Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing

by Barry Hutchison

  Ben jumped back around the corner and landed, right side up, beside them. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “It means we’re in great danger,” whispered Wesley. “It means the next step could merge us with the wall, or turn us inside out or … I don’t know … fold us up so our bottoms are where our heads should be.”

  Paradise gasped. “I don’t want a bum for a head.”

  “Too late!” Ben grinned. Paradise responded by flicking him on the ear.

  A booming voice echoed along the corridor behind them. “Given up yet, little ones?” called Scarrabus. “You can’t escape my castle. You can’t escape me.”

  “We have to move,” Paradise hissed.

  “We daren’t!” whimpered Wesley. “Think about the bum-heads, Paradise. Won’t you please think about the bum-heads?”

  “I can do it,” Paradise insisted. “I can find the way out.”

  “But reality’s moving!” Wesley reminded her.

  “Then we’ll just have to move faster,” said Ben. He gave Paradise an encouraging nod. “Go for it.”

  Paradise took some short, sharp breaths. “Stay close,” she told them. “This could get messy.”

  “Agreed,” said Wesley. “If we really are going to do this then we need to stick very close together so as not to— Wait, come back!”

  He dashed after Ben and Paradise and caught up with them near the end of the corridor. They turned the corner together and on Paradise’s orders dodged left, ducked low then weaved right, avoiding a series of invisible wrinkles in space.

  “This way,” she said, picking up speed and racing towards where the corridor turned off into an L-shape. “There’s a way out right around here. I can sense it.”

  Ben and Wesley hurried to keep up as they sprinted along the final few metres of corridor.

  “We’re going to make it!” Ben cheered. “We’re going to get out.”

  “Never doubted it for a minute,” laughed Wesley as they took the corner side by side.

  They stopped running and stumbled to a clumsy halt.

  Wesley’s shoulders sagged. “I knew we’d never make it. I said all along.”

  Ben looked to Paradise. “What’s this?”

  “I don’t understand. This was the way.” Paradise frowned. She raised a hand and pressed it against the wall blocking the path ahead of them. “This was the way out.”

  “Not any more,” Ben said. He turned. “We have to go back.”

  Paradise caught his wrist. “Wait, don’t,” she whispered, pulling him into the shadows. From around the corner they heard the clomp-clomp-clomp of heavy footsteps – close, and getting closer with every step. Scarrabus was coming.

  And there was nowhere left to run.

  “What do we do? What do we do?” yelped Wesley.

  Ben squared his shoulders and puffed up his chest. “We fight.”

  “Fight? That bloke?” Wesley trembled. “We wouldn’t stand a chance!”

  “Come on,” Ben urged. “You’re a wizard.”

  “Trainee wizard,” said Paradise.

  “Ex-trainee wizard,” Wesley added. “I got kicked out, remember? I got kicked out – and I really can’t stress this enough – for not being any good at magic!”

  “You froze that sweet in mid-air,” Ben reminded him.

  “You’re right,” yelped Wesley. “I’ll do that then, shall I? I’ll stop the massive angry demon lord by waving some sweets in his massive angry face. That’ll teach him to mess with us!”

  Ben blinked. “Do you think that will work?”

  “No!” cried Wesley. “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Guys…” said Paradise.

  “All right,” said Ben. “No need to get nasty.”

  “Uh, guys…”

  Wesley sighed. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just nervous. The last time I was this scared I actually wet myself.”

  “Ew,” said Ben. “How long ago was that?”

  “About six and a half minutes.”

  “GUYS!” Paradise snapped. They both turned to see her scowling at them. “It’s a secret door,” she said. “There’s a hidden button.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Press it!” Ben urged.

  Paradise stretched up on her tiptoes and pointed towards a brick that was several centimetres beyond her reach. “It’s that one,” she said. She shot Ben a glare before he could laugh. “No height jokes. Just press it.”

  Ben smirked and made a big show of stretching up above her head. “Oh, it’s so high up,” he said. “However am I going to reach?”

