“Are we done yet?”
“I don’t think you’ve asked all twenty questions, yet.”
“It feels like I’ve asked at least fifty.”
“So. . . do you give up, then?”
“Yes. I give up.”
“Okay.” The dragon’s great hips swayed. “I. . . am. . . a. . . talking sandwich!”
Silvia’s pursed lips shifted to the right, her eyes dull and expressionless.
“You’re trying to tell me that actually exists?”
“Oh yeah. The multiverse is a big place. You couldn’t possibly comprehend just how immense and varied it really is. . . . It’s your turn, now.”
“Do I have to?”
“No. You don’t have to do anything. But it’ll help pass the time. . . . Ya never know, it could be fun.”
“All right. I got one.”
“Are you a. . . duck-billed platypus?”
“You read my mind?”
“Sorry. I can’t help myself sometimes.”
Silvia shook her head.
“And. . . while we’re kind of on the subject,” Zoth-Avarex said, shyly, “when I was in there, I couldn’t help but catch a tiny little glimpse of your plan to. . . slip away.”
Silvia’s pulse sped up. She tried to keep a straight face.
“Yeah. . . I saw that you were eyeing that princess-sized hole I had accidentally left in the shield over there.” He pointed a claw. “I’m going to have to fix that, now.” With a wave of his claws, he closed the hole Silvia had been planning to escape through.
Silvia didn’t know what to say.
“Do you hear that?” the dragon said.
“No.”
The dragon leaned his gigantic head out over the edge and looked down. “Well ho-ly shit! The treasure is coming in!” The dragon’s laugh shook the observation deck. “Do you wanna see?”
“Sure.”
The dragon gently picked Silvia up and held her over the edge. Luckily, she had never been afraid of heights. Ana would have peed herself by now.
Down below, she could just make out what looked like dump trucks dumping gold into a pile. Silvia counted ten trucks in a line down a cordoned-off street. The military had set up a civilian-free zone around the immediate area, or at least that’s what it looked like from six hundred feet or so.
Zoth-Avarex set Silvia back down. “Could you dial Bill for me, please?”
“Sure. I live to serve.” Silvia called Bill Gulley on video chat and handed the phone to the dragon.
“Billy Boy, my good man! How are you?”
“I’m good. How about you?”
“Much better now that there is gold nearby.”
“Good.”
“I don’t know the logistics of it all, and I’m sure it’s a pain in the ass, but I really wanted the gold and stuff up here with us. Maybe I should have made that more clear?”
“Okay. We’ll get to work on that. You’ll have to momentarily take the shield down again, though.”
“Yeah, I know how my own shield works. But thank you so much for getting this going, Bill.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And just a quick little reminder, in case you forgot or something. If you guys try anything while my shield is down, I’m gonna have to fly back over to the Site, pick you and General Morgan up by your legs, fly up to about twenty thousand feet, and drop you. Ya know, just to prove a point.”
“I understand.”
“But all that won’t be necessary. I feel like we’re really starting to get somewhere, don’t you?”
“Yes. And I hope you’ll see we’re acting in good faith on these negotiations. We’ve got you the comfort items you wanted for the girl, and now we’re getting the gold for—”
“And jewels?”
“We’re working on that.”
“And gilded lilies. A few of those would be great.”
“We can try to get those, too.”
“Fantastic. You’re the man, Bill.”
“I wanted to—”
“Sorry to interrupt, but I was thinking, it would be really nice to have a few golden chalices laying around up here. You know, like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? In the cave where he picks the cup of the carpenter? I could do without that one, but all the rest of those were nice. Could I get those?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Don’t doubt yourself, Bill. You could do that if you put your mind to it.”
“Zoth-Avarex, this is General Morgan. I—”
“Get off the phone. Pass it back to my boy, Bill.”
“But—”
“But nothing. My POC is Bill. You don’t want me to get snooty, do you?”
“Snooty?”
“Snotty.”
“No.”
“Well put my sweet Bill back on, then.”
“Mr. Avarex?”
“Hey, Billy. You’re doing an excellent job. Keep up the good work.”
“I wanted to talk about—”
“What’s that?” the dragon looked away from the phone as if talking to someone behind him. “Oh, okay.” He looked back at the camera phone. “I guess Silvia needs me for something. This was a good talk, though. We’ll chat again later. Remember everything I asked for. Peace.” The dragon hung up.
Zoth-Avarex looked back to Silvia for real this time. She was getting a snow cone from the snow cone stand.
“Sorry to use you like that to get off the phone, but he was really starting to bore me.”
Silvia ignored the dragon, took the snow cone from the snow-cone lady, and thanked her.
“So. . . what should we do, now?”
“I don’t know. I was gonna eat my snow cone.”
“Another round of twenty questions?”
Quest for the Ring, Part Three
Through the giant oak doors lay a darkened cave. Flickering torches burned at intervals along the right side. After a deep breath, Chris proceeded down the tunnel-like cave. The floor was slippery, and tilted upward in a steady incline. Eventually, the torches became farther apart, then ceased altogether. He tried to remove the last one from the wall but was unable to budge it.
