Dragon Mage

  "Don't hurt him," she said.

  "Don't hurt him? You hit him first. Hit him pretty good for a girl." Kim clasped his hands together and brought them down hard on the man's shoulder, and Belzu-Mar slumped to his knees. "How do you not hurt someone if you hit him? Sheesh." Softer: "But I didn't kill him. He ain't even knocked out." Kim stood over Belzu-Mar, ready to hit him again if he tried to get up. "He's just a little woozy."

  "A lot woozy. So what do we do with him?" Shilo was thinking to herself. "We can't just let him lay here. Someone will find him. Wait . . ." She looked back toward the clay chamber. "Help me drag him."

  Kim raised an eyebrow, but bent and grabbed both hands. "I don't need help. I don't think he's that heavy. Just tall and ugly." Still, the boy huffed as he dragged Belzu-Mar back into the room, Shilo leading the way and holding the candle.

  "So, just what do we do with him?" Kim held Belzu-Mar's wrists. "Don't move, buddy!"

  "Over here." Shilo set the candle down, careful to leave it lit. "Help me get him up."

  This time Kim didn't offer to do it himself. They got a grip under Belzu-Mar's armpits and wrestled him into one of the small tubs of clay. It made a sickening sucking sound as they pushed him in up to his shoulders. Belzu-Mar started to struggle, shaking off the wooziness.

  "Hold him down." She ripped off a piece of her robe along the hem.

  Kim placed his hands on either side of Belzu-Mar's neck. "You're not going to kill him, are you, Shilo?"

  Belzu-Mars eyes widened and he opened his mouth to holler. Shilo stuffed the wadded-up cloth in his mouth.

  "Of course not. But we can't let him just wander off and get the guards or the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar." She shuddered when she thought of the vile, wealthy man.

  "He can get out of this," Kim warned.

  "Not without help." Shilo dropped to her knees next to the tub. "Keep holding him." She touched the tips of her fingers to the surface of the clay. "Please, God, let me manipulate this."

  She closed her eyes and reached deep inside herself, finding a magical glow and picturing it the shade of the light the dragon gave off. She felt the clay ooze around her fingers, like the nuts she had melted. Then, as she withdrew her hands, she felt it harden.

  "Serious wow,” Kim pronounced. "You turned it into concrete."

  "Just hardened it. When someone comes along, they can chip him out. I left just enough space around his chest so he can breathe.''

  "Major wow." Kim was clearly impressed with her. "Now what?"

  I really want to find my father, Shilo thought. That's what. She worried that if her father died in Babylon, she might simply disappear . . . her father never getting back to Georgia, never marrying and having children. But maybe that couldn't happen—maybe dying here wouldn't change anything. Time travel and all the ramifications were too much for her to worry over. And as much as she still wanted to find her father just because she loved him and wanted him safe, there was still the matter of saving the world from the wave of demons.

  "Someone else might go get that Old One." Kim watched Belzu-Mar silently fume. "So the bad bowls might get made anyway. We've got to stop them.''

  Shilo picked up the lantern, scowling to see the oil running low. "We'll have to use those candles.''

  "Fine. I'll get em." Kim moved away from the tub, and Shilo stepped up to it.

  She yanked the gag out of Belzu-Mar's mouth. "The Old One you talked about . . . what is he planning to do with the dragon eggs?"

  The man smiled thinly. "Dark magic to be certain. I am not a sorcerer, evil child, so I cannot precisely say."

  Evil child? Shilo's face reddened in anger. "You have to know something."

  "I have told you enough."

  She waved the gag at him.

  "Where are the eggs?"

  He closed his mouth defiantly.

  "If you don't tell me, I'll—"

  "What? Torture me?"

  Before he could shut his mouth again, she shoved the cloth back in.

  "Kim and I will find the eggs on our own then." She saw that Kim had a candle for each of them. Bending down, she blew out the lantern and took one of the candles. "Hope you can see in the dark," she told Belzu-Mar.

  Then she and Kim took the other passage, which grew equally narrow and which filled her senses with the heady scent of newly dug earth. She brushed the dirt wall with her free hand and felt that it was cool, almost damp.

