“Do we have what it takes?” Eddie asked.
Seth saw Eddie suddenly in a hundred years, the same as he was now: short, wearing glasses, talking the way he was, but different. He was a small, wise old man. Eddie, Seth realized, was a wizard.
It frightened Seth, and for a second, his eyes grew large. No one dreamed of doing what these boys were doing. So what, he thought? They couldn’t believe it when they woke up to each new day. At least he couldn’t.
Kinsey? Where are you? Why do I think you’re closer now?
Seth didn’t know, but he had to stay strong.
We’re going to find you, he thought. We’re coming for you. Don’t lose hope. Don’t despair. Just hold on.
“Of course we have what it takes,” Seth answered Eddie. “If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have made it this far.”
Looking at his tightly wrapped friends in their makeshift garb, he saw hope in their eyes.
Eddie nodded, and Seth thought he was smiling under the fabric.
“What’s so funny?” Seth asked.
Eddie shook his head. “You just answered a question I had was all,” he said. “Something about hope.”
Eddie didn’t elaborate. A puzzled look crossed Seth’s face, but he didn’t reply.
Smelling flowers, Seth and the others continued their journey.
iv
Tall, barren cliffs of rock towered on each side as they moved between canyon walls. Clouds moved in and descended, close enough to touch, it seemed. The temperature rose, and it grew noticeably warmer, much to the relief of Seth and his companions.
On the air, however, a stench of such staggering, abominable decay swelled to life, everyone looked at one another, putting their hands over their noses. Seth’s stomach writhed and clenched. His eyes watered.
Crude markers, and broken, wooden posts spotted the canyon walls and floor, many replete with the remains of corpses, bloodied chains stained in blood. The canyon resembled a crude cemetery.
“What the hell is this place?” Albert asked, looking around in horror.
“Fodder for the Dragon,” Eddie said, his hand still under his nose.
Someone, or some thing had taken every living thing it could find, and chained it here to be devoured by something much bigger than they. The remains were still left behind.
The deeper they trekked into the canyon, the darker it became. More crude markers appeared at random, some close beside them, some high up on the cliff walls. Here, though, the beasts were alive. Some clawed and nipped at their chains as they passed. Some clawed at the boys and barked like dogs.
A small, human skeleton was chained to a marker to Seth’s left. Had Sadie McCall been taken from his home and chained to one of these crude posts to be devoured by the Dragon? Had Howard, Tanisha, and Hailey? Whatever the case, Eddie had been right. This was fodder.
Seth looked up along the cliff walls. Beasts howled and yelped, their cries echoing through the canyon. High above and below, several feet from where Seth and his friends walked, tortured animals, monsters, and other creatures either fought the chains, or lie still, watching them pass. To Seth’s right, on a ledge just ten feet above him, a creature gnawed on a human arm. Another figure to his left lie on a metal frame, which might have been a bed at one time, covered in thousands of tiny red spiders. Caking his eyes and mouth, the man seemed to vanish under a vermilion carapace. Rats were everywhere, squeaking and lumbering through and over the carnage.
“My God,” Eddie said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
The others kept their gazes to the ground but continued on.
Darkness moved through the air, and the atrocities worsened as they walked along. Seth couldn’t avert his eyes. His knees weakened. He stopped moving and put a hand to his head.
Was this another ruse of the Dragon, an attempt to drive them mad, forcing them back the way they’d come, and give up their quest? They still had to rescue Kinsey, and Seth would face whatever horror in order to find her. He took a deep breath and started forward again, catching up with the others.
“Look,” Malcolm said.
Seth almost ran into Gavin. Malcolm was still in the lead. The boys looked toward the horizon, now illuminated in a deep, crimson light.
A massive, towering structure took up the entire sky, reminding Seth of the mountains beyond his backyard. He’d been deceived…he and his friends. The mountains were nothing more than a black gate, leading into the Dragon’s underworld.
No, he thought. That’s not it. That’s not the palace of our dreams.