Chris made the end of his wand glow with a simple spell and kept moving. The light from his wand was enough to illuminate about five feet in front of him, so he moved cautiously into the unknown. Water steadily dripped from the ceiling, now and then startling Chris when a big drop would splash down the back of his neck into his still-damp shirt.
Chris could just make out the presence of side tunnels running off at random in both directions.
“Pete,” Chris whispered.
As expected, there was no answer.
“Pete.” A little louder.
“What?”
“Does it say anything about which direction I should go?”
“Uh. . . . Yeah. It says to go straight through. It says ‘do not turn’ in big letters. And it says ‘stay quiet’ in bigger letters.”
Chris nodded as if Pete could see him. He took a deep, shaky breath and continued as quietly as he could. He was torn between two minds. The fight-or-flight part of him wanted to hurry through as fast as possible, but the more rational part wanted to move in silence for as long as it took. He found himself taking the middle path, going as fast as he could while staying relatively silent.
A scraping sound, nearly inaudible, came from one of the tunnels to his right. He stopped and tried to listen. He felt as if he could hear his own heartbeat echoing through the cave. When he was about to start moving, the sound came again, a little louder this time. It sounded like something scurrying across the cave floor.
Chris began to walk, faster than before.
He stepped in an ankle-high puddle; the splash resonated throughout the cramped
cave.
The scurrying grew louder.
To his right, a dark form moved across the nearest side tunnel. Chris held his illuminated wand toward the tunnel in time to see a figure dart away and melt into the darkness.
Chris sprinted into the blackness ahead.
More scraping, from both sides of the cave now. Chris’s foot slipped out to his side, painfully twisting his knee. He crashed down headlong onto the wet, rocky ground.
As he scrambled to stand up, something grasped his foot. With a panicked shout he kicked the thing away and resumed running, ignoring the pain in his knee.
Chris glanced behind to see a human form reaching out with misshapen hands. He whipped his wand at the form, launching a bolt in its direction, but he missed his target. With a snake-like hiss, the creature dove at Chris and knocked him to the hard ground.
Chris twisted violently, turning around to face the creature that had crawled on top of him. In the pale white glow of the wand, Chris saw a hideous eyeless face with a human nose and mouth. The creature made to bite at Chris’s cheek, and he could smell its rank rotten odor, but he thrust a forearm into its nose before it could reach him. A horrible scream filled the cave and the creature rolled off onto the ground.
Another creature crashed down on top of Chris. He wriggled free of its grip, stood, and ran.
Chris’s panicked mind considered creating an illusion, but the creatures wouldn’t be able to see it. He couldn’t aim his bolts accurately in the dark, and there was nothing around to lift with a spell or use as a weapon. All he could do was run and hope to get through the cave before they could stop him.
Figures flooded out of the side tunnels on both sides. They hissed and screamed as they converged on Chris’s position. He cried out and sent another bolt smashing into a figure in front of him. A creature clawed Chris’s arm, forcing him to drop his wand. As creatures seized him from all sides, the light on the end slowly faded until he was in absolute darkness.
He tried to shake them off, but they kept coming, enveloping him in a mass of stinking bodies.
He dropped to the cold ground and felt blindly for his wand. He searched in vain as myriad hands scratched at his back. The weight of their bodies pushed the air from Chris’s lungs. He gasped and launched himself forward, still feeling for the unseen wand.
He felt a moment of relief as the horde of invisible bodies backed off. But then two creatures grabbed his legs and began to drag him somewhere.
Chris clawed at the ground and tried to kick out from their grip, but they held him fast.
As his fingertips scraped along the rough cave floor, his hand brushed against something that wasn’t wet flesh or rock. He wrapped his fingers around the familiar feel of his wand.
He lit the end with a dull glow, revealing dozens of the eyeless faces surrounding him. Terrified, he extinguished the light and tried to think.
As Chris was dragged across the cave in the pitch black, he had the spark of an idea, but he wasn’t optimistic.
He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.
What did it sound like?
He had to make it as realistic as possible if it had any chance of working. He had never tried an aural illusion outside of the classroom; he’d only have time for one chance to get it right.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated the walls of the cave.
The creatures stopped dragging Chris.
The growl grew in strength until the booming roar of an angry bear reverberated down every tunnel. The noise rattled Chris’s chest and seemed to tear at his eardrums.
The creatures hissed and dropped Chris’s legs.
Chris wasted no time. He jumped to his feet, illuminated his wand, and sprinted for the end of the cave, plowing through several cringing creatures.
His lungs burned as he charged away from the legion of sightless, screaming beings. Several times he almost slipped on the wet rocks, but he managed to stay upright until he reached another massive oaken door. He threw it open and rushed inside, slamming it back behind him.
