Fluff Dragon Read online

  To Mr. Hansen, who planted the first seed and offered to buy my first book

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’M EXTREMELY GRATEFUL FOR THE many talented and dedicated individuals willing to indulge my flights of fancy and find conversations such as “What does a fluffy dragon look like?” to be perfectly reasonable.

  At the top of this list is my amazing editor, Fiona Simpson. She is surrounded by a number of wonderful professionals who all had a hand in creating and promoting this book, including Jessica Handelman, Annie Berger, Karina Granda, Sarah Jane Abbott, Paul Crichton, and many others who work in their respective areas of expertise. A special thanks as well to publisher Bethany Buck.

  Taking on the task of illustrating a fluff dragon fell to John Hendrix, whose jacket art perfectly captures the spirit of the book. Other amazing individuals include my agent, Deborah Warren, whose thoughtful stewardship and unending enthusiasm keep me heading down the right paths.

  To the Story Monkeys writing group (a name that should tell you much regarding their dispositions and love of bananas), comprising E. J. Patten, David Butler, Eric Holmes, and Michael Dalzen, thank you for the thoughtful, challenging, and often hilarious recommendations.

  My love and appreciation go out to my children: Kiaya, Platte Christian, Hailey, Kennidy, Hunter, Allie, and Aidan, for putting up with a dad who insists the Three Stooges are a necessary part of one’s formal education. And finally, all my love to my wife, Kathy, who tolerates unicorn-based decor in my office while unconditionally encouraging me in everything else that truly matters.

  PROLOGUE

  LOKI AND MOKI PADDED TOWARD the Tree of Woe. Like most days in the Turul wastes, it was hot, and that was exactly the way the two fire kittens liked it. Ahead the ancient tree stretched high into the cloudless sky, with sun-bleached bones hanging from its black limbs. When the wind picked up, the various skeletal bits banged into one another like an unholy wind chime. Beneath the clattering bones a skinny human with pale skin and a long white beard tugged at his chains.

  “Well, this must be exciting for you,” Loki said to Moki as they approached the old man. Loki had swirls of black and white fur and a pink nose, while Moki was black-nosed with a hodgepodge of orange and white fur. Fire kittens were nearly indistinguishable from regular kittens, except for their ability to do things like fling fireballs from their tails and talk about the weather. “I mean, being fresh out of the academy and all,” Loki continued.

  “They said there was only one place for a kitten of my talents”—Moki beamed—“and here I am.”

  Loki knew exactly what that meant. Despite what the Quorum of Kitties said publicly, being assigned to the Tree of Woe was the lowest duty handed out to fire kittens—one given to the most challenged academy graduates, or in Loki’s case, to those branded as troublemakers and malcontents. “Just do everything I tell you, exactly as I tell you, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Because you’re the boss?” Moki asked. Loki thought that was obvious, but he supposed one could never overemphasize the basics.

  “Yes . . . because I’m the boss.” Moki pointed to a small mailbox resting at an angle in the cracked ground. “Now go and retrieve our orders.”

  Moki nodded and bounded to the box (with a little too much enthusiasm for Loki’s liking), returning with a sealed envelope.

  “Looks like we have another prisoner from Thannis,” Loki said, studying the wax seal before breaking it open. It took a special kind of wax to withstand the heat in Turul, harvested from the gooey-eared bog mice of Mephis. Loki made a mental note to wash his paws when he returned to camp. “We get a lot of criminals from the capital these days.”

  “I’m no criminal!” the human protested. Like all the prisoners delivered to the Tree of Woe, the old man was dressed in a simple loincloth. “I’ll have you know I’m a druid of the seventh order, and I’ve had a vision!”

  “Uh-huh,” Loki replied, unimpressed. He continued to read from the official papers. “According to this, you’ve been charged with the use of unauthorized magic—”

  “Bah! The Tower knows nothing! I’ve seen him through the mists of the umbraverse. And I know what he brings!”

  “Yep,” Loki continued. “Then you defaced the king’s property.”

  “I merely wrote his name on the city wall so all could see. But the guards stopped me. Fools!”

