CHAPTER 6
Jewel
Skirting the edge of destruction by staying in the forest, they quickly went to the house.
“It’s lucky the house wasn’t crushed or burned last night,” Mary noted. Indeed, outside of a few shattered windows, the house was sound, except where Grog had smashed the gaping hole in the attic.
George merely nodded in agreement, though right now he didn’t feel very lucky at all. The wards of the house must have helped to protect it, but what really saved it was the fact that Grog had carried the egg away from it.
When they got inside, Mary caught glimpses of parts of the house she had never seen before; rooms full of old books and statues and unnamable oddities. “Incredible,” she said a few times, as George filled her arms with blankets and other items. The house was even more strange and mysterious than she had ever imagined, and it hummed with magic.
They made their way rapidly back to Grog, where with shovels they cleared away more ash around where he lay, and cleaned off the unconscious troll with brushes and towels. George was astonished to find that he was now strong enough to easily roll Grog over and move his massive limbs. “I think I could even muscle him back to the house if it weren’t for the ash and other stuff in the way, and if I wasn’t afraid of hurting him worse. As it is, we’ll probably have to build a crude shelter over him where he lays to keep him dry and warm for now. But I still want to get him away from those dragons as soon as possible.”
Mary worked on building a crude lean-to for Grog while George took care of Harry. He decided to immediately bury him near where he lay, though it didn’t seem right to simply bury him that way. He must have had friends, even if they were mostly in another universe. It also briefly occurred to him that burying a man in his own backyard was probably somehow illegal. He had seen enough TV to know that police and doctors and maybe judges and lawyers were supposed to get involved, along with undertakers and insurance agents and who knows who else. He had found that out when his parents died. But that couldn’t be allowed to happen with Harry, not with recovering dragons in the backyard and other secrets that still had to be kept.
He kept the helmet, armor and sword, but had to bury something of significance with Harry, so he put the glowing elfin shield and most of the dragon eggshell pieces in the grave with the sad, withered corpse, and then he and Mary filled the rest of the hole with rich forest soil.
It was Mary who tearfully said the most over the grave. She talked mostly about how good Harry had been to her and her family over the years.
“Now we need do something about the dragons,” said George, when they had finished.
“I need to soon go home for lunch, or Johnny will come looking for me. I’ll come back soon if I can figure out how to keep him away.”
“I hope you do. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”
She smiled. “You’re going to need more help than I can give you.”
“Maybe I could get it from a wizard, like Harry’s missing friend Jewel.”
“Jewel? That’s the dragon’s name.”
“What?”
“The first unconscious dragon I sensed. Her name is Jewel.”
“And you know this how?”
Mary shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
George turned to regard the three mountainous mounds of singed reptilian flesh. They looked identical, nearly. “The near one, that’s Jewel,” he sensed.
“Correct,” confirmed Mary. “See? You don’t need me as much as you need to figure out your own capabilities.”
“I am such a dunce! I should have recognized her at once! Somehow in the heat of the moment I assumed the third dragon was simply another bad dragon, come to fight over the egg. But it was the wizard crow Jewel, turned into a dragon.”
“She’s a dragon that was disguising herself as a crow,” Mary corrected.
“Yes, of course. A dragon allied with Harry and the elves. Jewel saved our bacon last night, for certain. And she was quietly watching over me for the last three months too!”
“Then she must recover first, or we’ll all be in trouble,” said Mary.
“So then that’s our next task, to try to make her better,” said George.
“And to nurse Grog,” Mary added.
“Of course,” George agreed.
“Grog is a good guy, I can tell.”
“He’s a great guy, and he was Harry’s best friend.”
“OK, I’ll get back when I can,” Mary concluded, as she turned to go.
George caught one of her hands in his and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Thanks for everything Mary,” he told her sincerely.
“No problem,” she replied with a smile, as if this sort of business was routine for her. “See you soon.”
Soon she walked out of sight, leaving George very alone with three titanic ailing dragons and an ailing troll. First he checked on Grog again. He found that Mary had him comfortably tucked under blankets. Holding the troll’s huge head up, George tried to give him water, and was pleased when Grog reflexively gulped down more than a quart, but the troll remained unconscious.
George walked cautiously to the head-end of Jewel to think about how he could help her and was totally overwhelmed by her size. He was like an ant compared to her bulk; her head alone was big as a house. Obviously quarts of water and blankets and such were out of the question for Jewel. He shouted and tried to contact her telepathically. He even bruised his knuckles knocking on a scaly, closed eyelid. Nothing had any effect.
