The Dragon of Avalon

  25: ONE OF A KIND

  Personally, I'd rather keep things simple, but the plain fact is that life is full of paradox: We are all alike, while at the same time, we are all unique. That's utterly crazy, I know—but also utterly sane.

  Aylah swept across the sky, banking graceful turns around billowing clouds, clearly savoring her newfound freedom. Although the tiny green-scaled creature she carried could no longer fly, he felt the same delight in soaring freely. With every sweeping turn, Basil leaned into the coursing wind, his round ears fluttering. He loved to feel the air rushing past, just as he loved to hear its endless serenade of whistles.

  As they flew beyond the edge of Airroot and into the dark sea of mist that rolled between the realms, cold currents of air jostled them. One gust hit so abruptly it flipped Basil onto his back. His wounded wing, which he'd been holding tight against his side, blew wide open.

  "Aaaggh!" he shouted in pain. Rolling back over, he folded his wing again. But it throbbed intensely.

  "Do not hhhworry, little hhhwanderer," said the wind sister, raising her breathy voice enough to be heard above the gusts. "The very best person to mend your hhhwing is the same person we are searching for."

  "Merlin?"

  "Yes, my friend. Hhhwe seek him for Avalon's sake . . . and nohhhw also for yours."

  "I hope we'll find him soon," Basil muttered.

  With that, Aylah flew lower, losing altitude steadily. Soon the dark swirls of mist began to shred. Warmer air blew over Basil, smelling like rotten eggs. Hot dust particles burned his eyes. All at once, the remaining mist evaporated, revealing a new landscape below.

  Charred ridges of red and black stone, many of them crested with flames, stretched into the distance. Volcanoes rose out of the ridges like huge, fiery snouts, belching clouds of sulfurous smoke while their slopes glowed with molten lava. Between the ridges flowed rust-colored rivers whose banks swirled with smoke, as if their very waters were aflame.

  So this is Fireroot. Gazing down on the blazing landscape, he shuddered. How could anything survive here? Yet he knew some creatures did—including the flamelons, known for their skillful metalwork . . . and also for their tempers that burned hotter than lava.

  Aylah swept even lower. As they sailed across one wide valley, Basil saw a thick cluster of ironwood trees, whose fiber was so hard, he had heard, that it couldn't burn. Even so, he wasn't impressed. Is that what passes for a forest here? Compared to Woodroot, it's just a bunch of dry grass.

  Swooping down into the valley, Aylah dropped him gently onto a fire-blackened boulder. "Hhhwait here," she commanded. "I hhhwill make a quick search for Merlin. The fastest hhhway for me to do that is to spread myself to the absolute hhhwidest—hhhwhich hhhwill make me too thin to carry you."

  Basil swished his tail across the boulder, scraping off flecks of charcoal. "You'll come back soon, right?"

  "Ohhh yes, and I hhhwill bring nehhhws of hhhwhatever I find—hhhwhether of our hhhwizard or a meat you hhhwill hhhwelcome."

  As she flew away, leaving him behind, a fire plant suddenly flickered at the base of the boulder. Reaching out of the charred ground like a ghoulish hand of flame, its fiery fingers stroked the side of the rock, stretching up toward his tail. Quickly, he crawled away to the other end of the boulder. But with a spurt of fiery gases, another flaming hand erupted at that end.

  They sense I'm here, he realized. Whatever they are! And they want to roast me for a meal.

  Instantly, he scurried back to the center of the boulder. Safely out of the fire plants' reach, he could now survey his surroundings. Fire-blasted rocks lay all around. Curls of smoke hung in the air, spiraling through the needled branches of the ironwood trees. Flecks of dust, smoldering like ashes from a campfire, stung his nostrils. Vents opened in the ground every few seconds, spewing hot lava.

  Then he noticed a narrow crevasse that split the nearby ground. Waves of heat rose from it, making the air above quiver constantly. It wasn't this motion, though, that caught his attention. No, there was a different sort of motion down inside the crevasse. The fissures along the edges seemed to be moving, slithering as if they were alive.

  Dozens, maybe hundreds, of tiny orange lizards were moving in and out of the heated fissures. Salamanders! Basil had heard bards' tales of these little creatures, so well adapted to the extreme heat of Fireroot that they could actually sleep in molten lava and never get burned. Right now, as he watched, some of them were casually rolling around inside a fire plant at the rim of the crevasse. Though spurts of flame licked their bellies, the salamanders didn't even seem to notice.

