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  A shouting began. Who though was this squat, redfaced man, waving his arms so furiously? She recognized her neighbor, vaguely; the husband of the family who had moved next door. Yet it was not her neighbor. Anger depersonalizes; she had seen such raging faces once before. They surrounded the car in which she sat, helpless; while fists beat at the roof and windows, the Sahib struggled vainly to start the engine. They had been his parishioners once, his friends perhaps; but they were his friends no longer. They had become possessed.

  Mrs. Byres shook her head. Someone, it seemed, had been hurt. The child, the stolid, curiously silent boy.

  Burned, by some chemical; some noxious substance hidden in her shed.

  She stepped back, bemused; and the shouting was redoubled. There was the proof, if they needed it; the guilt was written on her face.

  But she owned no chemicals, kept nothing there at all. Some garden tools, old newspapers perhaps; they were welcome to see for themselves.

  The squalling had not finished. Nor would it, she realized. The man's rage was directed at the world; a cloak and justification for his own inadequacy. Liam, his son, had been seen crawling from her shed. Crawling and screaming, smoke coming from his very clothes. They might yet save his sight; but if she had seen his face. His poor, swollen face...

  Mrs. Byres opened the front door quietly, moved forward with the others at her heels. She had seen disfigured faces times enough; most had belonged to corpses. One had been her husband.

  The handlamps flashed suspiciously, in the little shed. The beams touched ceilings, walls and floor. The policemen prized the lids from paint cans, sniffed solemnly and agreed. There was nothing here.

  Still the man had not done. The stuff was in the house. Or she had got wind of what had happened. Yes, that was it; she'd slipped back in the afternoon, disposed of the evidence. Her, the nigger, come to this respectable street, disrupting the lives of decent folk, poisoning their children. Yes, poisoning their children. He grabbed her arm, and shook.

  The bullet shattered her wrist; the one shot fired by the mob as the car finally jolted away. There was no pain as such; she stared instead at the sudden red tunnel through her flesh. Then the spurting began; and she reached methodically to find the pressure points.

  The ball had struck a double mark; the carpet was stained beneath the Sahib's seat, his fingers slippery where they gripped the wheel. She said, "You'd best drive to the hospital," but he had shaken his head. "I'm sorry, my dear," he said faintly. "I don't think I can make it." He had, of course; he always completed what he undertook. But it was not Byres Sahib they wheeled into Emergency; the spirit had already fled.

  The rioting had spread by then. A lampshade swung and shattered; the orderly who dressed her arm crouched below the level of the windows. The wound healed; but her wrist had never recovered its strength. Now she gave a faint cry, at the sudden pain.

  The Dragon heard the sound from where he waited, and his last doubts were resolved. His mistress was in danger; and he felt the strength rise in him. He was growing too, expanding by the second. He reared and bellowed, turned his blazing eyes on the tiny folk below him. His neck arched; flame roared from his jaws. It licked at the houses and the street, the people and the cars. It circled Mrs. Byres, protecting; the others were engulfed. They were dazzled by the glare, and were never subsequently able to explain what happened. "Some sort of thunderbolt it was," confided one young constable to his superior. "Hit the house, then sort of bounced off somehow. Must have done; stands to reason." The sergeant shook his head, riffled the papers in his hands and suggested he start again. Thunderbolts don't go down well, in police reports; the elastic variety least of all.

  The erstwhile butcher alone saw what opposed them; so that he ran screaming, and was glad enough, later, of the white coats that surrounded him, the security they brought. He told the tale over and again; the great head swooping from the sky, the burning eyes, cat-slitted in their rage, the mouth that barraged fire. To see it was to see into Hell. The doctors wrote busily, stroking their neat-trimmed beards; then they drove home to their neat suburban villas, where their children placed their toys on labeled shelves. Logic was triumphant.

