Moses and the Dragonborn, page 15
“Just like on earth,” Denzel said. “Everywhere you look, there are billboards and ads wanting to sell you something. They promise that you will be beautiful and happy if you buy their product, but they can’t really package the things a person truly needs to be happy; like good friends by your side and food in your backpack when you are rescuing a King. We have friends at our side, now all we need is the food.”
“The people of this world had a cat-like appearance,” Allison said, stopping before a picture of a family on a poster advertising a holiday destination. The members of the family had narrow faces with pointed ears further up the sides of their heads then human ears were.
“How is it that I can read those words?” Zoey asked.
“A gift always given when Chosen go to another world is the gift of being able to understand the languages of that world,” Allison said.
“We were told we would understand the language of any people we met; I just didn’t realize it would extend to written language as well,” Zoey said.
“Look at this.” Denzel pointed at the wall. “It’s a recruitment poster for the military.” The man in the picture was pointing his gun at a couple of men with a particularly nasty look on snarling faces. If you looked past the snarl, the only difference between the men in the picture was the man holding the gun had small perky ears and eyes slanted upwards, while the prisoner’s eyes were round and their larger ears folded over to hang down the side of their heads. “If it isn’t the color of our skin, it is the shape of our ears that divide us. I wish people could get along and treat others who are different from them with respect.”
“Me too,” Ben said. “Which way should we go?”
“We should follow the mouse,” Zinc said. “He knows where to find food.” Zinc pointed to the tiny mouse footprints that had disturbed a century’s worth of dust.
Allison moved closer to Denzel. “Can I ask you some personal questions?”
Denzel slowed his pace so they could speak in private.
“Did your family experience a lot of prejudice because of the color of your skin?” Allison asked.
“I’d say so,” Denzel said. “My cousins experienced the worst of it. Two of them were on their way home from football practice when some guys jumped them. ‘Let’s put these niggers in the hospital,’ they said. The guys who beat them played my cousins team the week before and lost. They were from important white families and the judge didn’t want to ruin their lives by convicting them of a crime, but if my cousins had done the same thing, they would have spent a lifetime in prison. James was a good high school football player, and a good student, but he never walked again.
Fairhaven is the first place I’ve ever been where character matters more than the color of your skin. I never want to leave.”
“Most of us leave when we graduate and only come back when we’ve been chosen to go off-world,” Allison said.
“Except for teachers,” Denzel said.
“You want to teach at Fairhaven?” Allison asked.
“I’ve never thought of it before, but that is exactly what I want to do,” Denzel said. “I’m going to put my mind to becoming the best student they’ve seen for a very long time so they’ll seriously consider me when I apply.”
“That’s a tall order. They’re some good students at our school.”
“I don’t have to be the very best, just the best who wants to stay on as a teacher.”
“Still a tall order.”
“I think I can do it. I hope Miss Templeton won’t hold the bone-headed things I’ve done against me.”
“Like?” Allison asked, as she picked up the pace because the light Moses was creating with wizard fire was too far in front of them.
“Breaking into the forbidden section of the library, climbing the outside of the castle so I could look in a window and find out what’s going on in a secret meeting, and not so long ago I talked Ben into taking me for a dragon ride when Miss Templeton had forbidden it, just to name a few. We didn’t get away with the dragon ride, Miss Templeton caught us.”
“You’re going to need to be a model student from now on.”
“I just need to stop doing and saying the first thing that comes into my mind.”
“I’m not so sure that you should be hiding from the world at Fairhaven.”
Denzel didn’t respond. He just looked at Allison with a questioning look on his face. A look she couldn’t see because it was too dark.
“Maybe the Guardian would like you to take on a more challenging job with your life on Earth. Maybe the Guardian would like you to go back to the place where your cousins were attacked and model what it means to live with respect for everyone, regardless of color.”
“Easy to say, hard to do,” Denzel said. “Besides I don’t think some of those people will ever change.”
“You’re probably right, but someone’s got to be a light in the darkness,” Allison said. “And I can’t think of anyone better suited than you at your best.”
“I’ll consider it. Now, what’s going on with you and Trevor? That guy’s a jerk. He’s one of the few people at Fairhaven who treats me like I’m beneath him. Ben is so much better than that. Why are you interested in Trevor and not Ben?”
“Trevor treats almost everyone that way, which is one reason I’m not interested in him in spite of the fact that Crystal thinks I’m crazy not to be. At this point in my life, I don’t really want a serious boyfriend, because who knows where the future will take me. I could never be serious about Trevor, but Ben-who knows?”
The two of them walked side by side in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Allison found herself thinking about that disastrous kiss in the library. She suspected it was the first time Ben kissed a girl and a part of her was happy he had chosen her for his first kiss.
They followed the small mouse footprints through the tunnel until a metal grate barred their way. The mouse’s footprints continued on the other side of the grate, which was cemented into the concrete wall. Denzel and Allison caught up to the rest at the gate.
