Raising Dragons

  It had to be—

  “Dad?” he whispered. The weak call swirled around the inner room, echoing back to his ears several times. Hearing his own simple call of faith, Billy trembled. He slipped his arm around his mother’s waist, grabbing a tight handful of her coat.

  A deep, echoing reply came back. “Yes, son. It is I . . . present and accounted for.”

  The sound was more of a rumble than a voice, but its reverberation passed repeatedly into Billy’s ears, filtering through coal-soaked rocks with each journey around the room until the last dying echo whispered the familiar voice of Jared Bannister.

  The droning rumble drilled its way into Billy’s soul, filling him with fear and melting away his confidence. Although he had figured out the prophecy’s message, actually experiencing the fulfillment both in sight and sound brought back all his fears and with them the nagging distrust that only bitter betrayal can raise.

  Billy stepped back from the armored beast. How badly he wanted to embrace the scaly neck, filling his aching, hungry arms with his father’s masculine presence, but an awful feeling held him in place, like chains binding his arms and legs. How could this creature be the father he had trusted all of his life? The long-kept secret felt more and more like a stinging lie that burned more deeply with every passing second.

  He reached out his hand but took no steps. His reach wasn’t enough. He could only grasp a fistful of dark air.

  Billy’s mother stepped forward cautiously and put her hands on the massive body, feeling her way across his radiant flanks and up toward his head. She looked back. “Billy!” she cried joyfully, stretching out her hand for his. “It’s your father. Come on!”

  Billy took one step and reached again—still not enough.

  “Billy, can’t you see? It’s Dad! You knew it all along; you believed in him!”

  Billy tried to answer, but his quivering lips refused to form the words. Finally, he pushed out his pain-racked thoughts. “I—I said I believed, but . . .” He forced back the tears and just stood motionless.

  She stepped back and took his hand, pulling him toward the center of the room. His body tipped forward until his feet had to follow. He offered no resistance, and he threw his hands in front of himself to brace for a fall. His palms slapped heavily on the scaly armor, and his arms sprawled out over the enormous body. The armor felt surprisingly smooth, and radiating warmth spread from his palms up to his shoulders, chasing every chill out of his body. But his doubts remained, his heart resisting and strangely cold.

  Billy’s mother turned to the dragon and rubbed her arms all over his strong back. “Jared, Jared, it’s really you!”

  A new sound rumbled forth from deep within the heaving form. “Yes, my love.”

  “Jared, please forgive me. Billy figured it all out. I guess I knew what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to admit it. I just had too many doubts.”

  The dragon covered Marilyn’s back with an outstretched wing and pulled her even closer. He spoke in a soft murmur. “And where are your doubts now?”

  “They’re gone,” she said, crying, still rubbing his scales. “I’m here; you’re here. There’s nothing left to doubt.”

  “That is all that matters. The prophecy is fulfilled, and I am again Clefspeare. You are blessed for believing, even though you once held doubts.”

  She lifted her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Billy kept pushing me. I said I believed, but he’s the one that got the dog and hunted for you, even though everyone else was ready to give up.”

  “Then his blessing is the greater, for he has believed without seeing.” The dragon looked at Billy, who knelt trembling at his flank. “But where is his faith now?”

  Billy reached to take his mother’s hand, and his voice shook. “I—I believe, that is, I believe you’re a dragon. I knew I had to keep looking.”

  The dragon moved his wing to cover Billy, too. “And I never would have stopped trying to draw you to myself.”

  Billy tried to find the dragon’s face, but the creature’s glow diminished along with the size of the scales as its neck tapered toward his head. Two red points of light floated in the darkening cave. “You mean the ring and the Bible?” Billy asked.

  “Yes. That is what I used to call you here.”

  “To call me? But how could you get to the Foley’s porch without being noticed?”

  “We dragons have our ways.”

  Billy wanted a better explanation. He pictured a huge dragon gracefully soaring over Walter’s house and gliding to a pinpoint stop in the front yard and then lumbering up the steps to drop a trinket or two, but he felt he wasn’t going to get any more information about that. “How did you know the Bible you brought was the one I had?”

