Found (10 page)

I
t roared down over the forest, snapping off the tops of the pine trees as it flew, banking on huge golden wings.

With a crash that shook the ground, it landed in the middle of the road. Its four
taloned feet gouged deep ruts into the dirt.

I knew what it was. Nevery’d told me they were extinct, but I’d seen pictures.

Dragon.

It was as if the sun had fallen down from the sky. The spell-line keened a high song. The dragon was as big as a house, with red-gold, liquid-looking scales covering its broad back and muscled legs and tail, smoothing out over its chest and belly. Its head was mostly muzzle and long teeth; it had horns and a spiked crest that ran in a double row down its back to the end of its tail, which ended in a bristle of spikes.

It folded its golden wings and turned its head, glaring around the clearing with flame-bright eyes.

Across from me, Mud-brown the horse was jerking at its tether and making a high whinnying sound, almost like screaming; so was Rowan’s gray horse. The dragon cocked its head to look closer, and Mud-brown shrieked and tore loose its reins, then galloped off into the woods followed by Rowan’s
horse, its tail flying like a flag.

The dragon let them go.

“Conn, is that a dragon?” Rowan whispered. She stood ten paces away from me, gripping her sword, her face white, her eyes wide.

Trying to move slowly, I got to my feet. If the dragon wanted to eat me, I couldn’t do anything about it, not with my arms tied behind the tree. Not with them free, either, even with my sword in my hand.

As soon as I moved, the dragon’s big head swiveled around and it stared at me, lowering its head, moving closer. I stared back. Its eyes were the deep red-gold of embers in a banked fire. It shifted to the side, its scaled tail sliding over the ground, and raised one of its taloned feet, then brought it toward me. The talon was a curved knife.

Closing my eyes, I pressed myself against the tree, then felt the heat of the talon getting closer.

“No!” Rowan shouted.

My eyes popped open again.

Rowan leaped between me and the dragon, her sword drawn. Her hair had come loose and floated around her head like long, flickering flames. With a quick, silver flash, her sword leaped out and hacked at the dragon’s talon. The dragon loomed over her; its claw flinched back. She jumped back, closer to me, and raised her sword again.

“Leave him!” she shouted.

The dragon shifted, then its claw came swooping down to brush her out of the way. Rowan leaped aside, her sword slashing. The blade cut through the dragon’s scales, but they healed up again, like water flowing over the wound. She whirled and slashed again. The claw drew back; Rowan watched it, breathing hard, her sword ready. The dragon shifted; I saw it bringing its tail ’round.

“Ro—
watch out
!” I shouted. Too late.

The dragon’s tail slithered from behind, knocking Rowan to the ground, then pinning her there, lying across her chest like a heavy log. Her sword lay a pace away from her hand.

She stretched her arm, reaching for the sword. “Conn,” she gasped. “Stay still. Don’t draw its attention to you.”

But the dragon swung its head back to me and raised its claw. It brought the talon forward again. My heart pounded so hard, it was making my whole body shake. The talon went past my face and ’round behind me. A quick slice and it’d cut the ropes tying my hands. I fell forward on my knees onto the pine-needly ground.

I looked up, and the dragon was standing over me, its front legs like two pillars to either side. Before I could scramble away, it lifted a claw and knocked me onto my back, then lowered the claw. One of its talons gouged into the ground next to my neck; the other went through the shoulder of my coat and sweater. I squirmed to try and get away, and the dragon leaned forward, pressing me into the ground.

“All right,” I gasped. “I’ll keep still.”

With its other taloned foot it poked at me, first at my feet, then my shoulder, pushing aside my coat
and pulling down the neck of my sweater with a sharp talon-tip.

“Conn, what does it want?” Rowan asked from where she lay under the tail.

It was looking for something. Oh. I was a wizard; it wanted to see my locus magicalicus. “I don’t have one,” I said softly.

At the sound of my voice, the dragon’s head reared back. The talons closed around me, snatching me up, gouging chunks of dirt from the ground. The dragon’s other foot grabbed my knapsack. With a thunder-clap of wings, the dragon leaped into the air.

“Conn!” Rowan screamed.

I felt the lurch of the ground pulling at me, and a wild rushing of wind. The dragon beat its wings again, an echoing
whumph
; the land let me go and we whirled upward.

Away we flew, straight toward the dazzling sun.

