“It's just so not fair. Jason has his dragon. We ought to have something, too.”
“Or at least be able to have the dragon when he doesn't. If we had the dragon here, helping us defend the academy, no one would dare try anything. He wouldn't even have to do anything, just sit up and look dragonish.”
“He would be awesome, wouldn't he?” Ting stood up on hearing Henry's words. “I'm going to go find him.”
“Ting, we're on duty here.”
“By the time something awful happens, it'll be too late to go get help. Why wait? We know he's around somewhere.”
“I don't know,” answered Bailey slowly. “I'm always the one who gets in trouble, but I don't think this is a good idea.”
Ting looked stubborn. “I can't ignore it. I've been dreaming of our house dragon, and he's long gone, away in another world, but I know we've a dragon here, and that must mean something. It could be important, Bailey, as important as anything you're always going after.”
“This is true.” Henry looked from Ting to Bailey and back again.
Bailey sighed. “I know. But . . .” She shook her head. “It just feels
wrong.
”
“You won't go with me to help look?”
“Nope.”
“I'll go!” Henry jumped to his feet. His glasses slid almost off his nose as he did, and he hastily rearranged them.
“I can't believe you won't come.”
The two girls stared at each other a long moment. Bailey shifted uneasily in her chair. “I can't either,” she said finally, “but I won't. I'll stay here.”
“If I find him, and he agrees to help, can I call you a big wuss?”
Bailey gave a lopsided grin at that. “Sure! As long as you're okay.”
“Deal, then.” Ting turned to Henry. “Come on. I know just where Jason climbs up on the Iron Mountain, sometimes. We should find him there.”
Henry shadowed her out the door, saying, “What are you going to do?”
“Not sure yet, but I'll think of something!”
Their voices got faint as they disappeared outside, around a corner of the academy. Bailey stared out the kitchen door, then bit her lip thoughtfully. She had to go with her gut feeling, and that told her to stay put. She shuffled her boots under the kitchen table, and bent her head over the crystals, arranging them back and forth, feeling rather odd.
Â
Outside, gray clouds scuttled in and hung close about the Iron Mountains and the academy. It would rain in a day or two or maybe even late that evening. Ting and Henry could feel the pressure building in the air. Tilting her face up, she pointed out the area of the mountain range where Jason often climbed, and started up. Henry, puffing a bit and paling more every moment, took a deep breath before following after her. Halfway up, she realized that Henry was nowhere near her. Ting looked under her elbow. He clung to a small boulder a good half a city block behind her, panting for breath.
“Are you all right?”
“I'm really tired.” His face stayed pale, though she could see his chest heaving as he struggled to breathe.
“Stay there, then. It's just a tiny bit farther. I can shout if I need help.”
He nodded and brought up the edge of his shirt to pat his face dry of sweat. Poor Henry. They must be tapping his power faster than hers. Still, by the time she gained the flat top of the hill, she was breathing hard, too, and had to stand for a moment to catch her own breath. Then she wondered how she planned to catch the dragon's attention.
It seemed undignified to shout, “Here, dragon!” nor did she think he'd respond to it. And, after all, it was Jason's dragon, if a dragon could truly be said to belong to anyone at all. This one couldn't. He came and went as he pleased and, if anything, Jason belonged to him, rather than the other way around. She tucked a long, dark wing of hair behind her ear. What to do?
“How does one call a dragon?” she said aloud, to no one but herself, and wished she'd insisted on Bailey coming along. Bailey would be full of ideas, even if most of them would be wrong, she was bound to have the right one stuffed in there somewhere. Bailey was like that.
“That depends on how polite you are,” rumbled a deep voice behind her.
Ting turned around with a gasp, caught her heel on a stubborn bit of rock, and went down on her rump. The dragon lay down on his stomach to look at her closer, asking, “All right, are you? Did I scare you?”
“Of course you scared me! How can someone so . . . large . . . sneak up so quietly?”
