The dragon nosed her aside - jolting her heart into a fierce pounding-and raised a long, sharp claw to the wall. In a nerve-grating rasp, it lightly sketched a dot at the center of Turtle Creek and radial lines outward, carefully linking the radials up to existing ley lines. The dragon glanced up at her, making sure she was watching, and then flattened its great paw and smudged away the dot and lines, creating the same blank space.
"There's no magic." She whispered.
"Tooloo has always said the dragons can't exist without magic." Oilcan absently scratched the dragon's jaw, getting a deep purr-like rumble from it.
"So as long as we keep him saturated in magic, he's safe."
"Yeah."
Tinker thought of the barrels stacked in the tractor shed. They represent a huge pool of magic, but a leaky one, draining away. "He can't stay here, then. I have no idea how long the magic will last from the barrels, but it's an artificial environment. Sooner or later, it's going to be drained."
"Yeah, I know."
"Oilcan! This isn't some stray dog. Look what I found, Grandpa, can I keep it? It didn't work with the warg puppy."
"This isn't a warg, this is an intelligent being that can talk, and create art, and communicate. Look!" He pointed out set of small pictures. "It has a written language!"
"How do you know? That could be - be - anything!"
He gave her an annoyed look. "Did it or did it not just communicate something meaningful to you?"
She sighed. "Yes."
The sekasha were just going to love this.
"What?" Stormsong asked for about the third time in the row when Tinker updated the sekasha on the current plan.
"We need to move the dragon to the scrap yard. It's got a strong ley line running through it, so the dragon will stay sentient there. But the flatbed is a double clutch manual transmission, so if none of you can drive manual, then I'm going to have to -"
Stormsong caught her by the hand, dragged her to the side of the barn into the old apple orchard.
"Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?" Tinker cried.
"What am I doing?" Stormsong snatched up an apple and flung it at Tinker. "What am I doing?"
The apple smacked the barn wall, blossoming into a flower of rotten sweetness unnervingly close to Tinker's head.
"What fucking part of that don't you understand?" Tinker shouted at her.
"You - are - too - trusting!" Stormsong flung apples to emphasize her words - one apple per word. They whizzed past Tinker so closely she felt their passage. "And - too-slow-at - putting - up - your-shields."
There was now a halo of spattered fruit outlining Tinker.
"I get the point! I get the point!" Tinker called up her shield. "See, shield! Happy?"
"Happy?" Stormsong snorted, picked an apple from the tree instead of the ground, and polished it against her black jeans until it gleamed with promise. "Here!" She tossed the apple in a lazy arc toward Tinker.
Tinker moved her hands to catch the apple and her shield vanished.
"You're - too- trusting!"
The first apple hit Tinker in the shoulder in a painful splatter. The second and third were intercepted mid-air by other apples so that they exploded in front of her, spraying her with apple bits.
"Stop it." Pony had another apple ready. Part of Tinker was impressed that he could knock apples out of the air - the other part wanted to know where the hell he was for the first volley. "She is the domi. She leads us."
"She's going to get herself killed!" Stormsong growled.
"What she says is true," Pony said. "The dragon can not stay here. The truck is the only vehicle that will carry it. She and Oilcan are the only ones that know how to drive it - and he will be focused on keeping the creature calm. The fewer people we involve in moving the beast, the less likely the oni will learn that we have it."
"How can you support this plan?"
"The domana's self-centered creativity is why we chose to obey them. We need their drive. Trust her, she will make it work."
"Or die trying." Stormsong muttered. "This is insanity."
"Is it? We have the scarecrow." Pony pointed at Tinker and then tapped his chest. "The lion. The tin man." He pointed at Oilcan's metal sculpture. "And the apple trees." He held up the apple in his hand. "And the apples being thrown at the scarecrow."
Stormsong's eyes went wide.
"There, see!" Tinker cried. "It's crazy with a purpose."
"And that is supposed to make me feel better?" Stormsong snarled. "What are you going to do with dragon now that you found him?"
Tinker held up her finger, indicating they were to wait, and pulled out her datapad. "Give me a few minutes. I've been keeping notes on the dreams. Off hand, I don't remember anything. Wait-how about this - Esme said 'he knows the paths, the twisted way, the garden path. You have to talk to him. He'll tell you the way.'"
"The way? To where."
"Obviously where I need to go."
It was like having a very large, hyper-active five year old in her workshop. The dragon flowed in and out of the various rooms of the trailer, carrying on a running commentary in its rumbling voice, as it examined everything with its massive but manipulative paws. After rescuing her scanner, their radio base, and antique CD player, Tinker realized what happened to Oilcan's answering machine and started to fear.