The Burning Dragon

(This is an excerpt from my published paperback novel)

Mother Hubbard shook Nimm. “Eee-ucht!” Then she shook her even harder. “Don’t be such a rotten egg. Of course you remember the spell, you’ve used it twice now. Two times! Did you go to the Realm of the Dragons? All the way in? How did you do this? What’s your spell?”

Nimm pulled herself away. “Ouch. I don’t remember that.”

“And don’t give me such an evil eye. I can’t abide by that!”

“I’m not trying to look at you in any certain way. I’m just trying to remember.” Nimm rubbed her forehead. “I was with the dragons, but on my way back to middle earth I saw the demon bell! The one that causes our blight.”

“How?” Mother Hubbard asked. “You sure it wasn’t from confusion? To be so far under the earth is to be so far away.”

“I wasn’t in Hades or Summerland. I was in the Realm of the Dragons, and like Avalon, it’s not up or down. It’s not a place like a place is a place�"soil, sky, trees or creeks”

Mother Hubbard said, “Tell me what you can and don’t worry about how it sounds.”

“But I felt like I was up on a tall mountain and I saw the unholy grove of trees that hides the demon bell. It’s a grove that even the Roman army couldn’t or wouldn’t cut down.”

“You saw this up on a mountain? What mountain?”

Nimm nodded. “It was like a mountain. Very tall, very purple, and crystal. I could see the bottom through the top; it was an odd purple crystal.”

Mother Hubbard shook her again. “Go on! Go on!”

“I saw Merlin and Arthur and two other men. That nice boy Parsifal with the wonderful suit of clothes. But they were so dirty and his sleeves had been misplaced, and there was some abbot. And a raven was following them�"Opie the raven�"like a silent banshee, not proclaiming death but thinking about it all the time. I floated over them, even the raven, for just a moment, very very close at some poplar trees. I did this as I passed between worlds.”

Mother Hubbard asked, “What did you see them doing?”

“The leaves shook and tried to talk to the men to tell them I was there.”

“Nay! Listen. What were the men doing?”

“Walking and walking. They were on their great grail quest. Merlin saw me for a moment as clearly as you see me now. He called out my name.”

“What were they doing?”

“They were going to a bridge that would take them to the grail.”

“But Mum,” Rafe interrupted her, “We all saw you surface at the drowning pool, coming up from inside a great black dragon.”

Mother Hubbard reminded him. “There are no dragons on earth. They live in their own realm. Don’t be daft.”

“It was dead,” Rafe said, “and it burned up at the first touch of the sun leaving Mum behind from inside its bones.”

Mother Hubbard turned back to Nimm. “Where is it? Where is the demon bell’s grove? Think of it quickly now before it all fades from your mortal mind.”