The Clockwork Dragon

by James R. Hannibal

  With the heavy thunk of metal paws on wood planks, the pixiu landed on the bridge. It swiped the air and let out a high-pitched tin-can growl, white ball rolling in its mouth.

  All three came skidding to a stop, and Jack put his hands on his hips, sucking in the stale air to catch his breath. “I’m . . . guessing that’s . . . pixiu for ‘You shall not pass!’ ”

  The stream reflected the flames of the braziers with the same silver luster as the creature. Something floated out from under the bridge—something with a dragon’s head. At first Jack thought it was another monster, but the head was carved from wood.

  “A boat,” said Liu Fai. He shared a look with Jack, making a silent plan, and then fired off a stream of frost.

  Jack added a fireball, causing an explosion of steam to block the creature’s view, and the three leaped for the dragon skiff. The pixiu threw its paws up on the rail and shrieked.

  “Make the boat go, please!” shouted Sadie, staring at the creature behind them.

  The river was stagnant, not flowing. And the pixiu had already proved it could leap great distances. It would not wait long.

  Jack found an oar in the bottom of the boat and started rowing. Silver liquid clung to the paddle. “Mercury. The hermit was right.”

  “Isn’t mercury poisonous?” asked Sadie. “Isn’t that what drove the emperor mad?”

  Liu Fai found a second oar and paddled on the other side. “The emperor swallowed the mercury as pills. Do not drink from the stream—or swim in it—and you should be fine.”

  Their course curved away into a darkness too black to be empty space. Jack tossed a fireball into the jade treetops as a flare. The wall extending from the gateway cut all the way through the forest, but the stream passed through a culvert in its base. If they all ducked, they might have enough headroom. Jack paddled harder. “We can make it!”

  “Why isn’t he chasing us?” asked Sadie, still watching the pixiu.

  Liu Fai nodded at the wall. “Because he has a friend.”

  Another pixiu crept out from behind a jade tree near the culvert. It made a high-pitched growl that quickly shifted into shrieking barks. Its friend barked back. They were talking.

  The first pixiu dove into the stream.

  Seconds later, Jack felt a bump beneath the boat. A wake curved out in front of them, weaving back and forth until the creature jumped out onto the shore opposite its buddy. Both pixiu bared their silver teeth in monstrous tiger-dog-thing grins.

  Momentum carried the boat between them. Liu Fai shot off another round of ice to harry the one on the left. Jack swung his oar at the other, turning it like a blade. He felt a thock as it connected with the white ball, sending it off into the trees. Liu Fai’s pixiu abandoned the fight and raced after it. All three stared as their boat floated past the first pixiu, or what was left of it. Nothing remained but a silver puddle, trickling down the bank into the stream. Jack shook his head. “Weird.”

  “Duck!” Liu Fai grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down. The boat sailed through the culvert.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  THE BOAT TURNED, BOUNCING off a curved stone shore. Before Liu Fai could flip on his light, the dragon head at the bow slammed into something hard.

  That something gave way, like a big lever.

  Jack heard a clink and a grinding sound deep beneath the boat. The black mist of a sinking sensation filled his chest. “Hold on!”

  The skiff slid sideways down a steep ramp and plunged into a pool. There were hisses, sizzles, and blue-white flashes. Sconces lit off one by one, burning like sparklers, lighting a gray stone shore and a broad hallway beyond. The hall was guarded.

  A platoon of bronze warriors turned click by click on big round gears to face the newcomers, and each held a crossbow with a bolt already dropping into place. A skeleton in a torn silk robe lay at the center of the hall with several matching bolts stuck in its rib cage.

  Jack scrambled onto the shore. “Grab the boat!”

  Together, all three hauled the skiff out of the mercury pool and flipped it over to use as a shield. The first round of bolts came fast. Jack jerked his face back as a serrated bronze arrowhead came punching through the hull.

  “They’re like the terra-cotta warriors,” said Sadie, hunkered down between the boys. “Only these warriors are—” Thump-thump-thump-thump. Another round of bolts hit with rhythmic impacts.