He quickly looked over the other two dragons and decided that they were in no better or worse shape than Jewel. All of them, however, were obviously recovering. He could actually see new scales forming and limbs straightening themselves out. He estimated that it would be a few days at most, but maybe only hours, before all three of them recovered.
If a bad dragon recovered first the game would be over. If they all recovered at once, it would be two dragons against one, but this time with no elf warrior, troll, or element of surprise to help Jewel. Their only hope was to revive Jewel first but he had no idea how to do it.
Help came in the form of a very groggy troll, who briefly regained consciousness while being fed cold chicken soup. “Elec-tri-ci-ty for Jewel,” Grog managed, after George had told him their dilemma. Then the Troll lapsed again into unconsciousness.
“Of course!” George said, as he ran back to the house. If the dragons had fed on lightning; maybe man-made electric power could help them. Soon he had strung together all the power chords he could find and used Jewel to complete the circuit. The lights in the house dimmed, but nothing else seemed to happen. The teen figured that compared to the vast bulk of the dragon, the electricity being supplied was ridiculously tiny.
Late in the afternoon Mary returned, bringing a ham sandwich and milk that that George thankfully gulped down.
“Could you run a power cord to Jewel from your house?” George asked her earnestly. “I don’t think Harry’s whole house ever had more than a refrigerator and a few lights to power. The wiring must be a hundred years old.”
“I doubt I could get away with that, but I think I have an even better idea,” she answered. “We need to somehow use the power of the elf ward. If it can heal the forest it might work for a dragon too."
"Maybe," said George. "Harry had expected Jewel to accompany me into his yard when I first came here. That means that somehow Jewel is in tune with the ward, even if the other dragons aren't."
"I know it will work!” said Mary.
The general concept was brilliant. The healing pinkness of the ward was slowly working its way towards the dragons, regenerating forest as it went, but George estimated it could be days before it reached the dragons, and they didn't have days. What if some of the ward could be diverted to Jewel right away? Maybe it would heal her. But how could that be done?
“We could go to Narma and ask the elves,” Mary suggested.
“I don’t know how to do that, either, and I doubt we h
ave the time.”
“What about all of Harry’s books and writings in the house?” Mary asked.
“I’m sure that if that stuff is written down it’s written in the elf language,” said George.
“I don’t suppose you can read that.”
“Not well enough; not yet,” admitted George.
Mary shrugged. “Then we’ll figure out how to move the ward ourselves.” She led them to the forest edge where the ward was rebuilding the forest. For an hour they used every device they could think of to communicate with and beseech the ward to aid Jewel. As he had found the night before, George could direct the ward to some degree, but he could not get it to accelerate beyond slowly moving boundary formed by the new trees. They tried to capture magic in boxes and bottles and carry it to Jewel, but it disappeared at the boundary. They gestured and cursed. Nothing worked.
“OK, then,” Mary said at last, “let’s ask our experts. You take Grog and I’ll take Jewel.”
George had no luck with Grog, telepathic or otherwise. The troll was too busy healing himself, George sensed. He didn’t think Mary would succeed in contacting Jewel either, as he had tried to do so himself unsuccessfully for much of the afternoon. Therefore he was surprised when she returned smiling.
“She says to have the Chosen One use an elf token of power, whatever that means. Didn’t Harry say that you’re the Chosen One?”
George’s jaw dropped open. “Right, that’s me, maybe.”
“Great! So what is an elf token of power?”
“Maybe Harry’s weapons.” They were still near Harry’s gravesite. George picked up the sword and examined it. The hilt and blade danced with shimmering elf runes and power. He walked to the border area where new trees were growing in earnest, and, feeling a bit silly, pointed the sword a particularly thick batch of ward-power and pronounced authoritatively: “Go help heal Jewel.”
Misty ward power gathered and swirled, but wouldn’t move beyond the boundary. He stuck the sword into wispy tendrils of power and repeated the command after announcing that he was the Chosen One. The ward power thickened at the boundary but would not move beyond it. Stumped, George sat down on the ground with the sword and watched the ward rebuild the forest. It was doing so along and within the boundary, but not beyond it, and doing it foot by foot, rather than skipping ahead to inner regions of decimation where Jewel lay. Maybe what was an inherent limitation of the ward. Maybe it couldn’t heal the forest any other way. Maybe it couldn’t skip past the destruction to reach Jewel; it had to gradually work its way through the destruction.
