Bentwhistle the Dragon Box

by Paul Cude

  With only one main underground route into Purbeck Peninsula it was no surprise that the monorail station was a terminus. However it wasn't just any terminus: the place was huge, even by dragon standards. No mean feat.

  Cresting the brow of the hill, the winding path that Peter was on dipped sharply, allowing him to take in the sight of the busy, bustling terminus from above.

  Directly opposite, across from where he stood, embedded into the rock face of the hill on the other side of the monorail station and overlooking the whole complex, was the main office that controlled the monorail carriages as they pulled into and departed from Purbeck, making sure everything ran to schedule and that each car alighted onto the right platform after coming down the single line and out of the gargantuan tunnel that fed the station. The individual carriages glided to a halt at the exact individual berth, or platform depending on how you looked at it, on one of the eighteen branch lines that spread out to form the station proper. Passengers disembarked from one side of the car before arrivals filed on from the other side, to depart. Monorail carriages would only be at a rest for a matter of moments, before powering silently back towards the gaping tunnel in the direction that they'd only just arrived from. It was a magnificent achievement, not just here, but across the entire globe: the perfect exercise in dragon management and individual movement, allowing things to run almost to the second.

  As Peter ambled casually down the slope of the path overlooking the station, he was struck by the speed with which the blurring silver monorail carriages moved so elegantly. Outside the station, the cars themselves could move in excess of six hundred miles an hour, while obviously going much slower than that while in the station. Even so, it was still all pretty much a blur... that's how fast things were flowing. If any human had been standing there watching, heaven forbid, their limited senses, compared with those of a dragon, would barely have been able to comprehend exactly what they were seeing. Huge LCD screens were displayed across the entire complex, updating nearly every second, the words and numbers on their screens distorted beyond belief by the speed. Dragon passengers in all their forms, big, small, dragon and human shaped, all managed to digest the information and make their way on time to where they had to be. It wasn’t the biggest monorail station in the world, but one of the most standout in terms of natural beauty, creativity with what was already there, and sheer efficiency in terms of getting beings where they were supposed to go at the right time. It was absolutely outstanding.

  Unlike most dragons, Peter couldn't remember a time when the monorail hadn't been around. Having been up and running for over sixty years now, it connected every dragon community on the planet via a series of subterranean tunnels, some of which had previously been used to allow dragons to fly between said communities, though most were newly carved, especially for this modern miracle of transport. Throughout his time studying in the nursery ring, the tors and other accompanying adult dragons had taken them on class field trips, using the relatively new form of transport to show the young dragons faraway places, enhancing their understanding of different cultures, both above and below ground. They would also, on the journeys to and from these faraway places, learn a little about dragon history in the form of a series of facts about the monorail itself, such as how it had taken over two hundred years to complete, about the state of the art techniques used to develop it and keep it operational and about the geothermal power across the planet that it harnessed to keep it running. During those particular lessons, it was inevitable that at least one of the tors would drone on about how in his or her day, they had to fly everywhere and not be pandered to by some fancy new transport system. It made him smile just thinking about it.

  Getting closer to the station, Peter spotted a speeding silver carriage zip out of the tunnel and crisscross the different lines, heading for the platform that his transport was due to depart from. Breaking into a jog, much to the disdain of the other dragons around him, he arrived at the platform just as the silver monorail car he'd picked out docked. Electric doors opened with a WHOOOSH! Passengers exited from the opposite side to Peter, while the doors on his side remained closed for a couple of seconds longer. Without warning, and with the same accompanying WHOOOSH, the doors slid back inside the carriage, allowing all the passengers to board.

  'Nice and orderly, or dragon-like,' thought Peter. 'Absolutely nothing like the chaos on the surface,' he laughed to himself.

  Once inside, he plonked down on one of the long, garishly red, sofa-like seats that ran the length of the carriage on either side, and waited for the monorail to leave the station. The seating had been designed to accommodate dragons in both their human and natural forms, easily accomplished in carriages that were thirty feet tall and nearly four hundred feet long. Most dragons boarded in their human guises, but for those that stuck with their natural forms, nearly every other seat in the carriage had a rather large, adaptable hole in the back, for their tails to fit through. Occasionally, exclusive, first class carriages could be spotted on different lines, provided for privileged, private parties willing to part with a lot of money, rumoured to be staffed by dragons that would cater for your every whim. These exceptional carriages were easily spotted at a station or junction because, instead of sporting the usual bright shiny silver, they were instead decorated entirely in black, making them appear sought after, rare and unusual. Thirty seconds or so after boarding, the doors to Peter's carriage slid closed, allowing the monorail car to negotiate the intricate series of points, before accelerating into the gaping mouth of the dark tunnel on its way out of Purbeck Peninsula.

  Through the windows of the carriage, Peter could see the dark rock face whiz by at speed on one side, while on the other, dragons of all shapes and sizes walked side by side along the trail that had been the main entrance to the Peninsula for hundreds of years. The pathway ran parallel to the monorail for some fifteen miles or so, before splitting up and winding off in several different directions. Dragons came from across the domain just to walk that path and witness the sheer beauty of staggering underground formations of rock, crystal and lava, as well as learn about its intriguing history. The path itself had been the base of the tunnel that dragons used to fly along, long before the monorail itself had been constructed.

