“It's me,” said the familiar voice of Guido. “Nobody ever notices me, and I think I’m starting to like that fact. Sorry, it took me awhile to find a weapon.”
“Thank you,” said Tracy with tears in her eyes. “Where are you?”
“Right here,” he said next to Tracy.
She gave him a big bear hug. She held him so long I started to get embarrassed.
“Must. . .breathe.” he said.
“Oh, sorry,” said Tracy, letting go.
“Thanks,” said Guido. “Now we need to get out of here before Roy comes back.”
Everyone was looking at me again. I started feeling upset about this. Who did they think I was? “Ask Guido this time! I didn’t save you guys.” I knew this wasn’t the right place to lose my temper, but I was sick and tired of others expecting me to have the answers.
“Really,” I said louder, “ask him!”
Tracy looked at me as if she was going to say something but then changed her mind. “Okay, Guido, where do we go?” she asked.
“How about the way we came in,” he said. “They won't expect it because they’ve already been there.” They all nodded their heads. “Let's go,” he said. Guido was smart. Probably smarter than me anyways.
We took off through the door and beyond the next room with Hayasa running alongside us. We went back down to the dungeon area, and ran down one of the corridors. The rooms were dimly lit again. Running down the hallway, I was surprised at how quiet everything was, with no buzz of machinery, and no one in any of the training rooms. We came to a left turn in the tunnel and it suddenly got very dark. You could see a few feet and then nothing. “Tracy?” I said.
“Sure thing, I was already thinking about this. Han, do you have any paper? I need an airplane.”
Han smiled, “Would you like a Flying Fish, Sabertooth, Paper Crane. . .”
“Anything,” she said. “Anything quick!”
“In that case,” he pulled out a ready made paper crane out of his back pocket. “I just happen to have this on hand. “He breathed on it and I heard the rustle of paper, but it was too dark to see much. Suddenly the back end caught on fire, and it began flapping its wings quickly. This looked more like magic than anything I had ever seen; like in the books you read. Hayasa barked as it flew forward, and we had to run alongside it to keep up. The corridor, now well illuminated, was long and kept sloping downward, but the crane flew steady as it burned. Hayasa ran under it, staring up and barking, and making short leaps from time to time.
“Shhh, quiet boy,” I said to Hayasa as we ran. “We don’t know who may be around.” He seemed to understand and whined back at me.
The back half of the crane was gone now, and the flapping was getting more frantic. We came to a right corner and the crane actually turned right, like it was alive. With us running along the corridor it began to flap more erratically as it burned down, dying to a flicker by the end of the next stretch. Another right turn and then fluorescent lights began to show up on the walls. The crane burned out in a spray of ash.
“Now that was cool,” said Guido.
“Yes it was,” said Tracy. “Thanks Han.”
Han smiled, “like magic.”
The corridor sloped downward more steeply as we approached an iron door. It was unlocked, but it was so rusted it took all four of us to push it open. Once on the other side, we found we were in a large cavern which no longer felt like the school, but like a great underground cave. Like its own world.
A dull red glow revealed walls that were made of rock, and I could tell the floor fell away after a few steps so I walked forward cautiously as the others waited for their eyes to adjust. I peered over the edge to the left. “Yup,” I said.
“Lava?” said Han.
“Yup,” I said.
“Is the drop far?” asked Tracy.
“Yup,” I said.
“Are we in trouble?” asked Guido.
“Yup,” I said.
Turning back to face them, I saw something I had missed when we first came in. The door we had entered through, and left ajar, was covered from top to bottom with dark scratches. I don't mean like the scratches of little animals, I mean marks that gouged the metal deeply. Only something with huge, sharp claws and a lot of strength could have done that. I debated whether I should tell my friends, but decided it would not be especially helpful.
I faked a smile, “Well, let's see where it goes?” I said. The others followed as I stayed to the right, on the path before us. No one noticed the marks on the door behind them.
Chapter 17: Under the island
I didn’t know where we were going, but I had to act confident for the others. I was so tired I don’t think I was thinking too clearly either.
“Go ahead,” Guido said from somewhere on my left, “We’ll follow.”
There was a wide bridge ahead of us, so someone had been down here. It was made of stone like everything else. “How can this be underneath the school? It had to be made by someone,” I said. “It seems unreal, like in a dream.”
“Or a nightmare,” said Tracy. “Is there anything that will burn around here?”
“If you’re thinking to make a torch, I don’t think you’ll find any wood around here,” I said. “This place is all rock and dirt and lava. Where are we trying to go?”
“Out the back way,” said Tracy.
“There’s a back way?” said Guido.
“There might be,” said Tracy.
On this side of the bridge we saw a walkway that quickly sloped downward. There was no lava here, so it was darker.
“Tracy,” I said. “Anything to burn here?”
“Didn’t I just ask you that?” she said.
“Wait!” said Guido. “Look way over there!”
In the distance we could barely distinguish a faint glow. “I wonder what that’s all about,” I said. “I don’t see any lava.”
We walked slowly in the dark, taking each step carefully, until we got to where it was a bit brighter, but the source of the light was still far off around a corner and the color was more white than red.