“Maybe you need to use the sword in another way,” suggested Mary, as though she were reading his thoughts.
George walked to the edge of destruction with the sword and slowly trailed its cutting edge through the healing boundary and into the Evil tinged area of destruction made by the battle, and willed the ward to follow. To his amazement a thin line of ward power followed the path of the sword, inch by inch. Trees sprouted along the new ward line, which slowly widened and thickened on its own.
He pulled the tip of the sword further through the destruction, willing the ward to follow. He found that he had to go at a slow, steady pace, for when he tried to go too fast, the advancing ward stopped. Mary moved ahead of George, pushing aside tainted ash and debris, in order to speed the spreading of the ward.
The resulting progress was steady but slow. They continued to press on, hour after tedious hour, but by dusk they were tiring. The ward had traversed less than a third of the distance to Jewel, and the process slowed further when they reached thicker layers of ash. “Too bad the mountain can’t come to Mohamed,” Mary remarked, glancing towards the still distant mountainous dragon.
George stood and sheathed the sword. “Wait here and rest, I have an idea,” he told Mary, before trotting off towards the dragon. He was back in half an hour, half carrying, half dragging something massive.
In the weaning light Mary finally identified what George was carrying: it was Grog. She couldn’t believe it. A half-dozen weightlifters couldn’t have carried the huge troll through the destruction. George was now wearing Harry’s elf armor, she noticed, but he was still basically a fifteen year old kid, and Grog must have weighed much more than a ton.
“Umph,” George grunted, as he lowered Grog gently onto the thin ward line. “That was a job and a half, but I’m much stronger today than I was even yesterday.” He sat down next to the troll but he wasn’t even breathing hard.
“I don’t believe it,” Mary exclaimed.
“I felt an energy boost from just the sword, so I figured more relics would give me even more strength. Then I figured if I could get Grog here quickly and gently enough, he’d have a better chance. Surprised myself when I found I could actually carry him without much trouble, even while pushing through ash and tree remains.”
He stood up over the troll before kneeling and putting his hands on the unconscious troll’s forehead. “VYVhhhhooooor, krust eees Tro,” he pronounced loudly, before standing aside. The ward immediately thickened around Grog.
“What did you say?” Mary asked.
“I simply asked the ward to heal the troll.”
“But that wasn’t English!”
“You’re kidding. What else would it be; English is all that I know!”
“Maybe it was elfish.”
“How would that be possible?”
“It was elfish,” muttered Grog weakly. With a loud grunt, the troll sat up and looked around. He was weak and groggy, but finally conscious and alert.
“Harry?” Grog asked.
“We buried his body near here.”
The toll’s head sank and he breathed a deep sigh. “Thought so. Harry be old for human. One last big fight be too much for him.”
“Mary is helping me,” George added.
Grog looked at Mary and smiled weakly. “Good. We long hope she someday help.”
“Jewel is banged up and unconscious. We’re going to get the ward to heal Jewel.”
“Before the other two dragons wake up first,” added Mary.
Grog’s eyes went wide. “Yes; is good plan.” His big brown eyes studied the thin line of sward power and emerging sapling trees that led from the forest to himself. With a mighty grunt he rolled himself away from the ward power.
“No,” Mary protested. “You need to heal too.”
“Me be fine soon, small one,” he said weakly. “Trolls heal fast. Need all ward powers to help Jewel.” With that the big troll lay back again, closed his eyes, and was soon asleep.
“I like him,” Mary noted. “He’s good people.”
“Agreed,” replied George. He drew out his sword and resumed his effort to extend the ward to Jewel.
This time, using power drawn from the elf armor, the ward was being extended many times faster. As fast as George could walk dragging the sword through the ash, the ward followed. Mary at first scrambled to stay ahead of him, using a small flashlight to help work around the biggest obstacles and pushing ash and small obstacles aside. But George advanced much too quickly for her to dig away ash. She quickly found that even trying to move obstacles such as logs or branches out of the way wasn’t worth her effort. When George reached them, he easily tossed them aside with his free hand, or cut through them with the sword, without even losing a step.
In only fifteen minutes they reached Jewel. “Krest Vyvhor, eees Tro,” George said, as the ward began to flow into the dragon’s body. Than he stood back and watched. “It’s a start. It’s just a trickle now, but flow should continue to increase as the ward widens its narrow path to Jewel.”
“What next?” asked Mary.
“I suppose you need get home again,” George said, but he was smiling. “I’d rather you stayed but I don’t see how this business can be kept from Johnny for very long.”