  A sudden, bizarre thought struck Basil. Is there any possible way . . . ? He squinted his eyes, irritated from the dust, while he peered at the salamanders. They were just about his same size. Their heads were the same shape, though not their ears. They had small clubs at the ends of their tails, just as he did.

  He swallowed with difficulty, as if fire had scorched his throat. Just then a smoldering fleck of dust landed on his ear. "Eeeeyaaah!" he cried in pain, leaping into the air. As he landed back on the boulder, the hot particle fell away.

  Glumly, he shook his head, wincing from the burn on his ear. Foolish fungus-brain! Just because you look a bit like them, you're not related—any more than you're related to eaglefolk just because they have wings.

  Air gusted suddenly, whooshing so loud he could no longer hear the surrounding sputter and crackle of flames and lava vents. "I have returned, little hhhwanderer."

  "Any sign of Merlin?"

  "No," she said glumly. "He is nohhhwhere to be seen! Hhhwe must keep searching." Brightening a little, she added, "I did, hohhhwever, find your meal—not far from here."

  Basil, still preoccupied, glanced again at the salamanders.

  The wind sister spun closer, lifting him off the blackened boulder. So strong were the odors of sulfur and smoke, he could barely smell her cinnamon scent. "But I can tell that you are hhhworried. Hhhwhat troubles you?"

  He drew a breath, shallow enough to avoid inhaling too much smoke. "Aylah, you've seen much of Avalon, haven't you?"

  "Hhhwhy, yes. And other hhhworlds, as hhhwell."

  "Can you tell me something, then? Have you ever seen someone else who is—" He paused to swallow. "Who is . . . like me?"

  The wind sister whirled for a moment. Hovering in the air above the grove of ironwood trees, she replied, "No, little hhhwanderer. from all I have seen, in all the hhhworlds, there is no one else like you."

  Grimly, he nodded. "Of course not. I should have guessed."

  "That needn't hhhworry you, little hhhwanderer."

  He gave a mirthless laugh, scoffing at her. "So it's good to be one of a kind?"

  "Perhaps," she replied, whispering softly.

  Flying lower, she carried him down to a lone flower that grew among the twisted roots of a tree. Its delicate orange petals quivered in the wind. "This flohhhwer, you could say, is one of a kind. Found only here in Rahnahhhwyn, it's called firebloom, and it looks unlike any other flohhhwer in any realm. Frail and small, it seems—yet it's surprisingly strong. After a fire, it's the very first living thing to grohhhw back. So in a hhhway, it's much like you: strange to look at, but more than it seems."

  He shook his head. "But that's not the same, is it? There are lots of these flowers in this realm. Not just one."

  Aylah heaved a sigh.

  "And that isn't all," he went on. "The worst part isn't being one of a kind. It's not knowing what kind that is! Aylah, so much has happened since that day you saw me hatch—but I still have no idea what I am."

  The wind sister spun around him for a long moment. At last, she whispered, "You are my friend, little hhhwanderer."

  Basil nodded—still feeling glum, but maybe not quite so much. "Yes," he said finally. "That's one thing I do know I am."

  "And I knohhhw you are also something else."

  "What?"

  "Hungry."

  "Right! You found—"

  "A hh
hwonderful meal." She flew into the grove of ironwoods, carrying him on a rapid zigzag through the maze of branches. He swooped under one branch and, the next instant, over another and then through the middle of a forked trunk. Diving beneath a precariously leaning tree, he shot straight through a drooping bunch of rust-colored needles. Then, as needles drifted to the ground, he veered to make a sharp turn past another tree—coming so close that its bark scratched against his tail. Never slowing, he zipped around, over, and under branches, more than he could count. When, at last, his flight came to a halt, he found himself hovering directly in front of a massive old tree with a hole in its trunk as big as a melon. And that hole was jammed with bees.

  Bright red bees. Crawling over one another, they buzzed as they swarmed in the hole, moving in and out of the tree.

  "Those, my hhhwanderer, are burning bees, whose stings burn worse than fire."

  He frowned. "They must be delicious."

