Dragon Tears Read online

  The dragon lifted his head from his front forelegs and let out a low, menacing growl. The others, awakened by it, immediately came to their feet and Rat’s fur stood straight up on her neck. In the cavern’s perpetual twilight, dozens of pairs of white milky eyes surrounded them and gleamed from the entrance of every tunnel. They were multi-faceted like Larkin’s and Redwing’s, but instead of whirling with color, they shone with the glossy whiteness of the blind.

  “Fear not,” a voice said from the farthest reaches of the cavern. “We will not hurt you.”

  “We welcome you to our home,” another voice said.

  “Who are you?” the wizard asked.

  “We are the inhabitants of the Valley of Death.”

  “I thought only lost souls lived here,” Larkin said.

  “We are the lost souls. There are no others but us, created by the dragon king to live underground, protected from the world above. This was Skyhawk’s plan, and it is fulfilled in us.”

  “But you’re not ghosts,” Redwing said.

  “No, we are the dragons of the earth,” the first voice said. “The earth is our home and from it we never stray. It nourishes us, protects us, and welcomes all who enter here. No one may ever leave.”

  A slithering sound accompanied the words, and they watched as the earth dragon moved in closer. He was exactly the color of the rust brown earth that covered the Valley of Death. His head was triangular, like all dragons, but his wings were mere stubs, and instead of four powerful legs for landings and take-offs, he had several rows of tiny feet that propelled him along the ground. His tail dragged behind him, making the slithering sound that had first awakened Patrik.

  The earth dragon constantly moved his head back and forth while his nostrils opened and closed as if he was sniffing the air around him.

  Patrik recognized the movements as those of someone who was blind. “He can’t see,” he hissed to the others.

  The blind dragon moved in the direction of Patrik’s voice, coming so close that his nose touched Patrik’s tunic.

  Patrik had to force himself from jumping away from the dragon’s inspection.

  “I have never smelled your kind,” the dragon said. “What are you?”

  “I…I am a human.”

  “Ah, one who walks on two legs. We have heard about your kind. We have also heard that you are magic users and no friend to dragons.” The dragon’s lips curled back revealing two rows of deadly sharp teeth.

  Larkin, his injured foreleg still hurting, limped in between the two. “This human is my friend,” he said, “and he is not a magic user.”

  “Our teachings say that all those who walk upon two legs are magic users,” the dragon said again.

  “Then your teachings are wrong, for this one does not.” Larkin rose up to full height and his own teeth bared for battle. They jutted out from his jaws like daggers.

  The earth dragon’s tongue flicked from between his teeth, darting through the air as he thought. “Very interesting,” he said at last, stepping away from the boy and cocking his head into a listening position. “We will discuss this. There are two of these who walk upon two legs, are there not?”

  “There are,” Redwing said, “and they both are our friends.”

  “We understand friendship,” the earth dragon said. “But how is it that you came to be here? We have not had visitors in thousands of seasons.”

  “We fell through your roof,” Wizard Allard said, “when we landed for the night.” The wizard’s arms were crossed and he stood with both legs apart. Patrik recognized his posture as the one he took when he was ready to argue with someone. “What did you mean we can never leave?”

  “The secret of the lost souls has been guarded from the beginning and must stay here forever. You must remain here forever.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  As Patrik thought about their present situation, his hands picked at the milky white grass with worried abstraction. Larkin grazed like a giant horse beside him. The wizard stared up at the jewel-covered walls, a frown creasing his forehead. Only Redwing and Rat seemed unaffected by their sudden imprisonment. Redwing slept exhausted at the far end of the cavern with the cat curled up beside her. Patrik raised his head to stare at Redwing, and realized with shock that he could see every rib in her body.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said to the wizard. “Look at Redwing. She’s going to starve to death if she can’t hunt soon.”

  “I know,” the wizard said. “But I’ll be flamed if I can figure out what to do. If we try to find our own way out, we’ll probably end up quickly lost.”