  Hysteria readily becomes infectious. The panic spread outward from the focus at lightning speed. The street outside the house became filled with fleeing bodies, tumbling over each other in their haste to escape they knew not what. The airwaves became garbled. Pistols and riot guns

  were issued, police cars growled from their yards. The Dragon roared and bobbed, cloud-tall now and lighting up the sky. Hot winds tore at Mrs. Byres' clothes. She raised her arms; and his wings unfolded, with a crashing like the long sound of thunder. He soared, gleeful and avenging, into his new element.

  The stories became wilder. Reports spread, of a beast that terrified the city; there were tales of fireballs, comets, alien invasions. Lightning flashed and flickered; strange plasmas boiled and spread. The most commonplace of objects, trees and housetops, garden sheds, were outlined with a fierce and spectral glare. In the confusion the Alsatian pup broke free and bolted, having in her mind the beginnings of a thought that subsequently proved true; that the world is a large place, and is not filled exclusively with folk who chain animals to stakes, beat them with wire frames. Nothing more was heard of the unfortunate Liam; while his mother ended her flight on the very edge of town. At which point it seemed best to keep on walking. She and her daughter settled finally in a rural slum, where at least the daily stress was less.

  The Dragon writhed forlornly, immense now and himself as vaporous as clouds. The shots, the missiles, tore into him and through. The feeling was defocused; but there was none the less a sense of pain. He realized at that the nature of release, the plane to which he properly belonged. A last convulsion; and far off a woman screamed. A gout of something dark and sticky splashed her wrist; the strange rain pattered on the path around her. She stared; but even as she watched, the spots boiled away to nothing. She set off for home, puzzled at the hallucination; if hallucination it had been. She had read books on the subject; the strangest of phenomena can be explained. Freak winds snatch up red desert mud, whirl it with tornado force; insects in their mass emergences release a bloodlike fluid. Nonetheless she paused, a hand on her garden gate. The sky to the west was furnace red; across it, the last cloud streak of evening took the sinuous form of a Dragon.

  The eastern sky was clear and green, the air cool after the disturbed night. Mrs. Byres moved quietly, from the house to the raised pool. She scotched on its edge; ploppings sounded as she scattered food from the round tin she carried. She adjusted the shawl across her shoulders, watched for a while; then she walked to the little shed. Its door was ajar; on the step she placed a china bowl, blue patterns round its edge. She paused a moment longer; then on a whim she plumped up the beanbag that lay at the rear of the little place. The Dragon would be tired, after his adventurings; he would need somewhere to rest.

  Straightening, she half smiled. From the tail of her eye she had caught a flash of green and gold; as if some small animal indeed scuttered beneath the hedge. She didn't though stare after him or search; instead she walked to the house, and gently closed the kitchen door.

  A Handful of Hatchlings

  by

  Mark C. Sumner

  Here's a fast-paced and fascinating look at a world where dragons are not the stuff of legends, where instead they are a problem that must be dealt with in the ordinary, everyday world—and dealt with damn carefully at that!

  New writer Mark C. Sumner has sold to Dragon Magazine and to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, as well as to other magazines and anthologies. He was a first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest, and has just sold his first young adult novel. He lives in Arnold, Missouri.

  The wyvern twisted its skinny neck and looked at me with dull yellow eyes. Then it tucked its snout back under a tattered wing and appeared to sleep.

  A sign informed me that the animal was a Golden S
pade-Tailed Wyvern, the gift of a Chinese emperor, and the oldest resident of the zoo. Another sign warned against throwing coins. The ancient wyvem was half-blind from the impact of errant pennies.

  I rested my hands on the brass railing and squinted through the mesh of the cage at the withered sides of the emperor's gift. If the animal's hide had once matched the color of its name, it had since darkened until the whole of the beast was a flat, leathery black. The skin seemed dry and loosely draped over jutting bones. The long snout was wrinkled and incredibly ugly.

  I turned away, walked past long rows of exotic lizards and snakes and pushed open the front door of the reptile house, relieved to be free of the thick gamy air. Across a broad walking path, the tall concrete aries of Dragon Mountain were dotted with visitors. At the grassy base of the artificial hill, children slid over verdigris-stained, life-sized bronzes of a dozen dragon species.

  "Find any old friends running loose?" said a voice.