A barrier of darkness barred the way, the maker of Seth’s sword…like a brother. The edifice took up the entire sky, a citadel of corruption and black magic. It was not a palace, but a vast, looming structure made of night and shadow.
Seth felt it reach out and choke him, filling his mouth with poisonous ink. Fear gripped his heart.
This was not the palace of their dreams. This was death, smoke, and ash. It did not appear physical in any third dimensional context, but was made of darkness, able to snuff out light and life.
“That can’t be it,” Eddie said, his voice suggesting betrayal. The boy began to cry.
“I don’t know where we are,” Gavin said. “Or what’s going on. But I do know that we are not on Earth. Earth disappeared a long time ago. I think we just stepped into the most horrible, bloody aspects of Hell. What do you think of that?”
“I think it flat out stinks,” Albert said.
“We have no choice,” Malcolm said. “We have to go on.”
Something good had to present itself, Seth thought. It was inevitable. It was…hope.
Or we’ll die, he thought. All of us. We’ll die.
The horrors followed them as they made their way to the black palace, but it was not as far as they’d thought. A half hour of steady travel—ignoring the cries from the monsters on all sides—brought them to the base of the massive, black structure.
A smoky substance oozed from its walls, lightly caressing Seth’s face. He reached out, and when he made contact, black particles vanished in the air.
This is your final corruption, the palace suggested. Sadie’s here. Howard, too. They’re waiting for you. We have skinned Ben alive. We’ve been supping on his flesh.
Seth shook his head, trying to dislodge the palace’s influence.
The Dragon was trying to blacken his heart, suggesting how wrong everything beautiful was. Beauty itself was a betrayal, an illusion, born from madness. Light could not penetrate dark. Here, all light was extinguished. Light suffered in woeful oblivion. The fortress coaxed him toward a vast, evil pleasure, momentary in its guise. Seth was born from darkness, it said. Into darkness, he’d return, because, here, darkness could not be destroyed.
Seth fell to his knees and put his hands over his face.
One of his friends said something in his ear. A hand grabbed his arm, trying to pull him to his feet. Seth couldn’t see because of the blackness. Another hand pushed him deeper into the earth, submerging him in shadow.
It clutched his throat, clogging his breath. He suddenly couldn’t breathe. Blackness congealed in the core of his belly, and he did not have the strength to resist. He was about to be torn into a thousand, bloody fragments.
“Seth?” It was Eddie. “Seth? Are you okay?”
He was weeping, and when he looked at his hands, they were wet with blood. A pool gathered between his knees. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth.
Ben, said a voice. But not in his head. It was Malcolm, coming through eons of space. Malcolm was saying the tiger’s name.
Yes. He must think of Ben, how important Ben was, how…magical.
“Seth? Seth? Snap out of it!”
Eddie and Malcolm tugged at him, pulling him to his feet, and finally his vision cleared. He was no longer bleeding, but he was crying. His body trembled. The black had betrayed him, his dreams of palatial skies. He was not here among the ruins. He was with his friends.
A str
ange thing happened when he looked at the faces around him. They were not the boys he remembered, the boys he’d traveled weeks with through the mountains. Grown men stood around him now, aged by years. Their garb was different, lost to a forgotten fantasy. Seth was in the presence of knights and Viking warriors. Yet, somehow, the figures were still those of the boys he knew.
They carried swords and shields. Albert held a battle-axe, a full, lengthy red beard, eyes and face scarred by years of battle.
Garments made of bearskin covered them, dented helmets. Thick ropey veins stood out on strong arms and legs.
“We’ve come too far to lose ya that easily,” Malcolm said, in a thick nautical accent. It was not the voice of a child.
Seth found air somehow and managed to breathe again.
“Now’s, not a good time to leave us, sire,” Malcolm said, still the Viking.
Eddie patted him on the back, a large calloused hand twice the size of his own. Eddie was not wearing glasses. “Are you okay, my Liege?” he said.