  "They didn't dig this very long ago," she whispered.

  "Hope it doesn't fall in on us."

  Kim shuffled behind her.

  "Hope Sig's okay."

  "I do, too, Kim." You can't imagine just how much I hofe that he's okay. Shilo walked faster, alternating between glancing straight ahead and looking down. The floor was uneven and had ruts here and there that were from shovels. Sharp rocks protruded, and after stepping on one and feeling it go through her sandal, she took care not to step on any others.

  The tunnel was short and opened into a chamber slightly smaller than the clay room. However, unlike the previous room, it was occupied.

  Oil burned in a large brazier, lighting the room and making the guard's metal breastplate gleam. The guard grabbed up his spear and pointed it at the pair.

  "Who are you? What are you doing here?" He looked at Shilo's smeared skin. "What—"

  "Skin condition," Shilo said, suspecting that he wouldn't believe it. Should've used some of that clay. She set her candle on the floor and held her hands up, as if she were surrendering.

  Kim set his candle down, too. "Take a good look at what's in here, Shilo."

  "I see them."

  "You know, there's another tub of clay back there."

  "I know," she whispered. "Get him!"

  The guard hadn't expected the pair to attack him. Kim hollered, and the guard turned to face him, giving Shilo a chance to dart to his side. She managed to grab the spear out of his hands, just as Kim shot forward and kicked the man hard between the legs. He wasn't as easy to subdue as Belzu-Mar, but they managed.

  Neither was he as easy to drag.

  Then Shilo and Kim scurried back to the chamber and stared at the four dragon eggs arranged carefully on a large bed of straw.

  29 TheDemon

  THE CHAMBER FELT UNCOMFORTABLY WARM COMPARED TO THE tunnel and the clay room. Shilo realized the brazier was giving off more than light . . . "To keep the eggs warm, to incubate them."

  But she wasn't sure that was necessary. Didn't lizards just bury their eggs in the sand somewhere and scamper away? Maybe whoever stole the eggs didn't know better or wasn't taking any chances ... or maybe they knew a lot more about dragons than she did.

  They were huge, as far as eggs went. Three of them were a little more than two feet high, the fourth at least three feet. The bottom half of each shell was covered with letters she couldn't read and ugly drawings of creatures that were half-men, half-monster.

  "I ain't carrying the big one," Kim whispered. "I don't think I could get my arms around it."

  Shilo wished her father and Nidintulugal were here—they could each take an egg and get out of here. Together they would find a way out. She scanned the room, seeing the eggs, the brazier, a low stool that the guard had probably been sitting on, and an old wooden plate on the floor that had likely held his lunch. There was a narrow table—a desk perhaps. It was opposite the eggs, and several objects were arranged on it. There was also another passageway leading from here, and Shilo peered into the darkness, wondering what it led to.

  "Why did they go and paint them like that?" Kim shuffled closer to the eggs. "Like dipping Easter eggs, but in a bad way."

  "A very bad way." Shilo joined him and held the candle close. "The marks are like the ones on those bowls."

  "The demon bowls?" Kim visibly shuddered. "This really can't be good."

  "Oh, my." Shilo grasped that these eggs weren't going to be broken up and put in demon bowls . . . they were going to be the demon bowls. There was a faint indentation on each egg
, running around the center just above where all the symbols started. She touched the shell, the top first, and then the bottom.

  "They've strengthened the bottom, Kim, just like I made the clay hard. When the eggs crack open, I think only the top will break, leaving the bottom intact."

  "Why?"

  Shilo shook her head. "They want the bottoms to be bowls."

  "Duh, yeah. But the bad demon bowls, right?" Kim gingerly touched the largest egg.

  "What if when the baby dragons hatch, the spells on the bowls are released?"

  "Calling all manner of demons," Shilo said, "to be under someone's control.'

  The enormity of her task settled deep in her chest.

  Ulbanu's vision of the demon swarm was frightening enough, but seeing these eggs and the spells written on them intensified everything.

