EPILOGUE - The World Needs its Knights
You’ve been taught to believe they are dead. Figments of an ancient imagination. But one lonely schoolboy at the Lighthouse School for Boys, who has never known his family and who has never known adventure, is about to have a rude awakening.
Dragons are real.
And they have … evolved.
They exist in the world today and are every bit as evil as they ever were. It is only their appearance that has changed. Their eight-foot bodies now resemble men much more than before. With their reptilian faces hidden in a cloak and hood, you wouldn’t look twice at one crossing the street hunched over, perhaps pretending to be a homeless man pushing a grocery cart before him. But make no mistake: these Dragonmen are highly dangerous.
They still have scales for skin, slithery tongues, lizard tails, sharpened faces – and they are secretly responsible for most of the worst fires you hear about, using their wicked magic for no reason, burning buildings just for sport.
They live hidden away, in luxurious apartments in New York, London or Paris, underground in Beijing or beneath the sands of Egypt, in boats anchored in Venice or Tokyo, or in homes built inside water caves in Africa or South America. They back organised crime, military dictatorships and cruel multinational companies, or they act as lone killers, secluded and hermit-like in mountains or deserts. Their exact number is not known. No two of them are alike. But they are powerful. And it will take all the strength the human world can muster to end their reign.
It is a time of opportunity for them. All the magicians are dead, and people no longer believe in magic. Spirits are low. To make matters worse, the dragons have the ability to cloud people’s minds so that they don’t see them in their true form.
You might see a little old lady or an expensively dressed businessman, but the person standing next to you could be, in reality, a monstrous beast. At certain times, people can see through this magic. For a moment you might glimpse the flash of serpent eyes behind the steam of a coffee cup in a local café – but it’s like a mirage. The next moment, it’s gone. Their trickery is rampant.
They sometimes move among us in ordinary ways. It is impossible for the average person to know for certain where they are. But there are signs, both large and small.
The modern dragon is that person at school or in the workplace who hides his true self, who secretly speaks badly of others, who can’t be trusted, who brings misery to those around him, who delights in the failure of friends. The modern dragon is not content to be rich, but wants others to be poor. Beneath this person’s outward appearance, there is very likely serpent skin. And a vast desire to do harm.
Few people realise these dark forces surround us.
But the numbers of those who know the truth are about to grow.
It was autumn, October. It was the edge of a wicked season and Christmas was a far-off thought. The amber-crimson colours of fall and its pumpkin-spice smells surrounded Simon St George like a vast, bewitching fire. There had never been an October that felt so perfectly suited to Halloween.
There was a chill in the air that was worse than normal for this time of year and a fog hung around the Bay, and the houses in the Bay, with a cruel persistence. The trees seemed to hunch over in sadness and wish for their leaves back to keep them warm. All the pumpkins in Ebony Hollow’s fields seemed rotten, and to ache from their own rottenness. The factory smoke from over the hill swept down into town and the grey daylight seemed to give way after only a few hours to a deep, intense nightfall. No one wanted to be out much. And no one could sleep.
Simon St George had only the faintest sense of all this. The idea that something wasn’t quite right just skittered over his mind between thoughts of tomorrow’s Halloween masquerade and a girl in town whose name he did not know.
For him, Halloween was more than just fun and games. The masquerade was something everyone had to go to at his school, a tradition, and everyone had to be in costume. Simon wasn’t sure why he needed a costume; he seemed to disappear in a crowd easily enough without one.
No matter what he did, no one seemed to notice him or take him very seriously. He was an average kid, a bit smallish, which made him easy to ignore. He had an upturned pug nose and blond, wiry, slept-in hair that made him look even younger. But he often kept his head down, so you never got a really good look at him; to the other boys, if they thought of him at all, he was something of a mystery.
Simon went to an elite academy that was called the Lighthouse School for Boys, because it was just for boys and it was made from a giant old lighthouse. It was a boarding school, where children slept and ate and lived, at least for most of the year. It was perfect if your parents wanted you to be strong and independent, or if they didn’t have time for you. Simon St George had parents who didn’t have time for him. They paid for his school, but he didn’t know who they were, hadn’t seen them since he was two years old, and he didn’t like to talk about it, if it was all the same to you.
At this moment, it was hard to see the Lighthouse School. There was just its shining light, labouring to cut through the mist. On most days the Lighthouse School could be seen from almost anywhere in town, because it was on a high promontory cliff and it was huge. In this same way, the school had dominated Simon’s life. It was the only home he had ever known.
He stood at the corner of the misty street and stared at the little novelty shop on the opposite corner. He could just make out the shop window filled with strange, hand-painted masks, and the daughter of the shop owner at the counter. Simon had hardly ever said a word to her, but she kept his secret, that he liked to collect toys and marbles, because her shop was where he bought them. He was thirteen. She was maybe two years older.
Simon watched the girl adjust the masks hanging in the window. He gathered up his nerve and stepped off to cross the street.
As he did, the foghorn bellowed at the edge of the bay with a low moan. And something else happened.
Simon turned to look for traffic and saw at the next corner, crossing the street going the other way, a very tall figure, hunched over as if from a deformity or sickness. He wore a long trench coat with the collar pulled up tight around his neck, and an old hat pulled down close so none of his face could be seen. It was just a quick moment, but as Simon looked, the wind picked up and blew the man’s coat open. Although the man quickly tightened it around him, Simon could swear he saw a claw-like foot and a thick tail slapping the ground, a tail like the largest snake on Earth.
It was hard for Simon to get a good look through the fog. The man was no more than a shadowy profile. In the next second, the figure had moved on around a corner and couldn’t be seen, and the idea that some sort of creature was roaming the streets of Ebony Hollow was too ridiculous to investigate.
So Simon caught his breath and went inside the novelty shop, feeling around in his pocket for money and feeling around in his head for something to say to the girl behind the counter. He stood at the doorway and managed to catch her