Cherries Jubilee.
Or maybe it was more like Bananas Foster. Or Crepes Suzette. It bothered him that he couldn’t identify it precisely. Strawberries Romanoff, maybe, or Baked Alaska. In addition to adding to his ongoing frustration, these particularly toothsome remembrances were making him even hungrier. Then it hit him. What all those splendiferous desserts had in common. They were all flaming desserts. That was what they were smelling. Burning alcohol. As the pungent tickle in his nostrils intensified, he found himself looking around more and more anxiously.
Then the girls let out a simultaneous scream, Pithfwid threw sparks as he yowled a warning and jumped backward, the ground erupted in front of Simwan, and though they could not immediately identify the thing that emerged from the bowels of the earth directly before them, of one thing they were all right away certain. It was not a forgotten dessert.
If it was a dragon, it was surely the most peculiar representative of its kind Simwan had ever seen. Not that he had actually seen more than a dragon or two (there was that time several years ago when the family had vacationed in China), but they had been part and parcel of his after-school studies ever since he was old enough to peruse the special books in the family library. Yet what else could it be but a dragon?
The gaping mouth was huge and lined with appropriately vicious-looking, hooked teeth—but the jaws narrowed almost to a point. The eyes were set low down on the skull, which was as smooth and aerodynamic as the business end of a guided missile. For a moment, Simwan thought the apparition was wingless. Then the wings—two pairs, not one—extended from where they had been folded flat against the creature’s flanks. Instead of being dark and bat-leathery, they were veined and iridescent, like those of an immense dragonfly.
The four of them were also each twenty feet in length. Fully unfolded, they beat the air like long, thin propellers, lifting the rest of the coiling, twisting, muscular body completely out of the ground. Slim fore and hind legs were tipped with talons so gracile they looked as if they had been manicured in one of Fifth Avenue’s finest beauty salons. Except for the iridescent wings and red eyes, it was a bright, shining silver all over, as chrome-hued as the hood ornament on a luxury car.
If ever a dragon had evolved to commit both butchery and ballet, the beast hovering high in the moist night air before them was it.
Struggling to remember the right spells, Simwan forced himself not to run. This dragon might not be as physically impressive as some, he told himself, but it would be very fast, very quick. They would have to deal with it directly, and without panic. He could tell from the tempo of its wing beats that there would be no second chances.
“WHO TRAMPLES UPON MY SLEEP IN THIS PLACE OF REFUGE?” it hissed like a braking locomotive.
Amber spoke up immediately. “We’re sorry. We didn’t know it was a place of refuge.”
Rose nodded swift agreement. “We thought it was North Meadow.”
“ORDS CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO KNOW—EVEN THOUGH I SPORADICALLY RISE UP TO SNATCH THE OCCASIONAL SLOVENLY ONE. YOU HAVE NO SUCH EXCUSE.” The arrow-shaped head flicked toward them on the end of its long, snakelike neck. “YOU REEK OF LEARNING. AS SUCH, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.” A long, triple-forked tongue flicked out to almost touch N/Ice. She held her ground with remarkable poise. “WHEN CONSUMED, YOU WILL HAVE THE FLAVOR OF KNOWLEDGE, THOUGH NOT OF WISDOM.”
The great tapering jaws parted to expose razorlike rending teeth as a burst of white-hot flame shot forth from the depths of the cavernous maw. The fire was tinged with pale blue and smelled of—it was the bright, sharp stink Simwan and his sisters had detected just before the creature had surfaced. The aroma of flaming alcohol, rather than the expected and more customary burning sulfur.
This was a different dragon indeed.
As it swooped toward them on gigantic dragonfly wings, however, its tastes were plainly of the traditional kind. Being boiled in alcohol instead of sulfur would not matter to the boilee, Simwan knew. As the girls hastily linked hands, he threw up both arms and tried to assume one of the more defiant sorceral stances he had practiced. A long white beard and massive, crystal-crowned staff would have rendered the pose more impressive, but he could only work with what he had. At least, he reflected as he prepared to defend himself and his sisters, his acne had receded during the past year.
“Drakon begone, firedrake shake! I command you to flee! Go back to the depths that gave you birth!”
Semi-transparent wings beat close before him and the arrowhead-shaped skull was so close he could smell the creature’s body odor as well as its alcohol-fueled breath. Nearby, Pithfwid was doing something ineffective with his paws while the girls were chanting softly and intently, but to no apparent effect.