“Me either,” said a voice from the darkness. Johnny stepped into range of Mary’s searching flashlight.
“You’re suppos
ed to still be out with Dad!” Mary protested.
“And you were supposed to be at Janet’s house,” Johnny countered. “Which you weren’t. I had that figured from the start, of course. I hadn’t figured on mass destruction and a sleeping Godzilla in the backyard though.” He stepped closer to Jewel. “Is this thing for real?”
“Yes, and it's top secret,” said Mary.
“The Government would pay a billion for this,” said Johnny.
“The Government has already paid far more than that,” said a man’s voice from the darkness. A small, thin old man in a rumpled grey business suit stepped up to the teenagers. “I’m sort of the official Park Ranger for this forest. Call me Rick.”
Ranger Rick. George had almost forgotten Harry telling him to seek help from Ranger Rick! “I’m George, and these are…” he began.
“Hush boy, I know who you all are. Known for years. I got you out of that blasted foster home and got Mary’s family to move next door.”
“OK, than how about telling us more about who you are?” asked Johnny.
“I’m the top Government official assigned to this situation for the last fifty years. Harry started calling me his park ranger as a little joke.” He looked at George. “Why are you wearing his armor and where is Harry Simple?”
“Harry is dead,” said George. “Mary and I buried him earlier today.”
Rick’s jaw dropped and for a moment he staggered, but quickly regained his composure. “Not good. Not any damn good at all. What about Grog?”
“He was hurt but he’s getting better,” said George.
“Who’s Grog?” Johnny asked.
“Hush Johnny,” admonished Rick. “No time for chit-chat. You don’t want this whole area nuked, do you?”
Johnny was cowed at last, and seemed almost ready to cry. “Nuked? No sir,” he said quietly.
“What exactly do you mean, nuked?” asked Mary.
“The Government may decide to contain this situation through tactical nuclear weapons. I’m here to sort out what’s what and help decide.”
“You fear the dragons,” surmised George.
“Of course. The whole point of this project here is to protect Earth from dragons. I’ve worked with Harry for decades on this whole business.” He pulled a flashlight from a suit pocket and shone it on Jewel. “Wow! They're as big and nasty looking as Harry told us! We have satellites in geosynchronous orbit watching this place 24/7, though usually they can’t see through the damn ward. You can imagine the uproar at NORAD when they saw three giant monsters duking it out, breathing flame. If it hadn’t been for standing orders to contact me first they would have had the Air Force or Army attack already. As it was, they still might have attacked, if the dragons hadn’t beaten each other unconscious. Say, just how unconscious are they?”
“There’s more than one?” asked Johnny, who was ignored.
“None of them are fully conscious, but we’re working furiously to revive this one,” said George.
“You’re what?” Rick asked, in a shocked tone.
“In a nut-shell this one is the good dragon,” said Mary. “The general idea is to revive it before the two bad dragons wake up and destroy Earth.”
“Revive it on purpose? And the fate of the world depends on you three young pups doing that, and on you being right about this being a good dragon?”
“That about sums it up,” said George.
“What about Grog?”
“He’s resting now, but he helped by giving us advice earlier.”
“Where is he? I think I better talk with him about all of this right away.”
“I don’t think I can allow that,” George said firmly. “He needs to heal; right now he’s sound asleep.”
Rick’s eyebrows raised. “So you think you have things in hand and under your control, is that it?”
“That’s it,” said George.
“You’re in charge here now?” Rick asked.
“Correct,” said George.
Rick regarded George critically. “Harry figured you eventually would be, assuming you took after your Mom.”
“I do,” said George.
“She was a real pistol as a teen, but I don’t know about you.”
“He’s strong now,” volunteered Mary. “I saw him carry Grog about half a mile.”
Rick’s eyebrows raised again. “Really? What about that rock there, could you lift that?” He pointed at a boulder near George that must have weighed several hundred pounds.
George stepped over to it, casually picked it up, and heaved it into the air. It flew out of sight and could be heard crashing to earth only after many seconds had passed.
“Well I’ll be damned!” said Rick. “You‘re a Simple, all right!”
“Kee-ripes,” Johnny muttered.
“To save us time, whatever deal you had with my Uncle is basically fine with me,” George added, reaching out to shake hands with Rick.
“OK; deal, kid,” said Rick. “But are you sure this dragon you’re waking up is on our side?”
“Absolutely. Jewel saved us. She helped Harry fight off the other dragons. Grog agrees.”
