Wolf Dreams

 Well, Thomas was as good as his word, and had me into a new house before Christmas. Barely before, but he did make it on Christmas Eve. The house itself was…ummm…a bit unusual, to say the least. I should have known that Thomas would do something strange.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Cosmo and I arrived at a secondary portal Door (this one was keyed to only a few places and quite safe compared to the one I used to guard, which went anywhere.) I had really enjoyed my stay with the dragons, but I was ready to come back to my world with familiar sights and furniture my size.

Thomas whisked us off in a car, and by evening we were driving down dark country roads with snowy trees on either side of us. There were few other cars and Cosmo was allowed to peer out of the windows, which he did enthusiastically. With my new ability to understand some dragon, I enjoyed listening to his running commentary on what he saw. Since he saw better in the dark than humans, he was noticing all sorts of wildlife in the woods. He really wanted to get out and play in the snow, too.

Finally, the car turned into a pair of gates lit with Christmas lights and started down what seemed to be a driveway.

“Thomas, where on earth are you taking us?” I asked.

“You’ll see. It’s easier to show you than to explain,” he replied.

I wasn’t so sure I liked the sound of this, but he wouldn’t say anything else, so I didn’t have any choice except to wait.

About ten minutes later, we rounded one last curve and there was an enormous stone structure in front of us. Even in the dark, it clearly needed extensive repairs, but it was festively lit with Christmas lights, and a Christmas tree glowed in a front window. But what really told me that I was home was the front door. Or should I say, the front Door.

Because the Door it was, resurrected from being ripped loose from its anchoring magic and split into four separate Doors.

“Thomas, you didn’t? I thought you were going to leave it split because it’s so dangerous to have it functioning? I mean, that’s why I was guarding it in the first place, right? Thomas?”

He wasn’t answering me. He was rubbing his face and looking embarrassed, but he wasn’t answering.

“Thomas?!”

“I know. I shouldn’t have. But I’m sure I can figure out how to put protections on it, something to keep the bad things out…”

I growled. Cosmo giggled and imitated me.

Thomas continued. “You’re going to be out here anyway with Cosmo, so you might as well guard the door at the same time. I did fix it so that it can’t be hijacked like it was when Giganto kidnapped you two…” he trailed off.

“I’m glad to know that you realize what sort of danger that thing put us in, Thomas.”

He was wiggling uncomfortably behind the steering wheel now.

“I’ve arranged to have some, ummm…guards to live there with you. As you can see, the property is quite large, and when we’ve finished renovating, there will be plenty of space for visitors and guards and helpers…” he trailed off again. I think he knew he was digging himself in deeper and deeper.

“So now I’m expected to run a bed and breakfast for visitors from elsewhere? And take care of guards? I’m fine with being Cosmo’s foster mother. I couldn’t leave him now. But the rest of it? Thomas, what exactly is going on here?”
He sighed and unlocked the car doors. “Come on in. It’ll be easier to explain inside.”

I sighed and slipped a harness on Cosmo. He had a tendency to zoom off on his own, and I wanted him to stay close tonight. Then I followed Thomas out of the car and we crunched through the crusted snow to a side door. We couldn’t use the front Door, of course; it only opened magically to other worlds.

“This was originally a manor house in Europe,” said Thomas.

“You mean it was designed like a European manor house?” I asked.

“No. I mean that some industrial tycoon about a hundred years ago with more money than sense and a desire to feel like an aristocrat actually had the thing taken down stone by stone, shipped here, and reassembled. Not long after that he went broke, and shortly after that he died. His heirs were unable to dispose of the property. It seems no one wanted a large, drafty mausoleum like this when they could build new, comfortable homes. It has been for sale and falling down ever since.”

“Well, I think I can see why he went broke, if bringing this place over here was his idea of a good decision on how to spend his money!”

“Indeed,” said Thomas as he opened a gate to a small walled garden. This part had been fixed up a little bit - the walls were whole, and the door we were heading for was new.

Thomas opened the door into a huge old-fashioned kitchen. There was a fire glowing in an enormous hearth with an inglenook and bread ovens, a huge wooden work table, and a sink with a pump. The walls had been whitewashed at some point because a few flakes remained and the floor was stone.

“Thomas, this is ridiculous. If you think I’m going to live like they did way back whenever, you’ve got another think coming!”

He turned and grinned at me, and walked across the room to open another door. He bowed slightly and waved Cosmo and me through it. “Your apartments, m’dame.”

I stepped through and looked around suspiciously. Shining wood floors, comfortable furniture much like the stuff that the red dragons had incinerated, a small fireplace, filled book shelves, even a Christmas tree twinkling in the corner….I went into the next room. It held a big comfortable bed, dresser, and old-fashioned wardrobe. Next was clearly a room for Cosmo. I continued. A modern kitchen and dining area, a bath that was positively luxurious, and a work room with loom and spinning wheel and sewing machine and lots of shelves and drawers. I couldn’t see out of the windows in the dark, but I imagined that the view would be a good one. “All right, Thomas, this is good. In fact, it’s very good. Now then, what about the rest of this place?”

“You won’t need to do much. The Door is just through here, and there is an alarm on it, so you know if anyone is trying to use it. The others who will be living here will take care of themselves and help you with both Cosmo and the Door.” He opened another door in my new living room and we stepped through into the front hall. The Door was there, green and beautiful again with its magic restored. We went through an archway into the room that held the Christmas tree I had seen shining in the front window.

It was huge, almost brushing the high ceilings, and beautifully decorated. The tree had packaged piled under it, all sizes and shapes, and fir garlands hung all around the room. Candles twinkled on the mantle. This room had been restored to look like it had long ago, with flagged floors, lovely rugs and drapes and elegant furniture. It was a little too large and echoing to be comfortable for me, though.

“Thomas, this is beautiful.” I turned to face him. “Now who else will be living here?”

“I will, for one!” A familiar voice came from behind me.

I turned, and there stood Felix! “Felix?”

“I wish to make a study of your culture, and you need to continue your studies of the dragon language if you are to be a fit guardian for the little one,” he replied, clapping me painfully on the back. “I told you that the little token I gave you meant we would meet again!”

I reached into my pocket and felt the gift he had given me the last time I had seen him.

“Felix, I’m so glad you’re here!” I told him. And I was.

Thomas broke in. “Cosmo’s relative also want to be able to come and visit him. This place is large and isolated enough - and fire-resistant enough in many areas - to make a good place to house them. I know I didn’t ask you, but since you enjoyed your visit with the dragons so much I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind?” He looked so hopeful and so afraid that I would be angry with him.

“Thomas….well done.” I told him, and he heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Others came into the room now. My good friends Jon and Rob, my dear neighbor Florence (with both cats, Isadore and Eleanora, who were winding through her legs), quite a few dragons - red, yellow, blue and green - and some humans that I didn’t know all came in. Someone brought in trays of food and drinks, music started playing, and all of a sudden, there was a party.

At midnight some friend of Thomas’s that bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus showed up and distributed gifts to everyone there. Cosmo got dragon toys, I got yarn and knitting things and some books on dragon, the cats got catnip mice…there was something appropriate for everyone.

When the party finally broke up in the wee small hours of the morning, I retired with Cosmo to my new rooms. Rob and Jon came with me, and after I got Cosmo settled for the night we sat down for a chance to catch up. Rob was staying for a few days’ vacation, but Jon was going to be here indefinitely, working on the renovations and setting up a computer network. I had been delighted to hear this.

“So you’re an otherworld traveler now, are you?” Jon smiled and punched me on the shoulder.

“Getting kidnapped by dragons wasn’t exactly the plan I had for visiting other worlds, Jon,” I replied.

“Yes, but it worked!” he chuckled. “But you know, I think I’ll just ask Thomas to take me along sometime. It sounds a little less dramatic, I know, and you do like to make an entrance and an exit…”

Rob was laughing so hard by now that he could hardly catch his breath. “Be careful Jon,” he wheezed. “She may have learned something from those dragons about causing pain!”

I just shook my head.  I settled contentedly into my new couch in front of the crackling fire and watched the lights on my Christmas tree while Jon and Rob tried to outdo each other teasing me, and let it all roll over me. It was really, really good to be home.

- She Wolf © 2007

 The way Cosmo’s sister explained everything to me, it was simple. I just needed to wiggle into the cave, locate Giganto’s mouth and put the packet with the spell attached to it into his mouth. Then I could leave. Of course, this left out the details, like how I was going to do this without waking him, how I was actually going to reach his mouth and get the packet into it, again without waking him, and how I was going to escape before he turned me into ashes. All righty then.

The dragons did give me a small magical version of a flashlight so I could see what I was doing. They also gave me a small shoulder bag containing not one, but three packets with the shrinking spell attached. “Don’t worry about giving him too much.  We would much rather have him small than large - he is a very dangerous fellow as he is!” Cosmo’s sister told me as she handed it to me. “And also, these contain an ingredient that will make him unable to use his magic after a few moments, so all you have to worry about is his fire.”

I think I must have whimpered here, because she turned to another dragon for a brief discussion. Then she turned back to me and said, “We will put a small protective spell on you. I say small because there is little we can do if he decides to blast you with fire while he is still large. That amount of fire is not something we can really protect you from without bulky equipment. However, the spell we are using for you will protect you from his fire once he shrinks.”

“How long will it take him to shrink?” I asked.

“The spell will start to work as soon as it comes into contact with him. If he swallows it, he will shrink fully within ten minutes. If he does not, the process will be much slower, and if he does not absorb enough of the spell before he spits it out, it will stop working and he will stop shrinking. Your best bet is to get it far enough back in his mouth so that he will swallow it before he knows what is happening. Oh - and he will no doubt wake up very quickly once he begins to shrink. You might want to make a hasty exit.” She patted me on the back encouragingly. Cosmo wound in between my legs - a trick he had learned from my cat Isadore before Isadore had abandoned us for the safety of Jon’s house. Cosmo was a bit large to do this well, and he was about to knock me over when his sister picked him up and held him. “You are staying right here this time, little one. I am not about to let you run off to help. I think everyone will feel better if we know you are safe.”

I nodded enthusiastically, and then reached over to give him a hug. He whined slightly and I felt a tear leak down my cheek and dampen his scales. “Cosmo, I can’t do this if I’m worried about you. This time, you need to let me do the saving, okay?” He complained, but settled down in his sister’s arms. I gave him a kiss on his snout and managed to growl out a much practiced phrase in dragon, telling him to be good. He wiggled again, and his sister handed him off to someone on the other side of the Door before he could change his mind about cooperating and escape again.

“Are you prepared?” she asked me. “I am sorry that I need to ask this of you. You have done far more than even most dragons would be willing to do…I do not know how we can ever repay you.” She shook her head.

“Let’s just finish this for now. It needs to be done, and I’m the one.”

She nodded and put the flame resistance on me, followed by a camouflage spell. I made sure I had the little light and the spell packets and we set off for the blocked opening to Giganto’s sleeping cavern.