  The dragon inhaled deeply and then let out his breath, a stream of sparks spewing into the air along with it. “I detected your scent,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Oh, yeah. I got sick and threw up on the cover.”

  “In fact,” the dragon continued, “I discovered that I can feel when you are near. It is not quite the same as what I feel when danger approaches; it is sweet instead of bitter.”

  “Only when I’m near? How about Mom?”

  “No, not your mother. I think it is because you have dragon blood in you and she has none.”

  Billy thought about that for a moment. Dragon blood, the blood of this huge beast flowing through his own veins. In one flash he was both honored and disgusted, feeling nobility mixing with the coarse brutality of a strange monster.

  Clefspeare shifted his weight, and Billy thought he could see the head, a dark outline in the dying flicker. “Please, tell me,” the dragon rumbled. “What is the fate of the daughter of Hartanna?”

  “We rescued her,” Billy replied, glad to talk about someone else. “She’s fine, except for an injured knee and wing, but she seems to be getting better. She should be walking, and flying, real soon.”

  “Very good! You also mentioned the dog. I saw what happened. Is it dead?”

  Billy pulled away from the dragon and stayed in a crouch. “No. He’s not dead—at least he wasn’t. Mom says he’s in shock.”

  “I remember that hound. He came by here with a mountain man. I made it out of the cave right before they arrived. Take the torch. Bring him to me.”

  Billy looked at the weak torch hanging on the wall, but before he could rise to get it, Clefspeare let out a snort, and a ball of fire hurtled toward the rag-topped stick. It burst to life, and the room cast off much of its darkness.

  Billy jumped up to get the torch, and with the new light all around, neither he nor his mother could resist gazing at the magnificent creature before them. Clefspeare lay on his belly, his noble head raised up at the end of a sleek, long neck. The details of his face were still dim, but the beauty of his eyes was obvious, perfectly circular orbs with sparkling, fiery red pupils surrounded by a shimmering dark iris, a corona seemingly painted by the cave’s bituminous coal.

  Billy ran to the wall, snatched the torch from its blackened frame, a familiar looking strip of metal, and dashed toward the cave’s entrance. With the torch in one hand, he tried to wrap both arms and his coat around Hambone. The hound’s body, still warm but deathly still, sagged as Billy lumbered back into the cave. When he approached the inner room, Hambone began to slip away from his grip, so Billy placed him gently on the floor to try to get a better hold. Now on his knees, he heard voices echoing from within, his mother’s voice, frail and sad. He stopped and listened, mesmerized by the ghostly sounds.

  Clefspeare’s gentle, low growl drifted into Billy’s ears. “Marilyn, you have always known about my past as well as the prophecies. There is nothing I have hidden from you. My Garden of Eden test finally came, and I did not fail. Your husband is now dead, and Clefspeare lives again.”

  The dragon let out a deep sigh. “Although I cannot live in your home, I will never forsake you. I cannot say how often the gems I find will appear on your doorstep, but I w
ill always provide for your needs.”

  A coarser growl seeped into his voice. “Protecting you from the slayer, however, will be more difficult. While I was human, I lost my ability to sense danger. Now I can feel the darkness of a growing conspiracy, a distant evil that has marched an army of shadows into this realm. It is strange, a sort of unearthly influence that I cannot fully describe—sinister, treacherous. And being a dragon in a time that has never known our species, I am stranded in my own world of shadows, unable to freely defend my loved ones. I have a feeling, though, that your protection will be provided no matter where I am.”

  The conversation paused, and Billy shook himself out of his trance. He struggled through the remaining steps to the inner chamber, once again carrying Hambone and the torch at the same time. His mother jumped to help, grabbing the torch and guiding Billy to the center of the room. The fire was already dying; the oily rag had lost most of its fuel.

  Billy set Hambone down and smoothed out his coat over the deathly still hound.

  “Remove the covering,” Clefspeare ordered.