The dragon chuckled. It sounded like faraway thunder on a hot summer night, and rather smelled like it, too. Faraway lightning, or something. He wiggled his whiskers at her. “Jason told you I considered young adventurers as appetizers, I see.”
“He's mentioned it once or twice. In case he never comes back.”
“I am astounded.” The dragon, however, looked far from astounded, although he did look a wee bit curious as Ting clambered to her feet and dusted herself off. “If he did, then you must have risked a lot to climb up looking for me. What is the occasion, may I ask?”
“Help. Defense, actually,” and Ting pointed down off the plateau at the academy below them.
“Are you under attack? I rather got the impression it was the other way around, that your lot was off attacking someone else.”
“No, and yes, and well, they deserved it.”
“Mmmmmm.” The dragon let out a long, rumbling purr of thought. Then he said flatly, “No.”
“No what?”
“No, I will not come to your defense.”
Ting stared at him. “Why not?”
“First of all, it should be obvious that you're not under attack. At the moment, anyway. Secondly, and this is a bit more difficult to explain, I have a truce with this world. I come and go as I please, but I do not meddle. I rarely allow myself to be seen, and I do not use my powers in any way at all, if I can help it.”
“But you're our friend! Jason's friend. How can you do this?”
The dragon sat up, and laced his long claws together. He said mildly, in his very deep bass voice, “I do not need to explain myself to you.”
“Yes! Yes, you do!” Ting cried. “The Dark Hand is a terrible, awful group of people. They've been raiding and killing for months, and we're the only ones who can stand up to them, and if that doesn't deserve your help, then I don't know what does!”
“Ting,” called a raspy voice behind her. “Please don't shout at the dragon.” Henry staggered onto the edge of the plateau, his face absolutely gray with effort.
“Very good advice,” observed the beast in question. “But, here, I feel obligated to explain myself although I normally do not have to. It's a matter of treaty, and negotiation, and tradition. I am not the Power of the world, so I am here by sufferance. I am friends with the Powers that be here, but I neither help nor hinder them. Surely you have friends like that in your old world?”
Ting's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment or two, trying to understand just what the dragon meant, when Henry said, “Switzerland.”
“Switzerland?” Ting repeated incredulously.
“Yeah. They've been neutral for centuries. Everyone respects that.” Henry staggered up to stand with her. He fought for breath as he did so, and wiped his face with his hand.
“So . . . Jason's dragon is like Switzerland?”
“He is, if he says he is.” Henry nodded emphatically.
“There,” said the dragon. “I do hope that explanation is satisfactory.”
Ting stared at one and then the other, and realized she was getting no place. “Not really,” she answered him. “But I guess it will have to do. It doesn't explain at all why I keep dreaming about my house dragon, and what it all has to do with me. I was so sure it meant I was supposed to talk you into helping.” Ting gestured in frustration and bewilderment.
“Ahhhhh,” rumbled the dragon. “You dream, do you?”
“We all dream. Just sometimes it seems really important, and it's nearly impossible to understand.”
“Well,” the dragon murmured, dipping his snout close to Ting, and lowering his great voice as if talking to her and her alone, although Henry plainly stood at her elbow. “These things come from within, don't you think?”
“I thinkâ” Ting began, just as Henry let out a loud whimper and crashed to the ground at her feet. “Henry? Henry!”
He gasped, “Jonnard,” as his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out cold. Ting screamed.
35
Gate of Dread
I
T FIGURES,” mourned Bailey. “The one time I don't go with you, and something really interesting happens. I've always wanted to travel by dragon. It seems so much faster.”
Ting was hanging from one claw, and Henry's limp body from the other, while Bailey looked up at them, hands on her hips, the dragon treading air as though he were in a swimming pool, his wings fluttering above them. Ting thought she was going to hurl from the bouncing, the uneven bobbing up and down. “That's not helping any,” she moaned.
Bailey spread her hands out. “I can't catch you both. I say jump, and we'll both catch Henry.”