I broke the silence in a whisper, “There may be guards down here. If there is electric light, there must be people.”
“Good point,” whispered Han.
I felt something at my feet. It was Hayasa. He seemed to be agitated by something. “Shhh, boy.” I whispered. “It’s okay.”
Once around a corner, we saw a series of lights along the wall. Han and Tracy were near me on the right. “Guido?” I said.
I heard his voice from the other side of the corner. “Coming,” he said, “just checking something out.”
We moved on faster now with more light. This part was man-made with fluorescent lights along the walls again, and the rock had clearly been carved out by tools. We picked up the pace quietly, watchful in case we ran into a guard.
It was long and straight and stretched out a long ways. As we walked, Hayasa seemed to get even more agitated. Now he was zipping back and forth and hopping up and down. “What’s wrong with your dog?” whispered Guido.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
Tracy whispered, “You know dogs have really good noses, right? They can smell things we can’t.”
We walked another hundred yards of straight, narrow cave when suddenly it ended. At the end was another large metal door. This was identical to the earlier one, but locked. “How are we going to get out of here?” said Tracy a little louder.
“Well, what do we have with us?” I asked.
Tracy spoke up, “We have a fire bringer, a guy no one knows is around most of the time, an origami master, and someone who makes people like him. “
“And one dog,” I said.
“Who can run through walls and is faster than lightening,” said Guido.
We all turned to Hayasa. He was jumping up and down. “Hey, Hayasa. Boy, can you get through that door? Can you?” I took him back a few yards from the door.
He
jumped up and down excitedly. “Sure you can. You can do that, can’t you?” He wagged his tail and whined. Then before I knew it he streaked off toward the door. He bounced off with a loud clanging noise. He whined a few times, then he got this determined look on his little face and backed up a lot further past me. His paws scratched the rock as he spun out before getting traction. He charged the door again and went through it like a piece of cheese. Cheese never made that much noise though. A hole was torn through the door with shreds of metal and slivers of wood. Some of the edges were actually smoking.
“I love that dog!” said Guido.
“So do I,” I said.
We crouched down, and each of us, careful not to get our clothes torn by the sharp bits or hot pieces, crawled through the hole. As we did so, I was shocked.
It was Han who first said, “A dog can do this?” The door was nearly a foot thick and was made of two panels of inch thick steel filled with a wooden core. It would have taken a blow torch and several hours work to get through what Hayasa got through in a second.
“How can this even be?” I said quietly as we all crawled through. The path continued, but now there was a deep pit to the left. The hole didn’t bother me, but coming out of it was the head of something impossible. It was red and had glowing eyes and I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing when Guido said, “Holy cow! It’s a dragon!”
Chapter 18: The dragon
It was a dragon. Something totally impossible. They didn’t exist. They were only for kid’s stories and fantasy novels. I couldn’t decide whether to run or scream or pee my pants. I saw Hayasa running around excitedly and the dragon, because there could be no doubt that’s what it was, was licking our dog. Both seemed to be having fun.
At that, I calmed down and decided I didn’t have to pee my pants after all.
“I must be in a dream,” said Tracy. “This can’t even be happening. A dragon? After all I went through, I run into a live dragon?”
“Huh?” Han and I said together.
She continued as though we weren’t even there, “I used to love dragons. I had posters of them all over my walls in my bedroom. But then my mom had this big talk with me. She said that dragons were only make-believe. She said they were no more real than the Easter Bunny.” Tracy had tears in her eyes now.
Guido spoke up, “You saying the Easter Bunny’s not real?” I just stared at the dragon, but it wasn’t moving.
Ignoring Guido, she continued, “I used to draw pictures of dragons all over my notebook in school and the teacher would get mad at me because she said I seemed to be losing touch with reality. I remember even my Dad had to come into it and he explained to me that dragons were only in kids stories. That I should focus on what’s real. He even tried to get me into horses because he said at least they were real.”
“I used to believe in the Great Pumpkin,” said Guido, “until Mom said Charlie Brown was just a drawing. I was devastated, I can tell you. I wanted to be Snoopy when I grew up.”
“Oh, very funny!” said Tracy. I could tell she was mad, but I was still zoned out, staring at this massive red head, smoke curling out its nostrils, while the rest of him was still hidden in a deep cavern below.
I finally snapped out of it, “All I want to know is this,” I said. “Is it a magic dragon?”
“I suppose that depends on what you mean by magic,” the dragon said in a low but pleasant voice.
“It talks?” said Tracy. “Not only are they real, but they talk? You’ve got to be kidding me! It took me two years to get over my dragon craze, and now I’m standing in front of a talking dragon?”
Turning toward the dragon I said, “What do you mean by it depends?”
“Well,” said the dragon in a low, but melodious voice, “I can do magic after a fashion. I am talking to you, for instance. And if you will notice, my lips are not moving.”
“Holy Cow!” said Guido for the second time, “It’s a telepathic dragon!”
“So, do you have any other tricks you can do?” I said.
“That depends on what you mean by tricks,” he said.
