Edgar and the Dragon
By Joseph Davis
Copyright 2015 Joseph Davis
Scripture verses taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Chapter 1
Edgar woke up suddenly in the night to find a dragon peering in through his bedroom window. “Oh, you again,” he groaned, turning over and burying his head under his pillow.
“Come now, don’t be like that,” the dragon whispered, so close to Edgar’s ear that he imagined that she must have slipped in quickly through the window and over to his bed. Sure enough, when he peeked out from under his pillow, he found the dragon’s toothy snout and catlike yellow eyes uncomfortably close to his head. Her scaly, coiled body gleamed like a large heap of silver coins on the moonlit bedroom floor.
“Your breath still stinks,” Edgar observed.
“And you’re still a very rude little boy,” the dragon retorted. “But we both know you’ll be coming with me, so why not just pack your things, climb up on my back, and get it over with?”
“You know, I might say no this time,” Edgar warned. As he spoke, he threw off his covers and began rummaging under his bed. “I have important things to do tomorrow,” he continued, finding his backpack in a pile of dirty laundry. He unzipped it and poured out the contents onto the floor. “Yes, there’s a big, important math test in school tomorrow, and Mom always says I need to get plenty of sleep before that kind of test. ‘No staying up late watching TV,’she always says, ‘and especially no late-night adventures in the Dragon Kingdom.’”
“Your Mom doesn’t believe in dragons,” his scaly visitor reminded him. “Now hurry up and pack your things. We’re in a bit of a rush.”
Edgar froze. “You weren’t followed here, were you?” he asked. An uncomfortable silence followed.
Edgar leaped into action, scrambling after all the items he would need for the journey – a flashlight, a knife, a raincoat, boots, and all the tennis balls he could find. After throwing these hastily into his backpack, he climbed up onto the dragon’s back.
“Let’s go!” he urged. “You can fill me in on the details along the way!”
The dragon obliged, slithering hurriedly out the open window and up onto the roof of Edgar’s house, where she unfurled her great, bat-like wings. As they took off, Edgar scanned the sky nervously, but the Autumn night dozed on peacefully without any sign of danger.
“All right, so what’s the story this time?” he asked as they flew off into the night. I wish I had changed out of my pajamas, he suddenly realized. Not that it mattered, anyway. He quickly forgot this small inconvenience as the dragon informed him of the grave danger that was facing the Dragon Kingdom.
Chapter 2
“Well,” the dragon began, “as you may have guessed, the Dragon Kingdom is in great peril.”
“Oh, I know,” Edgar cut in. “The Dragon Kingdom is always in great peril – if it isn’t an outbreak of poisonous beetles or a problem with the fireberry trees, then the sea monsters are attacking or the King has lost his pet hermit crabs. Did he ever find Little Pinchy, by the way – oh, never mind! Anyway, you lot always seem to be needing my help with some thing or other.”
“You are the best at what you do,” the dragon acknowledged, “even if you are a bit arrogant. And a bit rude. But I’m afraid that this current danger makes all those other times look like small matters.”
“To be fair, the thing with the hermit crabs was a bit of a small matter,” Edgar pointed out. “But go on.”
And so the dragon began her tale:
It had all begun about a month and a half before, on a Friday around the end of July. The princess and the prince, two small dragonlets a bit younger than Edgar, had been on summer break for several weeks, and they were bored. Their usual toys and games had grown tiresome. Their parents were often busy with the work of the Kingdom, and their father’s hermit crab collection could only keep them entertained for so long. It seemed like there was nothing to do!
Then, one fateful Friday, the visitor came. He was a funny old fellow in a blue robe decorated with silver stars, and he said that he was an ambassador from a faraway country. Like most ambassadors, he brought many fancy gifts for the King and Queen. He also brought two special gifts for the princess and the prince: enchanted toys! To the prince, he gave a little golden ball that could disappear and reappear on command. The princess received a lovely little doll of gold, which could sing any song that it heard even once. The dragonlets were delighted with these toys.
The prince had hours of fun performing tricks with the magic ball, and the princess entertained herself all afternoon by showing off her new doll and asking her friends to teach it all the songs they knew.
However, by evening time, the prince had begun to tire of his ball and the princess of her doll, and each began to eye the other’s toy jealously. “Here I am with this stupid little golden ball,” the prince thought, “while my sister has an incredible magic doll that can learn to sing all the songs in the world. It’s not fair!”
Meanwhile, the princess was thinking, “Here I am with this boring little doll, while my brother gets to show off all kinds of magic tricks with that wonderful golden ball. It’s not fair!”
The princess was the first to speak up. “Little brother,” she said, “could I play with your golden ball for a while?”
This was more than the prince could bear. Not only did he get the worse of the two toys, but now his sister was going to use them both, leaving him with nothing! “No,” he said firmly. “The ball is mine, and you can’t have it!” A few moments later, he added, “But could I play with your doll for a little bit?”
The princess refused. And so the two siblings went off to sulk in separate corners of the room with their new toys.