“The dragon is Jewel?” exclaimed Rick. “Jewel is supposed to be a wizard crow allied with Harry! Harry never said she was a dragon! I mean, defense against dragons is what most of this thing has been about for over half a century, and here you folks are aiding and abetting one! Can you understand the conceptual problem I’m having right about now, young man?”
“Perfectly," said George. "I suspect that they’re strongest in their natural form, so when attacked by other dragons Jewel became a dragon again.”
“I’ll be damned!" said Rick. "Makes some sense, I guess. How long will they be unconscious?”
“Till tomorrow sometime, at the earliest,” said George.
“You’re certain?” Rick asked.
“Well, pretty certain,” said Mary.
“OK, based on you gifted kids being pretty certain I’ll go try to calm down the Government nuke folks, and get me some sleep. They dragged me away from an African safari vacation and flew me straight here. My first real vacation in twenty years, down the damn drain! I’ll be back early tomorrow and we can exchange more info and haggle over details.”
“Can you supply an electric generator?” asked George. “Grog said that electricity could help revive Jewel.”
“I’ll bring one first thing in the morning.” He turned to face Johnny. “And you, young Johnny, need to cooperate one-hundred and ten percent, or you’ll be in more trouble than you can possibly imagine. My file on you is over three inches thick already. All this stuff is USA Government Tip-Top Secret. That means no disclosure to anyone.” He faced Mary. “Your file is thin and clean, and I trust you’ll keep it that way, young lady. Besides, according to Harry, you may have an important role to play here in the future.”
Mary smiled knowingly. “I figured as much. From what you said I gather that my family moving here eight years ago was no accident, was it?”
“Not really, and I should know,” acknowledged Rick. “But I’ve said enough for one night. I want everyone to be back here by seven AM sharp. You two Williams kids need to skedaddle home now or we’ll end up with even more Williams folks mixed up in this. And if that happens, I’ll ship the lot of you to Tibet, or worse. No TV or internet or hot-dogs in Tibet. No cars, girls or football either, Johnny. Get it?”
“Yes sir,” acknowledged Johnny. He numbly let Mary drag him by the arm towards home.
“Night, Mary,” said George.
“Good night George; Mr. Rick,” she replied. “See you in the morning.”
Ranger Rick returned his attentions squarely towards George. “If you’re wrong and any one of these dragons wakes up early this place will be nuked. Get it?”
“Got it.”
“You better be right. We estimate over a hundred thousand human collateral casualties if we have to nuke this place. Much worse if the wing shifts and blows radi
ation into Chicago.”
“I am right.”
“Before I go, I’d like to visit your uncle, young man.”
George led Rick to Harry’s gravesite, passing the soundly resting troll on the way. Rick seemed very relieved to see that Grog was in one piece. He approached Harry’s grave with reverence. Aside from loose earth strewn about, only a large boulder marked the site. There Ranger Rick collapsed to his knees and sobbed openly in despair. From working together for half a century they must have become very close friends, George realized. Rick probably knew Harry far better than he ever would.
After saying goodnight, George left Rick to grieve alone. He checked on Grog one more time before returning alone to a very quiet, very empty house.
George was exhausted but had trouble falling asleep. This was his first night in his new bed in his new home and already his new legal guardian was dead and buried in the backyard. Three monstrous dragons slept in the backyard, healing their wounds. At any moment they could wake, at which point nuclear weapons would probably obliterate this section of Illinois. It had been a very rough two days, and could get even worse.
He had an odd dream in which he sat upon the back of a monstrous white dragon that flew through the air high above the clouds. The creature was huge, much greater in size than Jewel and the others. He could sense its immense power, a power that extended also to himself. He wore no weapons, for nothing forged by man or elf was anywhere close to being strong as was he.
“THIS IS OUR FUTURE,” said a voice.
“Who are you?" George asked.
The universe shook with laughter. “I AM YOU, AND YOU ARE ME, FOR YOU ARE MY CHOSEN. KNOW YOURSELF AND YOU WILL THAN KNOW ME. ONLY THEN WILL I COME TO YOU FULLY, FOR THEN YOU WILL BE READY.
“WE MUST TOGETHER GROW STRONGER AND GAIN KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM. A VERY SMALL PART OF MY STRENGTH I GAVE TO YOU ALREADY, THAT YOU MAY SURVIVE AND FLOURISH. YOU HAVE DONE WELL, BUT WE WILL FACE MORE DANGERS SOON, YOU AND I.”
“What dangers?”
The dragon laughed again, than was gone.
****