The Case of Firebane's Folly

by Liam O'Donnell

I had dropped the panzantium into the Abyss.

  It was official. We were totally doomed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Into the Abyss

  Things didn’t look good.

  I picked myself up and unkinked my tail.

  Firebane had dumped me on what was left of the town hall’s roof. All that remained was a crumbling ledge around a dragon-sized hole.

  A spider leg appeared from the hole and gripped the ledge.

  “Hugo!” I dragged my friend to the safety of the ledge. “You’re alive.”

  “And so are you,” he said.

  Above us, Firebane roared.

  “And so is he.” I hung my head. “Hugo, I dropped the stone.”

  “That’s okay.” Hugo raised an arm. “I found it.”

  He handed me something wrapped in web. I pulled off the sticky wrapping and held the familiar purple stone.

  “The panzantium! How?”

  “You had perfect aim when you dropped it.” He pointed to the hole. “It sailed right down the shaft, and I found it in one of my webs.”

  “You caught that tiny stone in that hole?” I said.

  “Sure.” He smiled. “Catching little things in our webs is what we spiders do.”

  Lava Falls was living up to its name. From the top of the town hall, we could see fire folk marching through the streets, setting alight anything that would burn. Surprisingly, for a town surrounded by lava, that turned out to be a lot. Smoked filled the air, marking the fire folk’s path.

  Hugo adjusted a thick rope made of web he was putting around my waist. As he spun the web, he told me his plan to stop Firebane, and what had happened to Tank and Aleetha. My scales froze at the news.

  “Are you sure they’re gone?” I stared at the gaping hole in the roof. “We need to go down there and find them!”

  Hugo shook his head. “We need to stop Firebane.”

  I couldn’t think about stopping Firebane at that moment. I could barely think at all. My two best friends were gone, and so was my will to fight. I just wanted to curl up in a ball, wrap my tail around me and forget that I’d ever come to the Dark Depths.

  “Fizz, snap out of it.” Hugo tugged on the web tied to my waist. “We have to stop Firebane, or we’ll lose more than just our two friends.”

  The dark shape of the dragon appeared in the distance just beyond the lava lake. He flew toward Lava Falls.

  “He’s coming back,” Hugo said. “Just like you said he would, Fizz.”

  The sight of Firebane jolted me out of my misery.

  “I knew that stone was sending out a signal to the fire folk and lagalanders,” I said. “He has to fly over every few minutes to keep them under his control.”

  Firebane soared toward the town hall. Hugo stepped to the edge of the roof. In one hand he held the end of the length of web tied to my waist. The spider waited until Firebane roared over us.

  “Hang on!”

  Hugo leaped from the roof. The web around my waist snapped tight, and I was pulled into the air after him. Using his front legs, Hugo spun new strands of webbing and swung from building to building, following Firebane’s path. I whiplashed through the air after Hugo as he chased Firebane. Hugo gained speed and I gained momentum, swinging wildly behind him, moving twice as fast.

  Then, just as we came within reach of the crown, Hugo gave me one last whip and sent me into the air. The plan was to sail toward the crown so fast that Mr. Older Than the Mountain wouldn’t even notice.

  We nailed the moving-fast part. The going unnoticed? Not so much.

  Firebane crashed into the town square and didn’t get up. He lay there like a fallen building, with his scales cracked and his head scorched. We had outsmarted the king of smarts. The most fearsome monster in the mountain was down for the count. The crown lay beside him, dented and smoking. The two panzantium stones had fused together to become one very unstable stone. The glow from the stone grew brighter by the second, until it exploded in a flash of blinding purple light.

  Captured monsters poured out from the stone as its power burned away. Queen Azelia, Principal Weaver and Lord Dunhelm burst from the panzantium and into the town square. They stumbled around, dazed from their ordeal, as more spiders and dwarves poured out of the stone. Hugo and I watched from a distance until my spider friend spotted the one monster he’d been hoping to see.

  “Father!” Hugo rushed to where Captain Scorn staggered around the square. He wrapped him in an eight-legged hug.

  My tail warmed to see Hugo reunited with his father. I thought of Tank and Aleetha, and the warmth vanished. My friends were gone. There’d be no reunion for us.

  “There he is!”

  The shout came from the other side of the square. Two shapes pushed through the crowd of monsters. I stood stunned as troll and lava elf rushed across the square.

  “Nice shooting, little goblin!” Tank gave me a scale-crushing hug.