When we rounded the corner of the cavern we were in and I saw the huge opening blocked by an equally huge stone I almost turned around and ran. I remembered how large Giganto was. I remembered how incredibly intense his flames had been, even behind the magical barrier of the Door.

I drew in a shuddering breath, and then another, because the crack I was supposed to slide through was small enough that I was going to have to become very skinny to get through it. I hoped my head wouldn’t get stuck.

I could hear the rasping snores coming from the cavern. At least he was still asleep. I needed to get this done quickly, before he began to wake up.

I tapped Cosmo’s sister on the arm and whispered, “I’m going now.” She nodded, patted me on the back again, and I began wiggling through the crack.

I fit through, but only just. On the other side it was pitch black. There was a little light leaking in through the crack I had just squeezed through but it didn’t go far in the enormous cave. I could see an area that was even darker in the middle of the cavern- this must be Giganto. His snores were echoing off the walls and the whole place resounded with them. I crept along the wall as quietly as I could, feeling for potential hiding places. I needed somewhere to duck when he started to shrink and woke up, preferably somewhere that would block the flames.

I was careful with my little light - I definitely didn’t want to wake up Giganto with it. I moved slowly and soon found an outcropping that would work as a shield. There was even a small niche behind it to squeeze into.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to do what I had come to do. I began to move towards the sleeping dragon.  I could see now that he had his back to the opening and to me. His massive tail was curled around him and his wings hung limply at his sides. He seemed to be deeply asleep. I edged around him, keeping to the walls as much as possible.

Finally I was at his front. Up close like this he seemed to be larger than ever and once again I almost turned and ran. Only the idea that things would probably be worse for everyone if I did run kept me going. Leaving this fellow free to escape and wreak more havoc was not an option. I looked at him carefully.

Giganto slept with his mouth open. This was possibly the best news I had had all day. Not only that, but there was a rock near his head which, if I could climb up on it, would let me all but drop the packet into his open mouth, right onto his tongue. He’d eat the thing before he ever knew what hit him.

As quietly as possible I edged around his huge head (I’ve been in smaller cars) to the base of the rock. Up close, he smelled of burnt things. It wasn’t a nice clean campfire smell like Cosmo had, but a nasty charred flesh smell. I gagged slightly as I crept in front of his mouth. His teeth glinted in the tiny light I held.

The rock was right beside his mouth, and I needed to be very, very careful here. There were a few foot and hand holds on the rock and I started up it. My foot slipped when I was half-way up - about five feet or so - and I froze as pieces of rock crumbled and skittered off onto the floor.

Giganto never even twitched. I went slower so I wouldn’t slip again; next time I might not be so lucky and he might wake up or I might fall and land in his mouth. Now that was a nasty thought.

Finally I stood atop the rock, right over his huge face. His head was slightly to the side, with his mouth open a little bit facing me. One soft toss with the spell packet and it would all be over. I pulled the first of the packets out of my shoulder bag.

Balancing carefully, I made a slow underhand lob toward his mouth. The packet hit one of his teeth and bounced. I almost cried as I saw it falling towards the floor where it landed with a small plop. Well, I had two more.

I leaned out a little more over his head before I tossed the second packet. This time it landed in his mouth. I followed it quickly with the third packet, which also hit its mark.

When the third packet hit, he shifted irritably in his sleep. His head was now facing the other way. I hoped that the spell packets hadn’t fallen out of his mouth when he moved. I stood there on top of that rock watching and waiting to see if he was going to begin to shrink or if I was going to have to retrieve the fallen packet from beside his head and try again.

 I waited what felt like forever, and he didn’t start to shrink. I was going to have to get that first, fallen, packet and try again.

Quietly, carefully, I climbed down from the rock and quietly, carefully I slipped towards his head. His claws were larger than I thought possible and his scales were enormous. I skirted his nose and reached the fallen spell packet. Picking it up, I went back around his head.

 If I reached up, I could put it right in his mouth. First, though, I made a small rip in the covering. This time, some of the contents would be sure to get into his system. Before I could lose my nerve, I reached up and dumped the thing in his mouth hoping he would stay asleep and not notice.

He noticed. The stuff in the packet must have tasted bad - really bad. He jerked awake almost immediately, his head pulling up and his eyes flying open as he peered around frantically. He let out an ear-shattering bellow and shook his head, trying to get rid of what ever it was that tasted so awful.

When he reared up, I could see the two other packets where his head had been. Thinking fast, I grabbed them, ducked, and rolled over to the wall. Hopefully he was being loud enough that he wouldn’t hear me. The camouflage spell was still holding, so he couldn’t see me.

Giganto thrashed around, flaming the cavern randomly. I could see that he was starting to shrink, although it was painfully slow. I began to creep around the wall towards the entrance, or at least towards the safety niche I had found.

He quickly got his wits about him, and I heard the release word for the camouflage spell being roared out. This was not good - it didn’t take any magic to release the spell. I pushed myself against the wall and wished I were already on the other side of the cavern where that little hidey-hole was.

He didn’t see me right away, and I continued to creep in the direction of safety. He flamed all around the cavern and then he saw me, an evil snarl coming from his throat.

I made a break for it, running as fast as I could towards the other side of the cavern. I just needed to buy a little time while the spell worked and I literally darted right behind him, hoping to confuse him.

He whipped around to follow me, blasting fire as he went, his wings flipping out to help him turn quickly,. I must have moved faster than he thought - I certainly moved faster than I thought possible - and he mistimed his blast. Instead of hitting me, he hit his own wing with his flame.

While the dragons were proof against their own flames to a point, it still had to hurt quite a bit and he stopped pursuing me to roar with pain. I reached the far wall and paused for a second, hefting one of the leftover packets in my hand. What did I have to loose? I took aim and threw it as hard as I could. The packet hit home, landing in his open mouth and exploding on contact. I followed it immediately with the third one. This one went straight down his throat.

The previous packet was causing him problems, though. Even I could see that Giganto was getting ready to sneeze. I ran as fast as I could to the little place I had found to hide in and ducked in it just as he let loose the largest sneeze I have ever heard. Flames blew everywhere and even with the protective spell on me and rocks in front of me, I was singed. Two more sneezes followed the first and then there was silence. I looked out, and saw a wonderful sight. Giganto was shrinking very, very rapidly. Apparently all three spells had worked, and at the rate he was going he would soon be about the same size as Cosmo.

When he saw me, he roared furiously, but it was a tiny echo of his former roar and I actually laughed. Enraged, he charged at me, blowing flames at me, but my protective spell as good enough to keep me safe from his fire as small as he was now. Indeed, he was shrinking as he ran and looked more comical than anything else.

I could hear a grating behind me as the dragons in the other cavern opened the block on the door enough to get through. When he saw that happening, Giganto stopped and turned to run the other way. He was quickly overtaken by the dragons who rushed through the opening. I walked out to join Cosmo’s sister, exhausted.

“You have done it,” she said to me, and gathered me in her arms, hugging me like she had Cosmo.

“Yeah, I guess so. And I’m alive to tell about it.” I was on the verge of tears.

With no further comments, she led me through the Door to safety, where Cosmo leapt into my arms, doing more damage to me than Giganto had managed to do. Then I held him and cried.

     ****************

Three days later, I stood on the lawn and peered down into the ruins of my house. All that remained was a heap of rubble in the bottom of a pit. I could still smell the burning although Jon told me it had actually stopped smoking several days ago. The biggest surprise was the Door. The physical part of it in this world was still here at the top of the heap of debris, but all the magic was gone from it - it was just a burnt, faded, peeling green door with cracks running through the carvings.

The pit the house had collapsed into was caused by the hole the dragons dug to pull the magic of the Door loose from the bedrock it was set in. The house had collapsed into the pit and then burned from the flames that Giganto had poured into it. The powers that be on this world were calling it a sinkhole and massive gas explosion. It didn’t really matter what they called it. My home was gone.

Jon and Rob both told me I could come and stay with them while we sorted out what I was going to do next. Thomas, who had showed up after I shrunk Giganto, had promised me a new place to live by Christmas, with everything he could replace being replaced. I didn’t even have to get grumpy with him - although I did anyway. He took it well - he knew he deserved it.

I had had another offer of shelter, though. The dragons, Cosmo’s family to be precise, had told me I could stay with them in the interim. I had really enjoyed getting to know Felix despite the circumstances so I decided to take Cosmo’s family up on their offer. I would be traveling with Thomas back to the other portal tomorrow for my visit. Today I was taking care of business: explaining to the authorities that I had been away on camping trip when my house burned down (well, sort of, but I didn’t think I could explain what had really happened), buying some new clothes and knitting supplies, and trying to see if anything was left to save at my old house.

Thomas was down in the pit right now with protective spells on him, trying to find things worth salvaging. He had fireproofed some things because of Cosmo, and we hoped that they might have survived. Eventually, he came up with the hard drive from my computer, several photo albums, and a few other things. Rightfully, they should have been ashes now, but his spells had worked well. He was lucky - very lucky. I told him so. He looked relieved; he knew. He went back down into the pit to look at the remains of the Door and I could have sworn I heard him muttering about fixing it.

Tomorrow I would be setting out on another adventure; hopefully a much tamer one. And in a few weeks, I would have a new home - one that included Cosmo. He and I were bonded, both of us, quite thoroughly. I loved the little stinker. But for now, I was going in to a big dinner with my friends and there wouldn’t be any cave lizard at all served tonight.

-She Wolf © 2007

 The Plan was really very simple -well, my part in it was, anyway. All I had to do was don the camouflage spell, creep back into the big cavern, and open the Door. Three times. While not waking up any of the dragons that might be sleeping in the area. While who knew how many other dragons came through the door one at a time. Okay, it was simple, but it was still risky.

I asked Felix why I had to open the Door three times.

“When the red dragons pulled the Door loose from its magical moorings at your home, it fractured into four Doors, one going to each of the groups of dragons pictured as guardians for the Door. So you need to open the Door for the blue dragons, the yellow dragons, and the green dragons. Red dragons will be with each group, and there is quite a bit of mingling anyway, of course.” He looked at me. “After you have opened the Door for the last time, you and Cosmo are to go through to the other side to safety.”

“What about you?” I asked him.

“I was here anyway doing my research. I should be able to get back to it, unhindered by militant rebels using my site as a training base and inquisitive small dragons running from them.” A puff of condensation curled out of his nostrils as he tried not to laugh.

“And unexpected humans. Don’t forget about me!” I added.

“You have actually been a welcome addition. I have learned a great deal about your culture. If you were to choose to remain, I would welcome it. I could even train you to help me with my researches!” He actually sounded enthusiastic.

“Maybe some other time, Felix. I have things I need to do back home, like sleep in a bed again and eat ice cream and potato chips and work on my knitting…” I trailed off as I thought of all the pleasures that would be mine again after I did my part to help the dragons. (If I survived - this little refrain kept running through my head.)

