Written by: Naman Teertha Subash (Aged 9)
It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, and the waters were calm. It was a perfect weather for sailing. I, Ron Williams was very excited. Oh! Sorry I forgot to introduce myself. I am the famous Ron Williams, treasure hunter.
Yes, where was I?
I was very excited. So excited even my fellow travellers could see. I was wearing my favourite clothes. I had just made a new discovery in Paris and had to report it to the New York headquarters. I was about to board The Magnificent. She was a beauty! She was a large luxury ship with comfort of no bounds. I boarded the ship and went into my cabin to leave my backpack. I went to the deck to enjoy the activities with my fellow passengers till evening. I had dinner and headed straight to my cabin and dozed off.
I was woken at about 1.27 am by noises. A cyclone had hit the ship. I ran as fast as I could trying to reach the deck. But I was too late. Everyone else had evacuated. I saw a tornado coming towards the ship. I went back to my room and slept waiting for my fate.
When I woke up and went out of the cabin, I found the ship was near land. The ship hit a reef and broke. I floated on a log of wood onto the land.
I looked at my maps and couldn’t figure out where I was. I concluded that I was on an undiscovered island. I thought I was dreaming so I pinched myself and Ouch! That meant I was alive. I looked around at my surroundings.
I saw many trees, some dryland, many dragons.
Wait! What? What did I just say? Dragons! Like the dragons I had seen on cartoon shows! I couldn’t believe it! I was actually on an island full of dragons. These weren’t like the Chinese depictions. I could see they were scaly. Some had wings, some had no legs and were slithering like snakes. I could even see some without tails. Some were huge and some were smaller but mostly definitely bigger than me.
I was spotted and some dragons started coming towards me. It took me just a second to realise that these dragons could eat me the very moment they caught me.
I looked up at the sky. I saw another dragon flying towards me! I ran for my life. And thankfully I made it into a dense forest. But then, other smaller dragons saw me and started chasing me. I ran and ran till I realised I was running in circles. Then, suddenly something pulled me into a cave.
It took me no time to realise that it was another human being. I said to myself, “I am saved.” I introduced myself. He said, “I am Brad James. I am also a treasure hunter. I’ve been on this island for ten years. I have pretty much the same story as you.”
I asked, “How did you survive for ten years?”
He said, “When I crashed onto this island and saw the dragons around, I hid for as long as I could. I moved around under cover to different places in the island. I finally found an inscription on a stone piece in a cave. It said that that the only way out of this island was to tame the dragons. It was an impossible task to attempt. I searched further in the cave and found another inscription that had a drawing of a Gem with the mark of a dragon on it and all dragons bowing to it. I figured that if I wanted to tame the dragons, I would have to find this sacred gem which I call the Dragon Gem.”
Brad went on to explain that there were more symbols on the cave’s walls. These showed that the Dragon Gem was created by the first and the strongest dragon ever, called the Ultimate Dragon. When it had become old, it created the Dragon Gem. It said that if any creature except the dragons found the gem, they would have control over the island and the dragons. When the Ultimate Dragon left, the whole island had shaken vigorously and from the ground had risen a gigantic statue of the Ultimate Dragon.
Brad had no idea where to find the Dragon Gem. He was also scared of the dragons around. After a few more months of roaming and hiding, he found another cave which was in a part of the island which the dragons avoided. There was a river nearby to drink water from. He used the fruits growing naturally and the river’s water to drink. He also learnt to grow crops and survived. Every now and then, he would venture to other parts of the island and had covered and mapped out a large part of it.
He had seen several types of dragons. Each had its own nature and powers.
Today, he had heard unusual sounds on this part of the island and came to see what was up when he found me and rescued me. He rested for the night in his cave.
The first thing I told Brad the next morning was, “Let’s work together to find the Dragon Gem.” His face lit up. We decided to start our quest immediately and I said we should visit the cave where he had found all the inscriptions. I took my backpack and Brad collected all the tools he had made with the things he had found on the island into a back sack which he had made too.
He led me to the cave and showed me all the inscriptions and I agreed with his understanding of the inscriptions.
I suggested that we should look deeper into the cave. We looked around carefully, till we spotted some bones. Those were human bones! There were also marks of ancient civilisation! We dug a little and found a box which held a note which read:
“Dear reader, if you are reading this letter
you must be in the search for the Sacred Gem.
For the first clue go to a blanket which flows,
behind which shines the King of Birds,
which reveals the answers you seek.”
I was confused but Brad was thinking.
