"That must have been terrible. Did it hurt much?"
"Hurt? No, I"m made of metal and I don"t feel pain. Not in the way flesh-and-blood creatures feel pain. But I suppose it did hurt here." He touched one claw to his chest. "To know that I would never fly again was a terrible thing. I wept for days and filled pools with tears of liquid silver."
"I"m so very sorry," said little Nyla. "But at least you did fly and you can remember flying."
The dragon nodded. "And here I am lamenting the loss of my wings when here you are, a little child who should have a lifetime of flying ahead of you, and not even a moment of that joy is open to you. It is I who feel sorry for you, my dear."
Nyla sniffed back the tears that formed in her eyes. "It"s okay," she said bravely. "I"ve known for a long time now that I"ll never fly."
"A *long time,"" echoed the dragon. "You are not two handfuls of years old and I can"t even count the millennia of my life. When I was full-grown the mountains were not yet born and the Desert was a new sea in which the first fish swam. I pity myself like an old fool."
"No! You"re a dragon," said Nyla. "The very last of dragons. I came all this way just to see you and I will remember this moment forever. It is the greatest honor of my life."
The dragon smiled. "You are very kind to say so. Tell me, though, why did you come on such a long journey? And where did your journey begin?"
So Nyla told the dragon everything, from her own decision to go out in search of traveling shoes, to her meeting with Mr. Bucklebelt, to the astonishing speed with which her new shoes carried her across the burning Desert sands. The dragon listened with the patience of a dragon and it studied her with the shrewd intelligence of a dragon. Then it bent low to study her shoes.
"Ah," he said. "Those are truly my scales. I recognize them."
"You do?"
"A dragon cannot forget its own scales, my dear. We know each and every one of them just as you know every hair on your body."
"But I don"t! There are too many and besides they fall out and new ones grow."
"Alas, not for dragons. Our scales may grow larger as we grow, but they do not fall out and if one is somehow lost, it is never replaced. See here." He coiled his tail around where they stood and she could see that there were several patches where scales had been lost. The skin beneath was also silver, but it looked much more like the skin of a crocodile than that of a dragon. "Once when I was sleeping a long winter"s sleep a thief snuck in and sc.r.a.ped off enough scales toawell, to make a pair of magic traveling shoes."
"Oh no!" Nyla immediately took off her shoes and held them out to the dragon. "I had no idea that these scales were stolen from you. How horrible! How unfair! Here, please take them back."
The dragon peered at her. "Are you serious? You have come here to find more scales and yet you"d give all of them back?"
"Of course I would," said Nyla. "If they were stolen from you then they belong to you."
Smoke curled up from the silvery nostrils as the dragon studied her. "Do you understand what you offer? If I take back my scales then your traveling shoes will be only ordinary shoes. And in the condition they"re in they won"t want to take you traveling anywhere."
She nodded slowly. "IaI know."
"You"d be trapped here. On this side of the Desert. Far away from your family and the trees where they live."
"Yesabut I could never keep something that was stolenaespecially something stolen from your poor tail! Besidesamy dadda always told me that the Winged Monkeys are good people. We give our word and never break it, and we never act unjustly."
"Ah," said the dragon, "if only all races upon the earth held to such values then the sun would shine on a happier world."
Nyla stood, still holding out the shoes.
The dragon extended one claw and delicately touched one of the sequin scales. "You offer a great gift to an old dragon to whom you owe no obligation. You are willing to make a sacrifice that was unasked of you. n.o.ble indeed are the Winged Monkeys of Oz. Even those with little, little wings."
With his claw, the dragon gently pushed the shoes back. "Take them, my girl."
"Buta"
"And herea" The dragon used the same claw to sc.r.a.pe a line of scales from his tail. They fell like silver rain. "Take these as well. Take them to your cobbler and let him remake those shoes. It is a pity to see something so perfectly intended look so incomplete."
Tears sprang into Nyla"s eyes and she could barely speak as she gathered up the scales. Then the dragon handed her a piece of silvery leather.
"Wrap them in this and put them in your bag," he said gently.
Nyla did as she was told and then she rushed forward and hugged the foreleg of the big creaturea"for the foreleg was all she could reach.
"Thank you, thank you!" she said excitedly. "Now Mr. Bucklebelt will be able to repair the shoes and I"ll be able to travel everywhere and see everything. I"ll go to places I could never go even if I had full-sized wings."
