The Smuggler: Chapter Nine: Fallen Fire

Chapter Nine

Fallen Fire

    "We should split up," announced Qibli, taking charge. Moth had explained the situation and Dragonfly's letter to them. "You summoned the boat, right?"

    "Yeah."

    "Great. They probably won't have to steer for a while, until they get within maybe a day away from Pyrria, so we should have time to reach them. Turtle, Anemone, could you go look for it? Once one of you finds it, you should tell the other so that one of you can steer and the other can come back and tell us. Try and get their name too. It might be useful. But we still need a few dragons to stay here and keep Freedom under control and welcome the dragon who'll be arriving on the boat. Who wants to?"

    Kinkajou, Winter, and Julia raised their hands.

    Qibli nodded. "Great. Julia, you have to go with your brothers to find the keeper of the souls. Moon, you can go with them until the portal to the Underworld or whatever. Maybe you should stop after that. I'll stay here with the rest of you. We'll try to work out the rest of the prophecy and try and get word to you if we do. Now you should probably leave as soon as possible. Who knows what they'll do to Dragonfly?"

    Moth winced, trying not to think about Misbehaver's Way in Cicada Hive. That was only for kind of minor offenses. But helping a flamesilk escape from the guards? And two others who might be flamesilk? That was probably punishable by death. "Yeah, we should probably go quickly. Dragonfly said the keeper of souls was her friend, so she is probably not that bad, right?" No one answered. None of them knew. "Never mind."

    "No, you're right." Julia's eyes scanned Dragonfly's letter. "The keeper of souls is actually a friend of mine. Dragonfly doesn't strike me as the type to be friends with some creepy killing dragon thing. And she'll help us. I vote for leaving right now. The longer we wait, the more dangerous Dragonfly's position becomes. Moth. Do you have the shell?"

    Moth's talons curled around the flaky brown shell that apparently could save their friend's life. "Yep. Let's go." They stood and walked out of the room. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Peacock and Anemone slipped into a side room. They should have some private time together, he thought, but couldn't help hear Peacock whispering to her.

    "We might not see each other again. This 'keeper of the souls' sounds like someone who would want payment or something."

    "Yes. I'll hope to the moons that you'll come back."

    "I hope so, Anemone. I-"

    Moth quickly turned his attention from them to give his little brother privacy. "Maybe we should decide where we're going. I think you know the most about Pyrrian geography." He nodded at Moon. "Any idea?"

    Moon sighed. "Um, a mountain? See it rising above the land. I think only mountains do that. Or maybe clouds, but I don't know how we'd get to a certain cloud."

    "A mountain. That narrows it down to the entire, oh what are they called, SkyWing kingdom," Julia said. "But how many mountains have crumbled like sand?"

    "Maybe a sand dune?" suggested Moth. "Those literally are sand."

    Julia shot him a look. "And that's why it can't be one. It wouldn't say, 'Crumbled like sand' if it was sand. Then it would say something like, 'Made out of sand'. Sorry, am I saying sand too much?"

    Moth shrugged and called Peacock back. They got outside and stood around, staring aimlessly in each direction.

    Suddenly Moon cried, "I've got it! There was this animus dragon maybe six months ago called Darkstalker. He actually was Clearsight's boyfriend until he lost her trust and so she, not being able to kill him because of an immortality spell, got this enchanted bracelet that the wearer would sleep for as long as they had it on. She gave it to Darkstalker until it snapped from an earthquake. She had somehow buried him under a mountain, but I remember in Darkstalker's memories that she had just put him in a cave and then another earthquake wrecked it and buried him. The mountain crumbled like sand! And it would fit with the once a prison part too."

    "Yes! That's perfect!" cried Julia. "Where's the mountain?"

    "It's a ways away, all the way over by Jade Mountain. We should probably give the SkyWing palace a wide berth. Queen Ruby is definitely not as bad as Scarlet, so I hear, but she probably won't like it if three dragons no one's ever heard of before fly over them."

    "Well I probably won't be flying," Peacock pointed out. "I think it's either walk or wait three months or maybe one of you have to carry me." He did not seem very enthusiastic about the idea, but it was probably the only way.

    "Yeah." Moth and Julia exchanged glances. "It should be me..." began Moth.

    "Let me guess. But I'll end up with a ton of burns at the end," finished Peacock.

    "Well, yeah. Julia's wouldn't burn anyone, but no offense I don't think you're strong enough to carry him." Everyone was silent for a moment, trying to think of something to do. Then Moon spoke up again.

    "I'm not an expert on silk, but would it work if Julia used her silk, but Moth helped him?"

    The three siblings looked at each other. "I think you're on to something," Julia said with a telltale glint in her eye.

    Pieridae nervously glanced out the window. She had seen a few out-jutting rocks so far, but thankfully she hadn't had to steer. She didn't even know how the boat had started. She had just been standing around, wondering if she should go look for Dragonfly, when an odd ball of light shot through the water and touched the boat and it had suddenly started forward and carried her in the supposed direction of the Distant Kingdoms. Although Dragonfly had told her how to operate it, she did not want to try it unless she absolutely had to.

    Suddenly two dark shapes under the surface of the ocean came zooming up to the boat. Pieridae jumped. Who knew what could be down there? Wait. Were they, glowing? Flashing stripes seemed to appear on them. It seemed they were the shape of dragons, but how could a dragon survive under the ocean? And what kind of dragon could glow? The shapes hovered for a moment, flashing, before one of them took off in the direction the boat was headed and the other approached the boat. Pieridae backed up and heard a splash coming from the room called "Visitor Area".

