Trampolining with Dragons

by S. W. Clarke

  “But how do we get to Level 7?” Bocephus asked. “The boundary to Level 6 is impassable. Those jagged rocks—”

  “We fly.”

  The hedgehog dropped the pass into the dust, planting his little fists on his hips. “But that’s impossible. No battler has wings.”

  “You’re right.” Malfius pointed to the pinnacle and the maroon-and-yellow feathered creature that hunched by the leaderboard. “But Ichabod does.”

  Chapter 6

  “I told you! You gotta bob and weave!” Bocephus shouted from his perch on the railing.

  Screeching, Ichabod flapped after Malfius, pecking with his ugly horn-colored beak.

  “That’s easier said than done when you have an Infernal Rooster the size of a Shetland pony chasing you!” With the butt of a spear, Malfius whacked at the bird to keep it away from his head. The beast had already ripped two more quills from his spine. “Besides, I spent my tenure as Scorekeeper evading this wretch, not trying to free it!”

  “If you keep rambling, we’ll never get it loose! You gotta keep its beak occupied while you unchain it!”

  “It’s too intelligent to occupy its attention with the inanimate—”

  “Then damn it, give it something animate – wait, no!”

  Malfius snatched Bocephus and hurled him at the Infernal Rooster.

  Ichabod plucked the hedgehog out of air like seagull swooping for a dropped morsel, threw its head back, and swallowed.

  Then choked.

  Bocephus held onto the Infernal Rooster’s tongue with all his might, quills erect and slathered in saliva. Anytime Ichabod tried to swallow, the pincushion that was Bocephus stabbed him a hundred times in the throat.

  Hacking, Ichabod landed on the railing long enough for Malfius to chop the chain free with one of the battle axes he had in his pouch. He had just enough time to grab the chain before the Infernal Rooster launched into the sky.

  “I can’t believe you threw me at it,” Bocephus shrilled. “It could’ve eaten me!”

  “But it worked, didn’t it? Now just – ahh!”

  Ichabod flattened its wings and dived, bulleting straight toward the lava fields. It was going to splatter Malfius against the ground for starters, then find a way of dislodging the hedgehog from its mouth.

  “Is it supposed to be doing that?” Bocephus shouted.

  “No!” Malfius shouted back, dangling from the end of the chain. He dropped the battle axe and held on with both hands. “My intent was to fashion a bridle out of this chain and ride it like I would any beast of burden but—”

  “Rambling!”

  “Yank on its tongue to tell it which way to go!”

  The hedgehog must’ve done just that, for Ichabod squawked and pulled out of his dive. Another yank, and it banked to the left. Toward Level 6.

  The jagged rocks of the boundary loomed closer, clawing their way free of the lava fields like the claws of the fiery underlord himself.

  Malfius was about to become a shish-kebab.

  “Up!” he shouted. “Must go up!”

  “It won’t go up,” Bocephus’s said, voice muffled from inside the Ichabod’s mouth. “You’re too heavy!”

  “The bald eagle is capable of carrying prey four times its weight in flight,” Malfius fired back. “Now do something, or else I’m going to turn into a pincushion!”

  Whatever Bocephus did, it worked, because Ichabod shrieked and pumped its great maroon-and-yellow wings.

  But it didn’t gain enough height in time, and Malfius had to kick himself away from the jagged spikes or run along their sides or tuck his knees up against his chin to avoid the tallest of them.

  Ichabod chuckled until Bocephus stabbed it in the mouth to shut it up.

  “Remind me again why you couldn’t just transform into a dragon and fly us there?” the battler wanted to know.

  “Familiars can only change shape on Earth! Don’t you know anything about demonology?”

  “‘Don’t you know anything about demonology?’” Bocephus mocked. “I know I’m stuck in this damn bird’s mouth for the foreseeable future. Do you have any idea how nasty it is in here?”

  The rest of Level 6 looked much like the boundary had – which is why the demons of this level worked below ground in their subterranean tunnels – and Malfius had no time to climb the chain and ride on Ichabod as he had originally intended because there were too many obstacles to avoid. But the Infernal Rooster got them across to Level 7 without too many gashes.

