Modern Magick

The Striding Spire: 11

And, as it turned out, Jay. Archibald wrapped one set of claws around my shrinking middle, and the other around Jay, and took off with both of us in tow. We watched, helpless, as Mabyn and Jenifry Redclover receded beneath us — and Jory the kennel-keeper, too, with our pup still in his arms.

'Inconvenient,' observed Jay, the word emerging as a squeak.

Archibald's grip was a bit tight, at that. I was feeling breathless myself, and I felt like I had an iron band vice-tight around my ribs. 'Archie,' I called. 'You couldn't squeeze a bit less, by any chance? We are fragile creatures, prone to breakage.'

The dragon expelled a whistle of air through his nostrils, and to my surprise, huffed out a clear No.

'Oh,' I said.

'You might fall,' the dragon explained.

'That would make for some serious breakage,' I had to agree.

'Fair,' said Jay. 'But don't squeeze too tight. We ought to arrive alive at the Mayor's, no?'

'The Mayor?' said Archibald. 'Why would you want to see her?'

'That... isn't that where we are going?'

'No...' said Archibald, and something about the way he said the word struck me as a bit shifty.

I patted his leg with the hand that wasn't clinging desperately to my shoulder-bag, and Mauf. 'Where are we going, then?' I asked.

'There is something you should see,' said the dragon.

'Oh?'

A pause. 'I... I heard what you were saying,' said Archibald, and he definitely sounded shame-faced now.

'From how far away?' Jay yelped.

'I have very good ears,' said Archibald with dignity.

'And a fair bit of magick, too?' I suggested.

'Well, anyway,' said the dragon. 'I used to take Melmidoc places.'

'You knew Melmidoc Redclover?'

'His brother was the longest-running Mayor Dapplehaven has ever had,' said Archibald. 'They were always together, and so... we were always together, too.'

Could a dragon be forlorn? Apparently. 'You miss your friends?' I guessed.

'I do not like Doryty,' said Archibald. 'She is foul-tempered.' His enormous tail thrashed.

'We did not like her very much either,' I said soothingly.

'No one does.'

'Odd, then,' said Jay, 'that she is the Mayor. How did that happen?'

'No one else wanted the job. It is very boring.'

I risked a glance down. Archibald was taking us well away from Dapplehaven, and the ground was rising steeply beneath us. We were, I judged, sailing up the side of a low peak I had briefly glimpsed at some distance from the town. It did not, at least from this angle, look scaleable by any normal means.

'Is this where you used to take Melmidoc?' I asked.

'Melmidoc and Drystan,' said Archibald happily. 'All the time!'

Jay put in, 'Have you taken anybody else there since?'

'Once. The Mayor made me do it. They took away everything that was Melmidoc's, and they made it so I am not allowed to land there.'