CHAPTER 8
The Legend of the Ancient Furnace
Jennifer raised her head, not knowing what this
mysterious mound with eyes was or whether to warn the others—but
before she could even say a word, the clump struck. As an
unobservant sheep trotted by, its jaws flared out, grabbed the poor
thing by its fluffy neck, and twisted.
“Creeper!” one of the blue dragons cried out, but
he was still laughing. “Creeper alert! Mullery’s trying to horn in
on our meal!”
This got all of them working together. But before
green or blue dragon could reach the site of the attack, the
newcomer had disappeared again, wrapping its shadowy skin around
its prey somewhere in the prickly brush.
“Come out, Mullery!” they all roared, swiping
gently at the branches. “Show yourself, and the sheep! Or we’ll
burn this forest down looking for you.”
“You will not,” Jennifer abruptly shouted,
jumping over the porch railing and landing (rather elegantly, she
congratulated herself) on the lawn not far from them. They all
started a bit at her interruption, but quickly smiled when they saw
who she was.
“You’re Crawford’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” said
one of the olive-skinned dragons.
“That’s right. I’m Jennifer Scales. Who are you,
and why are you chasing our sheep around our barn and talking about
burning down our forest?”
The dragon extended a wing claw. “Catherine
Brandfire. We’re just joking about burning the forest—we know the
rules around here.”
Jennifer reluctantly shook the offered claw. “All
right, then. What about the sheep?”
“What, you want one? Join the hunt. But that’ll
mean two of us go hungry, instead of just one!” She said this last
to the whole group, and there were a few chuckles.
“Why haven’t I ever seen you around here
before?”
Catherine shrugged. “Well, I’m pretty new. Only
turned sixteen a few weeks ago. But the others have been coming
here for years. Some of us get bored around mealtime—picking off
prey is too easy, unless you have a bit of competition!”
A blue dragon, still hovering over their heads,
broke in. “You want a challenge, Catherine? Wait until you hunt the
oreams of Crescent Valley!”
“Hang on a moment. You guys come here every
crescent moon? And you know my grandfather?”
“It would be hard not to!” This came from the
moving clump of weeds with silver eyes, which emerged from the
brush and changed color and texture rapidly to reveal a dragon
shape. This one was not unlike her own father and grandfather: dark
purple, with a bony forehead pulled back in a black crest.
“Everyone knows Elder Scales, and his son, Jonathan.” He did not
smile, but there was respect in his voice.
Jennifer idly wondered what being an elder meant,
but something else was bothering her right now. “How come I’ve
never seen any of you before?”
A blue dragon with a pinkish hue on the underside
of his wings landed gently next to her. “I’ll bet you’ve never been
here during a crescent moon?”
“No . . . I guess not. Not until a few weeks ago.”
She had never really paid attention to moon phases before all this
nonsense. Why should she? She enjoyed the nighttime sky like anyone
else, but she was no astronomer.
“Crawford had us leave last time, before you
arrived. Your family thought it might be easier. It’s nice to
finally meet you, Jennifer! I’m Alex Rosespan. I’ve been a dasher
for the last six years, and my brother, Patrick, has, too, for just
a couple of months. If it weren’t for your grandfather, Patrick and
I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go when we first morphed. This is
like a second home to us.”
“And for all of us,” chimed in Catherine. “I’ve
only morphed twice before, but everyone knows Crawford’s farm is
the safest place to be if you’re a weredragon. It’s also where the
tutors come to show the newer arrivals how to manage their
powers.”
“Powers? You mean like breathing fire and
flying?”
“And the more interesting stuff.” Catherine’s
crimson eyes glowed. “Like lizard-calling for us tramplers, or
camouflage for creepers like Mullery.”
“This is my first year as a tutor,” Alex explained.
“I’ll be helping dashers with their tailwork.”
Jennifer sat back on her haunches, flicking her
tail nervously. This all sounded suspiciously like more school. . .
.