  From easily identifiable to a messy blur, in the blink of an eye, that's what had happened to the shapes of the landscape outside the window as the monorail had increased speed even more. Try as he might with his heightened senses, every time he came this way, he still couldn't make out any of the details. Eventually he gave up, just as the winding path branched off in a different direction.

  Peter's destination was the beautiful city of Salisbridge, some fifty miles or so away in southern Wiltshire, England. Having worked and lived there since leaving the nursery ring and integrating fully into the human society he had sworn to help guide and protect, Peter couldn't think of a more beautiful place to call home. Had he been travelling between the two destinations above ground in a car, the journey would have taken well over an hour. On the monorail, it would take a little under eight minutes.

  Only the occasional vein of molten lava illuminated the inside of the carriage now that they were away from the pedestrian walkways. The monorail designers had wasted little time in deciding that only the bigger underground caverns or areas would be illuminated, leaving the vast majority of travel through the solid rock cuttings in near total darkness, punctuated by the odd monorail car heading in the opposite direction, something even a dragon could miss if they blinked or sneezed at the wrong time. Peter let his head fall back onto the comforting fabric of the seat, and wondered just what it would be like for an ordinary human to experience a monorail journey. It could of course never happen; aside from the security implications, the incredibly high G forces would all but destroy their weakened charges from the surface. Dragons were built to withstand all but the highest G forces, experiencing them over and over again when flying, hence their ability to perform amazing aeri
al feats such as tight turns at speed, pulling out of death-defying drops, barrel rolls and just flying at around five hundred miles an hour. But he guessed that if a human were with him now, able to withstand the forces, it would feel as though they were riding the biggest and scariest rollercoaster, only with sooooo much more ooomph.

  Dragons' physical characteristics were taken very much into account during the monorail's construction, meaning that routes through the rock strata could take the most direct route nearly all of the time, only changing direction for insurmountable obstacles like gigantic lava flows, large veins of problem metals or potentially explosive pockets of dangerous gas, thus meaning that the monorail would travel in a straight line for much of a journey, before suddenly veering off on all sorts of random twists and turns, drops and ascents, just to avoid a potentially problematic area. For the most part, dragon passengers barely noticed. Humans would never have been able to survive it intact.

  Slowly the monorail car started to decelerate, Peter's cue that they were approaching Salisbridge station. Abruptly the dark tunnels were replaced by the soft orange glow of the platforms. As smooth as always, the carriage pulled up perfectly, just above the platform, and the doors whispered their usual whoosh, opening to allow departing passengers off. Making his way along the platform, and up some very worn marble stairs, the soft sound of the monorail departing whispered to him before he'd even reached the top.

  In front of him, the station opened out into a vast courtyard, with various distinct walkways heading off in a dozen different directions. Although small compared with the likes of London, Glasgow and Purbeck stations, the painstaking detail with which the Salisbridge station had been decorated put all the others to shame. Surrounding the courtyard, twelve soaring, black and white marble pillars, matching the dazzling floor, supported the cavernous ceiling above. Carved intricately into each pillar was a legendary figure from history, with their natural dragon form on one side and their human guise on the other. A sparkling golden fleck, almost as if gold leaf had been mixed with the marble, allowed the characters to shine like stars in a black and white night. Eye-catching didn't begin to cover it. Each time Peter travelled through here, a sense of history and a thrill of excitement ran through him, almost as if he himself were a part of it. Stupid really. You couldn't get much further away from that, than him.

  On reaching the top of these particular stairs, Peter always came face to face with a pillar on which a very familiar hero was etched... George, from the George and the Dragon tale that he'd once again heard recounted, less than an hour ago. Stopping for a few seconds to take in the magnificence of the carving, the same sense of familiarity that he always got washed over him, before he decided it was time to move on. As in previous times, he wondered if somehow he weren't linked to the story in some way, as at times, it appeared to be all around him. Ludicrous really, he knew. Dragons didn't believe in fate or destiny. They were a much more practical race, dealing with the present as it unfolded before them, much less concerned with the past or future.

  Peter's fanciful thoughts seemed to be blown away as his highly attuned senses started to come under attack in a variety of different ways. The sickly scent emanating from some of the Mediterranean plants dotted around the courtyard made his nose tingle and itch. Most underground areas used plants from warmer climates, which he supposed were better suited to the humid conditions. A loud WHIRRING noise from one of the five or six vendors that plied their wares around the edge of the courtyard, nearly day and night, caused Peter to jump slightly. Peeking to his right, he could see that the vendor in question had just primed his machine to start making fresh charcoal doughnuts, in time to attract the attention of the passengers just reaching the top of the staircase. As the dough whizzed around and around in the noisy mixer, Peter watched mesmerised as different coloured tiny chunks of charcoal dripped from above into the gooey mixture, before it slinked its way into a funnel, and then plopped out into the hot fat as a doughnut shape at the other end. It continued to wind its way through the river of bubbling, hot fat, until it was suddenly flipped over, allowing the other side to cook, while Peter's mouth watered in anticipation. All the time the dragon vendor eyed him with a knowing gleam in his eye that almost said, “Gotcha!”

