everything they
didn't
talk about. They never talked about Tam's mother's boyfriends. Tam would just give her trademark huff and shake her head whenever
Kay asked. Until last year, when Tam starting dating Carson, they'd talked about boys all the time—who liked who and what they were going to do about it. But now, they never really
talked
. Once, she'd asked Tam what sex was like,
really
. Tam had said, with a sly grin, “You'll just have to find out.”

She said to Jon, “Not really.”

They slowly walked a few more steps down the hall, putting off when they'd have to arrive at class.

“Sometimes I wonder if they get tired of it. Seems like all they ever do is make out,” Jon said.

“According to Tam it's the best thing in the world and everybody should do it. All the time.”

“I think I'd rather go out with someone who likes to ski every now and then.”

“Really?”

Maybe
, Kay thought,
there is something to this relationship stuff
. On a whim—no, not really on a whim, because she wanted to try it, to see what it was like—she let her arm brush his and let their hands meet, then close together. Just like that, they were walking hand in hand down the hall at school. His hand was warm, dry. He didn't squeeze. Just let their fingers lace together. She didn't want to cling to him, and maybe he felt the same way. He was a few inches taller, but she had to bend her elbow only a little. They'd held hands before, helping each other up a rock face or across a creek on a hike. But nothing like this. Kay found herself
worried that she was doing it wrong.

But Jon smiled a kind of thin, distracted smile. He glanced at her for a second and didn't say anything. Just kept walking with his hand in hers. And it felt good.

On clear days in January, Kay continued hiking out to see Artegal. It didn't occur to her not to. Snow and cold were tiny obstacles, when she could bundle up. Because of the cold, she couldn't stay long, but the dragon would have lingered all day, nestled in the snow, his tail sweeping back and forth through drifts.

The creek was frozen now. Kay could walk across it if she was careful. Instead of sitting while she waited for him, she paced to keep warm. This day was one of the sunny ones, and the light gleamed, sparkling like crystals off snow-covered ground, and snow-dusted branches.

The distant peaks in the interior of Dragon never had snow on them. Warmed from the fires of dragon lairs
within, the snow melted.

She hadn't been waiting long when he arrived. She recognized the sound of trees creaking, as if in a wind. Especially today, when no breeze blew. He came into view, gunmetal gray against the snowy world, and settled on his forelimbs, bringing himself closer to her. The light in his onyx eyes blazed.

“Hi,” she said.

His lip curled. “Wanted to show you this,” he said, and opened a foreclaw, offering her an object. She hadn't noticed that he'd held his claws tightly shut. “Belonged to my mentor. It's human.” He sounded excited.

It was a book, and for a moment she was horrified. It looked ancient, bound in brown leather, worn and stained, with tarnished metal fixtures on the spine and corners, and here it was in the outdoors, in cold and snow. It was maybe the size of one of her schoolbooks, and she wondered how a large dragon could handle something so small. Artegal's claws worked like pincers, setting it in her hands. Once she had it, he tucked his arm back to his side. She hardly noticed how comfortable she'd become around him; she hardly noticed his size and no longer thought of his claws and teeth as weapons that could tear into her. He was just Artegal, who liked to talk about books.

The book was heavy and seemed fragile. Somehow, it had survived time and being carried in the claws of a dragon.

“How old is it?” she said.

“Centuries.”

That didn't sound ridiculous spoken in the growling voice of a dragon.

“It should be in a museum,” she murmured, running skittering fingers over the cover. Tiny dimples from the animal's hair were still visible in the leather. She'd seen pictures of books like this in history class.

“Has been safe, dry, and cool, in dragon caves,” he said. “I brought it when I was sure you would understand. Look inside.”

His trust in her made her pause a moment, overcome. This was an honor, and she was flattered. After the lump in her throat faded, she opened the book to the middle.

Dense, black writing covered thick parchment pages. Vivid drawings looped around the borders of each page. Vines, multicolored flowers, large letters touched with gold. Figures stood here and there among the foliage: dragons—silver, red, mottled green and brown, black—their tails looping and tangling around themselves and other tails in knots, long necks stretching over letters, around corners, fire twining from pointed mouths. And with them, people. Women in tight-fitting gowns, men in brightly colored tunics. Sheltered by the bodies of those huge beasts, resting their hands on lowered snouts, touching the tip of a raised wing. Perched on their backs, even. People, riding dragons.