  “And finally—and this is where you really crossed the line—it says you double-parked your horse.”

  “I can’t be bothered with parking!” the old man yelped. “He’s here! And the blood of the World Sunderer flows through his veins!”

  Loki handed the writ to Moki. “No more need for this—I think we know what kind of troublemaker we have here.” Moki happily took the paper and tucked it away. “As for you, human,” Loki continued in his official-sounding voice, “you’ve been sentenced to three days’ punishment on the Tree of Woe. Here you will be licked by specially trained fire kittens—that’s us—as you consider your offenses and reflect on just what a terrible person you are.”

  “Don’t you see?” the human said, tugging at his chains. “The Seven Kingdoms are nothing to the might of the boy who can read the book!”

  “Can we start at the ankles?” Moki asked. “I like starting at the ankles. You start low like that and you get to work your way up. It’s like you see that calf just sitting there, begging for it.”

  The old man blinked a couple of times as he considered the small kitten’s enthusiasm for leg licking. Everyone in the Magrus knew that fire kittens had hot tongues. Regular cat licking was repulsive enough, but fire kittens took it to a whole new level.

  “Did you hear that, magician?” Loki said, emphasizing the insult with just the right amount of contempt—spell casters hated the term. “My friend here wants to start at your ankles. Do you know what it’s like to be licked by a fire kitten?”

  The old man shivered despite himself. “Those little tongues of yours are just so . . . gross . . . like sandpaper. But then again, I don’t suppose anyone’s died from it, have they?” The question caught Loki off guard. As far as he knew there had been no reported deaths from fire kitten licks. Such a record was obviously not good for their reputation. “Just as I thought,” the druid continued, looking rather pleased with himself. “Your tongues might be icky, but they’re not going to kill me.”

  Loki didn’t like where this was going. “So you wanna do it the hard way, is that it?” he asked, moving closer and glaring at the prisoner. “Then maybe we skip the ankle and go right to that little spot just behind the knee. Very sensitive, that spot. I’ve broken more than a few orcs licking that particular spot.” Loki grinned as a flame lit on the end of his tail. Suddenly the human didn’t look so confident.

  “Whatever you do to me doesn’t matter. I’ve been called to deliver a great message. Even the Wizard’s Tower is ignorant! Rezormoor Dreadbringer searches in vain, but only I know the location of what he seeks!” The human started to laugh in the way only a half-mad druid tied to a tree can.

  Loki considered the ramifications of what he’d just heard. Getting in good with the Wizard’s Tower was a promising idea on many levels. The Tower had influence across all of the Seven Kingdoms, and for an enterprising fire kitten that could mean real opportunity.

  “You say nobody knows but you?” Loki asked, waiting for the human to settle down. Moki circled his paw around his head in the this-guy’s-crazy sign. The gesture gave Loki a moment of pause. “You’re not having any other kinds of strange visions, are you? Perhaps with unicorns or dragons?”

  “Oh, oh, I had a dream about a unicorn once!” Moki exclaimed, jumping up and down and waiving his paw in the air. “It was running around trying to stick me with its evil horn! But then a squ
irrel stepped out and—”

  “I was talking to the prisoner!” Loki yelled, stamping his paw and causing the flame on his tail to burn brighter. Moki seemed unfazed by the rebuke, however, and simply nodded and grinned some more.

  “What I saw came from a spirit of the forest,” the old man continued. “This is not some ‘strange vision,’ as you call it. Nature does not lie.” He looked up at the Tree of Woe as the desert wind moved through its branches. The Tree swayed as a result, giving the druid the distinct impression it had just shrugged him off.

  “So, this boy who can read the book, do you know where he is?” Loki continued.

  The druid looked at the two fire kittens and then set his jaw—he wasn’t going to tell them anything more. The old spell caster could smell opportunists a mile away. He turned his head to watch a small scorpion scuttle across the dry earth.

  “Oh, so suddenly you’re not so talkative, huh?” Loki asked. He whipped his flaming tail at the scorpion, turning it into a black smudge. “Three days is a long time,” Loki said, walking up and rubbing against the human’s ankles, his tail curling dangerously close to the druid’s leg. “A very, very long time, in fact.”

