Leo heard himself exclaiming with shock and revulsion. He saw Conker wincing and rubbing his sticky fingers on Freda’s feathers, and Bertha fastidiously wrinkling her nose. He saw Spoiler leaning forward, his mouth gaping.
‘Dragon’s heart!’ Spoiler groaned. ‘But dragon’s heart is worth a fortune! And I gave it away for a couple of fish!’
‘Shut up, you buffoon!’ barked Conker.
But fortunately the dragon didn’t appear to have heard what Spoiler had said. It was concentrating on Mimi.
Mimi’s eyes were shining with tears. She closed the silver box and carefully, almost reverently, handed it to Leo. Then she turned back to the dragon.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
The dragon regarded her gravely. ‘Your tears are balm to my troubled mind,’ it said, in a far gentler voice than it had used before. ‘I thank you for your respect, and for your sympathy.’
‘I can’t believe people kill dragons just to get their hearts,’ Mimi said. ‘It’s… wicked!’
‘Indeed it is,’ the dragon agreed bitterly. ‘But the lure of gold is strong, and I sometimes think that the desire to be a swaggering hero is even stronger in some of these wretches. Dragons are feared, so dragon-killers are admired.’
Leo looked down at the silver box in his hand. Dragon’s heart, he thought, his own heart sinking. But that means…
He looked over his shoulder at Conker and Bertha. They both looked very grim, and he knew that they were thinking the same thing he was.
‘Why is dragon’s heart so valuable?’ he asked dully, as he bent to push the box back into Conker’s pack. ‘What can it do?’
He had spoken without thinking, and for an instant he thought he had made a terrible mistake. The dragon stiffened as if it had forgotten that Mimi was not the only person in the cage, and was shocked and angered by the sudden interruption. Then, to Leo’s immense relief, it relaxed and seemed to shrug.
‘I cannot tell you,’ it said. ‘We have never known why our hearts are desired by others. We only know that they are desired, and that we must defend ourselves from those who seek to take them from us.’
It glanced down at the pack then turned away from it again. ‘There are few dragon-hunters in Rondo now, but once upon a time there were many. The heart preserved in that container was taken in those days, I would say. It is very old. I did not realise this when I first caught its scent. The trace was very faint. It told me only that a dragon’s heart was near. I was compelled to follow it, though I should not have left the lair. I had to find out if it was the heart of my mate. He is missing.’
Leo watched it lift its head to look towards the hills to the north, and an awful suspicion slid into his mind.
‘Missing,’ Mimi echoed, in a voice so low that he could barely hear it.
‘Yesterday was his day to hunt,’ the dragon said. ‘We take the days in turn, for one of us must always stay by the lair. Our egg will soon hatch, and our young one will need care when it is new.’
It looked over its shoulder, and Leo noticed for the first time the mouth of a great cave yawning in the rock behind it, bathed in the cold light of the rising sun.
‘It’s a female!’ Spoiler wailed softly. ‘A female with an egg! That’s the most vicious kind!’
‘Keep quiet, you fool!’ Conker growled savagely.
‘My mate left me yesterday at dawn,’ the dragon went on, turning back to the cage. ‘He has not returned. He would not willingly have left me for so long. I fear he is dead.’
She spoke calmly, but there was a terrible sadness in her flat, golden eyes.
Leo waited for Mimi to speak, but she remained silent, her face stricken. He caught Bertha’s anxious gaze, and cleared his throat.
‘Is he – is your mate – green?’ he made himself say.
‘Why do you ask?’ the dragon demanded, swinging her head round to glare at him. ‘What have you seen? Speak!’
Leo swallowed. ‘The night before last, the Blue Queen spread her magic as smoke over her whole domain,’ he said huskily. ‘She enchanted any creatures caught in the smoke. One of these was a… a green dragon.’
The golden eyes flared as if they had suddenly caught fire. Leo shrank back.
‘Does he live?’ the dragon hissed.
Leo swallowed. ‘All we can tell you is that he was alive yesterday,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Alive, but – but not free. He was working for the queen – snatching people and creatures away.’
‘I do not believe you!’ the dragon breathed, the spines rising on the back of her neck. ‘My mate would never serve the witch of the north!’
‘He’s enchanted,’ Mimi said, finding her voice. ‘He can’t help it. He flew into the queen’s smoke, and was caught. Her magic is too strong for him.’
‘No magic is too strong for my mate!’ snarled the dragon. ‘No one could keep him from returning to me while strength remained in his body! You lie to me! You lie!’
She bared her terrible fangs and lunged at the cage, raking the bars with her talons. Mimi screamed and fell backwards. Spoiler howled. The dragon raked the bars again. Her eyes were blank with rage.
