City of Ruins by Mark London Williams

Author:Mark London Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, science, baseball, dinosaurs, jerusalem, timetravel, middle grade, father and son, ages 9 to 13, biblical characters, future adventure
Publisher: Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc.

Chapter Eleven

Clyne: Re-enter the Dragon

March 2020 C.E.

And so it went, skirmishes and confrontations, through towns and over roads and even in the large metropolis that humans have named for celestial beings called angels. I expected, in a “City of Angels”, to perhaps find enlightenment, or, at least, according to what I know of Earth Orange’s angel stories, a more cosmological perspective on events.

We did manage to perform part of a show on a roadway named for a long vanished forest — Hollywood Boulevard — where we were not the only costumed or performing creatures plying our wares. Silver Eye read minds; Strong Bess bent various metals, tore thick books, and lifted spectators up by the palm of her hand; the Bearded Boy let other children tug on his long tendrils of body hair, in exchange for small pieces of currency; and the Weeping Bat flew, just like the winged Saurians back home, using her radar — for a price — to find items that customers had recently lost, or to bring back things they secretly desired, but never told anyone about.

Sometimes, depending on the object, this would cause great embarrassment among the patrons.

An older woman, a “grandmother” in earth terms, was given a toy, a “doll,” that she’d apparently desired her whole life. She burst into tears, and nobody was sure where the bat had found the doll. Occasionally, the guardians and constabulary ask uneasy questions about such things.

“Why is the bat always sad, then, if she helps people recover lost items?” I asked Silver Eye one evening. “Things they desire?”

Because if you ask her, she will tell you that much more has been lost than people know.

When the municipal armed guardians came around and started asking the performers for their identity cards and official papers, Rocket cut the show short — our first real performance in days — and had us moving along before we could finish collecting revenues.

I did not even get to do my new act, which involves the wearing of a suit called a “tuxedo,” human clothes which are supposed to denote “class” or “elegance,” according to Rocket. He says he’s trying out a new act called “The Debonair Dragon,” because “that might be less frightening, and people seem plenty scared already.”

I am supposed to sit at a table — my leg is always discreetly in chains, though, to prevent my running away (though this will not be truly possible until full recovery is made from my reinjured jabberstick wound) — wearing this “tuxedo” and conversing with anyone willing to pay to have a conversation.

Few people have been willing.

“You never used to have to follow so many rules,” Rocket complains, as we pack up the Odd-Lots Carnival and prepare to drive away. “Like hanging out yellow flags to prove you are pox-free, and having to wait for an inspection in each new town you go to.” He shakes his head. “I can’t wait until we get to Grandfather’s. He says he was a way to make us rich.

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