The dark streets were not as crowded as Matt expected, but now and again they passed a huddled group of riders. What they were whispering about, Emma did not know or care. A bent, old man in black robes stood in one doorway, scraping a whetting stone across a long sword, and sat on a jagged piece of rock thrust up from the depths of the earth below was a young girl, a bow hanging loosely in her hands. The opening in the ground behind her was immense, and Emma shuddered at the thought of falling back over into the gorge.
They passed by two road-side shops – crates set up as counters and dark cloths hung overhead as a roof. One sold weapons, while the latter supplied buyers with items needed on long journeys. The old woman of the item store grabbed Emma by the arm as she walked by, and pushed a rather odd, green item up towards her face.
‘The elixir of life!’ breathed the crazed peddler, the fingers around the bottle of emerald liquid as thin as bones. ‘It is the Dragon Lord’s secret.’
‘N-no thank you,’ stammered Emma, pulling her arm away, but the old lady dug her fingernails in deeper.
‘A onetime only price,’ whispered the woman fervently. ‘To such a young girl with such intelligent eyes I will –’
‘Back off!’ growled Simon – who now noticed the woman walking beside them – and stepped between her and Emma. The woman instantly reversed back into the shadows of her tiny shop. ‘Crazy old hag … but can’t expect everyone around here to be completely sane.’
‘Careful,’ warned Flynn from behind. He – like Simon – was now ignoring Matt’s order of formation and walking just to Emma’s left. ‘I’ve already seen a few shifty looks our way. I don’t think we look – or rather – act like we belong here. Emma –’ he gave her a raised eyebrow ‘– you need to stop looking so petrified. Why would a Dark Rider fear their domain?’
‘Why don’t you give yourself an inspection, Flynn,’ said Simon tartly. ‘You there hooded and avoiding everyone’s gaze as though they had the plague or something. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?’
Flynn glowered at Simon.
‘In that case, your ill-mannered attitude will make up for everyone’s faults,’ retorted the thief. ‘It seems to be the general mood around here.’
‘And you’re the general problem,’ muttered Simon, but only quietly enough for Emma to hear.
A wide ravine met them next, and as the group moved closer to the edge, Emma saw how deep it was. The darkness seemed to never end, but smoke rose from somewhere below – a sign that the bottomless pit did in fact have an end. They crossed a wide bridge farther to their right with gaps so wide between the planks of steel that Simon caught his foot in one halfway across.
Amongst the houses on the other side, there were also tents and stairs leading down into the ground. Iron signposts marked these residences, with names or numbers scraped across the hard metal. Children in black and red suits loitered near a wall of old stone, some sitting on top while the rest stood below. Between two small boys sat a baby drayskul, its little self almost cute.
Across another bridge, the group was in a more civilized part of Vashgal. The houses were bigger here with fewer cracks in the walls and windows with actual glass. The remains of dead trees stood beside some homes, but nothing else grew. More people were around, but more guards as well. They were closer to the Black Fortress now, and Emma could see the gate to its front grounds not far ahead. It reminded her of the entrance to a graveyard.
‘Psst!’
Emma glanced down at the ground to see Mystic poke his head out from the inside of a hollow tree. It had decayed so much at the bottom that even a cat could fit inside.
‘Mystic!’ whispered Emma, and then cautiously glanced around.
The group huddled around the tree, pretending to talk amongst themselves. Matt looked straight at Emma when he asked, ‘Where have you been?’
She – at first – felt inclined to respond, but Mystic answered, ‘Searching the city, and what a city it is: filled with outcasts and servants of Vanyir. I knew he kept a large collection of followers, but never this many … it’s been a long time since I saw such a crowd of riders.’
‘What about prisoners?’ enquired Flynn. ‘Where are they kept?’
‘Where else?’ Mystic nodded to a solid, black building just a short distance away. The bars on the windows and the guards out front were obvious signs of a prison. ‘That’s where Vanyir tosses spies, thieves, and anyone else who despises him. Of course, special guests have a place in his personal prison.’
‘Right,’ said Flynn, ‘that’s our first stop.’