“Then I shall simply have to come and visit you! There, now that’s settled!” He trotted off to get the camouflage spells together for Cosmo and me.

That was when it truly hit me that I didn’t have a home to go home to any longer. I had thought a little bit about the devastation I had seen occurring at my home when the dragons kidnapped us, but I had put it out of my mind while I was trying to survive. I would have to stay with Jon or Florence, assuming their homes hadn’t been wrecked, too, or maybe with Rob, who lived in my old house. They were good friends who knew the weird world I inhabited and they would understand. But still - my home, my books, my spinning wheel and loom and quilts and endless sock knitting projects - the familiarity of it all would be gone. The things I could replace - or rather, Thomas would replace, and fast, after I was done with him for getting me into this - and while there were some pictures and other things that weren’t replaceable, it was the fact that it had been wantonly destroyed by an evil, power-mad being that really got me. My safety, and the symbolic safety of my home, had been ripped away from me, and that really hurt. I hunkered down into a ball by the fire, and Cosmo came over and cuddled me. His safety had been stolen, too, and we were in the same boat. I held him and cried.

Felix seemed to understand that I needed some time, and busied himself in the other room until dinner. We were quiet while we ate, and then Felix challenged me to a game of chess. He could beat me about half the time now, and that took our minds off of our problems and off of tomorrow’s danger for a while. Cosmo amused himself by playing with the captured chess pieces.

The next day was a long one, what with waiting for the dragons’ sleep period to start and worrying about whether or not all this was going to work. Still, the day finally crawled into evening, and Felix put the camouflage spell on Cosmo and me. Before we climbed into the hole to the tunnel, he stopped us.

“I have very much enjoyed getting to know you both. I truly wish to see you again. I will be certain to make the arrangements and inform you of them at the appropriate time. In the meantime, please take this as a memory of me.” He pressed an item into my hand. It was small for a dragon, although it filled my entire palm. It was a metal disk with the dragon symbol for “friend” on it. “A small token, given from one dragon to another at times of parting. I do not know why this one was with my gear, but it was a good thing, yes?  It is a custom of ours, to pass these along to one another at a leave-taking. It also means we expect to meet again.” He chuckled. I thanked him, tears again in my eyes, and put the disk in my pocket where it barely fit. Then Felix boosted me up into the tunnel, Cosmo lit the torch, and we were off.

The tunnel seemed longer and darker than ever before. I just wanted to get this done with and go someplace safe with Cosmo. I hated the fact that he was still here and not someplace safe, but he was right, we needed him to navigate the tunnels. At last we came to the fissure in the corridor wall. Carefully I eased out of the tunnel and listened. I couldn’t hear anything, but I waited and listened some more. Finally I eased out into the corridor, Cosmo right behind me. We crept down the hallway and peered out into the big cavern. It was blessedly empty and we hurried quietly around the edge until we reached the Door. The dragons around the knob were already spinning. I whispered to Cosmo, “Stand back. I’m going to open it now.”

I grasped the knob and turned, tugging for all I was worth. The Door moved a little and then suddenly it was flung open. I went sprawling into the dirt of the cavern floor and something began pouring out of the hole.

I say something because I couldn’t see anything- they had to be wearing the camouflage spell too. I could feel the air moving, hear the sound of feet on the floor, and at one point, feel something almost step on me. It occurred to me that since they couldn’t see me either, I was likely to be trampled. I quickly scuttled off to the side and around to the back of the Door where I couldn’t be stepped on. I whispered to Cosmo and he joined me.

The dragons coming through must have had some formation they were following, because I heard very little that indicated collisions or tangling of limbs or equipment. They were very, very quiet and very, very efficient. Finally the noised stopped and I edged around the Door again.

“Human?” A voice near my head whispered to me.

“Yes?” I whispered back.

“Just checking. I will shut the door and take my unit to our destination. We thank you for your help. The next group should be ready shortly, so be prepared.”

I heard some shuffling and then the room was quiet again. I could feel Cosmo pressing against my leg, Velcro-like. He seemed to be intimidated by the large number of dragons.

We waited in silence for about 15 minutes and then the dragons on the Door began to spin again. This time I was a little more prepared and managed to jump out of the way behind the Door quickly. This group was as organized as the first had been and soon moved along to their posts.

Cosmo and I were waiting for the last group when we heard someone coming.

It sounded like the usual group of young dragons doing a sentry round. We edged back behind the door and I hoped desperately that the dragons who had come through here in such huge numbers hadn’t left too much evidence of their passage.

The sentries were coming closer and then the dragons on the Door started to spin. Silently cursing the timing, I stayed hidden behind the door and prayed that the sentries would be as incompetent as usual and not notice the Door.

They bumbled slowly around the room, grumbling and complaining about having to be awake (I could actually understand a few words now even if I couldn’t speak them), but mercifully they didn’t seem to notice anything. Finally they wandered off down one of the corridors. I slipped back around to the front of the Door and reached for the knob. Then I noticed that the dragons around it were no longer spinning.  I whispered something unprintable. We had missed the window. I grabbed the knob and twisted it anyway in frustration. Nothing happened, of course. Then, as I held the knob, the dragons around it began to move again. “Yes!” I said, in the loudest whisper I dared, and pulled on the knob. The Door came open, I ducked out of the way, and we were in business again.

The last dragon through was not camouflaged. It was a red dragon whom we knew though: Cosmo’s sister. He launched himself at her, hitting her dead in the chest, and since she couldn’t see him coming, she puffed out, “Oof!” Fortunately she figured out what was happening and held on to him. Then she spoke a release word and he was visible again. I looked down at my hands. So was I.

Cosmo’s sister turned to me and said, “We thank you for all that you have done. Because of your help, we have almost completely subdued - and shrunk back to size - the whole of the forces here, even as we speak. This would not have been possible without your help. We are truly in your debt.”

As she spoke, a small pinging noise came from a bag slung over her side. She reached in and drew out a small mirror, peering into it. After a few moments of quiet conversation, she looked up at us. “That is it, then. All is taken care of except for the leader, the one you call Giganto. And we have a problem. He sleeps in a large cavern beside this one, but he blocks the entry while he sleeps. If we attempt to move the block, we will awaken him. In addition, the block is so large, it will require many of us to move it. Our advantage of surprise will be lost. And unfortunately we need to be in physical contact with him to shrink him - either that or get him to swallow the shrinking spell. It must be quite large and powerful because he has enlarged himself so much.” She turned to Cosmo. “Are there any hidden entrances to this chamber that you know of?”

There weren’t.

Then the mirror pinged again, and she turned back to it.

She looked back up at us again afterwards. “There seems to be a small crack along the edge of the stone block into his quarters. Someone small and slim might be able to fit through it.”

I had a sinking feeling. I was the only small and slim one present. I took a deep breath, and with my heart in my throat, I asked, “What do I need to do?”

-She Wolf (c) 2007

 To say that Felix was surprised to see us back was an understatement. He was a bit annoyed at first too, because he thought we hadn’t even made it to the door since we came back with the camouflage spell on us. It didn’t take us long to tell him the story, however, and when I pulled out the scrying mirror, he was delighted. Immediately he did something to it, and it just unfolded. The mirror that had fit into my pocket on the way back was now about three feet across. Felix hummed happily under his breath and carried the now huge mirror over to one of the walls and pressed it up against the surface. The mirror stuck and hung there.

“These portable scrying mirrors are so convenient,” he said to me, as I ogled at him. “I really should invest in one in just in case of emergencies, like this one. Not that I expect to be rescuing kidnap victims everyday, mind you…” he was flustered now.

I giggled at him, and Cosmo hissed a laugh.

“Yes, well, how about some lunch, hmm?” Felix busied himself in his gear. I grabbed Cosmo and hauled him over to the little heating tube in the bathing pool. He understood what I wanted right away and seemed very happy to heat up the water for me.

After a bath (for me) and lunch (for all of us), Felix decided to try out his new toy, the scrying mirror.

I was fascinated as he managed to produce a picture of another dragon almost immediately, and although I couldn’t understand the conversation, I watched just so I could see what was going on in the background. I could see all sorts of dragons scurrying about and gear being collected. I was disappointed when the connection ended and Felix turned back to Cosmo and me.

“Well, they say it should be about a week before they are ready. They have the dragons, and the equipment, but they need to gather some magic together. I think they are planning on shrinking the dragons who have been magically enlarged back down to a more normal size. That would make sense at least. In the meantime, we need to amuse ourselves. I have no trouble with this. My research isn’t nearly done.” He snorted, turned and bustled away to the other room.

I looked at Cosmo. He gave a flip of his wings and landed in the opening to the tunnels.
“Be careful out there! Whatever you do, don’t get caught!” I told him. He nodded and ducked into the tunnel. Left to my own devices, I poked around in the edges of Felix’s gear, found something soft to lie down on, and curled up for a nap.

I was awakened some time later by Cosmo’s return. He was squeaking and hissing and growling at the top of his lungs from the time he popped through the opening into the room. Felix bustled back in and said something that calmed him down some. They proceeded to have a lengthy conversation. Finally, Felix turned to me and said, “They have discovered your absence. Cosmo says that they found the tunnel entrance in the room you were in, and are mounting an extensive search everywhere they think the tunnels might lead. Right now they have no one who will fit through the tunnels, but that may change. All it takes is the right spell to shrink the younger dragons back down to their normal size, and then they will have all the searchers they need.”

I gulped. “What can we do?”

“We will have to block the tunnels. I will prepare some spells that you can trigger at strategic points in the tunnels to cause small cave ins. We need to do this right away, though.”

I understood this. “Yeah, the sooner we do it, the longer the blockages will have been in place. They’ll look old enough to have blocked me, too.” I thought for a moment. “What about finding a place for us to have escaped to, someplace way away from here? Maybe even someplace outside?” I turned to Cosmo. “Do you know of any exits like that? If we lay some false trails that way, they’ll be looking in the wrong places for sure.”

Felix and Cosmo talked for a minute and then Felix said to me, “You go with Cosmo while I work on these spells. Make sure that you make really clear trials to lure them the wrong way, and by the time you get back, I’ll have the spells ready for you.”

Cosmo and I set off into the dark, winding tunnels once more. He led me back near the room I had been a captive in and we started to make the false trails leading away from our hidey-hole.  An old torch,  some of the junk from my pockets, the bones of an eaten cave lizard - we left all of these things here and there along the way, and down several dead ends too as we left our path of deception.

Cosmo made a point of scratching at the walls in several places, and I piled up little signs made of rocks to help it look like we were marking a path. Finally, we came to an opening to the outside world. I poked my head out and found myself wishing I could stay. The air was fresh and sweet. It was cool, but not cold, and I loved the feeling of the clean breeze with its hint of salt on my face. Cosmo goosed me, and I crawled out of the hole so he could come out too. Moments later, we were standing on the side of a huge mountain. I wandered over to a nearby ledge and looked out. I could see green stretching away below me and in the distance there was what appeared to be a sea. The trees weren’t familiar looking, but they weren’t so strange that I couldn’t tell they were trees. Something flew overhead and I looked up. It was a bird of sorts, but more reptilian looking. I definitely wasn’t home anymore!