The dragon circled over the pine forest. I felt when it tracked onto the spell-line leading straight south;
we shot away, faster than falling, the finding spell humming in my bones.

One of the dragon’s talons was still stuck through the shoulder of my coat. Just over my face was its foot, like the palm of a giant hand, but covered with smooth scales. I caught my breath and reached up and rested my hand against it. The scales were warm. My hand trembled against them. The dragon’s talons went around under my back, holding me tight, the way a bird’s foot holds on to a branch. It wasn’t going to let me fall. I twisted around to have a look at where we were going.

To the west, at the edge where the land met the sky, the sun was falling down behind low hills. The sky on the other side was turning deep velvet blue, pricked with stars. Below, the land was darkening. I saw a greeny-black blanket of pine forest, then a lighter brown ribbon—a river. Beside it was a wide, soot-smudged clump of houses and streets and towers glinting in the setting sun, the city of Torrent. And straight below us, the scorch-black spell-line.

Rowan hadn’t been hurt, that I could see. What would she do when Argent got back with the supplies? She might realize that the dragon was heading down the spell-line. She might try to follow. Or they’d turn and go back to Wellmet.

The sun flung a few last beams of light across the sky, then sank out of sight. The land below grew dark. An icy-cold wind whistled past, but the dragon’s foot kept me warm. I leaned to the side and looked up between the talons that curled around me. The stars hung down so low and bright, I could have reached up and brushed them aside with my hand to see into the deep, velvet-black sky.

The dragon flew straight through the night. I had time to tease out the knots and get Argent’s rope off my wrists. And to think about what the dragon wanted me for.

Clear as clear, it’d come down the spell-line, and it was bringing me back up the spell-line. It could’ve killed Rowan, but it hadn’t; I didn’t think it meant
me any harm, either. It might have some other reason for coming to fetch me, but we were flying toward my locus magicalicus, and that was reason enough for me.

“Fly faster, dragon,” I said.

It wouldn’t hear me, even if it did have ears among all the spikes on its head.

I lay still and listened to the wind rushing past and the
whumph-whumph
of the dragon’s wings beating overhead. When I got cold, I curled against the hearth-warm foot and watched the darkness flow by outside my talon-cage.

What would Nevery think if he could see me now?

Curse it
,
boy
, he’d say.
Be careful.

Right, Nevery. I’d be as careful as I could.

Magister Nevery,

Conn said one of these black birds would carry this message to you. We were attacked by a dragon, which has taken Conn away with it. It flew along the finding spell-line. We think it must be taking Conn to his locus magicalicus, but we cannot be sure. Sir Argent and I are returning to Wellmet as fast as we can ride, for I have been away too long.

Sir, if you can, will you tell my mother to expect my return? She will be very angry with me. I followed Conn, hoping that if he returned to Wellmet with me he would not be punished for returning from exile. I know Conn well enough to know that he’ll come back to Wellmet, no matter what.

Magister Nevery, I have been taught that dragons once lived in the Peninsular Duchies but that they’ve been extinct for hundreds of years. Something very strange is going on. I suppose neither of us should
be surprised that Conn is at the center of whatever it is.

I am making all possible haste.

Very sincerely yours,
Rowan Forestal

M
orning came. First the sky turned metal-gray, then lighter at the eastern edge. The air was thin and icy cold; I shivered in my sweater and coat and huddled closer to the warmth of the dragon. I peered
down between the talons to see where we were.

I’d never seen mountains before, but Rowan had shown me pictures, so I knew what I was seeing. We flew over mountains with shadowy pine forests around their knees giving way to broad snowfields glimmering pink in the dawn light, then steep walls and crevices thrusting up to peaks so high that clouds streamed from them like gray-white banners.

The dragon flew among the peaks, deeper into the mountains. The morning sun gleamed off the jagged rock faces; the valleys stayed dark.

The dragon banked, making my stomach lurch, gliding ’round the shoulder of one mountain, and I caught a glimpse of the tallest cloud-wrapped mountain yet, straight ahead of us, and then the dragon folded its wings and plunged down.

The wind screamed past, and I clung to a talon with both hands. Outside was a whirl of gray rock face, a flash of bright blue sky, and then a snowfield racing past just below me, smooth and white.

With a clap of its huge wings, the dragon made
a sharp turn, flinging me against the side of my claw-cage; then the claw opened and I dropped like a bundle of sticks through the air and—
flumph
—landed in the snow.