The head turned slightly to its left and a great blood-red eye fixed on Simwan’s own. “KNOWLEDGE, NOT WISDOM. THE IGNORANCE OF YOUTH. YOU WILL BE LESS FILLING, BUT HAVE MORE TASTE.” The svelte yet powerful jaws started to part once again.
“Wait!” A desperate Simwan threw up both arms anew. “By the Laws Draconian, I demand to know who it is that threatens!” There, he thought, finding that he was sweating profusely despite the chill and damp. That should buy them a little time, if nothing else.
Affronted by the conceit, the dragon-thing drew itself up to its full height, which was very impressive indeed, and extended its four wings full out to left and right into the mist, and they were equally impressive.
“I AM SLYTHROAT THE SLAUGHTERER. KNOW, CHILDISH INTERLOPERS, THAT THIS ISLAND HAS BEEN MY HOME FOR LO ON THRICE THREE THOUSAND YEARS, AND THAT I DO NOT SUFFER CALCULATING INTRUDERS TO PASS MY PLACE OF REST UNBIDDEN.” Swift as a striking mamba, the sharp-pointed skull struck forward and down until it halted less than a yard from Simwan’s face. It was all he could do to hold his ground and not flinch. “I DO, HOWEVER, SUFFER THEM TO BE SUPPER. OR IN YOUR INSIGNIFICANT INSTANCE, AT LEAST TO BE APPETIZERS. PREPARE YOURSELVES!”
It was then, most unexpectedly, that Pithfwid stood up on his hind legs and pointed with one paw. “Now I know you! You’re the wyrm—the wyrm in the Big Apple!”
Annoyed by the interruption, Slythroat jerked his head around to his right to focus on the Deavy pet. “IN YOUR CASE, CAT, YOU ARE LESS EVEN THAN AN APPETIZER. YOU BE NOT EVEN A MORSEL. BARELY, I SHOULD SAY, A LESSEL. BUT I WILL NOSH YOU NONETHELESS, ALONG WITH YOUR LARGER COMPANIONS.”
Dropping back to all fours, a now gray-furred Pithfwid sauntered boldly forward. Simwan looked on aghast while the girls ceased their ineffectual chanting. The cat was not much bigger than one of the dragon’s hind talons. He could have made a bed of just one of the creature’s gleaming chromelike scales. Now he strutted back and forth just below that steaming cauldron of a mouth as if he had not a care in the world.
“The wyrm in the Big Apple. I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.”
Slythroat’s lids dropped lower over his glaring eyes. “ALL CATS SPEAK IN RIDDLES. BUT I WOULD HAVE AN EXPLANATION BEFORE I BITE.”
Halting directly in front of the looming, lethal skull, Pithfwid stopped pacing and turned to face the dragon. “This is truly your home. At night you can go where and whence you wish. But like so many of your kind, you are nocturnal and need a place of safety to sleep out the daylight. You abhor sunshine, yet cannot bury yourself deep enough in this crowded place to avoid the attentions of humans.” He shook his head sadly. “So many humans, these days. Times are different than they used to be.”
The great, fiery head bobbed slowly up and down in agreement. “AT LAST—A LITTLE WISDOM I HEAR FROM THE SMALLEST OF YOU. BUT THOUGH YOU SPEAK TRUTH, IT WILL SAVE YOU NOT.” The toothy mouth parted in a white shark smile that was half Dracula, half Cheshire Cat. “WHEN I AM AWAKENED, I WAKE UP HUNGRY.”
Pithfwid did not appear in the least intimidated. “You want to know where I’ve seen you before? It was in a picture, in a book. A picture of the place where you sleep during the day, in full v
iew of the humans who have swarmed over your ancient home. You are at once always visible to them, and yet they never recognize you for what you truly are. It is this hiding in plain sight that helps to keep you safe in a place and times of such tumultuous change.” Turning, he glanced first at Simwan, then at the coubet.
“Slythroat the Slaughterer may sleep here in this ground through the night—but during the daylight hours he takes his ease as part and parcel of the exterior of the topmost floors of the island building called Chrysler. He is as one in spirit with its many architectural decorations, and his natural coloration blends perfectly with the structure’s aluminum crown.” He looked back at the fire-breathing monster hovering in front of him and his humans.
“I wonder: Has this always been your natural appearance, or when the building went up did you adopt an art-deco look the better to blend in with your daytime hiding place?”
