by James Somers
Just above the surface of the water, a pair of eyes watched Daniel as he departed. The eyes squinted and the flesh of the cheeks rose slightly out of the water—enough so that if someone had been watching they would have known the person was smiling.
FROM WITHIN A DREAM
True to Fiddler’s word, no other dangerous trials presented themselves for Daniel. Still, he ascended the last set of steps on the path with great trepidation. The steps soon gave way to a well worn path. He had descended a great way down the mountain to the pond and now the path took him back up another way.
Daniel’s legs burned. He felt so tired. The scabbard which had once held his sword flopped empty at his side. He removed it and left it on the trail—anything to make the journey easier.
The trail grew narrow now. Daniel found himself on the edge of a cliff as the path wound around one of the peaks. He had barely enough room to walk. He sidestepped with his back against the rock. It seemed eerily familiar to him.
Below in the valley, green trees stretched into the distance toward other peaks in the mountain range. I’ve seen this all before, he thought. The path forced Daniel to inch along. He wondered if he might fall, but his fear of it was not so great.
Now that he could manipulate the elements around him, Daniel felt more assured. The trials had been very difficult and dangerous, but he was glad to have gone through them. Otherwise, he might never have known he had these abilities in this world.
If he survived all of this, he wondered if he should even try to get back home. What do I have to go back to? Daniel had been bullied by his peers with William being the big exception. And he had been utterly ignored by his parents. Here in this world, he had new friends, awesome power, and a reason to keep going.
Daniel arrived around the peak. What he saw made his blood run cold with terror. In the distance stood the cave he had seen from his dream—the same dream where he had seen a dragon coming for him. He had fallen from this very cliff to the rocks below.
Daniel tried to steady himself. He grew nervous, and nausea turned his stomach. He couldn’t allow it. If he got dizzy and sick, he would certainly fall.
Daniel thought about Meineke and Louie. They were there in that cave waiting for someone to save them. That thought steadied his nerves and his stand. He completed his trek around the peak and found more sure ground on the other side where the path became wide again.
Daniel surveyed the area. He knew the dragon was almost certainly there, inside the cave, waiting for him to come for his friends. “If you’re the Wielder, boy, then come and take them from me.” Those words taunted him.
Does it think that I’m this Wielder person? It certainly sounded that way. But why would the dragon think such a thing? The power he had manifested since going through Fiddler’s trials may have convinced somebody of such a thing, but that had occurred after the beast took his friends. There’s a whole lot more going on in this world than I realize.
Daniel took another twenty minutes walking along the path which brought him to the cave entrance. A stone marker stood where the path ended. He expected to find the same message etched into the stone he had seen upon all of the others along this path, but it was different. This one said, “The arm of the flesh will fail you.”
“The arm of the flesh?” It sounded like he was being warned that his own strength would fail him. “Fail me in what?”
Daniel looked up at the ominous mouth of the dragon’s lair. A lump caught in his throat. “Oh.”
He lost some of his confidence. Was he destined to fail in the fight he was about to undertake within the cave? What else can I do? My friends need me.
He drew a deep breath and stepped beyond the marker and the path. He stood before the cave opening. The cave looked like some giant beast waiting to swallow him alive. Only a dragon would live in such a place.
For the first time since they had been taken, Daniel wondered if his two friends were even still alive. They have to be. They just have to be. The dragon did say I was to come for them. Surely, they are still alive. Daniel tried to convince himself to take the last steps of this journey and enter the terrible looking orifice.
The sun had almost set. The cave promised only darkness within. Daniel looked back at the path he had come by. To his astonishment, the path and the stone marker had vanished completely. The mountain side no longer showed any sign that a path had ever been there.
His mouth dropped open, but somehow it didn’t surprise him. He had come to expect the unexpected in this world. Well, there’s no way to go now but forward.
A foul funk emanated from the mouth of the cave like ten thousand-year-old halitosis. The stench of decay curled Daniel’s nose, and he thought he might become sick, even on his empty stomach.
“Just mouth-breathe. You can do this,” he tried to reassure himself.
Daniel felt for the fierce energies which had allowed him to survive Fiddler’s trials. He launched a burst of flame through the opening just to see if there would be any reaction. The flame roiled away just beyond his hand, but there was no response to it. Somewhere within, a black scaled nightmare, the size of a house, waited to greet him.
