Island of Dragons (11 page)

Pan frowned and the rumble returned.

Alex shrank back. He couldn't seem to stop asking questions. “I'm sorry,” he said again. He thought long and hard about what role he should play. Would he risk anyone's life by offering to make wings for the dragons? “Pan,” he said cautiously, “before I can agree to give wings to these dragons, I have to know if they will harm anybody. I hope you can understand why I need to know this.”

Pan bowed her head. “Yes, of course I do,” she said quietly. “And I realize the strength and power my children carry. While I cannot predict their future actions, I have raised them to follow in my ways. They will not harm anyone who contains more good than evil.”

More good than evil.
What an interesting directive. Alex looked into Pan's eyes and saw the honesty within them. He marveled that dragons could possess the ability to sense a person's goodness or evilness. It seemed to Alex that creatures like this could be a real asset to the world.

“All right,” he said. “I'll help you. You don't have to tell me anything else unless you wish to. I'm giving you my full trust.”

“The less you know, the less you can reveal,” said Pan. “My secrets are for your safety as well as mine and my children's.” She paused and added, “Please—know that I am extremely grateful for your help, and . . . and it is quite humbling for the ruler of the sea to be in need of it.” She bowed her head slightly, gazing down at the young dragons. “Would you like to meet them? They will not harm you.”

“Oh.” Alex's eyes flickered, and his heart pounded in his chest. “Yes, of course,” he said. The words came out thin with a whoosh of air. “You'll pull me out if anything . . . happens?” He began to sweat, thinking of being stuck in that pit with five dragons. But then he banished the thought. He had to see them up close. There was no way he could make wings for a creature he hadn't seen or touched with his own hands.

“Nothing will happen,” Pan said. “But I will keep a hold on you with my tail and I won't let you go.”

Alex nodded and tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs weren't cooperating. “I'll need to see them up close,” he said, “and touch their scales. Would that be all right?” Alex's hands automatically went to his pockets to see what sort of components he had with him, just in case something went horribly wrong.

“I expected that,” said Pan. “Yes, you may touch them, but greet them first with a closed fist so they can smell you.”

A sickening chill ran through Alex and both his fists closed reflexively, but he didn't dare ask Pan another question. He could only trust that she would keep him safe and not let them eat him.

“Climb on my back and hold on to my neck,” said Pan. Alex obliged, and soon Pan began the awkward trek down the inside of the cylindrical island with Alex clinging to and swinging from her neck.

Soon she settled into the water with the young dragons, which climbed over her tail and blew tiny blasts of fire from their throats.

Alex dodged the fire and hung on tightly to Pan's neck, just out of the young dragons' reach. He lit a highlighter so he could study them—their structure and skin, their coloring, their proportions and center of balance, and the way they moved. He put the highlighter behind his ear to hold it steady, pulled out his notebook and produced a pencil from it, and eased over to a small rock ledge above Pan's back so he could sit and sketch.

While Alex carried out his job, Pan began to speak in a strange, soothing language that he didn't understand. But clearly the young dragons understood it, for they soon settled down and stopped their attempts at breathing fire.

After a while, Alex looked up from his notebook. “Could I see the orange one a bit closer, please?” he asked.

Pan called the orange dragon to her, and when the young thing drew near, Pan wrapped her tail around its legs, picked it up, and moved it to Alex's side. She looked at the mage. “She won't hurt you. Mind the spines, though. They're quite sharp.”

Alex looked warily at the ridge of spikes that rippled down the dragon's back, and noted them in his sketch. “Hello,” he said to it, and put his fist out, remembering to greet her first before doing anything else. “I'm, uh, I'm Alex.” He tried not to tremble.

The orange dragon turned her oversized face toward Alex and tilted her head, bringing her nose nerve-wrackingly close to Alex's hand. After a moment she pulled away. Apparently she accepted Alex, or at least she didn't seem intent on eating him.

Alex stared at her, memorizing the landscape of her body and noting there was no plume of scales bursting from her head, like Pan had. The young dragon's scales didn't cover her body—instead they were found in large patches, with bare skin in between.

Alex strained his neck to look closer, and then glanced at Pan. “Is it all right . . . ?”

“It is,” said Pan.

Tentatively Alex reached out to touch the dragon's side next to a patch of shimmering scales. The snakelike skin wasn't slimy like he'd expected. It was soft and pliable. Silky, but thickly so, and it hung a bit loose on the dragon's frame as if the dragon were still growing into it. A few scales dangled and came away in Alex's hand. Perhaps they would be useful. He glanced at Pan again. “May I take some scales from each dragon to use for their wings?” he asked Pan.

“You may.”

“And will they . . . ,” Alex began, then hesitated to ask Pan another question, but he needed to know the answer. “Will they grow to be as big as you?”

Pan hesitated. “Yes,” she answered after a moment. “Eventually.”

“Then their wings will have to grow along with them,” Alex muttered, jotting down notes and then sizing up Pan in comparison to the young orange. “Perhaps twenty times over,” he muttered, “or they won't be able to fly when they're bigger. Unless I make them oversized now. . . .” He shook his head. “No, no, no. They'll be too heavy, and the dragons won't be able to lift them.” He turned to Pan. “How long before they are full grown?”

“A hundred years or so.”

Alex wasn't too fazed. He was used to things living hundreds of years by now.

“And how long will the young dragons stay their current size?” he asked.

“Perhaps ten more years,” said Pan. “And then they'll grow rapidly.”

