by Paul Cude
'It won't be long now,' he thought, sick and tired of his daily life. It always seemed like such a chore, looking after the interests of other dragons, beings who frankly, he couldn't give a stuff about. 'But soon, when the changes come about, then I'll have real power, real responsibility, and a land of my own. Then the only interests I'll have to worry about will be... MINE!'
* * *
As the king landed softly on another rooftop, the ring on his finger tingled ever so slightly, just as it had done a dozen or so times already this evening. Standing stock still, ever alert, he controlled his breathing, just as he'd been taught. Now was not the time to fall victim to nerves. The slightest mistake could alert Rosebloom to his presence and then everything he'd gone through already tonight would have been for nothing. Not only that, but it might panic the councillor and make him more cautious, something he hoped to avoid. Carefully he held up the ring in front of him. Silently, a wide, purple beam of light that only he could see erupted out of it. Not worried about being spotted, he was concerned about getting past the intricate web that the ring revealed directly in front of him. Bright blue strands sparkled across rooftops, in alleyways and everywhere in between for as far as he could see. Up to now the tricks, traps and mantras had been relatively easy for him to circumnavigate, with the ring's help of course, but this latest one looked a whole lot tougher than any of those. Aware that with every second he wasted here, the more chance there was of Rosebloom slipping away, the pressure weighed heavy on him as time ticked on.
With only one option, he opened himself up fully to the ring on his finger. In the past the ring had helped him during crucial, almost pivotal moments and he hoped that this was one of those moments now, when the ring could find some way for him to get past the intricate mantra driven web that was like nothing he'd ever seen before.
Weird was the only way to describe it. He really should have been used to it by now, but he wasn't. It was like sharing your mind with another being, but one so different that it was almost alien. Numbers, letters and symbols he didn't recognise scrolled throughout his mind, all the time accompanied by a soft sound like the rush of the wind. Abruptly his hand moved involuntarily, the ring shining the purple beam on a section of the glistening blue web off to one side, on the rooftop he stood on. Watching in awe as the filaments of the web changed colour from blue to purple, it only took a few seconds before a section was big enough for his human shape to pass through. Whispering a silent thank you, his finger tingled vigorously. Needing no further encouragement, he stepped through the purple part of the web sideways and felt nothing, nothing at all. Sure he would have sensed something had he triggered the web itself, looking back over his shoulder, the purple strands faded back to the bright blue that had been there before, now waiting for some unsuspecting being to set it off. With no time to lose, he set off in the direction he'd last seen Rosebloom.
* * *
Being here sent shivers down his spine. Goodness knows he'd been here often enough that the locals knew to leave him well alone; he felt safe enough and had no doubt that he wielded a sufficient amount of power to deal with anything thrown at him. Still, he shouldn't have to mix with the kind of low life that called this place their home. Moving swiftly on, he vowed to himself to make this his last trip to this tatty, desperate, run down, scum ridden hellhole.
* * *
Drawing the cloak around himself in the shadows as he crouched on one knee, panting, he watched as the councillor surreptitiously glanced back over his shoulder. Of course this wasn't just any cloak, it was the laminium cloak that he'd worn on his last outing to the Mantra Emporium, the one that would stop anyone sensing his presence, yet wouldn't stop anyone from physically spotting him. With his heart beating in his ears, confident that he was totally hidden, the king watched to see what would happen as the councillor stopped at a darkened entrance to a nondescript alley. Sure enough, after only a few seconds a creature appeared, half obscured by the shadows. The king's first thought was that it was another dragon, but on closer inspection he was sure that it wasn't. It was difficult to determine, due to the shadows and from what the king could tell, there was no way he could get any closer without revealing himself anyway. There were scales... plenty of them in fact, but something about the way they rippled looked and felt wrong. Plus, he could see no hint of any wings. At first he thought they might have been folded neatly back, just like Rosebloom's were, but the more he looked, the more certain he was that there weren't any there at all. While he wasn't one hundred percent sure, he was confident enough to tell himself that what he was looking at was nothing short of what young Flash had dealt with in Antarctica and Australia... a NAGA! At first he was stunned, too shocked to even move, but it didn't take long for the anger to rise up and fill his veins.
