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Later that evening, Crush opened his eyes from his nap in time to watch the last traces of daylight dissipate from the world that lay outside of the shelter. Sitting up on his elbow, he found that Simon had taken to his idea for sleep as well, and the little monkey was resting on the cavern floor by his legs. Being careful not to wake him, Crush quietly stood to his feet and stretched his arms and legs to get the blood flowing. His body ached from dozing on the hard surface, and though the air outside was cozy, he was beginning to feel cold from touching the floor. Massaging the outsides of his arms and legs, the blood began to flow to his fingers and toes, and he was soon feeling quite rested and rejuvenated from the long catnap. Boulder sat near the entrance with his arms resting on his knees and his back leaning against the wall, and Crush nimbly strode over to him and knelt down beside him. Boulder glanced over at him and then turned his attention back outside of the rock overhang to the forest. They began to talk in whispers as they watched some unknown being beyond the edge of the brush.
“Have you seen anything out there?” Crush asked as his eyes scanned the edge of the borders.
“Nothing. Whatever it is, it does not want to be seen. Which is all the more reason for us to remain unseen,” Boulder replied.
“I feel better from the nap anyhow, though I don’t feel quite good enough to confront a dragon,” Crush joked as he stood to his feet. Boulder rose in turn, and they walked to the back corner to wake Simon. Crush placed his hand over the tiny mouth of the monkey, and then tapped him on his fuzzy shoulders. Simon’s eyes opened wide, and the monkey sat up with a yawn, followed by some lively scratching of the fur on his tiny chest. The monkey was wide awake, and Crush snatched him up in his arms for the climb up the stone trail outside. When the darkness had covered the mountain in shadow sufficiently, Boulder stepped out of the protection of the rock shelter, and he walked along the cliff wall on the tips of his feet until he managed to get around the next corner to hide. Crush followed with Simon in his arms, and when he had turned the corner, he found that Boulder was waiting for him. Boulder pointed to a set of steps that formed a trail in the mountainside, and they climbed up the set of stairs to a landing twenty feet above. The landing was large in area and extended out over the top of the rock shelter where they had hidden earlier in the day. The landing provided very little cover so Boulder lifted his finger to his lips to signal silence to Crush, and together they softly marched across the open area to the opposite side. There was another wall at the edge, and Boulder turned left toward the mountainside and disappeared behind a large stone. Crush followed, and when he had gone behind the stone, he found that Boulder was climbing another set of hidden steps upward along the cliff face.
“How much farther?” he whispered to the man of stone as he was losing his patience with sneaking around in the dark. Boulder did not bother to answer; he simply motioned for Crush to follow. Crush trailed him up the steps to another landing, and his jaw fell open with astonishment at the size of the cave that was located in the side of the mountain. Boulder kept moving and motioned with his hand for Crush to keep up as he vanished beneath the monumental orifice that opened into the side of the mountain. The cat man marveled at the immense proportions of the cave, and he wondered why it was so large. Then he remembered who lived there. With a look of revelation creeping across his face, Crush hoped that this opening was not a tight fit for the dragon.
Entering the side of the massive half-round entryway, Crush ran along the edge of the wall until he found Boulder waiting for him in the shadows. Boulder was looking at the world outside, and Crush sensed that the man of stone was still nervous about the mysterious tracker that lay hidden in the woods.
“One thing at a time,” Crush thought to himself as he grabbed Boulder by the arm and urged him onward into the depths of the hole. Boulder complied with Crush’s silent request, and soon they were following the cavern down into the mountain. Crush’s eyes were only partially adjusted to the lack of light, and though he could see in the dark like most cats, there was positively no light reflecting from the walls inside the cave. There was, however, an odor that lightly filled the air. Crush had never smelled this odor before, and he attributed it to the dragon.
“Boulder,” he whispered as he struggled to find the elemental in the dark. “I can’t see you.” A cold stone hand reached out and touched Crush’s arm, and he jumped at the sudden graze of the stone. Grabbing the hand, Crush felt himself being pulled ahead into the night, first uphill, then downhill, around turns, and the odor that Crush had detected at the entrance grew in potency.