“You couldn’t just answer a question?” I said. “No, you have to give a question for a question. What is it with you?”
“Do I?” said the dragon.
“Aaarrrg! You’re doing it again!” I said. “Okay, we get that you’re a dragon. But where’s your gold?”
“Ah,” he said, “Now we get to the crux of the issue. Do you think I have gold?”
“Another question!” I said. “What is it with this guy?”
“Ever heard of the Sphinx?” said Guido.
“Huh?” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Some mythical thing,” said Tracy.
“I read about it in a book of legends and myths,” said Guido. He was touching my shoulder this time so I noticed him. “The Sphinx only spoke in riddles. Only the one who could answer his riddles could conquer him. Otherwise the Sphinx ate him.”
“I don’t like the getting eaten part,” said Han.
“Neither do I,” I said.
I spoke up louder to the dragon, “Do we have to answer a riddle to get by you?”
“No,” he said without moving his lips. “But you must answer a question. Each of you must answer one question and it must be the truth or I will end your life. If you know about dragons, you know that I could kill you before you took two steps. But this is the way the game is to be played.”
“And what happens if we don’t want to play,” I said.
“Then you are as good as dead.”
“What happens if only one of us gets it wrong?” said Guido.
“Then that one alone loses his or her life,” said the dragon.
“Great!” said Tracy. “Sounds like fun! Let’s go.”
Han and I exchanged glances, shocked at Tracy’s change. A minute ago she was crying and now she wanted to play a game of questions to the death with a dragon. And she was totally fine with this?
She smiled excitedly, “I’ll go first.”
Without moving his lips or changing his expression, the dragon said, “What is your greatest fear?”
She paused for just a moment and then answered, “That’s an easy one. My greatest fear is that this is not real. That this is a dream and dragons really are imaginary.”
“Good,” said the dragon. “You have passed and may live.”
Guido, seeing how easy it was for her, said, “Okay, my turn.”
The dragon closed his eyes for a few seconds and then said, “What do you carry with you everywhere?”
“Huh?” said Guido.
“Tell him,” I said. “It’s an easy one. Just tell him what you carry.”
Guido turned pale and silent. Then he said much quieter than I ever heard him talk, “But I can’t. I’ve never told anyone. How could he know?”
“Guido,” said Tracy, “he’s going to eat you if you don’t tell him!”
“Not eat,” said the dragon, “incinerate.”
“Well then, that’s much better. Guido, you’ve got to tell him now!” she yelled.
“It’s a bell,” Guido said.”
The dragon said, “Your answer is honest and true.”
“A bell?” I asked.
“It’s the way my mom knew where to find me. When I got home from school I had to wear a bell on a string around my ankle so she knew where I was! I felt like such a nobody that even my own mom didn’t know I was there even if I was right in front of her.”
“It’s your gift, Guido!” I said. “It’s not that she didn’t love you. She just couldn’t find you, like with us.”
“I know,“ he said, “But I couldn’t get over the fact that she must not have loved me very much if she couldn’t find me.”
“That’s just not the way it is, Guido,” Tracy said. “I’m sure she loved you. Did she ever pick you up when you hurt yourself as a little kid?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Did
she ever kiss you goodnight?” Tracy said.
“Yes,” said Guido.
“Did she ever tell you she loved you?” she said.
“Yes,” said Guido.
“Then she loved you,” Tracy said. “She loved you completely!”
Guido was crying quietly, but I think it was a good thing this time.
Han spoke up, “My turn.”
The dragon looked up at the ceiling of rock and then said without moving his lips, “What is the one thing you wish you could change about yourself?”
Han said nothing for a few seconds and then said, “Easy. I wish I was not so quiet. Others love loud people. They get heard. They go to parties and have fun and are never left out. I’d want to be like them.”
“That is correct,” said the dragon.
I could tell it was hard for him to answer, but he did well. I wondered what heart-wrenching question would be asked of me. Would he ask about my past? About the time I was captured and how lonely I felt? Would he ask me about my worst nightmare or my most embarrassing moment?
“I’m ready,” I said. “Give me your question.”
The dragon closed his eyes in concentration. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“What!” I said. “You ask everyone else questions that at least they knew the answers to, but then you ask me a question I don’t even know?” I threw down my pack.
“What was that?” he said.
“I can’t even see your hands! I don’t know!” I threw up my hands in anger, but also in fear of the fire that was coming.
“Are you certain of your answer?” he said.
“Answer?” I said. Then I thought about it. I had said that I don’t know. Could that possibly be the answer?
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know. How could I?”
He paused for a moment and looked at me as though looking through me into my very heart. Then he said, “You have answered wisely and truly. Keep this answer close at hand for the things ahead. You are free to go.”
On the far side of the dragon was an entrance to another tunnel where light could be seen. We walked around the neck of the dragon and, just before we entered, Tracy said, “You said you were a magical dragon. What did you mean by that?”
“Because I am impossible, and yet I am,” he said and this time he had a smile on his face.
Tracy walked through the tunnel entrance along with us.
The Gifted Page 9