The Dragon King Read Online Free PDF

many-tailed fox from Japan. Twrch Trwyth. Lavery. Cassie and her crazy eyes. All of it. Everyone he and Kay had seen and met on their adventures in the Otherworld. He saw creatures: dire wolves, a giant vulture, a pigeon, a saber-toothed tiger, an aurochs, all manner of dragons.
    Then he saw one final thing: the Serpent Mound in faraway Ohio, where little Thumb had opened the first crossover point between the worlds; the moon hung in the sky like an ornament. It was a scene from a fairy tale. And then Artie thought, I am a thing from a fairy tale.
    And that was when Artie realized that all of earth’s crossover points had just been opened—triggered by the opening of the King’s Gate. It seemed that in this strange abyss, he was passing each of these portals that linked the Otherworld to the normal world Artie had grown up in.
    The worlds had finally been rejoined.
    From now on it would be just like the old days when fairies and men interacted; when spirits visited the likes of Qwon’s ancestors in Japan; and when lucky children would be able to play in fields or attics with little people like Tom Thumb. As Artie passed through this void, he understood that this was the way the worlds were meant to be, and it made him feel great. They shouldn’t be separate. There were not two worlds but one. Everything was connected, and everything was wondrous. Everybody—every kid or grown-up from every age of man—wanted to believe in some kind of magic, and now they would have that chance again. Moreover, Artie understood that if he could just find enough sangrealite to bring to his side, then he could get started on giving his world a completely clean source of energy.
    Maybe, just maybe, Artie could literally save the world.
    Which was pretty nuts.
    Then the images disappeared, replaced by total darkness. Whether Artie drifted through this black place for days or for a split second, he couldn’t say. Time was immaterial. Would he die there? Would he get out? He didn’t know. A pit of anxiety began to grow in his belly, but when it reached his lungs, causing his breath to quicken, a face formed in the middle distance. It belonged to a man with ruddy hair, thin lips, and hazel eyes. The face got closer. There were his neck and shoulders. Artie could see that his nose was so crooked, it looked as if it had been broken in about a thousand fights with a thousand bullies. The man was older than Artie, perhaps by thirty years. There was a long scar over one of his cheeks. Stubble roughed the skin like sandpaper. His hair was long and swept into a ponytail. A shirt came into view. It was . . . silver.
    The man smiled.
    Artie frowned. Who wore a silver shirt?
    And then Artie saw that it wasn’t a shirt at all. It was the edge of a breastplate. Across the top of the breastplate, over the collarbone, were three small crowns, a stripe of red painted behind them.
    Artie stopped drifting and realized that he was face-to-face with King Arthur I.
    “Hi,” Artie mouthed, the void swallowing all sound.
    King Arthur sat atop a massive speckled horse. Both wore full plate armor like you’d see in any half-decent medieval RPG video game (like Otherworld , for instance). Arthur raised his hand. The old king wanted to show the new king something.
    Arthur pointed.
    Artie squinted. It was hard to make out, but at the end of all the darkness there was a simple black door, and in its center was a little hole shaped like a crown.
    A keyhole.
    Arthur gave Artie a stern look. He jabbed his finger at the door, then at himself, and then, finally, at Artie.
    Arthur was saying that he had once gone through that door and that Artie would have to go through it as well.
    All he had to do was find a crown-shaped key.
    The ancient king spurred his horse and it launched forward, barreling toward Artie, who couldn’t move out of the way. He brought his hands to his face and ducked, preparing for impact. There was no sound, but he could feel the horse’s hot