There was sadness in the dragon"s eyes, though, when she stepped back from him. "Now listen to me, little Nyla, for there are two things that you must know, and one may break your innocent heart."
"What is it?" she asked, aghast.
"The cobbler will be able to repair those shoes, but magical shoes are unpredictable. These were made for a special purpose and for a certain person. Once they are repaired the shoes may no longer fit your tiny feet. The shoes may also want to find the feet for whom they were made. Magic is a wondrous thing, but it isn"t always a nice thing."
Fresh tears burned in the corners of Nyla"s eyes but she fought them back.
"And what is the other thing?" she asked in a tiny, fearful voice.
"There is a different kind of magic in the world, and it"s older and more powerful than sorcery or witchcraft. It"s a magic that comes from the world itself. I will whisper one secret about it to you." He bent down so that his metal lips were an inch away. "Goodness," he said, "is always rewarded. Not always in ways you can see, not always in ways you know or expect, but this world loves goodness. It is a thing that many people think is as rare as dragon scales, but believe me, little girl of the trees, goodness shows everywhere."
Nyla tried to think of how to respond to that. A hundred questions crowded her tongue at once, but the dragon straightened and shook his head.
"The shoes are not yet repaired and the magic that"s in them is starting to fall asleep. I can feel it in my scales. Put them on, little Nyla, and run, run, run for home before there is no magic left to carry you over the burning sands."
Nyla did as she was told, and even though she could feel the power of the shoes, it was indeed drowsy.
"Thank you, Mr. Dragon!" she cried. She clutched her leather bag to her chest. "I hope your kindness is rewarded a thousand times."
He winked at her.
"Run away, little Monkey," he said. "Run for your life."
And so she ran.
-6-.
She ran the wrong way first and found herself on the slopes of a mountain that was covered with snow, but from that vantage point she could see the Deadly Desert. She ran toward it as fast as she could and in a wink-and-a-half she was in the market stall with the astonished cobbler.
"I"m back!" she cried as she dug the leather parcel of dragon scales from her bag. She presented them to Mr. Bucklebelt, who accepted them with reverence, his eyes alight.
"They"re perfect!" he declared as he examined them. "Let me have the shoes so that I may sew them on."
Nyla hesitateda"of course she dida"and it hurt her heart to have to take off the shoes and hand them over, knowing that she might not get them back. But they really did belong to the cobbler. He had only lent them to her, after all.
Even so, the cobbler gave her a strange look as she handed them over.
"You"d give them back to me?" he asked. "Freely?"
"I guess so," she said, and then sniffed away her tears.
The cobbler held the shoes for a long moment and Nyla was totally unable to understand what emotions flitted back and forth in his eyes.
"There aren"t many people who would give away anything magical."
"But the shoes don"t belong to me."
"Some might say that they belong to whoever has them," said the cobbler. "Butathat is another matter. You"ve given them to me freely and I accept them freely. And yet I don"t know that I can recall a single time in all my years when something of a magical nature was given away with such innocence and trust." He shook his head. "Perhaps I don"t know as much about the Winged Monkey people as I thought."
Nyla did not blush because Monkeys cannot blush, but she lowered her eyes.
In truth the cobbler"s words were as much a mystery to her as the dragon"s words had been. They seemed to refer to behavior that was so different from the way her people acted.
"I"m only a little girl," she said, because she didn"t know what else to say.
The cobbler nodded, but it was more to himself than to her. He set to work on the shoes and Nyla watched him, sitting once more on the ball of yarn. It took more than two hours for him to sew the new scales in place, and as he did so, Nyla saw that the old scales around them suddenly flashed with a new l.u.s.ter. Even the worn sole and heel no longer looked as battered and weathered as before. The cobbler only stopped working once. His eye strayed to the silvery leather in which the scales had been wrapped. He frowned, picked it up, rubbed it between his fingers, sniffed it, stretched it between his hands, then grunted as his bushy eyebrows rose high on his head.
"Did the dragon give you this as well?"
"He used it to wrap the scales," said Nyla. "I suppose he gave it to me. He didn"t say he wanted it back."
"Did he not," mused the cobbler distantly, "did he nota" Then the cobbler straightened, fished in his pocket for a coin, and handed it to Nyla. "This will take a while longer. Go and get us some fresh strawberries for a snack."