'How dare one of those creatures be living here in MY WORLD!' he thought, before rational thinking started to kick in, and he remembered the fact that he was here, alone, with no back up and no help. He had to be careful. There was no telling who or what else was in that alley. For all he knew, there could be half an army in there.
'Watch, observe and remember,' he told himself.
As he looked on, a rather heated and animated discussion broke out between the councillor and the creature. From what he could make out, Rosebloom had brought something with him, a piece of paper or parchment of some sort, and was about to hand it over. But things weren't going that smoothly for the traitorous councillor. It looked as though he expected something in return, something that clearly wasn't forthcoming.
'The cheater cheated,' thought the king. 'What a shame!'
Standing in animated conversation for another couple of minutes, Rosebloom clearly unhappy at the turn of events, getting more and more agitated as time went on, it turned out that whatever the creature said was more than enough to persuade him in the end. Reluctantly, the councillor handed over the sheet, said a few departing words, then turned and padded away. On turning, the king noticed for the first time a very real fear on the dragon's face, and that frightened him more than seeing a naga here in the dragon domain. Tucked well out of sight beneath his cloak, he waited quite a while, giving Rosebloom a big head start, not wanting their paths to cross on the way back. During his wait, he watched the mouth of the alley, desperate to know what secrets it held, but too afraid to get any closer. Before setting off, he thought briefly about coming back in force with the King's Guard, but dismissed it out of hand straight away.
'That creature and its cohorts would almost certainly have moved on by the time we got back,' he mused. 'Besides, all it would really do is alert Rosebloom that I'm on to him, something he clearly doesn't know at the moment, but would if I arrived here with a contingent of soldiers. I'll bide my time, but we will meet again, and when we do... they'll be hell to pay,' he promised, getting to his feet, vaulting into the air and off over the rooftops in the direction of home.
26 Steel Yourself!
New Zealand was a stunningly beautiful land, and all three had been having a wonderful time since arriving, but now it was time for the reason that they'd come all this way... LAMINIUM BALL! Following the winding crowd, eager to get to their seats, the three of them couldn't wait for the match to start, with Flash eyeing everything, mouth agape like a small child on Christmas morning, not surprising really given that this was his first laminium ball match and, quite frankly, he'd never seen anything quite like it. Various vendors sold all sorts of mantras, hats, socks, jewellery, flags and plastic laminium balls, as well as every type of food imaginable. Currently he wore an Indigo Warriors hat shaped like a rocket, with a huge cheese shape adorning the top. Having adopted the Warriors as his team, and with Peter's favourite player being Steel, and Tank's being Silverbonce, the ex-Crimson Guard had decided to plump for Cheese as his preference. Unsure why, he liked the name and there seemed to be plenty of Cheese merchandise to choose from. So with his newly bought hat on his head, a new pair of socks tucked into his pocket, a hot dog smothered
in charcoal sauce in one hand, and a stack of charcoal covered doughnuts in the other, he tried desperately to keep up with his friends as they moved through the rather excited crowd. Sharing a look, Peter and Tank laughed at the thought of their very tough friend never having been to a laminium ball match before. Flash had been totally taken in by the atmosphere of the match even before it had started. Boy was he in for a treat when the game actually came alive.
* * *
Deep below them, the teams lined up. Steel stood at the front, chest puffed out, eyes focused straight ahead, as was his ritual. Looking calm, motivated and ruthless, he felt anything but. Truth be told, he was worried, and not just a little, knowing better than to turn around and look towards the back of the line where Silverbonce was standing, despite feeling the need to do so. Sure the old mouth guard was feeling the same way, and if his account of what had happened in Austria all those years ago was anything to go by, then lives might well be at stake. It was hard to concentrate on going out there and playing laminium ball, even though that was what he was paid to do. It was his job, his profession, his passion and not only did he love it, but he felt honoured and privileged every time he took to the air. He only hoped today that the feeling the two of them shared, turned out to be totally innocent and harmless.
