Dragonseed (37 page)

Until this moment, he’d been skeptical that the wings would lift him, despite having witnessed the flight of the guards. Now, flight felt like it could occur with only the slightest flick of his wing tips.

He flicked.

The sensation of his feet leaving the ground was one he knew would remain with him forever. He rose three feet in the air and hung there, holding his breath as his heartbeat pounded in his ears.  When he finally allowed himself to breath, he found himself giggling.

Jandra rose into the air in front of him, leveling out. They both hovered on outstretched wings. The air smelled curiously fresh.

Jandra tilted toward him and drifted over. He leaned forward to meet her. This resulted in a sudden acceleration. Their lips met with what could fairly be called a collision. They each jerked back.

“We, uh, should practice before we try that again,” Jandra said, her voice muffled by her hand over her mouth. She seemed to be checking for loose teeth.

“Scary birds!” Lizard screamed.

The little earth-dragon was awake on his branch now, looking ready to leap into the pool. His eyes narrowed when Jandra spun around in the air to face him. Shay had to duck to avoid her wings as they passed over his head.

“It’s okay, Lizard,” said Jandra. “It’s just Shay and me.”

“Good boss?” Lizard asked, sounding skeptical.

Jandra floated toward him, her arms outstretched. “Jump on,” she said. Lizard scooted further back on the branch.  “Don’t be scared,” she said. Lizard looked down at his tail tip and changed the subject.

“Tail hurt,” he said.

“I know,” said Jandra.

“Eat soon?”

“Breakfast is the next item on the agenda,” said Jandra.

“New meat?” Lizard asked. This wasn’t a question Shay had heard before.

“Same old beef jerky and hard tack for now,” said Jandra.

“New meat!” Lizard insisted.

Jandra cast a puzzled glance back toward Shay. Shay shrugged. Lizard looked perturbed. He leapt down from the branch and skittered across the rocks like a small green monkey, traveling thirty yards in the space of a few seconds, until he reached the mound of stones that Shay had used to bury the guards.

Lizard sniffed the rocks. “New meat,” he said, looking up at Jandra. Jandra grew pale as she realized what was on Lizard’s mind.

“Lizard, we can’t eat those men,” she said.

Lizard cocked his head, confused. “Smell,” he said, and drew a deep, whistling breath through the nostril slots in his beak. “New meat.”

“Lizard, I wouldn’t let the men back at Dragon Forge eat you. I’m not going to let you eat men.”

Lizard tilted his head to the other side. It was as if thoughts were physically shifting around in his skull. “Lizard not meat,” he said.

Jandra lowered herself onto the rocks beside the little dragon. He looked up at her with a mix of hunger and reverence. He reached to the grave and picked up a stone that looked too heavy for his small frame.

“Put that down!” Jandra snapped. Lizard dropped the rock and hopped backward, looking alert as he studied Jandra’s face. “Who’s the boss here?” Jandra asked.

Lizard lowered his eyes. “You boss.”

“We eat hardtack. Any questions?”

“No boss,” Lizard said softly.

“Now jump onto my shoulders.”

The little dragon leapt as if gravity had no true claim upon him. He made it to her shoulders in a single bound and clung tightly as she glided back over the pond toward Shay. Together, they drifted down to a landing beside the fire. Her wings folded up with a soft, musical chiming. He willed his own wings to close and they did the same.

Lizard hopped down from her shoulder and sat before the pack with the last few bricks of hard tack, staring at it intently. Jandra glanced at Shay. The stern countenance she’d wore while bossing Lizard melted into a look of worry. Shay knew what she was thinking. If Lizard was hungry for human flesh now, with other food available, what would he be like if the food ran out?

THEY LIFTED INTO
the air with a rush of ozone and the wind-chime tinkling of silver feathers. Jandra bent her head up to meet the wind. She closed her eyes, lost in memories. As a child, she’d traveled many miles with her face pressed against Vendevorex’s breast as he flew with her strapped against him in a sling. She remembered the hard, smooth texture of his scales and the way his muscles had radiated heat as he beat his wings to soar across the miles. She remembered the sound of his heart, the powerful bellows of his lungs, and the whistle of wind whipping her hair against her cheeks.

