“You can’t have forgotten that she saved our lives!” protested Audun.
“We know what she did,” said his grandmother. “And we appreciate it, but that doesn’t change the fact that she isn’t a dragon. Just because she has magic doesn’t make her one of us.”
Audun shook his head. “I don’t understand why that’s a problem. I mean, I’ve heard about dragons that can change into humans. What’s wrong with a human who can turn into a dragon?”
“I’m not arguing with you about this, Audun,” said the elderly dragoness, “and I’m not giving you my permission to run after that girl like some lovesick albatross. Now go help your grandfather gather the rest of the sacks. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.”
“Then you’ll be going without me,” Audun declared. “I love Millie and I don’t want to live my life without her!”
Audun’s mother, Moon Dancer, gasped and gave her son a horrified look. In the dragon world the el der ly were revered, especially the dragonesses; no one ever talked back to them.
“I can’t believe you spoke to your grandmother that way!” exclaimed Audun’s father, Speedwell. “Please accept his apology, Mother. He’s young and foolish.”
Dragons were honest at heart and found it nearly impossible to lie. Once in a while, however, Audun wished that he could lie, just a little. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, Grandmother,” said Audun, “but I can’t apologize when I don’t mean it.” He stepped to the ledge that fronted the cave they called home and turned to look at her once more. “I just wanted to tell you where I was going before I left. I thought you would understand, but I guess I was wrong. Safe travels.” When Song didn’t respond with a similar farewell, Audun spread his wings and leaped into the frigid mountain air.
He tried not to look back, but he couldn’t help himself. Swooping one last time around the mountain-ringed valley, Audun glanced down at the ledge as he worked to gain altitude. Only his parents had remained outside to watch him go. Seeing the sad curve of their necks even from a distance made him wonder, for just a moment, if he was doing the right thing. But then he thought of Millie and how much she meant to him. She had left only the day before, yet it already seemed like an eternity. His parents would understand with time; it was Millie he had to go see now.
Since the hour he was hatched, the only time Audun had been separated from his family for longer than a few days was when they were trapped in the walls of a witch’s ice castle. It was Millie who had set them free. Audun had been fascinated by the lovely green dragon from the moment he first saw her, and had fallen in love when he discovered how sweet and good and brave she was, despite the fact that she was really a human. Dragons often fell in love at first sight. His parents had done it and so had the parents of some of his friends. It was usually with someone the dragon king had chosen for them, but it was true love, regardless. However it happened, once dragons fell in love, it was for the rest of their lives.
Audun’s grandmother often accused him of acting without thinking first. He admitted to himself that he might have been hasty in leaving his family the way he had, but he already knew that Millie was right for him. It was true that she was a human part of the time and a dragon only when her magic changed her, but she was the most beautiful human Audun had ever seen and she wasn’t at all what he’d expected of a creature with only two feet. Brought up to believe that humans lied, cheated, stole, and thought only of themselves, he’d been delighted to meet Millie, who was as honest as a dragon and even more caring.
Audun was certain that all he had to do was encourage Millie and his grandmother to spend some time together and the two of them would get along. Two such wonderful females would have to like each other, wouldn’t they?
Dragons have an unerring sense of direction, and more acute senses than humans, especially their vision and sense of smell, so it wasn’t hard for Audun to locate Millie’s trail. Every dragon’s scent was unique, but Millie’s was more unusual than most. Part smoky musk of a dragon and part flavorful undertones of a human, her scent varied according to whatever form she was in. Because she’d been a dragon when she flew south, Audun smelled more of her dragon than of her human scent.
Starting out the day before would have been better for tracking her scent on the air currents between the mountains, but he hadn’t wanted to leave without spending some time with his family after their experience in the witch’s castle. Audun’s long neck wove from side to side as he followed Millie’s scent between the mountains and over the pass leading to the foothills beyond. He circled above a large outcropping of rock where he thought he detected the smell she’d given off when she was a human, but the scent was old and the storm that had scoured the mountains the day after Millie arrived had nearly erased it. A short distance away he spotted a snow leopard which ran in fear at Audun’s approaching shadow.
Picking up her dragon odor again, he followed it above the foothills and across the lush forests and rolling grasslands that made up much of the Kingdom of Bull-rush. The countryside was lovely, although Audun preferred the glittering ice and pristine snow of the Icy North. The air was warmer here, too, and uncomfortable for a dragon from a land where the ice never thawed and the snow never melted. When Audun noticed a river flowing beneath him, he didn’t think twice about landing at the water’s edge.
Drawing his wings to his sides, he curved his neck to the river and hunched down to gulp gallon after gallon of cool, fresh water. He closed his eyes in pleasure, dunking his head until he was submerged all the way to his shoulders, and didn’t open his eyes until a change in the current told him that something large was close by.
A pale face with wide-open, staring eyes engulfed in a cloud of some sort of green weed drifted toward him. Audun jerked his head back, certain it was a drowned human. Although he didn’t want to touch it, he thought he should take it out of the water in case someone was looking for it. The current was carrying it past quickly, so he grimaced with distaste and reached out with one clawed foot, pulling it from the river to the soft mud of the shore.
