Free A Sending of Dragons by Jane Yolen Page B

“She’s certainly too big to have come in through our entrance. And . . .”
    â€œAnd if she came in elsewhere, where
is
elsewhere?” asked Akki.
    â€œThree,” Jakkin said, “who is she running from?”
    â€œThat’s easy. The thing, whatever it is, that eats dragons and stacks their bones in neat piles.” Akki gave an exaggerated shiver. It translated into wavy lines that streaked through Jakkin’s head.
    â€œMaybe. Maybe not,” Jakkin said. “But that leads us right to question four, which is . . .”
    â€œIf man frightens her and not-man doesn’t, then is it man who’s doing all the eating?”
    â€œ
We
ate dragon meat before,” Jakkin said.
    They were both quiet for a moment, remembering.
    â€œMaybe question five is—
what’s down there?
” Akki said.
    â€œDown where?” asked Jakkin.
    â€œQuestion six,” Akki said. “Which direction is
down there?
”
    Jakkin squatted next to the sleeping dragon and put his back against the cave wall. “Question seven is—do we go forward or do we go back?”
    Akki knelt next to him. “If we go back, we have to deal with the copter and whoever is in it.”
    Jakkin interrupted. “And the fact that there is no other way down the mountain.”
    She nodded. “But if we go forward, we have to deal with the dragon’s fear and the man/not-man thing that eats dragons and licks the bones clean and whatever else in her sending we didn’t understand.”
    â€œHot bubbly somethings. And slopeshouldered creatures. And . . .”
    â€œBut that’s all unknown,” Akki said. “And maybe just in her imagination.”
    â€œDragons don’t have any imagination,” Jakkin said. “They say only what is.”
    â€œBut we
know
what’s back there . . .”
    â€œSo the real question is?”
    â€œNumbers eight, nine, and ten,” said
Akki. “Which is more frightening—what we know or what we don’t know? The light world filled with copters and possible death or transportation, or this gray world filled with . . .” She stopped.
    There was a long moment of silence. Jakkin tried to keep his mind blank, but it boiled with images. Finally he whispered to her, though his mind sent ahead what his mouth had formed reluctantly, “Both. They’re both frightening. You choose. I’ll do whatever you want.”
    â€œHey,” Akki whispered back, “that’s
my
line!”
    â€œThen we’ll choose together.”
    â€œAll right,” Akki said. “We’ll go . . .” Her mouth shut but her mind spiraled down and down and down into the unknown dark.

10
    W ITH THEIR MINDS made up, Akki and Jakkin began to plan, and their voices crisscrossed the echoing cave.
    â€œWe need to wake up baby here,” said Akki.
    â€œI don’t like calling her
baby here
”, Jakkin said. “She should have a name.”
    â€œI thought I was the one who named things,” Akki said, smiling. “You’re always teasing me about it.”
    â€œMaybe I’m changing,” Jakkin said.
    â€œMaybe you’re growing up,” Akki retorted.
    â€œMaybe you’re not.”
    â€œMaybe the dragon already has a name,” Akki said.
    â€œMaybe you’ve changed the subject.”
    â€œMaybe she has.”
    â€œAkki, think. If a dragon has a name, it announces it in the first sending.”
    â€œHow can she be this old and not have a name?” Akki asked.
    â€œQuestion number eleven,” Jakkin said.
    â€œWell, she had a gray rainbow in her first sending. How about Rainbow Gray?”
    â€œI hate it.”
    â€œSsstep-sister.”
    â€œDon’t be stupid.”
    â€œThen
you
name her,” Akki said. “It was your idea, after all.”
    â€œAll right, I will. What’s the big vein that carries blood to