The Dragondain (13 page)

“This is important, Jasper. And it was brilliant of you to come up with it.”

Jasper grinned. “It was obvious. The Rinn can’t take on flying creatures without help, and the wyflings are too small to lift the dirazakein. Plus they’re too scatterbrained to help the Rinn in battle; the Rinn need allies with cool heads to keep them from being taunted into traps, and the forest Rinn can’t be everywhere with their bows. They need to protect their own homes in Rihnwood.”

“Yes. But it’s more than that,” said his sister. “This is a chance to bring the people of Dain to the aid of the Rinn. If the people of Dain can help the Rinn, then maybe the Rinn of Barreth will help the Dain. If they work together for a common good, then maybe they’ll stop seeing each other as enemies.”

Jasper flushed. He’d been thinking purely of the tactical issues, not the larger picture.

“This is exactly what Uncle Ebb would want us to do,” continued Lily. “It’s what he’s been doing. We must bring them together, Jasper, we must bring them
all
together—to fight Wrengfoul.”

Jasper agreed, though he looked doubtful.

“What happened next? Is that when you went to the Tomb?”

“Yes. After the Tomb, Nimlinn took me to just outside the Ridgegate and told me they would keep a guard on the spot for when one of us returns. From there, I left for Dain.” Lily clenched her fists.

Jasper described arriving in Tavin’s stone guardhouse. Lily was very excited at the mention of Teague. She flipped a page and made Jasper describe him as accurately as possible.

“Who are his mother and father?” she asked.

“Dubb annnnnd—” Jasper rubbed his forehead.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!”

“No—wait—I knew you’d want—it’s—it’s . . . Lady . . . I can’t remember.”

“Mairwen, Lady Mairwen,” said Lily, through clenched teeth.

“You already knew?”

“I knew that one, but what about the next? You can’t be forgetting this stuff. This isn’t some school subject you don’t like. This is important!”

“Right . . . important . . . she’s connected to this royal family—”

Lily dropped the pencil and took a vicious swing at him with her pillow. “The House of duBair!”

“Right,” said Jasper, just barely ducking the swing. “Ridley said that Dubb is just a nickname from his youth, but only his friends from his time in the Dragondain call him that. When he’s at court—”

“Wait—” said Lily, slowly lowering the pillow. “Who’s Ridley?” She picked up her pencil.

Jasper gave Lily a look of apprehension. “Yeah, right, but I should tell you about the triplets first.”

“Triplets!” said Lily.

“They’re not quite . . . right. And yet, no one else seems to know.”

Lily felt her curiosity spike. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, for starters, they do magic without using peerins.”

“Like Tavin did that time. When he strangled me with that spell.”

“I don’t understand that either. Tavin’s Dragondain, right?”

“And Dragondain can’t use magic,” said Lily impatiently. “So I hear.”

“Right. And he did it without a peerin?”

“He made a peerin, too . . . after,” said Lily, her voice distant.

“It has to have something to do with Curse. Maybe Curse was originally a real person who was a lunamancer?” Lily liked this idea, but there was too much speculation in it to make it useful.

Jasper went on. “But let me finish. The triplets’ names are Meeri, Jin, and Min. Meeri does most of the talking. The others are kinda like scouts, constantly drawing in things and reporting to Meeri, like extra sets of eyes. Jin, for example . . . or maybe it was Min . . . she can see through walls.”

“No peerin?”

“Nope. She just . . .
looks
—like through a window.” Jasper thought about what Meeri had said to him, and a chill went up his spine. “She said something weird to me. It was right after Teague had run from the room. She said, ’the unbound are among us’ and something like ’they have arrived.’ I think she meant
us
. Have you heard anything about ’the unbound?’ I don’t remember anything like that from the bedtime tales, do you?”

Lily shook her head.

Then Jasper remembered what Min had said (or was it Jin?): “Is it the one who lives?”, followed by her sister: “Or the one who dies?” The hair on Jasper’s arms rose just thinking about it. Jasper knew Lily would really want that little piece of information, but somehow, now didn’t feel like the best time. Maybe later. Maybe a
whole
lot later. So he skipped it and went on naming all the children he’d met. Lily bombarded him with questions as to their age, lineage, and what they looked like, all the while furiously jotting down notes on her little notepad.

