The dragon shrieked, reeling back as blue lightning crackled through his mouth. As he sat there, stunned and smoking, Uncle Griffinskitch turned and hobbled down the passage as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Quickly, we only have a few moments,” the wizard panted.
Kendra had never seen her uncle so spent. He was trembling head to foot, and beads of sweat were rolling down his face, which now had gone as white as his beard. She quickly rushed to his side and helped support him.
“We can’t get through the door,” Jinx told the wizard.
“I’ll blow it open,” Uncle Griffinskitch said, furrowing his brow. He lifted his staff, but it was clear he had not one spark of magic strength left in his now frail body. He collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Then Kendra heard a rumbling. It was Rumor. He had recovered from his injuries and was now lumbering down the hall, his great body smashing against the walls and sending sheets of dust and rubble to the ground. In only a matter of seconds, he was upon them.
“No more tricks!” the dragon growled angrily. “I want my box!”
Rumor smashed his tail against the ground, and the floor shook so hard that Kendra and her companions were tossed into the air. Before they could hit the ground again, the scaled beast stretched out his massive claw and caught them in his palm.
“Days of Een!” Uncle Griffinskitch gasped, as the dragon closed his long, bony talons about them. “I landed on my staff!” The flustered wizard reached beneath him and pulled out his staff. It was broken and useless.
“I’ve had enough of this!” Jinx cried angrily. She began pulling knives and daggers from her weapons belt, thrusting them one by one into the dragon’s palm. But it didn’t matter how strong she was or how hard she stabbed. Every weapon broke against Rumor’s thick skin.
“It’s of no avail,” Professor Bumblebean told the grasshopper. “You’re wasting yourself, Captain.”
Kendra felt herself being lifted upward with the others. The scaled fingers of their prison opened and they found themselves staring into Rumor’s large glimmering eyes.
“Annoying little creatures,” he rasped. “Give me back my treasure!”
Kendra spoke before she had time to think better of it. “It’s not your box. It’s ours. It belongs to us Eens!”
“No!” Rumor said, reaching down with his crooked nails to snatch the box and key away from Kendra and Oki. “The box is definitely mine!”
Kendra was sure the dragon would crush the box, for it was so small, and he was so enormous. But in handling the tiny treasure, the beast seemed to have the gentlest of touch.
Kendra and the rest of the company were another matter. Rumor didn’t seem to care at all if he hurt them, and while cradling the box ever so carefully in one hand, he roughly closed his other about the company, plunging them back into total darkness.
Kendra felt the dragon turn and slither through the castle. She tried to peer out of the cracks between the dragon’s claws, but he was holding them so tightly that she couldn’t see out. Then Jinx tried. Her head was just small enough to squeeze out between the cracks in their scaly prison.
“We’re back in the treasure vault,” Jinx relayed to Kendra and the others, and they could hear the coins and other riches crunch and jingle under the dragon’s tremendous weight. “He’s returning the box and key back to the pedestal.”
“I’m sorry,” Kendra heard Rumor tell the box affectionately. “Now you are back in your rightful place.”
“I wonder what happened to Pugglemud,” Professor Bumblebean said. “Can you see him, Captain?”
“Yes, there he is!” Jinx whispered excitedly. “I can see him hiding behind a large mirror in the corner.”
“I guess even he knows enough to hide,” Kendra said.
“Shhh,” Uncle Griffinskitch warned, still trembling with exhaustion. “The dragon might hear us.”
But Rumor started moving again, and their voices were muffled by the sound of treasure crunching beneath him.
“Do you think Pugglemud can see you?” Kendra asked Jinx.
“I don’t know,” Jinx said. “I have to get his attention somehow. I hate to say it, but he might be the only one to save us now.”
“Throw something down there so he knows we’re here,” Oki suggested.
Jinx pulled her head back in and looked about the enclosed fist. Most of their possessions had been lost during their capture, but Professor Bumblebean had managed to hang onto two of his precious books.
“Oh, don’t you dare!” the professor cried when he saw what Jinx was thinking. “Elder Griffinskitch—don’t let her!”