“Mmm…. Hmm….,” he murmured. Suddenly his face lit up and he snapped his fingers saying, “We need to go to a waterfall.”
We walked out of the cave excited and throwing caution to the winds.
Suddenly, there appeared a thin, scaly, snake like dragon in the sky above us. It had no wings but was still flying. It brought out from its mouth a tongue like a snake’s. It sent a huge gust of wind at us.
“Wind Dragon!” exclaimed Brad.
We had to crouch to save ourselves from being blown away. It caught us in its talons and took us to its nest, which was on a cliff. The nest was built of stones and rocks with high walls so the babies could not climb out. It put us in its nest as food for its babies and flew up. It started hovering at a distance.
The baby dragons were coiled up and resting. Seeing us, they uncoiled and advanced towards us to eat us. We both took a pickaxe from our packs. I fought the babies and drove them to one side of the nest. Meanwhile, Brad dug an opening in the nest. We squirmed out and started slowly hiking all the way down the cliff hiding behind the boulders to stay out of sight of the Wind Dragon.
At one spot, on our way, Brad spotted a waterfall. “This is the only waterfall I have ever seen,” declared Brad. “It must be the blanket which flows.” We moved to the waterfall.
“We must get behind it,” I said. We looked around the waterfall and found a little space between the flow of the water and the rocks behind it. We carefully stepped over the slippery rocks avoiding a fall and reached behind the waterfall.
In the dim light, we could see the outline of an eagle. “The King of Birds,” we both exclaimed together in low voices. We approached the outline and realised when we reached close enough that it was a statue and not alive. We boldly walked around the statue and touched all its parts.
In the beak of the eagle we found the clue. It was a golden can with a lid. We came out to the open and retrieved a note from the can.
It read,
“In the crown of the island protected
by the shadows of the night there lies the clue you must find….”
“Shadow Dragons – those are the shadows of the night and the most terrible of the dragons,” whispered Brad.
“Are you scared of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I had an encounter with them once. Their attacks are sudden, swift and unpredictable. I barely managed to escape. The thought of them scares the life out of me! But though they could catch me, I felt they did not want to actually do so. They kept scaring me.”
I waited for him to speak more.
“Shadow Dragons scare their opponents in such a way that it weakens the opponent and strengthens the dragons. You may just die of fear.”
“So…… basically they feed on fear.”
“Right.”
I said, “If we don’t try to fight them, we may die on this island. At least let us try. It would be better than not trying at all.”
“Hmm……… So what could the crown of the island be?” said Brad. We both chuckled and wondered for a while. We tried to remember what all we saw when we were on the nest.
Then I remembered I had seen a tall dome at a far distance.
I said, “We need to go to the dome! It was the tallest thing on the island. It must be the crown.”
Suddenly a dragon fell in front of us from the sky. It was pink, had small wings and stood on two feet. It got up clumsily and made some squealing noises.
“Eeee…Mwooo…Mwaahh….Ahhhh….” it was saying in a high-pitched sound.
It started walking away, turned back, walked away again, turned back again. It kept doing this while making the same sounds.
Brad said, “It’s a Diamond Dragon. I have seen it create diamonds out of dust. Its harmless. I think it wants us to follow it.” We went behind the dragon to a cave.
The cave was generally dark except for a faint glimmer. It led us to the glimmer. It was a pillar about as high as our waist with a diamond fixed on the top. We both touched the diamond. A few moments later, we could understand the dragon’s sounds.
“Hi,” said the dragon. “I have given you this power to help you fight the Shadow Dragons. They have been terrorizing the dragons near the dome. The Dragon Kingdom chose to give you this power ‘cos only a species other than the dragons can use the power.”
I asked, “What does this power let you do?”
“It lets you blast out a huge beam of light that will destroy the Shadow Dragons,” it said.
Brad asked, “Where is the crown of the island?”
“It is over there,” it said pointing to the dome we had seen.
We thanked the Diamond Dragon and started towards the dome feeling braver. We rested in another cave for the night and continued the next morning.
When we reached the dome, it was afternoon. The Shadow Dragons were sleeping. They were enormous in size and had dark scales.
As soon as we stepped into the dome, the Shadow Dragons woke up. We could see their gleaming blue eyes glowing in the dark. They made scary sounds. In the confusion and sudden attack, we forgot to use the power.
I took out my torch, switched it on and pointed the light towards them. The Shadow Dragons stayed away from the light. Then, Brad remembered the power given by the Diamond Dragon. He used it and all the Shadow Dragons melted away.