  I turned and saw Janey coming toward me up the sloping path. "No," I said. "Looks like they've got all their beasties under lock and key."

  She stopped in front of me. "That's good. They'd probably get upset if you started shooting their exhibits." In her colorful dress, and with her face carefully made up, she didn't look much like the Janey I'd fallen in love with. Not that she didn't look awfully good, great actually, just not like the blue-jeans-and-sweatshirt girl I knew. She stared at my face, frowned, and landed a gentle punch on my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," I said. "Just thinking that you look like you're ready to settle in to city life."

  She laughed. "Come off it, cowboy. You're from L.A. I'm the one from Montana, remember?"

  I tugged at my wide-brimmed hat, suddenly conscious that it was the only piece of headgear in sight that didn't bear the logo of a sports team.

  "I've got someone here I want you to meet," said Janey.

  That's when I noticed the kid standing behind her. He was a head taller than me, skinny, with the kind of flannel shirt and sleeveless vest that rich college kids wear when they want to look "woodsy."

  He stepped forward and stuck out a long hand. "I'm Thom Marion. Thom with an `h,' " he said. "I work with the Drake Rehabilitation Center. We help animals that have been shot, or hit by cars, or things like that."

  "Doesn't that sound wonderful?" asked Janey as I shook his hand.

  "Sure," I said, "very nice."

  "Thom, this is my friend Bill Mackie."

  He pulled his hand back sharply. "The one that used to shoot endangered species from an airplane?"

  "Look," I said. "I only shot one endangered wyvern in my whole life. I paid a big fine, lost my license, and I'm sorry as heck. Okay?"

  Janey stepped between us. "Thom was just telling me something interesting. Why don't you tell Bill about it?"

  "We've got a problem," said Thom-with-an-'h'. "And we were hoping that, with Ms. Bochie's experience in working with large drakes, she might be able to help us."

  I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  "There's this dragon," he said. "It's nesting on a building downtown."

  "Take a look." Janey handed the binoculars to me.

  I squinted, turning the knob until the monolithic side of the building jumped into clear view. At first I saw nothing but acres of tinted glass and panel after panel of imported Italian marble. Then I came to a ledge and saw the dark mass of material that was gathered there. "I see something that looks like a pile of wood. Is that it?"

  "Yes," said Janey. "It's the nest of a large drake." "Drake?" I said, lowering the binoculars. "You mean it is a dragon?"

  "Or a really large wyvern." She shrugged. "Arboreal species of both families build similar nests. Has to be a wyvern. I guess, no dragons in the U.S. But I've never seen one build a nest like this."

  "Oh, it's a dragon," said Thom. "I've seen it myself."

  I handed the binoculars back to Janey. "Whatever it is, that nest looks big enough to raise a family of buffalo."

  Janey spent a few seconds looking at the nest again, then gave the binoculars to Thom. "No sign of the nest maker at the moment. Okay, so you've got a large drake nesting in an urban area. It's unusual, but exactly what is the problem? Has the drake hurt anyone?"

  "Naw," said Thom. "Nothing like that. The problem is with Americo Life Insurance, the building's owner. They're worried about damage to the building, tenants leaving, lawsuits, things like that. They've gone to the city and gotten a permit to trap or kill the dragon. They're going after it today."

  "How long has the nest been there?" asked Janey. "Over a month. Almost two."

  Thom and Janey stared at each other with such force I had

  to break in. "Would somebody mind telling me why that's important?"

  "A big drake only nests for one reason," said Janey, "to lay eggs. And if the nest has been there for as long as Thom says, the eggs must be near to hatching."

  "Great," I said. "Just what we need. A big lizard with a nest full of eggs."

  "Those babies will need food within a few hours of hatching. If they take away the mother now, the babies will die." Janey turned to Thom. "Is your center equipped to care for drake infants?"

  Thom nodded.

  "Then let's go."

  By the time we'd gone back to our hotel and changed clothes, swung by the Drake Rehabilitation Center for some equipment, and waded our way through the representatives of Americo Life, the sun had dipped below the lower buildings to the east and the sky was beginning to get dark. At last, accompanied by a security guard and an elevator full of gear, we were headed for the thirty-sixth floor.

