Page 99 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
This must be how myths begin. “Her hands are perfectly normal—”
“Mary, rise slowly,” Rebecca said. “There is a crawler behind you.”
Not at all slowly, I scrabbled to my feet. A thick-bodied crawler wassquirming out from under one of the bodies. Its sharpened feet scraped for purchase while the soft, slug-like horns on its head extended to scent the air.
Colonel Fremantle drew his pistol, but I signaled to wait. “Too loud. Let me try something.”
I took one of the syringes from my reticule, this time careful to remove every scrap of sealing wax. I squinted to aim and pressed the plunger. Draca essence splashed over the crawler’s head and body, and it spasmed and curled into a heap.
We formed a cautious triangle, looking down at the shivering creature.
“What is that liquid?” the colonel asked.
“Draca essence. I have two left.” I offered him one of the syringes, but he shook his head, patting the butt of his pistol. I gave it to Rebecca. “Break off the wax first.” She examined the tip as if it were a novel embroidery needle.
Colonel Fremantle raised his boot and, before I could protest, crushed the crawler’s head. Perhaps that was for the best. He would have argued if I said the crawler was blameless, a pathetic distortion of draca, while we were surrounded by the dead.
The British Museumwas as still as the streets we had passed through, but the sounds of war were nearer, a more disciplined and deadly chorus than the cacophony of the night. The museum’s main entrance was unattended, the doors ajar. The colonel, a gentleman even here, held them for us with a brief bow. The song draca flew away before I entered.
The museum’s foyer, abandoned, felt even larger than usual. The ceilings were cavernous, the pillars looming.
“Where now?” the colonel asked, peering into the first, large exhibition room.
“I hoped to have help.” Loudly, I called, “Is anyone here?”
There was a metallic, ringingbongfollowed by a man’s dismayed exclamation. We headed that way and found a tremendously thin, young gentleman, one of the curators and the precise person I had hoped to meet. I was not surprised. He either worked day and night or lived here.
He looked up while snatching at a rolling brass pitcher on the floor. “Miss Bennet!” He straightened with a smile, then began brushing at the smearsof heavy dust on his disarranged coat. He appeared to be packing the exhibit into a crate. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same thing. However, I am only happy you have stayed. Is there no one else?”
“They all left,” he admitted. “A soldier came to say the French are close. But I am sure the Prince will send troops to protect the museum. He is very fond of the Egyptian collection.” He noticed Colonel Fremantle’s uniform. “Is that why you are here?”
“No,” the colonel said. “The English army is stretched thin, and I have other duties. You should depart as well.”
“Not yet,” I interposed hurriedly. “First, I need your help.” Inspired, I changed that to “ThePrinceneeds your help. We must save not only the museum, but all England.”
“Oh,” the curator said, straightening his shoulders.
“You remember the museum ball, the night when the black dragon rose? You showed me notes for a lecture on the dagger Gramr. There was a catalog number…” I closed my eyes, visualizing the sheaf of papers in my hand. Images of pages flickered, most with the nondescript blur of material I had not actually read, but the drawing had caught my eye, and the caption beneath returned in a crisp, mental reconstruction of the curator’s scholarly hand. “1756-1-3-17.”
He nodded. “The Scottish flute. That is a museum number, not a catalog number. Although that particular classification is contested. The acquisition notes proposed moving it to the Sloan collection, as he was present on the expedition, but I am proposing the Asian collection—”
“Is it here?” I interrupted. “Can you take us to it? It is most urgent.”
He rocked on his feet, thinking, then wandered off. I hurried after him, excitement lifting hairs on the nape of my neck, and Rebecca and the colonel followed. We passed through the public halls, several with exhibits that had been transferred to straw-lined crates, then through a narrow archway into an equally narrow corridor. A door marked1750–1766opened into a crowded storeroom. The curator stopped for a beat, then went to a stack of drawers and removed one, about the width and depth of my hand but long. He set it on a worktable.
“The Scottish flute,” he announced.
The drawer held a blackened, round tube the length of my palm.
“You have the wrong drawer,” I pointed out.
He examined the box. His finger tapped the round piece. “This is it.”
“There was a drawing.” The words felt awkward; my lips had gone dry. “An end-blown flute, like a recorder. Thirty inches long, at least.”
He beamed. “My artistic rendering! That was for the laypersons at the ball.” He took the blackened piece from the drawer. “I had to imagine the intact instrument, but the scholarship is sound. You can see the mouthpiece is end-blown, and made of a rare wood, black bamboo.” He wagged a finger. “Notnative to Scotland! Hence my recommendation to move this to the Asian collection. We are having a tussle over it, but scholars’ arguments aside, it is a Chinese end-blown flute recovered in Scotland, which is what I drew. They call it axiao. The Chinese that is, not the Scots.”