‘We’re not lying, dragon!’ shrieked Bertha. ‘We’ve seen your mate with our own eyes! He attacked my farm! He took one of my friends!’
‘He took Princess Pretty from the Crystal Palace!’ Conker shouted. ‘He took the pie-seller from the town! Ask anyone!’
The dragon roared through the open doorway of the cage. Smoke gushed from her jaws. The prisoners cowered, coughing, their eyes streaming.
‘Conker! The Dragon’s Bane!’ Bertha squealed.
Conker began fumbling in his pockets one-handed. Leo turned to help, but as he moved something caught in the bars beneath him and held him back.
It was the handle of the magic mirror. As Leo freed it, a wild idea came to him. He snatched the mirror from his belt and turned to face the raging dragon.
‘Dragon!’ he yelled. ‘Listen to me! I can prove to you that we’re telling the truth!’
The dragon stopped roaring. She glared at Leo balefully. Smoke drifted from her flaring nostrils. ‘Come closer, then, deceiver,’ she hissed. ‘Show me this proof.’
Leo crawled towards the cage doorway, pressing the mirror’s face against his chest. He could feel Mimi, Conker, Bertha and Spoiler staring after him.
‘Leo!’ Mimi whispered fearfully.
Leo shook his head and moved on. There was no time to explain. He tried not to think about what would happen if his idea didn’t work. He had to try it. It was their only chance. The beast would just become more enraged if they repelled her with Dragon’s Bane. She would withdraw a little, then roar fire at the cage and roast them all alive.
His throat felt dry as sand as he held up the mirror.
‘What is this?’ the dragon hissed.
‘It’s a magic mirror,’ Leo said, his voice little more than a croak. ‘I took it from the Castle of Cruelcliff.’
‘Lawks-a-daisy!’ he heard Bertha breathe behind him, and resisted the urge to turn round.
‘And how can an ogre’s mirror convince me that you are speaking the truth?’ the dragon enquired coldly.
Leo swallowed. ‘It… it will show you,’ he said. ‘If you look into it, and think about your mate, you will see where he is, and what he’s doing.’
As long as the mirror works for you in the same way as it did for me, he thought. If it does, everything will be all right. If it doesn’t…
‘You are trying to set a trap for me,’ the dragon growled. ‘The mirror is a weapon! I have heard of such things. It will blind me, or hypnotise me, if I look upon it.’
‘It won’t!’ Leo said desperately. ‘I promise it won’t.’
The dragon snorted in contempt. ‘Your promises mean nothing to me. If you are so sure that the mirror is harmless, look into it yourself! Look into it yourself, human, and think of the green dragon you claim to have seen. If you survive to tell me that he has appeared in the glass then I will look, and not before.’
Leo wet his lips. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was look into the ogre’s mirror. What if thoughts of the Blue Queen came into his mind despite all his efforts to block them out? What if the queen sensed him again, and this time guessed who was watching her, and how? What if she saw where he was? He shuddered, fighting back memories of the queen’s avid face, her hair writhing like snakes in the gale that had raged around Cruelcliff.
‘So, deceiver!’ hissed the dragon. ‘You are afraid!’
I’m in danger, Leo told himself. We’re all in terrible danger, right here, right now. I’ve got to take the risk.
He raised his head. ‘Yes, I am afraid,’ he agreed steadily. ‘But not for the reason you think. I’ll do what you’ve asked me to do. I’ll look. Then you can look too.’
He stood up in the doorway of the cage and turned his back to the dragon. He could feel the beast’s hot breath gusting into the nape of his neck. He could see the terrified faces of Mimi, Bertha, Conker and Spoiler at the other end of the cage, floating against a hazy background of vertical black bars and blue sky speckled with apricot-pink clouds. He took a deep breath and focused his mind. He lifted the mirror and looked into it, praying that his gamble would pay off.
For a brief moment he saw only his own face. Then the reflection dissolved and was replaced by the image of the green dragon.
The dragon’s proud head was bowed. Blue smoke floated around him, dulling his scales and masking the shape of the Blue Queen’s castle hulking behind him. On the ground in front of him lay a young woman in a white dress. The woman’s eyes were closed. She breathed steadily, her cheek pillowed on her arm. Her small feet were bare. Her long hair spilled over the grass like liquid gold.
‘There!’ Leo managed to say. ‘Do you see?’
He felt the heat on the back of his neck grow stronger. He knew the golden dragon was peering into the mirror – was seeing what he was seeing. He heard her hissing sigh.
‘It is he!’ the dragon murmured, her breath like fire on Leo’s skin. ‘My mate! But what… Oh!’