  Billy pulled the coat, gently rolling Hambone to the bare cave floor, and he put it back on his own body, turning it inside out first to avoid the dog’s blood. Clefspeare’s head moved toward the hound, seemingly floating down as his neck stretched out. He sniffed Hambone while nudging him with his nose.

  “He is alive, but just barely. I will cauterize the wound and then make him warm. Billy, go outside and bring back as much snow or ice as you can.”

  Billy rushed out and returned within a minute, out of breath and his arms loaded down with an unwieldy boulder of icy snow. “There was a bunch in a shady spot right outside,” he explained, setting it down. “I rolled it into a ball.”

  “Good.” Clefspeare opened his huge mouth and crunched the ball in his teeth, leaving only a scattering of sparkling crystals on the floor. He pushed his nose into Hambone’s shoulder and let out a short snuff. A tiny stream of smoke arose, and the smell of burnt flesh filtered through the room. Clefspeare then pulled his head back a few feet and breathed a cascade of steam toward Hambone. The white gas spewed far enough to bring a jet of moist warmth to the dog’s body, and the cloud dissipated before striking him.

  Clefspeare continued the therapy for nearly a minute. The dog’s shallow, chaotic breathing changed, becoming deeper and more rhythmic. His tail twitched, the end flipping up and down, and finally, he raised his head.

  Clefspeare turned off the steamy jets and then breathed fire on the torch again, reigniting the dying lamp.

  Billy’s mother jumped back from the flame but hung on to the torch. She extended her arm to avoid the heat. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “I cannot make a torch out of nothing. If I am unable to get more oil and a new rag, I will have no torch at all.”

  Billy scooped up Hambone and caressed him in his lap, allowing him to lick the few ice pellets that lay on the ground. The hound whimpered weakly, but his wide-open eyes told them much more. He was going to make it.

  “I salvaged the rags and oil from Merlin,” Clefspeare explained, “as well as the torch frame that’s on the wall. It’s the nameplate from the dashboard. I recovered everything I could and then burned the wreckage. I didn’t want anyone poking around to try to put the pieces of our lives together. Everything important is safe. The Bibles are in another chamber in this cave, and so is Fama Regis and our box of papers.”

  “Fama Regis,” Billy repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “The title is Latin. It is the story of the king, King Arthur’s chronicles, and the scribe I told you about back home was Sir Devin’s squire. Although he wrote most of the contents in an old dialect of English, he sometimes preferred Latin for titles and prayers. The book is very valuable, so I am sure Devin would like to get it back. His host has been all around this mountain, so I have to stay here most of the time. I sense when one of them is near, and I also sensed your approach. That is how I knew to rescue you from that gunman.”

  “I sensed danger, too. And another time on the mountain, I saved Bonnie from Devin. I left her behind, trying to find help, but I sensed something was wrong and ran back. Sure enough, Devin was about to kill her. I got there just in time.”

  “Then your fire-breathing is not your only dragon trait.”

  “What’s the other one?” Billy asked, laughing. “Arriving at the very last minute after someone’s scared half to death?”

  The dragon laughed, and, oh, what a laugh! The merry rumble swept through the cavern, creating tiny tremors beneath their feet that traveled up their legs, and the noisy tickling made them all laugh together until new, joyful tears rolled down their cheeks.

  For a minute, Billy felt lighthearted, just like old times. But it couldn’t last; a dark shadow pushed into his mind, the realization that the old times were gone forever.

  He put Hambone back down on the floor and stood to face the dragon. “So what now? ‘The dragon shorn lives again.’ Is the prophecy fulfilled? Will the host come to fight you?”

  Clefspeare moved his head to look his son in the eye. “So you have come to understand. Tell me. Where do you fit into the prophecy?”

  Billy looked toward his mother, partly to see her expression and partly because the dragon seemed to be able to see right through him. It was uncomfortable, but he forced himself to make eye contact again. “I guess I’m the child of doubt,” he replied softly.

  “And why are you the child of doubt?”

  “Because I doubted you and Mom. You never told me about being a dragon, so I wondered if I could ever trust you again. I felt like I couldn’t trust anybody.”

