With the naga king looking on, Fredric faced the being disguised as a human, the bubbling water of the underground stream almost deafening in volume. Throwing caution to the wind, Fredric pressed on, determined to learn more.
"What I don't understand," he said tugging out ice from part of his matted hair, "is how on earth you can have been born here? Surely that isn't possible. The council built this place as a last refuge, a prison, somewhere no being could thrive."
Drawing back his head, the human shaped whatever-he-was cackled madly, the sound reverberating around the cavern as if it were an exclusive nightclub.
"It was soooo easy. Your king and his council thought they'd planned everything, every little detail, when in fact the scale of their ineptitude was enormous. It was, of course, way too cold for dragons to breed, because for them it has to be positively sweltering. But in their haste to capture and contain those dragons whose ideas they disagreed with, they overlooked something so obvious that at first it was hard for those stuck here to believe that their captors had been so stupid. But oh yes, they had. You see, when Troydenn was originally captured and incapacitated in the city of Salisbridge, the current dragon monarch did something so unbelievably stupid and naive that it's hard to fathom just how he went on to rule your domain. In his haste, he cast a mantra designed to repress any residual magic inside his prisoner. My understanding is that at the time, it left him encompassed by a deep purple glow. Sounds sensible, doesn't it, until you realise just how badly it backfired. What it actually did was lock a miniscule amount of magic deep within Troydenn, something he would go on to use to great effect, much later on in this icy hellhole. Although it was far too cold for dragons to mate and reproduce in their natural form, what your naive dragons overlooked though, was the fact that with even a little of their power, the prisoners were still able to manipulate their DNA. Yes, it was difficult and took an amazing amount of time to do, but don't forget, they had centuries to get it right. And they did. With the help of Troydenn's locked away powers and the combined knowledge of all the prisoners, a select few had their DNA manipulated so that they were fully human. Once they were fully human, what do you think they did? That's right. They did it the old fashioned way... the human way. And what you see in front of you," announced the false human figure, spreading his arms wide and whirling around in a circle, "is the product of that very first union. While the world is full of dragons that can take human form and often do, I'm the very first human able to take dragon form. And because of who I am and just how I was created, you can't sense me, or my abilities. Tell me... dragon, how does that feel?"
Fredric had thought he couldn't get any colder. It turns out he was wrong. A shiver of epic proportions ran through his innards like a great white shark chasing the scent of blood. Everything that this human hybrid dragon had said kind of made sense. All of it seemed unlikely of course, implausible even, but still entirely possible. And if even a hint of it was true, the danger to the dragons and the wider world was much greater than Fredric had thought possible. His friends, the king, his grandson Peter, they were all in incredible danger, a danger they had little or no idea was coming.
'Human dragons,' he thought. 'Worse still, human dragons with a grudge, who think they should be ruling the world... how much worse can it get?' he mused, before something rather worrying popped into his cold and foggy brain. Knowing where he was now: trapped here in this cavern, the place where all those despicable evil dragons had been incarcerated all those years ago, some of whom he'd helped to capture and bring to justice. If, as the human dragon claimed, some were still alive... would they recognise him, and if so... how much worse could things get? More than ever, he wished to escape, or die trying.
'But what can I do?' he wondered, as the human dragon turned round, all the time smiling, and called the evil jailer over, before they both wandered off into the darkness. As he looked across to the naga king, he too wore a grim expression, one that said exactly what Fredric had been thinking. Time was indeed running out.
13
Nelly the Elephant Packed Her...?
Sprouting out over the edge of the sink and onto the floor, he'd put too much washing up liquid in the bowl and now the bubbles had a life of their own. Only having gotten home twenty minutes earlier, this was the state he was getting himself into. The trouble was... he was too excited. It was one of those nights to look forward to. It wasn't hockey, or a trip to the pub or a meal, much as he loved all of those things. It was something quite literally out of this world. It was of course... laminium ball!
'Yippee' he thought as he started to gather up all the escaping bubbles, only to be rudely interrupted by a spark of pain blossoming deep within his shoulder. 'Damn!' he thought to no one but himself. After all this time his wounds from fighting Manson should have been fully healed, but they weren't. Regularly a mysterious pain sprang into life somewhere within him. Having been passed fit to return to Cropptech by the dragon physicians he'd been under, they had gone on to explain that the pain he was experiencing might well remain with him for the rest of his life.
So much remained a mystery about Manson. No one had been able to explain just how he'd camouflaged his weak spot, or how he could create a fake one on a different part of his body. Another head scratcher was the strange hazy barrier that had surrounded the Astroturf pitch on that fateful November night. Was it created by a mantra or the dragon himself? If a mantra, then where had it come from? A concerted search of the dragon libraries across the world, including the king's own private library, as well as a gentle quizzing of Gee Tee, had come up blank on a mantra of that type ever having existed. Feeling more than a little selfish in wanting Manson to be found so that the physicians could cure him fully, he knew in his heart of hearts that the bigger picture was much more important. Whatever the dragon Manson was up to, he must be stopped; after all he'd seen firsthand the wanton disregard for life in any form that the evil dark dragon had exhibited and knew only too well what he was capable of. The big worry in Peter's mind though, was that the prehistoric monster and whatever he was up to would be put on the back burner so to speak, with everything that Flash had revealed to the king only days earlier.
Wandering through to the living room, he wondered how Flash was doing, hoping to see him again soon. Just then, the doorbell rang. Tentatively, he made his way towards the new front door, the old one having been replaced as part of the security measures designed to keep him safe should Manson return in an act of revenge. Striding down the hall, he reached out with his magical senses, surprised to find a dragon on the other side. Fear raced around his stomach for a split second, before he realised it definitely wasn't Manson out there. Just then, a friendly voice trickled into his subconscious.
"Don't be afraid," it whispered. "I have a delivery for you from the king himself. He said to tell you that Nelly had two of these, but he wouldn't swap either of hers for yours. Does that make any sense?" asked the slightly bewildered delivery dragon.
Wide eyed, he considered what he'd just heard.
'Nelly? Who the heck was Nelly?' Then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. Of course... Nelly the Elephant. She had two trunks: one like Peter's and the other one attached to her face. Breaking into a smile, he released the normal looking latch on the door that was anything but. Half a dozen mantras had been cast on the apparently standard Yale lock, making it almost impossible for any dragon to gain entry.