The Dragon of the Dolomites Read online

  But now it was Naja's turn to be out of breath. When they moved away from the lights of the dock, darkness swallowed everything except Naja's eyes. The water was fairly calm that night, but the canoe still jostled in some minor waves. Jason looked for the island. At first he didn't see it, but then he saw a deeper darkness against the veiled sky. Soon the darkness took shape, and he saw trees, the shore. He wondered how on Earth they were going to find the dock. Then he remembered the flashlight in his backpack, and he quickly fished it out and clicked it on. It was just in time: the rickety wooden dock, where both the motorboat and sailboat were tied, was only a dozen yards away.

  Beyond the dock, an impenetrable darkness filled the spaces between the tall pines that grew nearly to the water's edge. Exhausted, Naja hopped into the boat and collapsed. They drifted the rest of the way, and when they were close enough, Jason grabbed the edge of the dock and pulled them next to it. After they disembarked, he beached the canoe on the muddy bank.

  He slung his backpack over his shoulders. He debated briefly about seeing his Dad, maybe telling him where he was going, then quickly decided not to. Dad would just try to stop him. "Lead the way," he said, motioning with the flashlight.

  Naja, who was sitting cross-legged, nodded and rose. Then he promptly fell back down again, both his wings and his whiskers drooping.

  "You need me to carry you?" Jason asked.

  "Would you? So very tired."

  Jason picked up Naja and placed him on his shoulder. The dock tilted back and forth as they approached solid ground. "One thing I don't understand," Jason said.

  "Oh?" Naja said.

  "This Weaving thing. If I can do it, how come I don't feel that way? How does it work?"

  "I really don't know," Naja said. "Oh, that's not true! I do know a little, a few things another Little Feather told me. He said often Weavers can do the Weaving with some special talent, something they do better than just about everybody. Do you have something like that, some special talent?"

  They reached the end of the dock, and Jason stepped down onto the gravel path that lead up through the woods to their house. He was glad for the flashlight, weak as it was. The ferns within the forest grew thick and tall; his father had someone come and cut them back from the trail, but a few branches were already encroaching.

  "Well, I can draw," he said.

  "Better than most people?"

  "Well . . . yeah. Not to be too proud about it, but yeah. You think that's how I can Weave the magic?"

  "It's very likely."

  "But how's it work?"

  "Oh, I'm really not the best person to tell you these things! I know so little. You should really wait until . . . what's that?"

  "What?'

  "That noise . . ."

  Jason stopped. At first, he heard only the water dripping from the trees, but then he heard another sound—a low humming. Two red lights appeared ahead of them, and he heard another sound: the clomping of heavy footsteps on gravel.

  The thin beam of his flashlight fell on the shiny gray metal of a bizarre robot, one Jason had never seen before. It looked human, in that it had two arms, two legs, and a head, but it was much cruder than anything Dad had made before, as if it had been made by randomly collecting things from a junkyard. A green teapot formed the head, with the curled spout the nose and two holes cut out for eyes. Two wooden tennis rackets acted as legs. The body was a yellow bicycle frame.

  A few seconds of static resonated from within the teapot, then the robot spoke in a crackling voice: "Located human. Possibly Emily. Must take to house."

  "I'm not Emily," Jason said.

  "Must take to house," the robot replied.

  As Jason wondered if he could outrun the thing, a second and equally strange robot clanged into view. This one had the body of a microwave and the head of an old black and white television. Then a third robot showed up, and a fourth, all of them just as strange.

  "Located human," the second said. "Possibly Emily. Must take to house."

  The third and fourth robots said the same thing. They pressed forward, extending clamps and grippers. Jason briefly thought about letting them take him to Dad, but he didn't know what Dad would do. His father was obviously out of his mind, building all these crazy robots to look for Emily. He felt bad, leaving when Dad may have needed him, but he couldn't stay for even a few minutes when the portal might close.

  Jason turned and bolted into the bushes, Naja buzzing ahead of him. Instead of finding a path of escape, though, Jason ran straight into another robot—this one with a rusty toaster for a head—and bounced off the robot's chest into a thicket of ferns. Heart pounding, he scrambled back to his feet, dodging around dozens of other robots that were streaming into the area.

  "Go!" he yelled at Naja.

