The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle (36 page)

They were sure, at least, that Pier was still here. There was no way she could reach the gate to Mythrin, even if it still existed. The stained-glass window was gone, and the construction workers (no, they'd be
de
struction workers, wouldn't they?) had half of the old library knocked down.

The town hall square was in shadow now. The fountain in the middle of the pool cooled the air a little. Ike was trickling with sweat, his filthy T-shirt sticking to his chest, hair standing up in damp, reddish tufts. Simon guessed he looked much the same, maybe worse, because his hair was thicker and made him hotter. He guessed he also smelled about as good as Ike — which, what with the games and the heat and the walking, wasn't very good at all.

He wanted to go home and stand in a cool shower and drink cold milk and then flop. But he couldn't quit, not yet.

The cold milk they could get at Bruce's Coffee and Doughnuts. They got it and walked east on King Street, past the steel-and-glass façade of the new mall. Simon kept looking up at the sky. It made him nervous knowing there was a humongous dragon that he couldn't see flying around up there.

There was almost nothing to give Zeph away. A burst of warm wind out of the still air, a whiff of sulphur, a shadow skimming over the pavement when there was no cloud overhead to cast a shadow. But once you knew there was a dragon around, you noticed the signs. And you got a prickly feeling between your shoulder blades.

Simon was getting that prickly feeling now. A woman came walking along the street towards them. A small dog with a curly white coat tugged ahead of her on a long leash. Suddenly it stopped, planted its feet, and started yapping at the sky.

Simon and Ike flattened themselves against the mall window. The dog barked and barked and barked, and then in mid-bark it was gone. Its leash flicked up into the air and vanished, too. The woman started screaming.

They were still there ten minutes later, trying to help her tell the police what happened to the dog, when
another scream caught Simon's ear. It was faint and came from a strange direction, high in the air. It was not a bird.

Pier heard the woman screaming two blocks away. She shrank into a shop doorway and closed her eyes. Screaming always frightened her. It dragged too many bad memories out from behind locked doors.

A light sprang to life behind her eyelids. She gasped. Not a light, really, so much as a green-gold-violet smudge, as if a butterfly's wing had brushed the darkness. But it was there.

So, the dragon couldn't keep the Prism Blade hidden completely. There was a rip in the illusion, or perhaps the Prism was working free of the spell.
Maybe it is looking for me. Calling to me.

She closed her eyes tighter. She focussed. Which way?

Amelia tracked Ty down in the woods south of Tower Road. She would never have found him without that sudden voice snapping in her mind while she hesitated on the dirt path.
This way! And stop shouting. I am not deaf.

He was stretched out, all green-blue and gleaming, in a mess of crushed small trees and wild grapevines and, she thought, poison ivy. At first she thought he was all right. Then she saw the way he kept rubbing his right arm with his left hand.

“He got you!” She reached for his arm, but he leaned away.

“A small bite only. He has sharp teeth for such an old one.”

She squatted down beside him, on the side without the poison ivy. The gash on his arm was not bleeding, but
it looked dark and swollen, and the scales at the edges were pulled askew. As she watched, the ragged edges of the wound closed under his stroking hand.

“Does it hurt?”

“No!” Ty flicked his head carelessly. “This is nothing. He could have snapped my wings in half or burned my eyes out. This was just a warning. He said ….”

But he wouldn't repeat what Zeph had said. Amelia guessed it was something like “Stay out of my way, kid.” If Ty had been human he would have been scarlet with shame and fury. He kept clashing his teeth together and glaring up at the sky.

“I guess it's no good asking you to promise not to try it again, eh?”

She'd heard of eyes blazing, but never seen it before now.
I've gone too far.
She stood up and took a step back.

Then, just as she was thinking of making a run for it, Ty sank back into a grumbling heap. “How could you know? You are only ardin.”

“Know what?” She settled herself cross-legged beside him, outwardly at ease.

“Why we of the Urdar almost never give our word. Doesn't that come into your old tales?”

“I don't know.” She tried to remember any dragon stories she'd ever read or seen. “Puff the Magic Dragon”
didn't seem much use here. “The Casseri say dragons are tricky. Like, they lie and don't say what they mean.”

