The Saint of Dragons (9 page)

N
EEDLESS TO SAY
, A
LAYTHIA
was not happy to discover that she had been hunted by the White Dragon of Manhattan, or that she had invited him over for roast beef. She was even more disturbed to learn that there was another Dragonman out there in the world and that they were on their way to see him. A Serpent in Venice.

Sitting around the table in the ship, with Fenwick puttering about the kitchen galley like a short-order cook, she realized she had to be prepared to accept anything.

“I ought to be terrified of you two,” she told Aldric and Simon, “gallivanting around the oceans with your fox and your horse and some total insanity about hunting Dragons—but I’m not sure you
are
crazy. I’ve seen things in the past few days I don’t fully understand, fires that appear and vanish, pieces of dreams that come true. I’ve had a feeling inside I can’t quite explain. Like something big is going to happen, all over the world, and you two are involved in it somehow.”

Simon nodded gravely. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“Well, you’re in this now, too,” said Aldric in a low, hushed tone. It was as if they were talking and conspiring against something that could hear them everywhere on earth. “That language you’ve been writing is Dragonscript. They’re ancient rune-words the Dragons used in dealings with each other.”

Alaythia remained doubtful. “I thought it might be Celtic or something. Why do you think I’m writing it all the time?”

Aldric shook his head. “I’m not really sure. Some people are very sensitive to the forces around them. It’s likely you’ve encountered Dragons before, perhaps in childhood. You might have been living next to one for years. Its power seeped into you in some way, probably from long-term exposure. I don’t know, but it would be of some assistance if you could read the language. Not that I’m happy you’re tagging along,” he added crustily. “I don’t need another mouth to feed.”

Simon rolled his eyes at Aldric’s customary rudeness. But Alaythia seemed to find his gruffness amusing. “Speaking of mouths to feed,” she said, gliding to the kitchen, “I plan to earn my keep around here. It so happens I’m an excellent cook.”

She was, in fact, a horrible, dreadful cook, but she insisted on making their meals all the way to Venice. There was no getting her out of the kitchen. Simon was dazzled by the number and manner of ways that a simple dish like eggs and bacon could be mangled beyond all human recognition. She did things to eggs that were simply terrifying. There was so much smoke in the ship’s galley that Fenwick took to sitting on one of the masts, as far from the smell of her cooking as possible. But for whatever reason, Aldric allowed Alaythia to fill up the ship with her smells.

Simon welcomed the food, but not for the taste of it. Alaythia’s edible disasters were proving to be highly entertaining. At least she had a sense of humor about her fiascoes, and her endless determination to do something right cheered them all up. The nightly gatherings were bringing them together, and though he grumbled, Aldric found one or two reasons to laugh now and then, Simon noticed.

He had little enough reason during the rest of the day. His mind was clearly on the mystery ahead. Aldric refused to believe the White Dragon was working with the Serpent of Venice, but whoever the Venice creature was, he had probably tangled with the White Dragon, which meant he was powerful. They would have to find him and cast him down. Aldric spent his time practicing in the stables with sword, shield, and bow.

The rest of the time he trained Simon, who found his new tools heavy and hard to use. Nothing he did impressed his father. Alaythia was the only one to give Simon any encouragement, but he often felt he was in her way. She had set up a makeshift easel to make and study her Dragonscript runes, and Simon was no help in figuring them out.

Still, Simon certainly wasn’t wishing for his old life back. He did wonder what the other kids at the Lighthouse School would say if they knew where he was. It gave him a little thrill to think they’d never know where he’d gone. He had just vanished into the foggy night. Now he would be a legend there.

He found himself worrying a lot about what lay ahead, and the sea was no friend to him, turning vicious as the trip wore on. The ship teeter-tottered in heavy swells of water, and up ahead on the horizon, dark rain clouds were getting ready for battle. It
was as if something didn’t want them to get to Venice.

The Ship with No Name was a sailboat, but it was handled by old machines, rods and boxes and switches, which ran themselves. Simon saw how they toiled against the wind.