“We have no other way,” the old wizard panted.
“Oh, my ancestors would be horrified,” the professor sighed, handing over The Illustrated History of Krodos. Jinx took the hefty book, squeezed it out between Rumor’s claws, and let it fall. With a clatter, it landed on the gold-covered floor.
Rumor did not hear the sound over his own footsteps, but Pugglemud noticed the book. He peered from behind the mirror and looked at the book curiously. Then, he gazed up at the dragon and spotted Jinx’s head sticking out of Rumor’s fist.
“He’s seen us,” Jinx reported.
“Good work, Captain,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “Let’s hope he helps us.”
Then, they felt Rumor turn and rumble out of the vault.
“Where’s he taking us?” Oki asked.
At last the dragon came to a stop. He opened his fist, and Kendra noticed they were in a room with still more gold and riches, but also with dozens of cages of all different sizes, scattered haphazardly about the mounds of treasure. Rumor found a silver cage to his liking and tossed Kendra and the rest of the company inside. With a flick of his long tongue, he slammed the door shut.
“Welcome to the chamber of cages,” he said, glaring upon them with his large yellow eyes. “This is what happens to those who try to steal my treasures!”
Kendra looked up at the beast. His eyes seemed to glimmer with self-satisfaction, and it angered her.
“You’re not so tough,” she declared, stepping to the front of the cage. “It’s easy to pick on us. We’re just tiny.”
“Is that so?” the dragon responded, the smoke curling out of his nostrils.
“Kendra,” Uncle Griffinskitch murmured softly from behind her. “It’s okay. This isn’t the time for your boldness. Don’t anger him.”
But Kendra couldn’t help herself. She felt that tiny spark in her rise up. It was the same type of spark that had grabbed hold of her on the night when she had rescued Trooogul. She could not help but to act, and in this case, that meant giving the dragon a piece of her mind. “What about the giants?” she demanded of Rumor. “You’re just their lackey, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you at least take us before your masters?”
“WHAT?” Rumor screamed (and the very bars on their cage rattled). “What masters do you think I have, teenie Eenie? Who do you think is more powerful than I?”
His tongue flicked out angrily, hitting Kendra and knocking her right to the floor of the cage.
“Kendra!” Uncle Griffinskitch cried helplessly.
Jinx helped Kendra to her feet, and the young girl turned and looked at Rumor once more. “I thought there were giants here,” she said, feeling even braver, now that Jinx was at her side. “Where are they?”
“Giants? There are no giants here, my friends,” Rumor hissed, with a particularly nasty emphasis on the word friends. “There haven’t been for over seven hundred years.”
“My word!” Professor Bumblebean exclaimed. He had been held speechless with fear since being tossed into the cage, but now his curiosity got the better of him. “What happened to the giants?” he asked. “I thought the castle of Krodos belonged to them.”
“It belongs to ME,” Rumor sneered. “I rid this castle of the giants and their gang of cronies long ago, back when the land of Een was but a child.”
“So it was you alone who stole the Box
of Whispers,” Uncle Griffinskitch said.
“I didn’t steal it,” Rumor said, his long tongue flickering out warningly. “I tell you, I took what was mine.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted. “Then what do you mean to do with us?”
“Are you going to e-e-eat us?” Oki stammered anxiously.
Rumor lifted his great head and laughed so hard that they shook once again within their cage.
“Of course not!” the dragon said. “I would never eat such disgusting little creatures as you! The very thought of you in my belly makes me ill. I have no use of your flesh. You see, I feed on something quite different.”
“And what’s that?” Kendra asked.
“I’ll tell you,” Rumor said with a wicked twinkle in his eye. “It’s fear.” And with that, the red dragon turned and slithered out of the chamber, back into his endless rooms of treasure.
“Did he say fear?” Jinx asked.
“He did,” the professor replied. “I do say, I’ve never come across such nonsense in my studies. How does he exist on fear? The fear of what, I wonder?”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted. “The fear we have of him, I imagine.”