Drawing back his head, Slythroat let loose a blast of blue-tinted flame that washed directly over the cat. The girls screamed anew and N/Ice had to hold Rose back to keep her from running forward. Simwan’s eyes grew wide with shock. But when the conflagration faded, Pithfwid still stood, apparently unharmed by the fire. Turning his head to his left, he grinned over at a stunned Simwan.
“Did you ever notice?” the cat purred as he used his tongue to groom his still unburnt gray-blue coat, “that when it is mined from the ground, raw asbestos has exactly the same color and consistency as gray feline fur?” Returning his attention to the equally startled dragon, he spoke sternly.
“Harken unto me, Slythroat the Stutterer. We Deavys have no quarrel with you. We’re sorry if we interrupted your rest, and we would have asked permission to pass if only we’d known you were here. You can go ahead and eat my companions—”
“Hey, wait a minute,” an alarmed Rose began.
“—but you can’t eat me. Not in my present configuration. I’d give you one horror of a bellyache. Or asbestosis. You’d end up spitting me back out. Then I’d find a way to reveal your place of daytime rest. Not to the Ords, who do not believe, but to the enemies of your kind, who would be delighted to happen upon a dragon caught asleep out in the sunlight, and would take it apart like a Christmas goose.”
For a moment, Simwan thought that in spite of Pithfwid’s warning, Slythroat the Slaughterer was going to charge and live up to his surname. Then, all at once, the bravado (if not the steam) seemed to go out of the dragon. It settled to the ground on all fours, slumped to its belly with its great iridescent wings flapping forlornly at its sides, and dropped its head to the wet earth. A tiny, thin seep of smoke emerged from one corner of its snaggle-toothed jaws to rise rather despondently before dissipating into the night sky.
“WISDOM FROM THE SMALLEST,” it rumbled disconsolately. “I HATE WISDOM FROM THE SMALLEST.”
Without another word, Slythroat extended his left front foot. Neither dragon nor cat could properly grip the other’s paw, so Pithfwid settled for placing his own against the tip of one of the dragon’s sharp talons. The resultant contact represented a meeting of the minds as effectively as it did that of bodies.
“We’ll be on our way now.” Pithfwid lowered his paw. “And no hard feelings.”
“THERE BE NONE.” Reeking of flames barely held in check and the heady smell of smoldering alcohol, the dragon smiled down at the infinitely smaller, but notably wiser, feline. “I KNOW THAT WERE SIZE AND SITUATION REVERSED, YOU WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME HERE AS I.”
“Not really,” Pithfwid demurred. “I don’t much care for the taste of snake. Not even if it comes pre-heated.” With that, he started northward, following the sprawled-out length of the dragon. Hurrying to catch up with him, Simwan leaned low to whisper to his feline companion. Pithfwid listened, nodded, then turned to shout back at their scaly former adversary.
“One last thing. We’ve come a long way and have overcome many dangers in our quest. We seek the return of something that was taken from a friend of ours. It resides in the possession of a miserable creature called the Crub. That’s where we’re headed. Or will be, if you can help us refine our route.”
Looking toward its tail end, the massive head drew back slightly from the four youngsters and one feline. “THE CRUB! YOU DON’T WANT TO GO THERE. BETTER TO FORGET THAT WHICH WAS TAKEN FROM YOU AND GO HOME.” Raising its gaze, the dragon stared up into the mist-shrouded night sky. “AS I MYSELF WILL WITH THE COMING OF THE DAWN.”
Simwan took a couple of steps backward, in the direction of the head that had turned to consider them. “We can’t do that.” Gesturing with one hand, he indicated the coubet. “We’re Deavys. I realize that probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means a lot to us, and to those who know our family.”
“IF YOU MUST KEEP ON, KEEP ON IF YOU MUST. THAT WAY”—the great head rose high and gestured north—“LIES THE LOCH. WHERE IT BECOMES THE RAVINE, BENEATH THAT YOU WILL FIND THE ENTRANCE TO THE LAIR OF THE CRUB.” Quadruple iridescent wings thrust outward and began to fan the air. Simwan blinked as droplets of water were flung in his face by the force of the dragon’s wing beats. He felt as if he were standing at the entrance to a car wash.