  It was a maintenance floor, with knots of industrial air conditioners, elevator motors, and power boxes spaced in a huge expanse of unfinished concrete. There were no windows, but the guard showed us an access panel that lead out to the ledge.

  I grabbed the handle of the panel and started to run. "Watch out for the pressure differential," said the security guard.

  Immediately, the hatch was pulled out of my hand with enough force that it almost took me with it. I found myself with my legs still inside the building, my chest lying on the ledge and my head hanging in the void with a great view of the street five hundred feet below. Hands grabbed at my belt and hauled me back inside.

  Janey held me by the shoulders and said something, but I couldn't hear it over the pounding of my heart. She helped me away from the opening, and I took a few minutes to catch my breath.

  "Be . careful, Bill," said Janey. "Here, put on your

  harness." She handed me a contraption of nylon straps and buckles hung with aluminum D-rings. Attached to one side was a length of colorful rope that ended with a spring-loaded clip. I turned the thing round and round, trying to figure out how to put it on. "What do we do with this?"

  "There's a cable strung above the ledge that's used by the window washing platform," said Thom. "We can clip our ropes onto that."

  When I had finally struggled into my harness, I saw that Janey and Thom had already gotten into their gear and were advancing on the open hatch. "Have I got this right?" I asked.

  Janey stepped back from the panel and gave my harness a couple of tugs. She tightened one of the buckles until it was painfully snug. "Looks good," she said. "Ready to go out?"

  I walked over to the hatch. A strong wind was still gusting through the opening. "Can't we wait for the wind to calm down?"

  "Wind never calms," volunteered the security guard. "It's the pressure . . .

  "Right," I said. "The pressure differential." I stuck my head out and looked down the ledge. At the corner of the building, through some whim of the architect's design, the ledge belled out into a platform at least thirty feet on a side. That was where the drake had built its nest. In between the nest and the hatch was fifty feet of ledge that was something less than a yard wide. And when I looked over the edge . . .

  I jerked back inside, panting.

  Janey was looking at me funny. "Don't tell me t
hat William Mackie, ace pilot, is afraid of heights?"

  "There is a big difference between flying a plane and hanging on the side of a building," I said.

  "Yeah," said Thom, coming up beside us. "Planes can fall. Ropes are more trustworthy."

  "Look," I said, "I've put in thousands of hours in the air and I've never had an accident."

  "What about . . ." started Janey.

  "Okay. One accident, but it wasn't the plane's fault." "It's okay, Janey," said Thom. "I'll go out first."

  "Oh no, you won't." I walked over to the hatch and leaned out, fighting my reeling stomach.

  "Will you both just get out of the way?" said Janey. She reached through the hatch and snapped her rope onto the stout cable. Then she boosted herself through the opening and walked slowly away down the ledge.

  Just watching her made me dizzy, but I reached up with numb fingers and buckled myself on. One last silent prayer and I followed her toward the nest.

  The ledge was made of the same polished marble as the rest of the stonework. Not the best surface in the world to walk on. Add to that the attention it had obviously garnered from the city's pigeons, and it made for pretty unhealthy footing. I took a few moments to decide between facing the street or facing the wall. I decided I wanted the edge in front of me where I could keep an eye on it, so I slid along the ledge with the wall at my back.

  One foot at a time, I moved toward the nest. Where we stood near the top of the building, the tower was stained red by the setting sun. When I risked a look down, I could see that the base of the building was already in darkness and the cars on the street below had turned on their lights. It seemed like I traveled miles down that ledge before my foot bumped against a chunk of driftwood that must have been dropped by the builder of the giant nest. The knot of wood tottered for a moment, then tipped and plunged off the ledge. "Oops," I said, hoping that no one chanced to be walking below.

  A few more steps and I was away from the narrow part of the ledge and onto the relative safety of the wide corner platform. I looked around and saw Janey kneeling among the scraps of rotting wood and rusty metal that made up the nest.