The princess, however, could not stop thinking about the little golden ball. So when it was time for dinner, she said that her brother could go ahead and wash his claws first – and while he was gone, she took it! She had great fun making the ball disappear and reappear, until her brother came back. Enraged at the sight of his sister playing with his toy without permission, he seized her golden doll and broke it in half. And that is when the real trouble began, because when the doll was broken –
At that moment, the dragon‘s story was interrupted as she suddenly dove down, down, down toward the forest that lay spread out beneath them.
Edgar hung on for dear life. Fearing the worst, he looked back over his shoulder. They were indeed being followed, he saw. Their pursuer had almost caught up with them.
Chapter 3
At first glance, Edgar could not really make out what was chasing them; the figure seemed to blend in almost perfectly with the night sky. Then, as a cloud came behind their pursuer, he recognized its shape – a dragon! The creature soared after them with jaws and claws ready to attack. After a moment, Edgar realized that this was no ordinary dragon. Their pursuer had no gleaming scales, no glowing yellow eyes – it was completely and utterly black, blacker than a shadow and blacker than the sky on a moonless night. It was like the figure of a dragon carved out of the deep and total darkness of an underground cave.
He did not have long to think about this, because the next moment, he was pressing his face against his friend’s scaly back and holding on for dear life as branches and twigs, leaves and pine needles whipped around them.
They landed with a jolt in the darkness on the forest floor, and the dragon began to run, slithering through the undergrowth at great speed. Edgar continued to hold on tight, with his face pressed against the dragon’s back. He hoped dearly that they were leaving their pursuer behind, b
ut he feared the worst.
After a few minutes, the dragon suddenly slowed down. “I think we’ve lost it,” she said. Sure enough, the shadowy dragon was nowhere to be seen.
“What was that thing?” Edgar asked. “It looked like a dragon, but –“
“A shadow,” the dragon answered. “It was one of them.” And then she explained.
When the prince had broken the princess’ doll, a living shadow of a dragonlet had emerged, as angry as he. This shadow charged at the princess and bit her before being driven out by the palace guards. From her wound, another shadowy dragonlet emerged, and this one was a thief. Just as she had taken her brother’s ball without asking, this little shadow dragon slithered around the palace, taking things that did not belong to it, until the palace guards finally drove it away.
Since that fateful day, the shadow dragons had spread like a disease. They attacked whenever anyone got angry, or greedy, or proud, or full of hate. A single scratch from their poisonous claws was enough to make their victims ill, and often a new shadow dragon was born from the wound.
Some of the citizens of the Dragon Kingdom fled, some tried to hide, and others tried to defend themselves. But no weapon seemed to pierce the shadow dragons’ inky black scales. The creatures were a terrible plague on the kingdom, and no one knew what to do about them.
“And so you came to ask for my help,” Edgar concluded. As he spoke, he noticed a distant light ahead of them. “What is that?” he asked.
“A safe place,” the dragon replied. “We can rest there, get some food and a few hours of sleep, and continue our journey in the morning. The shadow dragons have a bit of trouble flying in the daylight.”
As they drew closer to the source of the light, Edgar saw that it was an old but cheery-looking inn in a little clearing. Friendly yellow firelight greeted them through the windows, and the sound of merry voices drifted out to welcome them.
They approached the door and Edgar dismounted. He reached for the doorknob, but at that moment, the door swung open, and he suddenly found himself staring into a pretty face that he had never thought he would see again.
Chapter 4
To understand Edgar’s surprise upon seeing this particular familiar face, one must first understand what had happened the year before, when the fireberry trees had suddenly stopped bearing fruit, and the dragons had sent their usual messenger to summon Edgar and ask for his help.
After observing a grove of fireberry trees for a whole week, Edgar had seen a strange red-haired girl come late one night and begin sprinkling the trees’ roots with a mysterious powder. When he confronted her, she fled. He gave chase.
The girl was much too fast for Edgar, but he was a scout in his world and had learned to follow tracks. She led him all the way to the palace of the Fairy Queen, up in the Flower Mountains. He slipped in quietly and hid himself in a corner of the fairies’ council chamber, thinking that their meetings might reveal something about the girl; he guessed that it was they who had sent her.
His guess was correct. He learned that the fairies had a plan to poison all the dragons’ fireberry trees so that they would be forced to buy fireberries from the Flower Mountains. They could not carry out this plan themselves because of their strong scent – fairies smell of magic, flowers, and pea soup, a combination that dragons can detect from a long way off. And so they had sent the girl. Her name was Lucretia, Edgar learned, and the fairies were using a magic mirror to control her mind and make her do their bidding.
With the information that he gathered from the council meetings, Edgar was able to find Lucretia’s prison cell. He distracted the guards by throwing a stone down the corridor, and while they were off investigating the noise, he sprinkled pollen from a slumberflower bush into their wine. Once they were snoring their loud and musical fairy snores, he searched their pockets and found a key and a small mirror, which he dashed against the stone floor so that it shattered.
