Authors: Andy Holland
John was a little surprised to see Crystal walking to school as he approached the building. She was never there before him.
"You're late," Crystal said as he landed in front the school, transforming and dressing in one fluid movement. "Where were you yesterday?"
John looked at her in confusion. "I'm not late. School doesn't start for half an hour."
Crystal shook her head. "Not today. We have a tour of the Stonehouses, remember? Anyway, you didn't answer my question: where were you yesterday?"
John's eyes widened as he realised he had forgotten the outing. "Hadn't we better hurry? Aren't we meant to have left already?"
Crystal shrugged. "It's just registration. I bet half of the class will be late. So tell me, where were you yesterday? You can't have been ill—not just for a day. What were you up to? Did it have something to do with that meeting my father was dragged into?"
John nodded. "I'll tell you all about it after registration. Come on, I hate being late."
The two of them hurried to their classroom, and unfortunately they were the only two that were late, and Professor Silver was not in a mood to let them off.
"Ah, our two blondes have finally decided to join us. So good of you. No, don't sit down; we're ready to leave now you're here."
"Sorry, sir," Crystal began, "I forgot the time—"
"I'm not interested in your excuses, young lady. Detentions, tonight, straight after we get back."
"Sir, that's the first time John has been late," Daisy objected. "Less than half the class were on time and you haven't punished anyone else."
Professor Silver gave her a cold look. "I'm not about to discuss how I discipline students with you, young lady. Class, follow me. We can't afford to waste any more time; we're late enough as it is."
Professor Silver marched out of the classroom, followed by his students who traipsed unenthusiastically behind him.
"Sorry, John," Daisy said to him as they left the classroom. "I forgot to remind you about this last night. It's so unfair that he's put you in detention. Other students are late every day and he never punishes them. Besides, we're not late. The Stonehouses are only a few minutes' walk from the school."
John shrugged. "It doesn't bother me. It'll only be an hour, and it'll be with the Headmaster, who likes me. He won't let me off of course, but he despises Professor Silver, so he won't get me to do anything unpleasant. I'll just have to stay at school for an hour with Crystal. We can probably use the time to cover one of the lessons. He knows that I've been trying to teach her."
Daisy nodded, looking a little puzzled. "I still don't understand why you're doing these lessons with Crystal. What do you talk about anyway?"
"Well, in the last lesson, we discussed war. We didn't cover a lot, to be honest with you, as it was more of an introductory lesson, but we touched on Blue Dragons, Rhino Dragons, civil war—"
"Civil war? What's that?" Daisy asked, now looking very interested.
"Well, we haven't time to go through it all now," John said apologetically. "Perhaps I could tell you all about it later. I could come over after my detention if you like."
Daisy nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, please. That would be nice."
John glanced at the students walking behind them, to check that none of them were listening. "Does anyone else in the class know about the intruder yet?" he whispered. "Who have you told?"
"No one!" Daisy replied proudly. She sighed. "But Arthur has told Jenna, so I expect the whole class will know by the end of today. You might escape questioning today, but by tomorrow, you'll probably be bombarded."
John shrugged. "Never mind, it was bound to come out eventually. You'll probably find that most people assume that I was lying." He noticed the large, dome-shaped building ahead. "I think we're almost here. So, have you visited any of these Stonehouses before?"
Daisy shook her head. "We have them at home as well of course, but I don't really understand them if I'm honest. I guess they'll explain on this tour."
John nodded. "I expect so."
Daisy waited to see if he was going to say any more on the subject. "Or you could explain them to me if you like. You know how they work, don't you?"
John nodded. "Of course; they're of strategic military importance, so there's plenty of books on them in the library, but my father taught me all about them long before I came to Furnace."
Daisy nodded. "That must have been strange, having your father as your teacher."
John shrugged. "It probably wasn't that different to how you were taught. This is your first year at school, isn't it?"
"Yes, but that was different. Arthur and I had tutors; it wasn't someone in our family. They were very good, so we were well prepared in all our subjects when we arrived. Just not so well prepared on how to get on with the other children."
"Not so different then," John pointed out.
Daisy laughed. "I suppose not. Go on then, tell me about the Stonehouses."
"Alright. As you can see, the buildings are dome-shaped, and although you can't tell from here, the walls are very thick. Maybe as much as six feet thick. Even a Rhino Dragon couldn't smash their way in. But the houses aren't important—not in themselves; it's the Dragonstones inside that are important. You might not notice it, but when you're flying over Furnace, you're stronger than you are outside of the city. You're faster, your fire is hotter and it reaches further, and on the ground you're more powerful. The reason for this is the Dragonstones. Their effect doesn't reach far outside the city, but it does mean that if the city is attacked, you have an advantage over our attackers—over and above the advantage your size and strength gives you over the Blue Dragons, which is anyway balanced by their greater speed and agility."
Daisy nodded. "So when we attack them in their own land, we don't have this advantage?"
John nodded. "Correct, but it's worse than that. The Blues also have their own Dragonstones, and they work in the same way, so the tables are turned completely. Then they have the advantage, which is why, in most attacks on big cities, the attackers lose many more lives than the defenders."
"Come in to the building," Professor Silver called from the front, ushering the students into a block shaped building attached to the dome of the Stonehouse. "We're a few minutes early, so the tour won't start quite yet, but I want you all here ready when the guide arrives."
"So there was no reason to be cross with you after all," Daisy grumbled quietly.
