Read Online The Dragondain by Richard Due - Free Book Online Page B

helped Wrengfoul when Perianth fell.”
    “Perianth fell?” A terrible chill fell over Jasper’s heart. “What happened?”
    “Wrengfoul brought a great storm from the sea—and monsters. His serpents pulled down the great windmills and destroyed the locks, flooding the fens. Then he attacked from all sides, and Perianth was lost. This happened years ago, when our parents were young,” said Ridley matter-of-factly.
    “But . . . Castle Fendragon?”
    “The castle is still above water, as are the middle and upper city, but everything else is inundated by a black, foul water—full of awful things. No one goes there anymore.”
    Jasper couldn’t believe it, and it showed on his face. In Ebb’s bedtime tales, Castle Fendragon was an eternally magical place, where people and dragons lived in harmony—the people in their houses, and the dragons in their high perch-towers. It was a city of beauty, art, magic, and skill. He found himself staring off into the distance.
    Cora arrived. She took a seat on the bench behind theirs, promptly opening a small canvas bag and throwing herself into a piece of knitting. Jasper thought she seemed nervous.
    “Mom doesn’t like to watch,” Ridley explained.
    The three children Jasper had met in Tavin’s house crawled from underneath a bench and began to play in the grass nearby. Meeri held a green toy dragon, which looked suspiciously familiar.
    “Ridley,” said Jasper, pointing to the three girls. “Those are Cora’s youngest, right? Your sisters?”
    “Yes. The one with the dragon is Meeri, the one on the right is Min, and that one is Jin. They’re triplets.”
    Jasper watched Jin crawl over and whisper something into Meeri’s ear. Meeri sneaked a look back at Jasper. A few minutes later, she held her dragon high in the air and pretended to make it fly over to Jasper, landing it in his lap. There was no mistaking it now, nor its maker. He had one that looked just like it in his bedroom.
    “Ha!” said Jasper. “And what have we here?”
    “Morgot!” squealed Meeri.
    “Oh! So you know his name? In my house, his name has to be kept a secret.”
    “Secrets!” echoed Meeri, holding one finger in front of her mouth in a shushing motion.
    “Yes. Secrets. But you know all about those, don’t you?” Meeri smiled and released a belly laugh.
    “May I?” Jasper motioned to the dragon sitting on his lap. Meeri launched the dragon off Jasper’s knee, spun around twice, and flapped it into his open hands.
    There could be no doubt: he would know his Uncle Ebb’s handiwork anywhere. Jasper had his own Morgoroth, along with several other beings from the pantheon of Moon Realm mythology. They lived on the bookcase in his bedroom back home. “Morgoroth,” said Jasper slowly. “Morgoroth the Devourer, Keeper of the Magic Flame, and Faerathil’s greatest creation, greater than all the other dragons in the Moon Realm, greater then Nilgiri of Dik Dek, even greater than the mighty Fendragon of Dain.” Jasper paused to see what Meeri thought of this and to see if he had offended her by claiming Morgoroth’s superiority over Fendragon.
    But Meeri just jumped up and down, nodding her head excitedly.
    “Morgot!” she squealed.
    Jasper held the toy up to Ridley as if to say, do you see this? But as he turned the dragon in his hand, he set off the workings of some lever or spring, and suddenly the tail coiled around his wrist in a very life-like way. With a vicious snap towards Ridley’s face, the dragon blew out a shot of red flame that singed his eyebrows.
    Meeri let out another belly laugh and clapped her hands.
    “Hey,” protested Ridley, “watch where you point that thing!” He quickly unwound the dragon’s tail from Jasper’s wrist and handed the toy back to Meeri.
    “That’s your uncle’s work, all right,” Ridley said to Jasper. “He knows the mythology of Dain and all her moons better than anyone.” Ridley pointed up into the sky. “Look, there’s Morgoroth’s