Seth nodded, took a deep breath, and motioned for them to continue. They walked on, and soon, they were up the steps and at the black doors of the palace.
Malcolm stopped and turned, facing the others. In a flash, they were boys again: Malcolm at eleven, his friends at ten, looking at him with concern.
“Are you okay?” Malcolm asked, unaware of any change.
Seth nodded. “Let’s go.”
“This can’t be it,” Albert said, looking at the towering edifice, one hand still dragging the sled of deer meat.
Malcolm hesitated, the others looking at him expectantly. Seth turned and looked over the wasteland they’d just come through, no longer mountains or hills that he could see. The wind was harsh, but the snow had disappeared.
“Who wants the honors?” Malcolm asked.
No one replied.
“Maybe, since you’ve become our guide,” Gavin said. “You’ve already elected yourself.”
Malcolm managed a grin despite the situation. The boy looked comical wrapped in torn shirts, glasses covering his eyes. Regardless, he grabbed the large, iron black ring—something the size of his own head—and pulled. Not as difficult as he’d thought…the door opened easily, its apex twenty feet above their heads.
Seth pulled the shredded T-shirt from his face, so he could breathe easier. The others did the same.
Inside, a deeper darkness waited, seeping outside. Tendrils of shadow moved like smoke.
“I’m not going in there,” Eddie said.
“What is that?” Albert asked, referring to the tangible black.
“I don’t know,” Malcolm said, reaching out to touch it. Under his fingertips—as Seth had done earlier—the black dissipated and vanished in the air.
“There must be another way,” Eddie said.
No one replied. Malcolm curiously leaned toward the open doorway.
“Kinsey could be in there somewhere,” Seth told them.
They turned to face him, the ancient warriors he’d seen seconds ago.
“Seth’s right,” Albert said. He let go of the rope he used to drag the deer meat. “We’ll come back for it.”
No one replied.
Instead, all of them took a deep breath, and stepped into the black palace.
v
The dark pushed at them from all sides. Whatever happened to Seth earlier was now happening to the others.
Behind them, the door closed with a clang, trapping them inside.
Seth reached out and felt for the coat of one of his friends.
“Who has the flashlights?” Gavin asked.
“I didn’t think to get it out,” Malcolm said. “Hold on.”
A swirling wind moved around them. Something caressed Seth’s chin and cheeks. The dark, he realized, was feeling him. He shuddered and tried to breathe.
Soon, a light appeared. Malcolm had the flashlight out, but it was virtually useless. The black was so thick it cut the beam to a bare illumination.
“We should hold onto each other,” Malcolm said.
Linking hands, the five of them made their way through the darkness.
“Stairs,” Malcolm said from up ahead.
“Excuse me?” Gavin said.
“Stairs.”
They paused. Eddie, gripping Seth’s hand, took several steps forward.
“Be careful,” Malcolm said. “I can see a light down here. I think there’s torches lining the walls.”
Seth followed, firmly gripping Eddie’s glove. Soon, he was feeling for the steps with his boots.
Another fresh, gory smell drifted up from below, making them pause. No one said anything, and one by one, they descended. Lights from several torches blazed, sending shadows across red walls. They let go of one another, holding onto the railing, and continued down. Rats screeched, making noises at their feet. Albert kicked one, sending it down into the dark, and a light splash followed.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Eddie said.
They continued down the staircase. Albert repeatedly kicked at the rats, making noises of disgust. The others took up the task and were doing the same, kicking rodents into the dark. Screeches followed, small splashes from below.
Halfway down, Malcolm stopped, and everyone halted behind him. “Oh my God,” he said.
A shimmering, blood-coated mass of muscle and sinew hovered in the air to their right. It was roughly the size of a small house, pulsing in a slow, steady rhythm.
Blood dripped from the ceiling in long, thick rivulets. The floor below was a vast pool of gore. Ropes of taut muscle and sinews stretched and crisscrossed to the walls. They were walking through a wide, chest-like cavity. The palace was not a palace at all, but a giant living thing.