John smiled but ignored her comment, continuing with his commentary. "This structure has been added on to the original Stonehouse, and has been added for these tours. The other Stonehouse aren't used for tours so don't have these entrance rooms."
"How many Stonehouses are there?" Daisy asked.
"This is one of five houses in Furnace," John replied, "each home to one large Dragonstone. They reinforce each other, so the effect of two is more than double that of one. For some reason, their effect doesn't seem to increase once you get past four, which is why they don't need to have any more than this in a city. The fifth is a spare effectively, in case one is destroyed."
"Have you seen one?" Daisy asked.
John shook his head. "This will be the first time. There were no Dragonstones where my father and I lived."
John and Daisy entered the building just as the guide did, a smartly-dressed lady who was about ten years older than them. She stood in front of the thick metal door that was the entrance to the Stonehouse and started going through her spiel. Daisy continued to whisper questions to John all the way through.
"So how do they make them?"
"Stop talking!" Professor Silver snapped. John stared at him defiantly, remaining silent.
The guide led them into a room with a large metal bowl in the centre, full of pale pink scales. "Who can tell me what this is for?" she asked the class. No one raised their hand to reply.
"Really? No one? Very well, this is for public donations of a special scale we call a feather scale. They appear on your chest every couple of months, and are much softer and lighter than the rest of your scales, and are much paler—anything from a pale pink to completely white. You probably won't see them appearing till about a year after your first transformation, and even then, you'll probably only see one every three or four months at first.
These scales are what we use to make the Dragonstones. Giving a feather scale links you to the Dragonstone that it goes into, and enhances the benefit you receive from it, so giving us your scales helps you as much as it helps us, and we encourage you to try and donate scales to each of the five Stonehouses, to maximise the benefit you can receive."
"Does it hurt, pulling it out?" a girl at the front asked.
"Not at all. They're quite different to the rest of your scales, and fall out quickly anyway. They're of no use to you, so it's no sacrifice to donate them."
"How do you make the Dragonstones?" Amber asked.
"Ah, now that question will be answered in the next room; please, students, follow me."
The guide approached the metal door at the back and banged on it three times. A slit opened in the middle of the door, and she muttered something to someone on the other side. The slit closed again, and they heard a loud metallic grating sound, and then the door swung open.
"That's a thick door," Seth commented as they went through. "Why does it need to be so thick?" The door was as thick as his body, and had a series of bolts to lock it from the inside. Two burly guards armed with nasty-looking pikes were standing on either side of the door on the inside, glaring suspiciously at the students as they filed into the long corridor.
"There are two entrances to this building and both are heavily guarded," the guide said, as if responding to Seth's question. There are a number of security measures built into this corridor, so anyone foolishly trying to force their way in would be killed quickly and very painfully."
"Has anyone ever tried to break in to one of these Stonehouses?" Amber asked.
"No, dear. Not in Furnace," the guide replied with a smile. "But you can't be too careful."
"Why would they want to break in?" Lena asked. Lena was a girl from the same city as Daisy, although they didn't know each other before coming to Furnace. There were groans from the class at her question.
The guide smiled at her disarmingly. "Are you from the West, dear?" she asked pleasantly. Lena nodded. "I thought so. Your dark hair gives you away; if anyone asks that question it's almost always a student from the West, although to be fair, I suspect that some people from Furnace are just as blissfully unaware of this building's importance." She turned to the class. "It's a good question, and although there were a lot of you who groaned, I suspect a number of you don't know much more than this young lady. If the city were to be attacked, the first thing an invader would want to do is to get into this building and destroy the stone. If that were to happen, and if you had transformed, you would actually feel it when the stone was destroyed. The stones are a source of strength to every Red Dragon in the city, and destroying them all would take away a big advantage that we have over any invader."
"What would that do to us?" Lena asked. "We could still fly and breathe fire, couldn't we?"
"Of course, dear, but you wouldn't be as fast or as strong. Each stone makes you stronger, and therefore each one they destroy would make us weaker?"
Daisy smiled at John before raising her hand. "Yes, dear?" the guide asked.
"Would destroying just one make us weaker? I thought that having more than four doesn't make us any stronger, and the fifth is like a spare."
"Very good, dear. That's absolutely correct, although few people know that." She paused to study Daisy. "Now you are also from the West, aren't you? Princess Daisy, if I'm not mistaken?"
Daisy nodded, smiling shyly.
"Well, your highness, I guess you've proved me wrong about those from the West. But if we were to lose two, the impact would be devastating, as adding a fourth seems to make the biggest increase in our strength and speed, so having a fifth one as a spare is very important." The guide banged on the door at the other end of the corridor, and again, the guards opened the slit to speak to her before opening the heavy metal door.
"This room is just outside the stone room," the guide told them, barely acknowledging the two guards as she passed them. "It's where we do most of our work, preparing the stones. They don't last forever, and they require constant care to maintain their effect. That's where your scales come in. We heat them gently with our own fire every day for several weeks until they shrink to about a tenth of their size and take on a glassy appearance. Then they're ready to be added to the stones. The process is a little tricky, but essentially you're coating the stone with another layer of scales, and then heating it carefully to bond the scales to the stone. If you get it wrong and overheat the stone, you can destroy it, so this is a task that can only be performed after years of practice."
"How do you practice?" Amber asked.
"On smaller stones, of course," the guide replied. "Eventually, the stones have to be replaced, and we prepare a new stone to replace them. The work of building up smaller stones is often given to less experienced dragons, so if they overheat the stones and destroy them, it's not so disastrous."