by SJB Gilmour
This was exciting! Lygon Street in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Carlton was famous for trendy cafes and fashion. Sarah was sure to get a haircut there that was going to be special! She might even get her awful shaggy mop to look halfway decent.
Angela then led the two girls up Grattan Street and into Lygon Street. They walked past dozens of cafes and restaurants, all bustling with the morning crowd. The smells from those cafés were absolutely delicious. Sarah’s belly was starting to grumble. Here and there were shops with designer clothes and stylish shoes. Finally, after walking for nearly four blocks, they came to a bookstore called Readings. Next to Readings was a very trendy, expensive-looking hair salon.
‘Here we are!’ Angela said brightly and led them into the salon. The music was quite loud and the salon was painted in vivid colours. Angela marched the two girls straight up to the counter, past several well-dressed women who were standing in line. A tall, wasp-thin woman with bright orange hair that stuck out in all directions looked up from her appointment book with a severe expression. Her eyes softened when she saw Angela. The two women blew air kisses at each other then the woman ushered the two girls to sit down on a large and very opulent leather couch.
‘This is Romana,’ Angela told the girls. ‘She’ll be looking after you. I’ll just duck in next door for about an hour or so. When I get back, we’ll be going to lunch,’ she told them out loud. Then, in a whisper that appeared to be just inside their ears, Angela advised both girls, ‘Nothing fancy now, and no sorcery!’ She handed Sarah her enchanted mirror. ‘It’ll scream if you open it,’ she advised. ‘So only open it if something awful happens.’ Then she left them.
Sarah tucked the mirror into her pocket then caught her reflection in the long mirror inside the salon. She and Mel looked at each other in the mirror for a few moments and an idea came to them both at once. They grinned wickedly at each other then turned to Romana, who was looking in dismay from Mel’s shoulder-length sleek black hair to Sarah’s much longer shaggy blonde hair.
When Angela arrived back at the salon, she found two almost identical young blonde girls sitting patiently waiting for her. Both had ponytails about the same length, though the hair of one was slightly less glossy than that of the other. Both wore matching school uniforms. Save for Sarah being a slightly heavier build (even though they were both quite skinny) and the difference in eye colour, both she and Mel looked very similar indeed.
When Sarah handed back the mirror, Angela chuckled at their joke. ‘I’m glad you didn’t go dark, Sarah. You don’t have the colouring for it.’ She reached out and touched Mel’s now-blonde hair and rolled her eyes skyward in mock horror. ‘And I’m not sure if you’re meant to be blonde, Mel. Just keep on top of it so your roots don’t show.’ Then she laughed and embraced both girls briefly.
After she had paid the receptionist and thanked Romana, Angela then led the girls across the road to a deliciously fragrant Italian restaurant with large green umbrellas and waiters with tattoos and lots of piercings.
Everything was going fine until all three shivered as a chill passed over them. Sarah heard a faint rushing sound in her ears and her nose tingled ever so slightly. Then the quiet afternoon air was shattered by a violent thunderclap. Thick dark grey clouds appeared in the sky almost instantly and torrential rain began pelting down from above. Diners who had been sitting outside under green and white umbrellas deserted their meals and hurried inside to escape the sudden downpour.
Sarah looked about her and saw the startled expression on Angela’s face. Her eyes were flat and her jaw was set. She fished in her purse for some money and handed it to Mel.
‘You pay the bill,’ she instructed Mel over the noise of the sudden storm.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Sarah.
‘There’s something evil nearby,’ Angela grated between clenched teeth. The sudden storm seemed to have no significance to her. ‘I can feel it. It’s close. It’s disguised though. Look around, Sarah. Can you see anyone around here who doesn’t seem to fit in?’
Frantically, Sarah and Angela looked this way and that at the people surrounding them. Then they spied someone who made the hairs on the backs of their necks rise slightly. It was a man dressed in a dark coat and hat, even though it had been quite warm, waiting at the nearby bus stop.
Mel paid the bill and returned with the receipt as fast as she could. She arrived just in time to see the strange man glaring at them.
The man blinked and seemed both outraged and confused at the same time. He looked from Mel to Sarah and back again in confusion. He seemed unable to tell the two girls apart. Sarah and Mel had meant to get their haircuts the same style and colour for a joke. All of a sudden, it wasn’t so funny.