As rain began to fall, Aldric worried the old machines would not be able to survive the weather. “Hand me that oil can!” he shouted to Simon.

“Magic machines need oil?” asked Simon.

“Of course they need oil. They’re not perfect.”

Simon watched as Aldric squirted oil on the strange boxes and gears and levers that covered the ship. His efforts did not seem to make much difference. The metal parts continued to squeak and moan, adding their noise to the rainfall and thunder.

“Are they going to keep working?”

“They’d better,” called Aldric over the rain.

“Let me help,” Alaythia interjected. “I’ve been watching how it all works. I think I’ve learned a thing or two about this old boat.”

Aldric groaned, not even bothering to be polite. If she handled a ship as well as she handled a kitchen, they would end up at the bottom of the ocean in no time.

She started to adjust the sails, but Aldric roughly stepped in front of her. “I don’t need you messing with the ship. Maradine made these machines, and they’re working just fine.”

The machines creaked and squeaked. Alaythia and Simon looked at Aldric with very little confidence.

Lightning struck the sea all around them. Simon watched in amazement as the crackling splinters of light stabbed at the water and cut it open. Then he looked up and saw the lightning weav
ing over the ship’s masts and metal. Saint Elmo’s fire.

The lightning glow seemed to sweep all over the boat, right past Aldric and Simon, drifting over Alaythia, as if it were searching, looking things over.

It was entirely possible, Simon thought, that the Dragon of Venice was using his magic to check up on them and find out what he was up against.

Aldric told Simon to see to Valsephany, and the boy fled belowdecks. The ship rolled back and forth, and Simon was nearly hit by flying pottery and metal pans. His weak stomach was socking his ribs.

Inside, the sound of the storm was worse than seeing it. The wood around him creaked painfully under the strain. The thunder was muffled and weird-sounding, like the laughter of persons you would not want to meet.

Fenwick dashed from the galley and jumped onto Simon’s back, shivering with fear. Surely the fox had gone through storms before; this one must have been stronger than most. Simon reached back to pat the animal’s wet hide and continued on.

He crawled down into the hold of the ship where his father’s horse was tethered. The horse grunted in greeting him, as if relieved.

Suddenly, a large wave must have thrown itself against the ship, because the locked door to the dead Dragon room flew open with a smashing blow, and the huge head of the medieval Dragon slammed its way into the cargo hold. The gigantic skull slid across the deck toward Simon. He turned and dived for safety, landing near the horse. The skull slammed against the stable fence behind him as if it were biting with vicious life.

Now all the Dragon bones and skulls tumbled from the chamber and scattered about the great Dragon’s head.

Simon’s eyes were locked open. He tried hard not to think the thing had come to life, that something was in here with him—

But the eyes in the Dragon’s skull were moving.

It was too dark for Simon to get a good look, but something was rattling in there—and then he saw what it was. It was not the pupils of a Dragon’s eye, it was the quivering, fearful muscles of a generously sized rat. Another rat was behind that one, and several more behind that.

It had been their home for a long time, that skull had been, and now the storm had knocked them loose.

The rats ran about, looking for somewhere safe from the booms and rattles.

Fenwick pounced at the panicked rats, but they were too quick for him, scattering under the hay, pittering into dark places on the shelves.

Simon was actually relieved. Rats were disgusting, but they were just rats. At least he knew now the Dragon was dead.

Until the skull moved
again
, the whole great big thing, and Simon’s heart began shaking with new energy.

The skull moved aside, as Aldric pushed it away to enter.

“Are you all right down here?” he called.

It took Simon a moment to make his voice work.

Aldric came into the stable and sat beside him. There was nothing he could do for the ship; it would have to fight the storm on its own.

“Where’s Alaythia?”

Aldric shook his head. “She’s making sure her new paintings are
safe, locking up that easel she made. She says she can handle it.”

Simon frowned. “Shouldn’t you be helping her?”

“I tried. She wouldn’t let me. Don’t get surly with me, boy.”