“Do you know which type you’ll follow?”
“What’s that?” The question made no sense.
“What type?” Alex pressed. “I mean you look like
you’ve got a bit of everything in you—horn and build of a trampler,
skin and tail of a dasher, and, of course, creeper’s in your
blood—and I don’t know if that’s ever happened before, even when
families cross over. Kids with different parents favor one type or
the other.”
Like an unwelcome winter wind, the recollection
that she was a freak among monsters slapped Jennifer’s scaled
cheeks and reddened them. What on earth must these perfect breeds,
who all looked similar within their tidy hunting groups, think of
her? It was like being a mutt among pedigrees. “I . . . um . . . I
dunno. My dad didn’t . . . my grandpa hasn’t . . . it’s because of
my dumb mom . . .”
“I think it’s a lovely mix,” Catherine said warmly.
“You’re striking! And I bet crossing types will come in handy. Each
breed has its strengths and weaknesses—for example, we tramplers
can’t fly too well. But I’ll bet you can pick up whatever skills
you like, and be great at them. Maybe we’ll learn lizard-calling
together?”
“Lizard-whuh?” She was too taken aback by the green
dragon’s kindness to pick up the term. “You really think I’d be any
good at it?”
“Sure, why not? You never know until you try,
right? I learned that when I started junior year and had to pick up
calculus. Turns out I didn’t fail miserably.”
Jennifer wanted to hug this stranger on the spot,
but suddenly a shadow landed to her left, startling her. It was
Grandpa Crawford.
“Making friends already, Niffer?” he said smoothly.
“Fabulous! But it’s almost time for breakfast. If you others will
finish your kill and bring it up to the cabin, we’ll have a roast
and then share some stories.”
By the time breakfast began, Jennifer had counted no fewer than thirty-two different dragons running through her grandfather’s pastures, or slinking through the trees, or sailing over the lake on tranquil wings. There were tramplers like Catherine, all some shade of green with large bodies, crimson eyes behind any number of nose horns, and not much in the way of wings; dashers like Alex, with small bright blue bodies, golden eyes, and brilliant patterns under their broad wings; and creepers like her father and grandfather, purple or black for the most part, horns or crests at the backs of their heads, and not often seen because of the way their scales seemed to shift color and texture at will.
It was odd, seeing her second home populated by
completely foreign creatures. But the more she thought about it,
the more she realized so much of what she thought familiar was
changing—the people back home, her friends, her family, herself,
everything.
Sheep was on the menu, of course, and Jennifer took
the time to catch and prepare her own. It made her feel more like
she was blending in, and she had to admit the more she saw of these
other dragons, the more the idea appealed to her. Besides, she
realized as she watched them hunt, she hadn’t eaten solid food in
days, and that seemed stupid in retrospect. What had she
been thinking?
The dragons were a boisterous lot when they
gathered. She couldn’t really tell anyone’s gender, nor their age,
though if her parents were right, everyone would be at least a
couple of years older than she. Dashers mingled with creepers, and
creepers with tramplers—no one seemed to care much who was who, and
no dragon was alone. Even Jennifer, who was trying to sit back and
observe everyone else over her own ketchup-splashed sheep bits,
found herself laughing at jokes she overheard, and smiling back at
those who passed her on the porch.
“Time for a story!” one of the dashers called out
after most of them had finished eating. “Where’s old Crawford?
Crawdad, tell us a tale!”
“I’m right here! But why doesn’t anyone ever write
these things down when I tell them, so you don’t have to keep
bugging me?” Her grandfather’s voice was boisterous, and made the
others laugh. “Very well, a story. It is our tradition after all,
especially when newer dragons are among us. This is how our people
hand down history and legends—around a meal, and under a crescent
moon. We don’t keep much in the way of libraries or archives—my
sitting room has more fiction than fact, I’m afraid—but I’ll tell
you a story some say is true, and some say not.
