We Sled With Dragons (15 page)

ICE HAD FORMED
all over her clothes and over her hair and along her cheeks. Luckily, her clothes were dry underneath the cold-weather gear. The duct tape had kept the water out. That was probably the only reason she and her brother hadn't frozen to death yet.

She took another careful step backward.

The bear took another step forward.

“Come on, Oliver,” she groaned, pulling him.

“Just leave me,” he mumbled, half awake.

“I'm not leaving my little brother,” she answered.

“We're the same age,” he replied, opening his eyes.

“Are not!” Celia pulled.

“Are too!” Oliver kicked his feet a little, pushing himself up as she pulled. He had some life in him yet.

Unfortunately, Celia had not actually expected her brother to push himself up, and so when he pushed, she pulled too hard and they both fell down. The bear repellent fell out of Celia's hand.

The polar bear charged.

It bounded across the snow at them, and reared up to pin them both beneath its paws. Out of instinct Celia dove to protect her little brother, although Oliver dove at the same moment to protect Celia—who was, after all, only older by three minutes and forty-two seconds—and they smacked heads right into each other and bounced back in opposite directions.

The bear's paw came down in between them, smashing harmlessly into the snow. It turned to bite at Oliver, who kicked it in the snout, and then it spun to snap at Celia, who punched it in the same spot, and then it stood to its full height again. It roared.

The twins scrambled backward. The bear hesitated, looking from twin to twin, but it didn't attack.

“What's it doing?” Oliver yelled across to his sister on the other side of the bear.

“I think my punch stunned it!” she said.

“I think my kick stunned it,” said Oliver.

“I think it's deciding which of us is tastier!” said Celia. “Run!”

Oliver pushed himself up and ran. Celia grabbed the canister off the ground and sprayed it. It fizzled, empty. She threw it at the bear and ran after her brother.

They sprinted, slipping and sliding on the ice. The bear hesitated, unsure how much energy it could waste on a stringy child. It sniffed at the empty canister. When the twins met up about a half a football field's length away, the bear started toward them again at a trot. Time was on its side.

“We can't slow down.” Celia panted. Her sweat had already frozen against her skin underneath her clothes. She felt herself shivering uncontrollably. “The bear is just waiting for us to slow down.”

Side by side, the twins helped each other along, stumbling through the snow. The bear followed, never taking its eyes off of them.

“I feel tired again,” said Oliver.

“Me too,” said Celia.

“I can't feel my feet,” he added.

“Me neither,” said Celia.

They trudged on, the minutes passed. Or maybe it was hours. They couldn't know how long they'd been walking. The light never changed. The aurora borealis still waved above them. Neither of them spoke. It was too hard to speak. Celia wanted to argue to keep them warm, but she didn't have the strength. The cold was shutting her body down. Oliver had started mumbling again, talking about
Bizarro Bandits
and
Rodeo Clowns.

“Do you think they have cable TV in Atlantis?” he mumbled. “I hope they do. I'd like to see Corey Brandt again, even if it's just on
Sunset High.
I'm glad he ended up with Lauren on that show. She seemed nice.”

Celia didn't answer him. She didn't even have the energy to argue for Team Annabel or to talk about Corey Brandt or television or anything. She was too cold and too tired and too afraid of being eaten by a polar bear.

As she trudged along, she didn't hear her brother behind her anymore. She worried she would have to drag him again because his brain had frozen or something. She turned and saw Oliver standing still in the snow.

The bear in the distance stopped too and watched them. He waited for one of them to fall. For a bear, a frozen child on the ground was just like a Popsicle. Celia did not want to become a Popsicle.

“Oliver, we can't stop here,” she said. “Keep going.”

“I think we should climb,” he said.

“What?” Celia clomped over to him through the snow. “Did your brain freeze?”

“I think he wants us to climb?” Oliver repeated.

“What are you talking about? Who wants us to climb?”

“Him.” Oliver pointed up. High in the air above them floated a shining silver ball with a basket hanging below it. A rope dropped down from the basket.

Just then, a bearded man wearing big goggles and a brown parka leaned over the edge of the basket.