    Raising her wrist in case the whatever-it-was was hostile, Pieridae backed up further and watched the handle. It moved and slowly the door creaked open. Without thinking, Pieridae shot a strand of flamesilk through the open door.

    The silver dragon standing in the doorway yelped and ducked as the flamesilk shot over her head and landed in the pool with a splash. She twisted around and looked in alarm at the sinking damp flamesilk, then turned with a startled expression to Pieridae. She had silver scales, with things that looked like the glowing stripes she had seen underwater around her tail and snout and under her wings. She seemed young, not yet old enough to be an adult, and had two bat-like wings, unlike any Pieridae had ever seen. "Sorry, who are you again?"

    "I could ask you the same question," Pieridae said, eyes wide. "Or maybe what are you?"

    The dragon sighed and moved into the room. "My name is Anemone. I'm one of the dragons from the Distant Kingdoms. Did Dragonfly tell you about them?"

    "Yes. Do you know her?"

    "Yep. She's helped us with bringing some dragons from the Lost Continent over already."

    The Lost Continent. So that's what they call Pantala. "My dragonets?"

    Anemone looked startled. "Your dragonets? You're Pieridae? Dragonfly said nothing about rescuing a flamesilk from right under Wasp's nose! No wonder she got herself caught!"

    "So you do my dragonets!" An enormous wave of relief washed over Pieridae. "Are they all right? Where are they? Will I see them?"

    Anemone bit her lip. "Well, once we got word that Dragonfly had been captured, they were really worried about her. My friend Moon had this prophecy, she gets them sometimes, that said they needed to find the keeper of souls or something. Moon and they went off to try and find her. If they had known that Dragonfly was bringing you, they might have stayed to welcome you, but they left a few days ago. I'm not sure where they are."

    Gone to find the keeper of souls. "Do you know if they're safe?"

    "No. But I hope so. Peacock told me before he left that he hoped he would come back, but he wasn't sure." Anemone's face fell. "I hope they're all right. My brother Turtle went to go tell the rest of us that you were coming. I stayed to help you steer."

    Steering didn't matter now. What mattered was that she had put her dragonets in danger. Dragonfly came to help her, and they went to help Dragonfly. This was her fault. "I have to go after them."

    "There!" shouted Moon over the wind. "That's Agate Mountain!"

    "Well that certainly didn't take all of eternity!" Julia called back sarcastically.

    Moth tried to agree with her, but he was too breathless. The wind combined with Peacock's weight on his back resulted in them having to stop about every hour for him to get his breath back. He could see Peacock hated being such a burden, and he wanted to tell his little brother that he would fly across the ocean without stopping for him. Or Julia. Or even Mother. He angled his wings down to land next to Moon, who was standing on a mountain peak that seemed like it had been exploded by something. It wasn't as tall as the mountain Moon called Jade Mountain, but it was still huge. He cut the silk that was wound around him and Peacock and his brother slid to the ground.

    Peacock shook his legs to get the feeling back into them as they waited for Julia to come down. She landed breathless and windblown. "Sorry. I was looking around. It's like a whole other world! Over that way there's tons of trees! Like a whole forest! A big forest!"

    "The rainforest," said Moon. "My mother lives there. And I do too when I'm not at Freedom or Jade Mountain."

    "Let's try to figure out what to do next," Moth said. "Find the fire fallen from a sky of sapphire. I don't see any fire lying around. Are we at the wrong spot?" He hoped not. It had taken DAYS to get across the mountains.

    "Maybe it's not actual fire," suggested Peacock. "Maybe it's something like sky flamesilk? Is that even a thing?"

    "Fire from the sky," Moon whispered. "Sky fire. Skyfire! That's it! Sometimes something we call skyfire falls to the ground. It's this kind of black rock. It shields the wearer or the dragon touching it from mind-readers. That's why I can't read any of my friends' minds."

    Moth glanced around. "And there's supposed to be some here?"

    "I think so?"

    Peacock shrugged. "Worth a shot. It's black, right? Anything else?"

    "It's shiny and usually small. But this one might be bigger."

    Moth could see Julia giving the mountain an exasperated look but ignored it. He carefully walked around the mountain top. The sky was bright and clear, with seagulls cawing in the distance and-

    "Wait! Moth! That's it!"

    Moth jumped and looked around. He had come between two big boulders with tons of pebbles. "Where?"

    The rest of the group came closer. Moon peered at the pebbles. "Your mind disappeared while you were walking over here. You must have accidentally touched it."

    Moth bent down and unconsciously twitched his tail to the right as it skimmed across the boulder. Moon's head jerked up. "That's it again!" The boulder was enormous, easily the size of one of the Freedom houses. It was the black, shiny color Moon had described.

    "Yes!" cried Julia. "We found it! Now what's the bridge between worlds?"

    Worlds. "Julia, what did you say while you were looking at the rainforest?"

    "Um, there's a ton of trees?"

    "No, before that."

    "It's a whole other world?"

    The pieces suddenly clicked together in Moth's mind. "Yes! A whole other world! The prophecy is talking about Pyrria and Pantala! The two other worlds! The bridge can't be the boat, because that was invented recently and isn't a bridge."

    Silence. Then Peacock spoke. "Oh. It's Clearsight." A loud scraping noise came from the skyfire as it rolled back to reveal stairs going into the blackness. "Clearsight because she was from both the continents."

    Moth walked tentatively to the stairs. "I think it's time to descend into the Underworld."