The Dragon Dreamer by J S Burke

Author:J S Burke [Burke, J S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780996042512
Publisher: Lind Press
Published: 2014-05-09T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11: STORM PEARLS

Thunder rumbled through the dawn sky, on and on, like a symphony of dragon drummers. Arak slumbered on in his cozy shelter until a violent wind rattled the branches. He flinched in his sleep, startled awake, and stretched the sleep out of his body. He poked his head outside, filling his lungs with the cool, tasty air.

The storm finished with a shower of small ice-stones that bounced on the ground like over-active crickets. Arak collected several. He cut an ice-stone in half and studied the glassy rings. The ice ball was made from layers of lighter and darker ice.

It was like a fantastic pearl that Orm grew, when he changed the oyster’s diet again and again. The pearl color changed with each diet change. Orm cut the pearl in half to show its rings of white, pink, violet and peach.

Pearls and ice-stones both grew in layers: one in the sea, one in the sky. Scree was right. Ice-stones were storm pearls.

These storm pearls were unusually round, like tiny trance-stones. Arak stared into a cold crystal ball while questions crowded into his mind. How did trance-stones work? Why did each dragon use only one type of trance-stone? Could other stones work?

Arak grabbed a heavy bag, tucked away in a corner of his shelter. It held his collection of gemstone globes. He removed two and set them on the sand: turquoise and amethyst. Why had he never tried to use them as trance-stones?

Arak glanced at the protected cove, where the octopus guests would remain for another ten-day. He fiddled with his bag, thinking. Could an octopus communicate with a dragon using trance-mind? Could he keep in touch with his friends while they journeyed across the sea? Maybe they’d find an island filled with copper!

Arak had to know. But he was already called the Trance-Freak. His early, unexpected mind journeys had set him apart, and not in a good way.

When Arak was a dragonlet, he was often caught in a long trance. His mind was far away, questing. Once, other young dragons built a prison of heavy ice blocks around his still body. He returned to his body and awoke, numbed by the cold, alone in a cloudy-dim place. Arak thought he must have died. He struggled desperately to push his way out of the ice cage, scared and bruised and humiliated. He ran to his dam, still shaking, feeling rejected and hurt.

“Why?” he cried in anguish.

Arafine had wrapped her wings tightly around Arak, holding him in a warm, safe cocoon. She rocked her young son as gently as a summer breeze. “Because you have a gift,” she said softly, “and they cannot understand.”

“You entered the trance-mind with no training, before you could fly. Your empty body just lay there for hours.” Arafine trembled. “I thought I would lose you. I still don’t know how you found your way back. It frightened the other dragonlets.”

She looked into his eyes. “You must learn to ignore or avoid them. You see the world in new ways, and that is good.

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