  Currents of laughter bounced him. "They are not. But their honey is! And it is also rich in healing pohhhwer."

  He scrunched his snout. "But to get anywhere near that honey, you have to—"

  Without warning, she dropped him. He plunged into a thick bed of needles, deep enough to cushion his fall. Just as he lifted his head out of the needles, he witnessed an amazing event.

  A mighty gale-force wind slammed suddenly into the tree. Twigs flew, clusters of needles exploded, and roots popped as the trunk bent backward under the weight of this screaming wind. The hole in the trunk burst apart, spraying honey-soaked shards of bark across the grove.

  Then, as abruptly as it had arrived, the violent wind departed. As the trunk sprang back to its upright position, that whirling gust tore through the grove and blew down the valley, carrying along with it countless twigs, shards, needles—and bees. Basil stared in astonishment at the old tree, where golden honey now oozed from the gaping hole.

  "Not a single bee left behind!" he crowed. "Aylah, you are incredible."

  Knowing he had little time to lose, he waded through the bed of needles and climbed onto a knobby root of the old tree. Taking care not to bump his injured wing, he slid under a broken branch and continued crawling up the root until he reached the base of the trunk. For an instant, he thought back to his glimpse—back at the start of his journey—of the steep cliffs that were really the base of another, far greater Tree. Then, with no further delay, he lunged at the stream of honey dribbling down from the bees' overflowing cache.

  Licking the sticky substance with his tongue, he drew back in surprise. This honey tasted very strange—not sweet, but roasted, like charred nectar. Yet it made him feel refreshed—as if he'd swallowed a whole field of zestflowers. It also renewed his strength, so that even his broken wing throbbed a bit less painfully. Best of all, it filled him with warmth, a slowly swelling heat that moved from the tip of his tongue down to the middle of his belly.

  He took another lick. This time, his tongue swept up a big glob of honey—and also a tiny fleck of burned dirt that had blown into the bees' hideaway. That was why, when he swallowed, he tasted the soil of this realm.

  I am flame! The voice in Basil's mind crackled and spat like burning coals. Hot do I burn—ever hungry, ever alive. My body is bright light and dark smoke. And my essence is change: ashes to soil, soil to wood, wood to ashes. Transformation is my deepest longing, my greatest power. Nothing resists me forever. All things I can become.

  The voice crackled with delight. For I am flame.

  By the time Aylah swept back into the grove to retrieve him, he felt revived by the honey . . . and renewed by the strange new warmth inside him. It felt, almost, as if a different kind of fire had been kindled in his heart: a fire of change. All things I can become. Those words echoed in his mind.

  He wondered, as he'd done so often, what kind of creature he might really be. Yet this time, aware of the magic of change within him, the focus was different. This time, he wondered what he might someday become.

  Whatever that turns out to be, he felt sure, it will be unique. Like this journey—and like me.

  Still savoring the taste of honey on his tongue, he nodded. One of a kind.

  26: ECHOES

  The older I get, the stronger my bearing. Not because my ears are any better, mind you—but because I've learned how to listen. Hearing less talk; hearing more truth.

  Basil caught one last view of fireroot, as Aylah carried him up into the rust-tinted clouds: a pair of jagged volcanoes that spewed unending streams of smoke and lava. Between their summits yawned a massive crater, blackened by ash and soot. Dozens of rocky pinnacles poked up from the crater's rim; tilted in all directions, they looked like the crooked teeth of a huge, perilous mouth.

  "Wouldn't want to land down there," he mused. "We might get swallowed."

  Aylah jostled him as she chuckled.

  "Are those—yes! I see people walking down there."

  He pointed at three people walking along an open stretch of the rim between the pinnacles. Two men and one woman, they all had long, silvery hair. Despite the harshness of the landscape, they strode casually, seeming entirely at home.

  All of a sudden, they started running straight at a sheer cliff that plunged into the crater. Rather than slow down as they neared the cliffs edge, they sped even faster. Their silvery hair streamed behind them, bouncing with every stride. When they reached the edge, all three leaped into the air,

  Basil caught his breath, certain he was about to see them all die, smashed against the rocks below. Instead, though, all three of them suddenly sprouted enormous wings. Red-tipped feathers covered their backs, while fearsome talons grew from their feet. Leaning into the wind, they soared across the crater and over a flaming river of lava.