Another figure had moved into the scene in the mirror. It was the Blue Queen. She was wearing a cloak with a high, jewelled collar that framed her angry face. She turned contemptuously away from the unconscious Princess Pretty and her mouth twisted as she spoke angrily to the green dragon, stabbing her finger at him. The green dragon cringed, and his head drooped lower.
‘Oh, my darling dear, what has she done to you?’ Leo heard the golden dragon say in a choked voice, and a lump rose in the back of his throat.
At the same moment, the dragon in the mirror raised his head and looked straight at them. All the colours of the rainbow swirled in his glazed eyes, but somewhere beneath the colours something seemed to stir as if a memory was struggling to come to the surface of his clouded mind.
‘He feels my gaze!’ the golden dragon breathed.
Leo’s skin prickled. Panic thrilled through his body. Before he could move the queen had swung round, fast as a striking snake. Her face filled the mirror. Her pale green eyes burned like cold fire, searching…
Leo clapped the mirror face down against his chest. Panting and shaking, he stared blindly at Conker, Bertha, Spoiler and Mimi. Had he moved fast enough?
He heard a shuffling sound behind him, and turned. The dragon was retreating from the cage. Her eyes were fixed on the north.
‘No!’ Mimi shouted, scrambling forward to press her face against the bars of the cage. ‘Dragon, you can’t go after him! The queen will catch you in the smoke too! She will!’
The dragon regarded her coldly. ‘You know nothing of the bonding of dragons, human,’ she hissed. ‘I cannot stay here knowing what I know. My heart would break. If the queen overpowers me, then so be it. I would rather be enslaved with my mate than live in freedom without him.’
She backed further away from the cage, preparing herself for flight.
‘The queen will use you to catch more slaves!’ Bertha called in a high, trembling voice. ‘You can’t –’
‘I must,’ said the dragon, and spread her vast wings. The sun was blotted out. The mouth of the cave was engulfed in shadow.
And Leo suddenly remembered something. ‘What about your baby?’ he burst out.
The dragon hesitated. The scaly skin around her eyes twitched.
‘If you and your mate are both lost, your baby will be all alone here, when it hatches!’ Leo rushed on. ‘It won’t have anyone to feed it. It will die!’
The great wings drooped and folded. The dragon lowered her head.
‘I had forgotten,’ she said in a wondering tone. ‘So great was my pain that I had actually… forgotten!’
Leo felt weak with relief. Then he thought of the queen’s eyes in the mirror, and fear returned with a rush. He looked towards the north. Thin wisps of pink cloud drifted over the long line of the hills. None looked suspicious, but he still felt uneasy.
‘My friends and I have to get away from here, quickly,’ he said, turning back to the dragon. ‘The queen felt me looking at her. I’m afraid she might come after us.’
Bertha squeaked. Conker scrambled up, clutching Freda. Hunched at the back of the cage, Spoiler whimpered softly.
‘Leave, then,’ the dragon said listlessly. ‘You are free to go.’
‘Free to go?’ Conker exploded. ‘Oh, my lungs and liver, how are we supposed to go anywhere? We’re stranded on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, thanks to you, and I’ve got a sick duck here!’
The dragon eyed him, curling her lip. ‘If I had not taken you from the ogre’s castle you would all be dead by now, little man,’ she snarled. ‘If you would prefer death to freedom on my mountain, simply say the word.’
She showed her dripping fangs. Conker puffed up his chest defiantly.
‘Please excuse Conker,’ Bertha said hastily. ‘He’s upset. Dragon, the mountain is too steep for us. Could you – would you – carry the cage to the bottom of the mountain, at least?’
‘I will not leave my lair again until my young one can fend for itself,’ the dragon hissed. ‘This I have sworn. The witch of the north cannot touch us inside our mountain, and we have dried fish enough to survive for a time. Go your way, or stay. It is all the same to me. But I warn you, I am hungry for meat. You would do better to risk the mountain than to trust in my goodwill for much longer. ‘
Leo looked desperately at Mimi. Her tears over the heart in the silver box had moved the dragon. Maybe if she begged and pleaded…
But Mimi clearly wasn’t in the mood for pleading.
‘You mightn’t think it matters if we live or die, dragon,’ she said fiercely. ‘But you’re wrong.’
‘Am I, indeed?’ the dragon sneered.
‘Yes!’ Mimi snapped. ‘We came to the coast because we’re working against the Blue Queen. There’s a plan to stop her hurting Rondo any more, and we’re part of it. The Blue Queen’s taken your mate. She’s your enemy as well as ours. You can’t leave here, so you can’t attack her. But we can. If you help us.’
The dragon had grown very still. The gold of her eyes had deepened. ‘Why, by the stars!’ she said slowly. ‘You are a Langlander!’