Large black spiders—bigger than Seth had ever seen—crawled over the shimmering, scarlet surface. Rats scampered, whiskers twitching, across ropey veins of muscle.
“I think we should get the hell out of here,” Gavin said.
The muscled organ was not beating to a rhythm at all. It pulsed outward with the pressure of hands, feet, and faces from within.
“Oh my God,” Seth repeated Malcolm.
If he lived to be an old man, he’d labor to rid his mind of this horror. The quest had taken another turn, yet his task had only begun…and it started here.
They could not run up the stairs, Seth knew. They had to go below.
“That can’t be what I think it is,” Albert said, in an awed whisper.
“We’re not in a palace at all, are we?” Eddie asked.
“It doesn’t seem so,” Malcolm told him.
“Come on,” Albert said. “Let’s go.” He turned, but Seth called him back.
“No,” he said, firmly.
Albert stopped and turned.
“We have to stay here,” Seth said. “We have to go down. It’s the only way. If we go up, we’ll never make it out alive. Please. For Kinsey. Trust me.”
Albert looked dubious, but didn’t question him. The boy looked at Malcolm.
Malcolm shook his head. “Seth’s right. We have to stay. For Kinsey.”
Albert nodded, took a deep breath, and looked over the railing at the massive organ.
“What are we supposed to do?” Eddie asked.
Seth didn’t say anything, but started down the bloody staircase, moving past his friends. He unsheathed his sword.
“Ah, I think I know what the lad has in mind,” Malcolm said, reverting to the Viking warrior. Seth turned, but he was only a boy again.
He moved down the steps and was soon at the bottom of the stairs. Everyone waited on the staircase.
“You’ve got to be kidding, right?” Gavin said, knowing what Seth was about to do.
“There’s no other way,” Malcolm said.
Rats swam through pools of blood. Seth kicked aside a ribcage, a skull without a jaw.
“But there’s no way out down here,” Gavin said. “This is it. We’ll have to go back up.”
Seth ignored
him. The floor moved. His stomach did unsettling flops. The smell was atrocious, heavy and ghastly, and he put a hand to his face.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Albert said, impatiently. “Hurry up, Seth!”
Something squished and popped under his boots.
Ellishome was undergoing a slaughter of unholy proportions. Had the Dragon created similar scenes across the stars, battling Ben in its perfect death?
The bleeding organ was too high to reach. Seth moved to the lower, taut sinews keeping it suspended, and raised his sword. He swung the blade, cutting easily through ropes of muscle. The organ rocked above his head, descending closer to the floor. Spiders scurried. Rats fell, twittering and screeching in the blood at his feet.
A piercing din echoed from somewhere far away. The walls trembled.
His friends waited anxiously on the stairs. Eddie hopped from one foot to the other. “Come on, Seth!”
He moved to another strand and swung the sword again. The tendon snapped. The heart swayed, rocked, and descended again. More trembling ensued, and the palace began to shake and rumble all around them. Another shriek echoed through the darkness. Seth moved under the organ, positioning the sword above his head, close enough to reach now.
“Be careful,” Gavin said from the staircase, eyes wide.
Seth set the sword firmly against the organ’s surface, thrusting upward with all his might. He drew the blade backwards, making a deep incision above his head.
Blood gushed, spilling over his face, dousing his clothes and backpack. Creatures, live things, descended, piling to the floor. Another scream pierced the air, and the black palace underwent what could only be a seizure.
Seth turned and bolted for the stairs. His friends, he saw, were already running up ahead of him.
The walls shook.
“Go go go!” Seth wailed, taking the steps two at a time, the sword by his side.
Black claws nipped at his collar, shadowy fiends trying to pull him back down the stairs. Laments rose, the things in its stomach, and all around, the black palace began to crumble.
Seth hurried up the staircase after the others. The walls, black brick and plaster fell at his feet. The ceiling was caving in. Seth put his arm above his head to ward of the debris.
Snapdragon Book II: In the Land of the Dragon Page 19