* * *
Squeezing past a whole host of other dragons, eventually the three friends found their allocated seats and tried to sit down. It wasn't a quick process though. First they had to sort out their massive beakers of fizzy drinks, align all their snacks... charcoal popcorn, a selection of pencils, crisps, chocolate covered charcoal... the lot. It was a good job there was a great deal of leg room, mainly due to the fact that they'd chosen to attend in their human guises, in a show of solidarity towards their permanently changed friend, while their seats had been configured for huge natural dragon forms. So once done, they reclined, looking a lot like babies in high chairs in the massive oversized dragon seats. Moments later the lights dimmed and the audience started to clap.
Echoing through the solid rock wall in front of them, the clapping did little in the way of disrupting Steel's focus. His mind was well and truly elsewhere. It was too late now, he realised. Between them, he and Silverbonce had found nothing that presented any sort of danger, try as they might. And now he would have to go out into the arena and concentrate on doing his job to the best of his ability, however hard that might be. Trying one last time to push away the nagging sensation of danger deep inside him, without much luck, he watched as the slightest of rumbles heralded the wall in front of him rolling gently out of the way, revealing the darkened stadium, lit up by only the rolling surface of the lava below. Turning to look at his counterpart on the opposing team who was standing right next to him, he nodded and then the both ran forward and jumped. Immediately Steel veered left, dropping slightly lower than the exit when he did so. It had already been agreed that the Warriors would take the lower plane on the display lap. One by one the team members all flew out of the hexagonal hole in the wall, the Warriors all following Steel, the Dunedin Dinosaurs trailing their captain off to the right, ever so slightly higher up than their opponents. Both teams flew past each other at incredible speed at a point in the arena exactly opposite the entrance from which they'd just come into the arena. After three laps, the players all scrambled up into the middle of the stadium, high above the lava, with the displays at each end starting their countdowns from ten. With that uneasy feeling still threatening to overwhelm him, Steel cleared his mind of everything except... LAMINIUM BALL!
Both teams hovered expectantly, waiting for the ball to come rocketing out of the ceiling as the audience of nearly seventy thousand clapped, whooped and hollered.
"8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..." Stunningly bright crystals in the roof sprang into life, illuminating the entire arena. Out shot the ball, at an almost impossible angle. All the Dunedin team had dinosaur related names. There was Raptor, mouth guard; Tri, as in Triceratops; Bronti, as in Brontosaurus; Rex, as in Tyrannosaurus; Terry, as in Dactyl; and Steg, short for Stegosaurus, the substitute. One of the Dunedin Dinosaurs, Rex, by the look of things, took the ball straight in the neck, nose diving off towards the lava, spiralling dangerously out of control. Rebounding around a couple of times, the ball bounced off Flamer's chest and Barf's shoulder, before ending up in the clutches of Terry, who instantly headed towards the deck and the blindingly hot lava. Flamer and Cheese gave chase, while Barf righted himself from the impact of the ball. Silverbonce had already retreated back to his mouth, whilst Flamer and Cheese had managed to panic Terry into passing the ball back to his teammate Bronti. This bought the Warriors some time, allowing them to reform their defence and make sure they were now between the ball and their mouth. During all of this, Steel was experiencing some very unusual sensations from the troublesome feelings that he'd tried to put to one side before entering the arena. To some degree he'd pushed them down into his subconscious. What was odd though, was that when the laminium ball had shot out into the arena, the troublesome, nagging sensation that something was wrong, had ripped through him, a thousand times more powerful than it had been at any point over the last few days, so much so that he was barely able to fly, and felt that his balance was all over the place. Gingerly, he made his way back towards the mouth he was trying to defend, as his mind revisited the intensity of what he'd felt when the ball had come near him.