“If that’s the case, then he must feel like he just ate a ten-course dinner,” Oki said, trembling from head to tail. “I’ve never been so afraid in my life!”
FOR TWO DAYS AND NIGHTS, Kendra and the rest of the company lay in the silver cage, amidst the piles of treasure, without so much as a visit from the dragon. Even so, they knew he was never far, for the castle often rumbled with his presence. They had no food, very little water (only Kendra and Jinx had managed to hang onto their canteens during their capture), and try as they might, they had no way of escaping. At first, Kendra harbored a hope that Pugglemud would come to their rescue, but they saw no sign of the scraggly Dwarf.
Kendra had never felt so miserable. Her stomach ached with hunger, and she spent hours on end gazing out at the dimly lit vault that stretched before their prison. There were countless cages scattered about the chamber, most of them filled with the skeletons of desperate thieves that Kendra imagined had come seeking the dragon’s gold over the centuries. They had probably all perished from hunger and thirst, surrounded by the very treasure they had come to thieve. Now their remains hung limply out of their cages, tattered clothes and rotting skin hanging from their bones, and more than a few of their skeletal claws still reaching out in vain towards the glittering floor. Many of them seemed to be staring at Kendra with their giant vacant eye sockets, as if to taunt her.
“We’ll end up just like them,” Kendra murmured, rubbing her ravenous stomach.
“We must try to remain positive,” Professor Bumblebean said, lifting his eyes from The Comparative Book of Creatures from Beyond the Magic Curtain, the only book he had left in his possession.
“I don’t know how you can keep reading that thing day after day,” Jinx grumbled irritably as she paced about the cage. “Kendra’s right. We’re just going to end up skeletons like everyone else in this wretched prison, Bumblebones.”
“Hunger is obviously driving you insane,” the professor replied. “For, after all we’ve been through, you’re still getting my name wrong! It’s Bumblebean, you know. I am a scholar, like my ancestors before me, and reading is what I do best. Besides, I’m sure, Captain Jinx, that if you were in possession of your sword, you would have polished it down to the size of a needle.”
“If I had my sword, I would have hacked our way out of here by now,” the grasshopper retorted.
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted. “Such bickering will not save us.” He himself had spent the better part of the last two days, recovering his strength and waving his hand over his broken staff, chanting strangely. According to the old wizard, it was a way to mend his staff, and he now closed his eyes to begin another round of incantations.
“Is it fixed yet?” Kendra asked when the old Een opened his eyes a few minutes later.
“Not yet,” her uncle replied. “It takes a long time to mend magic things, if it can be done at all.”
Kendra sighed. She was going crazy. Even sleep was of little comfort to her, for each time she drifted off, it was only to hear the dragon’s voice, inside her dreams, chanting, “Een has helped Unger!” over and over again.
“Even if we get out, what will we do then?” Oki asked Uncle Griffinskitch. “If we try to take the Box of Whispers again, we still have to get past the dragon somehow.”
“I say we leave the box behind,” Jinx declared. “Let’s just get away from this castle. Once we’re back home, we can raise a proper army and attack the dragon in full force!”
“We cannot abandon the box,” Uncle Griffinskitch said without hesitation.
“Why not?” Jinx demanded. “What’s so important about it that it’s worth risking our lives?”
“It is vital that we recover it,” the old Wizard replied.
“But why?” Kendra asked. “It’s just a box after all.”
“It’s not the box that’s special,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “It’s what’s inside it.”
“And that is?” Kendra persisted.
“It is a matter for elders only,” the bearded old wizard said.
“Please,” Kendra implored. “Look at everything we’ve been through, Uncle Griffinskitch. We could die in this cage, and we won’t even know what for! Don’t you think we deserve to know what’s in the box?”
She paused and watched her uncle’s bushy eyebrows furrow, as if he was in deep thought.
“For what it’s worth, I agree with Kendra,” Jinx said.
“I’m afraid I do as well,” Professor Bumblebean spoke up.
“And me,” Oki squeaked.