THE DRAGON’S HOLD
Daniel had expected the inner sanctum of the cave to be very damp and cold, but it was just the opposite. A very dry heat flowed through the dark caverns carried by a steady breeze emanating from somewhere unknown.
Either the sun had already set outside or Daniel had now ventured further into the lair than its rays could penetrate. He felt very alone and yet there seemed to be eyes watching him from every place. He had no misconceptions about whether or not he was going to surprise the dragon. It already knew he was here. He wondered why it had not already attacked him.
Daniel stumbled upon something. He knelt down to examine it, but couldn’t tell what it was. He held out his hand, palm up, and a flame flickered to life above it. A horrid face leered at him from the ground. A man’s skull sat inside a brass helmet. As for the rest of the man, he had been completely charred along with the remnants of his clothing.
A belt with a sword lay strapped around the waist of the skeleton. Daniel decided a little steel in his hands couldn’t hurt his odds of survival so he removed it. He placed the belt around his own waist and drew the sword. The broadsword weighed more than he was used to, but he didn’t care at this point.
Daniel got a feel for the sword’s weight and then used it to cut through some of his shirt. He cut a strip from the bottom of the garment and wrapped it around the end of the blade. He thought flame and the material ignited, creating a makeshift torch.
The cavern seemed immense. Many smaller tunnels led away from the main. It seemed like an entire hive of dragons might live in this place. To face a many giant serpents terrified him—powers or not.
Daniel walked cautiously through the lair. The strong breeze continued to blow the foul odor of dragon into his nostrils—churning his stomach. Bones littered the sides of the path. These dragons are a messy sort, he thought.
The tunnel descended rapidly. Daniel thought he saw a faint glimmer of light below. He turned and made sure nothing was behind him. The way appeared clear. He turned back and began the descent.
At least a dozen tunnels intersected this one. The dragon might have hidden his friends almost anywhere. The way sloped downward. Light shone from behind a bend near the ceiling.
When Daniel leveled out in his descent, he saw the source of the light—a chamber up ahead. Inside the chamber, he saw what appeared to be moonlight. The closer he got to the room, the fresher the air became.
In the middle of the chamber, two individuals hung from the ceiling. Meineke and Louie! Daniel had to stop himself from shouting their names. He didn’t want to alert the dragon. His friends had been encased in a gooey sort of cocoon except for their heads and legs.
The pair hung suspended from the chamber ceiling by a thick strand of the same stuff. It reminded Daniel of snot. That thought added to his revulsion. Now h
e just had to figure out how to get them down.
Below the place where they hung, a huge hole descended into the mountain. Above them, the moon shone through large holes in the roof of the cave. A steady breeze filtered through.
“Daniel!” Meineke shouted.
Daniel snapped his index finger to his lips in a grimace, trying to signal for the wil to be quiet. Meineke complied with a look of grief at having made the mistake. Louie tried to wiggle his way around on the taut thread of dragon mucous suspending them from the ceiling.
Louie smiled brightly when he saw the boy. Daniel surveyed the situation with an engineer’s eye. He had to figure out a way to get them down without having them plunge into the dark hole beneath. He presented an open palm toward his friends. As near as he could tell, these powers were directed by his hands. Not a great theory, but it worked.
Daniel focused his energies and the wind blew. Meineke and Louie swung lightly on the mucous thread. He released the energy and the wind resumed its normal course throughout the lair. It would be close, but he felt like he could do it.
Meineke and Louie wore puzzled looks upon their faces. Daniel focused upon the rock where the mucous thread was attached to the ceiling of the cavern. He grabbed it in his mind as he pushed the air with his left hand. The rock, above the mucous, burst into fragments, allowing Meineke and Louie to fall. Immediately, Daniel thrust his right palm toward his friends and the wind pushed them away from the hole beneath.
As the pair fell away, a humongous green head sprang out of the hole, snapping its massive jaws shut. Meineke and Louie screamed as they barely escaped the deadly teeth. They landed with a painful thud upon the rocky cavern floor.
The dragon turned toward the tangled pair, meaning to go for them again before they could escape. Daniel caused the rock between the vent holes to collapse. The slab of stone smashed into the green dragon’s head, sending both down into the hole accompanied with an ear piercing shriek.
He rushed to his friends. They lay on the ground, struggling to free themselves from the binding mucous. Daniel used his new broadsword to slice through the encrusted muck. Meineke and Louie rolled away from one another and stood to thank Daniel for rescuing them.