I heard something else fall into the snow not far away, and then I ducked my head as the dragon swept up its wings and climbed back into the sky.

Lying in the snow, blinking ice crystals out of my eyes, I watched it go. Up the slope it flew, then ’round the side of the mountain, the sun gleaming off its ember-gold scales.

I sat up and looked around.

After the rushing of wind and pumping of dragon wings all night, everything seemed very quiet. I heard the wind whispering across the snow. And something else.

Shedding snow, I stood up, blinking away the white-bright light, and shaded my eyes with my hand to look. All I could see was a snowfield sloping up to a rock ridge that led like a staircase up and around the side of the mountain, where the dragon
had gone. I turned and saw the tree line far below, pine trees and piles of gray rocks. I closed my eyes against the dazzle-bright snow and listened.

Yes, coming from higher up the mountain, the singing of the spell-line.

The other
flumph
sound had been the dragon dropping my knapsack. I clumped through the snow, picked it up, and slung it on my back.

The snow was cold, creeping into my boots and making my toes numb; the wind rushing over the snow was cold. But the morning sun lay warm on my black coat.

The spell-line wasn’t far away.

I headed toward it. Toward my locus magicalicus.

From far away, the stone stairs leading ’round the side of the mountain had looked like ordinary stairs, but when I got up close I saw that they weren’t. I stood at the bottom of the staircase, knee-deep in snow, and looked up. The stairs had been cut out of
the side of the mountain, and each step was as high as I could reach. Steps for giants. They led to the spell-line.

I took off the knapsack and tossed it up onto the first step. Standing on my toes, I got my fingers over the edge and pulled myself slowly up, finding cracks for my feet in the stone. I picked up the knapsack and tossed it to the next step, and the next, and the next, and climbed up again and again, until my arms were quivering with tiredness and I had a scrape on my chin and bruised knees from trying to scramble up the rock face. Catching my breath, I stood and looked back, over the snowfield to jagged snowy peaks and brilliant blue sky.

The spell-line was pulling at me, but it was far enough away that I could take time for a rest. I sat down on the stone step and checked my knapsack. Four stale biscuits as hard as rocks, a packet of dried apples, a canteen half full of water, my pencils and paper, a tin cup, a block of cheese about as big as my fist, and the spell-book Nevery’d given me. Enough
to eat for a few days, anyway. I ate a few pieces of dried apple and, still chewing, lay down. The stone was like the old, pebbly, wrinkled skin of the mountain under my back. I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my eyelids. The air was cold, but the rock beneath me felt warm.

A shadow passed over the sun; I felt it on my face and heard a
whoosh
of wind. I opened my eyes and sat up.

The flame dragon. It crouched four steps above me, its wings outspread, watching me.

I felt like a mouse about to be pounced on by a hawk.

“All right, I’m coming,” I said, getting to my feet. Keeping an eye on the dragon, I picked up my knapsack and threw it onto the next step. My fingers were cold and scraped from clinging to the rock. My neck was warm, though, wrapped in the scarf Benet had knitted for me. I started pulling myself up the step when the dragon dropped from its perch, flying right over my head in a rush of
wind. It banked and went around the shoulder of the mountain, where the stairs led.

I climbed until the sun was perched on the mountains to the west, and the snowfield was rosy-gray with the coming night, and the wind off the peaks had grown teeth that nibbled at the back of my neck. The air felt thin, making my breath come in quick gasps. I’d come ’round the side of the mountain. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the blackened path, where the finding spell had burned its way through the snow, leading from Wellmet, far away, to this place. Ahead the spell-line joined the stone stairs and scorched straight to an opening in the side of the mountain that looked like a wide, dark mouth. A cave.

Over the cave perched the flame dragon, clinging with three of its clawed feet to a spire of rock. It gazed down at me with its fire-bright eyes.

On the next step, I climbed into the spell-line.

It wrapped itself around me so I couldn’t feel the
wind or my tired arms. The spell dragged me up the last few steps until I stood with my knapsack at my feet on the wide stone step before the cave, where the scorch-mark ended.

The call of the spell-line flickered like a guttering candle and went out.

Everything was quiet. The sky had turned dark blue-black and the full moon had risen behind the mountain, sending sharp shadows and milky white light down to splash across the cave’s doorstep.

The finding spell had led here. Sure as sure, somewhere in that cave was my locus magicalicus.