Mohs was missing. No one
seemed to know where he was, but he was often absent from the
station. Tessa was looking for him because her little Obsidian was
coughing. PonytailGirl was looking for him because he was good at
telling stories. Dalfgan was looking for him because Dickinson was
being promoted and they needed a gray tourmaline for his Metal
Master's badge.
“Tourmaline! Piffle.
What's wrong with a moonstone like mine?” he had asked Dickenson.
“I saw one once,”
Dickenson had stuck to his guns. “It was gray with a reddish streak
down the center, like a Metal dragon orb. I liked it, and Mohs said
he would find one.”
“But who is going to find
Mohs?” Dalfgan wondered.
He turned up that evening in
the dining hall at the central treat farm and was immediately set
upon by everyone. “Where have you been? I've been looking for you!”
Dalfgan exclaimed.
“You look worse than after
a week in the Andes,” Tessa said, taking his dirty cloak.
“Yogo laughed and said,
“You look like you had a run-in with a Dust dragon!”
Mohs seemed taken aback and
embarrassed. “I haven't been gone that much,” he said, “it's
not that bad.”
“Did you find the
Shimmering Isles?” PonytailGirl asked.
“The Shimmering Isles?”
Bixby said. “He hasn't been telling you stories about them?”
“Well now, as it happens,
yes, I did come across them,” Mohs answered. “Now don't jump on
me girl, let me get some food in me and I'll tell you.” And he
wouldn't say another word about it until he had cleared two platefuls
of stew and half a baguette and settled down in a seat in the
fireplace nook. “Now then, what do you want to know, child?”
“Did you find the
islands?” asked PonytailGirl, pulling up a stool.
“Supposed to be adrift in
the sea,” put in Bixby, sliding onto the other seat, “ surrounded by
dangerous shards of glass, and inhabited by unknown monsters.”
“Crystal shards,”
corrected Yogo, “or jewels. The Isles are supposed to be full of
jewels.”
“Glows from a distance,
but no one can land there because they'll get cut to pieces by the
shards,” put in Franklin. “Mor'Gynne the Ancient was supposed to
have cursed the islands.”
“And hidden her treasure
there,” said PonytailGirl bouncing up and down, “and moved the
islands.”
“ And enchanted the
dragons,” added Spiderdog.
“So the story goes,”
said Mohs finally. “But it was never clear whether the islands
drift or she moved them, or whether they are made of jewels, or she
left her jewels there. But I have been searching for them for many
years.”
“I know,” laughed
Bixby,” but I never thought you'd find them! Is that where you've
been?”
“No, I haven't been there,
but I know where they are.” He stopped talking for a bit, and then
settled the children on either side of him, and began again. “The
stories about Mor'Gynne say she came from an island called Avalon
that no one can find. Some say she was the half-sister of King Arthur
and took him there at the end of his battles, when he was wounded.
The stories grew until any island that can't be reached, even a
mirage at sea, was connected to her. There is a kind of mirage that
builds up when air layers of different temperatures reflect something
from beyond the horizon. Fata Morgana they are called. Straight and
upside-down images stack up in layers until they look like castles in
the air. For a long time I searched out these Fata Morgana, and tried
to follow them to their sources. Then I decided to find her house.”
“Her house? You found her
house?” Rudna asked. “She is supposed to have destroyed half a
village at Halloween once, when the people made her angry. But no one
knows what village.”
“To be precise,” said
Mohs, “all too many people claim to know which village, but can't
prove it. I found the village and the house. It is very old and
overgrown, and full of dust and cobwebs, but it has an oval window
and a round window, and erudine crystals sticking up from the
gables.” He shot a look at Dalfgan and raised his eyebrows.
Dalfgan had perked up. “It's
a classic set-up for a listening spell!” he exclaimed.
Spiderdog sat up straight.
“You mean the house can hear?”
“No. It's like a magical
radio set,” Dalfgan explained. “When you hear, sound waves go
into your inner ear through a place called the oval window. Right by
it is another place called the round window, that echoes the
vibrations. You can copy that with magic.”
