It had stopped raining and the wind was clearing the clouds from the sky, leaving clear reports through which the reddish rays of sunlight filtered to stain the slopes of the Comb with patches of warm light. A diffuse and faint rainbow was drawn in the distance.

“My father used to tell me that the rainbow was the bridge to the other world,” Banh Mi commented.

We were sitting on a rocky ledge, the five of us, with our feet dangling over the void. Every day, when school was over, we sat there waiting for the sun to set. Banh Mi was one of the apprentice dragonriders, one of the first I had ever had a relationship with. He was a skinny blond kid, with bulging blue eyes and a perpetual smile, always cracking bad jokes.

“What other world?” I asked.

“The other world. Where everything we don’t see is,” interjected Tui Lam, the girl with hazel eyes and brown hair.

“What is it that we don’t see?” I continued to insist.

“An Long, didn’t they teach you anything?” she said.

Sometimes Tui Lam got on my nerves. She was a know-it-all and therefore always had an answer for everything, even when she didn’t know the answer. Often, when I would ask ‘why’, she would grumble a ‘because that’s the way it is’ or ‘it’s known’. Still, since she was part of the group from the beginning, I had grown fond of her. I preferred to change the subject, since it was true that my mother had not taught me much about the other world, about dragons or about any other subject they taught in the schools of the big city.

“Do you think it’s true about dragon tears?”

“Of course it is. Master Dun Gar wouldn’t lie to us,” Tui Lam said.

“No, but he would play a joke on us,” Din Bin interjected. “He already did it when he told us that dragons created the sun, and we all believed it. He always laughs at how naive we are.”

Master Dun Gar was the wisest man I had ever known. He knew about dragons like no one else, that was a given, but I soon realized that he really knew everything. He had traveled all over the world and lived long years on the back of his golden dragon, Kraker the Elder.

He told us stories of nine-headed monsters hidden in sea caves, of cursed forests where roots bury men, of frozen islands where dragons rest in thick ice cubes. He told us about the other side of White Roadstead, a distant country where the richest people of the continent went to learn all kinds of sciences. He told us of remote islands at the ends of the world, right on the line where the maps end, where people capable of manipulating the elements hid from their pursuers. He told us of the volcanoes to the south, where the most powerful weapons forged by the demons themselves were made.

His classes were my source of knowledge, and I drank from it almost every day. When he wasn’t teaching me, it was Dien Phu, my tutor. And I even learned from my friends, with whom I shared a dormitory in the Star Cave, so called because of the shape of its opening.

“We should check it out!” Bahn Mi exclaimed, jumping to his feet. His blue eyes shone with sudden enthusiasm.

“First, I don’t want to make a dragon cry. Second, I don’t think we can make a dragon cry. Third, they are not our dragons. Fourth, no one is seriously injured. Are we going to take a dragon’s tears to heal a sore?” Tui Lam argued.

“You’re a killjoy, Tui Lam, you know that?” complained Banh Mi, sitting back down with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.

To make matters worse, just at that moment the bugle sounded. Before sunset, that meant it would be a longer training session. Harder. And indeed, it was. One of the worst I remember, in fact. Poor Din Bin couldn’t even finish half of it. Tui Lam accompanied him to the infirmary cave, and with that excuse he was spared from leaving it too.

Every other day we ran along the rugged peaks of the Comb whatever the weather. That day the sunlight dyed red the snowy mantle on which we left our footprints, which sank to knee height. Running as fast as we could, we fell face first into the snow, got up exhausted and continued up and down, following whichever rider we would have gotten that day. Kai Shek was the worst. He always made us run farther and climb higher. That time we got so far away that I thought we would never make it back.

I, the barefoot twelve-league runner, with the reputation that preceded me, was exhausted, at the end of my rope. But the reward was equal to what I had endured.

“Welcome to the highest peak of the Tiber, the peak of Eventel,” declared Kai Shek, visibly satisfied. “In about five years, when you are properly prepared, you will come to this place to look for your dragon. From here you will jump into the void, hoping that one of them will hear your cry, and listen to what is in your heart.”

Kai Shek pointed down, but on the other side, the northern slope. A circle of peaks enclosed a deep pit of precipice whose end was impossible to glimpse. My eyesight began to blur, I who had never had vertigo. At that time, I had already had experience with the incidents that altitude usually entailed. We were used to it. But this was too much. The mere thought of throwing myself into the void, hoping that a dragon would decide to save me, made me shiver. I shivered. My legs were shaking. My heart was beating at a frantic pace.

“Apprentices... Well,” stammered Bong Nam, who had arrived first and was resting bent over, hands on his knees, breathing loudly.

Bong Nam was a strong boy, with black hair and a stubble. His forest-green eyes were always ready to accept any challenge. We were not often together, but he had always been kind to me. He trained even in his spare time. I admired him for always striving for perfection, although there was one thing that bothered me: Dal Mah, the girl I liked, had noticed him and not me.

At that time Dal Mah did not notice Bong Nam, nor me. She was lying on a tiny flat stretch and resting with her eyes fixed on the cirque of peaks that surrounded that deep cloud well. The clouds moved in a circle down there, as if trapped forever.

“We will die...” said someone behind me.

“Let’s hope not. You are the new generation. The Khaz Dolu has placed all its hopes in you. Fewer and fewer apprentices are getting the attention of a dragon, and that is because the test no longer selected correctly. The test no longer had any secrets, everyone who entered knew the traps and answered what they knew they had to answer, and not the true answer dictated by their heart. That’s why the test stopped working. For that reason, for the first time, we changed the way we selected the thirteen trainees. Hopefully, when you jump off this cliff, each and every one of you will be reciprocated.”

“How many apprentices were matched this year?” I heard myself ask.

“You know we can’t tell you that, An Long. But if you use your eyes and common sense, you should know the answer.”

Kai Shek whistled to the four winds and waited. A distant roar punctuated the ululating hissing of the air across the peaks, sweeping the snow, freezing my limbs. A dense flare illuminated the night and behind it appeared the dragon: Darragor.

His scales were gray, his horns were black as was the tip of his axe-shaped tail. Yellow specks glistened all over his body, strong and vigorous. Kai Shek leaped into the void and the dragon followed him flying flush against the limestone rock wall until it disappeared behind the sea of absorbent cotton.

When they passed through the clouds again, this time in the opposite direction, Darragor stopped in mid-air, flapping his broad gray wings, in front of the Eventel’s beak. In front of our faces congested by the effort and stunned by the spectacle. Kai Shek was standing in perfect balance, not even holding on to one of his mount’s spines with his hands.

“Well, you’ve seen. It’s no big deal. You jump and someone brings you back to the top, so you won’t get a surprise when the day comes! I’ll be waiting for you at the Star Cave, the first three to arrive will get a double ration of rice stew!”

My mouth watered. My eyes watched as Kai Shek flew away. My legs cried out for help. My brain was paralyzed. I had to go back. Horror.