She opened her eyes. Lizard clung to her coat, looking moderately terrified. They’d risen a hundred feet in the air and were now arcing out over the underground lake. Its waters were dark as crude oil. Ripples on the surface hinted at the monsters beneath. Lizard’s fear was rational.

Yet, so was her happiness. All her life she’d dreamed she had wings. She’d wake in the night and ached at their absence. Her dragon soul felt as if it had reclaimed a birthright.

Shay was flying lower, slower. She curved and flew a broad, graceful circle around him. He flew straight and steady, his eyes locked on the island shore that was their destination.

“You look nervous,” she said as she slowed into a path parallel to him. “Relax. The wings won’t drop you.”

“I’m sure the guards thought the same thing,” said Shay.

“Those crashes were a failure of the men, not the wings,” said Jandra. “The fact that the wings survived proves how tough they are.”

“It’s not the wings' survival that concerns me,” he said.

She beat her wings and soared high above him, climbing toward the stone sky. “I feel so alive!” She did a backwards flip and dropped toward him. Lizard squeaked at the maneuver and dug his claws deeply enough through her coat that she winced. Perhaps the more daring moves should wait until she was flying solo.

Too swiftly for her satisfaction, the lake passed beneath them and they arrived at the shore of the island. Shay dropped down onto a beach of black sand flecked with countless specks of gold.

“I’ve never imagined there was this much gold in the world,” he said as he surveyed the long beach.

“There isn’t. This is fool's gold.”

“Oh.”

Jandra floated down beside Shay and folded her wings. The beach stank. The decaying jungle gave the place a garbage heap aroma. A few hundred feet away, the bones of two long-wyrms stretched down to the water’s edge. They’d fallen victim to Bitterwood during the final confrontation with Jazz. Crabs had picked the bones completely clean, leaving vertebrae, ribs, and claws scattered along the shore in a vaguely serpentine outline. Copper scales were strewn across the beach, gleaming in the dim light like newly minted coins.

She picked up one of the scales. Deep inside her mind, a door opened and she recalled sketching out her plans for the long-wyrms.

“What’s that?” Shay asked.

Jandra held out the copper scale in her open palm. It resembled in size and shape the petal of some strange rose.

“Jazz spliced genes found in beetles into reptilian DNA to give the long worms their metallic sheen. She was inspired by images of Chinese dragons.”

“Chinese?”

“There used to be a country called China.”

“Like the plates and cups the wealthy biologians use? A country named for dinnerware?”

“It was actually the other way around. We remember the porcelain, but we’ve forgotten the country.”

Lizard hopped down and picked up one of the scales, testing it against his tongue. He dropped it, apparently deciding it wasn’t food.

“There may be more gaps in my knowledge of reproduction than I thought. I didn’t think it was possible to breed a beetle and a reptile,” said Shay.

“It isn’t. Not in traditional ways. Jazz came from an age where it was possible to insert the genetic material of one creature into completely different creatures. Dragons were created this way. They were made as exotic game animals, to be hunted for sport.”

“Humans used to hunt dragons for sport?” Shay sounded skeptical.

“Ironic isn’t it?”

“Did Jazz make the dragons?”

“No. She was against hunting as sport. Her opinions shifted, though, when… if you don’t mind, I’m going to change subjects. I’m uncomfortable talking too much about her life. She had a thousand years of memory; I have seventeen. I don’t want her memories washing mine away through sheer volume.”

“I understand,” said Shay. He looked concerned. “I know you have additional memories, but do you feel like you’re losing your own?”

“How would I know? How do you remember the things you’ve forgotten?”

“Perhaps you should keep a journal?”

“I’d rather get a genie again,” said Jandra.

AS THEY HEADED
away from the shore, the tree branches took on a ghostly white pallor, as if covered in cotton. It wasn’t until Shay grabbed one to brace himself that he realized nearly every surface of the dead jungle was covered with a film of mold.

He rubbed the slime off on his pants, then hurried to catch Jandra. She was carefully stepping over fallen branches as she worked her way toward the vine-draped ruins of some ancient civilization. Jandra moved confidently toward it and the stones began to shift, forming a staircase leading down into the ground.

The air coming up the stairs was dry and fresh, a refreshing change from the odorous dank of the decaying jungle. An iron door at the bottom of the steps slid open as Jandra approached. The space beyond was brightly lit. “What if there are more guards,” Shay asked in a loud whisper. “Is this safe?”