“Quickly!” he yelled. “Climb up here!”

The bear, sensing his meal might get away, charged across the ice.

“That guy looks just like Santa Claus!” Oliver smiled. “Did you see that?”

“This is a little too convenient, don't you think?” said Celia. “I mean, haven't you heard of
deus ex machina
?”

“No,” said Oliver, grabbing the rope. “But I have heard of Santa Claus.”

“There's no such thing as—” Celia looked back at the bear charging toward them. “Oh, whatever.”

She grabbed the rope beside her brother and the balloon lifted into the air.

The bear leaped and swiped, his steak-knife-sized claws brushing the bottom of Celia's boots, but he landed on the ice again with a crash, breaking through and smashing into the cold water.

As the twins rose away, the bear climbed out and roared, shaking the ice from its fur and trudging on the ground after them.

WHEN THEY REACHED
the basket at the top of the rope, the man pulled them in. The twins sat on the floor, out of breath, but glad to be warmed by the electric heater sitting in front of them.

They looked up at the man, trying to figure out who it was who had just rescued them. His long white hair fell down over half his face and one bright blue eye gazed at the twins with a mischievous twinkle. He smiled, his bright red nose bursting like a flame from his icy white beard. He wore a light animal skin parka with a fur hood and big fuzzy white fur pants.

“Polar bear,” he said, dancing from foot to foot. “You like 'em?”

“Um,” said Celia.

“Oh, I know.” The man shook his head. “Kids these days think wearing fur is cruel, but I'll tell you, up here, nothing goes to waste. Meat, bone, blood, and fur. You've got to use it all. A sign of respect. That bear down there would do the same to you.”

“Um,” said Oliver.

“The parka is reindeer skin,” he added.

Oliver shuddered. “Santa?” he asked, dreading the idea of Father Christmas wearing his reindeer as a jacket.

The man laughed a jolly laugh, pulled off his glove, and stuck out his big red palm at Oliver. “Odd.”

He frowned at the man and crossed his arms in front of himself. “I am not.”

“No! Of course not.” The man laughed. “But I am! Odd. Odd's my name!”

“Odd?” said Celia. “Your name is Odd?”

“Odd is not a good name?” the man smirked.

“No,” said Celia. “It's . . . it's just . . . you know . . . odd.”

“Exactly!” Odd laughed. “And it's quite a common name in these parts. Be right back!”

He turned and started pulling on ropes and levers, which unwound springs, which turned pedals, which spun rotor blades on the back of the basket, steering it over the open water, across the craggy ice, above the honking herd of walruses, and toward the horizon. Two dark ravens swooped and flapped around the balloon, cawing as they flew.

“I told you he wasn't Santa Claus,” whispered Celia.

“You said he was a
deus ex machina,
” Oliver answered her. “He doesn't look like it to me.”

“No one looks like it,” said Celia. “
Deus ex machina
is a plot device.”

“You think he's plotting something?”

“No!” Celia rolled her eyes. “It's a storytelling trick. Something helpful that appears just when all hope seems lost and fixes all the main characters' problems.”

“You think he's going to fix all our problems?” Oliver sat up straight, hopeful.

“No,” said Celia. “I think he's going to make a lot more problems.”

“How do you know?”

“He looks like the man in the drawings,” she said. “That means he'll probably be all mysterious and we'll end up getting chased across the ice by a monster or something. That's how these stories go.”

“What stories?”

“Ours,” said Celia.

The man came back over to them.

“Well, as I was saying, I am Odd. Very glad I found you. That bear looked mighty determined.”

“Yeah, thanks for being our
deus ex mechanic,
” said Oliver.

“Machina,”
said Celia. “Sorry, my brother doesn't pay attention to educational programming.”

“I do too,” Oliver grumbled.

“My name's Celia and this is—” Celia began, but the man interrupted her.

“Oliver,” said Odd.

“What?” Oliver's jaw dropped. “How did you know that? Are you . . . a shaman?”

“Of course he's a shaman,” said Celia, looking at the man's long beard and one piercing blue eye.