A piercing roar bellowed through the tunnels stifling their enthusiasm. “How do we get out of here?” They all looked at each other, but no one had the answer.
Another dragon appeared in the tunnel where Daniel had entered the chamber. This one was red in color and more slender than the great black dragon which had brought them here. “How many dragons are in this place?” Daniel asked.
“Too many,” Louie said.
The dragon screamed a piercing cry—fingernails raking on a chalkboard to the tenth power. It took a deep breath, as though filling a great bellows and then released a chemical spray which combusted in mid-air. Daniel used his power and pulled a wall of rock up from the floor of the cavern to shield them.
They felt the intense heat as flame billowed over and around the edges of the rock. The creature took another breath, preparing to blow fire upon them again. Daniel did not hesitate. He thrust his hands toward the stone slab they were hiding behind. It flew through the air toward the red dragon.
The stone slammed into the great reptile between the left shoulder and the joint of its left wing. The dragon buckled and fell into the wall, exhaling the flammable chemical prematurely into the wall near its head. The spray splattered against the wall and onto the dragon’s face, igniting immediately.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Meineke shouted over the pained howl of the red dragon.
“I don’t know which tunnel will lead us out!” Daniel said as he prepared for more trouble.
Louie pointed up. “The ceiling! We can fly out that way.”
“I can’t fly!” Daniel shouted.
“Leave it to us,” Meineke said as he morphed into bird form.
Each of them grabbed onto one of Daniel’s upper arms and took off with him toward the open ceiling. Out of the hole in the cavern floor, Strom’s giant, black head emerged, searching for his prey.
Before the dragon could get a fix on them to intercept, Daniel sent down a fire of his own. A peel of flame leaped away from his hands, hitting Strom in the face. The black dragon jerked away from the attack, giving the trio just enough space and time to get up through the hole in the cavern ceiling and escape.
Strom roared with fury, climbing out of the hole in the cavern floor. He got his footing on the stone floor and then leaped through the hole in the ceiling after Daniel and the others.
TERROR IN THE SKY
The moon cast a pale glow over the entire land. This made navigating the treacherous peaks of Mt. Doom easier, but it didn’t make it any more fun. Meineke and Louie jostled Daniel about so much he thought he might lose his lunch, had he eaten any. The wil and the cherub both jockeyed for dominance during their escape flight. “Somebody needs to lead this dance guys,” Daniel complained.
They made use of gravity, dive-bombing down through the peaks of Mt. Doom. Somewhere behind them, an angry black scaled death machine closed in for the kill. “It’s going to burn us to a crisp like this,” Daniel shouted.
“The nice thing about flying is that dragons can’t really breathe fire while in flight. Hovering sure, but anything else sends the flame back into their faces like spitting into the wind,” Louie said.
Daniel saw the moon reflecting off a body of water to his right and wondered if it might be the pond he had come to during his last trial. The image passed quickly as another peak whooshed by them at a frightening speed.
“We’ve got company!” Louie said.
The dragon came at them like a giant black missile. He dropped toward them, gracefully evading peaks and rocky outcrops. Daniel turned his head to watch the creature. The dragon rode the wind like a champion.
“Where are we going?” Daniel shouted.
Meineke and Louie looked at one another. They didn’t have a clue. They were just running for their lives. “Which way to get us back to the Deadwood?” Meineke asked.
Louie looked around. “Hard to tell. All I can see are mountains.”
“He’s gaining on us!” Daniel said, craning his neck to keep the great predator in view.
Strom closed the distance to within fifty yards. Soon he would be within striking distance and then it would be over. “This way!” Louie shouted.
They bolted to the right just before the dragon closed the entire distance. Twin peaks came at them fast. The dragon failed to make the sharp change of direction.
Strom roared his displeasure and adjusted his course. Meineke and Louie shot straight between the twin peaks nearly smashing into the rocks. Daniel squinted and braced for the impact. He breathed a sigh of relief once they cleared.
The black dragon shot up over the peaks and resumed the chase. In the distance, Daniel saw the reflection of moonlight upon water. He looked at the moon and, for a split second, saw something in silhouette. It looked like a giant bird of some kind, only it had too many limbs. Daniel blinked and then looked again, but it was gone. He searched, but could not locate what he had seen.
The dragon roared again behind them. He closed on the cumbersome trio much faster now. Terrible white teeth set in massive jaws opened to receive his prey. In seconds they would be dead. They had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
The land receded just below them as Meineke and Louie carried Daniel out over the water. The dragon’s snarled right behind them. His foul breath would be on their necks right before the teeth sank in. Daniel squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for the pain of death.
