Unnoticed by anyone, four
people transported onto a patch of grass surrounded by trees behind a
modest one-story house. A scanning image showed only their feet at
first; then more of them appeared as an invisible line moved upward
and then down again. Two silent flashes of light came, and they were
actually there. One was a small girl with a long blonde ponytail, the
others were adults in robes and pointed hats. As the girl headed
towards the door of the house, a tall blonde woman burst out of it
and grabbed her, hugging her hard. After a certain amount of laughing
and crying (“What have I told you...” “But Mom...”) The woman
took notice of the others.
The younger of the two white-bearded men spoke first, “We are sorry you were worried, ma'am. It was an
accident. We have a... a large hovercraft. One of our staff
accidentally... blew out some... power equipment and nearly crashed
us here four hours ago. We did not realize your daughter had come
aboard.”
“Yes,” the older
man put in eagerly,” it's an animal sanctuary. We're still building
it. Adding habitats and bringing in eggs and things. She was there during hatching and oh my, you've got to let her come back!”
“Yes, Mom, please!”
“An animal sanctuary on a
hovercraft? It doesn't sound safe.”
“Let me explain,” replied the first. “I am Dalfgan the Grey, the
director of the sanctuary. It is normally very safe; very large and
stable. Someone was trying an unapproved experiment, and it caused a
power surge which did strange things. But that has never happened
before. My colleagues here are Earth Master Mohs and Journeyman Tessa.
They were with your daughter most of the time.”
“I'm happy to meet you,”
smiled Tessa. “We really
enjoyed having PonytailGirl with us. She was very good with the hatchlings and
we would like to see her follow up with them. She has a real gift.”
“Tessa gave me this dress,
Mom,” PonytailGirl jumped and flipped her skirts. “I was in my
jammies. I liked the eggs, Mom. Can I go back when they get new
ones?”
“I would have to see this
place. What kind of eggs?”
“Dragon eggs.”
More explanations followed,
and in the end all five of them transported up to the island. The
transport site being at the top of the arena, the first thing they
saw was a man in red and black robes and a hat with curved rams horns
standing on top of a pylon, throwing fireballs across the valley.
“What manner of man is this who can summon up fire?” wondered
PonytailGirl's mother.
“I am an enchanter,”
returned the man, shooting a jet of fire out of the end of his staff
like a flame-thrower.
“He is our Fire Dragon
Master,” corrected Dalfgan.
“Some call me... Tim,” said the man loudly over the noise of his flame-thrower.
“Greetings, Tim the
Enchanter,” returned Dalfgan. “Have you found Torbin the Wacky?”
“You mean Torbin the
Wicked?” Tessa murmured.
“No! We can't find him
anywhere! He was building a Metal habitat and opened a portal to the
Caves of Tull. He was bringing in metal shards, and used some bad
erudine crystals.” POW! He threw a fireball. “The portal
imploded and he disappeared with it!” ZIP! Another fireball landed
on top of the first one. “It destabilized the matrix. I can make a
volcano out of it, but we weren't planning on having a Fire habitat
just here!” ZAP!
“You know much that is
hidden, O Tim! Look out!” cried Dalfgan. “There seems to be
something in the lava shaft. Is it a dragon?”
“No! Not a live one,” ZAM!
“It's either a statue or it's robotocized. I'm extracting it!”
CRASH!
After that PonytailGirl showed her mom the
Plant and Earth dragons. Bixby's journeyman, Ploss,
asserted that Thornbark was much calmer after she had rubbed his neck and
fed him dragonroot. “He likes you, I can tell. Plant dragons are
usually the friendliest ones, but he has been downright cranky
lately.”
They were invited to return
two weeks later, when the Fire habitat would be ready and there would
be new eggs to hatch. The Fire Dragon Journeyman, Vander, brought
them. First he showed them the dragon statue Tim had found. “Master Rudna's
been studying it, he said. “She's been trying to decipher the
inscriptions.” They visited the Earth dragon babies on Second Island. The wizards had built automatic station to station transporters
for moving between Second and Main.
Then he took them to see
the Fire babies. “We let some of them hatch already. Tim wants to see
if it makes a difference if you touch them in the shell,” he
explained. One of the babies was flying, the others were bouncing all
around, especially the one with two heads. The heads continued to
wobble a bit after each jump. “We call him Fluffy,” said Vander,
"after the dog with three heads. The Scorch dragon with the yellow
wings is Norbert.”
“Hello, Norbert,” called
PonytailGirl. “Do you want some dragonsnaps?”
“You need to watch him,”
said Vander. “Fire dragons are the touchiest.”
“No!” Tim
disagreed, “keep them warm! Then they are as harmless as the ground
beneath their feet.”
“Sure,” Vander returned, “but the ground beneath their feet is a volcano.” PonytailGirl laughed and petted Norbert, who followed her around the rest of the day. She tried to get the barrel-shaped Lava dragon to come
down out of the air and eat. It was funny that it could fly, and not
the Blazing dragon, which looked a lot like a bird. The Blazing
skipped around and kicked its feet, but it was a different one with
a green crest and wings who came over, nudged her arm and flipped its
three-pointed tail. “Oops!” choked Vander as he grabbed her out
of the way. “That's a Poison. Stingers on its tail. Friendly
but clumsy. Let's go see the eggs.”
The Fire eggs were hotter
than the Earth eggs had been, and the Forge egg was hottest of all.
PonytailGirl had to use gloves. When the little dragons hatched later in
the day, they seemed to already know her. By the end of the day all
the baby Fires were flying, and all of them were gentle with her.
“It's amazing!” cried Tim, “I've raised many a Fire. Got burns from most of them one time or another!”
“What?” spurted
PonytailGirl's mom. “You let my child do something dangerous?”
“Not really," said
Vander. “All dragons are a bit wild with Tim. You've got to admit,
he is a bit wild himself. She was ok. But it is great! We should celebrate!
Accordingly after dark, everyone congregated in the Colloseum to party and watch a magical fireworks show put on by Fire and Lightning wizards Vander and Franklin. The little Fire dragons enjoyed it most of all. They flew in and out of the exploding fireworks and chased the sparks. Norbert was the fastest. "That makes sense, said Tim,"he's a Lightning hybrid."
“And now for the finale!” called out Vander at the end. “I've got something new for you! Watch this!”
Accordingly after dark, everyone congregated in the Colloseum to party and watch a magical fireworks show put on by Fire and Lightning wizards Vander and Franklin. The little Fire dragons enjoyed it most of all. They flew in and out of the exploding fireworks and chased the sparks. Norbert was the fastest. "That makes sense, said Tim,"he's a Lightning hybrid."
“And now for the finale!” called out Vander at the end. “I've got something new for you! Watch this!”
As he raised his staff in
both hands and concentrated his energy, a huge red glow burst above
them and lit up the whole sky. Moving patterns of fire spread out and
changed directions. No one had ever seen anything like it. Suddenly a
host of big dragons with red and blue wings joined the Fire babies,
soaring through the middle of the red glare, shooting multi-colored
sparks from their mouths.
“Fireworks Dragons!” Vander shouted. I have heard of them, but never seen any.”
“No!” Franklin
exclaimed, “Fireworks Dragons are only a myth!”
“Not a myth!” Tim
shouted. “Fireworks! Yes!”