Cosmo and I left evidence around the area, and even took a few minutes to start a small fire. After it had burned for a while, I kicked it out with sand and made a clear path into the trees. The searching dragons would think I was a clumsy human sure enough with the obvious trails I was leaving.

Finally, we popped back into the hole and hurried back to Felix.

Felix was in a sweat when we arrived. “Dragons, outside the doors!” he said in a hushed tone. “I heard them coming and put up an illusion of a rock slide over the door. It fooled them for the time being, but I need to make a real one. These were just the young dragons and they are easy to fool. If one of the big ones comes this way, they will see through it in an instant!” He was running around trying to get his things ready for the spell.

“I have five of these little spells ready for you - take them and use them while I make a large spell for the door. Go! Go! Go! And when you get back, check in here carefully before you enter. I don’t want you falling into a trap!” He shoved some packets at me, told me the trigger word, advised me to be at least ten feet away before I said it, and practically threw us through the tunnel entrance. Cosmo and I crawled away to do our jobs and left Felix dithering behind us in the old nurseries.

It didn’t take long to set off the magical devices that Felix had created. They were really very nifty - place the packet where you wanted to blockage, move away, say the word and watch the tunnel fill up with debris. The debris seemed to come mostly from the roof, but it didn’t look like it affected the stability of the tunnels at all. I tried to place them in logical places so they wouldn’t look contrived, and then we were done. We crept back slowly, my hands and knees aching with all the crawling I had done today. At the opening, we stopped, but all we could hear was Felix humming to himself. Cosmo darted out and landed in a high spot and when Felix looked up and acknowledged him, I climbed out, too.

“Well, they’re set. I think we did a good enough job placing them.” I said.

Felix bobbed his head. “Yes, and I have placed a real rock slide over the door to the nurseries. I think it should look enough like the illusory one to fool everyone into thinking it is the same one. We are set. Now all we need to do is wait.”

Waiting was long. Over the next few days, Cosmo explored the rooms of the old nurseries and found some antique dragon toys to amuse himself with. Felix objected to these “artifacts and relics” being used until I pointed out that if he wasn’t busy, Cosmo might decide to play with Felix’s equipment. Grumbling, Felix agreed that Cosmo was better off playing with these items meant to take the abuse of a small dragon than his delicate gear. So I set up flight courses for Cosmo with large rings to dart through, and he stacked big blocks, and generally kept busy.

When Felix wasn’t working, he tried to teach me some dragon, and while I learned to say a few things, my vocal chords really weren’t cut out for it. Finally, he decided to try and teach me to read dragon.

To the surprise of both of us, I took right to it. Written dragon was made up of ideograms, or picture words, like Chinese. They had originally been made by dragons pressing their claws into soft clay or making score-marks with their claws on wood or bone so I could even write them easily. I caught on quickly, and by the end of the third day, I could read and write simple sentences. Felix was delighted with me.

Cosmo finally became bored, and was annoyed when Felix and I told him to keep out of the tunnels. He finally got into enough trouble in our rooms that Felix told Cosmo that if he didn’t behave, Felix would stop making ice for him to slide on. Cosmo growled something in reply and Felix ended up laughing. He turned to me and said, “The little one says that if I don’t make him ice to slide on, he won’t light  our cooking fires and we can eat cold food.” He snorted a laugh.

I laughed too. “It sounds like a stalemate!”  I said.

Felix looked at me. “What is a stalemate?” he asked. “I have heard this term before, but cannot figure it out.” So I spent the next few hours explaining the game of chess to him. Then nothing would do but that he construct some chess pieces out of bone. He used a sharp edge on one of his claws to scrape some bits of cave lizard bone into the rough shapes and then had Cosmo darken half of them with his fire. A board was constructed in a similar way, and we were off.  He took to it like a duck to water, and was quickly challenging me. I decided to mix things up by teaching him mancala and gomoku which could be played with pebbles, and he enjoyed those too. He in turn taught me several dragon strategy games and after that we passed the time quite happily. Even Cosmo would stop playing with other things and play simpler versions of the games Felix was teaching me, much to our mutual delight.

About once a day, Felix would check in on the scrying mirror to see how the plan was progressing. Every time he connected, I could see more dragons and equipment in the background. The dragons were taking this threat very, very seriously.

We hadn’t heard any dragons out in the corridor since Felix had created the rock fall outside the door, but one afternoon that changed. I heard the noise first, a scraping sound.

I nudged Felix who was making dinner rather loudly, and shushed Cosmo who was sliding on the ice and squealing.

We all stopped and listened. The sound occurred again. It sounded like someone or something digging at the rock fall. I turned to Felix, white as a sheet. Felix whispered to me, “Get the little one and climb into the tunnel. If you need to run, do.” He fished in a bag and handed me a packet. I was getting familiar with his little packets. He told me the trigger word and said, “This will unblock the rock falls if you need it to. Get somewhere safe if they break in here.”

Cosmo and I climbed into the tunnel to wait. The scraping sound continued, getting louder. It sounded like whoever it was, was about to break through. Suddenly we heard dragons shouting and a lot of bumping and scraping and what sounded like a tussle. Then there was silence.

Felix waited a little longer before he motioned up down. Cautiously we crept out of the tunnel and over to him.

Felix was chuckling. “What was all of that?” I asked.

“The scraping sound was apparently a rather large adult cave lizard digging in the rock fall. The dragons we heard were stalking it, because, like Cosmo, they find cave lizard to be a delicacy. They immediately attacked it and carried it away for dinner. This wasn’t about us at all! Never the less, we must be vigilant, for they clearly come down that corridor from time to time.”

I heartily concurred, and we were more silent than ever before. Even Cosmo had been frightened out of his sense of security.

 Felix continued to check the mirror daily. However, it wasn’t a week; it was more like ten days before the day Felix turned from the mirror and said to us, “This is it. The attack begins tomorrow.” And then he proceeded to tell us what we needed to do.

-She Wolf © 2007

 I woke up to the smell of something tasty. Cosmo was off sliding on a freshly-iced bathing pool, making happy squeaks, and the blue dragon was cooking breakfast.

“Oh good, you’re awake! I wasn’t sure how much sleep your species requires, so I decided to just let you rest. I suspect that you needed it. I have breakfast, and a plan.” He said something in dragon to Cosmo, who immediately stopped playing and flew over to him.

I tried to get my vocal chords around the sounds he had produced - anything that got that prompt of a response out of Cosmo was worth trying to learn how to do. I received some strange looks from both of the dragons.

I looked back at them. “Don’t tell me I just asked for your mother’s best dress to be washed and pressed? I was trying to say whatever it was you said in dragon.”

The blue dragon wheezed a dragon laugh. “No, but you definitely didn’t call him to breakfast, which is what I did. We’ll have to work on your pronunciation. Calling a dragon to come and have you for dinner is not exactly the same thing. Besides, dragons don’t wear dresses!”

I blushed. “Um, right. Let’s work on that later, Felix.”

“Felix?”

“Well, I’m more comfortable if I can call you something, so is Felix okay?”

“Of course. I will try to remember to answer to that in the future. Now eat.” He placed a large bowl of something in front of me. It smelled great, so I didn’t ask questions; I just ate.

As soon as we were done eating, Felix started talking again. “I believe I have hit upon a plan. Now, while my scrying spells are not exactly up to snuff,” and here he ducked his head as Cosmo laughed, “I do have command of a rather good camouflage spell. They are quite useful for exploring areas that might hold dangerous predators or unpleasant academic rivals. I can place the spell upon you, and you can use this to get to the Door. There, you can go through and let the dragons on the other end know what is going on.”

 I looked at him. “What about you? Are you going to stay here?”

“I will stay here, yes. I am too large to fit through the tunnels that you and Cosmo here can get through, and the other way is too long. Even with the camouflage spell, there would be too great a chance of discovery. No, you need to get yourself and the little one to safety as quickly as possible. Just make sure that someone knows I am here, and I will be rescued eventually. In the meantime, I will continue the work I would be doing here anyway. It really makes little difference to me, as long as I am not discovered.” He twitched nervously. “And so please, please, do not get caught, for my safety as well as your own.”

After a small amount of preparation, Felix was ready. “Now, I will put this on you, and you must leave it on until you reach the Door and have it open. Then you must release the spell - I will tell you how to do that. It requires no magic to release this particular spell as it is built into the spell itself. When you reach the Door, naturally you must release the spell, or the dragons on the other side will not know who you are, and may feel threatened and react accordingly.”

I gulped at the idea of what a dragon who felt threatened might do.

Felix continued, “The little one may need to act as a translator, if the dragons you contact do not speak your language. I will remind him of this. Please stay away from any patrols. The spell will keep you from being seen, but not from being heard.”

One thing had been bothering me. “What about smell? I mean them catching our scent?”
“If you feel you need to bathe again, I am all for it, for I truly value cleanliness, but right now you are not odiferous.”

“No, I mean like smelling that I’m a human and nearby!”

“Oh! Well, really, dragons, especially the younger ones that are the ones that are probably doing the patrols don’t scent track particularly well. Dragons do have a keener sense of smell than some species, apparently including yours, do, but not that much better. They could tell that you were around if you were very close and they were trying very hard or had exceptional training, but sight has always been the preferred sense for dragons- when you hunt from the air, it is far more useful. I know that traditionally, dragons have trained themselves to use scent to some degree, but they can’t do it very well. Still, now that you mention it, we can cover up your scent somewhat.”

He rummaged around in his equipment for a few minutes, and came up with a flagon of liquid. “A friend of mine with more money than taste gave me this as a gift. It is not the sort of thing I like to wear, and I only brought it in case I needed to mask an even less desirable odor.” He opened the top and the smell of very cheap cologne wafted out.

He sneezed. Cosmo sneezed. I sneezed. Then Felix poured a few drops on my head. I felt the stuff oozing stickily down my scalp and shuddered.

“I am sorry. I can see that it isn’t to your taste either, but it will suffice to disguise your scent to any dragons that are training in scent recognition. By the time you get to the main corridors, it will be a little less pungent. Many of the dragons here wear this - I know because I smelled it when they first arrived. You will simply be thought to be the lingering odor of a higher-up!” He capped the flagon again quickly and stepped back from me a few paces.

“Now then, to release the spell, simply speak the trigger words.” He growled something in dragon. After a few tries, I managed to say it, and after a few more, I had it down.

“Hey, I can speak some dragon! What does it mean, anyway?”

“Be gone, spell.”

“Is that all? My first words in dragon are ‘be gone, spell’, huh? Not very glamorous, but it will have to do.”