Knowing how much Lily would have enjoyed the dragon fair, Jasper lingered over his account of the dragon-inspired masks, clothes, and treats. When he got to the part about Annora and Bree’s bout with the Lintel brothers, Lily was on the edge of her seat. Jasper watched his sister’s face as the tale built: Meeri again using magic without a peerin; the black spot; secreting away Annora and Bree; and finally, Tavin’s encounter with Dyre. Telling it, Jasper finally understood the thrill that Ebb felt in the telling of
his
tales. He glossed over his poor sword-wielding performance later that night in the courtyard at Cora’s.

The second day of events took less time to recount. He described how quickly the sword fights had ended, and what great archers Penryn and his brothers were. And then he mentioned the odd man, Jaynus.

“Rinnjinn!” said Lily incredulously. “He actually
said
Rinnjinn?”

“Yes. And he wanted my vest after that, but the excitement was too much for him. I had to leave, but we should try and talk to him.”

“Do others know about Rinnjinn? On Barreth he’s considered just a myth.”

“Ridley hadn’t heard of him. I didn’t think to ask the others.”

Lily jotted something down in her notebook.

“You know, Lily, if Mom or Dad finds that notebook—”

“Don’t worry,” she said, still scribbling, “I’ll be careful.”

“So what do we do tonight?” asked Jasper.

“Easy. One of us goes back.”

“After last night, Mom and Dad will be watching us.”

“You mean they’ll be watching
you
. That makes it my turn.” Lily held out her hand.

“But, if they check on me, they’ll check on you.”

“Not if you’re in your room. In fact, I don’t think they’ll check at all. They know we aren’t stupid enough to sneak out twice in a row, especially after being caught. They’ll take a breather for at least a week. Count on it.”

“That’s the kind of logic that can come back and bite you, Lily.”

Lily extended her palm further.

Jasper chewed his lower lip. “All right,” he said, pulling the gold necklace from his jeans pocket.

“But wait until after midnight, and make sure you lock your door. I’ll leave mine open. At least that way, I’ll hear them if they knock on yours.” Jasper gave Lily a somber look. “Be careful, Lily. And remember: we’re not in one of Uncle’s bedtime tales. The danger in the Moon Realm is real. We need to stay close to those who can protect us. Fortunately, we’re following in Ebb’s footsteps. Meeting the people he knew, people he trusted. But as we venture beyond his inner circle . . . who knows what we’ll find?”

“I’ll be careful.”

After Jasper left, Lily gathered some clothes from her dresser. This time, she would pack more sensibly. She gathered some food, a water bottle, a small flashlight, matches, and her notebook and pencils, rolling everything into a bundle and stowing it on a shelf in her closet.

To fill the time before leaving, she retrieved the purple bandana filled with the bits of plants and stone that she’d removed from Barreth and Dain and spread it out on her desk. From the shelf above, she removed one of what she called her museum books. She owned six of them, all meticulously crafted in wood, leather, metal, glass, and paper by Mr. Phixit’s miraculous metal digits.

This one had never been used. From the exterior, it looked like an eight-inch-wide book. Once opened, however, all pretense of bookishness quickly vanished. Inside, it looked more like an empty, six-story natural history museum stuffed in a box. Endless layered sections folded out, revealing tiny wooden-framed windows, pullout drawers, little glass specimen bottles, leaves of paper, pens—all ready to be filled, written on, and sealed back up again as perfect and tight as a Japanese puzzle box.

Lily undid the lock, pocketed the key, and placed the book on the desk next to the bandana. Carefully, she peeled back and delved into the museum book’s many complicated layers—opening, shifting, unfolding—until she’d reached its deepest recesses. She spent the next hour classifying each leaf, blade, twig, cone, and stone, securing them carefully in their proper compartments. She spent most of her time trying to remember which items had come from which moon. In the end, there were far too many question marks and blanks for her liking. After sealing up the book, she replaced it on the shelf. To her knowledge, neither of her parents had ever gone digging in her museum books, and sometimes, the best hiding place was right out in the open—besides, she alone bore the key.

Lily spent the next forty-five minutes surfing the internet on her laptop. Isla had sent an email saying she was looking forward to movie night.

