Wilson - Ashtown Burials

Also by N. D. Wilson

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This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2011 by N. D. Wilson

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson, Nathan D.
The dragons tooth / N.D. Wilson. 1st ed.
p. cm. (Ashtown burials ; bk. 1)
Summary: When their parents seedy old motel burns down on the same night they are visited by a strange man covered in skeleton tattoos, Cyrus, Antigone, and their brother Daniel are introduced to an ancient secret society, and discover that they have an important role in keeping it alive.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89572-2
[1. Secret societiesFiction. 2. Brothers and sistersFiction.
3. ApprenticesFiction. 4. MagicFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W69744 Dr 2011 [Fic]dc22 2009038651

Random House Childrens Books supports the
First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For James Kenneth Thomas III,
without whom, not a chance

Please declare aloud: I hereby undertake to tread the world, to garden the wild, and to saddle the seas, as did my brother Brendan. I will not turn away from shades in fear, nor avert my eyes from light. I shall do as my Keeper requires, and keep no secret from a Sage. May the stars guide me and my strength preserve me. And I will not smoke in the library. Translation approved, 1946.

one

N ORTH OF M EXICO , south of Canada, and not too far west of the freshwater sea called Lake Michigan, in a place where cows polka-dot hills and men are serious about cheese, there is a lady on a pole.

The Lady is an archer, pale and posing twenty feet in the air above a potholed parking lot. Her frozen bow is drawn with an arrow ready to fly, and her long, muscular legs glint in the late-afternoon sun. Behind her, dark clouds jostle on the horizon, and she quivers slightly in the warm breeze pushed ahead of the coming storm. She has been hanging in the air with her bow drawn since the summer of 1962, when the parking lot was black and fresh, and the Archer Motel had guests. In those days, the Lady hadnt been pale; she had been golden. And every night as the sun had set, her limbs had flickered and crackled with neon, and hundreds of slow cars and sputtering trucks had traveled her narrow road, passing beneath her glow. When young, she had aimed over the road, over the trees, toward Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Now, thanks to the nuzzling of a forgotten eighteen-wheeler, her glow has gone and she leans back, patiently cocking her arrow toward the sky, waiting to ambush the clouds.

The motel is nothing like its proud lady archer. While she stands tall, it sags, shedding yellow paint like an autumn maple casting off its leaves. The walkways are powdered orange with rust. The cracks in the small courtyard are thick with thistles. Behind the motel, a battered and split chain-link fence imprisons a swimming pool too small for a diving board even if its cracked bottom could have held water. Behind the pool and the fence, a thick and tangled barrier of brush and stunted plum trees protects the motel from sprawling unused pastures, murky streams, and the gray peaks of distant cattle barns.

To a travelers eyes, the motel is dead and useless, a roadside tragedy, like the remains of some unfortunate animal in a ditchglimpsed, mourned, and forgotten before the next bend in the road. But to the lean boy with the dark skin and the black hair struggling in the thick brush behind the pool, the motel is alive, and it is home.

Branches snapped as Cyrus Smith grunted, fighting the many fingers that held him in place. He had paths. He had tunnels through the hedge that he could follow doubled over with his eyes closed, hollows hidden from the outside world, floored with beaten earth and plum pits. To him, the hedge was no obstacle.

Unless he was carrying a tire. And today, he was carrying two.

Gritting his teeth, Cyrus surged forward. Wet rubber dug into each arm. Water sloshed out of the tires onto his sides. His schoolbag snagged on a branch behind him. He was close. The branch snapped and he was closer. Brittle wood clawed at him and gave way.

Cyrus lunged out of the hedge and let the tires fall from his arms. Panting, dripping, he leaned his back against the old rattling fence, braced his hands on his knees, and looked around. His hair was more than black. Wet with sweat, it glistened like obsidianlike his eyes. His legs and arms were smeared with mud. The tops of his shoes were hidden with silty muck from the bottom of the stream where he had found the tires. He kicked off his shoes and let his toes splay in the scraggly grass, breathing hard, listening to a team of cicadas electrocute the air from the brush behind him.

He didnt know what time it was. Dan and Antigone might be back. Might not. He didnt care how late he had been; they shouldnt have left him. Skipping out of school had thrown him off, and hed gotten back to the motel just in time to watch the red station wagon disappear.

And then the front-desk phone had started ringing. He shouldnt have answered it, but hed been irritated. His days were always filled with shouldnts.

Archer Theme Park and Resort, Cyrus had said. And then, though he wasnt sure why: This is Dan.

A throat had cleared on the other end. Cyrus? The mans voice was low, his breath thick, like he was underneath a blanket.

Im Dan, Cyrus had said. He couldnt sound that different from his brother. He lowered his voice. What can I do for you, sir? Totally Dan. Nice. Patient. Groveling.

Well Cyrus Lawrence Smith I need a room.

Cyrus had squirmed. Were full, hed said quickly. But please try us again sometime. He should have hung up. Right then.

The man breathed in slowly. His rusty voice sharpened. Listen up, kid. Im just a few miles down the road, and tonight Im sleeping in one-eleven. Not one-ten. Not two-eleven. Room one hundred and eleven. You understand? Thats my room. Tonight. I dont care whos in it. Clear them out, or I will.