“No! We never lie. Never! That's why ….” He rolled his spine in a giant shrug. “A dragon will do anything not to swear a promise. That is why we slip away between
if
and
but.
Because words have power for us. Words bind. If I give my word, it can never be broken. Never. It will bind me tighter than the strongest iron.”

“But … well … I mean, we have vows and things, too,” Amelia said. She felt shy and awkward, as if she was talking to somebody about their religion.
Do dragons have religion? Don't ask!

“But you can break a vow. We can't. If I say to you, ‘I give my word not to hurt this ardin child, this Pier' …,” he drew a huge breath and blew out a sulphury-smelling gust, “then I could never, never,
never
do any hurt to her, not even if she was about to kill the chief. Or destroy all my people.”

After a long silence he added, “I should not tell you this. I think it is secret.”

“I won't tell a soul. I promise!”

“To you that means nothing.”

“That's where you're wrong!” she snapped. “Can't you get it into your head —”

Twigs crackled. Ty leaped up. When Simon and Ike appeared at the edge of the clearing, he laughed a creaky
dragon laugh and changed to human form. There was a shallow slash on the right sleeve of his leather jacket.

“We figured out where you might've come down,” Simon explained, still from a cautious distance. “We need to talk.”

“Why?” Amelia set hands on hips. “You're on Pier's side.”

“S'right. I'm on Mara's side, too.”

“Me too,” Ike put in, from farther back.

“You can't be on both sides.”

“Yes, we can.” Simon looked from her to Ty. His eyes touched on the leather sleeve. “I don't think any of us can do much about Zeph by ourselves. I think we've got to work together.”

“Right.” Ike glanced up at the sky. “Let's lie low someplace and make a plan.”

Ty refused to lie low. “Like a worm,” he sneered. He insisted on being as close to the sky as possible.

“Okay, we'll go up on the apartment roof,” Amelia said. “Besides, we might spot Pier from there.”

Celeste let them take sandwiches and juice up to the roof of the Hammer Block. She didn't say anything about Ty, because he'd made himself scarce. She only said, with
a casual glance at Simon as he stood at the kitchen table, buttering bread: “They found her clothes.”

“Um, what?”

“That homeless girl's old clothes, in a plastic bag in a garage near the gorge. The police found them stuffed behind some paint cans. There was also an empty tube of neon-red hair gel.”

“Huh.” Simon buttered the edges of the bread with microscopic care. Ike grinned nervously. They both looked guilty as sin. Amelia put on an ultra-bored expression.

“So now they've got a better idea of what to look for,” Celeste added. “Anybody hears anything, you know the number to call.”

“Um, right,” Simon said miserably.

Ten minutes later, while Amelia, Ike, and Simon were sitting at the picnic table on the roof eating their sandwiches, Ty climbed over the balustrade.

That really made the boys jump! Amelia giggled. “Did you think he walked up the wall like a spider?”

No, he'd gone up the fire escape at the side of the building, away from the street. The last dozen feet to the roof were nothing to him. A leap and a scramble and there he was, straddling the balustrade. The rip in his sleeve was nearly healed now.

“This is the very worst place to be.” Simon pointed
around the rooftop with his sandwich. “Zeph could just swoop down and grab us.”

Ike scrambled away from the table and crouched down with his back to a chimney. “Right! Like we're cookies on a plate!”

“Don't worry, little ardin,” Ty said lazily. “I won't let Zeph eat you. If he comes here I will claw him out of the air.” He showed his teeth. “I plan to eat you myself.” Ike went white under his freckles.

“Idiot!” Amelia laughed. “He's joking!”

“Ha ha,” Ike said feebly.

“I know what his plan is,” Ty added. “He will take the Great Bane back to Mythrin where it can be hidden so that ardini will never find it again. And then he will be a hero. He will say, ‘See how badly your chief protects you? Maybe you need a new chief.'”