Felix snorted. “If you are done being flippant, I suggest we get going. It will be time for the next sleep period by the time you reach the Door. Still, you will need to be careful - there will still be patrols and they will have stepped them up if they have realized you are missing.”

A little while later, Felix was giving me a boost into the tunnel opening above the bathing pool. “Please, be careful,” he implored me, “What you are about to do will not only save yourself and the little one, it may very well prevent a war amongst the dragons. Go in safety.” With that, he pushed me into the tunnel behind Cosmo, and we were off.

The tunnel was every bit as long, rocky, and hard on the hands and knees as I remembered. The only good thing was we were going downhill more than up this time. I scrambled along behind the torch Cosmo carried and kept up as well as I could. At least I had the torch to follow - the camouflage spell worked quite well, and the little fellow blended right into the walls of the tunnel.

When we reached the fissure in the wall that led to the corridor we needed to get into, we paused and listened. I didn’t hear anything and Cosmo didn’t seem to either, but we waited for a while just in case. Once I heard the far-off bellow of a large dragon, but then all was quiet. Finally we ventured out of the tunnel and into the hall.

Cosmo stuck to my side like glue. We couldn’t see each other, so touch was the only way we had to know were the other one was. Cosmo didn’t seem to want to be separated any more than I did.

We paused again at the mouth of the corridor and looked carefully into the big chamber. There was no one there, and we could hear the giant snores of Giganto in the distance.

Slipping quietly along the walls, we made our way around to the Door.

The dragons around the knob were spinning again. I counted this very fortunate, because it meant that I should be able to get the door open.

I gripped the knob and turned it, and then began tugging on the Door. As before, the central knob and the Door’s slant against the wall made it hard to open, but as I tugged and pulled, a crack slowly formed. Then whoever was on the other side saw the crack and began to push - hard. I went flying onto the cavern floor with Cosmo beside me as the door was flung open.

A large red dragon stood in the opening and it looked angry. Thinking quickly, I said the release words and Cosmo began squeaking, growling and chattering. Suddenly he launched himself at the dragon in the Doorway, landing hard in the middle of its chest.

The dragon looked stunned for a moment then ducked and squeezed through the Door. Cosmo began buzzing around it, darting in here and there with little jets of flame. I began crawling to the side, thinking this whole thing had been a mistake, that this was a reinforcement for the bad guys, and I was about to get roasted.

Then the big dragon moved, a startlingly fast snatch into the air. It snagged Cosmo in mid-flight. I winced, prepared to see the little one chomped, but the bigger dragon just clutched him to it, murmuring something quiet. Cosmo wiggled with delight and snuggled against it.

The big dragon looked at me. I stopped inching my way sideways and smiled hopefully.

The dragon spoke, “You must be the foster-mother. We are gratified to find both of you still alive.”

“Uh - yeah. Are you Cosmo’s …”

The dragon cut me off with a quiet hissing laugh. “I am his older sister, and I have been leading the search for you two. Since the blue dragons reported seeing you on the other side of the Door, we have been trying it on a regular basis, hoping you would open it again. Our patience was rewarded.” Cosmo got an extra cuddle at these words. Fed up with the mushy stuff, he wiggled loose and began a concerted attack on her tail, in the manner of over-excited annoying younger siblings of all species since the beginning of time.

I looked around nervously. “We need to get out of here before someone comes along. It isn’t safe. I’ll tell you what’s going on as soon as we’re as far away from here as we can get.”

The dragon replied, “Wait a moment.” She said something to someone in the room behind her. As she turned, I could see a large chamber crowded with blue, green, yellow and red dragons. They were all trying to peer through the opening. One of them handed her a large bag. She moved aside and shut the Door. Cosmo’s sister spoke some familiar words and I realized that she had cast the camouflage spell on all three of us.

“Over here by the wall. We must talk. I have five minutes before my colleagues try to open the Door once more. We knew that the two of you had been kidnapped, and we knew that dragons had done it by the evidence they left.”

I winced at the thought of what probably wasn’t left of my house.

The dragon continued, “We need to know who it was and what is happening here.”

As quickly and efficiently as possible, I gave her a run-down of everything I knew. Then the carved dragons on the Door spun and she opened it and spoke to the dragons inside and closed it again. As she turned to speak to us, I heard noises in the distance.

Cosmo’s sister reached out, felt for me and grabbed me. Quickly she turned and hugged the wall with me and Cosmo sandwiched between her and the rocky surface. I could hear a patrol shuffling through the room, fortunately as sloppy and inefficient as they had been before. Still, we all held our breath until they were gone.

Cosmo’s sister released us and looked at me strangely. “They were talking about the scent you are wearing. It seems they thought that one of their leaders had been here recently and they needed to hurry up because they were behind schedule. I must admit, I was wondering myself about your perfume…but it worked, so I have no complaints!”

Mentally, I blessed Felix and his cheap cologne.

“Now, here is what we need to do. I will take Cosmo here to safety. And then I need a favor of you. I need you to stay just a little while longer, while I organize a task force. Someone has to be here to open the door from this side and let us all in when we are ready. I do not want to ask this of you for you have suffered far too much as the hands of dragons already, but you are the only one who can do this. Will you?”

I thought for a moment. I knew what my answer needed to be, but I thought anyway. I thought about my friends, my family, my safety, soft beds and clean clothing and all the comforts of my world. Then I thought about dragon wars and the safety of little Cosmo and others like him. “I’ll stay,” I whispered.

The dragon slumped in a release of tension. “Thank you,” she said. Then she opened her bag again and pulled out a small round mirror. “Give this to Felix, as you call him. Even if his scrying abilities are weak, he will be able to communicate with us through this mirror. We will let you know when we are ready.” I nodded and reached for the mirror. It fit easily in my pocket.

Cosmo had been pressed against my leg for the past few minutes. His sister said something in his direction in dragon and then repeated it in English, “Time for us to go little one!”

I reached down to pick Cosmo up and give him one last hug before handing him to his sister. He wiggled away from me and growled something. I heard him scuttling away.

His sister growled something after him, but he didn’t answer.

She turned to me and said, “He said that if you were staying, he was staying, and that was that. He said he would meet you in the tunnels and guide you, that you will get hopelessly lost without him. He is worried about you.” She shook her head. “He is a true dragon although he is still small. And we cannot catch him. We cannot see him to catch him with the camouflage spell on him and he will surely be out of range for us to take it off. We must simply accept this. I know you will keep him safe, and he wants to keep you safe too. He has bonded with you quite well. Well done!” She nodded at me. Then she opened the door and wiggled through it, closing it quietly behind her.

I made my way back to the tunnel, where I found a lit torch that seemed to bob in mid-air and followed it back to the safety of the old nurseries, grumbling to Cosmo the whole way.

-She Wolf © 2007

 I had fallen from a good ten or twelve feet up, but fortunately the pool was deep enough to break the fall. The water was icy cold, though, and the blue dragon standing there sent a further chill through my veins. I got my feet under me and then ducked back under the water to escape the blast of fiery breath that I was sure was coming my way any second. I scuttled under the water to the wall, where I clung, terrified. I was still holding my breath desperately, close to blacking out and waiting to be boiled alive when something grabbed me and hauled me to the surface where I hung, gasping for breath. The dragon had me dangling from oneof his strong arms, dripping streams of water.  A series of whistles came from him, and when I just looked at him, still gasping, he switched to a strange lilting speech. When I didn’t respond to this, he stared at me, head cocked to the side in what was apparently a universal gesture of puzzlement.

A flash of red distracted us both, and Cosmo shot onto the scene from a niche in the wall. He landed at the feet of the blue dragon and squeaked somthing to him in dragon. The dragon looked back at me and said in perfectly good English, “So that’s the language, then! You know, if you are not an aquatic species, and apparently, despite your lack of fur, you are not, you will eventually expire if you remain under the water without access to air.”

I nodded at this obvious statement, coughing a little. I wasn’t capable of doing anything else at the moment, and figured I’d be toasted any time now. He turned his head away slightly and held me at a greater distance. “I have not studied your culture a great deal, so forgive me if I am being offensive, but to my slightly more sensitive nostrils, you are offensive. Your lack of hygiene has created a fearful odor. I am going to put you back in the water for now.” He dropped me back into the water with a splash, where I huddled with chattering teeth. The only part of me that wasn’t cold was my burnt arm. It felt good in the chilly waters. Cosmo squeaked something else at the dragon.

“Oh - I didn’t realize how limited your range of tolerated temperatures is.” He said something back to Cosmo in dragon, and pulled me out of the water again. “Don’t move,” he told me. I couldn’t - I was frozen with fear and cold.

Cosmo trundled over to a strange looking tube that led to the bottom of the pool and breathed fire into it. He repeated this process as the blue dragon poked around in a corner. Looking around the room, I realized that the pool I had landed in was not a natural one. It was tiled and set into the floor of a room that had ornate walls, polished floors, and a large central hearth. The walls and floor were eroded and crumbling in places, like the room I had been in before, but on the whole it was in fairly good condition.

The dragon returned and put me back in the water which was lukewarm now thanks to Cosmo’s breath and that strange tube, and handed me a large crock of something goopy. I took it with both hands.

“Please cleanse yourself and your clothing. Hand me the cleansed clothing and I will have the small one dry it. When your hygiene is acceptable, we will talk.”

All righty then. I was at a loss for words. Running from certain death, I had literally fallen into a room with a draconic neat freak - the Felix Unger of dragons. This had to be a dream. I did as I was told.

While I was making sure I measured up to his - and my - cleanliness standards, the blue dragon had Cosmo start a fire in the hearth, hung my clothing up and made sure that Cosmo just warmed it dry and didn’t incinerate it, and bustled around doing various things.

Just as I was beginning to feel like a prune, he came back over, lifted me out gently, inspected me, and said, “You’ll do now. Your clothing is dry and also adequately cleaned. Please take this,” and he handed me another huge crock with something goopy in it, “and place it upon your burns and other injuries. They are beginning to look infected- no doubt due to the state of filth you were in.” This stuff smelled medicinal, and I slathered it on liberally.

As I did, I said, “Thank you. I assure you that I didn’t like the way I smelled - or felt- any more than you did. However, I have not been in a position to bathe or change my clothing for several days, through no choice of my own.”

“I am glad to hear that. I wish to study your species further one day, and the odor alone would make it difficult for me to do so. I am a bit particular about these things, but then a scholar needs to be careful. Contamination of a site or relics is not good.” He paused for breath, but only barely, and began to talk again, “I am thinking you must be the foster mother that the little one has been so concerned about. He neglected to tell me that you weren’t a dragon when he told me you both had been kidnapped by the red dragons who have taken over here.”

I nodded and he continued, “Please come and have something to eat. I am sorry I have no cave lizard to offer, but it is not a favorite of mine. The little one here has been most insistent that he take it to you for every meal. However, I had barely touched my supplies when I was forced to take refuge in here, so I do have some variety of foodstuffs to choose from. I hope you find the meal palatable.”

