Dale K. Robinson
Chapter 1
My name is Bear. It’s not my real name, but no one uses my real name except my teachers. Mom says I was called “Bear” because when I was little, I was cute and cuddly like a storybook bear. Dad says that I’m called “Bear” because I have the disposition of a grizzly bear. I’m not sure what a “disposition” is, but Dad says it means I get real mad real easy. Even my sensei, my martial arts instructor, calls me “Bear.” He says it is because I sometimes forget to use the cunning of the fox and try to use the brute strength of the bear.
I go school at Hub City Elementary. Hub City is a little town in Northwest Florida. I’ve lived there all my life.
Next fall, I go to the 5th grade. But at the beginning of the summer I was very sick. So sick that the doctor said I had to go to the hospital. I hate hospitals and doctors and nurses and pills and needles. Especially needles. But I was so sick this time that I didn’t care. I don’t even remember most of the time I spent in the hospital.
But I do remember this:
I felt real bad. There were needles in my arms and tubes hooked to the needles. The tubes ran to bags of clear liquid that dripped into the tubes. There were wires hooked to spots on my chest and legs and head. And there was a tube that ran into my nose.
Mom and Dad and the doctor were there by my bed. I don’t know what they were saying, but Mom was crying and Dad had his arm around her. He was wearing his Concerned Look.
I looked down at them, down at the bed where I lay with wires and tubes and needles all hooked to machines.
I looked down at them because I was floating near the ceiling! I was looking down at my own body lying in that hospital bed! Was I dead? Was that why Mom was crying and Dad was wearing his Concerned Look?
I looked at the machines that I was hooked to. Everything seemed to be okay. There were no flat lines on the screens like I’d seen in TV shows. I decided that I was still alive. Maybe I was dreaming that I was floating above the bed and looking down on myself.
I drifted a little higher and put out my hand to keep from bumping my head on the ceiling. Instead of stopping me, my hand went right through the ceiling! A moment later, I had drifted up and was in an office on the next floor of the hospital! Another moment and I had drifted out of the hospital and was looking down on the roof!
It was nighttime, I realized. Below I could see Friday night traffic going to the World-Mart store.
I was drifting higher still. Would I just drift up into space? I wondered. Could I stop? Could I control where I went? I looked down at World-Mart and thought about the latest toy I wanted in the Dragonmaster series.
And a moment later, I had drifted down and through the roof of the department store and was floating along the toy isles. I spied Ragnarok, the latest of the Dragonmaster characters, the one I wanted most! I reached out for the toy and my hand went right through it. I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t pick it up.
Dejected, I drifted up and out into the nighttime sky. High above, the stars twinkled. I looked at them – they seemed so bright! But one seemed brighter, a red star. It took me a minute to remember that Dad had called this constellation Orion and the bright star was Betelgeuse (he said it like “Beetlejuice,” which was a ghost in a movie I had seen.) Orion was a mighty hunter in Greek mythology. Betelgeuse was the star that marked the hunter’s right shoulder.
I looked down to see that I had floated so high that I could see the curve of the earth. I was in space! I looked up at the bright red star again and felt myself pulled across time and space toward Betelgeuse!
Chapter 2
I woke up wondering where I was. There was something soft underneath me and bright light above made me scrunch my eyes closed. I must be in the hospital still, I thought.
I brought my hand up to shade my eyes and realized the tubes and needles were gone. I opened my eyes slowly to let them get used to the bright light.
I wasn’t in the hospital. I was lying on the ground, which was covered by a reddish yellow moss. The sky above was a reddish color with pinkish colored clouds. I pushed myself up to look around.
The first thing I noticed was the huge red sun that hung in the sky. Where was I? Was that sun in the sky the star Betelgeuse?
I didn’t have time to wonder, because the second thing I saw was a large number of nasty looking creatures headed my way! I spied an outcropping of rock and scooted behind it.
Whatever they were after, it wasn’t me. I watched from concealment as they thundered past. I realized that what looked like monstrous creatures in the distance were armored men on armored horseback. But even up close, the armor gave them an evil, cruel look.
I backed up, trying to make myself smaller. I backed into something rough and scaly. Something alive!
I screamed! It screamed! We both jumped! I turned to face the beast.
Unarmed and wearing only a hospital gown, I found myself eye to eye with the most fearsome creature I had ever seen. I was face to face with …
Chapter 3
… A dragon!
I picked up a rock as I backed away from the horrid creature. It may have been bigger than I, with an armored hide and sharp talons, but it would know it had been in a fight if it attacked me!
“You really think I’m a horrid creature?” it asked. “I won’t harm you,” it added. “Some of my best friends are humans!”
“You can talk!” I said, gripping my rock tighter.
“Doesn’t everyone?” it asked. “Ah!” it said, “Not where you come from, I see. Earth, is it?”
“How do you know that?” I asked. Could it read my mind?
“I don’t exactly read your mind, but I can sense your surface thoughts,” it told me.
“My name is Vril Rdel. And I’m not an ‘it.’ I’m a dragon, a male to be exact and rightful heir to the Dragonthrone of Arad Nsle.” He seemed upset that I didn’t know who he was.
“Do all Earth hatchlings go around dressed like you? Your clothing seems a bit … drafty.”
“What is Arad Nsle?” I asked, tugging at the hospital gown that was drafty.
“My home,” he said sadly. “Until Urel Xa, my father’s hatching-mate, killed my father and mother and took the throne with the treacherous help of Ten Thil Mabilis, my father’s trusted general.”