“So, better for Mara and everybody if we stop him here.” Amelia went over and perched beside him while she finished her sandwich. The three-storey gulf of air at her back didn't bother her. In fact, it tempted her, just a little.
Soar
, it whispered.
Not ready,
she whispered back.

Simon stood nervously within arm's reach, ready to grab her if she teetered. Still playing the big brother, even though he was only two months older and
far
less mature than she was.

She wondered what would happen if she did jump. Would she fly, like in the dream? Or would she fall like a stone, and Ty zoom down, like Superman only with wings and scales, and scoop her up two inches above the pavement?

Not ready to find out. Not yet.

“Are we right about Wayland's Prism?” Ike asked from the shade of the chimney stack. “I mean, that Zeph can't touch it?”

“Can't touch it, can't go near it.” Ty narrowed his yellow eyes at Ike.

“Like, he can't even get close enough to carry the punk, right?”

“Erwin,” Simon said.

“Right, Erwin. So that's why he didn't just fly home.” Ike sat straight up, unwilted despite the heat. “
He
could fly through the gate okay, but he needs Erwin to carry the Prism. And Erwin can't get up there by himself, all that way above the ground. And Zeph can't carry him, because that would put the Prism just too close.”

“Yesss.” Ty turned his head away.

“So, how does it feel to a dragon,” Ike blundered on, smart and eager and completely stupid, “to be near that thing? I mean, do you feel all trembly, or sick to your stomach, or what? Is it like kryptonite, does it drain your —
aaaah!
”

Amelia wasn't a bit surprised, and she guessed Simon wasn't either, but Ike certainly was. Ty had crossed the space of several yards in less than a second, and as he moved he had changed. In one eye-blink he'd blurred, and now he was squatting on Ike's body, clawed forearms and feet pinning him down on the gravel, wings arched high in the air. His jaws opened an inch from Ike's nose.

Simon was already there, tugging at Ty's spurred elbow (now, that was brave) when Amelia arrived. “Ty.” She touched his right hand — a hand, not a paw, despite the claws. “Ty, take it easy. He's a friend. He even saved my life once. From an Assassin.”

“Then let him take care.” Ty shrugged himself off Ike's body and from dragon to human in one movement.

Ike sat up. “What did I say?” he squeaked.

“You said —,” Amelia began, but Ty held out a hand.

“I will say it myself.” He stood on the balustrade, facing away from them. “It
scares
me. The Bane. Yes, it makes me sick with fear to go near it. There, now you know. I am a coward, a worm, not a dragon.”

Silence followed, broken only by the mewing of the gulls.

“For gosh sakes!” Amelia rolled her eyes. “Look, you're only human, right? Oh, sorry.” He turned and
scowled at her. “I mean, you're not a, a hero out of a legend. You're not the great Draum Dreamshaper. And even he couldn't do much about the Prism, right? Why should you be better than him?”

Ty rumbled in his throat and dropped down crosslegged on the balustrade. “I am a fool. When I came here first I thought to fly back as a hero, bearing this Bane, saving my people. Now I cower like a hatchling wet from the egg.”

“That's funny,” Simon said, in an odd voice. “That's exactly what Pier wants. To save her people.”

“She's nuts,” Amelia said. “She thinks Mara wants to wipe out the Casseri.”

“And Mara thinks the humans want to wipe out the dragons.”

“Well, they do.”

“Don't you see?” Simon looked at her and then at Ty. He didn't flinch from Ty's eyes. “If they both think that, they'll never make peace. And then one side is bound to be right. Somebody's going to get wiped out.”

Ty wagged his head back and forth. “This is too much for me. This is chiefs' talk. We must take the Bane from that snake, Zeph. That's all I know.”

Whenever he said “Zeph” he spat out the name as if it tasted bad. The short form was an insult. Amelia
nudged him in the arm with her elbow. “How come you let me call you Ty?”

“What else would I expect from you, ardin child?” He winked.

“Yeah, well, I'm not a child, or not much more than you are. And I'm not ardin, I'm human. I'm your friend. Them too.” She nodded at Ike and Simon. “I mean, Simon can't always see what's in front of his nose, and Ike's a scatterbrain —”

“Hey!” said Ike.