“There was a time, centuries ago, when people
accepted dragons, adapted to their presence, and even revered them
in parts of the world. Civilizations believed dragons to bring
luck, weather, or even life and death. People changed their crops,
tactics in battle, and who they would marry, all on the whisper of
a whim of a forked tongue.
“At that time, there was a force that kept dragons
vital. We do not know much about it now except for its name: the
Ancient Furnace.”
“What, you mean like a big fireplace?” This
interruption came from a young-sounding dasher who sat next to
Alex. Their wing patterns were similar, and so Jennifer guessed
this was Alex’s brother, Patrick. “This is a story about a dumb
fireplace?!”
Crawford’s own granddaughter, and the more seasoned
weredragons assembled, knew how little the elder cared for
interruptions in the middle of a story. But he shook the comment
off, showed a thin smile, and continued.
“Whatever sort of machine it was, it filled entire
caverns with its grinding and roaring, and bathed entire forests in
bright blue and green flames. But these fires grew the trees,
rather than consuming them. Over a thousand years ago, the Ancient
Furnace forged a magical refuge for weredragons, covering Crescent
Valley with moon elms suitable for our kind.”
Several of the dragons nodded their heads in
recognition. This was driving Jennifer nuts—what the heck was this
Crescent Valley? And now “moon elms”? But she knew better than to
stop her grandfather.
“One night, a tribe of werachnids crept into
Crescent Valley. They had learned of the Ancient Furnace’s power,
and they coveted it. Using sorcery, they wove webs about the
Furnace’s defenses, poisoned its workings, and stole its secrets.
But as they tried to escape, the Furnace ground its gears in a last
blast of effort, waking up the dragons and bringing them
charging.
“No werachnid made it out alive, but the Ancient
Furnace’s machinery was irretrievably broken. Its light dimmed, its
rumblings fell silent, and soon after that, it was lost.”
“Lost?” This from Patrick again.
Crawford, irritated at the second interruption,
snapped. “Yes, lost, boy! As in ‘never found again.’ ”
“Why doesn’t anyone just go to the same cave where
it was, and look around? Maybe we could fix it?”
“You’re a bright young man,” the elder said without
seeming at all to mean it. “No doubt you’ve got a map to the
Ancient Furnace’s true location, and a shovel and a pick, and
enough superglue and know-how to fix it right back up again!”
Jennifer was enjoying the lashing—nobody lost
patience like her grandpa in midstory—but a more basic question
urged her forward. “Um, Grandpa . . . what’s a werachnid? I mean,
weredragons, werachnids . . . how many of us werethingies are
there, anyway?”
He turned to face her, but with a softer
expression. “Ah. Sorry, Niffer. I’ve told so many of these stories
over and over again, I can’t remember who’s heard which, anymore.
Well, let’s see . . . werachnids . . . yes, I think I know how to
explain. Follow me, everyone.”
It was a short walk down to the lakeside, where
Crawford opened up a large wooden box there. Jennifer always
figured it held fishing tackle or life preservers, so she was
surprised when he pulled out some ceramic bowls and little plastic
bags of something she couldn’t make out.
“Different dragons would answer Jennifer in
different ways,” he said taking one bowl with a swift wing claw and
scooping it into the lake. “I’ll answer like this: There really is
only one set of ‘werethingies,’ as you put it. Watch as I
add these ingredients. . . .”
They all watched him uncertainly, even the older
ones among them. He shook the contents of the first small bowl onto
his claw carefully, and then scraped at the leavings for quite some
time before he spoke.
“Fifty grains of salt, for the ancestors that first
fought,” he muttered. He tipped them into the bowl. Then he lifted
the second small bowl and counted something else out onto his
palm.
“Fifty seeds, to bear the fruit of future
generations.” These went into the bowl as well.
“Fifty minutes, for how long this answer is
taking,” whispered Catherine, who had settled next to Jennifer. The
younger dragon snorted.
