Page 28 of The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)
The Red-Winged Dragons
The cave was high up on the red mountains of the island of Edem.
“It’s one of the dragon islands,” Jacques said. “There are very few people here. They don’t welcome outsiders. We will avoid them if we can.”
Naravirala landed on an outcrop of rock. “The cave is an hour’s walk from here. Any closer and they will smell me. I will not go near dragons.”
“With the exception of myself,” said Jacques, and bowed with a courtly twirl to his tail. “In fact, Christopher, we might call my biography Jacques the Jaculus: The Universally Beloved Friend to All Creation. ”
“Thank you, little friend,” said the sphinx. “But the dragons in that cave are large as battleships, and there are many of them. So I must wait here.” She rocked back and watched them as they turned to go up the mountain, her tail twitching, every muscle tense with care.
Eager and urgent, they walked as fast as they could without actually running. They threw themselves at the mountain like they would eat it if they could.
Anya imagined it as they walked. She would ride to the castle on the back of the largest dragon, and people would fall to the ground in shock, and Sarkany would burn her uncle from his throne.
Sarkany would seize the jailor and his key in her jaws, and Anya would unlock her father’s cell, and he would sweep her into his arms, and they would be safe.
Perhaps Christopher could see the longing on her face, because he said, “Tell me about your dad. What’s he like?”
So she told him. She poured out her love in words, and it made her stronger, and more certain.
“He’s tall, and funny. They say he’s not handsome but I think he is. He’s clever; he can crossbreed plants—bloodwort to stop you bleeding, a red daffodil to cure fever. He grew an apple that makes you whistle like a nightingale. He’s different from the people at the castle.”
“Different how?”
Anya hesitated. It was so difficult to put it into words. “Everyone talks and thinks about power, all the time—I used to hear them. Who’s got it, who used to have it, who’s on the way up. ‘He has the king’s ear,’ they used to say.”
“The king’s ear ?”
“I know! Like they could own part of him. And money—they were always talking about gold. My father told me: worship gold, and you’ll never feel you have enough of it, and you’ll feel angry and weak and frightened your entire life.
He said it was a terrible curse, to love something you’ll never have enough of.
” She picked up a stone, and threw it upward, up the mountain, and watched it bounce back down to them.
“It was so boring , all the money talk. But not boring like homework is boring.” She tried to explain, reaching harder and further for words. “Boring like death is boring.”
“But this court—one day you’ll rule it? You’ll be queen?”
She shrugged. She looked at her wrists, covered in gagana scratches, and at the torn silk of her dress. “I have to be.”
The mountain grew steeper, and they half walked, half scrambled upward. Anya’s feet were blistering in her boots, but she tried not to show it, or Gallia would make her stop. Jacques took off into the air and circled over their heads.
“Here!” he said. “They are here! I smell them!” They could see a broad, flat plateau of red rock, dotted with moss and sweet-smelling bushes, across which moved a herd of shaggy cattle. Set in the rock was the mouth of a cave.
“Come on!” cried Anya. She ran toward it, and Christopher ran with her.
She was ten feet from the cave opening when the darkness within seemed to move.
Suddenly a huge head shot out of the mouth of the cave.
It roared—a shriek of fury and pain—and a gout of flame flared into the sky.
Again and again the flames came, a column of fire sixty feet into the air, fire as tall as a castle tower.
Anya threw herself to the ground, stone against her skin. Sparks flew in every direction, singeing her face and hair as she scrambled across the rock, desperately looking for Koo. Had he flown away in time? The air was red with flame, black with smoke. “Koo!”
“He’s there!” called Gallia. “On the scree!”
Anya snatched Koo up and thrust him in her pocket, darting clear of the smoke.
“Stop! Stop! We come as friends!” Jacques cried it in every dragon tongue he knew, but the dragon did not stop. He was spitting flames at terrible, unpredictable angles, without warning or logic, his head twisting and lurching.
“It is not Sarkany!” he called. “He is a younger member of her clan. Brother, hold fire!” Jacques tried to fly closer, but the dragon could hear nothing above his own roar.
“Why doesn’t he see Jacques?” cried Anya. And then the face turned to her, following the sound of her voice, and she saw. The dragon was blind.
His eyes were caked over with a thick red film, and he could only twist unseeing, and send fire at every new scent, every sound, every movement.
“Leave it!” said Gallia. “Leave this immediately.”
And yet, Anya saw, the dragon did not burn everything. As they watched, a small herd of shaggy-haired wild cattle brushed past the dragon’s very knees, heading into the cave, and he did not send his fire at them.
Anya stared. “Jacques. Do dragons…keep pet cows?”
“Not keep ,” said Jacques. “Those are cave cattle—the dragons allow them to come and go, to shelter and drink at the lakes, and occasionally, in exchange, will eat one.”
“So what do we do?” said Christopher.
There was a feeling mounting in Anya’s heart; a kind of recklessness. A why-not, so-what, if-not feeling.
“Is Sarkany here, Jacques—in the cave?”
“Certainly her scent is here.”
“Then if we could just get into the cave,” she said, “if we could just get past this one, we could speak with her.”
Gallia cawed impatiently. “How are you going to get in? I tell you, this is madness.”
“I have an idea,” said Christopher. “I read it, back home in the Outerlands, in a book.”
He explained, and Anya said, “Oh! We have that story too.”
“ The Odyssey ?”
“Well, that’s not what we call it—but it’s the same story, I reckon. We just call it The Journey. It’s ours, you know—Odysseus sailed through the Archipelago.”