“LOOK FOR THE TWINNED TREE,” the dragon advised them as it rose into the air. “OPPOSITE AND DOWN AND UNDERNEATH LIES THE WAY IN. DESCEND THERE AT YOUR PERIL. MYSELF, I WOULD NOT DO IT.”
Having delivered himself of both instructions and a warning, Slythroat the Slaughterer ascended until they could barely make out the dragonesque silhouette soaring among the low clouds. Then he folded his wings to his sides and dropped, plunging earthward at speed sufficient to surpass the best efforts of a peregrine falcon. Simwan started to run, only to relax when he saw that the dragon was not aiming for them. Spinning faster and faster, round and round like the bit of a drill, Slythroat struck the crest of the low hillock from whence he had initially emerged to confront them. In an instant he was gone, having bored straight back down into the subterranean hiding place where he slept during the night. The wyrm had burrowed back into the Big Apple’s core.
They stood there staring at the silent hillock for a moment longer. When it was evident that the dragon had no intention of putting in a reappearance, they turned as one and resumed their northward trek.
“Isn’t a loch a Scottish lake?” Amber wondered aloud.
Rose started uneasily. “I hope we haven’t wasted all this time tramping through the wrong country.”
Reaching into a pocket, Simwan brought out the small map of the park and unfolded it. The girls gathered around as he pointed to markings in the darkness.
“It’s right here. The Loch is a stream that runs from the Pool to a much bigger lake called Harlem Meer. I guess whoever laid it out thought it would be nice to give it a Scottish name.”
I hope we’re ready for this, he thought, since the task was enough to intimidate a dragon. He found himself suddenly wishing that their parents were with them. Martin Deavy was an accomplished wizard, and Melinda Mae had a master’s way with witchy words. They would know how to deal with the likes of the Crub. But their parents weren’t present. Their dad was back home in Clearsight, confident in the knowledge that his offspring were having a swell time visiting New York, taking in the sights and enjoying the city while he dealt with his own worries. Their mom was in the hospital, seriously weakened by the absence of the Truth. If only they knew.
Simwan visualized the Deavy den, with its home electronics and roaring (occasionally simpering) fireplace, shelves of books, comfortable couches, and thick carpets. He pictured his sisters clustered off in a corner chattering about some arcane figment of girl stuff, his father sitting in his favorite chair reading a book while the pillow supporting his head and neck looked over his shoulder, his mother avidly attempting to conquer the latest video game. Himself following this or that sport on the TV while the stack of homemade cookies in front of him was methodically reduced in stature. It was a warm, familiar
, comforting image. He wished he could inhabit it instead of just envisioning it.
Turning his head away from a brief gust of wind, he blinked rain out of his eyes. Nearby, his sisters yammered on incessantly. To look at them and listen to them, one would never know that they were about to risk their lives to recover something as intangible—but invaluable—as the Truth. In spite of all their persistent put-downs, Simwan discovered that he was as proud of the coubet as a big brother could be of three constantly nagging, needling, nosy younger sisters. He could, if pressed, even confess to loving them.
But not out loud, of course. And certainly not in front of any of his friends.
They were fortunate in that their chatter allowed them to temporarily take their minds off their mother’s condition and the serious work that lay ahead. Unlike the coubet, Simwan had no brother to confide in. He did, however, have a cat—though if queried Pithfwid would immediately have seen to the reversal of the possessive.
“That was something, back there.” He gestured behind them, through the drizzle. “I’ve never heard or seen pictures of a dragon like that.”
Pacing alongside, Pithfwid replied thoughtfully. “Very different,” he agreed. “For a voracious, fire-breathing, befanged, taloned, carnivorous giant mutant flying numinous reptile, he wasn’t such a bad sort at all.” The cat glanced up at Simwan. “You could invite him to your next party. I’m sure he would be a big hit at the dinner table.”
Simwan made a face as he searched the dimly lit expanse of meadow that stretched out before them. “Sure he would—as long as he restricted himself to cooking the food and not the guests.”
XXI
It was not only dark when they finally reached the Loch, it was late. As the Deavys silently worked their way through the trees and down to the water’s edge, Simwan found himself wondering if Uncle Herkimer was aware of the lateness of the hour, of their continuing absence, and if he was worried. No time for that now, he told himself grimly. They dared not call their uncle lest he ask where they were and what they were up to. If not already at the Crub’s front door, surely they were knocking at the gate. More than anything else, he needed for his mind to be clear, his physical and mental reflexes sharp, and his senses alert.