  Like the boundary between Levels 4 and 5, the boundary to Level 7 was also a form of fire. In this case, instead of a river of magma, it was a wall of flame. It rose from ground to sky in a seamless curtain of red and orange, the conflagration worse than the last wildfire the most recent Destroyer had released upon Earth.

  “By the fiery underlord’s pitchfork!” Bocephus exclaimed.

  “That’s why you need an access pass!” Malfius shouted back, digging the fire opal rectangle out of his pouch. “Now we just fly on straight through.”

  Ichabod just squawked in terror and tried to turn around.

  “Oh no you don’t, you overgrown buzzard!” Bocephus snapped, yanking on the Infernal Rooster’s tongue.

  The chain started to jerk as the hedgehog and the rooster fought over the proposed flight plan, and Malfius’s hands – despite being ribbed like those of a gecko – began to slip. The heat of the quickly approaching balcony was making him sweat. “Keep it steady, will you?”

  Ichabod started to thrash, stabbing at its beak with its claws.

  Malfius shoved the access pass into his teeth and held on for dear life as the chain twisted like a viper with its head cut off.

  With a triumphant cry, the Infernal Rooster slashed at its own face, puncturing its own eye with one of its claws, but the other two ripped Bocephus – still holding the rooster’s tongue – out of its mouth.

  “Grooooooooss!” the hedgehog screamed as he plummeted toward the wall of fire.

  Black blood poured out of Ichabod’s ruined face, but the Infernal Rooster still managed to chuckle as it whipped around, slinging Malfius and his sweaty hands off the chain. Cackling as the demon somersaulted through the air, it banked back around toward its own level.

  Malfius had the insight not to scream – lest he lose the access pass he had clamped in his teeth – but he still almost lost it when the rooster’s tongue – which Bocephus had torn free during his forced exodus from Ichabod’s mouth – smacked him in the face.

  Malfius wiped the blood out of his eyes and squinted them against the conflagration.

  There, some fifty feet below him, was a little black dot shouting every obscenity he could think of.

  Flattening his arms and legs, Malfius pencil-dived through the air and snatched the hedgehog out of his freefall.

  “WE’RE GONNA DIE!” Bocephus screamed. “Not just a six-hundred-sixty-six hour respawn in the Phlegethon, I mean real-death! Ashes and dust, just flaking away into nothingness! I’ll never have another beer again! I’ll never get to watch the Lampades Sisters dance again! I’ll never become a Destroyer! AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT?”

  Malfius yanked the access pass out his mouth and thrust it in front of them just as they hit the boundary.

  Like a stage curtain snapping back, a hole appeared exactly where they were falling through, and they passed through the fire without so much as a singe on their scales. Or quills, in Bocephus’s case.

  A cloud of dust mushroomed into the sky as they hit the ground, Bocephus rolling out of Malfius’s grip.

  Groggily, Malfius pushed himself to his feet. A demon could definitely take a punch, but falling to the ground like a missile was something he never wanted to do again. Ever.

  “B-Bocephus?” he called.

  “By the fiery underlord’s pitchfork, what does it burn?” the hedgehog squealed.

  Malfius scrambled to the edge of a pool – actually, to the edge of the large stepping stone they’d landed on –
and plucked Bocephus out of the sea of boiling acid. He swung him around his head a few times, slinging the acid from his fur.

  “I may have forgotten to mention that the Tower of the Sages in Level 7 is surrounded by a sea of boiling sulfuric acid.”

  “You don’t say!” the hedgehog squeaked.

  Malfius clicked his talons together nervously. “My apologies.”

  Bocephus shook the rest of the acid from his quills and hurried out of the puddle he’d left in his wake. “Any other useful information I might need to know before we continue, bro?”

  Malfius pointed over Bocephus’s shoulder to the fire opal that was slowly being dissolved in the boiling gray liquid. “If the Sages find us here without that access pass, we’ll be killed. Real-death.”