The key fit the lock on Lucretia’s cell door, and so she was freed from both her prison and the magic mirror’s enchantment. She remembered everything she had done while under the spell, and so she was able to lead Edgar to the hidden cupboard where the antidote to the fireberry poison was kept.
She did not, however, remember anything of her life before the fairies had captured her a month before. Edgar tried taking the shards of the magic mirror and breaking them into even smaller shards, but it did not seem to help. In fact, it was rather unhelpful, as the noise attracted the attention of more fairy guards.
Edgar and Lucretia fled, and the guards gave chase, throwing small enchanted spears. One of these spears struck Lucretia in the back, and she was turned to stone in mid-run.
Edgar had wept bitterly, but with no chance to save Lucretia, he had been forced to save himself. He had escaped with the antidote and rescued the fireberry trees, but the victory had felt hollow. Since that day, he had often thought about Lucretia, but had never dared to go and visit her statue, for fear of the fairy guards.
And so, as he suddenly found himself looking into her familiar face through the open inn door, he was so thoroughly astonished that he just gaped at her for a long moment. She seemed equally astonished and stood frozen, as if the shock had turned her back into a statue.
The dragon cleared her throat, and the two friends suddenly recovered from their shock and embraced.
“Edgar!” Lucretia cried. “Why are you –”
“Lucretia!” Edgar cried. “How did you –”
“Perhaps we could sort this out over a warm meal by the fire,” the dragon suggested.
Edgar and Lucretia quickly agreed, and a few minutes later, all three were sitting at a wooden table near the fireplace, getting acquainted and reacquainted over three bowls of soup.
As they ate, Lucretia explained how she had survived being turned into a statue by the enchanted spear, and how she had come to be at this particular inn in the middle of the woods on this particular night.
Chapter 5
Lucretia had stood as a statue by the gate of the Fairy Queen’s palace for a very long time – perhaps months! The wound in her back had hurt the entire time, and she had stood there, frozen as if in mid-run, watching people come and go.
Then, one day, a traveling merchant came with various kinds of peas to sell to the fairies. He was struck by the beauty of the running girl sculpture, and he asked the Fairy Queen if he could buy the masterpiece. The Queen had no further use for Lucretia, and so she traded her for three kilos of rare pink peas.
The merchant loaded Lucretia onto his wagon and took her away to his distant homeland, a warm desert country of night breezes, whirling silk, lively marketplaces, and travelers. She stood among the fountains in his magnificent garden, watching the colorful birds and the even more colorful visitors.
One of these visitors, a magician who wore a blue cloak embroidered with silver stars, peered at her curiously and asked the merchant if he was aware that she was real girl under an enchantment.
The merchant thought that he was joking, until the magician pulled the spear from her back, muttered some magical words and sprinkled some purple powder over her. The enchantment was instantly broken, and Lucretia came to life again, collapsing and moaning in pain.
The merchant was terribly disappointed to lose his beautiful statue, but the magician, whose name was Virgil, gave him another work of art for his trouble: a beautiful color-changing flower encased in a solid piece of crystal. Then, after using his magic to heal Lucretia’s wounded back, he offered to take her along on his journey.
Virgil was headed for the Dragon Kingdom to find Homer, a rogue magician who had a grudge against the dragons. He was hoping to prevent the villain from doing any serious harm, but he would not be able to stop him alone. If Lucretia would share his perils and assist him, he said that he would do his best to help her recover her lost memories.
Lucretia could hardly believe her ears. The Dragon Kingdom was exactly where she wanted to go; she knew th
at the dragons often sent for Edgar, and she was hoping to meet him again. And if the magician really could help her recover her memories – the thought of knowing who she was and where she came from was worth braving any danger.
And so Lucretia joined Virgil on his journey. Unfortunately, they reached the Dragon Kingdom too late; Homer had already been there and cursed the whole kingdom with an ever-increasing swarm of shadow dragons.
Virgil said that he needed to depart at once in order to catch up with the rogue and try to capture him. Lucretia wanted to follow along, but he had another assignment for her.
“Somewhere,” he said, “there is a magical talisman that can reverse the shadow dragon curse. I do not know where it is or what it is, but I have felt it with my magic, and I have set this crystal to home in on it.” And he had given her a glowing crystal and taught her how to use it.
“Lucky that we ran into you tonight!” said Edgar as Lucretia finished her story. “We’re on our way to the Dragon Kingdom to try to do something about the shadow dragons. It sounds like that talisman may be exactly what we need! You said that you have a magic crystal that can find it?”
“It works like this,” she explained as Edgar and the dragon finished their soup. “When I am within one kilometer of the talisman, the crystal glows blue. At one hundred meters, it turns purple. At ten meters, it turns red, and at one meter, orange. When I focus and move in the right direction, it flashes. I followed it to this forest, and since the crystal has been purple for some time now, I think the talisman must be nearby. Look,” she said, indicating the table with a nod.
Under the table, she dug the crystal out of her pouch to show them. All three companions peeked under the table – and suddenly froze. The crystal was glowing orange. The magic talisman that could defeat the shadow dragons was only one meter away!
Chapter 6