The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle (41 page)

I just knew she would trust you, if only she could see …

Yes. But now you know how dangerous that Blade is to us. It's far worse than anything that could kill us outright.

Uh …

You don't see.
Mara narrowed her eyes.
Not a dragon yet, despite your form. What makes us strong?

Amelia looked her over and grinned.

Mara shook her head.
Not size. Not claws or teeth or wings. Not scales, though our skin will turn steel. Not even fire. On your world humans have weapons beyond dragon fire.

Then …

It's our minds, Amelia. That we are masters of shapes, of illusions, that we can touch the minds of most other creatures. All that humans call magic. Our true strength. All that is of the mind.

So when Pier used Wayland's Prism to see inside your mind …

At that moment a little ardin child was my equal. I could not touch her, not by mind, not by fire. My true strength was laid waste.

Her voice in Amelia's mind was steady, but something of her pain and horror leaked through. Amelia wanted
to hug her, the way you'd do if you were human, but that didn't seem to sit well with her dragon form. Maybe with dragons the hugging was a mind thing, too.

I guess that's what Wayland Smith meant to happen. I … I'm sorry.

Mara snorted a warm breath.
I am not sorry. You did right. And most of the Urdar agree.

Most? Not all?

There are some who would kill you for giving the Great Bane to our enemies. I won't be able to protect you always. So you must go home. But before you go, there is a thing you can do for us. It may change some minds.

What? I'll do anything!

First, listen. And then rest. This will take all your strength.

Simon fell asleep wrapped in the Casseri blanket with the Prism Blade in his arms. He woke to find Amelia shaking him. She was back in her own shape. “Let go of the sword,” she muttered.

He sat up and uncurled his cramped fingers. The camp was quiet now, the fires were low. The little sequin moon shone right overhead.

Dark figures moved at the edge of the firelight. The
warriors, still keeping watch. He guessed they wouldn't stop doing that until they were safely through the new gate, and probably not even then.

“What did Mara want?”

“To give me a job.” She hoisted the sword to her shoulder and walked away across the meadow towards the cliffs.

Simon scrambled up and stumbled after her. “What job?”

“Can't tell you. It's a secret. From humans.”

“Oh, so you're not human anymore?”

“Well, of course I ….” She shrugged, and had to prop up the sword again on her shoulder. “I'm not sure.”

“Look at you!” He stabbed a finger at her. “You can carry Wayland's Prism and it doesn't bother you at all. That proves you're not a dragon, so quit pretending!”

She looked straight at him, finally. In the light of the overhead moon, her face was all scowls. “I think I'm both. Sort of.”

“Wonderful. My cousin the dragon.”

“But I'll still come home. Mara says I have to, just as soon as I do this job.”

“We need to talk about things. We need to know what this means, you being part dragon.”

She sighed. Then grinned, and without warning wrapped her free arm around his neck and squeezed.

“Ow! What's that for?” He pulled free and frowned at her.

“That was a hug, sort of. Simon, you're such a geek.” She sounded fond. “Always wanting to know what it
means
.” She walked away into the darkness.

While he was thinking whether he should go after her again, someone touched his elbow. When he turned around, there was Pier. She was easy to see in the moonlight, all pale clothes and skin and eyes and hair. Then Simon realized.

“You got rid of the Earth clothes. And the red!” He pointed at her head.

She tossed her head to flip back the silvery mop. “All of that made people look at me in a strange way. As if I was not me at all. I am their Seeker, I need them to know me and trust me.”

“Oh, right. Makes sense.”

They stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then together they said, “I forgive you.”

Simon laughed, embarrassed. Pier frowned. “I forgive you for breaking your promise to me,” she said.

“Okay. And I forgive you for lying to me. About the Prism Blade, I mean. About what you thought it could do.”

“That is good, then.”

Another uneasy silence. Simon thought:
Here's some­
body who's even worse at talking to people than I am
. The thought cheered him.