“In the case of this
house,” Mohs said, “the crystals on the roof pull sound in
through the oval window, the round window echoes the vibrations and
makes them audible, and a map shows where the sound is coming from.”
Yogo laughed, “I'll bet
she listened to her own village and got upset at something the
neighbors said!”
PonytailGirl squirmed. “Can
you hear an island, though? Oh! You heard the dragons!”
“Right. I heard dragon
noise coming from an unknown island on the map. I have actually been
here a couple of times today callibrating the map with the Earth
Boost Stone. It is a crazy medieval map, you know.”
“The Stone was humming
today,” admitted Tessa. “I thought you must have been around
somewhere.”
“Tomorrow we can use it to
set us on the islands, without having to worry about the shards at
all,” Mohs nodded. “And none of the rest of you have to mess with
the Dust House.”
“Oh no, I'm going there,”
said Dalfgan. “Not visit Mor'Gynne's magic house once it's been
found?”
“Although I think I'll get a little Dusting Spell ready first,” teased Rudna.
Using the big carnelian in
the Earth Boost, Mohs could locate any place in the world and move
there, as long as it was on dry land. Early the next morning several
people stood around the stone as he moved them to the largest of the
Isles.
“Ooh! Everything
sparkles!”
“There's the crystals –
they're spinning!”
“Look! Dragons! Way up
there!”
Dalfgan and Tim went off to
look for the best place for a permanent transporter. Tessa and
Franklin went to look at Gem dragons. Bending Chalice found a ruby in a
streambed, so Mohs took the children up the stream looking for more. It
flowed out of a cave, but it was an odd sort of cave. There were
cracks and openings in the sides and top, and the incoming light
flickered from the reflections of the spinning crystals. BlazeDragon found a
place where vines cascaded into the cave with a waterfall.
PonytailGirl picked a handful of the puffy orange flowers that grew
in the dim light. “Is that a ruby?” Spiderdog asked, pointing to
a shiny glint among the vines.
Mohs came over to look. He
reached out and grasped it through the leaves. Suddenly the bank of
flowers exploded in their faces with a loud squawk. Something red
burst through the leaves, was held down by Mohs' hand on its tail,
and fell over on top of him screeching. It was a ruby dragon. Gem
dragons are smaller than others, but in the excitement of the moment
it looked big enough. “Oof! Mohs yelped as he went over on his
back. The dragon landed on top of him. As its huge green eyes got
close to his brown ones, PonytailGirl shoved her bouquet in between.
“Oh you poor baby,” she
cooed. “It's ok, it's ok. Did that scare you? Aww.” Out of the
side of her mouth she hissed, “Mohs! Let go of its tail!”
“Uh!” he managed, “it's
on my stomach.”
“Let go,” she repeated,
“Spiderdog, help me!” As the Ruby began nibbling the flowers, the
children jimmied it off Mohs and Spiderdog helped him get up. “There
you go, baby,” PonytailGirl purred, “you like these? I need some
more, guys.”
“Uff, don't mind me,”
Mohs gasped as he limped over to the hanging vines. By the time they
left the cave, Baby was following PonytailGirl around and wouldn't
leave. Her mother suggested a special habitat for Gem dragons, and
when it was built Mohs and Olivine worked out a way to tame the sharp
edges of floating crystals for it.
Mohs had another bad
experience trying to find a big clear sapphire. Rudna had noticed he
seemed to have a soft spot for Yogo. She
thought he went looking for a blue gem because Yogo was a Water wizard. The one he found
turned out to be on the horn of a Sapphire dragon, and it was too bad
that as he came away from the encounter he happened to see Yogo
holding hands with Mikael, a Water wizard who had come to study Pearl
dragons. Mikael had been exploring the deep abyss near the Isles and
found giant pearls, and given the first one to Yogo.
“Come on, Mohs,” Rudna
and Dickinson dragged him out of the lab in the Colosseum where he
was moping. “There's too much to do right now. The Grand Opening is
coming up!”
“And you promised me that
tourmaline,” added Dickinson. “Let's go prospecting. You want to
try the Isles?”
“I don't know - “ began
Mohs, and pulled himself together, “I was thinking of Brazil. But
yes, let's try the Isles.”
