The dragon waited, looking above their heads with such a look of great wisdom that nobody liked to say anything until Callette came back hauling the sheet with the gizmos wrapped in it.
“Here,” she said, dumping it a cautious three yards from the dragon. Chink. Chime.
The dragon’s head turned sharply down at the sound. “May I examine them?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” said Callette.
The dragon’s huge clawed foot delicately picked at the knot at the top of the bundle and, even more delicately, laid the cloth away to the sides. Blade had the distinct impression that the dragon was disappointed by what was revealed. But she was evidently very polite. “But these are a treasure!” said the cellos and clarinets. “My, how they glitter! And what fine work! Beautiful!”
Callette, who was not given to shyness, was overcome by this praise and put one wing over her face. “Callette made them,” Derk explained. “There should be one hundred and twenty-six. Do you wish to check?”
“I shall trust you,” said the dragon. “They are utterly desirable, and I shall guard them with a will. What a pity that times have changed. A hundred years ago these would all have been made of gold. As it is, I shall have to exercise enormous self-restraint not to keep them for myself. Perhaps”—her violet eyes turned yearningly toward Blade—“perhaps someone should wrap them away out of sight again. I am so tempted.”
With a faint feeling that the dragon was saying one thing and meaning another, Blade ventured in under the dragon’s head and gingerly tied up the knot again. The smell from the dragon’s breath was indescribable, hot and steamy, a little like roses mixed with rotten eggs. He had a hard job not to react like Pretty. It felt truly dangerous to be this close.
“Can I offer you something to eat?” Derk asked politely—but not altogether tactfully to Blade’s mind.
“No, thank you, I ate only yesterday,” the dragon replied. Blade was strongly relieved. He pulled the knot tight and backed away smartish. “I think I had better be moving along,” the dragon said. “It’s a long flight to the designated place in the north. A happy tourtime to you.” She picked up the chinking bundle and flowed around in a turn—a dizzying sight of sliding lavender jewels—until she faced down the valley. There she gave two or three gentle, almost slow-motion running strides and spread her wings. She was in the air as softly as a blown leaf. Lydda was not the only one who gave an envious sigh.
They watched until the dragon was a seagull-shaped speck in the distance. “You know,” Shona said, suddenly and unexpectedly, “I didn’t like her very much. She was so artificial.”
“That’s rich, coming from you!” Kit said.
“But she was,” Callette agreed, equally unexpectedly. “I didn’t like her either.”
Everyone except Blade turned to disagree loudly with Shona and Callette. “Please!” Derk shouted. “No arguments! Next one to argue gets made into a statue and I grow vines up them. Dragons are strange people. These days they think of themselves as highly virtuous. I suspect this one was disgusted at having to pretend to be bad and guard treasure. I’m told they practically fight not to have to do it.”
“Then why do they do it then?” said Elda.
“No idea. More of Mr. Chesney’s persuasive arts, I suppose,” Derk said. “Now, is there any chance of any lunch?”
There was a long, reluctant silence.
“I’ll do it,” Blade said at last.
He wished he had not said it when he was drudging in the kitchen. It was all so complicated, Kit wanting raw steak and garlic, Callette raw duck and herbs, Don raw anything, and Elda wanting cooked meat for a change. That meant five lots of bacon and fried bread, the way Blade cooked. He was getting out the biggest frying pan, sighing, when he heard the dogs and the geese yelling again and Big Hen clucking her head off. Shortly the Friendly Cows and the horses joined in. The pigs squealed blue murder. What’s the matter now? Blade wondered.
Elda appeared in the doorway, her wings mantled with excitement. “The dragon’s coming back! Kit says it’s flying wrong. Something’s hurt it. Where’s Dad?”
Derk was already running toward the gate when Blade and Elda reached the terrace. Shona and the other griffins were there already. Derk went out beyond the gate and stood on the grass, shading his eyes with both hands. Blade and Elda wedged themselves into the gateway.
The large black seagull shape was definitely coming toward Derkholm again, out over the plains. Even at that distance they could see something was wrong. It was sort of staggering in the sky, Blade put it to himself. One wing seemed to be damaged. The dragon would tip that way, then overcompensate and tip the other, and then right itself with much ungainly flapping, so that it came nearer and bigger in jerks.
“Distressing to watch,” said Derk. “But I don’t think this is the same dragon.”
“Are you sure?” asked Shona.
“Yes,” said Derk. “This one’s a male, and I’d say it was a good deal bigger.”
“How do you tell their sex?” Don wanted to know.
“The males don’t have that long, lizardy look,” Derk said absently, staring outward at the unsteady shape in the distance. It was odd to have two dragons here on the same day. The only explanation he could think of was that there had been some misunderstanding—or maybe even a fight—over who was to guard the gizmos.
It slowly became clear that the injured dragon was very much bigger than the first one. They kept expecting it to reach the valley any moment, only to find it was still some miles off, still approaching and still getting larger. Finally it seesawed in across the ruins of the village.
“It’s blinking enormous!” said Don.
It was so enormous that its ruined wings—they could see slits in them now—were truly in danger of brushing the hills on either side. The dragon had to struggle into an updraft—while they all held their breaths, expecting it to crash—in order to find room, and then manage to right itself and glide above the crests of the hills, still coming toward Derkholm. As its vast shadow blocked the daylight, everybody flinched. Then they ducked and tried to hide behind the gateposts as the tattered wings folded and the dragon came down like a meteor. It had clearly decided that a crash landing was the only possibility in the space available. Derk jumped backward as the mountainous body hurtled down, hit like an earthquake, seemed unable to stop, and continued uphill, plowing four large grooves in the turf. By some miracle, it came to rest quite neatly in front of Derk in a cloud of grass bits, clods of soil, and brownish, nasty-smelling smoke.