Alice Borchardt by The Dragon Queen

Author:The Dragon Queen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-30T00:34:14+00:00

Can you imagine a river that flows through the vistas of the sky? Well, the one the dragon and I were on did. Sunstruck clouds flowed around and below us. Magnificent shapes in crystalline white, violet, amethyst, gold and shades of blue, their edges dabbled in blood as the sun set.

Below, I could smell and hear the storms: the clamor of the thunder, the breathless hush after a lightning bolt hit, and the roar of the air when it rushes back into the void the fierce discharge makes. Maeniel told me about this place. It is neither dawn nor sunset here, yet the light is drawn from both. The mountains of vapor hide the horizon, drifting wraiths of mist dampen your skin, and birds pass in flight. Hawks, eagles, swans, and geese drift by, borne on the rising air.

We swam through cold, dark clouds and out the other side, into the splendor of thunderheads massing above us, surrounding us on all sides, gleaming with all the colors of the rainbow in the sunlight. We rode the waves among them, waves of air or water, I couldn’t tell. At times we entered many pillared halls, the storm clouds a roof above, a floor below, while in between a dozen suns refracted from the one danced over the ever changing shapes around us, tracing in their presence all the glories of the day. From dawn to dusk, the gift of God. Each one. All perfect, yet unique.

“Where are we going?” I asked the dragon.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“How are we getting to wherever we’re going?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” was the answer.

A second later, the spray from a wave got me in the eyes. When I cleared them, I saw the shore of Cornwall. We were, however, well away from Tintigal Castle.

I was no sooner finished drawing breath in a sigh of relief when I became aware I was being hailed from the beach… and I saw my family there. Until that moment, I had not known how much I loved them or had the slightest idea how much I missed them.

The dragon turned and swam toward them. He had little sympathy for me.

“Stop your bawling,” he said sharply. “All the time on this long—and I might add trying—voyage, you have shown yourself calm, clear headed, brave, and bold. Now at the sight of your family, you shatter my delicate ears with sniffling and squalling. Compose yourself.”

Not being human, he continued, “I have never had the experience of bringing someone home who has too freely imbibed an intoxicant of some kind—but I have the feeling that I’m about to find out what that is like. No doubt I and all our kind will be blamed by that old scold, Dugald, for your adventures and misadventures. You don’t have to compound my problem by arriving in a state of collapse. Endeavor to compose yourself and do it now!

“I am appointed your guardian and companion. Don’t—I repeat, don’t—make my life any more difficult than the nature of such an arduous task demands.

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