“Do you think you can remove this?” Ben asked Denzel.
“Of course,” Denzel said as he grabbed the bars and pulled them toward himself. They didn’t budge. He changed his tactic. Instead of trying to pull the whole grate out, he pulled individual bars sideways. He started on the outside and worked to the center. When he was finished there was a hole large enough for them to slip through. He stepped aside and gestured for Ben to go first, as he was the one who could see in the dark. Denzel followed him through.
When everyone had come through Moses stepped in front of them and called forth his wizard fire so they could see. He led them to the end of the tunnel and into another one that ran perpendicular to the first. When they got to the end of that tunnel, Moses extinguished his wizard fire because a faint light shone in the large tunnel they were now in.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
CAPTURED
They walked along a passageway that appeared to be an underground subway system much like Denzel knew from living in New York City. Instead of tracks on the ground below their feet, there was a single track above their head. The tunnel was wide and high enough for the dragonborn to transform into dragons, but in most places it was not wide and high enough to unfurl their wings and fly.
Ahead of them the track was broken and the ruins of a cable car lay in their pathway. They climbed onto the car and crawled over it. The light was stronger on the other side. The tunnel widened and there was a platform with skylights high above that let the sun shine in. Tiny sat on top of the platform eating a bean. Denzel arrived first and he stood looking at the platform in amazement. “You guys have got to see this,” he said. “There is food! Lovely food! It looks like a garden.”
Denzel pulled the Chosen up onto the chest-high platform. Each one of them walked a short distance away and fell to his or her knees to pick and eat the food that was growing there. Plants grew in boxes all over the platform. The only place they didn’t grow was on the paths laid out between the rows of boxes.
“Maybe we shouldn’t eat too much,” Ben said, as he stuffed his mouth full of a tasty yellowish green leaf. “We don’t know who planted this garden and how they will feel about us eating their food.”
“You’re right,” Denzel said, as he reached for more of the beans.
“We should eat as much as we want, because we may need all the strength we can get to find my father,” Zinc said as he picked a round yellow fruit.
“Good point, Zinc,” Denzel said.
They ate in silence, glad for the change of diet from the gourds that had been their staple since coming to Farne. Denzel started thinking of the time he got caught raiding a garden.
“When I was a kid, we visited my grandmother,” Denzel said. “Her neighbor had a garden in the backyard. It was wonderful to eat carrots straight from the ground, but what wasn’t wonderful was how mad the neighbor got when she discovered us. My mother grounded me for a month when she found out.”
Thinking of being grounded made him wonder about those who planted the garden they were in. Denzel pulled his hand back from a bean he was about to pick and reluctantly stood up. “I think we should be on our way,” he said.
Everyone but Denzel picked some more of their favorite food, and put it in their backpacks before agreeing that it was time to go.
“Which way to the Zargon King?” Denzel asked Zinc.
Zinc pointed in the direction they’d been walking.
At first the tunnel in front of them was dark, but as they walked a pinprick of light appeared and grew stronger as they walked toward it. They soon came to another platform that was also covered with plants. They passed more than two dozen platforms where gardens had been planted.
They’d walked for two or three hours before taking a break. They climbed onto a platform and harvested some of what was growing there to eat. They were sitting together eating in silence when they first heard something moving through the tunnel toward them. Denzel jumped off the platform and helped the others down. He stared into the tunnel wishing he had Ben’s ability to see in the dark.
“There are people coming,” Ben said.
“What can you see?” Denzel asked, feeling a little anxious about meeting the people who may have planted the gardens they’d been raiding.
“There are two rows of four. They look something like the people in the posters. The ones with the perky ears,” Ben said. “Behind them is something I can’t see. There are several links of chain attached to the cable on the ceiling. I hope they’re friendly, because I think they’ve seen us. There are people coming out from behind the ones in front with what could be weapons.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Allison said just before three Farnians walked out of the tunnel and into the light.
“They’re raising their weapons! Run!” Ben yelled.
They turned to run, but it was too late. Several blasts of blue light knocked them to the ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
COLLARED
Zoey had a bad feeling even before the cat people stepped out of the darkness. As they raised their weapons, she remembered her other gift was invisibility. She turned on the gift and threw herself sideways just before the leading cat people sent out blasts of blue light. She hit the ground and rolled so that she was against the wall. She turned and watched as the others fell to the ground. She pressed her body against the wall and watched as the cat people put collars on the others. One of the guards stumbled over her feet without knowing what it was he tripped on. He turned and looked straight at Zoey without seeing her. Zoey made herself as small as possible and stared at the guard who was looking directly at her. When the guard moved away Zoey stood and slid along the wall to a spot farther away.
Prisoners who wore metal collars were attached to chains hanging from the rail on the ceiling that had once been used by cable cars. These prisoners were ordered to climb up on the platform and harvest vegetables. She recognized King Zane right away even though he looked far different than when she’d last seen him. He was thin, with dark bags under his eyes, and one of his front teeth had been knocked out.