She couldn't read the text. The writing was strange; so
was the language. But she could make out the first word on the first page, an obvious title written large:
Dracopolis
.

She looked at Artegal and would have sworn he was smiling.

“People and dragons used to be friends,” she said. “Is that what this is saying?”

“Seems so,” he said smugly.

“Is this real?” she said. “This isn't just made up?”

Artegal nodded. “My mentor told me stories, told to him by his mentor. He kept the book. Not many have seen it, he said. Not many want to believe it. Most have forgotten.”

“But I've never heard of any stories—the human side doesn't tell stories.” Except for stories of Chinese luck…

“The tales faded in the time of hiding. Except for this.”

This showed a secret history that no one knew anything about. How could people have forgotten this? Why did only the stories of war get passed down?

“I can't read it.”

“Latin,” he said. “I can read, a little.
Dracopolis
: City of dragons.”

“We can show this to people,” she said. “Then maybe we won't have to sneak around. People won't be afraid of dragons anymore.” She thought about the dragon-raid drills, and how wonderful it would be never to have another one.

He snorted. “Not so simple. The conflict is older than we are. Not as easily forgotten.”

“But we can try,” she said.

“Will they listen?”

Silent, she turned the pages, studying the haunting images. The drawings were stylized, flat, the poses awkward. But she could almost see emotion, the expressions on their faces, faint smiles, as the people and dragons looked at each other. It would be easy for someone to say it was all made up, to call it fiction. She had only Artegal's word for it, that this was history. And the example of the two of them, talking together week after week. That made the book feel true. But it also felt a little like fighting a war of their own, against all the more familiar stories of people and dragons as enemies. Artegal was right—would anyone listen to a couple of kids?

She frowned. “Is this worth it?”

“This what?”

Hugging the book to her, she paced, wondering if he would even understand her explanation. “I'm keeping these meetings secret from everyone I know. My parents, my best friends—though there are actually a lot of reasons I can't talk to Tam and Jon right now.” She sat on the rock and sighed.

“Tam and Jon—friends?”

“Yeah. It's complicated. Ever since Tam started going out with Carson she's been obsessed with him, and now Jon and I are sort of going out, and it doesn't matter how much we say that it won't change anything, it
does
change things. Half the time I don't even know what to say to him. Never mind keeping
this
secret from him.”

“Confusing,” Artegal said, tilting his head. “Don't understand.”

“Neither do I.” She smiled weakly.

“Can I help?”

“I don't know. I guess just talking about it helps.”

“Then you should talk. That's why I came—talking is always good.”

“Even if I am breaking who knows how many laws—”

“Me as well,” he said, huffing through his nostrils. “Breaking dragon law.”

“What'll they do to you if they find out?”

“Grounded.”

She almost said,
Hey, me too
, then realized he was talking about something different. “They'll keep you from flying?”

“Yes,” he said.

Pursing her lips, she turned back to the illuminated page. Across the top of a page, a dragon soared, its wings spread over the upper third of the parchment. Straps looped across its chest, around its wings, over its back. They formed a kind of harness, and clinging to the dragon's back, hands gripping the harness, was another of the tiny medieval people, a man with wide eyes and curling hair.

“Did you see this?” She held the book up over her head, tilting it so he could peer at it with his shining eye. He snorted an assent. In the cold air, the breath from his nostrils billowed.

“Did this really happen?” she asked. “Did people really
fly with dragons? Or is this just a story? Imaginary.” She tried to remember the terms from English class. “Like some kind of symbolism?”

“My mentor had a harness,” he said, nodding at the book. “Broken, though. Very old. Like the straps there, see?” His predator eyes hadn't missed a detail. Of course they'd have harnesses, so the riders wouldn't fall. If this had been fiction or symbolism, would the artists have bothered showing that detail?

“So people really did this. Dragons carried them. They flew.” She was starting to get a really bad idea.

Artegal must have had the same really bad idea. He had that lilt to his brow, the same one he'd had the first time they met, when he'd said, “Because—not supposed to.”

She shook her head, even though she could feel the smile creeping on her own lips. “Maybe we could make one like it, if you wanted to.”

She climbed smooth rock faces with ropes and harness and didn't fall. Already she was thinking of how to loop the ropes, how to knot them together to secure them and hook herself to his back.