  “I knew a goblin in a slingshot would do it!” Aleetha jumped in and made it a reunion to remember.

  “How? Who?” was all I could say when Tank dropped me to the ground.

  Before she could explain, a commotion broke out around Firebane. The dragon was waking up from the blast the stone had given him. His tongue hung out through his fangs like a wet towel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dancing in the Dark Depths

  It was party time in the Vale of Webs.

  With Lava Falls still smoldering, Queen Azelia invited us all back to her web for a feast. And, as a special treat, the students of Gravelmuck were not the main course. Even Henelle was happy to hear that.

  The queen’s royal web was alive with music, laughter and swinging spiders. All monsters from the Depths were invited to the party. For the first time in the history of the dark region, spiders and dwarves mixed with lagalanders and fire folk (who turned out to be very good at not burning stuff like cities made of spiderwebs). A dwarven brass band blasted out the tunes while spiders jigged with their new fish-head friends. High above, young spiders swung through the webs with my classmates in tow. They slingshotted my schoolmates through the air like Hugo had me. From the sounds of Rizzo Rawlins’s delighted barks, everyone was having a good time. I sat with my friends in a quiet corner and watched the fun from a distance. I’d had enough web swinging to last me a dragon’s lifetime.

  Hugo dropped down to us, dangling from a silky strand.

  “Congratulations, detectives!” The spider had not stopped smiling since we left Lava Falls. “You solved another case and saved the day!”

  “You’re the real hero, Hugo,” Tank said. “You’re the one who defeated Firebane Drakeclaw.”

  “I had help from my friends.”

  “Yeah,” Aleetha said. “Nice swinging up there, Fizz. Tank and I saw it all from the ground.”

  “I’m always happy to be a dragon distraction!” I said. “But I still don’t understand how you survived a fall into the Abyss.”

  “It’s simple, really.” Tank took a deep breath, and I knew what was coming was going to be anything but simple. “The Abyss is really a regenerative energy system that swallows stuff, breaks down its energy components and then reassembles them at a spot directly above it. They are extremely rare but a totally natural wonder of the mountain.”

  “But it was eating the mountain,” I said. “We all saw it chewing up the rocks like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

  “True.” Tank’s ears wiggled. “But it also spat the rocks back out again. We didn’t see that because the rocks reappeared about halfway up the mountain, far above the braces.”

  “So the Abyss has been eating rocks and spitting them back out all these years?” Hugo said. “The mountain has never been at risk of getting swallowed?”

  “Nope,” Tank said.

  “Tank and I think Firebane knew that the whole time,” Aleetha said. “He made up the story of the dangers of the Abyss and built the braces to try to win control of the Depths all those years ago.”
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  “Instead, the spiders and dwarves made him share,” I said. “And he’s been mad about it ever since.”

  “Dragons can sure hold a grudge,” Tank grumbled.

  They can hold secrets too. Before the spiders and dwarves dragged him away from the town square, Firebane called me over to where he lay on ground. He was still dazed from his fall, but his eyes shone with knowledge.

  “Well done, Fizz,” he croaked. “You refused to give up. Your mother will be proud.”

  My tail curled at the dragon’s words.

  “Did you know my mother? You said her name when you dropped me on the ground.”

  “I knew her when she was just a baby.” A smile crossed Firebane’s snout. His eyes still danced, but now they looked beyond me and far from the Depths. “I was good friends with her mother, your grandmother.”

  “You knew my grandma?”

  Firebane chuckled. “Let’s just say you and I could have held the panzantium stone to unlock its powers.”

  The spiders hoisted Firebane into the air and carried him away before I understood what he meant. I’m still not sure I get it.

  LIAM O’DONNELL is an award-winning children’s book author and educator. He’s written over thirty-five books for young readers, including the Max Finder Mystery and Graphic Guide Adventure series of graphic novels. Liam lives in Toronto, Ontario, where he divides his time between the computer and the coffeemaker. Visit him anytime at www.liamodonnell.com or follow him on Twitter @liamodonnell.

  MIKE DEAS is an author/illustrator of graphic novels, including Dalen and Gole and the Graphic Guide Adventure series. While he grew up with a love of illustrative storytelling, Capilano College’s Commercial Animation Program helped Mike fine-tune his drawing skills and imagination. Mike and his wife, Nancy, currently live in sunny Victoria, British Columbia. For more information, visit www.deasillustration.com or follow him on Twitter @deasillustration.