‘Are you crazy?’ questioned Matt, grabbing Flynn by the arm before he ran off. ‘Charging into a jailhouse won’t do you any good. If I were you, I’d avoid any confrontation with anyone. You might be recognized.’ He glanced between Simon and Emma. ‘You two, on the other hand, might just be unnoticed.’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ growled Mystic.
‘Thank you,’ murmured Simon, horrified by Matt’s plan.
‘Think, Matt,’ continued Mystic. ‘What if they realize that she has the Sapphire Stone? Not only will they take it, but – depending on the riders – they might kill her too.’
‘Oh, worry about her,’ muttered Simon, crossing his arms. ‘I thought –’
‘I can’t go in,’ argued Matt, ‘and neither can Titus. His eyes would give him away. Flynn has his heredity against him, and Lanai … her accent.’
Beside Flynn, the thieving girl stiffened.
‘So it’s only right that we send in the two that are most unlikely to be discovered as outsiders,’ concluded Matt.
The cat mulled this over in his head. ‘I suppose it does make some bit of sense,’ he muttered, ‘but if it goes wrong, it’ll be all over for us. Once Vanyir claims that stone … well, who knows what he’ll do with a completed Dragon’s Tear. I don’t want to imagine the possibilities.’
‘Just check for Sheena,’ said Matt, ignoring Mystic’s warning.
‘Red hair,’ added Flynn.
With a reassuring nod, Matt sent the two off towards the prison. The others waited by the dead tree, silently watching. Emma knew this was a horrible idea, and the only trait they had to go by to find Flynn’s sister was her hair colour. What if more than one prisoner had red hair?
‘Matt’s gone crazy,’ muttered Simon once they were out of earshot. He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the others. ‘I mean, he’s always been a little … impulsive, but never like this! Asking us to go into a prison … don’t you think he’s gone mad?’
‘I think he’s looking at the risks and benefits of the situation,’ Emma whispered back.
‘Well there are plenty of risks,’ said Simon sullenly, ‘like risking our lives.’
Three Dark Riders stood outside the dungeon walls, all in black masks and carrying shock rods. They were sitting on wooden boxes, talking in brief sentences and laughing amongst themselves. Emma kept her head down and her breath held as she and Simon slipped past them. The guards seemed not to notice as she pushed open the heavy steel door and entered the dark prison. Simon followed close behind.
‘Whoa …’ he muttered, and then, ‘… whoa.’
On the outside the prison had looked small, like a house, but on the inside it was much different. The main room was just an entrance to another section of the dungeon. It was empty though, save for the desk at the back. A wide archway behind the wooden table led down into the darkness. Two lanterns hung on either side of the opening.
‘I don’t think this was one of Matt’s benefits,’ said Simon grimly, lifting a lantern out of its holder and looking down into the gloom. ‘Who knows where that could lead …’
‘It hopefully leads to Sheena,’ said Emma, taking the other lantern. She held the light at arm’s length. ‘Why don’t they have flashlights here?’
Simon shrugged. ‘Maybe this Vanyir guy is old-fashioned.’
‘Let’s hope his prison is old-fashioned too,’ said Emma uneasily. She would
hate to walk down into some sort of highly advanced dungeon with more traps and tricks than imaginable.
They walked cautiously down the long, stone stairway – Emma reminded now and again of a passageway in Dracula’s castle – and arrived in an equally dark corridor. The air was heavy with the revolting stench of sweat and blood, and Emma covered her nose in disgust.
‘Which way?’ she asked, looking down the left path and then to the right.
‘I say right,’ replied Simon, shining his lantern in that direction. ‘That way looks longer. More likely to be jail cells down there.’
They hurried down the passageway, now eager to find Sheena and get out of the repulsive prison. The lantern swung dangerously in Emma’s hand as she ran, but she paid little notice to it. She was busy staring at the patterns on the wall. They were carved into strange shapes, all resembling a certain creature or item from an era long gone. She noticed Simon studying the carvings too, and noticed the bewildered expression on his face.
‘This place is strange,’ he said when they had both stopped at the centre of a circular room. ‘It’s more than strange. Did you see the walls back there?’