“Am curious,” he said, his lips curving in a wry dragon smile.

This was like free-climbing a forbidden slope of granite. She wanted to see if she could. She just wanted to
see
.

“I think I have an idea,” she said.

 

Artegal gave her the book to take home and study. Opening it on her bed, she crouched over it and turned the pages, from beginning to end. Each page seemed fragile, like if she turned it too quickly it would disintegrate. Yet the parchment was soft. Pettable, almost, like a very fine leather. She resisted an urge to stroke the edges, because that kind of treatment couldn't be good for it. Toward the end of the book, the images changed. They no longer showed the two species smiling at each other, working to move boulders from a field or build city walls. Instead, there was fire. Dragons sailed across the sky, raining down fire, and lines of human warriors carrying spears and swords approached dragons whose necks twisted back in anger. Something had happened, and a war had started.

Tucked between the last couple of pages of the book was a piece of paper—actual paper, not the thin parchment that made up the rest of the book. It was old, yellow, brittle—but not as old as the rest of the book. She was afraid to unfold it; it felt like it would crumble in her hands. She partially unfolded it, just enough to see. It was a map. It looked like an ocean, with large islands around the edges. A black dot on one of the spots of land was labeled Dracopolis, with numbers after it—latitude and longitude, maybe? The handwriting was different from the writing in the book, flowing and precise. The ink had turned to a pale brown. After copying the numbers—she was sure they were coordinates—she folded the page and returned it to the book.

She checked the coordinates on the map in her atlas, tracing latitude and longitude to a place near the northern edge of Greenland. But that couldn't have been right, because there was nothing there, just the Arctic Ocean and a bunch of ice. She drew a circle around the general area and put an X roughly at the intersection of the coordinates. Not exactly a point on the map to chase down, but she was still curious. She'd ask Artegal about it.

Kay took a spiral notebook from her pile of schoolwork and turned to a blank page. Back at the beginning of the medieval book, she started copying letters, trying to make out the words. Artegal had said this was Latin. She ought to be able to find some kind of translation site online to tell her what this all meant, if she could just make out the letters. Unfortunately, whoever had written this had decided to leave out all the spaces between words. She could put the letters down, but didn't know where anything started or ended. When she put the lines of gibberish into the translator, she got back…gibberish. Despairing, she wondered if she was going to have to learn a whole new language.

When she finished, she carefully wrapped the book in a clean towel and hid it in a drawer.

Looking at local topographical maps, she found a valley—barely a valley, more like a forgotten space between a set of hills close to the dragon side of the border. It was too close to the border to be frequented by dragons, but hidden from surveillance on the human side. It may give
them enough space to experiment.

She told Artegal about the place, describing it in terms of compass readings based on the map, so many degrees from north. He better understood when she marked it in relation to the setting sun.

“I know this place,” he said. “It is good.”

“I found something else in the book,” she said, after they'd agreed on their plan. “It's newer, I think. Someone wrote down coordinates on a piece of paper and slipped it between the pages. It's for a place way north and east—near Greenland, do you know where that is?”

“The Arctic islands?” he questioned.

“I think so.”

He purred thoughtfully. “East, where my mentor vanished.”

Someone had copied down latitude and longitude, believed they were important enough to write down. But they didn't label the coordinates—to keep them secret? “You think he went there?” Kay said. “Who wrote the note?”

“I do not know,” Artegal said.

A week later, they met somewhere other than their secret glade by the creek. Knowing her parents, knowing the patrol schedules and where she could go and have it be unlikely she'd be found helped her hide. It also helped that she'd grown up in these woods and knew the landmarks. She could leave the trails and not get lost.

She parked her Jeep at a trailhead where it wouldn't be
out of place. This required a couple of extra miles of hiking to reach their meeting spot, which meant starting out stupidly early. She brought along with her yards of rope and her rock-climbing harness. She kept thinking,
This is crazy. Completely insane.

“You've been doing a lot of hiking. Especially for this time of year,” her mother had observed when Kay left the house.

“It's been helping with all the stress at school,” Kay had explained. Her mother seemed pleased with the explanation, as if proud that Kay was handling the stress on her own.

She wore her warmest layers of clothing and brought along chemical warmers for her boots and gloves. She didn't need them at first, hiking hard with her climbing gear in a backpack. She was sweating.