  "Eaglefolk!" Basil's green eyes watched in wonder. "Look at those wings, so wide and strong."

  Aylah swept around her passenger, lifting him higher. "You miss your ohhhwn hhhwings, don't you? Soon, little hhhwanderer, hhhwe hhhwill find Merlin, and he hhhwill heal you."

  "Good," he replied, adjusting his broken wing against his back. The movement made the whole wing throb, sending shafts of pain through his ribs and down his spine. Even so, he declared, "But that's our least important goal. Much as I want to be healed, I want even more to warn him about Rhita Gawr. We've lost so much time!"

  "Hhhwe hhhwill find him," she promised, yet her voice didn't sound quite certain.

  Careful not to move his wing again, he tilted his head thoughtfully. "Maybe we should look in some realm besides the three we haven't checked—Shadowroot, Waterroot, and my old home, Woodroot? I mean . . . as much as I'd like to see all seven realms—is there someplace, other than those three, where we're more likely to find him?"

  "No," answered the wind sister, ruffling his ears. "There is no realm more likely than any other. Hhhwe should try those three—and if hhhwe don't find him, hhhwe hhhwill return to the realms you have already seen."

  "Again and again, if we must,"

  "Yes," she agreed. "And on the hhhway, you hhhwill keep your promise to Dagda."

  "Only if it doesn't slow us down."

  "Do not hhhworry! Hhhwe hhhwill travel very fast—hhhwith the speed of the hhhwind. And I hhhwill stretch myself out to the hhhwidest, everyhhhwhere we go, to see if Merlin is near."

  The clouds thickened around them, weaving a red-tinted shroud. With each passing second, the darkness deepened. While Aylah kept flying, soon Basil couldn't see anything but blackness. Only the continual rush of air against his face, vibrating his cars, assured him that they were, in fact, still moving.

  Many minutes passed as they continued to fly. But the darkness showed no sign of dissipating. Rather, it only deepened. It pressed against them, squeezing tighter, like a solid fist. Never, he thought, have I seen a cloud as thick as this.

  "It is not a cloud," whispered Aylah, guessing his thoughts. "It is night. The eternal night of Shadohhhwroot."

  He stiffened. "You're right! There aren't any clouds now.
I don't feel their coolness, their moisture. All I feel is . . ."

  "Night." The wind sister surged ahead, never slowing. "In this realm, little hhhwanderer, there is no light, no dahhhwn, no starlit sky. The lands hhhwe are flying over nohhhw have never seen a single ray of light."

  He shivered, though not from cold. "How terrible. Nothing but darkness! Every day, every year. Why was this realm so cursed?"

  "Only the hhhwind sisters knohhhw hhhwhy it is alhhhways dark in Shadohhhwroot." She slowed slightly, so the air gusted less forcefully against him. "Yet it hhhwas not because of any curse, ohhh no. Hhhwhile this realm holds many terrors, it is true . . . it holds many hhhwonders, as hhhwell."

  "Wonders? Not likely." He shuddered. "I've never much liked the dark, Aylah. For a little fellow like me, it can be more dangerous than a flock of dactylbirds."

  "Ahhh, but even a dactylbird is not hhhwholly evil."

  "You don't know them like I do! They can make a wrathful dragon seem like a songbird."

  "But the dark, little hhhwanderer, can hold surprising virtues. That is hhhwhy the museos, hhhwhose songs are so very soulful, come from Shadohhhwroot. Hhhwhy some elves have chosen to live not in the forests of hhhWoodroot, but in the dark valleys below the Evernight Peaks. And hhhwhy this realm's true name is Lastrael, the elvish hhhword for hidden treasures."

  Unconvinced, he shook his head. "Sorry, Aylah. You'll never persuade me. Take me down there so I can taste the soil, but I don't want to stay long."

  She blew upon his face, so hard his eyes watered. "For a brave hhhwarrior hhhwho destroyed a hhhwindtaker, you sound rather hhhworried."

  "We're flying into a realm of total darkness! I'm just being sensible, that's all." He blew a breath back at her. "Now, take me down so I can keep my promise to Dagda—though I don't expect to find anything special about this place."

  "All right, my hhhwanderer. And hhhwhile you are doing that, I hhhwill scour the landscape for Merlin."

  "But how? You can't possibly see him."