An ominous screech sounded ahead of them. Daniel’s eyes popped open. It sounded like an eagle—completely different from the horrible cry of the dragon. Daniel caught only a split second glimpse of the same feathered creature he had seen silhouetted against the moon moments before.
A horrendous crash pounded the wind out of Daniel. He flew free from Meineke and Louie�
��s grip. The moon reflected on the water before him. He felt strangely at peace drifting through the air. In the distance, he heard the cry of the dragon and that of the other creature. He heard his friend’s voices as well.
The spire of moonlight upon the water vibrated quickly as it got closer. Daniel gasped as he smashed into the water. The impact felt like he had been dashed upon the rocks. He groaned at the pain.
The water swallowed Daniel. He fought for precious air, but there was none to be had. He lost the strength to struggle. He felt the current carry him away. He wanted to breathe so badly.
Daniel struggled to get to the surface, but where was the surface? The current turned him over and over like a child in the ocean surf. Everything faded.
AMONG FRIENDS
Marissa, Louie, and, Meineke hovered over Daniel as he lay on his back on the shore of the mountain pond. He shivered due to his cold, wet clothes. Marissa came with a thick blanket. “Here, Daniel, try to get warm. We cannot stay here for very long.” Marissa’s compassionate voice soothed him, but danger still remained.
Daniel craned his head around to make sure everyone was present. Bon and Jale stood there with Percival and Captain Blackborne. Daniel turned in the other direction, smiling. It made him happy to see his friends safe. He thought about Mickey and Bob—killed in the Deadwood by wolven.
Then, another face popped into view, staring at him. The huge face adorned in dark feathers hovered over him. Two equine ears stood erect on the head and piercing eyes with yellow irises beamed at him from behind a great curved beak. It looked like the head of a giant eagle. Daniel screamed. “Ah!”
He got to his knees, scooting away. “What is that thing?” he said, alarmed.
The creature looked sideways to Marissa. “Is he talking about me, Princess?”
The creature had a very deep voice though far from menacing. It sounded more like the voice of a college professor with no sense of humor. Daniel had not yet seen such a creature in this world. Then it dawned on him. He had seen one in a book and he had seen stone versions in front of his own house back in his world.
“Is that a griffin?” Daniel asked Marissa.
The griffin responded instead. “It is very rude to speak about someone in the third person when they are, in fact, present company, young man.”
“Oh, well, I am sorry, sir,” Daniel said, feeling scolded.
“Yes, well, I suppose we can make allowances for your ignorance of griffins.”
Daniel felt insulted. He’s just a wee bit pompous.
“Duggan, please. The boy is new to our world,” Marissa said.
“Yes, of course, Princess,” Duggan said.
The griffin stepped back to give them room as they helped Daniel to his feet. He was greater in size than both pantheras put together—but still only half the size of the great black dragon. The griffin had a head much like that of an eagle and front feet with talons like swords. Duggan had great feathered wings while his rear half looked like the body of an African lion with a long tail, bobbed at the end.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Meineke said. “He saved us, Marissa—Louie and me. It was amazing.”
“Well, Daniel, it seems we have much to discuss. I would be very interested to see how you affected their release from the Dragons Hold.”
“The Dragons Hold?”
“Yes, you entered into the lair of Strom the Black. That was the dragon we found chasing you,” Marissa said.
“That’s a nasty brute,” Nathaniel said. “How in the world did you get inside his lair?”
“Yeah, Daniel, that’s a sheer cliff, how did you get inside?” Louie asked.
Everyone stared at Daniel. “Well, after the black dragon took the two of you and flew away, I decided I had to do something to rescue you. The dragon was expecting me to come for you and—”
“Why do you think Strom expected you to come for them?” Marissa interrupted.
“Well, he told me.”
“Strom spoke to a human?” Duggan asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. He detests humans, believes them to be lower than insects. I don’t even think Strom likes the taste of—”
“Yes, Duggan, thank you,” Marissa interrupted. Duggan was a nice enough griffin, but very talky when you let him get going. “What did the dragon say to you, Daniel?”
“He said, if I was the Wielder, then I would have to come and take them.”
When Daniel told her, a spark of hope ignited somewhere behind Marissa’s eyes.