Ting moved around inside the dragon's clutch and he loosened his grip a little. She crouched, looking at the ground which seemed a lot farther away than she wanted it to be. “Okay. Ready.” She swallowed. The dragon opened his claws and she jumped.
He released Henry at nearly the same time, his limp body tumbling through the air, and both of them collided with Bailey. The three of them went down with an ooof and a grunt and a groan. For a moment, Ting wasn't sure where she ended and the other two began. Bailey began to laugh as she tried to crawl out from under them.
“What . . . is . . . so . . . funny?” Ting pulled her long hair away from her face with both hands.
“I'm not sure,” Bailey told her. “It just
is.
It's about time someone else got in trouble!” She dug Henry out as well. “He's out like a light. What happened?”
“I'm not sure. He seemed weaker and weaker, and then he collapsed, talking about Jonnard.” Gently, Ting took Henry's glasses off his face. “Think Jon got to him again?”
“Maybe.” Bailey put two fingers to her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “We've got to do something. The crystals are all muddied, though.” She frowned as the dragon landed nearby, following Ting's lead.
“Dragon,” Ting stated as she felt Henry's too cold face. “This is the kind of thing they do. They take over your thoughts, your mind. They don't care what they do to anyone!”
“I can see that,” the great beast said. His voice sounded a bit sorrowful amidst its low boom. “That does not change the pact I have agreed to. I will not interfere.”
“If you're not with us, then you're against us,” Bailey said harshly. She flipped her ponytail back and tried to haul Henry's limp body into a more comfortable position.
The dragon considered Bailey closely, and Bailey had the grace to blush a little. “Well,” she said defensively, “you know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately, I do. I leave you with this, then . . .” And he put out a talon that sizzled as if hot and etched Ting's open hand. “A key to be used for that you need most, Ting, if you've the courage to use it. As they like to say in those epic stories Jason talks about, use it when things seem darkest.”
Ting jumped as if burned or branded, and closed her hand tightly, staring at the great dragon. Rebecca and Madame Qi hurried out of the academy in answer to Bailey's piercing whistle, both women letting out sounds of worry as they saw Henry lying on the ground.
“What happened?”
“He collapsed. He was being drained, and he just . . . fell over.”
Rebecca knelt beside him, her hand on the boy's neck. “He seems all right now, though very weak. I can't believe Gavan would let anyone draw off Henry like this.”
“Jonnard would,” Bailey said bitterly.
Madame Qi knelt by Rebecca and Henry's still form. “There are many forces at work here,” she said in her quiet way. “Not to hurry to a decision.” She lifted Henry by the ankles. “Help me, Ting, and you two get the heavy end.” She paused, and gave the dragon a respectful bow.
The dragon inclined his snout back. Then, with a great leap, and a powerful beat of his wings, he flew skyward.
Henry seemed far heavier than he looked, as the four of them wrestled him inside, and then up to the dorm wing where the boys slept. He had his own room, a pie-shaped place at the edge of the dorm, and it seemed to fit him in more ways than one. They laid him on his cot as gently as they could, although it was almost more of a case of all four of them losing their grip at once. Ting flexed her hand a few times where the dragon had touched her, as if in a little pain, but she kept her hand hidden every time Bailey tried to catch a glimpse.
“I shall stay with him,” Madame Qi announced, and plunked herself down on a stool. She leaned forward to rest her chin on her cane.
Bailey's mom made a frustrated motion. “You two girls are better off downstairs, watching those crystals. Everything seems to be dimming. Any word on what's happening?”
Ting and Bailey shook their heads in unison. “They're fighting. More than that I can't tell,” Bailey added.
Rebecca Landau made a face that emphasized the small lines at the corners of her eyes. “I don't like not knowing!”
As they went downstairs, Ting nudged Bailey. “So like you!”
Bailey muttered. “I know, it's scary.” She waited till they got around a corner before grabbing Ting's hand and opening it.