  Patrik shredded a blade of grass in frustration. “Well, we have to do something. We can’t just sit here the rest of our lives.”

  “Quiet! Someone’s coming,” the wizard commanded.

  As Patrik fell silent, he could hear the sound that marked the arrival of one of the earth dragons. A young dragon, less than half the size of the ones they’d already met, entered the cavern.

  “The Old Ones have discussed the fate of those who walk upon two legs. They may stay,” the earth dragon said. “I am to be your guide. I will lead you to our fields where you may eat and live.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Patrik said.

  “Of course you can’t. This is our sacred jewelled cavern, where we assemble to honor Skyhawk. Everything in this place is sacred to him and cannot be touched. No one may stay here.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Patrik interrupted, “we can’t live here with you. We have to continue on our journey. We have to find Skyhawk.”

  The young dragon tilted his head toward Patrik as if confused by the boy’s statement. “You mean you do not wish to stay with us?” Disbelief colored his words.

  “We can’t,” the wizard said. “If we do, the entire world will be destroyed.” His hands were clenched in frustration.

  “Your world, not ours. We do not concern ourselves with what happens above us. This is our world, and Skyhawk protects it.”

  “If the war in the world is not stopped, it will affect you too,” Redwing said as she joined her companions. “The magic users will steal the life energy from every living thing in order to continue fighting. Sooner or later, they will begin to drain this hidden place, too.”

  “Is this true?” The dragon turned his blind eyes toward Larkin.

  “It is true, and time is running out,” Larkin said. “By now the war must have already started. We have to get to Skyhawk as he is the only one who can stop it,”

  “I will tell the Old Ones.”

  They watched him leave, making note of which tunnel he took.

  “We could follow him,” Patrik suggested.

  “That would only lead us to their council, and I don’t think that would do us any good. If their Old Ones are like ours, they’re not going to listen to anything that might change their way of thinking,” Redwing said.

  Larkin nodded his agreement. “The Old Ones never listen to the young ones, and they never like to change their way of doing things.”

  “I can get us out of here,” the wizard said.

  “No magic!” Redwing replied

  “Well, I just thought I might offer,” Allard said, turning his back on her in disgust.

  When the young earth dragon appeared several sunmarks later, his words proved that Redwing and Larkin’s assessment of the situation had been correct.

  “They would not accept your words,” the young dragon said. “All they would say is that you cannot leave.”

  “We have to. You must make them listen,” Patrik said.

  “They will not, but some of us believe you,” the earth dragon said, lowering his voice. “Many of the young ones feel we need to be part of the world above. Some of us have been going outside for short periods when the sun is not in the sky, and it will not hurt our eyes. We like what we have found there. We want to discover more of it for ourselves. If it’s going to be destroyed, we will never have that chance.”

&n
bsp; He swivelled his head back over his shoulder, listening, and then lowered his voice even further. “I am Blokas. We will help you escape.”

  “When?” Patrik whispered.

  “First you must come with me to the fields. There you can eat and rest. Then, when everyone gathers here in the sacred cavern to honor Skyhawk, I will sneak away and lead you to the surface.” The young earth dragon moved in as close as he could to the others. “It is very dangerous. If you are caught, they will kill you, and they will exile me to the surface forever, where the light from the sun will kill me. You must do exactly as I say at all times.”

  “We promise,” Larkin said, speaking for all of them.

  They all followed Blokas down one of the tunnels, into another, down yet another, and within a quarter sunmark, they were completely turned around.

  “It’s a good thing we didn’t try this on our own,” Patrik said. “We would have been wandering around here forever.”

  “Or at least until we died,” Allard said.

  When at last they entered the earth dragons’ grazing fields, they could only stand amazed. Overhead, almost out of sight was the cavern’s dirt roof, but in front of them, as far as the eye could see, were meadows of milky white grass, dotted with grazing cattle and other herd beasts, all of which had hides in various shades of white.