  “Clockwork.” Jack spat out the word. He was beginning to hate clockwork—bugs, dragons, warriors, anything with a set of gears and an unreasonable vendetta against him.

  The sizzling firework sconces gave him an excellent view of the chamber’s workings. The mercury pouring down the ramp into the pool turned cranks that operated the warriors.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump.

  More bolts from the crossbows. Light shined through the hull in a dozen places. The boat wouldn’t hold up much longer. Liu Fai turned and shot frost at the pulleys and cranks, but they were too far away to freeze.

  Jack tried a fireball. It hit the pulleys and vaporized, doing no harm. “If only I could hold a flame on the ropes long enough to snap them.”

  Thump-thump-thump-thump.

  They all ducked. Two of the bolts broke through and skipped into the mercury pool.

  “Maybe you can.” Sadie peeked out from under her arm, looking from one boy to the other. “Remember what Dad said? You have to work together. Fire and ice.”

  “Oh, that’s brilliant,” said Liu Fai, pressing his hands close to the floor.

  It took Jack a little longer to figure out the plan, but as he watched, Liu Fai built a stand of ice next to the pool, fashioning the top into a lens. He gave a sharp nod, and Jack set to work on his part. With the bolts chipping away at their shield, he had no trouble mustering enough adrenaline to form an impressive fireball between his hands.

  “More heat,” urged Sadie. “It has to be brighter.”

  Jack scrunched his brow, drawing dust from all sides. The soot from the sconces helped, and his flame turned from yellow, to blue, to white. A beam shot from the ice lens. Liu Fai kept the lens whole and shaped it to focus Jack’s ray. Almost instantly, the first rope glowed red and snapped, then another, and another.

  The last bolt thumped into the upturned skiff, and the chamber went quiet, leaving nothing but the sizzle of the dying sconces.

  Jack fell back onto his rear in exhausted relief, but Liu Fai lifted him to his feet. “We can’t stay here. The ramp is acting as a waterfall, filling the air with mercury vapor. Poison.”

  Only one route of escape lay open to them—straight ahead through a low arch carved with creeping insects. “Yeah . . . I don’t like that at all,” said Jack, eyeing the bugs.

  Liu Fai went through first, coming to a sudden stop as the sconces behind them fizzled out.

  Jack smacked into the back of him. “What’s wrong?”

  “The paver under my right foot. I think it gave way.”

  “Of course it did.” Jack sighed and grabbed Sadie around the waist as a thunderous whir shook the passage. The floor rocketed upward, carrying the three of them with it, and stopped with a jolt. The right wall came next, knocking them sideways, followed by the wall behind. Feeling very much like a pinball, Jack tumbled headlong into dead space and crashed down onto another stone floor.

  Sadie landed on top of him with an “Oof!” She rolled off to the side and patted his aching chest. “Thank you, Jack.”

  He could barely gather enough air into his lungs to reply. “Don’t mention it.”

  Stone ground against stone, followed by a deep, resounding bang. Liu Fai grumbled, beating his flashlight against his knee until the beam flickered to life. They had fallen into a perfectly square room with no exits or windows.

  “Not good,” said Jack, shaking his head. “Soooo not good.”

  Sadie passed her hands along the walls, pushing against random stone blocks. “There must be a way out, a hidden panel or something.”

  Both boys sat
in the middle of the cube and watched her, nursing their bruises. Jack sparked a flame to give them a little more light. “Why?”

  “Why what?” asked Sadie, planting a shoulder against the wall and grunting.

  “Why must there be a way out? This room seems like a perfectly good punishment for grave robbers.” Jack waggled a finger, taking on a deeper voice. “Now, you just sit here and think about what you’ve done, all of you, right up until you suffocate.”

  Liu Fai gave him a hard look, but he didn’t argue.

  Even after Sadie guilted Jack into passing his flame over all four walls, he could find no gaps—no indication of secret doors. “Seriously, why shouldn’t this be the end?”

  His sister caught his wrist, holding it in place. “Because we won’t have reached the end until you save Dad.” She nodded at his flame. It guttered.

  “A breeze.” Liu Fai jumped to his feet and felt the wall. “Yes. Right here. Air is leaking through the seams around this block.” He set both palms against the block and shoved it in like a button.