They trudged on through the endless darkness, and Simon held on tight to Crush’s shoulder, afraid to make a sound. The monkey could smell the growing scent of the dragon, and he too was deathly afraid at what lay ahead.
Boulder, for his part, ignored the scent. He knew that it was the dragon that they were smelling, and he knew that the odor would only get worse. “Why worry with something that I know is going to happen,” he thought. Then he sensed the opening to the great chamber ahead, and he slowed to a snail’s pace as he sought to caution Crush before they could enter.
“Crush, we must be careful of the dragon’s breath,” Boulder warned as he whispered to the cat man at the mouth of the great chamber. “It is riddled with fire, and I fear that you would not survive a single burst.”
“Thanks for the warning!” he whispered back sarcastically, and Boulder placed his hands on Crush’s arms in an attempt to comfort him.
“Do not worry. The dragon will have no effect on me. Only you and Simon can be affected,” he answered as his cold stone hands gently clasped the human by the wrists. He wished to comfort him somehow, maybe calm his nerves before the showdown. “Trust me, we are here, and we can do this. I will confront the dragon, and when you see the dragon’s mouth open wide, jump in and take the tooth.”
“That simple, huh. You want me to . . . get in the dragon’s mouth,” Crush said with a pause, but this was no joke to the elemental. “You’re serious!” he spouted before he remembered where he was. Ignoring the protest, Boulder escorted him over to the side of the cave wall, and motioned for Crush to stay quiet and to stay put for the moment. The man of stone then unraveled and withdrew the tiny bird from Crush’s shirt and cupped the animal in his hands. As Boulder walked away, Crush then heard the growling exhale of another creature somewhere within the great chamber, possibly the dragon they had searched so long for. In order to succeed, he understood that the confrontation with the dragon was going to require the most courage from himself. The only problem with the plan was that Crush did not know whether he had what it would take to face the creature, much less crawl into its mouth. After all, there were no actual dragons on earth that he had ever seen, unless you count those tiny bearded lizards they sell in the pet stores. Not counting those, if there were dragons on earth, he felt quite sure that there would be far fewer people around. Certainly not people walking around with cell phones in their hands, texting to their friends as they stepped out in front of traffic. Those were the people that would be eaten first.
A great grumbling sound rolled through the cavern, filling the corners and shaking the entire room with reverberations. This was followed up by the sound of the apparent release of the tiny bird into the cavern, as the tweets, whistles, and the flapping of wings followed. It was pitch dark inside the cave, and though Crush could not see the bird in the dark, he could hear it. And he knew that if he could hear it, then the dragon certainly could. With a hungry grumble, the dragon inhaled a lungful of wind, and Crush sat deathly still as he waited for the dragon to appear. For several long minutes, the bird whistled and fluttered throughout the grotto, and then a faint illumination appeared in an undiscovered dark corner. Both Crush and Simon could not help but to be drawn to the light, and Crush raised his head and trained his eyes on the glow. The radiance seemed to come from a set of rocks just ab
ove ground level, as if the rocks themselves were the source of the light.
The shadows of the bird flitted to and fro across the glowing rocks as it was also drawn to the mysterious pile of stones. It hopped around on the stalactites that peppered the surface of the ceiling, it drew closer and closer to the light. Fearful and uncertain, the little fellow refused to fly down low enough to the ground to examine the rocks. After all, it was curious to find out what the source of the light was, but it was cautious enough to know that there could be something waiting for it down on the ground. If Crush could have seen the bird’s earlier life through a film, he would have known that the tiny canary-like bird had been the target of numerous attempts upon its life by all manner of creatures. Snakes, lizards, feral cats (not unlike himself), nasty river fish with giant teeth, even a giant or two who would settle for this sesame seed-sized morsel had tried to catch the bird, yet none had been successful until Simon. The bird had lived a careful life to avoid all such hunters, and had Crush known that the bird was so elusive, he would have also understood that Simon’s skills in stalking were more highly adept than all such accomplished creatures.