The man began to mutter something under his breath. The rain picked up even more, as did the wind, which happened to be blowing Sarah’s way. The stench of old sweaty socks and rotten meat was becoming stronger and stronger. His hat blew off and instantly his face and hair became soaked with rain. Strangely, the man shrieked and began rubbing at his face in an effort to get the water off him. It was almost as if the rain was burning him. He seemed to forget all about what he was muttering, as he scampered about the street, knocking over tables and umbrellas. As he capered about to avoid the rain, which was pounding down upon him, he howled in a most un-humanlike voice.
Angela’s eyes narrowed. ‘There you are,’ she muttered and then unleashed a quick spell and the man’s disguise fell away to reveal his true self – an ugly green troll. Then there was chaos! People were screaming and running everywhere. Cars tooted and their tyres screeched. Desperately, the troll looked about in panic, scurrying in a gait much like that of an ape. With its coat and disguise gone, the troll’s entire body suddenly became drenched in rain. Wisps of steam burst from its skin with each raindrop. It howled then ran up the street, knocking over tables and shoving past very startled pedestrians. The troll, now smoking horribly and screaming in an awful voice, ran down Faraday Street and disappeared.
Angela wasn’t about to follow the awful creature. She herded her two charges through the chaos in the restaurant to the bathroom. Once there, she concentrated for a moment, then uttered a brief curse.
‘Damn it, Benjamin,’ she muttered, ‘where are you?’ She turned to the girls. ‘I can’t get hold of Benjamin,’ she told them. ‘He’s not at the office. If there’s one troll, there could be hundreds of the brutes about.’ She swore, which was something Sarah had not ever imagined her most lady-like teacher ever to do. ‘Damnit, she must have escaped. I can’t take you back. We’ll have to go elsewhere.’
‘Where’s that?’ Mel demanded.
Angela’s face clouded. ‘The last place I want to go right now,’ she muttered through clenched teeth. Sarah felt bewildered. She had no idea what her teacher was talking about.
‘Well,’ Angela said to herself with a shrug, ‘I might as well get it over with.’
Sarah and Mel looked at her in confusion. Angela then muttered another very powerful spell and flicked her fingers at the wall. A shimmering portal appeared, and she pushed the two startled girls through.
Shocked, Sarah and Mel looked this way and that. They were in a long dark corridor with walls hewn from stone, and a low ceiling. Smoky burning torches hung from the walls, giving off dim, yellow light. Angela appeared through the portal behind them and the shimmering stopped. The wall was solid again.
‘Where are we?’ Sarah cried. She was quite confused and feeling very frightened.
Mel paused. ‘I think I know where we are,’ she said nervously.
‘Yes Mel. We’re in The Nonagon,’ Angela told her, panting from the effort of casting the spell. Sarah wasn’t sure what was going on, but she had never seen her teacher so angry.
‘Where?’ demanded Sarah.
‘The Sorcerers’ Guild!’ Mel hissed. ‘The Nonagon’s their headquarters. It’s the only way to Conundrum Gate!’
‘What is that?’ Sarah whispered back, ‘and
where?’
Angela panted at the girls. ‘Quiet!’ she hissed. She paused and bent over, clasping her sides, breathing heavily. When she had regained some of her breath, she continued. ‘Conundrum Gate is the most powerful portal in existence, but it’s locked,’ Angela told her in a hoarse whisper. ‘Now keep your voices down. We’re not out of danger yet.’
‘What happened to that troll back there?’ Sarah whispered to her teacher.
‘Good thing about Melbourne is all its lovely unpredictable rain, she panted. ‘Get a troll wet and it’s in big trouble. They breathe through their skin. Very heavy in magnesium. If it gets wet, it burns and they suffocate or melt, whichever happens first. That storm came along just in time.’
Just then, a horrible roar came from the dark end of the corridor. Sarah peered past the dim light of the torches. Two angry-looking red eyes glowed in the darkness. Whatever it was roared again and there was a scraping sound like something metal being dragged along the stone floor. Sarah barely noticed that she had changed form.
‘Uh, oh…’ Mel muttered, taking a step backwards.