Pier fixed her solemn eyes on him. “You will go home now.”

“Yes. I should go right now. I just ….” Worry about leaving Ammy/Amelia.

“We — I and my people — we will leave here, too,” Pier said. “Soon, I hope.”

“For a world of your own. Right. That's good.”

She nodded. “Soon there will be only dragons here. You may never come back.”

“Maybe. I don't know.”

“Then there is a thing you should see.”

Pier led the way out of the camp and up the steep hill to the west. She wouldn't say what it was all about, so he stopped asking and watched his step instead. The moonlight was just bright enough to cast confusing shadows.

When they reached the shelf where the Hall of Gates was, and walked in through the archway, at first he couldn't see a thing.

“Um, I can't go home this way. You know? I'd break my neck at the other end.”

“I know,” came Pier's voice from the darkness. “Something else is here.”

“But there's nothing here but windows.”

The dark wasn't so dark now. Pier was a ghostly figure standing near the western wall. She was gazing up at one of the unbroken stained-glass windows. “Look and see,” she said.

Even standing beside her, at first he couldn't make out what she was trying to show him. Then his eyes adjusted a little more, and the moon, which had inched to the west, touched the edges of the lead strips with silver and traced the shapes of the glass pieces.

The window showed a boy climbing a hill or a mountain — something steep, anyway. Stars glinted in the dark blue sky above the boy's head. He was reaching up with his right hand as if to pick the brightest star.

“It's nice. I like it.”

“It is you.”

“Huh?”

Pier gazed from him to the window, solemn as ever. “It is you, true as life. That was why I trusted you when I first saw you. I knew you were meant to be here, and meant to help us.”

“But — but it can't be me!”

“Why not? These windows show heroes fighting monsters, mostly.”

He laughed. “I'm no hero!”

“Today you fought a dragon with a magic sword. What is that but a hero?”

He couldn't make out whether she was kidding him or not. She just stared back at him. He wasn't sure she was capable of kidding. “But — it's impossible! This, I mean.” He waved up at the window. “I mean, when
was this place built? The dragons didn't build it, so it must've been here — what, ten thousand years, Mythrin time? At least.”

“Time in this hall is strange.”

“Even so —”

“It is you, believe it. Look closely.”

He stood right up against the window and stared up at it. “Well, maybe it looks a little bit like me. But —”

“Same hair,” Pier said. “Same eyes. Same nose. Same chin. And see, the shirt.”

The view showed the boy from the side, facing left. The shirt was loose and looked like a T-shirt. It was red, even in this silvery dimness. And something was written on the front of it — some letters. He could just make out “to be a” and below that, in larger letters, “W G.”

He shook his head, then his brain prodded his eyes and he saw. The letters were just one half of something. The other half was on the boy's other side. “Proud to be a DAWG,” he said flatly.

“There, you see it?”

“I, I don't have one of those shirts.”

“I expect you soon will have one. And see the shoes?”

The shoes were high-topped sneakers with a star shape on the ankle. “Ha! See, that can't be me. I don't
have shoes like that, and I never will. Not my style.”

Pier shrugged. “Leave it, then. It frightens you. You know it means something.”

He had no answer. The more he looked at the window, the more it looked like him. Reaching up to pick a star from the sky. Which star? Why?

They were out on the shelf again before he knew where he was. He turned his back on the dark archway. The moon shone bright out here.

“Well. Uh, thank you.” He looked at Pier. “I think.”

“You will want to come back, now that you know about the window.” She held out her closed fist. “Here, take this.”

He held out his hand and she carefully set a small bundle on his palm. A piece of cloth wrapped around something hard. “What is it?”

“It is from here, so it will help you return. And it is more. Look.”

Pushing aside a fold of the cloth, he saw a small stone marked with a dark star.

Pier leaned close and breathed in his ear. “That is dragon's blood! Very powerful. Quick, hide it, or they will take it from you.” She folded the cloth back over the stone and closed his fingers around it. He slipped it into his pocket.