  As mueh as she wanted to find her father and Nidintulugal— needed to find them—it was more important to deal with these eggs right now.

  Kim had been talking to her, but she'd missed what he said.

  "What?"

  The boy grimaced. "I said . . . what should we do?"

  Shilo didn't answer right away. She touched the closest egg again, running her fingers along the bottom half and tracing the marks. She searched for the magic inside of her and tried to melt the letters, like she'd melted the nuts.

  "Nothing's happening," Kim said.

  Shilo tried harder. She felt like she was on fire, but put everything she had into it. Sweat beaded up all over her, and her chest felt like a furnace was being stoked deep inside.

  "Still nothing, Shilo."

  She pictured the writing melting and the figures of the men-monsters fading. She imagined that all the ink or paint or whatever had been used feathered like watercolors in the rain. Then she felt Kim grabbing her around the waist as she started to wobble. The candle in her hand slipped, and she just barely managed to catch it. She steadied herself and changed the grip on the candle.

  "Can't ruin the writing, can you?"

  Shilo shook her head.

  "But you can't give up."

  She wasn't about to. Shilo had wanted out of Wisconsin, had wanted to be with her dad, didn't want him dead—but she hadn't wanted any of this. It would be easy to quit, to go back to the dragon's cave as fast as her legs or the ox could take her, and tell Ulbanu that there was nothing she could do . . . now could she please go home?

  But in Babylon shed managed to find at least one kind of courage—courage of the spirit, and that wasn't letting her run. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kim take a whack at the base of an egg, using his hand in a chopping motion. He mouthed "Ow!" and grabbed at his fingers.

  He had the right idea to destroy the "bowls," even if that meant killing the dragons inside.

  "Kim, listen down that tunnel. Let me know if you hear anything." Please, flease don't let him hear anything.

  Kim hesitated a moment before going to the passage they'd not been down. He stood sideways so he could both see her and hear what might be going on in the unknown tunnel.

  "I don't hear anything."

  Shilo felt the leathery smoothness of the egg, the top half slightly cooler than the bottom. Her fingertips registered the temperature, and she wondered if her magic enhanced the sensations. There had to be something about the eggs that wasn't ready. Belzu-Mar said he had to retrieve the Old One, the sorcerer who fashioned demon bowls, and who, she suspected, had written the spells on these eggs. So maybe the sorcerer wasn't quite finished.

  She stepped to the side of the largest egg on the end and craned her neck so that she could see behind it. Shilo didn't know what to look for, as she really didn't know anything about demon bowls. But she couldn't see anything amiss.

  "Wait a minute." She held the candle as far behind the eggs as she could. The two eggs in the middle were not wholly inscribed. The eggs on the end were painted with the images and mysterious symbols and letters all the way around, and halfway up. But the other two were not complete in the back. She came around to the front again, set her candle on the floor, and gingerly turned first one, and then the other, of the unfinished eggs. Then she picked up the candle again and held it close to an egg.

  "That's why he had to go get the Old One. Maybe the Old Ones so old he wasn't able to finish everything all at once. Or maybe he ran out of the funny paint."

  The fingers of her free hand danced on the incomplete edges, and she felt her chest turn into a furnace again. She closed her eyes and pictured the ink feathering, and when she opened them, she saw that the ink was indeed running and the images of the half-men, half-monsters were fading, then disappearing. So while she hadn't been able to affect the marks on the completed eggs, she could ruin the spells by focusing on the unfinished sections.

  She knew quite a bit of time was passing because the candle was burning shorter, the hot wax dripping across the back of her hand. It hurt, but she didn't set the candle down—she didn't want to waste a single moment. One egg erased, she started on the other incomplete spell.

  "I think I hear something," Kim whispered. He'd set his candle down just inside the opening and blown it out, and he was standing off to the side now, so someone looking down the tunnel couldn't see him. "Someone talking, 1 think. But I can't make out what—"

  Shilo put a finger to her lips, then concentrated harder. She was soaking wet from sweating so much, and she was exhausted. Magic took a toll, she realized, wishing it was as easy as David Copperfield and the other celebrity magicians made it look. But theirs was not real magic. More and more of the images faded and melted, leaving a shine on the shell where they'd been.