Slowly, the creature moved into the light. At first, all Sarah could see was an outline of something very big dragging itself towards them. Then she could see it. Instinctively, she growled and padded towards the creature, her tail low and still, her ears flat. The dragon roared at her and Sarah growled right back, baring her youthful teeth. Her yellow eyes flashed like fire to match the angry red orbs of the dragon.
‘Sarah,’ cautioned Angela. ‘This is no time for heroics!’
Sarah wasn’t scared. For once, she felt fully in control. She crouched low, keeping her belly close to the ground and inched forward to face the huge dragon that outweighed her by close to a hundred to one.
‘Sarah!’ Angela panted. ‘No! He’s too big!’
Mel and Angela were backing away to stand behind her. She felt rather than heard Angela summoning her strength to cast a spell. The dragon paused and roared angrily at Sarah. Then something very strange happened. With every step, Sarah noticed a squelching noise and absently realised that she was soaking wet. She didn’t remember being wet by the rainstorm they had just escaped from. She’d been inside the whole time!
‘What are you doing down here, little wolf?’ the dragon bellowed, smoke seething out of its nostrils. Sarah forgot all about how she so mysteriously got soaking wet.
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah growled back. ‘We were being followed by a troll and then we arrived here.’ She snarled and bared her wolf cub teeth. Then clear thought abandoned her and she moved menacingly towards the dragon.
The dragon laughed scathingly at her. ‘What’s a little cub like you going to do against me?’ it bellowed. ‘I ought to roast you right here, troll or no troll!’
Mel rushed in front of her aunt. ‘Use your eyes if you can, you dumb ugly slateback!’ she yelled at the dragon. ‘She’s a Golden Mane! You hurt her and the Guild will use your scales for dog dishes, you pea-brained gecko!’
The dragon roared angrily at the insult. ‘Is she now?’ it growled. ‘That leaves two insolent little witches for my supper! I like my hags extra crispy!’ The dragon reared its head and breathed in a massive lungful of air. He readied himself to belch a fireball at Mel and Angela, who was still panting from the enormous effort of transporting them through the portal.
The fireball soared past them and exploded on the wall behind them. Then, Angela muttered her spell, clicked her fingers at Mel, and reeled. She clung to the wall in an effort to stay upright. Mel stood stock still for a moment and her eyes glazed over. She turned to face the dragon and, in her aunt’s voice, uttered a spell and pushed out with both hands.
The dragon gave a startled snort and hiccupped. His red eyes whirled with fright as he wrenched his head back to see Sarah, snarling horribly, gripping his tail between her teeth for all she was worth.
Mel shook her head and re-focused her eyes. She seemed disorientated for a moment then, when she saw her aunt nearly passed out on the stone floor of the corridor, she rushed to her and began struggling to drag her away, out of danger.
‘Sarah!’ Mel yelled at her friend to help her.
Sarah wasn’t listening. Just as in the playground with Mandy Kelly all those months ago, rage had taken over. She darted in at the dragon and snapped at one of its forepaws. The dragon roared in pain and outrage. He lunged at her and managed to bite off a few strands of her tail fur as she darted behind him.
‘Look out!’ Angela tried to shout, but her eyes were unfocused and her voice barely made it above a whisper.
Sarah lunged at the dragon’s tail, snarling and growling. It swiped its tail at her, sending her scrambling along the stone floor of the corridor. Her nails scraped on the stones and the pads of her paws, which were quite young and still soft, chafed terribly.
The dragon roared in fury then turned his back on Sarah. He belched a huge fireball at Angela and Mel. Again, Mel’s eyes glazed over and she put one hand up, much like a policeman directing traffic, and the fireball stopped mid-air then turned to water and splashed all over the floor.
Sarah quickly recovered from the blow and bounded around in front of the dragon, once again placing herself between her friends and danger.
‘Hah!’ scoffed the dragon. ‘I have you all now!’ He blasted another fireball, but something went wrong. The fireball was smaller than the first one, and didn’t travel nearly as far. Despite the fact that it was not as powerful, the unfortunate side effect was that the fireball landed right on top of Sarah. She crouched and thrust her wet tail over her nose. She briefly smelled the acrid smoke of her own coat singeing slightly, then the fireball dissipated completely.