We saw a shining can fixed in the wall at the far end of the dome. We opened it to find a note. We read it in the torch light,
“In the mouth of the Ultimate,
Lies the Gem you seek.”
“In the mouth of Ultimate,” said Brad. “What could that mean?”
“What about the mouth of the Dragon Statue?” I said.
“Maybe,” said Brad.
We thought for a while. The more we thought the more it seemed likely. We decided that we should go to the mouth of the Dragon Statue.
We walked until we reached the Dragon Statue.
I took out my hiking gear and gave the spare one to Brad. But just when we were about to start climbing, two huge dragons with heads, wings and legs lit up with fire appeared. They were on standing on four legs. These were Fire Dragons. They said, “To pass us, you must answer a riddle. You have three chances. Here is the riddle.”
“What goes up and down but never moves?”
We were puzzled.
Brad said, “A rocket?”
“Wrong,” said one of the dragons.
“Planes,” Brad said again.
“Wrong,” said the dragons.
“Stairs,” I said.
“Correct,” said the dragons. “You may go.”
We hiked to the head of the Dragon Statue which was a huge flat space.
There we saw two dragon tribes. Some of them had armours made of silver and a pink fire burnt on their heads. These were the Ancient Dragons. The other ones had armours of bronze. Their wings were bright and made of light. These were the Divine Dragons.
I asked them, “How do we enter the mouth of the Dragon Statue?”
One of the Divine Dragons said, “You must hook a grapple on to the head of the statue and jump in while holding on to a rope.”
I asked, “What challenges are in there?”
“That we cannot say,” said one of the Ancient Dragons. “All that we can say is trust each other and stay together.”
We hooked our grapples to the head of the Dragon Statue and jumped in. It was pitch dark inside. So, I turned on my torch and I saw that we were about to step on a patch of smouldering, black, hot lava. We jumped over it.
Then, we saw a huge acid pool which was too wide to jump over. But there was a broken bridge over it which we could use. The bridge barely had planks. Brad and I decided that we should go together just like the dragons said. So, we went on the bridge. We took a step, then jumped. Brad almost fell but I caught him.
Once we crossed the bridge, there were spiky thorns all over the floor. We took our grapples, hooked them to the walls to help us stick to the walls. We moved carefully trying not to touch the thorns.
Suddenly, I felt a poke on my shoulder and was about to fall when Brad caught me.
After we crossed the thorny stretch, we saw a small green light spark. It was the Dragon Gem. But it was still far away. I took a step and suddenly, a burst of fire from the ground almost burnt me. I told Brad that there were booby traps everywhere.
A series of lights started flashing on the floor.
Brad said, “Maybe we should step only where the light is on.”
He took a step on one of the moving lights. It became steady. He stepped on the next light. But the first light went away. He stepped on another moving light and it became steady. I followed his example and we cautiously stepped on the moving lights one by one till we reached the end and the Gem was very close.
We thought we had completed the quest and could take the Dragon Gem. But all of a sudden, another dragon appeared. It blew from its nose. Every time, I took a step forward, felt myself in a huge void and was pushed back to the same spot. I tried again and it was like walking at the same spot all the time. It had been created by the Void Dragon.
I had an idea. “Remember what the Ancient and Divine Dragons said? Stay together. That’s it!”
We stepped into the void holding our hands. The void was destroyed. The power of togetherness had done the trick.
The Void Dragon bowed down to us.
We moved forward basking in the light of the gem. I took the Gem and held it in my hands.
“O Wind Dragon! I call out to you. Take us back to the human world.” A Wind Dragon came to us and asked us to ride it.
We sat on its back and Fhwoooossshhhh….. The Wind Dragon took off. In no time, we were back in the human world. We landed right in front of my Headquarters at New York.
Everyone looked at us in awe.
I narrated my story briefly about The Magnificent being hit by a storm, being washed away to the island, finding Brad and returning. Some people cheered for us.
Suddenly, a man said that we were lying and told everyone that this was a robot.
I said, “Wind Dragon, show your mouth and roar.”
The tremendous roar and the dripping saliva on its teeth was a terrifying sight.
“Robots can’t salivate,” Brad declared.
The man agreed, believed us and apologized. I asked the Wind Dragon to return to the island and thanked it for its help.
And so, this is how my story ends. My adventure brought a new best friend into my life and we agreed to work together in our further quests.
Farewell my good lads!!!
THE END.
Subhash Iyer 