  Concentrating so hard on the doughnut, Peter had only just begun to realise that the sickly sweet scent of pollen had all but been replaced by a much more pleasant smell. His highly sensitive nose had detected the delightful aroma of lemon, cinnamon and slightly burnt charcoal. Leaving the doughnut maker, much to his disappointment, Peter inquisitively headed over to the next vendor, just in time to see a spindly-framed dragon toss a giant pancake into the air, before expertly bringing it down on to the sizzling hot plate in front of him, all with more than a hint of showmanship.

  His nostrils now felt overwhelmed as the courtyard filled up with passengers, and every vendor did their very best to entice them into buying some of their wares. Gorgeous aromas wafted over from the vendors cooking on the other side of the courtyard. Through the crowd, Peter could just make out magnificent multicoloured bread coming out of an oven, which he assumed was the fresh candy floss and toffee apple smell he was currently inhaling. Spying the adjacent vendor frying mouth-watering strips of dark brown meat in a skillet with all sorts of wonderful fruit and vegetables, creating a silky sweet, barbecue smell, made his stomach rumble loudly, having not eaten all day. Taking an age to try and choose between the tasty treats, he finally settled on the pancake over everything else. Once the experienced vendor had cooked him a fresh one, and with it firmly wrapped in a cardboard cone, ignoring all the delicious foodie smells he cut his way through the throng of passengers to the narrowest of the walkways and started following its incline. After two or three minutes of swift walking, he found himself in near total darkness, the path's twists and turns cancelling out any of the remaining light from the station. Not bothered in the slightest by all of this, because of his superb dragon vision that he could change at will, enhancing it to see in the dark as clearly as if it were a sunny day, Peter arrived at the secret underground entrance to the house he owned. Sliding through a small gap in a wall, while wolfing down the last remnants of his pancake, he made his way up a set of very narrow, stone steps. Having done this journey many thousands of times in his relatively short life, he slipped through an even narrower gap at the top of the stairs, glad that he didn't have to do this in his dragon form. Not even his tiny dragon frame would have been able to negotiate this.

  Facing a solid block of impenetrable stone, in total darkness, he raised his left hand up along the wall beside him. With his thumb and forefinger he found two indentations, and at exactly the same time, he forced his digits into both, squeezing down as he did so. A soft 'click', only noticeable because of his enhanced senses, followed by the turning of tiny gears further back down the passage, echoed in the darkness. As if by magic, but more likely awesome engineering, a huge chunk of the wall silently slid upwards and out of sight. Ducking his head ever so slightly, Peter moved on through into a dusty old cellar, where cobwebs hung down from wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling, while clouds of fluff adorned light coloured dust sheets littering the room, underneath which all sorts of different shaped belongings sat. Off in the far corner, a black, ornate, metal staircase, wound tightly up to the ceiling, where it just... STOPPED! The ceiling itself was totally intact, and if anyone had bothered to climb the Victorian staircase, they would have had nowhere to go. It didn't perturb Peter though. He dodged past all the dusty objects and squeezed onto the first rung of the staircase, just as the solid, outside rock wall slipped back into place. Circling around three times on the staircase, he stopped just before his head touched the ceiling. Reaching down to a rust-covered black flower that was part of the intricate Victorian design, he twisted the petals anti-clockwise, before craning his neck up to look at the ceiling. He was rewarded with a small hole getting gradually bigger from above. Poking his head through, he climbed the remain
der of the rungs, emerging into a very ordinary, very small, modern day sitting room. Stepping out from the corner of the room, he skirted around the light brown piano, before reaching past its keys, and yanking hard on a tall glass Galileo thermometer that sat atop it. The brightly coloured glass balls inside crashed violently together as the thermometer went from vertical to horizontal in an instant, the result of which would surely see them break. Surprisingly, they didn't. As the glass vessel sprang back to an upright position, the whole piano slid around ninety degrees on the wooden floor, to sit snugly in the corner of the room on top of the concealed opening. Anyone entering the room the conventional way would be none the wiser.

  Peter's small terraced house comprised a sitting room, a small kitchen, a bathroom on the ground floor, a sixty foot long, narrow garden, and three bedrooms, one of which was a study (up in the roof). A former railway cottage built around the early nineteen hundreds, it was situated close to the modern day station, and was only a ten minute walk from the centre of town. It had always been owned by one dragon or another, hence the concealed passage to the secret world below. As long as intelligent humans have roamed the earth, dragons have sought to live side by side with them, blending in with them in an effort to help fulfil their sworn pledge to guide and protect them. Throughout history, homes bought by dragons have often had access to the domain below, nearly always hidden, more often than not in a completely obscure fashion that nobody would ever stumble across by accident: from revolving wardrobes, to hollow bottomed washing machines, fridges to climb inside, to showers that drop you into a slide so sheer, you wouldn't stop screaming for days, to clandestine garden entrances guarded by all manner of unusual animals.