  He pushed the brick. “Oh no, wait a minute, it’s dead easy! Only a pixie would have trouble reaching— OOF!” Paradise thumped him in the stomach.

  “I warned you,” she said, just as a section of the wall rumbled inwards, revealing a dimly lit room beyond.

  They hurried inside. Paradise pointed to another brick inside the room and Ben gave it a press. The secret door swung closed again and Ben wedged a broken brick into a gap at the bottom.

  “That should buy us some time,” he said. He turned to look for another way out, and that was when he saw it.

  That was when he saw the creature.

  It had a wide dragony head on a long dragony neck. Its bulky dragony body curled into a snaking dragony tail, and on its dragony back were a pair of neatly folded dragony wings.

  All things considered it was, Ben reckoned, a dragon.

  The entry on dragons in Lunt Bingwood’s Who’s Who, What’s What and Why They Do Such Horrible Things to One Another was one of the shortest in the whole book. It was only three words long and read: “Don’t be silly.”

  This was because, as everyone knew, there was no such things as dragons. And yet, despite that, there was no avoiding the fact that the thing in the room with them was one.

  “A dragon!” gasped Ben.

  “A what?” frowned Wesley, spinning on the spot. “Dragon!” he yelped.

  He ran back and forth for a moment then cowered behind Ben.

  The dragon was smaller than Ben had always imagined them to be. Its body was about the size of a large bull, with a neck that was roughly the same length again. Ben had expected it to be huge and terrifying, but instead it looked a bit sad.

  “He’s tied it up,” Paradise said. “Scarrabus has tied the poor thing up.”

  “Oh, thank goodness!” cheered Wesley. He caught Paradise’s angry stare. “Er, I mean, boo! That’s horrible. Tying up a poor ruthless killing machine like that. How dare he?”

  Ben took a careful step towards the dragon. It tried to raise its head, but a chain slung over its neck made it impossible. Instead it just watched Ben with its wide dark eyes and blinked its heavy eyelids.

  Its scales were a reddish-pink, with flecks of yellow where the sunlight coming through the window reflected off them. It had wide, flared nostrils and a short spike on the end of its snout. A length of rope had been wound around its jaws, keeping them tightly shut.

  “It doesn’t look like a killing machine,” Ben said. “It looks scared.”

  “It’s not the only one,” said Wesley.

  Slowly, carefully, Ben reached out a hand. The dragon hissed and Ben froze. All three children held their breath, waiting to see what the creature would do next. When it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, Ben gently placed his hand on its head.

  The dragon didn’t draw back or try to pull away. Its wide eyes just kept watching Ben and occasionally flicking across to Wesley and Paradise.

  “I thought dragons would be bigger,” said Paradise.

  “I think … I think it’s just a kid,” said Ben. “Like us.”

  “Only with wings and teeth and the ability to breathe fire,” Wesley reminded him. “It’s dangerous.”

  “It’s a prisoner,” said Paradise.

  Ben looked at the chains and ropes holding the dragon in place. He looked at his friends. “Not for long,” he said, then he went to work on the closest knot.

/>   “What are you doing?” Wesley yelped. “You’re not seriously letting that thing loose, are you? What if it eats us?”

  “Well, then you’ll be able to say ‘I told you so’,” said Ben.

  “That’s not exactly comforting!”

  “Stop whining,” said Paradise, grabbing hold of another knot and frantically tugging at it. “Are you going to help us or not?”

  Wesley hopped anxiously from foot to foot. He glanced back at the door. There was no sign of Scarrabus yet but he was bound to arrive soon. When he did, the rock Ben had wedged in place wouldn’t keep him at bay for long.

  Wesley sighed. “Oh, give it here,” he said, nudging Ben out of the way. His nimble fingers worked hurriedly at the knot keeping the dragon’s mouth shut. “I’ll get this, you do something with the chains.”