She was off in a winka"realizing that she was very hungry, not having eaten in hoursa"but she discovered that the strawberry stand was on the far side of the market and there was a long, long line. She fretted as she waited, and danced in agitation because a very fat lady in front of her wanted to examine every single strawberry before making her selection. Two Winged Monkey boys her own age flew past the stand and then soared high onto a jeweled parapet, where they sat making jokes about her wings and calling them down to her.
Nyla bought the strawberries and trudged back to the cobbler"s stall, feeling very low and dejected. And when she returned, she saw that the dragon-scale shoes were completely done.
But they had changed in more than appearance.
"Oh no!" she cried, dropping the strawberries and covering her face. When she could bear to look she saw that apart from the silvery shine that gleamed from every single polished scale, the shoes themselves had grown. They were now slender and graceful and perfectly suited for the foot of a grown woman. A human woman.
Mr. Bucklebelt smiled sadly at her. "Oh, poor little one, I was afraid this would happen. With the magic restored, the shoes have grown to suit the foot for which they were made."
"The dragon warned me that this might happen," said Nyla, "butaoooh! I hoped it wouldn"t. Now I"ll never go traveling faster than the wind. I"ll never run from one end of Oz to the other, and I"ll never see all the wonderful things there are to see. I"ll always be a little Monkey girl without wings and all I"ll see is what"s down here on the ground."
Yet, even in the depths of her despair, Nyla did not whine and did not shout about the unfairness of it all. She despaired, but she accepted these things. After all, the dragon-scale traveling shoes were not made for her feet.
"I"m sorry, little one," said the cobbler, and she could see from his face that he truly was sorry. "Magic is a funny thing and we can"t always predict what will happen."
"But what will happen to the shoes?"
"They will wait for the right feet," he said. "They"ve waited this long, they can wait longer. That"s the way of shoesathey are used to waiting for the right feet."
Nyla nodded. She started to turn away, but stopped. "Thank you for letting me wear them for a little bit. I"ll never forget your kindness and trust. AndaI got to meet a real dragon!"
"Ah," said the cobbler, "indeed you did, and that dragon must have liked you very, very much."
"Why? Ohabecause he gave me the scales so you could repair the shoes."
"Not just that." Mr. Bucklebelt reached under the counter for something. "That dragon gave you more than his trust. He gave you a very great gift."
"Aagift?" The cobbler removed the item from under the counter. It was the silvery leather in which the scales had been wrapped.
"Do you know what this is?"
"Just a piece of leather. You can keep it if you want. I have no need for it."
The cobbler laughed. A soft, warm laugh.
"Are you so sure?"
He held the material up and Nyla gasped to see that the cobbler had worked on it. The leather had been snipped and sewn and st.i.tched into a pattern that looked likea "Wings?" she asked in wonder.
"Wings indeed," said the cobbler. "And magical wings at that, for the gift that the dragon gave you were pieces of his own wings. I don"t know how this leather came to be detached from his wings, or why he would give it up, but as you see there is more than enough here to make a very pretty set of wings."
The wings were sewn onto a harness that was small enough to fit her. He had her take off her vest, and the cobbler snipped a slit in the back of it. After he"d helped her buckle on the wings, he pulled the silvery leather through the slit so that the wings lay draped over her own tiny, useless wings. Then he gently tucked each of her wings into pouches he"d sewn into the leather.
Then Bucklebelt stood back and pursed his lips for a moment before he nodded approval.
"They"re very pretty. Thank you very much," said Nyla, though her voice was still a little sad. "Now at least people will be able to admire my wings, even if they are only leather and thread."
The cobbler arched one furry eyebrow. "Do you think so little of dragon magic, my girl?"
"Wa"what do you mean?" stammered Nyla.
"At the very least try flapping your wings."
"No! The leather is too heavy and it will break my little wings."
"Will it indeed? And am I a villain who would make something that would injure a little Monkey girl for my own sport? Is that what you think?" His words were sharp, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
"Butabuta"
"Try!" urged the cobbler.
Nyla took a breath and braced herself against the pain she knew she would feel. She"d made cardboard wings before and tied them to her own wings but she could barely lift them. And once she had made wings of cloth and sticks, but when she tried to fly, the extra weight hurt her back. She cried all that afternoon.
But she did not want to be rude or appear weak.
So Nyla gritted her teeth and flexed her wings.
And something incredible happeneda"the silver dragon wings expanded out as high and wide as the greatest wings on the biggest eagle in the forest.
The cobbler clapped his hands in delight.
"It doesn"t hurt at all!" cried Nyla.