  The hedgehog pounded his fist into the palm of his other paw. “Then we stick to the plan. Infiltrate the Tower, find the staff. In, out, and then I make Thaddeus my bitch.” On tip-toe, he craned to see through the mist created from the boiling sea. “Now, which way to the Tower?”

  Chapter 7

  The Tower of the Sages looked like the thorny stalk of a thistle, but on steroids. It had more thorns and spikes on it than the nastiest of rose bushes, and on top where the thistle would’ve been was a giant disc of glass. Not just any glass, but a lens that focused the fury of their Phlegethon well into a red lance that could incinerate any intruder. Its attention was mostly on the sky – on the lookout for celestials – but Malfius kept them to the stepping stones that were the most shrouded in sulfuric acid mist, just in case.

  The Sages all had wings – so they could fly above the sea – but any visitors had to take the stepping stones. And if they were smart, they were quick about it. Because the acidic mist was corrosive.

  Gasping, Malfius slammed his fist against the button that activated the neutralizing showers and shoved Bocephus under one while he stood in the other.

  “I never want to be transfigured again,” the hedgehog groaned.

  “Shh!” Malfius turned off the showers, snatched Bocephus, and ducked into an alcove of thorns as the door banged open.

  A Sage ran out, red robes flapping around his bare feet.

  Malfius smothered Bocephus’s cry and sank deeper into the shadows.

  The Sage – who resembled a six-foot vampire bat – flicked his massive ears and sniffed with his squashed nose. He checked the showers, holding his red sleeve over his nose. Coughing against the mist, the Sage pulled the red hood back over his ears and ducked back inside. “Must’ve been a lamprey.”

  Bocephus wiggled out of Malfius’s hands. “By the fiery underlord’s pitchfork, there are lampreys in there?” he hissed. “How did we manage to cross the sea without one of them jumping out and grabbing us?”

  Malfius swallowed, clicking his talons together nervously. “Apparently the Sages were so dissatisfied with my performance as their sanitation officer that they expressly forbade the lampreys from killing me should I ever return to Level 7.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do that?”

  “So they could kill me themselves.”

  The hedgehog scrubbed his face with his paws. “Is there anyone in Hell who doesn’t want to kill you, Malfius? I’m being serious here.”

  “Probably not.”

  Bocephus groaned. “After this, we’re working on your people skills, bro.”

  Once inside, they took the hidden spiral staircase down into the depths of the Tower to where the vault was. It was reserved for the janitors’ particular use, lest they spill their cleaning solvents on the main staircase and make the Sages slip.

  The vault was empty when they crept inside. It was close to midnight – or whatever Hell’s equivalent was since it had no sun to keep time by – so except for the skeleton crew of security, all the Sages were topside doing whatever Sages did when they weren’t categorizing artifacts.

  Compartments like kennels were carved into every wall and rose thirty or forty feet until they finally hit the ceiling. In the center of the room was a well covered by a clamshell grate, and hundreds of feet below, the magma from the Phlegethon bubbled. Its reddish glow was so fierce the vault needed no other light to see by.

  “Do you remember what the staff looked like?” Malfius asked, peering through the crosshatch doors on the left side of the room as Bocephus did the same on the right.

  “It was ironwood with a yellow or green—”

  “Yellow or green? Details matter! One might change you back, and one could turn you into an ugly Baelfrog, and it’ll be your head they’ll use in the next round of beer pong!”

  “Fine. Then the jewel was yellow.”

  “Did it have any glyphs or markings on the wood? They always seem to have something like that.”

  “I was a little preoccupied getting stabbed in the stomach to see if they were any runes on it,” Bocephus snapped.

  “Glyphs, not runes,” Malfius corrected. “If you had spent any of your spawnling years paying attention in Black Sabbath School—”

  “I think I found it!”

  “Really?” Malfius rushed over the hedgehog, smooshing his face against the compartment.

  “No.” Bocephus smacked him as hard as he could across the snout. “That’s for the glyph comment.”

  The compartment doors rattled as the hedgehog climbed even higher. There were no ladders since the Sages had wings and could fly to any compartment they wanted. Scowling, Malfius let him go and started to climb around on a different section.