  With a few short tugs, Wesley untied the knot and began to unwind the rope from around the creature’s snout. When he was halfway done, it snapped open its jaws. Wesley screamed as he caught a flash of a flame flickering at the back of the dragon’s cavernous throat, and then—

  SLURP!

  A long green tongue licked him all the way from chin to forehead, soaking him in dragon slobber.

  “Argh, stop, getoff, getoff!”

  “Hey, Wes,” Ben laughed. “I think it likes you.”

  Wesley wiped the drool from his face. “Disgusting,” he grimaced. “Still, better than being set on fire, I suppose. Just.”

  He set to work on another knot. “And it’s she not it.” Paradise and Ben both looked at him. “The little horn on the end of the nose. Only females have those.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Ben. “That’s not in Lunt Bingwood’s book.”

  “There are other books, you know?” Wesley said. “We did dragon studies in our first year at Wizard School, and as I repeated first year more times than I’d care to admit, I got to know quite a bit about them.”

  He looked down at the creature on the slab and frowned. “Although, since the first thing you learn in dragon studies is that there are no such things as dragons, I’m starting to have doubts about how accurate the course materials were.”

  Before anyone could reply there was a low pop and a sound like a lot of people whispering in the next room. With a swirl of purple sparks, a black cape unfolded from thin air. A large round face with an eerie white glow appeared next, and two wide staring eyes fixed their gaze on the children.

  “It’s found us,” gasped Ben as a pair of long, insect-like legs extended from within the billowing black cloak. “The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing has found us!”

  “What do we do? What do we do?” whimpered Wesley as the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing crept silently through the air towards them.

  “Keep going,” said Ben. “Get those ropes and chains off. I’ll hold the ghoul-thing back for as long as I can.”

  “Marvellous,” squeaked Wesley. “Well, that should buy us about four seconds.”

  “Shut up and keep untying,” Paradise snapped. “Ben knows what he’s doing.”

  Ben, in fact, didn’t know what he was doing. He had no idea how to deal with a Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing, and it was taking all his willpower not to just shut his eyes, put his fingers in his ears and hope it went away on its own.

  Instead, he stepped between it and his friends, and held up the gauntlet hand, palm facing the approaching creature.

  “Stop right there,” he commanded. To his amazement, the ghoul-thing stopped. It bobbed up and down in the middle of the room, its bulging eyes flicking from the gauntlet to Ben’s face and back again.

  “Er, right. Good,” said Ben, who wasn’t quite sure what he should do next. “Now … go away.”

  The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing didn’t move.

  “Please?” said Ben.

  The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing still didn’t move.

  “Well, that showed it,” said Paradise. There was a rattle as a chain fell to the floor, and she hurried over to the next one.

  “It’s not doing anything,” Ben said. “It’s just sort of floating there.”

  “Well, don’t complain about it,” said Wesley, using his teeth to pull free a particularly tight knot. “Would you rather it was biting our heads off?”

  “That’d be tricky since it doesn’t have a mouth,” Ben pointed out. “Just a head, some bug arms and a …” His eyes went to the ghoul-thing’s cape. A flurry of purple sparks ignited within it. “… cloak. Oh no.”

  “Oh no what?” yelped Wesley. Ben raced to his side and all three of them frantically worked at the ropes and chains that held the dragon in place.

  “Scarrabus is coming,” said Ben.

  Paradise’s eyes went to the door. “No he isn’t. He’s not out there.”

  “Not that way,” Ben said. He pointed to the ghoul-thing just as an armour-clad foot extended from within its cape and stomped down on to the rough stone floor. “That way!”

  “Ah, there you are,” growled Scarrabus, ducking through the portal and immediately dwarfing everything in the room. “I told you you wouldn’t get far.”

  At the sight of Scarrabus, the dragon began to buck and thrash against its restraints. The children jumped back as the animal squirmed and struggled to get free.

  Scarrabus’s face darkened. “What are you doing? Get away from my pet.”

  “She’s not your pet, she’s your prisoner,” said Paradise. She barely came up to Lord Scarrabus’s waist, but she stared up at him defiantly all the same.