  “And now your trust has returned?”

  Billy shuffled his feet and he looked down at the dark, stone floor. “I—I’m not sure.”

  “Then why did you pursue me so faithfully?”

  “It was something that Professor Hamilton said. He said I couldn’t understand the New Testament without understanding the Old, and then I thought about you. I couldn’t understand what you did until I really understood what you were before.”

  Clefspeare pored over Billy’s face, the dragon’s gaze penetrating Billy’s every thought. “And now you understand?” His loud voice rumbled through the cave.

  Billy just stared back, petrified once again.

  The dragon’s fiery eyes brightened even more, and the glowing stare grew ever more piercing. He let out a low growl. “Now that I am no longer in your home, you have to remain as your mother’s only protector. Why did you stand to let yourself be shot?”

  Billy gulped and forced himself to answer. “Ju—just like you said. To—To protect Mom, just like you did on the plane to protect us.” He gulped again and took a deep breath to make himself strong. “It was the honorable thing to do; it was what a brave and trustworthy man would do.”

  The dragon put his nose right next to his son’s, and Billy felt hot, dry gasses surround his neck. The rumbling dragon voice settled into a soft purr. “But that is not all, is it?”

  Clefspeare’s gentle, warm breath settled Billy’s trembling body. “No. When my father—I mean, when you were on the plane, you knew the prophecy had to be fulfilled. You weren’t afraid to be shot.”

  The dragon drew back his head, but only a little. “And you were not afraid?”

  Billy took another deep breath. “I was scared stiff, but I thought, well, I was really guessing, that I still had a part in the prophecy. If I am part of the prophecy, I guessed it would all be okay. If I wasn’t, and everything was a lie, well . . . then I guess I really didn’t care what happened to me.”

  “And what is your part?”

  Billy scraped his shoes on the cave floor again. “I think I know, but . . .” His voice trailed away.

  Clefspeare pulled back and raised his head high. “I think you know, too.” The dragon paused. His cherry-red eyes seemed to burst into flames, and his voice growled. “The slayer will be back, and I must do battle with him.
I do not know when that will happen.”

  Billy cringed at the sudden growl, and the flaming eyes made his bones feel like rubber. Clefspeare’s words brought a new question to his mind, but he wasn’t sure how to ask it. He sat down and spoke quietly, almost hoping no one would hear. “Will you win?”

  Clefspeare dropped his head back to Billy’s level. “The prophecy says that faith will win the war. That is all I know.”

  Billy noticed that his cold hand rested on the dragon’s scales. The skin on scale contact reflected his feelings, warm and cold at the same time.

  He looked back at Hambone, who seemed to be resting comfortably, and wondered what to do about him. “I guess I have to take Hambone back to Mr. Hatfield. He won’t be happy about his champion dog getting shot.”

  The dragon looked the hound over again as if appraising his value. “Offer to buy him.”

  “Buy him?” Billy shuffled his feet to where Hambone rested, and he scratched behind the dog’s ear. “He must be worth a lot, and Mom says we’ll be tight for money. Besides, I don’t think he’ll want to part with a champion hound.”

  Clefspeare moved his head toward the back wall. “Come and see what I have over here.”

  Billy followed the dragon’s lead, but the light grew dimmer where the floor met the wall, so he tiptoed until he reached the back of the cave. He knelt and bent over to get a look at the floor. “I see two piles of stones.”

  “They are all gems. I will polish some to start my regeneracy dome, and others I will give to you. For now, pick out the largest stone from the smaller pile and offer to buy the dog with it. If he won’t sell the dog, at least he will be able to pay the medical bills. I have seen Mr. Hatfield, and he is a lot smarter than you might think. I know his skill; I had to hide from him. He knows these mountains, and I think he will recognize a ruby when he sees one, even in the rough.”

  Billy picked up a large stone from near the bottom of the pile, spilling the others from the top. “Mr. Hamilton said rubies aren’t easy to find in West Virginia.” He looked back at the dragon. “How did you find so many?”