King Zane was staring at Zinc and only tore his eyes away from his son when one of the guards ordered him to get busy. The King began gathering vegetables. Zoey climbed up on the platform and knelt beside him so she could whisper in his ear. “The Guardian sent the six of us to rescue you.”
“I’m glad to see you or more accurately not to see you, but hear you,” the King whispered back. “Is that really my son and grandson down there?”
“Yes, Zinc and Ben are both here.”
“Zinc has been chosen by the Guardian then?” King Zane closed his eyes and smiled. “It is worth it all to live to see this day, as long as he survives.”
Zoey put her invisible hand on the King’s arm, “Zinc has done very well. You have reason to be proud of him.”
“Tell me-,” the King started, but whatever else he wanted to say was cut off.
“What is going on, Prisoner 92? Are you talking to yourself? You know you are forbidden to speak.” One of the guards walked over to where Zane and Zoey squatted at the end of the row.
King Zane didn’t look up. He quickly picked ripe beans and put them in his bag. The guard held out his weapon and sent a mini blast of blue light toward the King’s back.
Zoey scrambled backwards. “No, don’t,” Zoey gasped as the blue light hit Zane. The King bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain, but as soon as he heard Zoey’s start to speak, he howled as loud as he could to cover the sound of her voice.
The guard had a puzzled look on his face. “Who said that?” He looked directly to where Zoey was sitting and took a step in her direction. Zoey moved away as quickly and quietly as she could, but in her haste she did not see the prisoner who had recently arrived at the end of the row next to King Zane. She knocked the floppy-eared cat man over. He and Zoey both scrambled quickly to their feet. The cat man stood with his head bent as a mini-blast of blue light hit him in the chest. He gasped, but did not cry out. The guard blasted him again and when he did not cry out sent a third blast of light into his body. The floppy-eared cat man fell to the ground without uttering a sound.
King Zane crawled over to the cat man. “Sim, my friend,” he whispered. “Why do you insist on provoking that guard? You know he likes to make you howl. He targets you because the other daga look up to you.”
Zoey reached out and touched the king and sent some of her power as a healer into his body. Then she surprised herself, and lightly touched the cat-man and sent some healing power into him.
“What just happened?” Sim whispered.
“I don’t know, but we’d better get back to work,” King Zane whispered back.
Zoey considered transforming into a dragon and attacking the guard. As a dragon she could withstand a lot more of their blue light than she could as a human being. However, if more than one of those weapons were pointed at her she knew it was possible to end up as a dead dragon.
Her mother’s words came back to Zoey. Always pick your battles. She knew her mother would tell her this was not the right time and place and she would do more for the King and Prince by staying alive to fight another day.
Zoey backed quietly away and climbed off the platform. She went over to where Zinc lay on the ground. She sat beside him and put her finger on his wrist to make sure he was alive.
“Zoey, what’s going on?” Zinc mumbled.
“Prisoner 93 will not speak,” a voice shouted. A guard walked over and pointed his weapon at Zinc, but was distracted when King Zane coughed loudly. The guard turned and pointed his weapon at Zane. While the guard was distracted Zoey sent some of her power as a healer into Zinc. As she did so, she whispered in his ear, “Be quiet.”
“Leave it,” one of the senior guards said. “We don’t want to damage them. It will take longer to harvest our crops if too many are out of commission.” Zoey watched as the senior guard walked over to Moses and kicked the brownie. “What do you think this is?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” the first guard said. “But I think it could be dangerous. Just before the stun gun hit it, I’m sure I saw it make a ball of fire and hold it in its hands.”
“Then tie its hands together and throw it on the wagon,” the guard in charge said. “Just to be safe put a muzzle on it as well.”
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
FAMILY REUNION
Zinc woke up to discover he was lying on the ground. He was sure Zoey was beside him, but when he opened his eyes she wasn’t there. He rolled over to discover Denzel’s face inches from his own. He pushed Denzel away and that was when he noticed the collar and the chains. He brought his hands up to his own neck and discovered he too was wearing a collar. He ran his hands around it looking for an opening. He found the clasp and pulled as hard as he could, but the collar did not open.
Zinc sat up and looked around. Ben, Denzel, and Allison lay on the ground around him. He looked around for Zoey, but did not see her. He noticed the prisoners up on the platform tending the garden. The Farnean guards all had small perky ears, while the ears of all the prisoners except for one were the bent over floppy kind.
Zinc got to his feet and stared at the prisoner who was different from all the others. He was shorter and looked human. He was picking beans and putting them in a sack. Zinc wondered whether the man knew his father just before the man raised his head and looked directly at him. At first Zinc thought, “It can’t be.” The man before him had hardly any flesh on his bones. He looked frail and a lot older than a few short months before. The only thing that was the same, were his eyes.