'What does it all mean?' he wondered, his focus and concentration totally ruined.
Back in the action, the Dinosaurs were on a roll. They'd completed ten passes in a row without the Warriors even getting close to touching the ball, with the only plus point for the three friends' favourite team being that the passes had all taken place in the Dinosaurs' defensive half of the arena. With Steel distracted momentarily, it was down to Cheese, Barf and Flamer to put things right, and they were determined to do exactly that.
Flamer shot towards Tri, who was flying high, not far from the cavern's ceiling, deep within his own half.
'He's looking nervous,' thought Flamer, closing in. He was right; Tri was indeed nervous, so much so that he was looking to offload the ball to one of his teammates. Able to sense this, the Warriors as a team (minus the otherwise occupied Steel) started to work the opposition. Simultaneously Cheese harried Rex, while Barf was all over Bronti like a rash. With no immediate pass available, Tri continued to fly around in circles, dipping, diving and doubling back, all the while desperate to get rid of the ball. Flamer looked as though he was about to intercept, but Tri was having none of it and banked away at the crucial moment. Sneakily, Flamer had counted on this, and for the fraction of a second that he was in striking range, let go with his trademark jet of flame. A searing blue cone of fire torched the underside of Tri's right wing, forcing him to relinquish the ball. As the ball slipped through the air, Flamer swooped down and swept it up with one of his wings. Cheese and Barf immediately shrugged off their defensive duties like a grubby old cape and shot off to offer up some options for their friend and teammate.
Across the arena from all of that, Steel was still having difficulties flying, looking like he was drunk, weaving all over the place, incapable of moving in a straight line. By now it was clear to everyone that something was up, and Silverbonce had already decided to intervene. Whipping round from beneath Steel, the crafty old mouth guard used his updraft to steady his usually dependable captain.
"What's going on?" he demanded.
Steel shook his head, trying to clear it of the fuzziness that seemed to have filled it up, but this only made him dizzy, not something that was designed to help his current predicament. With Silverbonce twisting and turning in mid-air, trying desperately to keep up, Steel spoke up.
"It's the... baallllllll!!!!!"
"What?" shouted the old mouth guard, barely able to hear over the noise of the crowd, and totally oblivious to what was going on in the game.
"Thhhheeeee baaallllll!!!!" yelled Steel, executing a perfect triple somersa
ult, followed by an inverse loop the loop. "Thhheeee feeeeeelling weeee're getttttting ittttttt'ssssss cooommming froooooom thhheee ballllllllllll!!!!" Neglecting to look where he was going, Steel smashed with great gusto into the rocky lower wall of the arena with a sickening THUD!
Silverbonce watched despairingly as his captain slid comically down the rocky wall and splattered onto a lower ledge. It was a poor landing by any dragon's standards, and under normal circumstances he'd have gone to check on his friend. But these weren't normal circumstances, and he'd just worked out what Steel had so frantically been trying to tell him. THE BALL! That was the key. Banking away at speed from the prone Steel, the old mouth guard powered his way up the arena, determined to get his wings on that blessed laminium ball, and see for himself what Steel knew, that he didn't.
Wrapped up in their giant oversized chair, not far away, Peter, Tank and Flash sat glued to the action as the Warriors, deep within the Dinosaurs' half, had finally got their act together and were passing the ball with a dazzling degree of power and accuracy. None of the Dinosaurs could get near them, but were currently doing just enough to stop them from getting a clear shot at the mouth, much to the friends' annoyance. With all the action to their right as they watched, the three were suddenly equally surprised to hear a gigantic roar from the crowd off to their left. Instinctively, all three turned. Their jaws fell open in unison at the sight of Silverbonce storming over the halfway line, with such phenomenal speed that he was almost a blur, even with their enhanced senses.
'What on earth is he doing this far up the arena?' shot through Peter's mind straight away. Tank had pretty much the same thought, with Flash not too far behind.