The task seemed nearly impossible. How was Alex supposed to make magical wings for nonmagical living creatures—wings that would automatically grow when the dragons grew? He understood how Simber's wings had grown with him when he was first made. It was because Simber was entirely magical. But these dragons had not been created by some human magician. They'd been born, and they existed without magic—at least without the kind of magic Alex knew. How could he possibly connect magical wings to the living, nonmagical creatures in such a way that the two parts would communicate with each other and grow in tandem without a mage stepping in to help? Alex couldn't figure out how to do that. He thought of Aaron, how sure he'd been that it could be done. Alex lifted his chin. “Of course it's possible,” he muttered, trying to convince himself.

After a long time of sketching and thinking and sketching and worrying and sketching and agonizing, Alex wrapped his arms around the young orange and lifted it up, trying to see how heavy she was. The dragon squirmed, then licked Alex in the face.

Alex laughed and set the dragon down. He thanked her and petted her neck.

The orange dragon closed her eyes and rested her head on Alex's shoulder. A purrlike rumbling came from its throat.

“Aw,” said Alex. “I think she likes me.”

“Careful, Alex,” Pan said. “Step back a moment.”

Alex stepped back as a roar and a tiny burst of flames shot from the orange dragon's mouth. The dragon smiled sleepily at the mage, and he smiled back. Pan spoke to her, and she hopped back into the water with a splash.

In turn, Alex examined each dragon and drew elaborate sketches of it. He even drew one so perfectly and distinctly that it sprang from the page in 3-D and floated above the notebook, just like a 3-D doorway. He'd never done that before—he didn't even know it was possible. He couldn't wait to tell Ms. Octavia about it. It would make a great model for the preliminary design work.

When Alex had collected scales from each dragon and sketched and colored in everything he could, he pressed the 3-D drawing back into the notebook and closed it, and said good-bye to the five young dragons.

Pan brought him back up to the top of the island, and the two descended the other side. Once in the sea, Pan sped over the water with Alex on her back, both of them silent and contemplating. One sorrowful, one stumped, but both determined.

When Pan reached Artimé not long after dawn, Alex dismounted and stifled a yawn. “This is our first priority now,” Alex promised her. “But I have to be completely honest with you about my abilities. I don't know if I can actually do this. And even if I can, I'm not sure I can make wings that will work for the dragons' entire lives. They may only be useful while they remain this size.”

Pan bowed to Alex. “I am grateful for your efforts to help my family, even if you find no success at all,” she said. “We will survive somehow. Dragons always do.”

W
hile Alex slept and dreamed about dragon wings, the rest of Artimé was doing business as usual, or so it appeared. With the mention of ships at the neighboring island, Claire Morning decided it was important to continue Magical Warrior Training during Florence's absence as a precaution, and to keep the spell casters in the know about new spells. Today her class was made up of the more experienced fighters, including Warbler children Scarlet and Thatcher, who had by now graduated from their beginner's training.

Working alongside Claire was Lani Haluki, who was explaining some of the most recent nonlethal spell components and how they worked. She also reminded the warriors of the two deadly spells: heart attack, which required three components to put an end to an average human-size enemy, and the single scatterclip, which was harmless on its own, but deadly when coupled with the right phrase. There would be no practicing for these two, and only those who wished to have that amount of power carried them. Lani reminded the class that it was Artimé's policy since the days of Mr. Today, that each person must think long and hard about whether she wanted to have that responsibility.

Observing the training today were Aaron and some nonmagical friends: Kaylee, Sky, and Crow, who was looking after Thisbe and Fifer along the water's edge. Sky sat in a chair under a tree a short distance away, reading a book, while Aaron, Kaylee, and Crow all lay on their stomachs, elbows in the sand, hands cupping their chins. Aaron and Kaylee lounged together, and Crow was a few feet away, perched sideways so he could see the training and watch the twins at the same time.

Kaylee and Aaron, both feeling a bit like outsiders in Artimé, had fallen into a friendship of convenience. Aaron wasn't accustomed to having friends at all, so he was always awkward with people until he relaxed. And Kaylee was boisterous and playful—the complete opposite of Aaron, or so it seemed. Yet it was her large personality that relaxed him, and the two got along somehow.

Crow eyed them suspiciously from time to time, but they didn't seem to be romantically involved at all, which was a relief. He was tired of watching other people kissing, including his own sister. He preferred a more anonymous kind of admiration over outward displays of affection, and he was exercising that anonymous admiration now as he watched Scarlet. He studied the intense look on her face that never broke when she was casting spells. He appreciated her long blond hair swishing over her shoulders when she followed through on her spell casting.

Scarlet stood next to Thatcher, who had the tallest hair Crow had ever seen. Most of the time Scarlet stayed focused on her task. But once, between exercises, she and Thatcher laughed together at something Ms. Morning said to them, which Crow couldn't hear. Crow frowned, even though he knew Scarlet and Thatcher had been friends for a long time.

Near Crow's legs, Fifer piled up small, flat stones, one on top of another in a precarious stack, using extreme precision for a child her age. Thisbe stood on the other side of Crow, entranced as she watched the magical warriors on the lawn. Every now and then she imitated their movements, saying “Dat!” or “Boom!” and casting imaginary spells of her own.

“Hey, Crow,” Kaylee called. “Who's the dude with the righteous Afro?”

“The what?” asked Crow. Half the things Kaylee said made no sense to him.

“The boy next to Scarlet.”

“Oh. That's Thatcher. He's one of the Warbler kids.”

“I figured, due to the orange eyes and the scars on his neck.”

“I forget about those things sometimes,” Crow said. Orange eyes and neck scars were all too common to him.