I told him that it was quite all right. I liked a little more variety in my diet than straight cave lizard.

“Yes, I suspected as much. But it is the small one’s favorite, apparently, and a bit of a treat, so he made sure to get you some every day, even if he had to hunt it himself.”

I got the idea that it was like a three year old insisting on serving ice cream for every meal if he was given a chance. When I got the idea across to the blue dragon, he hissed a dragon laugh and said, “Yes, that would be accurate.”

As we ate, he told me how he came to be here. “I am trapped as surely as you are. I was here in this remote, long abandoned place doing some research into the living habits of our ancestors when this group of hostile red dragons arrived. I managed to hide in here - this is the old nursery complex - and block off the doors so they wouldn’t find me. This wing was set a bit out of the way, anyhow, for the protection of the young. This room by itself is quite a find - an  intact bathing room with the smaller pools for the young, and a bas-relief of aquatic species on the walls…” he was sidetracked, rhapsodizing now about the significance of his find. I watched him going on and on and had to shake my head. I could almost envision a pocket protector bursting with pens and pencils on his chest and horn-rimmed glasses with tape on them perched on the shiny blue scales of his nose.

Finally he came back to the original subject. “I doubt if they will find us here. They are far more interested in the old military portions of the citadel.”

“Citadel?” I asked.

“Yes. In ancient times, this was the seat of the red dragons’ power. There are massive caves for the rulers and warriors and huge areas devoted to the needs of their day to day living and training as well as the more mundane areas for regular dragons. This group would have needed to come here once they began to use the enlargement spells, no doubt. Nothing else would hold them as they grew too large for regular residences.”

“Enlargement spells?” I was starting to remind myself of a parrot.

“Yes - surely you didn’t think that all dragons were as large as their leader, did you? Oh - I can see that you did! No, no, not at all. This young one is the correct size for a young dragon in the first stage of life. The ones that are being trained are scarcely older than he is - a little, but not much. They have begun to have enlargement spells placed upon them already to make them better warriors. This is not good. Not for them, or for anyone else. The use of enlargement spells has been banned by the inter-dragon council for centuries now. And the big dragon, their leader? He is easily ten times larger than any dragon his age has a right to be! Disgraceful!” He grunted angrily. “Granted, dragons continue to grow all throughout their lives, but I have only known one dragon even half his size and she was an ancient almost at the end of her life!”

The blue dragon was clearly upset by all of this, and I saw whisps start to curl out of his nostrils. I edged away a little, ready to duck and cover. He snorted and then angrily turned his head and blasted the pool behind us. To my drop-jawed surprise, fire did not come out and vaporize the pool. Instead, it was now covered by a sheet of ice!

Cosmo squeaked with delight and hurled himself onto the slick surface, spinning and sliding around on his round little belly.

“Ice?” I asked.

“Well, of course, I am not a red or yellow dragon! I am a blue dragon, and we tend to live in or around water. Fire is not very useful there, I assure you. However, the ability to turn your foe into an ice sculpture is. Green dragons also carry this adaptation - they tend to live in heavily forested areas and who wants to burn down their home? No, red dragons who like the rocky tops of mountains and yellow dragons who prefer deserts are the fire breathers.  Ice isn’t nearly as impressive, I’m afraid, as a wall of fire, but that’s the way things are. We have always concentrated on magic and scholarship anyway.”

We finished eating a rather tasty meal - which at this point would probably have been just about anything other than cave lizard - and Cosmo crawled into my lap for a cuddle.

“The young one - Cosmo as you call him- seems to have bonded with you quite well despite the language barrier. Little ones need affection, and you are doing well with him.”

“Giganto out there didn’t seem to think so. He said something about me coddling him and needing to toughen him up!”

“Giganto, as you call him, is a - what was that word? Oh - a sociopath. He is abusing the young dragons that have been given into his care by like minded individuals. He is attempting to make them viscious sociopaths like himself. Then he intends to make an army out of them. He may succeed or not, but those young dragons are learning nothing but cruelty from him. Your bond with Cosmo here is far more natural and normal for a young dragon.”

The blue dragon paused for a moment. “I wish I knew how to stop him. He is attempting to return our world to a way that we abandoned long ago for a more peaceful way. He has some support, clearly, but I think that the world at large has no idea just what he is up to, and the lengths he is willing to go to, to achieve his dreams.

“Or maybe they do - that would explain why Cosmo has been fostered with you, in your world. Fostering young dragons with other sorts of dragons is quite common, and has been used for a long time to promote peace and understanding among members of our species. I think the little one’s parents were not only attempting to find him a safe place to grow, but also to broaden our perspectives and peace still more just as Giganto out there attempts to narrow these things. Unfortunately, his method is quicker and far more dangerous.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes and then he spoke again, “I wish I could get word back to my people. There is undoubtedly some way to stop him, but we have to let the inter-draconic council know. And we are well and thoroughly trapped here. I wish I had spent more time on my scrying spells….” He shrugged, an oddly human gesture. “No help for it now.”

I sat up straighter. “Maybe there is a way. It will be dangerous, but…” I outlined what had happened with the Door, and recounted seeing the startled blue dragon on the other side of it.

“An interdiminsional portal! And it was ripped from its anchor? And it still functions? Astounding!”

I explained what Giganto had said about using the dragon carvings on the Door to bypass the protective seals. The blue dragon looked at me thoughtfully. “Based on this, I would say that your Door has fractured magically into four Doors and each will lead to one of the groups of dragons. It has probably rendered the Door useless for any purpose other than to access another of the fractured portions of the Door, but if we can reach the thing, I think we can easily make use of this! Wonderful!”

He began talking to himself in dragon and Cosmo cuddled deeper into my lap. I fell asleep, warm and clean and well fed for the first time in days, to the gentle rumbling of his voice.

-She Wolf © 2007

 I paused to look at the Door. The dragon pulling on me growled a little and then blew fire at my arm to get me to move. I screamed and tried to jerk away, and the dragon and his partner turned to me, hissing and dragging me closer in an ominous manner. The huge dragon looked at us and roared something which stopped them in their tracks and nearly broke my eardrums.

Then he looked at me and said, “I told them not to damage you too much - you won’t be as much fun when I turn you over to them for their hunting games in a day or two. They are really looking forward to that - they rarely get intelligent prey. Of course, you are dreadfully fragile…” His voice tapered off suggestively.

The younger dragons pulled at me again and this time I followed, letting my eyes slide over the Door on the way past it. The spinning around the doorknob had stopped, and frustrated, I remembered that someone on this side would need to actually open it unless, like the giant red dragon, they had some magical means to by-pass the system.

The dragons pushed me back into my cell and blocked it off again. This time they slid the door stone in tight. I was glad to have a torch and some carefully hoarded embers so I wasn’t in the dark. The burning of my arm and the huge dragon’s threats had made one thing clear. The time had come to stop sitting still. I needed to find a way out of here, and if Cosmo could get in, I might be able to get out.

I kindled the end of the torch and went over to the fireplace. Dragon-sized, it offered me plenty of room to stand upright. I thrust the torch up in to the chimney, but saw nothing but darkness. The damper had long since rusted away, and I wedged my torch into a hole in the wall of the fireplace. Then I used some of the many cracks to scramble to the top of the smoke shelf where I had another look around.

“Ah-hah!” I muttered. Here was where Cosmo was getting in and out. There was a rough hole just above the smoke shelf, where it would not be visible from the interior of the fireplace. The hole looked like it had begun as an exit for one of the little springs that flowed through the walls here, and it and the former stream bed it led to had been substantially enlarged by whatever vermin and wildlife lived in the caves. I stuck the torch down into the hole. It looked large enough for me to crawl in on my hands and knees, so I pushed the torch in ahead of me, propping it up on a stone, and crawled in.

 I picked the larger path - the other way would have required crawling on my belly and I wanted to be able to maneuver better than that.  It was still slow going, and I almost accidentally put out the torch, but then I found a small rock with a cleft in it, perfect for propping the torch on ahead of me.  I needed to see where I was going - although I really wished that didn’t need to include the multi-legged inhabitants of the tunnel. I knew they were there and I didn’t want the constant reminder that there were lots and lots of them.

The tunnel went on for quite some ways, and I was wondering with bruised and aching hands and knees how human babies did this all day. Just as it was starting to slope upwards quite a bit, I could see a little light leaking in from somewhere to the side. I had no idea where I might be, no idea what direction I had been going in, nothing, so I had no idea where the light might be coming from. Erring on the side of caution, I crawled back a little ways and stuck my torch in between some rocks so it wouldn’t put itself out and then carefully, quietly, crawled forward again to where the tunnel opened up on the side.

I peered out of what seemed to be a natural fissure in the stone. I could see a hallway in front of me, running right and left and lit with torches like the hall my prison-room was on. It could have been the same one, but I didn’t think so - I would have noticed this crack in the wall. The hallway was clear as far as I could see and I couldn’t hear anything coming - the dragons here were all pretty noisy - so I wiggled out of the hole, slid down, and then paused in the shadow of the crack. There was still nothing, so I quietly eased out. There was a slight breeze in the hall and I followed it, hoping to find an opening to the outside. After that, I didn’t know. I just knew that I needed to find a way out of here, and get myself and Cosmo somewhere else as soon as possible.

The hall didn’t lead to the outside. It led to the big cavern where the huge dragon had held his audiences with me. It was empty now, and I could hear the unmistakable sounds of a sleeping dragon somewhere out of sight. I was disappointed and ready to slip back into the shadows of the tunnel when I realized that this was my opportunity to check on the Door.

Sticking to the walls as if I were a shadow myself, I crept around the enormous cavern to the far side - of course the Door was on the far side. No one came into the area, and I could hear nothing. It must be night-time, and all of the dragons, not just their leader, were sleeping; I just hoped they liked a long night’s rest.

The Door was in the shadows now; the torches nearest to it had been allowed to go out for the night. I slipped up to it and then in front of it. I ran my fingers over its carvings. It was so familiar, so comforting in this strange and fearsome place. The dragon carvings around the doorknob were still now. I reached for the knob, and holding my breath, turned it.

To my surprise, it turned easily - it had to have something to do with the magic the red dragons had used to open it several days ago.

Quietly, carefully, I slowly opened the door. It was very heavy and I was pulling against gravity because of the way it was leaning against the wall. Finally, I got it open enough to look through the crack.

Staring back at me, clearly surprised, was a blue dragon a little bit taller than I was.

Just then I heard a scuffling in one of the corridors off of the cavern. I whispered, “Sorry!” and eased the door shut again. Then I ducked behind the Door just as several of the smaller red dragons entered the cavern. They wandered around it in a bored manner, but were still fairly thorough in their canvass of the room I decided they must be sentries of some sort. Fortunately for me, they didn’t bother to look behind the Door. In fact, they avoided the area it was in entirely. I thought perhaps they might just be afraid of it.