“Is that why you were hiding here?” I asked. “Were those Urel Xa’s soldiers?”
“Yes, my young friend.” He paused. “I don’t know your name,” he told me.
“Thought you could read my mind,” I said. “I’m called Bear.”
“I can only read surface thoughts,” he reminded me. “Bear,” he said. “I like it. What is a bear?”
“It is a fearsome creature on my world, strong and fierce,” I told him. I pictured the fiercest grizzly bear I could think of and hoped Vril Rdel would read that thought rather than the one of the storybook bear that crossed my mind briefly.
“A fierce creature indeed!” he said. And then he made a noise that sounded like a chuckle!
“Well, hatchling, the soldiers have gone and we must be gone as well.” Vril stretched his huge bat-like wings and then knelt before me, his large head nearly on the ground.
“Climb aboard,” he told me. “Straddle my neck and hold tightly to my neck ridges. Usually, dragon riders are fitted with leather flying gear and harness,” he added.
So I pulled the hospital gown tight about me and settled upon the dragon’s neck.
“Hold on!” he told me. And as I curled my fingers into the dragon’s neck ridges and clamped my legs around his neck, he spread his great wings and, with a single mighty beat we rose into the air!
Chapter 4
The wind was cold and the hospital gown wasn’t much cover for my body. But I didn’t notice much. I was too busy taking in the alien world below me!
There were forests of strangely shaped trees and wide expanses of reddish yellow moss. In the distance ahead rose a range of high mountains, while off to the left was a large lake or inland sea. We passed over small villages of mud huts thatched with straw, but gave a larger town a wide berth.
As the mountain range drew nearer, I could see smoke rising from several peaks. “Are those volcanoes?” I asked.
Vril replied that they were indeed volcanoes. “The Empty Land was formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity. The mountains are steep and nearly impossible to climb. The land there is barren. No trees, no food, no water.”
“Sounds like a nasty place,” I said.
“That’s where we are going,” the dragon told me.
We flew on toward the mountains, which were very steep and very ugly. There were many sharp outcroppings, many deep crevices and no sign of life below. We flew for many hours over The Empty Land, passing near smoking volcanoes that made the air thick and hard to breathe. I began to cough and my eyes watered.
“We will be past the volcanoes soon,” Vril told me. And we were.
Below us was a large valley in the midst of The Empty Land. I spied more of the strangely shaped trees and the reddish yellow moss, proving that The Empty Land wasn’t really empty at all.
Vril began to descend toward a city that stood on the shore of a large lake. He told me that the lake was fed by the same glacier that fed the inland sea I had seen earlier in the day.
The city, Vril told me, was called She Usa and had been founded by his father’s father’s father’s father a long time ago. It was safe from attack because the only way into She Usa was by dragonback, and because few in the outside world knew of its existence.
Vril’s great wings beat madly as he settled for a smooth landing upon a dragon-sized balcony that jutted out from the large tower on the city’s largest building, a castle-like structure of stone blocks.
He lowered his head and I released my grip upon his neck ridges. My tired fingers ached from hours of clutching Vril’s neck ridges. He wiggled the neck ridges and chuckled. “Your fingers can’t hurt more than my neck ridges,” he said.
I slipped off his back. “I’m sorry,” I said. He chuckled again.
“Don’t be,” a voice said. “Dragons don’t have feelings in their neck ridges!”
I turned to see a blonde girl approaching from the tower.
“Lord Vril’s sense of humor is a bit warped sometimes,” she said. “Even for a dragon!” she added.
“Interesting clothing,” she said, looking me up and down. I felt my face go red. I clutched at the rear of the hospital gown, trying to close it.
“We can find you something a bit more modest, I’m sure.”
She turned to Vril. “You are right, Vril. He is The One.”
“I felt it when we first met,” Vril told her. “Come, we must feed the Bear and find him some clothing.”
Chapter 5
The girl’s name was Arvel Or, I learned as she led us into the castle. Arvel was an oracle, Vril told me. An oracle knows things other people don’t know, sort of like a fortune teller, except Vril said fortune tellers are fakes and Arvel Or is not.
Arvel took me to a room in the castle while Vril went off somewhere else.
“This will be your room,” she told me. She opened a cabinet. “You should find some clothing here to fit you. After you’ve dressed, someone will fetch you for dinner.”
She paused as she started out the door. “Do all the boys dress like that where you come from?”
I felt my face go red again. “Just the ones in hospitals,” I said.
She left and I searched through the cabinet for something to wear. I picked a pair of pants, a shirt that laced up the front, a leather vest, and a pair of leather boots. I hoped that I would be dressed like the other boys in She Usa. Discarding the drafty hospital gown, I pulled the strange clothing on, fastening buckles and laces.
After dressing, I decided to explore my room. The stone floor was covered with thick rugs. The walls were covered with fabric hangings that had various scenes sewn into them. There was a small room off to one side that was the bathroom, with a fancy tub and toilet and hot and cold running water. A balcony opened off one side of the room and I stepped out to look down on the inner courtyard of the castle.
Vril was down there, resting on a large stone, while a man and two women rubbed him down with some kind of oil. He looked very content. He must have sensed me standing at the balcony rail, because he raised his head to look at me. He raised an arm in greeting and I waved back. He lay back down and the rubdown continued.
A knock at the door took me away from watching my new-found friend. A man with the officious attitude of all the butlers I’d ever seen on TV was standing there.
“Master Bear, dinner is being served. Please follow me.”
To be continued…
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