“Daniel, tell us what happened after that. How did you come to get inside the Dragons Hold?” she asked eagerly.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I knew I had to save them somehow. So, I took my sword and went into the mountains.” Daniel liked the fact that they were all hanging upon his every word. He had started out as the insignificant member of their group. Now, his friends lauded him as a hero. This was a far cry from his days at Ekhart Academy and he liked it.
He continued with his story. “I spent a few hours hiking up and then I came to a place where this man was sitting and playing a violin.”
“A violin?” Nathaniel asked.
“A violin, or a fiddle?” Percival added.
“Hey, the man did say that his name was Fiddler,” Daniel said. Marissa, Nathaniel, and Percival looked cautiously at one another.
“What happened then, Daniel?”
“Well, Fiddler was sitting at this place where two paths meet one another. And he told me that I would have to face three trials on my way up the mountain.”
“What kind of trials?” Marissa asked.
“There was a warrior who attacked me with all kinds of rock and stuff. He made the rocks fly out of the ground, trying to kill me. Fiddler told me these trials would bring out abilities I have inside. And do you know what, Marissa? I really do have them!”
“What sort of abilities?”
“Everything the warrior did, I could do. I made rocks come right out of the cliff to catch me when he caused me to fall. And I moved earth and stone with my thoughts.”
“Really?” Marissa said. Her eyes glazed with excitement. “And what happened then?”
“I beat the warrior or at least I thought I had beaten him. He came back later for the third trial. I was in a valley of snow on the mountain, and he blasted the ridge with bolts of fire. I couldn’t believe it!”
Everyone in the group soaked up the details of Daniel’s fantastic adventure like kindergarteners during story time.
“This guy caused an avalanche and buried me under the snow. I thought I was really going to die.”
“What did you do, Daniel?” Meineke asked.
“I made heat, like the warrior, except I controlled it very carefully so that I wouldn’t burn myself. But the snow melted too fast. Before I knew what I had done, the water carried me over a waterfall. I zoomed down the mountain on the most wicked waterslide ride I’ve ever seen. Then it dumped me into this pond.”
The others looked at the pond and then around for the place where Daniel would have come down the mountain. They quickly spotted a trough which emptied into the pond. Daniel’s story, as incredible as it sounded, appeared to be true.
“The warrior was waiting on me when I got up on the shore over there,” he said, pointing to the place. “I finally beat him when he hurled two boulders at me. I sent a wave into him that must have drowned him or something. I didn’t see him anymore after that. After all of the trials, I followed the path until it brought me up the mountain to the entrance of the dragon’s lair,” Daniel said.
“But there isn’t a path leading into the Dragon Hold—no path whatsoever,” Duggan protested, ruffling his feathers.
“That’s the thing,” Daniel said, “there was a path to get me to the entrance, but then, when I turned back to look, it was just gone. I can’t explain it.”
“We saw him fighting dragons with this power, Marissa,” Meineke said. “Daniel moved his hands in the air a
nd a wall of stone sprang from the earth, then he hurled it at one of those brutes who was trying to burn us alive.”
“Yeah and he pulled the roof down on another one just before it could have Meineke and me for lunch,” Louie added. “Once Daniel had us free, we grabbed him and flew out of there with Strom on our tail.”
“By the way, what happened to the dragon?” Daniel asked. “The last thing I remember, he just about had us.”
Duggan cleared his throat.
“Duggan brought us into the mountain to look for you,” Marissa said. “He is an old ally of my father, King Nicholas. When Duggan spotted you on the run from Strom he moved in and chased the dragon away.”
“How did you fight off a dragon?” Daniel asked.
“Well, Daniel, it is a little known fact that griffins carry an intensely painful poison in our talons,” he said proudly. Duggan held up one of the massive claws for the boy. Daniel saw beads of poison gather on the tips of his talons as Duggan flexed his claw.
“Dragons are especially susceptible to its potency,” Duggan said.
Daniel saw a smile in the griffin’s eyes though his great beak remained firm. He felt already that he was going to like this new friend very much.
“I think, Princess, that it would be wise for us to get out of these mountains before we end up with more dragons coming down on us,” Nathaniel suggested.
“Yes, that is a good idea. We’ll finish discussing these events once we’ve reached a safer place. We still have to get to the Bard country and my father. There’s still the matter of translating the Wielder Scroll.”
The group prepared for departure. Marissa, Nathaniel, and Percival rode on Duggan’s strong back the same way they had come. Meineke and Louie escorted Daniel down. He hoped this flight would be a bit less traumatic.