At one point, Lily heard what sounded like a mouse scratching on a wall in her closet, but when she slowly opened the door, the noise stopped. She pulled out her notepad and wrote
set mousetrap
. She ruled out enlisting Tarzanna, the family house cat, to do the job; she simply couldn’t be trusted in Lily’s closet. For one thing, the beads and tassels on the ladder rungs drove the cat into mad swatting fits. And yet, Lily mused, she would be efficient once she heard the thing. The thought of a mouse weeing on her clothes or nibbling on her riding gear infuriated Lily. Maybe Tarzanna wouldn’t be such a bad option.

A little after midnight, the Winter house as quiet as Pharaoh’s tomb, Lily slipped from her bed, locked her door, and groped through the darkness into her closet. She stuffed a bathrobe under the door crack and flicked the switch for a long string of track lights mounted on the ceiling, creating little hotspots of light on this shelf or that.

Methodically, she dug out her gear. Many mornings, Lily had fancied herself a stage performer while getting dressed under these lights. And in a way, she felt much the same readying herself for the Moon Realm. She donned the riding cloak from the Tomb of the Fallen last of all, palmed the moon coin, and flipped open the fob. The little gold circles, each representing one of the moons in the Moon Realm, flickered to a silvery white.

Uncle Ebb
, she thought,
is probably on one of these moons
. Was he convalescing? Was he in trouble? Was he starving, or injured? What if he needed help
right
now? Lily slowly spun the coin’s inner wheel.

Click . . . click . . . click.

If he was on Taw, he’d be safe. If he’d been on Barreth or Dain, then he had moved from where the moon coin had sent him and was hiding, which didn’t seem likely. Lily let the pointer sweep over Darwyth.
Click.
Wrengfoul’s home. Can’t go there, too dangerous.
Click.
Dik Dek . . .
Pearl of Dik Dek in oceans deep, mer-made all for the taking.
. . . What if Ebb had left Dik Dek from the deck of a boat? Did she really want to risk materializing in the middle of an ocean? . . . Not good. Min Tar . . .
Kormor’s work, hammer and anvil, giants of Min Tar she forged.
If the dragons of Dain were truly bad—unlike in the bedtime tales, where they were intelligent and brave—what of the Giants of Min Tar? What if they weren’t friendly, either? And why would Uncle Ebb change the tales? It wasn’t
like
him to change facts. Uncle Ebb loved telling his tales, and he never changed them. Lily and Jasper had never caught him telling one incorrectly. He remembered them so well because he
knew
them, because he’d lived them.
Click . . . click.
Rel’ Kah . . .
Terrible beauty Faerathil, in Rel’ Kah her dreams she poured.
Surely the Faerie Queen would still be around. Lily would have to be careful with her. Faerathil wasn’t some cute little fairy. No. Faerathil was a wild thing of terrible beauty, easily crossed, and more than willing to seek retribution on anyone she felt had wronged her. The moons continued their orbit.
Click.
The Secret Moon . . .
Tinker’s Secret? None to tell
. The Tinkers would be useless. They were so secretive they didn’t even tell each other their own names! Although maybe the bedtime tales had that wrong too.
Click.
The Lazy moon . . .
Lazy lives the long life in twain, keying a lone memory
. . . the only moon that keeps its distance from the others, rarely crossing over. What if going there affected how long it took to get back to Earth, or to one of the other moons? Too risky.

Lily spun the wheel around again, thinking, wondering.
Where could he be?

She ached to explore. She wanted to go to new moons and see new places. She wanted to learn. But she had time for just the one visit. Where to go? Barreth needed her help the most; that much was obvious. But what help could she give to Barreth?

Lily let the small silver circle that represented Dain come to rest under the fob’s pointer.
Click
. She hesitated, staring at the little crab-claw pincer that would seal her fate. What was she waiting for?

She thumbed the fob shut just as she heard a knock. Lily attempted to pry open the fob, but it was fused tight. In the space of a heartbeat, she thought about ripping off the necklace, but feared it might vanish by itself. Was that how Ebb had sent it back? Just as the first effects of the moon coin kicked in, the knocking came again. Was it really coming from the door? It sounded so close, and not so much like knocking as like little mouse claws tapping or scraping on wood.

And then Lily was gone.