“As some of you know, fifty is a number of some
significance among weredragons,” explained Crawford while mixing
the ingredients of the large bowl with one finger claw. “A dragon
is not considered mature until he has seen fifty morphs. The oream
hunts use fifty hunters from each clan. The newolves use fifty
different chords to speak to us. And so on.”
Jennifer felt a fresh surge of irritation. She had
asked what a werachnid was, and now her grandfather was talking
about oreams, and newolves, and a bunch of other things she didn’t
know or care about! She had a sudden insight into why her father
was the way he was—it must be in the genes.
Hold on, the icy thought struck. Does
that mean I’ll be like that when I’m older?
Crawford’s voice shook her from that horrific
thought. “No one knows why fifty is the number, but fifty it is.
And so this drink I have made, with fifty grains of salt and fifty
seeds, is a ceremonial drink among weredragons. It honors our past,
our future, and the changes in between. We drink, and we adapt.
Here.”
He breathed a small spurt of flame over the large
bowl and then held it out to Jennifer. She took it in both claws
and examined its contents. Various seeds—tiny kiwi seeds, acorns,
even a peach pit—peered back from the salty water.
She brought it up to her mouth and sipped. The
first thing she noticed was how difficult it was for a reptilian
head to sip—the liquid dribbled past her pointed teeth and down her
long, narrow chin. The second thing she noticed was that this was,
essentially, hot salty water.
“Yeouch!” she squeaked, dropping the bowl.
Her grandfather sighed as he surveyed the muddy
seeds at her feet. “Yes, well, anyway, tradition is important. I’m
sure you all get the idea.”
“Sorry,” Jennifer mumbled.
He winked at her and continued. “To get back to
your question on werachnids, they come from the deep past, like
ourselves and our traditions. ‘Fifty times fifty years ago,’ we
dragons say when we mean longer than anyone knows. And back then,
according to legend, there was only one set of people who could
change shape. They were the mutautem, and their exploits
influenced Greek, Central American, East Asian, and Norwegian
mythologies: people, who some mistook for gods, shifting from one
shape to another. Each mutauta could change to just about
any living thing—fish, bird, bear, dragon, insect, even a tree—but
the copy was a poor imitation.
“That is, until the First Generation came. They
were the fifty children of the most powerful mutauta, a
woman by the name of Allucina who could turn into pure living
light. Each one of Allucina’s children could change into a
different form—one form only, but with more accuracy and grace than
their forebears. There was Brigida, the eldest and first perfect
dragon; and Bruce, the first perfect spider. And Bardou the wolf,
Bulbul the songbird, Bennu the eagle, Bian the sea monster, and
many more whose names are lost to us now.”
Jennifer tried to imagine what the call downstairs
to dinner must have sounded like with all these “B” names, but she
kept her thoughts to herself.
“The last child was Barbara, who took no other
shape, but kept her human form.
“There was great tension between many of the
children—in part because there were fifty of them, and stress was
only natural. But between Brigida and Bruce, the first- and
second-born, there was something deeper than dislike. The dragon
was fond of flying in the open air and laughing gusts of flame. She
looked darkly upon her spider brother and his preference for quiet
crevices and spinning webs. In return, Bruce thought his sister to
be arrogant and foolish, and he was afraid of her recklessness.
Their mutual fear and distrust soon evolved into hatred.
“As children, they played unkind pranks on each
other—worms tucked inside a meal, tears and burns on each other’s
clothing, that sort of thing. Once older, Brigida and Bruce favored
traps, like exploding toys and books with poisoned pages. They
enlisted the younger children in alliances, and before long the
family was torn in two.”
Jennifer was startled. Was this what it was like to
have a brother or sister? She supposed her parents spoiled her as
an only child, but it seemed vastly preferable to the alternative,
even if this was just a myth.
“Allucina would not stand for this, and so she
turned to her youngest, Barbara, who had not allied with either
side. She gave Barbara incredible powers, and mastery over the
beasts. And as Allucina died—some say Bruce poisoned his own
mother—she left her youngest daughter as her sole heir to all her
possessions and powers, and she named Barbara matriarch of the
family.