Audun jumped back in surprise when the body jumped to its feet and shouted, “What do you think you’re doing, you brute?”
“Sorry!” said Audun. “I thought you were dead.”
“How dare you!” exclaimed the young woman, flicking the dripping strands of her long, green hair over her shoulder. “That has to be the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me!”
Audun didn’t know what to do when the woman hurled a clump of mud at him before bursting into tears.
“I know I’ve been looking a little pasty lately and I have taken to floating aimlessly, but still …”
“I said I was sorry,” said Audun. “I don’t know very many humans. I’ve never seen one with green hair before and the way you were staring at me—”
The woman stopped crying to give him a nasty look. “Haven’t you insulted me enough already? I’m not a lowly, smelly human. I’m a water nymph and this is my river!”
“I didn’t realize …”
“It’s not your fault. I haven’t been myself ever since that horrible troll ate two of my favorite fish. What is the world coming to? Trolls stomping across river bottoms, stirring up my nice silt and polluting my lovely, clean water with their awful stench as they devour my little darlings! Then humans clutter my riverbank with rafts …”
Audun didn’t hear the rest of the nymph’s complaints once she gestured to a raft lying on the shore only a dozen yards upriver. Raising his head to sniff, the dragon smiled as he recognized Millie’s human scent. He was sure he would have noticed it sooner if he hadn’t been so distracted. The nymph was still talking when he turned away and trotted to the raft. Although the logs were old and battered, the vine holding them together looked fresh.
Audun bent down to give the raft a thorough sniff, paying special attention to the side Millie had touched. He also found the scent of the boy, Francis, as well as that of the obnoxious troll. The nymph was right abou
t the troll’s stench.
“I’ve been talking to you!” shrilled the nymph, who had followed him to the raft.
“Right …,” Audun replied, still not paying attention to her. He was pleased to have found the raft. It was a connection to Millie, something she had touched and used. “I’ve got to go,” he said, as he spread his wings. Although he’d known he was on the right track, it was good to have the knowledge confirmed. She seemed that much closer now; his search might almost be over.
Audun took to the air and recaptured Millie’s dragon scent. It took him across the river to a land of scrubby grass and rolling hills that grew taller with each passing mile until they became mountains. These were different from the mountains that he was used to; they weren’t as high, and there was snow only on the tops of the very tallest, but even there the air flowing past them seemed warm and gentle.
He almost lost the scent at times, and had to cast back and forth for it, but when he reached one of the mountains farthest to the south it became so strong that it seemed to fill his nostrils. Following the curve of the mountainside, Audun began to see signs of humans: a rough path zigzagged down the side of the mountain, following its contours to a village on one side, and a castle perched on a pinnacle of rock on the other. Millie’s scent was strongest near the castle, both as a human and as a dragon, so he descended, hoping to see her.
He was flying over one of the squat, sturdy towers when a shout went up and arrows began to whiz past him. Dodging the arrows was easy at first, but then the archers’ assault intensified and he had to fly higher to get out of range.
“Millie!” he roared, turning this way and that as he struggled to avoid the flood of arrows. “Millie, are you there?”
A figure seated on a broom shot from the top of the tower, and Audun was certain that it was Millie. But then another figure joined it and the two of them steered their brooms toward Audun. They were talking to each other as they flew and he could hear what they were saying even before they reached him.
“Hey, Ratinki! Will you look at that!” said the younger of the two witches in a voice so loud that Audun thought they could probably hear her back in the castle. “I’ve never seen a white dragon before. Have you?”
The old witch shook her head and replied in a raspy voice, “Nope. He’s a good looker, though. I wonder what he wants with our Millie.”
“He was calling her name. He must want to talk to her,” said the younger witch.
Ratinki looked exasperated. “You’re such a ninny-head, Klorine! Of course he wants to talk to her. Maybe we can find out why.” Using one hand to shade her eyes from the sun, the old witch shouted, “You there!” and flew higher until she was facing Audun. “What do you want with Millie? None of your dragon tricks now. We’re powerful witches and can turn you into a flea in the blink of an eye.”
“I just need to see her. Is she here?”
“Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t. We’re not telling you a thing until you tell us why you want her. Go on, you can tell us. We’re friends of the family.”
“I’m not telling you anything,” said Audun. “It’s personal.”
Klorine eyed him as she flew up to join them. “She met you on her adventure, didn’t she? We were dying of curiosity, but she wasn’t here long enough to tell us anything. Her parents whisked her away right after she got back.”
“You simpleton!” snapped Ratinki. “I was going to make him tell us all about it. Now we’ll never know what happened!”
“Maybe Millie will tell us the next time we see her, although I don’t expect that to be for a good long time. I’ve never seen Emma and Eadric so upset.”
“If she were my daughter, I’d lock her in a tower and throw away the key,” said Ratinki.
“If she were your daughter,” said Klorine, “she would have locked herself in the tower and thrown away the key.”
Audun couldn’t wait any longer. “Where did they take her?”
“Home, I suppose,” said Klorine.
The old witch snorted with disgust. “You’re going to blab everything, aren’t you? So much for keeping secrets from the enemy!”