“There were only thirteen riders because I only made thirteen long-wyrms,” Jandra answered. “This was their barracks. It’s abandoned now.”

Shay started to point out she’d said “I” when she meant “Jazz,” but held his tongue, not wanting to upset her.

“We killed three yesterday, Bitterwood killed two on the beach, six were killed at the battle of Dead Skunk Hole, and Bitterwood told me he’d killed one at Big Lick. That’s twelve. Adam’s the only one left. If my math is right, there are still four long-wyrms unaccounted for. Maybe Adam knows where they are.”

Shay stepped into the barracks, squinting as he adjusted to the light. The room was long and sparsely furnished with narrow cots. The walls were white brick. There were no windows. The ceiling was made of a translucent material like a large, uniform sheet of paper, glowing warmly. Toward the back of the room was a large desk. Behind it were shelves filled with books. Shay was afraid to approach them, given the recent ill fates of any book he touched.

“Oh look,” said Jandra, as she peered over Shay’s shoulder. “A map.”

Shay gathered it was the island they were currently on, since there was a yellow arrow pointing to a spot that read, “You are here.” Jandra placed her fingers on the map. The island got smaller as the area shown by the map expanded. Soon, a vast, perplexing network of white lines against a black background was revealed.

“This is her entire underground empire,” said Jandra. “We’re underneath what was once called West Virginia. It was absolutely riddled with mines.” The image spun around when Jandra twirled her fingers on the image. “Ah. Just as I suspected. We took the long way here. We can make it back to the surface in just a few hours.” One of the white lines began to pulse with pale red light.

Shay approached the frame. “A magic map. There are cartographers at the College of Spires who would kill for this.”

“If you want to see magic, wait until we dig up the genie.”

She walked over to the wall and pressed one of the white bricks. They slid back to reveal a large closet filled with tools. Shay spotted more of the wing disks on a metal shelf. Before he could examine the closet further, Jandra turned around with two shovels in her hand, as well as a small garden trowel.

She tossed a shovel toward Shay and the trowel at Lizard. “Everybody digs,” she said.

JANDRA LED THEM
to a clearing. The ground was blackened by a relatively recent fire. It was cool now, but the air still held the smell of a well-used fireplace. Charcoal crunched beneath Shay’s boots as he stepped on what had once been a tree branch. Unlike the slimy ghost forest, the land here was bone dry. Jandra wandered over the ashes, her fingers outstretched.

“Can you feel it?” she whispered.

“Feel what?” asked Shay.

“The buzz in the air. It’s a fine mist of nanites. Even without a genie, I can sense it. It feels like sunlight under the skin.”

Lizard looked up at the stone sky. “Sun gone,” he said, sadly.

“The sooner we get the genie, the sooner we get back to the surface,” said Jandra. With a grunt, she thrust her shovel into the black dirt. “Once I have my powers back, we can fly out of here and bask in all the sun we want. Then… then I’ll fix everything.” She tossed away a spadeful of shiny black dirt. “I’ll go back to Dragon Forge and heal Vance’s blindness. I’ll fix Burke’s leg so well he’ll be dancing.” She plunged the shovel into the ground again.

Shay joined in the digging. Lizard approached and tentatively tossed aside a few scoops of earth with his trowel.

Shay pursed his lips and put his back into the task. Could this device they were digging for really give Jandra the power to heal the blind and the lame? If so… would that matter much in the overall scheme of things?

“I know you mean well,” he said, tossing aside dirt. “But… doesn’t the world have bigger problems than a few people’s eyes or limbs? If this genie makes you as powerful as you say, couldn’t you use it to fight dragons? Ragnar wants to drive all the dragons into the sea. Couldn’t you actually do that?”

Jandra stopped digging. She bit her lower lip, lost in thought.

“What?” he asked.

“I just wish I could talk to Vendevorex,” she said. “He had so much power, but he barely used it. He hinted that he was afraid that the Atlanteans might find him.”

“And you’re worried they might find you?”

“Not in the least,” she said, with a cocky smile. “But… it’s easy to sit here and talk about driving the dragons into the sea when we don’t have the power to do it. Once I have my power back, though… I hope I’m wise enough to know what to do.”