“This did not sit well with Brigida or
Bruce—or any of the rest of them, for that matter. After years of
hatching plots and setting snares, the family finally broke out
into full-blown violence—Brigida and her allies, Bruce and his, and
Barbara standing alone. Brothers killed sisters and vice versa, and
when all was done, there were only the three of them left.
“Brigida fled to the steepest mountains, where
Barbara could not chase. Bruce slipped away into a labyrinth of
shadows. And to this day, thousands of years later, their brood
remain dispersed, hating the sight of the others, hoping to finish
the job their ancestors left undone.”
Crawford finished the story and let them sit in
silence for a while.
Patrick finally spoke first. “So the werachnids are
people, like us, except they change into spider form? It sounds
like we could just talk to them, get to know them better. I mean
it’s been thousands of years. Surely they don’t hate us that much
anymore?”
Jennifer was sure she saw her grandfather hesitate
for an instant before he nodded. “They do, Patrick. They are less
human now, and more spider. Out of instinct, they still hate us.
They’ve gathered in enough numbers over the centuries to drive us
out of one home after another. The last place they destroyed was
Eveningstar.”
Jennifer again thought back to that fateful night
when she turned five and her world turned upside down. If she
closed her eyes, she could just make out the screaming of unknown
beasts. . . .
“But why don’t we fight back?” asked Catherine. “We
must be stronger than them! I mean, we can fly! We can
breathe fire! Spiders are small. A dragon can squash a tarantula,
right? They’re just bugs!”
Crawford seemed caught between a rueful smile and a
forgiving wince. “These ‘bugs,’ as you call them, Catherine, are
not small. Not small at all.
“And while they cannot do what we can do, they have
their own abilities. Centuries of hiding and trapping have honed
their skills. You say we can fly? They can jump, and jump high, to
catch their prey! They don’t miss. They have excellent vision, and
the most powerful among them can see across space and time.
“In their lairs, their chieftains spin new recipes
for poisons and, some believe, sorceries. When their forces
attacked Eveningstar, they had a weapon we didn’t think anyone but
us had: They could breathe fire.”
Jennifer hugged herself with her wings. She was not
crazy about spiders when they were an inch long and spun harmless
webs in the front doorway. The thought of a spider her size that
could launch into the sky like a rocket and breathe fire past
poisoned fangs on the way down was plainly terrifying.
“What about Barbara’s descendants?” Patrick
asked.
To her own surprise, it was actually Jennifer who
began to answer. “I’ve seen one,” she whispered. She was loud
enough that the others turned to look at her in surprise. “The
dream . . . Ms. Graf. She was wearing shining armor and a crown.
They use swords, right? She did. They speak Latin, I think . . .
and I remember talk of justice, and laws, and prophecy. And death.”
She felt Catherine’s wing claw reach out and grasp hers. Looking up
at her grandfather, Jennifer shivered. “They’re brutal.”
“They are brutal,” he answered sadly. “But I’m
afraid even your potent imagination does not do them justice,
Jennifer. While the werachnids act out of animal instinct, the
beaststalkers—so we call them—act out of religious fervor. Barbara
is their patron saint, and they seek us out in an effort to smite
evil.
“Beaststalkers often have swords as you suggest,
but they do not need them. They are masters of the duel, walking
weapons that use light and sound to subdue even the most powerful
of Allucina’s other children. Their very voice can paralyze their
foe. Some even—”
Suddenly Crawford stopped, as if something had
occurred to him. He sighed and smiled apologetically. “I don’t mean
to scare all of you. Other than in dreams”—he looked meaningfully
at Jennifer—“no weredragon has reported seeing a beaststalker for
years. Be glad of that.”
This did not completely reassure her. She looked
into the lingering darkness under the sunlit trees nearby,
half-expecting to see huge, bulbous eyes or the glint of a curved
sword. But there was only the empty eagle nest.