‘I did,’ replied Emma, ‘but I didn’t understand what was carved into them. It looked like … a timeline of some sort. It was weird.’
‘Weird is right,’ said Simon, shining his lamp around the room. ‘It’s almost like we’re in the ruins of a very old house.’
‘An underground house?’
‘Well, it probably wasn’t underground then.’ Simon held the lantern up to the wall at the back of the room, revealing yet another pattern. ‘Check this out.’
Emma stepped over towards him and looked up. It was not a pattern at all. It was a carving of a map, delicately engraved into the wall showing each and every turn and corner of the dungeons.
‘We’re right … here.’ Simon pointed at a small circle on the map called the Charting Room. ‘Man, this place is huge! Good thing we didn’t take the other way.’ He indicated the set of stairs leading up into a passageway marked Path 2, Flight 1. ‘Who knows where we would have ended up …’
Emma pointed to the hallway labelled Prisoner’s Run.
‘We go there, then, just down that corridor ahead.’
‘Seems that way,’ said Simon, glancing from the map to the unexplored hallway. ‘Let’s go.’
With the memory of the map in mind, it was much easier to navigate the old, dark prison. More figures lined the walls as they travelled deeper, and sometimes they would notice a helmet, a mask or a swordstick on the dungeon floor. No Dark Riders were seen, though, and Simon figured it must have been because of the horrid smell. Emma agreed.
‘Do you hear that?’ demanded Simon, abruptly stopping near an archway. He pulled Emma to the side. Hidden in the shadows of the arch, and they both listened.
What they heard were voices. They did not sound very friendly, but they did not sound like Dark Riders, either. In fact, the voices were sort of … mad.
‘I bet there’s a reason why the prisoners are down here,’ said Simon nervously. ‘I bet they’re all loopy.’
‘Or dangerous,’ added Emma quietly, swallowing the lump in her throat.
‘Or both,’ breathed Simon, stepping away from the shadows of the archway. He took a slow step through the opening. ‘Come on. They’re in cells, remember?’
Emma nodded and followed him down the eerie corridor, the crazed voices drifting ever closer towards them. Then came the first set of bars, along with a little plaque hanging on the door with the number 1 engraved onto the brass. There were more cells with more plaques all the way down the hallway, but it was too dark to distinguish the end.
‘Do you see anyone?’ whispered Simon, a faint tremble in his voice.
Emma anxiously glanced through the bars of the first cell. It was too dark to see the back, but she thought she could hear the sound of shifting feet through the blackness. She stepped away from the cell, uneasy from standing so close, and felt bony fingers curl around her shoulder. She screamed and dropped her lantern, the glass shattering and the fire escaping as it hit the stone floor. A hundred screams and shouts seemed to echo in chaos at the commotion, and a pair of pale arms reached out from the first cell, a face as white as death to match it.
‘Simon!’ shrieked Emma, pulling him away from the cell. They stood in the middle of the hallway – back to back – as all the prisoners of the disturbed dungeon leaned against their cell bars, staring out at the two visitors. They looked as thin and pale as corpses, their eyes wide and eerie. Emma could hear her heart above the mixed voices of terror, pounding so hard against her chest she feared it would explode from fear.
‘SILENCE!’
A rough voice shouted out across the hallway, calming the prisoners, and Emma and Simon both glanced back the way they had entered to see someone who was not in a cell. An old man stood before them, dressed in a tattered, brown overcoat and holding a snarled stick as a walking cane. His bony left hand clung onto a ring of keys, which hung from a silver chain tied to his belt. Emma realized that he must have been the one who had grabbed her shoulder.
‘What’re you two doing down here!’ he demanded.
‘N-n-nothing!’ answered Simon, shaken by the man’s deranged appearance. He took a deep breath. ‘Nothing,’ he repeated, and then asked, ‘What are you doing down here?’
The old man gave a chilling laugh, and then drowned it just as quickly with a snarl. His hand clamped tightly down onto Simon’s shoulder and he gave the rider a threatening glare.
‘You arrogant little pup!’ he grunted. ‘Lock you up in one of the cells, I should; teach you a lesson!’