  “I can’t believe this is all underground,” Patrik said.

  “It is amazing, isn’t it?” Larkin agreed.

  “Why isn’t there any color?” Patrik asked.

  “No sunlight,” Wizard Allard answered. “It’s amazing anything grows underground at all. I’ve never heard of any living things that could grow in the dark, except maybe mushrooms.”

  “Skyhawk is the Creator,” the young earth dragon said. “From him all things live and have their being.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you on that, youngling,” the wizard said. “After seeing this, I’m willing to believe anything is possible.”

  “It certainly fits in with the stories we were taught,” Redwing said. “Only we were never told about this.”

  “It is one of Skyhawk’s secret mysteries and that’s why the Old Ones don’t want you to leave. They are afraid that if the secret ever got out, our home would be invaded. And since our eyes are so weak, we cannot live for long in the world above.”

  Redwing touched her nose to the youngling’s. “Your secret is safe with us. We will never reveal this place or its wonders to anyone.”

  “I must trust you on this,” Blokas said, “as I must trust you on the other things you have told me. I am risking my life in doing so, but since you are also risking your lives for what you believe, then I must believe my trust is not misplaced.”

  He nudged Redwing with his nose. “You may eat here. Hunt and eat your fill.”

  Redwing didn’t need a second invitation. She took wing and quickly brought down one of the cattle-like grazing animals. Rat also began hunting down smaller game and quickly pounced on a field mouse.

  “Thank you,” Patrik said. “She wouldn’t hunt in the sacred cavern.”

  “She was wise. She would have been killed if she had done so.”

  Patrik and the wizard glanced at each other, both thinking the same thing. This was a dangerous place they had wandered into and neither one of them would be sorry to leave it.

  “When will you be back?” Larkin asked.

  “They will be gathering soon for the Skyhawk ceremonials. I must make an appearance, but once they have begun singing, I can sneak out. Be ready,” he said, turning to leave, “we will not have much time. We will have to travel fast.”

  As Redwing worked on her third kill, Patrik and Allard relaxed in the tall grasses, their heads propped up against Larkin’s side.

  “It’s very strange to look up at the sky and see dirt and rocks instead of sun and clouds,” Patrik said, gazing up at the ceiling of the cavern.

  “I find this whole place strange,” Allard replied. “ I’ve never heard of plants and animals that could live without sunlight. And did you notice the tunnels?”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re not like any tunnels I’ve ever seen. They’re smooth and perfectly formed. No human or dragon could have carved such tunnels out of rock and dirt.”

  The wizard paused, stroking his beard. “I wouldn’t have believed such a place could even exist before I came here.”

  “Me either. It makes you wonder if there is something to this whole Skyhawk-Creator stuff. I mean, look at this place. Obviously, it didn’t get here by itself. Someone or something created it, and I keep wondering why, if it’s true, we haven’t heard about it before?” asked Patrik.

  Allard turned to Larkin and Redwing. “I know you are convinced Skyhawk is all powerful, but I don’t think I really believed until I saw all this. I was willing to take a chance that you were correct because it seemed we had no other choice. But, now I think we may really be able to stop this war if we can get him to help us.”

  Larkin raised his head and joined in the conversation. “We dragons have known about Skyhawk from the beginning, at least that’s what we’re taught.”

  “Then why don’t we humans know about him?” Allard asked.

  “Maybe they did before humans started using magic. Our legends say that Skyhawk created both races, so it would make sense that we knew about him and each other,” Larkin replied.

  “Then what happened? Why don’t people know about him now?” Patrik asked.

  “I think I can answer that,” Allard said. “When the races split because of the magic that Blackheart gave to the humans, people began relying more on magic and less on anything else. Magic became the most important thing in their lives. They turned to magic whenever they had a problem.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Patrik said. “But if this Skyhawk could create all this and keep it secret for thousands and thousands of seasons, he must be incredibly powerful and wise. Why hasn’t he done something about magic before this?”