  "I hear footsteps, Shilo."

  Panicking, she motioned for him to join her, and then whispered in his ear, her words a hurried buzz. "1 know I told you not to run off ever again, but I'm taking that back. That tunnel Belzu-Mar was leading us down, well, he said that it went to the outside. And I don't think he was lying." She picked up one of the eggs she'd erased and held it out to him. His arms couldn't quite encircle it.

  "Kinda heavy," he said, looking around the side. "But I can manage."

  She wedged her candle between his hand and the shell so he'd be able to see. The brazier gave her more than enough light in this room.

  "Take this egg outside?"

  "How about to just inside the way out?" She shook her head. "Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean?"

  "I ain't stupid. You want me to leave it inside a doorway. Then come back for the other one, right? "

  She nodded. "Hurry, but be careful, Kim. Don't drop it. Please, please, don't drop it." She glided to the passage and stood just to the side, listening intently. She heard Kim's soft footfalls, and looked to see that he had left. She heard other footfalls, someone coming down the tunnel—two or three someones, from the sound of it. Her heart hammering wildly, she returned to the eggs, crouching at the end where the largest one was.

  She knew it wasn't good cover, especially since someone would notice one of the eggs missing. But she couldn't leave the eggs, and she couldn't stop trying to use her magic. She ran her hands across the surface, deciding since she couldn't affect the spell, maybe she could instead affect the egg itself.

  The lower half of the egg was hard, like wood, and she worried that if the spell had made it thus, there was nothing she could do about it. But after a moment, she felt the texture change slightly, becoming bumpy like a hen's egg. She thumped it—definitely thinner. So while she couldn't affect the writing, she could indeed affect the egg itself. How much thinner should she make it?

  Just a little, to be sure, to be safe, she decided. If the dragon hatched, it would break the bottom of the egg and ruin the bowl and hopefully any vile demon-summoning magic with it. She stretched a hand up and touched the top half of the egg, making it harder. She wanted to be doubly sure the bottom half would break. Shilo was about to take her hand away when a shriek cut through the air.

  She poked her head around the egg and saw the
wide, angry eyes of Arshaka. She jumped to her feet, mouth working, but no words coming out. She didn't know what to say.

  "Insolent worm." Arshaka's words were venomous, but they were soft and controlled. Shilo sensed he was ready to erupt.

  In a handful of strides he was on her, grabbing the front of her robe and lifting her, slamming her up against the dirt wall behind her. Still, his voice was low: "How dare you try to undo this? You've no cause for it. And you've no comprehension of what this is about."

  Still she couldn't speak, fear freezing her tongue. She didn't blink, could scarcely breathe.

  He looked over his shoulder, at two men in gray skirts who had accompanied him. "Get the others. Go get them now."

  They whirled on their sandaled feet and retreated down the corridor.

  "Where is the missing egg, Shilo?"

  She shrugged.

  "You're responsible for its disappearance. Where is it?" Still a civil tone.

  In a moment there might be an army in here, Shilo thought. No doubt they'd bring chains and weapons, and might very possibly kill her.

  Wrinkles formed at the corners of Arshaka's eyes and finally he spoke, much louder: "I ... said . . . where ... is ... the ... egg?"

  Shilo heard a hissing sound, and realized it was his breath. Like a teapot left too long on the stove, he was starting to boil over.

  "The egg, worm! And what have you done with the spell on this one?" Arshaka was angry enough to order her death; she could see that in his dark, sparkling eyes. "Worm!"

  He shook her and thrust her against the wall again, striking the back of her head and making her dizzy. "I don't need this, the eggs. I can have all of Babylon without this. But the spells, the dragons, the demons, will make all of it so much easier and more pleasant. What . . . have . . . you . . . done?"

  Somehow she found her voice. "I ruined your plans," she said. "At least some of them."

  "Some," he admitted. He set her on her feet, but kept one hand wrapped around a fistful of her robe. He dragged her to the front of the nest. With his free hand he gestured to the two eggs with the intact spells. "But not all."