Celia and Oliver had met shamans all over the world, people who could speak with the spirits and know things that no one else could know. Every society had shamans, but some listened to them more than others. In desert tribes of North Africa, shamans were tellers of stories and keepers of the culture. In the Amazon Rainforest, they were sometimes healers. Where Oliver and Celia lived, shamans were mostly people with their own talk shows.

“I bet now is when he tells us something crazy, like,” she lowered her voice to an ancient groan,
“I've been expecting you . . .
”

The man smiled and lowered his hood, brushing aside the long hair that covered his other eye, revealing an eye patch embroidered with the symbol of a key in golden thread, a symbol just like the one on the golden ring in Celia's pocket and on the compass that Oliver dropped: the symbol of the Mnemones.

“Oliver and Celia Navel,” said Odd, crossing his arms and leaning back on the edge of the basket, nothing but sky and two ravens circling behind him. “I'm guessing that if you're here all alone, then your mom's in trouble?”

The twins nodded.

“And you all need to get to the North Pole, because that's where Atlantis is supposed to be?”

The twins nodded again.

“And yes, Celia,” Odd lowered his voice, “I have been expecting you.”

ODD WAS NOT
a shaman, at least, not professionally.

He did, however, use ancient methods for sending and receiving messages, practicing his obscure art in the solitude of the frozen north. He read symbols few others could read, and followed paths few others could follow.

“I'm a mailman,” he declared proudly, pointing to the corner of the basket at three sacks, each overflowing with letters and postcards. “The only one in the Arctic Circle.”

“Just a mailman?” Oliver asked, sipping the hot chocolate Odd had poured for them from a thermos.

“Just a mailman!” Odd threw his hands in the air. “It is the noblest profession!”

“I mean . . . uh . . .” Oliver didn't want to be rude. Odd's heater and his blankets and his hot chocolate and his balloon had saved them from freezing to death and being eaten by a polar bear. He was just disappointed. He'd really thought that maybe they'd been rescued by Santa Claus. That would have showed Celia.

“What my brother means, sir, is why would our mom's secret society have a mailman in it?” Celia tried more politely.

“Your mother's secret society?” Odd raised the eyebrow of his one good eye.

“Well, yeah,” said Celia. “The Mnemones, the symbol on your eye patch; they were the scribes of the Lost Library and our mom's the leader.”

“Did she tell you that?” Odd smirked.

Celia didn't like the tone of his voice. “No,” she said. “But we heard a prophecy . . .”

Odd burst into a fit of laughter. He slapped his knee and doubled over like someone had just said Djibouti to him ten times. His nose and cheeks turned an even brighter red and he hugged himself in hysterics.

“So Mom's not the leader?” Celia tried. She did not like to be laughed at, not by her brother when she said Djibouti and not by this mailman in a balloon.

“The Mnemones are far older than the library at Alexandria,” said Odd. “They are older than you can possibly imagine.”

“I can imagine a lot,” Celia told him.

“They are the memory keepers,” said Odd.

“We know,” said Celia. “We've known that for a long time now.”

“But did you know that all societies have them? The scribes and storytellers, the scholars and librarians. The explorers. The mailmen.”

Celia coughed.

“Excuse me,” said Odd. “Mailpersons.”

“Really, though? The mailmen?” Oliver didn't quite believe it.

Celia snorted at him.

“I mean, mailpersons?”

“Messengers,” said Odd. “Without messengers, where would we be? Who would brave hungry polar bears and blinding snows to carry news to the far places? Who else would carry messages between the winds and the sky and the walruses?”

“Walruses don't get mail,” interrupted Oliver.

“Shows what you know.” Odd harrumphed.

Even though the mailman wasn't a shaman, he sure talked as strangely as one, Oliver thought.

“Whatever,” said Celia. She didn't like being told she was wrong and she didn't really need to unravel the mystery of the Mnemones. She just needed to find Atlantis, make sure the Lost Library was there, and trade Sir Edmund for it. With that done, they could go home and never do anything exciting again. She didn't really believe Sir Edmund could use a library to rule the world anyway.

“Are you taking us to the North Pole now?” she asked, unable to find the North Star in the daylight.

“I am,” said Odd.