  “You are all my prisoners,” Scarrabus pointed out. “Such is the price for failing to leave your offering.”

  “But we didn’t,” protested Wesley. He ducked to avoid a thrashing swipe of the dragon’s tail. “We left the sweets; you’ve made a mistake!”

  “It is you three who have made the mistake of daring to question the great and terrible Lord Scarrabus!” the demon-lord roared. “And you shall all pay with your—”

  A small fireball, no bigger than Ben’s thumb, hit Scarrabus between the eyes. He looked up in time to see his eyebrows catch fire and spent a few frantic seconds squashing the flames out with his thumb.

  The dragon yanked at the final chain holding her in place. The metal hooks attaching the chain to the stone slab tore free, and the dragon let out a bellow of triumph.

  “Stay where you are,” Scarrabus barked, but the dragon opened her mouth and shot three more tiny fireballs in his direction. He batted them away and raced to close the gap between them.

  Ben, Paradise and Wesley were caught by surprise as the dragon weaved her long neck between their legs and hoisted them on to her back. They caught a final glimpse of Lord Scarrabus charging after them, then the next thing the children saw was the window. It seemed to be getting bigger.

  “Hold on!” Ben warned. He and Paradise both ducked, leaving Wesley to watch in horror as the dragon hurtled towards the glass.

  “Ooh,” he grimaced. “This is going to hurt.”

  KERASH!

  The window exploded outwards as the dragon and her passengers flew free of the castle.

  “Woo-hoo!” hollered Ben, thrusting a fist into the air. “Best. Escape. Ever.”

  “We’re flying!” gasped Paradise. “We’re flying!”

  The dragon’s wings flapped frantically. The world gave a sudden lurch.

  “Oh no. Spoke too soon,” Paradise said, and all four of them began to fall.

  They tumbled and flailed helplessly through the air, plunging down, down, down towards the distant ground below.

  “The good news is we’re going to land in the moat,” Ben shouted over the roaring of the wind and the screaming of the wizard.

  “The bad news,” he added, gesturing down at the glowing red river beneath them, “is that the moat is made of lava.”

  “Oh come on,” Wesley cried. “Who has a lava moat? That’s not fair.”

  “Do something!” Paradise shouted.

  Wesley rummaged inside one of his robe’s wide sleeves. “I’ve got it!�
�� he cheered, then he pulled out a small umbrella and opened it. It immediately turned inside out, then fell to bits. “Well, that was disappointing.”

  Above them, the dragon was wildly beating its wings against the wind, but they were weak from being tied, and the flapping was doing nothing to slow the creature’s fall.

  “I meant magic!” hollered Paradise. “Magic us somewhere.”

  “I don’t know how!”

  “Try!” Ben cried.

  “What if I send us somewhere dangerous?”

  Without a word, Paradise pointed down at the rapidly approaching lava moat. The air around them was already becoming hot and thick with black smoke.

  “F-fair point,” Wesley stammered. He raised his hands and waggled his fingers uncertainly. “Um, sendus … elsewhereum… Pleeeease.”

  Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

  “Oh, it’s no use! I have no idea what I should even be saying!”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth when Wesley’s whole body stiffened. His arms swept upwards in an arc above his head, leaving a blueish-green trail shimmering in their wake.

  He didn’t speak. There was no need. With a flourish of his fingers, the world around them changed.

  There was a crash, a crunch and a series of “oofs” and then, with three thuds and one final big smash, they hit the ground.

  Ben was woken by a stick poking him in the face. Groaning, he prised open his eyelids and looked up, only to see something short and skinny looking back down.

  At first he thought it was Paradise in her green robe, but he quickly realised that this wasn’t the case. The figure was a little shorter than Paradise for one thing, and it wasn’t his clothing that was green. It was his skin.

  Ben nudged the walking stick away from his face and sat up. This hurt. There were loads of little scratches and cuts on his hand and legs. From the way it ached to blink he guessed there were a few on his face too.