“Very well,” Uncle Griffinskitch said finally, releasing a long sigh. “Listen, what I’m about to reveal to you is known only to the Council of Elders. So guard this well!”
“We will,” Kendra assured her uncle.
“The Box of Whispers harbors a secret,” Uncle Griffin-skitch declared. “A very important secret—one that could mean the end of Een.”
“I do say!” Professor Bumblebean exclaimed. “What is it?”
“It is the secret of the magic curtain,” the old wizard replied gravely.
“What do you mean?” Kendra asked.
“The magic spell that makes the curtain work,” Uncle Griffinskitch explained. “If the secret of this spell falls into the wrong hands, then the curtain could fall down.”
“Fall down!” Oki cried.
“Yes,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “All of Een could be destroyed!”
“My word!” Professor Bumblebean gasped.
“That is why we must retrieve the box,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “We cannot risk the secret of the curtain being discovered.”
Kendra sat down in the corner of the cage and sighed. “Well, this certainly changes things,” she said. “We have to get that box—or else die trying!”
She had no sooner spoken when the chamber of cages began to tremble.
“Eek!” Oki cried, scurrying to the back of the cage. “It’s Rumor!”
They watched and listened as the dragon approached. When he finally entered the chamber of cages, he seemed larger than they remembered, moving slowly through the room and knocking over mounds of treasure with his giant, reckless body. It was clear to see that he had captured someone else, for his fist was clenched in a tight ball. He slithered past the prisoners and emptied his claws into a nearby cage.
“Pugglemud!” Kendra exclaimed when she saw the hapless Dwarf roll out of the dragon’s fist. Rumor smiled, and with a flicker of his tongue, shut the door to Pugglemud’s cage. Kendra could barely believe her eyes—the Dwarf was dirtier and more ragged than ever. Gold coins were spilling out of every pocket (of which he had many), and his red hair was even more wild and tangled than before.
“I wondered what happened to you,” Jinx called to Pugglemud. “You were supposed to help us o
ut, you know.”
At the sound of the grasshopper’s voice, Rumor turned and hissed.
“You know this little beast?” the dragon snarled. “Horrible little creatures, these Dwarves. Just as greedy as Goojuns and Ungers. They’re always coming after my treasure. You’d think they’d have learned by now, over these seven hundred years. But no, they keep trying. But has any thief escaped my watchful eye? No! Oh, yes, many are able to sneak inside the castle. And some I even let find the vault. But I don’t let anyone out. It’s all a game, but make no mistake: I’m the one controlling it!”
The dragon chuckled, and his breath felt like a roasting wind on Kendra’s face.
“Oh, please lemme out!” Pugglemud begged, clenching the bars of his cage. “I learned me lesson, Mr. Dragon. I am done—I swear it. I’ll never touch another piece o’ gold so long as I live.”
“LIAR!” Rumor roared.
There were no “tee-hees” from Pugglemud now. Large tears streamed down his dirty face, leaving long, clean trails on his cheeks.
“You know,” Rumor said, turning back to the company’s cage, “I had forgotten all about you pitiful creatures.”
“Seems like you forget about all your prisoners,” Jinx declared boldly, pointing to some of the other cages where the skeletons lay.
“Oh, those,” Rumor said. “Yes, well, as I said, Goojuns and Ungers and such. A little more dangerous than your kind.” He lowered his head, and with a zip of his tongue, ripped the door from their cage so that it drooped lazily on one hinge. “You’re free to go,” he announced. “You are no threat to me. So run back to your little land, and tell the rest of your wretched friends to leave me and my property alone!”
Uncle Griffinskitch stepped to the edge of the cage and stared into the eyes of the immense dragon. “We are not going without the Box of Whispers,” the wizard declared in a steely voice, though Kendra noticed that he was trembling.
“Then you will go nowhere,” Rumor chuckled. “For the box is mine, and it will stay here.”
“It belongs to the Eens,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “Let us have it. You have many treasures. Why do you care about one tiny box?”
Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers Page 11