“Good,” said Celia. After all they'd been through, Celia had decided not to trust anyone but her own eyes and her brother. She certainly didn't trust this mysterious one-eyed stranger in a hydrogen balloon.

“Do you know where we need to go when we get there?” Oliver asked.

Odd stroked his beard. “The ancient Norse people believe that the All-Father left the city of Asgard to hang from Yggdrasil, the World Tree, for nine days,” Odd responded. “From there he could see the all the worlds below.”

“Okay . . . ” said Oliver, puzzled. He turned to his sister. “Why does everyone have to be so enigmatic?”

“Just because you know the word
enigmatic
doesn't mean you have to use it all the time,” said Celia. “Anyway, he's talking about the North Pole. Like Dad said, when you're at the North Pole, everywhere you look is south. The entire world is
below
you.”

Odd nodded slowly. “From there he could see the all the worlds below,” he repeated.

“I knew that,” said Oliver. He scratched an itch on his cheek. “But, uh, just to be sure . . . explain it one more time?”

“He means this World Tree thing is at the North Pole,” said Celia. “If we find it, we'll find the way to Asgard.”

“Okay . . . ” said Oliver.

“And that's the same as Atlantis,” said Celia. She thought Oliver had understood that by now.

“So we're looking for a tree?” said Oliver.

“We're looking for a tree,” Celia confirmed.

“Because some dude hung from it for nine days?” said Oliver.

Celia nodded.

“So we're not looking for Santa Claus anymore?”

“They're the same,” said Celia.

“All lost places are the same lost places,”
Odd said.
“As all lost souls are the same lost souls.”

“That's what the explorer wrote in his journal!” said Celia. “It's kind of—”

“Enigmatic,” said Oliver.

Celia frowned at her brother. But he was right.

“The world is a library of stories,” said Odd. “Each different, but each the same.”

“Are you sure you're not a shaman?” Oliver asked.

“You will understand,” said Odd, “in time.”

“I really hope not,” said Celia, looking over the shifting ice to the round horizon at the top of the world. She did not want to get back to sixth grade talking like a fortune cookie. She just wanted to get back to sixth grade. And save her parents. And watch TV.

Odd brought out some dinner for them in plastic containers and then returned to steering the balloon, pulling ropes and turning levers, almost as if he were following the ravens through the sky.

Oliver leaned on the basket beside Celia, watching the endless white landscape below and picking at the strange jellied meat, which oozed red and green.

“What is this?” he whispered.

“Pickled walrus liver!” Odd called back. “In lingonberry sauce! Served on a bed of seaweed.”

Celia gagged.

Oliver sniffed, shrugged, and took a bite.

“Not bad, actually,” he said, talking with his mouth full. Celia held her nose and ate. She didn't share her brother's appetite for Nordic cuisine. After eating they watched the ice drift below. Hours passed.

“This is boring,” Oliver muttered.

“Wasn't skydiving, dogsledding, walrus roping, and escaping a polar bear enough excitement for you?” said Celia.

“I guess,” said Oliver. “It's just that I don't like all this waiting around.”

“You could read,” Celia suggested, handing Oliver the old explorer's journal. He wrinkled his nose as he took it from her.

“Don't worry, children,” said Odd. “The wait is almost over. By morning we'll be at the pole and you'll be on your way.”

“
We'll
be on our way?” Celia spun around to face him. “What do you mean? You aren't coming with us?”

“I have mail to deliver,” he said.

“You're kidding,” said Oliver.

“Do I look like I'm kidding?” said Odd.

He didn't.

“You have your own destiny to fulfill,” he added. “I'm just an old man whose destiny is done.”

“Ugh, destiny,” mumbled Oliver.

“But we're just kids,” said Celia.

“Kids have destinies,” said Odd. “How else do they become adults?”

“Yeah,” said Celia. “But most kids' destinies are about, like, the soccer team and graduation and making a macaroni picture frame.”

“Not in that order,” said Oliver.

“Right,” said Celia. “Why is our destiny so . . .”

“Exciting?” said Oliver.

Celia scowled at him.