As soon as they had disappeared down another hallway, I heard stirring sounds from the direction of the sleeping dragon. This time I didn’t creep around the wall; I ran across the middle of the floor as quickly and quietly as I could. I was just in time, too - the big dragon was obviously awake, and I could hear the smaller dragons coming back this way. I darted into the hallway and raced for the crack in the wall.

As I slipped into it, I could hear something coming down the hallway I was in, and I boosted myself into the tunnel as quickly as I could. I was almost all the way in when the back pocket of my jeans caught on a rough bit of rock in the opening. The noises in the hall were coming closer and closer. I tugged and wiggled frantically. Finally, as the noised were almost on me, the stitching ripped and I was free. I pulled myself the rest of the way into the hole, out of sight, and lay there frozen as the group of dragons went past just a few feet away. As soon as they were gone, I let out the breath I had been holding and got back on my hands and knees, crawling back to my torch. Then I just sat there, recovering my wits.

As I prepared to move on, I could hear noises from behind me. Something was coming, fast. It had to be something small enough to fit in the tunnel, so I could probably defend myself with the torch if need be. I moved into a wide spot and waited.

A small red dragon was scuttling along purposefully, coming from the direction I had come from. It was Cosmo, and he was just as glad to see me as I was to see him. He dropped the lizard-thing he was dragging and burrowed into my arms.

“Sorry, Cosmo, I should have waited for you. I just wanted out of that room then. I’m afraid I panicked a little. I’m really, really glad you found me. So, where should we go from here?”

After looking at me accusingly for a moment, Cosmo climbed out of my arms, shook himself off, and started down the tunnel, looking back to make sure I was following. I grabbed the torch and started. Then I whispered, “Cosmo, come here!”
He turned back, curious, and I handed him the torch. He took it with his mouth, understanding what I wanted, and we set off again, making much faster progress with him carrying the torch.

It was a good thing he was leading, because these tunnels were far more complicated than I would have imagined. There were several spots where we had to climb, too, and the crumbling slopes were not easy to negotiate. Cosmo carefully picked his way to the tops of these and then waited for me to slowly follow.

Finally, I could once more see light leaking into the tunnel and then Cosmo disappeared. I crawled in the direction he had gone. I was half-way blinded by the light in the opening and while I tried to be careful, the edge of the hole wasn’t stable and I tumbled out, landing with a splash in a large pool of ice-cold water at the feet of a medium-sized blue dragon.

-She Wolf © 2007

 The stone in the doorway wasn’t pushed in too tight, and light from the torches in the hallway leaked in around the edges so at least I wasn’t in complete darkness. The room was large enough that the outer areas were in deep darkness, but at least I had some light over here. I noticed right away that the floor I was lying on wasn’t like the floor of the cavern. This one was smoother, polished under its layers of dirt and grit. The little I could see of the walls indicated that they, too, were smooth and not the craggy rock walls of the big dragon’s cavern.

I sat up, leaning against the rock in the door so I could make use of the little light there was, and took stock. I was full of splinters from my kitchen door, had gravel embedded in my elbows from being dumped on the cavern floor, and felt like I had a bad sunburn all over. My hair was slightly singed. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with fairies on it and wool socks with my comfy moccasin slippers - not exactly the best stuff for adventures. I checked my pockets. The left one had a coated hair tie, guaranteed not to get caught in your hair like plain old elastic, a button, an eight inch piece of sock yarn that I trimmed from a pair of socks I finished earlier in the day and the not-so-great folding scissors I had used to do the trimming. The right pocket had a nickel, a quarter and two pennies I had found cleaning, two aspirin tablets that I hadn’t used for a headache that was now suddenly much worse, and one of those tiny pencils you get when you play miniature golf.

That was it. No flashlight, no pocket knife, no matches, none of the things that it is recommended one have when getting kidnapped by evil power-hungry dragons. I didn’t even have my knitting which I never voluntarily left home without. I leaned my head back against the rock, considered swallowing the aspirin and then decided that I would probably need it even more later. Instead, I started picking the splinters and gravel from my skin.

After I got most of the foreign objects out of my flesh I decided to do a little reconnaissance. I started on the shorter wall which was to my right, and walked carefully along it, with my hand trailing along the wall. The wall was even, and the first corner, about 10 feet along, was square. This room was made, not natural, just as I had suspected. I went along the second wall. This one was much, much longer and I was in darkness by the time I came to the end of it. The floor had remained smooth and there was no evidence of any sort of furniture in the room. The back wall was smooth for the first few feet but then it changed. I could feel a lot of small rocks and gravel underfoot and the wall became quite rough. I could hear water trickling, too, and the rocky wall became damper as I moved along it.

I went slower and slower. It was a good thing, because there was a little stream of water running down the wall and collecting in a little pool on the floor. I just missed sticking my slipper into it. I squatted down to investigate. I could see a little bit of light shimmering off the water in the puddle, and I stuck my fingers in it. It was very cold and several inches deep. I decided that the little stream had probably caused the rock wall to collapse at some point in the past, and it clearly still had an outlet because the pool had remained small. I splashed a little on my arms, washing off the blood and dirt. Hopefully the water was fresh and clean, but I decided that it couldn’t be much worse than all the dirt I had ground into my injuries. I cupped a little of the stuff flowing out of the wall and tasted it. It tasted fresh, so I sipped a little. Under the circumstances, I was more concerned about being thirsty than polluted water. And if I died from bad water, well, the dragons wanted to finish me off anyway. At least I wouldn’t die of thirst.

I moved around the pool and continued down the wall - it was quite long, and in some spots, the smooth flooring was completely gone, leaving only a dirt floor. I detoured around several places where the wall had crumbled onto the floor, making the footing treacherous.

The side wall going back to the front improved again, and I turned the last corner and went the final long leg towards the feeble light at the blocked off doorway.

So that was my prison. It was at least sixty feet on each side - not really surprising when I remembered that it was probably made by dragons who were much larger than humans. At least I had water, but I could tell that I was going to be cold. That was something that wouldn’t even occur to the dragons. Of course, if it did, they wouldn’t care anyway. I sighed and sat back down to wait - for what, I didn’t know.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was startled awake by noises at the back of the room. I thought at first that more of the back wall was crumbling, but then I heard dragon-like hisses and growls. I edged into the darkness of the nearest corner and strained my eyes to see what was coming.

A shape came at me out of the dark and I put my arms in front of my face and curled into a ball. I was wishing that I had had the foresight to grab some of the stones from the back to use as weapons when something slammed into me.

I shrieked, frightened, and then realized that whatever had hit me hadn’t hurt me. I peeked out of me defensive ball, and there was Cosmo. Cosmo!

“Cosmo?” I asked, unable to believe my eyes.

He rumbled something at me, and nosed my arms. I reached out and held him. He was warm and firm, and just feeling him there comforted me. I ran my hands over his scales; he felt a little the worse for wear, like I was. I could feel nicks and tears in his scales that spoke of harsh treatment from the other dragons. His little wings felt tattered too. “Oh, Cosmo,” I said, cuddling him, “What are we going to do?” I started to cry quietly, my tears landing silently on his scales.

I know I fell asleep that time. Holding Cosmo finally warmed me up, and we slept huddled together in the dark corner. We both woke up when we heard the sound of dragons in the hall.

I couldn’t understand them, but Cosmo clearly could. As the stone was pushed aside, Cosmo scuttled away into the back of the cave. I could hear some noises back there that were pretty well masked by the sound of the stone block grating over the floor.

A dragon looked in and blew a jet of flame into the room to illuminate it. I glanced around hurriedly, but thankfully there was no sign of Cosmo.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“The little one. But I see he is not here.” The dragon withdrew its head and was preparing to push the stone back when I called out to him.

“Wait! Can I get something to eat?”

The dragon laughed at me. “Why should we waste food on you? You won’t be around long enough to starve to death.” He pushed the rock back in place and I was once more alone in the dark.

Cosmo didn’t come back for quite some time and I was getting very worried about him when he finally reappeared. He was dragging something with him this time. It seemed to be some sort of lizard creature, about a quarter as big as Cosmo was, and it was quite dead. He pushed it towards me, blew a huge (for him) blast of fire at it, and then nosed it towards me again. He looked up at me expectantly. I poked at the thing. His fire had cooked it, and all I could think was that he wanted me to eat it. I pinched loose a bit of the meat and held it to my mouth. Cosmo got very excited, so apparently I had guessed right.

I was really, really hungry, hungry to the point of feeling queasy, and the half-charred lizard-thing was at once both enticing and disgusting. I finally worked up the nerve and put the pinch in my mouth. It tasted like chicken. Isn’t that what they always say about strange meat? That it tastes like chicken? Anyway, this really did, and Cosmo and I shared the meal. When we were done, he hauled the remains away and disappeared again.

This time when he came back, he was dragging an unburned torch with him. I was really happy to see this and grabbed it happily. Cosmo lit it for me with one breath. I could actually see more of my prison now, and Cosmo and I explored the parts that had been in darkness before. The floor and walls looked like they must be made of polished pink granite under their layers of dirt and age. All of the front and side walls were in good shape, just as I had thought.

Along the back wall, where things were crumbling, was the little pool. Now I could see that it was clean. Cosmo drank from it happily, which reassured me that the water was probably fresh.

Nearby, in one of the crumbling areas that I had detoured around, were the remains of a large fireplace. Cosmo darted into it, and up the chimney. Another torch dropped down at me. So this was where he was getting in and out! None of the larger dragons would be able to fit in there, so I didn’t need to worry about them coming in that way. A few sticks followed and then a few pieces of something that looked like coal. I left them piled by the fireplace and when Cosmo came back, we continued to explore.

In the middle of the room where I had been afraid to go before was a large pile of junk and rubble, as if someone had tried to clean up this room at some point. I fished around in it and came up with some musty old straw that would do to soften the stone floor. I just hoped that it didn’t house too much vermin. By now I was tired again, so I made my little pallet on the floor in a dark corner, smothered my torch, and went to sleep with Cosmo warming my belly.

When I woke up again, the search for Cosmo was obviously still underway. They really didn’t want to lose their prize hostage. Cosmo scooted back into his hiding place when we heard the other dragons back in the hallway outside. The stone was pushed aside again, and this time the dragon came all the way into the room. Ignoring me, he proceeded to search the area, pushing around the rubble in the middle of the room and checking the back wall carefully. Thankfully, he ignored the old fireplace. Without saying a word to me, he returned to the hallway, growling something to whoever was waiting outside. He didn’t sound happy. The stone was pushed back into place again.

We played this game for several sleeping and waking periods - day and night didn’t exist anymore - with Cosmo bringing me lizard-things to eat, torches for light, and sticks and coal for fires that I didn’t quite dare to make. His erstwhile captors were clearly not happy that he was evading them, because they came looking for him at least once a day. I feared for him should they catch him again.