  Bocephus was just touchy because his next match was in three hours. If they didn’t find the staff and change him back soon, they wouldn’t get back to Level 5 in time, and the match would be forfeit. Thaddeus would become Destroyer by default, Bocephus’s BAMF rating would revert to zero, and Malfius wouldn’t have protection anymore.

  He’d be alone again.

  “Ugh! I can barely make out any other color with that red light washing everything out,” the hedgehog complained.

  “Me t—” The words died in his throat.

  “What?” Bocephus demanded.

  Dangling from a compartment halfway to the ceiling, Malfius pointed to the well with a talon. “That is Phlegethon magma. The well has a pipe that burrows under the Levels and taps the river itself.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we forget the staff. We just remove that grate, throw you in, and—”

  “I’ll respawn back in Level 5!” Bocephus’s excitement was short lived. “But what about the wall?”

  “Hell shapes the arena. It’ll know you’re there for a match and enable you to compete!”

  “Then what are we waiting for, bro? Let’s lift the hatch!”

  Malfius dropped down to the well and wrapped the grate chain around his burly arms. Even with his great strength, the clamshell grate only opened an inch at a time.

  “Okay,” Malfius panted. “I think it’s an acceptable width for you to squeeze through.”

  “Hold it open, bro! I’m almost there.” Bocephus’s little paws skittered down the compartments.

  “Don’t hurry or anything.”

  “Wait! I think I found the staff.”

  “I am not falling for that again!”

  “No, bro. For serious this time. Look!” The hedgehog eagerly pointed through one of the crosshatch gaps in the compartment door.

  Malfius dropped the chain, and the clamshell grate snapped back into place like a bear trap with a loud clang. Clambering up the compartments, he pressed an ember-like eye against the door and peered inside.

  An ironwood staff inlaid with a glowing jewel lay on a slab of shiny obsidian, the yellow glow pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.

  “You’re sure?” Malfius said.

  “As much as I can be. Let’s get it out and see if it works!”

  Malfius inserted a talon into the lock and gave the tumblers a little wiggle. The door popped open, and the hedgehog scrambled inside.

  After a lot o
f huffing and puffing, Bocephus nudged the ironwood staff out of the compartment. It clattered to the floor, the sound reverberating to the ceiling.

  “Why didn’t you catch it?” Bocephus squealed.

  “I was watching the door!”

  “Ugh. Let’s make this quick.”

  “Why didn’t you just try it while you in the compartment?” Malfius plopped Bocephus onto his head where the hedgehog could hold onto his horns and climbed down.

  “And get squished when I returned to my original form? I’d suffocate before you could pry me out!”

  Malfius jumped the last eight feet and lowered his lizard-like head to the floor so the hedgehog could scramble down his snout. “Hurry up. We’ve been making a lot of noise.”

  “Dude, don’t rush me. Magic’s finicky stuff.” The hedgehog rubbed his paws together. “Okay. Here I go.”

  Leaning away, Bocephus stretched out one pink finger and grazed the yellow jewel with a claw-tip.

  Nothing happened.

  Malfius sat back on his haunches. “Magic is equal parts intent and determination. You must have the fortitude—”

  “Rambling!”

  “You gotta commit, bro.”

  “You wanna see commitment?” Bocephus spread his arms wide and swan-dived on top of the jewel.

  Still nothing.

  Bocephus scrubbed himself all over the yellow facets like an itchy dog. “Why. Is. This. Not. Working?”

  “Uhh … I think I’ll try to get the grate open again. Just in case this … doesn’t work out.”

  “Some cheerleader you are.”

  “I’m your caddie. Cheerleading was never in the job description.”

  Wrapping his hands and arms around the chain again, Malfius put his back into it. He had near unflappable energy, but being this close to such infernal heat was draining.

  “Ugh! I hate magic!” The hedgehog kicked the staff around the floor. It banged into the well and ricocheted off the compartments, each clattering sounding like a gun report. Anyone in the hallway would’ve thought there was a machine gun on the loose inside the vault from all the racket.