  “Our legends say that after Blackheart split the races,” Larkin said, “Skyhawk got angry, especially with the humans. He left the world to fend for itself, since your people thought they could do it all by themselves. No one’s seen him since.”

  Patrik scratched his head, and then turned over on his stomach to face Larkin. “If that’s true, then what makes you think he will come to our aid and stop the war?”

  “We’ve got to convince him that he needs to do it,” the dragon said.

  The wizard tugged at his beard as he thought. “What that means,” he said at last, “is that even after we find him, our real work has only begun.”

  Redwing was so full that she waddled as she joined her friends, her broken tail sticking up like the rudder of a beached boat. She plopped her swollen body down next to them, contentment making her eyes spin golden with delight. “Finally I’m no longer hungry,” she said.

  “I should hope not,” Allard replied, “but I am.” He pulled a dried fish out of his pack and handed one to Patrik. They were unwilling to risk building a fire to cook their meal since they hadn’t seen fire in any form in the underground cavern.

  Patrik looked at the fish with distaste. “When we get home, I am never going to eat fish again,” he mumbled around a mouthful of dried flesh. He was about to comment further when a loud hiss interrupted him.

  “It’s time. Hurry!”

  The young earth dragon’s head appeared from one of the tunnels off the main cavern. “Follow me.”

  They gathered up their packs and hurried through the grazing land’s long grasses. Entering the tunnel, a second earth dragon greeted them. “I am Sloken. I will keep watch from the back.”

  “We will be going north,” Blokas said. “The farther north we go, the colder it gets, and the Old Ones don’t go there often, because like most dragons, they hate the cold. The Old Ones actually suffer painfully when they get cold. This is why our exit to your world is at the farthest reaches of our h
ome.”

  Although the travelers hadn’t thought past escaping the underground world, they quickly realized that the earth dragons would be taking them exactly in the direction they needed to go.

  “Thank you,” Patrik whispered to Blokas.

  “Thank me when you are free. Now, quickly, we need to hurry. We have to be back before the next assembly to honor Skyhawk.”

  Neither Larkin nor Redwing was a match for the speed with which the earth dragons moved through the tunnels. More suited for flying than walking they lumbered along, bumping into the walls of the tunnel and desperately trying to keep up with the multi-legged earth dragons. Larkin’s injured foreleg slowed him even further, while Redwing’s swollen belly dragged along the ground. Patrik and Allard refused to leave them behind and slowed their stride to match that of the dragons. Patrik stumbled over Larkin’s tail and reached out a hand to catch himself. The tunnel’s smooth, glasslike wall, reminded him again of how strange their surroundings were. He found himself thinking about Skyhawk and the legends surrounding the dragon king.

  “Be very quiet, here,” Blokas hissed. “We are passing the sleeping caves, and there might be a sick or injured dragon resting there.”

  The tunnel took a curve to the right and Patrik noticed that it began sloping uphill. They climbed steadily, losing track of time in the dim twilight that lit the tunnels. Patrik felt as if they had been climbing for sunmarks. The nature of the tunnels changed as they took another sharp right-hand turn. The artificial smoothness of the walls gave way to rough, jutting rocks and crevasses, and the floor was uneven and bumpy.

  Blokas brought the group to an abrupt halt. “We have to go now, if we are to get back before the next gathering,” he said. “Follow this tunnel straight up, and you will find the exit.”

  “It is hidden behind an overhanging rock,” Sloken said, “but you will know when you have reached it for there is nowhere else to go.”

  They turned to leave but Patrik stopped them with a hand on Blokas’ head. “Wait, we haven’t thanked you yet.”

  The wizard, understanding what he should do, pulled out his pouch and dumped all the rubies he had onto the ground. “Please take these with our gratitude,” he said.