Chapter Twenty Five
It was now early June. Andrew had been in the Realms for over three months. He trained at the castle for two months, one of those with Teltibane. He could now beat Teltibane on occasion, but still very rarely. But beating the old master was hardly the point. Andrew learnt valuable lessons each and every day.
He got to see the spectacle of the Lighting every morning from up close. The great, bright beams of Color converged on the point of the prism, along with thousands of the smaller, personal beams. The prism combined and redirected the Colors, so that they joined together in a great shaft of Light, channeled upwards to the heavens. The shining Light became visible against the blue sky. Then the Light spread out and diffused into all of the world.
One night after dinner, Hemsly, a castle gardener who Andrew was a little acquainted with, approached him. Excitement and eagerness was written on his round, boyish face.
"Wanna see somethin' special? Somethin' you've never seen before?"
"All right." Andrew said.
"Here, take a torch. We'll be goin' through the forest."
"What is it?"
"You'll see."
They hiked out onto the grounds and through the forest to the other side. There was a large, metal, pen there, a latticework of rods and beams. Its walls were some twenty-five feet high, and a domed web of crisscrossing metal rods formed its roof.
Lying on the floor of the pen was what could only be a fully grown dragon. Its chest rose and fell rhythmically in slumber, while steam seeped out of its nostrils.
"Ain't he a beauty," whispered Hemsly.
"Wow, a real dragon," said Andrew. "Incredible! I wonder if they are related to dinosaurs. According to Greybeard, dragons originated on Earth. Perhaps they escaped the cataclysm that killed out the dinosaurs because of their ability to fly."
The torchlight flickered over the dragon's green-blue scaly body and dark lavender wings and tail.
"'Found him out in the wildlands, injured, his wing so damaged that he couldn't hunt. Half starved to death. I suspect that it's from a fight with another dragon for territorial dominance. I took him in, set his wing, and put him on the road to recovery. He'll eat out of my hand now. Let me show you. It's time for his nightly feeding."
Hemsly pulled a large slab of putrid meat out of his sack. "He likes it rotten. Gives it a pungent flavor."
He unlocked the gate and approached the dragon slowly.
"Don't wanna frighten him," he whispered. "I call him Cuddles."
"Cuddles?"
"You know, because he's all cute and cuddly."
Andrew thought that the fearsome looking dragon was anything but cute and cuddly, but he didn't argue. And he could kind of see what Hemsly meant, if you shrunk the dragon down to one hundredth of its size, removed its fangs, switched its scales for fur, took away its fire-breathing ability.....
The smell of rotten meat wafted up into Cuddles' nose. It took the dragon a moment to realize that he wasn't dreaming. He opened one hubcap-sized green eye, then the other.
Hemsly adopted a sing-song voice. "Daddy brought you some tasty meat to eat."
Andrew thought it sounded ridiculous
Cuddles stood to his full gigantic height and devoured the rotten meat. In three quick bites, he ate the entire humongous slab.
"There's a good lad." Hemsly affectionately patted the dragons blue snout. "Eat all the food that daddy gives you, and you will grow big and strong again."
Then the dragon suddenly stopped chewing.
"What's wrong?" Hemsly asked.
He spit out the slimy, saliva covered meat onto the floor.
"What's the matter? Meat not rotten enough?" Hemsly asked.
In response, Cuddles swept out with his giant foreleg, knocking Hemsly back fifteen feet into the metal wall of the cage with a crash. He scrambled out of the enclosure and quickly locked the gate.
Then Cuddles went to the wall of the pen and started to breathe fire onto it.
"Oh dear," said Hemsly.
The dragon poured fire onto the wall for several minutes. The metal was starting to bend under the sustained heat. Then Cuddles stopped, and started to kick at the already softened metal frame.
"Cuddles!" shouted Hemsly in an authoritative voice. "Cuddles! Stop this at once! Daddy says no!"
Cuddles lazily afforded Hemsly a brief look, and went right back to his kicking. The entire cage structure shook, and the sound of crashing metal filled the air.
Hemsly rummaged through his pockets. "Where is that sleeping powder?"
He found the bottle he was looking for and emptied its powdery contents into his hands. Running over to the dragon he flung the substance into its face.
Cuddles gave the frame one final kick, and attempted another, but his leg sank to the ground in mid kick, as the potent powder took effect. His eyes closed, and he tumbled to the ground with a loud thump that shook the floor.
"You can't tame a dragon," said Andrew. "I think that's the lesson to be learnt here."
"Oh, he's normally not at all like this," said Hemsly defensively. "He was just upset about the meat."
"When will he be fully healed?"
"I would say about two to two and a half weeks. Hey, you know what? In a few days he should be ready for his first flight since his injury. I reckon that you can ride him then!"
Hemsly beamed at Andrew, as though he were offering him the world.
But the dragon didn't look at all tamed to Andrew, no matter what Hemsly thought. "I don't know—."
"C'mon. When will you ever again get the chance to ride a real dragon? Like you said, they all left Earth years ago. This will really be something to tell your friends back home about."
'If I survive it, you mean,' thought Andrew.
"Um..."
"And, I would never attempt to ride a fully healthy dragon without a special custom made saddle and all. But Cuddles is still healing, and his flight will be weaker, so you won't need it. It's really a once in a lifetime chance!"
"Okay. I'll do it."
Andrew didn't know why he was agreeing to the insane task. He just felt somehow that it was the right thing to do.
"That's great! He won't even know you're riding him. Isn't he smart? He knew to first melt the metal, then kick it."
"Yeah. Um, very smart. Totally." Andrew's mind was still occupied with the thought of what he had just gotten himself into. Insanity.
Hemsly glowed with pleasure. "He's my baby."