Sarah backed away and stared at the dragon. The fireball wasn’t the only thing to shrink! At first the change was barely noticeable. Then it happened faster and faster. The dragon himself was shrinking! Within a few moments, the massive dragon had shrunk to the size of Jimbo, Mel’s firedrake.
Sarah leaped at the opportunity and lunged at the impotently struggling dragon. His deep, rumbling voice was reduced to a high-pitched squawking. Sarah grasped the minute dragon by the throat and crouched down and held him still with her paws.
‘I didn’t come here to bother you!’ she snarled at the dragon. ‘If I let you go, are you going to be nice?’
‘Peace!’ the dragon squeaked. ‘Release me! I’ll see you to The Gate! Just let me go!’ the dragon promised, wriggling to escape Sarah’s vice-like jaws. Even though she was still young, her teeth were very sharp and her jaws were very strong. The poor dragon had suffered a terrible blow to his ego and was quivering frightfully. Sarah held him down for perhaps ten minutes while Mel and her aunt regained their breath. When she had recovered somewhat, Angela stepped up to the pint-sized dragon that Sarah held in her jaws. She had changed her clothing once more into the Amazon armour, complete with sword, knives and bows.
‘That will do, Sarah,’ she said calmly, and picked up the dragon by the tail. Sarah released her grip with great relief. The dragon’s scales were quite sooty and he didn’t taste very nice at all.
Angela dangled the dragon in front of her and swayed him this way and that until they were eye to eye. He tried to belch more fire at her but only succeeded in emitting a tiny flame no bigger than that of a candle.
‘Now you know better than that,’ she chided the dragon. ‘You said something about Conundrum Gate?’ She gave the dragon an awful stare.
The pint-sized dragon squeaked in terror. ‘That way,’ he motioned in the direction he had come from. ‘Down the hall, through my den and up the stairs.’
Angela smiled sweetly at the shrunken dragon. ‘There,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?’ She dropped the dragon, who landed on his rump with a solid sounding ‘whump’.
Sarah padded between Mel and Angela as they walked down the hall, following the dragon’s directions. She turned to Mel.
‘What did you mean when you told
him to use his eyes?’ she asked her friend. ‘And why’d you insult him? I thought you liked dragons?’
Mel shrugged as they entered the sooty cavern that was the dragon’s home. The floor was littered with bones.
‘I do,’ Mel admitted, ‘but he’s a slateback. They’re the most common and stupid of all dragons. They started The Reaches War.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘They’re pyromaniacs. They’ve all got bad eyesight ‘cos they spend so much time staring at fire.’
‘And they are often colour blind,’ Angela added as they crossed the room, stepping over bones and, most disturbingly for Sarah, a blackened human skull. ‘That’s why he couldn’t tell you’re a Golden Mane. To him everything is black and white.’
They reached a long flight of stairs. As they climbed, Sarah looked at Angela. ‘Where are we?’
‘Mel’s right Sarah,’ Angela told her. ‘We’re in The Nonagon. It’s sort of like the Americans’ Pentagon, but it’s got nine sides instead of five. Huge building really. It surrounds the tower that leads up to Conundrum Gate and that’s where we’re going now. Don’t ask me where it is, because I have no idea. Nobody does. There are enchantments on this place so strong that nobody can understand them. The only way here is usually to use a homing amulet. You’ll see sorcerers wearing them. Or, you can do what I did and punch your way through. I could only do that because I knew that dragon was down there and dragons are creatures of habit. Cexil always uses the same spot to come and go from and that leaves a trail that I managed to find. The tower’s hundreds of metres high and at the top is Conundrum Gate.’
‘Here we go,’ Angela said ruefully as they reached the top of the stairs leading out from the dragon’s lair.
At the top of the stairs they could see a large wooden door, reinforced with cast iron strips and studded with bolts. Sarah’s hackles rose and her nose tingled slightly. From the other side of that door came an enormous sense of dread.
Angela swallowed nervously then steeled herself. Sarah looked up at her teacher. She had not been afraid of the dragon. Instead, then she merely seemed exhausted and angry. Now she seemed terrified. What could possibly be worse than a dragon, Sarah wondered?