“I’m not your enemy,” said Audun. “I love Millie. I would never hurt her. If you could just tell me where she lives…”
“Greater Greensward, of course.”
“Klorine!” shouted Ratinki. “Don’t tell him that! Who knows what he has in mind.”
“Don’t be silly, Ratinki. He said he loves her. I think true love is so romantic!”
“Between humans! But he’s a dragon. For all we know he might want to eat Millie!”
Klorine pursed her mouth in disgust. “Now who’s being a ninny-head? This is a nice young dragon, not some ravening beast. Don’t pay her any mind,” she said, turning back to Audun. “Just head south over the forest and the river. Millie’s mother is the Green Witch and a Dragon Friend. Any dragon can tell you how to find the castle. There are lots of dragons in Greater Greensward. You’ll feel right at home there.”
“I doubt it, but thanks, anyway,” said Audun.
Two
When it began to rain, Audun searched until he found a cave where he could spend the night. He finally found one that was big enough, but was disappointed to see that a family of wolves already occupied it. Fortunately, after he went in to look around, the wolves decided to go somewhere else to sleep, and he spent the night undisturbed. Even so, he had trouble falling asleep. All he could think about was Millie. He’d never met anyone like her before.
Every time he was ready to drift off, Audun saw Millie’s face. He remembered how her eyes had lit up when she smiled at him, and how frightened she had looked when she’d found him frozen in the ice with his own noxious gas swirling around him. He remembered how she’d melted the ice with her dragon fire and had taken the flames into herself when his ice-dragon gas exploded. After she had saved his life, fire had nearly consumed her and she’d had to dive into a valley filled with snow to put it out. The snow had melted and she was sinking in the water when he dove in after her. Audun rubbed his forelimbs, remembering what it had been like to carry her. He wished he could touch her again, if only for a moment, and he went to sleep only after he’d promised himself that he’d be with her very soon.
The sky was clear the next morning except for a scattering of clouds in the distance. He had no trouble finding Millie’s scent again, but he hadn’t flown far before he lost it. This didn’t worry him at first. Turning on a wing tip, he retraced his flight path, returning to the spot where he’d last smelled her. He continued on, more carefully this time, and lost the odor at exactly the same place. Audun tried again and again, each time becoming more agitated as well as more determined not to give up.
Eventually, he caught the faintest whiff of another familiar scent, one he had smelled for the first time in the castle near his home. It had been the Blue Witch’s castle, and although his family had been trapped in the walls, it hadn’t been the witch’s doing; she had been a prisoner as well. He couldn’t remember the old woman’s name, but he did know that she and Millie had become friends of sorts. It was possible that she might even know Millie’s whereabouts.
Following the new scent, Audun flew toward a part of the forest where the trees were older and taller. As he passed over a clearing, he glanced down and saw a nymph with long, green hair paddling in a small pond, while a unicorn drank from the shallower water. At Audun’s approach, the nymph slipped into the depths of the pond. The unicorn snorted, shook its mane, and turned to run.
The dragon flew on and soon the old witch’s scent drew Audun to a clearing where nodding bluebells surrounded a small, well-kept cottage with a newly thatched roof and a gently puffing chimney. Three white-haired women sat in the shade of the only tree in the clearing, sipping from cups shaped like half-opened tulips. Not wanting to startle them, Audun landed at the edge of the forest. He was about to call out a greeting when the woman in the muddy-colored gown glanced over her shoulder and said
to her friends, “Don’t look now, but there’s a dragon sneaking up on us.”
The woman in gray lowered her cup. “If you won’t let us look, Mudine, you’ll have to do the looking for us. Is it anyone we know?”
Mudine shook her head. “I’ve never seen a dragon like this before. He’s white.”
“‘Never trust a dragon you don’t know,’ my old mother used to say,” said the woman in gray.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Oculura,” snapped the smallest woman. “I had the same mother as you and I never heard her say such a thing! She wouldn’t have trusted any dragon, living or dead!”
“You’re older than I am, Dyspepsia. You left home years before I did. I had to listen to a lot of mother’s adages before she choked to death on that fried radish.”
“Can you two stop arguing long enough for us to deal with this dragon?” asked Mudine.
“That’s easy enough,” said Oculura. “A wall of flame should chase him off. It worked on my last husband when he wouldn’t stop coming around.”
“That’s even more ridiculous!” said Dyspepsia. “This is a dragon we’re talking about. They love flames! Why don’t we try something like this …”
Rising to her feet, the little old witch swept her arm in a grand gesture while muttering under her breath. With a rumble and a whoosh! a torrent of stones rose out of the ground and flung themselves at Audun’s head.
Befuddled, Audun half-turned, lifted his tail, and swatted the stones aside. He hadn’t done anything to provoke these humans, yet they were attacking him. All he wanted to do was talk to the Blue Witch about Millie. Maybe they didn’t understand …
“Excuse me!” he called, taking two steps closer to the old women. “I just wanted to…”
“Well, that didn’t do a bit of good,” said Oculura. “The beast is still coming to get us. Maybe if I do this …” Speaking under her breath, the witch held her hands in front of her, then thrust them apart as if she was trying to move something heavy.