Finally, one of the dragons who came to search the room snarled at me to come with him and grabbed me, hauling me off through the door and down the hall to the big cavern. The huge dragon was in residence there, and the smaller dragons shoved me over to his feet and left me.

The dragon ignored me for a few minutes; he was examining the green Door, which was still leaning against the wall. “A very fine piece of magic. Fortunately for us, the maker used dragons as the guardian symbol. That made it so much easier to bypass the protective seals. What a pity we had to destroy it to get to you and the youngling - it could have been very useful.

“Now, to my point. The youngling is missing. He escaped from his peers and we cannot find him. We want him back. We know that he was quite concerned at being separated from his ‘foster mother’. Do you know where he is?”

Well, as it happened, I didn’t know where he got to when he scooted into the fireplace, so I could say with a clear conscience, “I have no idea.”

Apparently, the dragon believed me, because he leaned in very close to me and said in a menacing tone, “And if you do, I am certain you will tell us right away, yes?”

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled away from me and nodded to the other dragons. As they grabbed me to take me back to my prison, I looked back at the Door. To my astonishment, I saw that the carved red dragons around the doorknob were spinning - the sign that someone was trying to use the door from the other side.

-She Wolf © 2007

 This time I was completely frozen with fear, and apparently so was Cosmo. We lay in a heap on the rocky floor of the cavern while the huge dragon stood over us, his laughter echoing.

The echoes continued long after he stopped, and it wasn’t until all was silent again that he spoke. “Well, then, so this is who they placed you with, is it, little one?” Cosmo wiggled loose from my arms and stood there looking up at the gigantic scaly face. He hissed and growled something in dragon, wisps of smoke leaking out of his nostrils.

The big dragon chuckled nastily. He reached out and prodded Cosmo with one enormous claw and then looked over at me. “I dare say you don’t understand dragon, pitiful creature that you are - he is telling me to leave his foster-mother alone. At least you haven’t coddled all of the spunk out of him yet.” Cosmo backed up and cuddled close to me, still smoking at the other dragon, his small eyes locked on the huge eyes staring down at us.

“Stand up. Show some sort of backbone. Whether I approve or not, the little one seems to look up to you as an example, however poor.” The dragon hooked a claw under my back and I was forced to stand up or be punctured. Cosmo stayed glued to the side of my leg. He clearly did not like the huge dragon - or any of the other smaller dragons that had herded us here for that matter.

I gathered my wits from the far, scared corners of my mind. I was desperately hoping that Cosmo had not been kidnapped and hidden with me. If that was the case, I was sunk. I said, with my mouth so dry with fear that it felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls, “I don’t know who you are, but couldn’t you just have said you wanted to see Cosmo? I’m sure something could have been arranged…Are you his father or his mother?” I was sorry to notice that my voice trembled slightly.

“I’m not his father or his mother, and no arrangements would ever have been made, trust me. I am very much persona non grata with Cosmo’s family right now…So I decided to make my own arrangements.” The dragon did smile this time, and it was a fearful sight indeed.

“His parents would have continued to have the youngling coddled, living among you weak and useless humans. That was intolerable.”

My look of confusion was clear enough for even the dragon to read it.

“I might as well tell you - even if I don’t intend to keep you around much longer. But first…” He turned to the other dragons. “Take the little one away. Begin his training to be a real dragon.”

The four small dragons swarmed over to us, and before he could run, Cosmo was dragged off in the middle of the group. He was breathing fire at them and fighting for all he was worth, but there were too many of them, and they were too big for him. They disappeared into a tunnel on the far side of the cavern with his growls and bellows echoing behind him.

“He does not know what is best for him. But then, his scales are still soft.” The dragon shook his head and then turned back to me. “There are three stages to a dragon’s life. The first two are agreed upon by all dragons. They are instinct and intellect. In the first, instinctive stage, where the young one is now - and those slightly larger dragons who took him off, a dragon learns to follow his instincts. He learns to fly well, he learns to be a good hunter, he learns to follow a scent and track. He polishes these skills over a period of years. He learns to be careful, too, because his scales are still soft, and he is small and easy to injure. He learns cunning this way. It is a very, very useful stage of a dragon’s life.

“Then, as the dragon grows larger, his scales begin to harden. He enters the second stage, that of intellect. His inside claws on his forelegs rotate and he now has opposable “thumbs”. His eyes become more adept at focusing up close, and his vocal chords change. He is now able to speak the all languages he has heard spoken. In fact, he can now imitate the language of any species with great accuracy. In this second stage, a dragon studies, through reading and writing and research, learning all of the things he needs to learn to be a master of knowledge. This stage also lasts for years.” He looked at me. “A fairly useless stage unless the correct things are studied. Too often it is useless fluff that a dragon chooses to learn.

“The third stage is the last. A dragon attains his full growth - most are a bit smaller than I am - and this is the stage that is disputed. Many dragons, the little one’s parents among them, see this as the stage of wisdom. They think that all that a dragon has learned in the first two stages now go towards making him wise and thoughtful, someone who leads with wisdom. They tend to be a little, say, gentler during the first two stages- they see no need to toughen a young one up too much. That is partly why he was being fostered among you puny humans. And here is where some of us disagree - I am foremost among those dissenting.” The dragon paused for effect. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

I asked, “What do you think the third stage is for?” My voice came out in a whisper.

The dragon’s eyes narrowed with pleasure. His voice was frighteningly cold and smooth, and oily with menace, “Power. The third stage is all about Power.”

I gulped and wished I could sink into the stones, so evil was his voice.

“We held sway until recently. We ruled over all here in this world, doing as we chose because we are dragons and it is our right. We were on the verge of expanding into other worlds. Then those namby-pamby excuses for dragons staged a coup - I didn’t know they had it in them. They made a pact of peace with the other creatures living here. The little one is the offspring of the leaders of that group, and they gave him as a willing hostage to seal that peace. They let him be taken away to be raised by weak and worthless humans, of all things! They knew that he wouldn’t receive a proper dragon’s training there, and then they said that it didn’t matter, because the days of dragons doing as they wished were over! How dare they!” Smoke was rolling out of his nostrils in great billows now. “So I took matters into my own hands. They will deal with me and my followers and return to the true path for dragons, and the young one will learn what it is to be a true dragon!” This last was roared at an ear splitting volume.

I ran. I was sure I was going to be burned to a crisp at any moment, so I took advantage of his distraction and ran. The only thing in the cavern to hide behind was the Door, leaning against the wall. There was just enough space for me to slide behind it, and I was cowering there when the expected blast came. I could feel the heat coming in around the edges of the stone wall that had been pulled loose with the Door, but the magic of the Door held and it didn’t burn even though it was made of wood. I was slightly burned from the fire that came around the edges of my shelter, but it wasn’t bad. Another blast hit, and then another. I was wondering how long I could hold out when suddenly the fire stopped. I could hear another voice in the room, and then the huge dragon called out to me.

“Little human, you will be spared for now. My fellow here has pointed out to me that you may prove useful if you are still alive. Come out, now!”

The head of a somewhat smaller dragon looked in at me, and he reached in. I noted with detachment that his inside claw had rotated to become opposable as he grabbed my arm and hauled me out of my hiding spot.

“You will be placed somewhere safe for now. I wouldn’t want any of the young ones to decide you would make a good toy for their hunting games…yet.”

The second dragon let go of my arm and pushed me in front of it. I was marched off down a series of echoing, torch-lit corridors and finally pushed through a large opening into a smaller room. As a sprawled on the floor, a stone was pushed in front of the opening, and I was alone.

- She Wolf © 2007

 The eye stared right at us as we lay trembling on the tiles. I started scooting backwards across the floor towards the door, slowly and carefully, almost frozen with fear. Cosmo inched along with me, his eyes fixed on the huge one in the window.

Just as we reached the doorway to the hall, the kitchen door blew in.

It didn’t so much burst open as it did burst into splinters. It disintegrated inward with a boom and a crash, bits of wood flying everywhere. I shielded by eyes with my arm at the last second, but splinters still penetrated the exposed flesh of my forearm and face and jabbed into my legs through my jeans. Cosmo closed his eyes in time, and the wooden missiles just bounced off of his scales.

Bleeding from a dozen spots, I scrambled to my feet and Cosmo and I ran for the front room. We could hear something coming behind us, through the hole where the kitchen door had been.

I slammed the door to the living room shut and looked around for something, anything that would help. There was nothing. My eyes fell on my cell phone, left sitting on a table where I had rescued it from Cosmo earlier in the day. I grabbed it and hit Jon on speed dial. He couldn’t do anything (I didn’t think anyone except possibly Thomas could) but at least he would be able to tell Thomas what had happened to us. Just as the connection was made, the door to the living room crashed open, and four red dragons, each about the size of a grown man, stepped into the room

Their eyes narrowed when they saw Cosmo and me, and puffs of smoke came out of their nostrils. I tipped over the table I was next to and got ready to duck behind it. I had lived with Cosmo long enough to know the warning signs of a blast of fire. One of them growled something, and the others responded. To my surprise, Cosmo responded too. The other dragons growled back at him and moved towards him menacingly. Puffs of smoke came from Cosmo’s much smaller nostrils as he moved into what was clearly a defensive stance in front of me. I had dropped the cell phone when I flipped the table over and I could faintly hear Jon on the other end of the line, concern audible in his voice.

The first of the dragons loosed a blast of fire in our direction. The other dragons moved around the room and breathed fire at us too. Thankfully, Thomas had fireproofed this room pretty well, or we would be in the middle of an inferno right now.

The dragons moved again and sent fire our way. Little Cosmo valiantly darted up to the nearest and belched his own fire at the larger dragon, scorching him on the belly. The dragon reached out a clawed hand and swatted at him, but Cosmo was smaller and more agile and danced out of the way. While Cosmo was busy, the other dragons took advantage of his distraction and came still closer to me, breathing little jets of flame on the floor at my feet. It seemed like we were being herded - herded towards the bright green Door on the other side of the room.

The Door was sealed magically by Thomas, and had been ever since I had been the guardian, which was several years now. Once in a very great while, I would see the bas-relief dragons that surrounded the central doorknob moving which meant someone was trying to use it, but mostly it stayed still. With the seal in place on the Door, I wondered why these red dragons would want to herd us over to it. The Door was a short distance behind me, and I could hear the bas-relief spinning around the knob. I turned my head to glance at it and saw all four of the carved red dragons spinning in a circle - but that was wrong. The dragons on the Door were four different colors - one red, one green, one blue and one yellow. They weren’t all supposed to be red.

The dragon Cosmo was harassing finally herded him back over to me and the four of them stood there, holding us a few feet away from the Door.

Then the spinning sound stopped and I heard the Door creak open, its hinges rusty from disuse. Cosmo leaped in my arms and I turned sideways so I could see what was happening without turning my back on our attackers.

The Door was opening on a dark, rocky cavern. I could see a dragon’s foot the size of my sofa th