  With a long crrrunch, the entire wall to Jack’s right moved outward.

  Liu Fai cautiously removed his hands from the gap left by the movable stone. “This is a mystery box.”

  “A mystery box,” mused Sadie. “So I guess that makes us the cricket.”

  Chapter Fifty

  JACK JOINED THE OTHER two in the search for more devices, holding his flame close to the cracks. “I think ‘reverse mystery box’ is more accurate.”

  “Oh really,” said Liu Fai. “And what makes it a reverse mystery box rather than a regular mystery box?”

  “We’re inside trying to get out.” Jack bent down to inspect a low corner. “Usually it’s the other way around.”

  “Over here.” Sadie had found a metal gear set flush with the stone. “The moving wall was covering it before.”

  “Step two,” said Liu Fai, turning his flashlight on the gear. “Remember each step. A mystery box is solved by trial and error, so we may have to repeat them in sequence many times before we are through.” He rotated the gear counterclockwise until it stopped, and waited.

  A tiny eruption of gold—the barely audible ring of metal—appeared in Jack’s mind. He grabbed Liu Fai’s collar, yanking him back into the limbo position as a line of grout crumbled. A long blade swung out, sliced the air an inch above Liu Fai’s nose, and bounced off the corner with a spark, disappearing back into its slot.

  Liu Fai let out a breath, eyes wide. “If I were but a little taller . . .”

  “You’d now be a little shorter,” said Jack, finishing for him.

  Sadie took their arms and pulled them both into a big step backward. “I don’t think trial and error is the best plan.”

  The gear spun clockwise of its own accord, the movable wall crunched forward, compressing the room, and the first stone Liu Fai had moved returned to flush. “Back to step one,” he said.

  “No. Worse.” Jack pointed at the floor, tracing the lines from corner to corner. “This room was a cube. Now it’s a rectangle.” He counted the blocks. The floor had measured five by five. Now the count was three by five. “One step forward . . .”

  “Two steps back,” said Liu Fai. “Penalties for errors. Three more, and if we aren’t diced or skewered, we will be squashed like pancakes.”

  Sadie stared at the boys, looking from one to the other.

  “What?” asked both at the same time.

  “You do realize that you’ve started finishing each other’s sentences, right?”

  After a long, uncomfortable silence, Jack doused his fire and knelt at the center of the chamber. “I think it’s time to Google the solution”—he held his palm an inch above the floor—“tracker style.”

  Sadie winced. So did Liu Fai.

  Tracker style had sounded cooler in Jack’s head than when it came out. “Gwen did it first,” he said with an embarrassed shrug. “Kind of.”

  The others just frowned at him. Jack let it go. He closed his eyes and pushed his hand down onto the cold, black stone.

  The floor evaporated, and Jack dropped through the dark shadows of time. Stone had a long memory, but without the vibrant detail of metals or jewels. Jack landed where he had started, gray vapors spreading out from the impact, but the chamber no longer hemmed him in.

  Silhouettes moved all around him, thousands of them. The murmur of their voices blended into a uniform hum, broken by sharp, echoing commands. The one barking the orders stood near Jack, directing a mass of silhouettes in and around the chamber. He stood taller than the rest, wearing a hat with a broad flat top like an exaggerated graduation cap.

  Jack concentrated on the men under Flat-cap-guy’s command. He pushed away the smoke between them, fighting to bring their work into focus. They were building the mystery box.

  Pushing the vision back and forth through short spurts of time, Jack saw how the box worked—most of it, anyway. The first step released a series of weights that had pulled the wall back. A clockwise turn of the gear would drop a plate into place to stop the swinging blade and raise a hidden pin, allowing three movable blocks to pop out from the adjacent wall. To avoid being crushed by the roof, they would have to push them in the right sequence.

  “They work like a three-button combination lock,” said Jack a few minutes later, after guiding Liu Fai through the first two steps. He pressed the three moving blocks, reciting the sequence out loud. “All the way in. Halfway in. All the way in.”

  Jack pulled the others to the middle of the chamber and looked up. A single block, smaller than the rest, flipped up and out of the way.