“My grandmother says dragonflies are bringing
strange news to her,” Catherine offered. “She says we may see
beaststalkers again, soon!”
Now Crawford actually chuckled. “Young Catherine,
your grandmother is among the most revered of the elders. But I
think Winona Brandfire’s dragonflies may be a bit too anxious. We
have not heard a whisper of any enemy since Eveningstar, and I
doubt we will for some time.”
Jennifer did not know much about weredragons. She
knew next to nothing about their enemies, or how reliable
dragonflies were as scouts. But she knew a thing about her
grandfather. One of the things she knew was that when he wasn’t
being straight with her, he could never look her in the eye.
Right now, his silver eyes strayed across the
lake.
“So, you wanna go turf-whomping?”
“Pardon?”
Catherine’s eyes were full of mischief.
“Turf-whomping! My grandma taught it to me. Tramplers do it a lot,
since we can’t fly for long distances.”
Jennifer shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
“Follow me.”
They left the cabin and went out to the southern
pastures. There were still hundreds of sheep grazing—Jennifer
supposed her grandfather bought herds and herds of them to support
the refuge. While the fluffy white shapes scattered at their
approach, Catherine paid no attention to them, but instead began
running out onto the grass, parallel to the tree line.
“Just watch!” she called back over her wing.
Her bulky olive form rolled over the gentle, grassy
slope. Flapping her tiny wings, she barely got off the ground.
Instead of soaring higher, as Jennifer had learned to do, she let
herself glide back down to the ground. Then, with a magnificent
kick, she heaved into the air again. Another kick—whomp—and
another—whomp. They were huge, slow-motion steps by the
clumsiest lizard Jennifer had ever seen.
She chuckled to herself. It looked like bad flying,
but it also looked like a ton of fun. Before she knew it she was
off after her new friend, letting her wings cut through the autumn
air and kicking at the pale grass with trembling legs.
“The dashers laugh at us when they see us do this,
but frankly, I like being this close to the ground!” Catherine
called out as Jennifer pulled up, so that they were whomping
side by side. “It makes for easier acceleration, like a sprinter
using quicker steps. Check this out.”
She slammed her heels down harder and shortened her
stride. And just like that she was leaping ahead of Jennifer. Then
she suddenly veered sharply to the left, into the forest.
“You don’t have to use the ground every time!” she
called out behind her. “I tried this last time and crashed, ’cause
I’m still new at this, but let me see . . .”
Jennifer turned to follow, her stomach
fluttering—the trunks of the trees were fairly close together, and
some of them had very low branches with heavy knots. She tilted her
wings enough to slow down to a gentle glide with each whomp,
so that she could watch.
But Catherine didn’t get far. After maneuvering
fairly gracefully through a cluster of oaks and kicking off a thick
trunk so that she could accelerate, she found herself faced with
some heavy, fragrant pines that were just too fat to avoid and too
bushy to find purchase for another kick. She slammed into two pines
at once, and with a squawk tumbled through the lower branches into
a flurry of dead leaves.
“Catherine! You okay?” Jennifer couldn’t stop
giggling—it didn’t look serious, by any definition. “I’m not sure
that’s how you’re supposed to do it.”
“Maybe I should watch my grandma a few more times,”
Catherine muttered, shaking the leaves and twigs from her wingtips.
“Of course, she spends most of her time in Crescent Valley, and I
don’t get to go there yet.”
“Do you think what the dragonflies told her is
true?” Jennifer picked a string of moss off of her friend’s scaly
back. “I mean about enemies coming? Grandpa seemed
skeptical.”
“With all due respect to your grandfather, the
Brand-fires’s scouts don’t make mistakes. It’s our specialty, you
might say. If they tell us something, it’s happening. Something is
on the way.”
“But what’s on the way?
Beaststalkers?”
Catherine shrugged. “Or worse.”