‘P-please, sir!’ exclaimed Emma. She held onto Simon’s arm, frightened that the creepy, old man might drag him off into the darkness. ‘He didn’t mean to offend you! He only wanted to – to ask you who you were!’
The old man grunted, released Simon’s shirt, and then straightened his shabby coat. ‘I’m the keeper of this dungeon, obviously,’ he said. ‘Reg’s my name, and you’d do well to remember it.’
‘Yes, of course, Reg,’ said Emma quickly. ‘You see, we came down here looking for someone.’
‘I can guarantee that no one’s been down here ‘cept me,’ said Reg, casting a suspicious look around. ‘I make sure none of you “Dark Riders” come down into my dungeon.’
‘No, it’s a prisoner we’re looking for,’ said Simon irritably.
‘Ah, I see,’ murmured Reg. ‘In that case, which number are you looking for?’
‘Number?’ Simon glanced down the long, dark hallway filled with two lines of cells. ‘How should I know which number it is? I wasn’t given one.’
Reg grunted. ‘Well, that isn’t very smart, now is it? How’re you supposed to find someone without a number?’
‘What about a name?’ enquired Emma. ‘Do you know if someone named Sheena was taken down here?’
The dungeon keeper shook his head. ‘You’d best search the prison yourselves,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t keep track of names. They’re unimportant to me. Numbers are better, I find. When someone dies, you see, I have to replace the name on the plaque. It got annoying after the first few years, so I switched over to numbers.’
Simon gave Emma a horrifying look, but she quickly turned away. ‘Er – t-thank you, Reg,’ she said. ‘We’ll take things from here.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Reg, giving a slight bow. He then left, fading away into the darkness with nothing but the sound of jangling keys to be heard.
‘Well, wasn’t he lovely?’ said Simon sarcastically, as they made their way down the hallway. ‘How many people do you think had to die before he changed their names to numbers?’
Emma shrugged, daring not to think about it, but a voice to her right said, ‘Thirteen.’
Both of them jumped once again. Simon pulled out his swordstick, prepared for the worst this time around. He shone the lantern in the direction of the voice, into cell number eight, whe
re weakened laughter echoed out of one dark corner. A young man wearing faded, grey clothes walked up to the cell bars and hung his arms out over the horizontal middle bar. His eyes were a deep brown and his hair was a sandy colour.
‘A little young to be wandering around, aren’t we?’ he said.
‘Speak for yourself,’ retorted Simon, offended by the comment.
The prisoner grinned. ‘Well, I am in a dungeon, aren’t I?’
Simon scowled. ‘Why don’t you go back to your – your moaning?’
‘I don’t moan.’
‘Well, whatever it is you crazy people do,’ snapped Simon. He grabbed Emma’s hand and attempted to leave, but she stayed where she was, curious of the stranger.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, recognizing his style of clothing as what the people of the Outlands wore.
‘Emma!’ hissed Simon. ‘What are you –’
‘My name’s Sand,’ said prisoner eight. ‘I was once one of the proud Dragon Marauders.’
‘Then you know Flynn!’ exclaimed Emma excitedly.
‘I knew Flynn,’ corrected Sand.
Simon hung the heavy lantern on the hook next to Sand’s cell, cast a cautious glance down the hall and then asked, ‘How’d you end up in here?’
‘It was a bit of an ambush, really,’ replied Sand. ‘Two years ago, my brother and I were out on a mission. Flynn sent us to take care of a rather nasty creature. Some sort of mutant dragon who was destroying every rider, animal and tree from one side of the Outlands to the other. We were so busy tracking the monster that we didn’t realize we were being tracked. We made short work of the creature, but then those Dark Riders came …’
‘Let me guess,’ said Simon. ‘The Dark Riders made short work out of you?’
Sand chuckled. ‘They wanted us alive, but in the attack, my brother was accidentally killed. I personally wanted to switch places with him after I found out where I was going. They took me to the Black Fortress and … and then …’
‘What?’ breathed Emma.
‘He questioned me,’ said Sand softly. ‘The Dragon Lord himself.’
‘What’s he like?’ questioned Simon quickly. ‘What kind of weapon does he have? Can he use magic or summon dragons? What –’
The Secret World of Dragons Page 22