“Dangerous,” she said. “Why does our destiny have to involve lost cities and ancient prophecies and dragons?”

“Wait, what?” said Oliver. “Dragons?”

“Growing up is far more dangerous than dragons,” said Odd. “You will see.”

“Wait, what about the dragons?” said Oliver. “Like, real live dragons?”

Neither Odd nor Celia was listening to him.

“Maybe I don't want to see!” Celia told Odd. “Maybe I don't want to battle dragons or discover anything! Maybe I just want my life to be normal.”

“Little girl, I am sorry,” said Odd. “But you don't get a choice about any of that. No one's life is normal.”

“Will someone tell me about the dragons, please!” said Oliver.

“But it's not fair!” said Celia.

“That is the oldest catchphrase in the world,” said Odd.

Oliver opened the journal and flipped through the pages frantically.

“It's not a catchphrase,” said Celia. “It's true. Nothing is ever fair for us!”

“What do you want me to do about it?” said Odd.

“You're an adult!” yelled Celia. “Why don't you help us find this city and save our parents and protect us from all this dangerous stuff, like adults are supposed to do?”

“Aha!” said Oliver, finding the page he wanted.

“No adult can protect you from your destiny!” Odd told Celia. “Otherwise, it wouldn't be
your
destiny, it'd be theirs!”

“Well, maybe I don't want a destiny!” Celia yelled.

“Well, maybe that's too bad, because you've got one!” Odd yelled back.

“Okay, I see the dragon here,” said Oliver, studying the drawing of a dragon that the explorer had put in his journal. It looked a lot like the fossilized one back in the tunnel at the research station, except this one was covered in blue-black skin and scales and had giant fearsome eyes and huge fangs. Its long body was coiled around the base of a giant tree. “Is this, like, for real?”

“Are Sir Edmund and Janice part of my destiny?” said Celia. “Because they're the ones who are going to get the Lost Library. Is it my destiny to help the bad guys win?”

“Your destiny will reveal itself to only you,” said Odd.

“That's such a cop-out,” said Celia.

“Celia,” said Oliver, looking up from the journal.

“I knew you'd be like every other adult we've met on this search,” said Celia. “You'd say a lot of strange stuff and be all enigmatic and then—”

“Celia?” said Oliver again.

“Yes, I know, that's your new favorite word,” Celia snapped without looking over at her brother. Her eyes were fixed angrily on Odd. “Enigmatic,” she repeated. “And then, when it came time for you to answer some real questions or offer any real help, you'd be totally unhelpful and you'd leave us in some wilderness or something. For all we know, you're lying about everything and you really work with Sir Edmund.”

“Is that what you think?” said Odd.

“Celia!” Oliver shouted. She turned to him. “We're here.”

Oliver pointed ahead of them to a place where the ice had split open in a wide crack, pushing against the other pieces of ice around it so there was a high wall around the opening. The snow covering the ice was veined pink and red, like it was alive.

“Crimson snow,” Celia whispered. “Just like in the journal.”

“Is it cursed?” Oliver shuddered.

“Algae,” said Odd. “Blooms of bacteria and algae freeze in the ice and make the snow different colors.”

“Good,” said Oliver. He preferred the scientific answer to the mystical one. He hoped all this talk of dragons would have a similarly dull explanation.

As they flew over the wall of blue and pink and red ice and peered down into the large crack, they saw that it was not filled with the dark water of the Arctic Ocean like every other opening in the ice, but instead there was a deep canyon, at least ten stories high, and in the center, a tree, the biggest tree the twins had ever seen, poking up through a hole at the bottom, like fireman's pole in a firehouse. Its trunk disappeared into the darkness below where the ocean should have been churning. The twins would not want to slide down there.

“That's impossible,” gasped Celia.

“It would be best for you to forget that phrase,” said Odd, as he steered the balloon down between the narrow walls of ice. The canyon creaked and groaned as the ice shifted. A large boulder broke from the wall and rolled down past the balloon, shattering on the icy floor below. “Now, I must say good-bye and good luck.”

As the balloon touched down deep inside the canyon, near the trunk of the giant tree, Celia turned to her brother.