  “You’re not a very nice kitty,” the human noted.

  Moki looked back and forth between the human and Loki. This was much more fun than he’d imagined.

  Loki circled back around and sat, giving the prisoner a hard look. “This can really be so very simple. Tell me where I can find this boy, and I promise: not a single lick to your very thin skin.”

  The old druid looked away.

  “Of course, my job can extend beyond the letter of the law,” Loki added. “There’s no reason I can’t take some . . . creative license.” He motioned to a fire pit.

  “What’s in there?” the druid said, squinting. “Are those bones?”

  “I bet it’s a marshmallow pit!” Moki guessed, bouncing up and down. He liked guessing games, especially if marshmallows were involved.

  Loki shook his head. “So what’s it going to be, human? You can’t very well deliver your message if you never leave this place. And let’s just say no one ever complains if a prisoner doesn’t make it back. Cuts down on paperwork.”

  The druid mulled the situation over in his mind. His job was to prepare the Magrus—the magical realm—for the coming of the boy who could read the book. He couldn’t let a couple of fire kittens stop him. “Fine,” he sighed after a few moments. “The boy of prophecy is in Thoran, near Shyr’el. And with some orcs, if you really must know.”

  Loki grinned. Thoran was composed of the nonhuman nations of dwarfs, unicorns, and elves—a human boy would stand out there. “And nobody knows this but you?”

  “Not yet,” the old man replied. “But I’ll tell all the Magrus as soon as I’m off this wretched tree.” More bones clattered above the druid, and this time he was certain the tree had just told him to shove off.

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” Loki said, turning and beginning to walk away, his tail flame disappearing with a puff of smoke. “But do mind the crows. They stay away when we’re around, but when we’re not . . . well, you know how birds like to peck at things.”

  Suddenly the druid understood—the fire kittens were going to leave him! “What?” he shouted. “But we had a deal!”

  “I said I wouldn’t lick you, and I won’t. But if you want to make a deal with the crows, you’ll have to take it up with them directly.”

  The druid looked up at the black shapes sitting high in the branches. The wind picked up again, knocking the bones together with an eerie clank. “You’ll pay for this!” the human shouted as the two fire kittens padded away. He looked around for signs of life—druids drew their magic from the living world, and he thought he might be able to whip up a spell. But he was in the middle of a vast and empty nothing, save for the Tree of Woe itself. And he had the distinct impression the tree didn’t like him very much.

  “So, uh, we’re not licking him?” Moki asked as he and Loki headed back to their camp.

  “No, my young apprentice,” Loki replied. “We’re going on a trip.”

  “We are? That’s great! I like going places.”

  Loki nodded in agreement, but his thoughts were elsewhere. It was time to find his fortune, even if it meant walking away from a steady job with reasonable hours. But deep inside, Loki had always known he was meant for something more—something that included fame and riches and power! It would be a long walk across the wastes to Onig, the goblin city and capital of Turul. But there he’d find the Guild of Indiscriminate Teleportation, which was his best shot at getting closer to the so-called boy who could read the book. Thoran happened to be about as far away from the Turul Wastes as anywhere in the Magrus, and ship captains didn’t care for fire-flinging kittens aboard their wooden ships. But the boy—whomever he was—was too valuable to pass up. It was enough to know that the Tower wanted him—and the Tower had plenty of gold to pay for what it wanted. “Go and pack,” he commanded Moki. “We have a date with destiny.”

  “Oh, good,” Moki said. “I hope she’s nice.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

  IT WAS EVENING, AND THE citizens of the Magrus sat around their various tables and ate their various dinners. And if their talk drifted to that of dragons and wizards, none would consider it particularly odd. This was due to the fact that dragons and wizards could be found in great abundance across the whole of the Seven Kingdoms. And if the rumors were to be believed, it was the ancient and powerful Wizard’s Tower itself that was behind the revival of the dragon hunts. There was gold to be made for those adventurers who could take down the great beasts and harvest their scales. And whether delivered to the barbarian king of Kuste or sold through the shadowy guilds of the underworld, dragon scale was in high demand.