Simon retreated into his heavy jacket, the hood flopping over onto his head. He pulled his knees to his chest, cowering against the wooden walls. He didn’t like this storm, and he hated being afraid with his father staring him down. Aldric offered little hope.

“At least the devices are all working,” he reported. “But I don’t know if they’ll hold up.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“Not a thing. They all run on magic, and I don’t understand any of it. If they run down on us, there’s no one who can fix them.”

Simon swallowed hard.

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” Aldric asked carefully.

“I didn’t plan on it,” said Simon in his best low voice.

“You know, the sounds out there shouldn’t frighten you. Why, when you were an infant I would put you in a dark room and play terrifying storm sounds for you, with growling and animal sparring thrown in for good measure, and you wouldn’t even cry.”

Simon looked at him like he was crazy. Playing these things for an infant?

“Your mother didn’t allow that for long,” he added.

Simon’s interest picked up.

“I haven’t seen a storm like this since your mother was with us,” said Aldric.

The boy tried not to look too curious. Aldric, he had learned,
didn’t like to talk much about her.

“We were going from Norway to England,” Aldric remembered, “and it was as if nothing in heaven nor earth wanted us to get there. Your mother was as strong as could be. She had you in her arms, worried sick about you, and still she was able to help me crew the ship. You were no more than six months old, wailing and screaming. As it happened, we were pushed back, and the old boat, seeking safety, took us to the nearest shore.”

Aldric had a look that made Simon think there was more to the story.

“Is that…when she died?” he asked. “From the storm?”

Aldric looked grim. “No, not exactly,” he finally said. “Your mother was taken by one of Them. One of the Dragons. The one in New York. She was lost to us in a fire. There’s some poetic justice that you got to help in taking that thing down, I suppose.” He pulled something from his coat pocket. “I have a picture of her,” he said. “I imagine you’d like to see it.”

It was a locket. Simon found it interesting that his father kept it with him. The photograph inside was old. It showed a beautiful, small-framed woman with long blond hair tied up neatly. She had on formal-looking clothes, perhaps a riding outfit, Simon guessed.

“Your mother was perfect, you know,” said Aldric. “Perfect. Light hair, light complexion, light on her feet. A light heart. And she brought light wherever she went. An American, with their sense of ease. Her family owned a farm in England, and the horses she trained were the finest and bravest in the world. I got Valsephany from her. Your mother was sixteen then. Years after that, the horse grew sick, didn’t want to work…. Didn’t want
to live, I suspect. A horse is a sensitive creature. Valsephany had seen too many of her friends die in battle, and she didn’t have the guts for it anymore. I tried everything I could think of. I ended up coming back to your mother. Seems the horse had too strong an attachment to her. He’d grown up with her. They were inseparable. So your mother had to join me. It was that simple. She healed my horse, and I got a wife in the bargain.”

He said these words with a brightening in his expression, which faded away after a moment. “She was taken from us in a flash of light.”

Simon’s mind went still.

There was a clattering as Alaythia pushed past the thrown-about junk at the door. She had a shining mood, even in the storm. “I saved them,” she said, “the artwork’s all put away.”

Simon could not think of what to say. It was as if the storm had vanished. All he could hear in his head were his own thoughts, repeating over and over of how much he hated the wretched Serpent-things. He had never known what happened to his mother.

“You know, I think I’m going to be a big help around here,” Alaythia commented, trying to break the mood. “I haven’t told you this, but I’ve been having dreams about you. At least, I think they’re about you. It’s always the same dream. I’m in a dark place, like a cave, and it’s coming down around me, collapsing, and a voice tells me, ‘
Lead them through the darkness
,’ and I reach out and I pull someone’s hand out of the dark, out of danger. I always wake up before I see who it is, but I’ll bet anything it’s you two. It’s a prophecy. I’m sure of it now. It means I’m going to repay you for saving my life. The way I see
it, I’m supposed to
protect
you.”

Simon and Aldric gave each other skeptical looks. It was an odd statement, and neither wanted to have to rely on Alaythia to save them. Both of them let it go.

Simon huddled down under his hood and closed his eyes, trying to imagine his mother’s voice.