They walked back together to the camp of the Casseri, and past it, to the river. “Here is a place for you to cross.” Pier pointed. “See, there is a gravel patch, and there is a flat stone, and two more after that. Your gate is straight up the hill from there.”

“Um, goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye.” She folded her hands and watched him as he jumped from the bank to the gravel patch and then to the first stone. It stood up between two glistening arms of water and it was dangerously slippery. He waved at her from there, then jumped to the next stone.

It was a long jump. He didn't quite make it. When he pulled himself out on the far bank and climbed to his feet and turned around again, Pier was still watching. As he stood there with water streaming from his hair and clothes, he thought that at last she was smiling.

Simon had gone just a few paces up the hill when a gust of hot sulphur-smelling air made him whirl around again. The silver-green dragon settled behind him. It's come for the star stone, he thought, shoving his hand in his pocket. He didn't know what the stone really was, or what Pier meant by “powerful,” but he didn't want it snatched from him.

But the dragon only squinted at him. A voice whistled in his mind.
I am sent to see you leave.

It prowled behind him all the way up the hill, crushing yellow-flowered bushes under its clawed feet. He wished it wouldn't walk right there, where he couldn't see it. It made his spine go tight. He expected to feel fire on the back of his neck any moment.

When he was within a few strides of the two trees, the arched space between them filled with sapphire light. He stopped.

The dragon slid past him and crouched behind one of the trees. It looked like an ambush with Simon as bait. There was no time to warn Ike.

The sapphire passage opened and Ike stepped out, holding something under one arm, and the passage faded behind him. His face lit up. “Hey! It's you! Am I in time? Why are you all wet? What's hap—”

The dragon reached a long arm from behind Ike and took what he was holding. It was the burned-out Book of Lands that had once sat on a lectern miles away on this same world.

This we keep. We do not want demons coming here again.
The dragon's pale green eyes moved from Ike to Simon and narrowed to slits.
Go!

Ike's mouth dropped open. “But I only just got here! I can't leave now!”

“Ike! Shut up!” Simon waved a hand through the space between the trees, but felt only air, and nothing happened. He touched one tree trunk. Still nothing.

“Maybe it's too soon.” Ike sounded hopeful. He gazed up at the alien stars, took deep breaths of alien air, and smiled winningly at the dragon. “Maybe it needs time to recharge.”

Simon glanced back at the dragon. Its eyes were shining. Its claws were flexing. This, he could tell, was one of the ones that hated humans. It just wanted one tiny excuse. He placed his hands on both tree trunks. “
Please
,” he said.

“So, even with meeting my dad, and then Mr. Manning, it only took me forty-five minutes to get the book and bring it back and open the gate. And still I missed everything!”

Simon looked towards the house at the front of the garden. “Mr. Manning? What about Mr. Manning?”

“Seems he saw a lot of what happened. Zeph, and you with the Prism Blade, and then Pier leaving. When I got back I found him out here, looking at that trellis thing.”

“He saw all that? And he was okay with it?”

Ike spread his hands. “Don't know. He didn't say much. He looked kind of spacey. He found the base of
the trophy, by the way, in the bushes where it fell. He took it inside.”

The house was dark, and nobody stood at any of the windows. Simon wondered if Mr. Manning was lying down, trying to make himself believe that he'd had a really strange dream.

“We'll come and tell him all about it soon.”

“Okay. I guess we owe him.”

“And then we'll work out how to pay for the cup.”

Ike sighed and jingled some coins in his pocket. “I wonder how long it'll take to pay for a really, really, really antique silver cup?”

Simon rubbed his eyes and blinked at the dark garden. “If he lets us work off some of it, maybe before we start university.” He looked at his watch. The numbers “10:40” glowed on his wrist. “I guess we'd better get home.” He'd get an earful from Celeste. No hope at all that she wouldn't notice how late he was, or how wet.