  Not all the cooking fires across the Magrus were enjoying such talk, however. At one, a certain ogre camp located deep in the Shyr’el woods, there were other concerns. Specifically, about the three humans and lone dwarf who dropped out of the sky. Of course the orc cook had no idea that these travelers had just been flung through time and space after battling robots in a futuristic world. Nor did she know that the chubbiest of them was called Max Spencer, the last living descendent of the greatest arch-sorcerer who had ever lived: Maximilian Sporazo. And because Sporazo’s blood flowed through the boy’s veins, Max Spencer was the only soul alive who could read from the most powerful spell book in existence: the Codex of Infinite Knowability. And it was inconceivable that the orc cook could have even imagined that Max and his friends had been sent back in time at the hands of Obsikar, the legendary dragon king, on a promise to save the dragons and defeat the one behind their demise: Rezormoor Dreadbringer, regent of the Wizard’s Tower.

  What concerned the orc cook most, in fact, was if this Max Spencer was a tailor (she desperately needed mittens) and if humans were better served with onions or turnips. Either way, she had plans for him and his friends.

  “I am most certainly not a sheep!” the creature in the orc’s tent announced to Max. And in its defense, it did have a longer neck and more angular head than the sheep Max had seen at the petting zoo. Also, it talked better too. Max had bigger problems to solve, however. Problems involving a very large orc and the fact that his friends were hanging upside down like hams in a butcher’s shop.

  “I used to eat sheep,” the creature continued. It was collared and chained to the center tent pole, where they both sat. Animal skins littered the floor, and at Max’s feet were the Codex of Infinite Knowability, a pair of knitting needles, and finally a ball of fluffy-looking yarn. Max looked at the yarn and back to the creature.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” The sheep-looking thing scowled. Max decided not to press the issue and turned his attention back to the Codex. In addition to being the most powerful spell book in the three realms, which only he could read, it had a mind of its own. When Max tried to pick it up, it actually shocked him
—him, the last descendant of the arch-sorcerer who had written it! Not that shocking would-be readers was something new to the magical tome; it had systematically zapped every other person who had ever touched it. But now Max got the same stinging SNAP! that he used to find funny when it happened to his best friend, Dirk.

  “If you really must know, I’m a dragon,” the creature stated, raising its head and striking its best dragon pose. “Entire armies would cower at the sight of me flying overhead.”

  “Sure,” Max replied absentmindedly. He really didn’t have time to deal with the delusional animal at the moment. He had to figure out what was wrong with the Codex, because he desperately needed a knitting pattern for orc mittens. This might seem an unusual thing for a twelve-year-old boy, but Max needed the mittens to trade for his friends Sarah, Dirk, and Dwight the Dwarf. They had all managed to escape from a horrible future world only to end up in an orc camp. Thanks to years of gaming, Max knew exactly what an orc was. But he wasn’t prepared for the smell. His neighbor had a dog that stayed out in the rain and ate spoiled Spam from the garbage, and it smelled considerably better.

  The orc turned as if reading Max’s thoughts, and eyed him suspiciously through the open tent flap. Max could see that the hot-tub-sized cauldron had started to boil, and that didn’t seem like a particularly good sign. The orc gave him a hard scowl and returned to scraping an oversized cleaver against a leather strap. “You sure you make mittens?” the orc grunted. She was considerably bigger than Max and had a carved stump instead of a left foot. But even one-footed, the orc was probably faster than he was. And since Max had spent most of his free time reading comics and playing online games, most of his running (and fighting, for that matter) amounted to hitting keys on a keyboard and clicking a mouse. Actual running and fighting had turned out to be a lot harder.

  “Sure, no problem,” Max called out, hoping that it was true. He’d seen the orc burn her hands on the hot, human-sized pot when he first arrived. “I just need to find the, uh . . . instructions.” From his earlier readings, Max knew the Codex did in fact have a pattern for orc mittens inside. Why such a pattern happened to be in the combination spell book, encyclopedia, and travel guide was a mystery. But the Codex had a habit of being either extremely helpful or particularly unhelpful. And at the moment it was stuck on the latter.