  “Air,” said Sadie with a sigh. “Not exactly fresh air, but it’s something. What next?”

  “I . . . don’t know. The vision got blurry, so I couldn’t see the last step.” Jack stared up at the opening. “But it’s got to have something to do with that hole, right?”

  Even as he asked the question, a blinding white light shined down through the opening. Jack shielded his eyes. Something bonked him on the head, clattering to the floor. “Hey!”

  Sadie picked up the object. “A phone.”

  “Gwen’s phone.” Jack recognized the purple-and-black striped case. He took the device from his sister’s hand. “But how—?”

  A cone of light descended into the cube, and Jack saw a familiar pattern of blue thrusters. He laughed. “Spec!”

  “He came to rescue us.” Sadie clapped her hands and held out a fist. The drone rammed her knuckles, shaking off the impact. “Good boy!”

  Liu Fai looked utterly confused. “And this is . . .”

  “I’ll explain later.” Jack held up the phone. “Spec, why did you bring me this?”

  The drone dipped down below Jack’s forearm and pressed it upward, raising the phone to eye level. Then he slipped sideways and waited.

  “He wants you to use his video,” said Sadie.

  “Can’t,” said Jack. “The phone’s locked.”

  “Then figure out the password.” She put her hands on her hips. “It’s only four letters. What sort of detective are you?”

  Jack got the feeling his sister already knew, or suspected the answer. He had a suspicion too, though he hated to admit it. He typed in the letters W I L L.

  The screen quivered. INCORRECT. TRY AGAIN.

  Sadie poked him in the arm. “Wrong. Try the other name you’re thinking of.”

  Jack swallowed and typed it in. J A C K.

  With a light ba-ding, the home screen appeared.

  Sadie giggled. “You are Gwen’s password.”

  “You know what they say.” Liu Fai’s lips spread into a grin. “A woman’s home screen is the window to her soul. In Gwen’s case, you are the key.”

  “Quiet. Both of you.” Jack pressed a little picture of Spec, and an app opened, filling the screen with live video. Spec shot up through the hole. On the phone, Jack could see his light panning across the roof. “Good. This is good. I can see four levers, one on each side of
the opening, connected to pulleys.” He cupped a hand to his mouth. “Spec! Show me where those ropes lead!”

  Three of the pulley systems led up to a huge vat of mercury, poised to spill down into the chamber. The fourth led to a hatch in the far wall.

  “I suppose that is good news,” said Liu Fai, watching over Jack’s shoulder. “If we had pulled the wrong lever, we would not have been diced, skewered, or squashed.”

  “Yeah. We would have been drowned in quicksilver. That’s so much better.” Jack dropped the phone into a pocket and put a hand on Liu Fai’s shoulder. “Here. Give me a boost.”

  Moments later, he was reaching for the opening, kneeling on Liu Fai’s shoulders. “Keep it steady, will you?”

  “I’m trying.” Liu Fai had a death grip on Jack’s calves, teetering back and forth, face contorted with discomfort. “You have incredibly bony shins. Did you know that?”

  Jack squeezed his hand up through the hole and caught hold of a lever. “Got it!”

  “Wait,” said Liu Fai. “Are you certain you have the right one?”

  “Nope.” Jack jerked the lever, and the motion cost him his balance. The two boys collapsed into a heap. They heard a loud ker-chunk, and then a large square piece of the far wall fell open. Spec hovered there, waiting.

  “Where to now?” asked Jack. “Off to rescue Gwen?”

  Spec twirled in a circle and did a backflip.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  SPEC LED JACK AND the others down a sky-blue tunnel. Mythic creatures played on the walls in silver clouds unmarred by the millennia, as if painted the day before. Jack got the feeling of crossing into a heavenly realm. He imagined that was the intent. The passage ended in a regal, twelve-foot archway, inlaid with precious metals in the form of serpentine dragons.

  “I guess this is the place.” Jack took a step across the threshold, but Spec whipped in front of him, red and yellow LEDs spinning. The lights came together into an orange beam that traced down Jack’s jacket to the pocket with the phone.