The room he had entered was lit up with scores of flickering torches. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a large plank of wood standing against the stone wall. He snatched the plank and flung it into the iron brackets on the backside of the oak door, barring it from the inside.
He turned around and rested his tattered back against the door. As he caught his breath and waited for his heart rate to decrease, he scanned the well-lit area. The room he had entered was lined with ancient oak shelving. Covering the shelves were countless treasures: rings, amulets, chalices, swords, wands, and suits of armor were all neatly displayed without a speck of dust to be seen.
Chris slumped down to the ground, expecting the eyeless creatures to begin battering the door, but they never touched it. He sat in silence, trying to regain a semblance of his sanity.
“Okay,” Chris said to Pete in the communicator. “I think I made it to Gandore’s Vault. How do I find the ring?”
“Let’s see,” Pete said. “Do not turn. . . stay quiet. . . go through door at end of cave. Did you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. It says, ‘Congratulations, you have made it to Gandore’s Vault. For the le—.’ Oh. . .”
“What?”
“Oops.”
“What do you mean ‘oops?’” Chris’s heart picked its pace right back up.
“Uh. . .it says ‘For the less adventurous, the faint of heart, or those with high blood pressure, back or neck problems, or who are pregnant, take Merlin’s Shortcut.’”
“Merlin’s Shortcut?”
“Yeah. . . . Does there happen to be a door on the other side of the room you’re in?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Chris hurried to the opposite side of the room and flung open the other door.
Two long wooden staircases ascended in front of him. Daylight shone from somewhere above the top of the stairs. One of the staircases moved down, like an escalator, and the other moved back up.
“The stairs are in Perpetual Magic Motion, something Merlin invented, I guess.” Pete sounded embarrassed.
As Chris watched the magical escalator spin round and round, he hated himself for not having read the grimoire first like that crazy-haired Eddie guy had suggested. He wasn’t sure who he hated more, though: himself or Pete. If Pete was in front of him at the moment, Chris would have punched him in his stupid nose, and kicked him when he was down.
Without a word Chris wandered over to the moving staircase and rode it up. It deposited him on a grassy hillside, right near the black-sand beach. The Isle of Avalon lay across a stretch of water. To the right, a spectacular sunrise tinged the horizon with greens and yellows. He had been at the “Three Fears” for an entire night; the longest, darkest night of the soul he’d ever experienced. Just ahead he could see the place where the rowboat had been. There were still lines in the black sand where he had pushed the boat into the water. He had apparently gone across the water to the island, gone deeper than the bottom of the sea in the Well of Despair, then re-crossed to the mainland through a tunnel under the water. He could have gone to the vault down a goddamned escalator instead of battling a kraken, hearing all those awful things about himself, fighting off poisonous spiders, and being clawed at by eyeless monsters.
Death.
Maybe death was more appropriate for Pete. At least a good maiming.
Chris boarded the down escalator, made his way back into Gandore’s Vault, and began to search for the Ring.
Before long he found an empty case with a plaque hanging just above it. The plaque was engraved in a fancy calligraphy. It read:
The
Legendary
Ring
of
Brocéliande
He lifted the case, checking under and around it.
He turned it upside down and shook it. He searched every nook and cranny. But no luck. The case was empty, the ring was gone.
Eddie’s Locker
The locker wasn’t anything special to look at. It was painted office-furniture tan, stood about six feet high, and had two dented aluminum doors.
Harris reached out to open it, hoping that maybe Eddie had taken away the protections before he left. A spectral hand appeared through the metal door and slapped Harris’s hand away from the handle.
Harris jumped back, plowing into Jake, which caused Harris to rebound forward and careen into the locker, face first.
“Ow.” Harris rubbed his forehead sheepishly.
“That’s a good start,” Jake said.
In a flash, a magical force field appeared, enveloping the locker in a protected bubble. A voice emanated from the bubble. “Step away from the locker!”
“We have been sent by Eddie Wilson to access this locker,” Marian said. “Please let us open it.”
“This locker has three protections. The first is a riddle, the second is a challenge, the third is a surprise. Are you ready to face the first protection?”
When no one answered, Harris spoke up. “Yes?” he said.
“What is your name?” the voice asked.
“Harris Reed.”
“What is your quest?”
“To save Ana’s sister.”
“What is your favorite color?”
“Really?”
“I’m just messing with you. Here is the real riddle.” The voice cleared its invisible throat. “What is smarter than Eddie Wilson, but dumber than most Site managers? The poorest people have it. The richest people need it. If you eat it, you could die.”
The room was silent. Everyone huddled up in front of the locker.
“So. . .” Harris broke the silence. “Something poisonous, then?”
“But what could be poison and dumber than most Site managers?”
“Marian, you’ve been around magic longer than any of us. Is there anything out in another realm or something that is poisonous and dumb?”
“I used to work in the Realm Travel Department before I came over here, so I’ve been a few places in my time, but I don’t recall seeing anything like that. Maybe an ex-boyfriend or two?”
The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex Page 12