The dragon came back in the midst of it all. Everything got darker underneath him. When I looked up through the driving, winding snow, I could faintly see the vast gray shape of him hovering above the weather. His huge voice boomed down to me.

"GIVE ME THE END OF IT."

I knew what he meant. I got up and tottered through the streams of transparent people, and among the horses' legs that went past without touching me, to Japheth's smoking bucket. Grundo and Toby were there, trying to shelter behind it—not that they could, because the snow was blinding in from all directions. I was really glad to see them. I was shaky all over, and I kept jerking with the salamander magic. I knew I couldn't manage on my own.

"Help me," I said. "We've got to get the end of this vortex up to the dragon."

They looked pretty scared, but they put out their arms and helped me try to lift it. It was surprisingly easy, Toby said, "It's quite loose!" It was, and it wasn't heavy either, just awkward. I had to lift it by myself the last foot or so, because I was so much taller than they were, and it hummed and slithered and wobbled in my arms, but I managed to hang on to it until a great shiny claw reached down through the storm and hooked it off me.

"NOW FOR CHANGES," the dragon said.

— From The Merlin Conspiracy, pages 459-460, by Diana Wynne Jones.

FINALLY FINISHED!

I have always wanted to do more fanart for Jones's books, but have rarely got up the nerve. They are so wonderful and awesome in my head, I feel afraid I would spoil them. But at the same time it is really wonderful to really get down and visualize the things that are happening, not just experience them. Although I have to say, experiencing one of her books (reading just doesn't describe the feeling) is pretty darn exciting.

And this is about as exciting as it gets. It is a scene from her 2003 novel The Merlin Conspiracy. The dragon is the White Dragon of England, of course. The boy in the center is Nick, who is one of the narrators of the story. To the left is Grundo, and to the right is Toby. Darting around them are some of the invisible folk, who aren't really that invisible. One of them looks a bit like a Totoro, I just realized. Now how did that happen? >.> Anyway, over on the far left you can see Stonehenge, and on the right there is Gwyn ap Nud on his white mare with the horse-hide standard. You can also see the Count of Blest and one of his Riders in the distance behind him. And in the very foreground is one of those darn salamanders. That is a a bit of a mistake, because I painted it to look like a European Fire Salamander before I remembered that in the book salamanders are magical beings that don't look like any salamanders we have here. Oh well. Besides, by this point I think all the salamanders had run off to hide in Stonehenge anyway, so fa!

Pencils and watercolor on 11"x14" Textured Claybord. Arrt by me, characters and prose © Diana Wynne Jones.

This is part of a series of fanart I will be doing, covering all the items listed under "Fan Of" in my deviantID.

Here is the complete list:
Anime/Manga:
Inu-Yasha
Ranma 1/2
Naruto
Fullmetal Alchemist
Movies:
The Matrix
Books:
The Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
Writers:
Miyazaki Hayao
Ursula K. LeGuin
<strike>Joss Whedon</strike> Neil Gaiman
Patrick O'Brian