  He ran as fast as he could, and he heard the robots thumping through the bushes behind him like a rampaging herd. Fortunately, Jason knew these woods well, so even in the dark he knew where to hop a fallen log or where to navigate around a gully. Concentrating on Naja's eyes, he managed to avoid falling, and then the ground dropped down a mossy hill. They entered a clearing, and at the far end, before another wall of pines, there seemed to be a dark wall. Suddenly he knew where they were: at a cave he and Emily used to play in long ago, back when Jason still did things like play in caves.

  "It's the portal!" Naja said, flying into the cave. His eyes briefly showed the jagged edges of the entrance.

  Jason knew that the cave ended in a dead end not far from the opening, so if Naja was wrong, it was the worst place to go. The soft dirt outside the cave gave way to damp rocks. The air cooled. He slipped, scraping his hands on the rock, but jumped quickly to his feet. The darkness swallowed him completely, a darkness that smelled of mildew and moss. He fished his flashlight out of his backpack, pointing its beam into the cave.

  The walls of shiny black rock were only a dozen feet wide and narrowing quickly. Up ahead, the cave bent to the left. Jason knew it ended there. While he watched, other lights flashed on the walls ahead of him, green lights, red lights, and other colors as well; he heard the robots behind him beeping and whirring.

  "Hurry!" Naja cried.

  Without turning back, Jason ran toward Naja, his feet slipping on rocky, uneven ground. He rounded the corner saw Naja a short distance away—in front of a solid wall of rock. It was a dead end, after all. But he no more thought this than Naja stuck out his hand and put it directly into the wall.

  The rock rippled like water around Naja's arm.

  "It's shrinking!" he said. "Come, come!"

  The clanging of the robots was so much louder than outside. When Jason reached Naja, he turned and saw the robots rounding the corner.

  "Go!" Jason said.

  Like a swimmer diving into a pool, Naja plunged into the rock. The shimmering grew, encompassing Naja's body. His wings stuck out farther than the rest of him, though, and they banged against something solid. This gave Jason an idea of how large the opening was, and he panicked. He wondered what would happen if he got stuck as it was shrinking.

  "Located human," one of the robots said, reaching for him with a hand that looked like a crab's pincer.

  Knowing he was out of options, Jason removed his backpack and shoved it through the opening, then held his breath and leapt inside. For just a second, his fingers touched what felt like solid rock, then the rock gave way like water, but thicker and soupier than water, and he went right inside. It was so cold all his muscles tightened. Fortunately, the feeling lasted only a second and he was on the other side, looking into Naja's panicked face.

  He had emerged in another cave, this one with red rock walls, and strangely, enough light for him to see—a faint red light. His head was through, both arms, one leg . . . and then something cold grabbed his other ankle. It felt like a metal clamp.

  "Naja!" he shouted, placing both arms wide and pushing against rock.

  Naja grabbed the collar of his jacket and pulled, but the Little Feather couldn't
match the robot's strength; Jason slid back farther. Worse, he felt the portal thickening around him, starting to feel more like jelly than water. He was struck with the terrible feeling that the portal was about to snap him in half.

  Then, his fear suddenly melted away, and he felt something reaching a boil inside him. It was the same way he felt on the beach with Brad. He screamed and kicked his captured leg. Finally his ankle slipped free, and with one last massive push, he burst through the portal with a loud pop.

  "You did it!" Naja said.

  Gasping for breath, Jason scrambled from the opening. He was still afraid that one of the robots would come through at any moment. After a few seconds, he lifted his hand and touched the wall. Solid rock. He breathed a sigh. This comfort did not last long, however, because it was quickly replaced by a cold sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he realized something else.

  He could no longer go back.

  (...continued...)

  [To read the rest of

  Drawing a Dark Way,

  please visit your

  favorite online bookseller.]

  Also by

  Scott William Carter

  www.scottwilliamcarter.com

  Novels:

  The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys

  President Jock, Vice President Geek

  Drawing a Dark Way [Rymadoon]

  A Tale of Two Giants [Rymadoon]

  Wooden Bones (forthcoming)

  Short Story Collections:

  The Dinosaur Diaries

  A Web of Black Widows

  Tales of Twisted Time

  The Unity Worlds at War

  Strange Ghosts

  As Jack Nolte:

  (Mystery and Suspense)

  The Gray and Guilty Sea

  Everybody Loves a Hero

  As K.C. Scott:

  (Romantic Comedy)

  Dog Food and Diamonds