Ever vigilant, the bird flitted from stalactite to stalactite until it rested upon the longest stalactite in the cavern where it looked down safely on the light that shown through the outcropping of rocks below. There was no sign of any movement anywhere else within the cavern, and Crush then wondered where Boulder might be. He could not see him moving anywhere in the well-lit perimeter around the rocks, and he thought for a moment that maybe the man of stone had chosen to stay a safe distance outside of the light. Crush noticed a single large stone that stood outward along the perimeter of the light. It was about the size of a human, and as he examined it for a little longer, he thought that he could distinguish the shadows of an arm, and then a leg, contained within the stone. If he used his imagination properly and concentrated his thoughts, he could believe that the stone was Boulder crouched down with his head curled underneath to his chest. As calm as a mountain he squatted there before the light, unmoving and seemingly devoid of life, just as you would expect a stone to be. The light suddenly grew brighter, and though Crush had never seen a dragon before, he felt sure that fire would soon envelop the entire cavern. The great monster that dwelt within Scalus Mountain would melt them all down to pools of molten rock and organic ash, and the adventure would be over. Or better yet, the serpent would breathe the fire of infinite temperature, and they would experience instant sublimation from solid to vapor, whereupon their bodies would be transported and deposited upon the rocks like a four topping pizza of human, monkey, bird, and stone. Their doom was sealed, and all they needed to do was die.
They waited, and waited, and waited.
Curiosity overcame the bird, and it flew down to the tip of the stalactite and looked down at the glowing rocks below. If the dragon were present, like its senses told it, the bird would be safe within the quill of stalactites attached to the ceiling above. There was every reason to stay close, to stare intently at the light. The cavern grumbled once again, and the stalactites shook with the boom that traveled around the enormous room. The bird hung on to the pinnacle with its tiny claws, and the stalactite split down the middle with the echo of the dragon. Sensing danger, the bird crawled into the safety of the narrow split where it could spread out and lean against the rock. Crush could no longer see the bird, but he could hear it as it chirped its distress. The cave rumbled once more, and the sound of the bird was gone. No flapping, no chirping, no whistling. The light began to dim, and soon the cavern was in complete darkness once again.
A scuffling noise sounded through the cavern, and Crush heard a wrenching sound as of rock scraping rock echoing through the darkness. Simon clenched Crush’s shoulders tightly as more of the irritating racket followed, and suddenly the dim light of the rocks came back on once again. This time Boulder was the one responsible for the noise, and he was attempting to pry the stones away from the cover of the light with little success. A low grumble returned in the background as Boulder climbed onto the pile of stones that covered over the source of the light. Boulder was bent over with both feet pressed into the pile, and his hands were dug in finger deep beneath a loose stone. He yanked backward and released a single stone from the pile. Falling backward onto the cave floor, the stone rolled to a stop as a bright liquid pooled up in the open spot of the pile. Immediately the low grumble turned to a thunderous roar as the stalactite from the ceiling fell straight down toward the pile, and then amazingly veered sideways in mid-plummet before reaching the ground. Crush then noticed that the stalactite was connected to a much longer section of curved stone that wound away into the background darkness, and he marveled at the shape and contour of the giant rocks as they moved autonomously in such a precarious fashion. The crack in the moving stalactite opened wide as it whirled around and hovered just above the surface of the cave floor, pointing directly at Boulder as the tiny bird that had been trapped between the crevices darted out from the stone and flew to safety at the top of the ceiling. Two small stones moved upon either side of the stalactite, and Crush realized for the first time the severity of what he was seeing. The two small stones were eyelids, and that meant that the stalactite was the dragon’s head.
Boulder had been facing the dragon the whole time.
“How dare you touch me, Old Man of the Mountain!!” the dragon roared as the light within its rocks glowed ever brighter with the dragon’s change in mood. “If I thought you wouldn’t give me heartburn, I would swallow you whole now!” the serpent threatened as it mouth opened wide, and Crush ducked down behind a pointed stone that jutted straight up toward the ceiling. Setting Simon down behind the safety of the rocks, Crush quietly unbound the pendant from his back and gripped it like a shield around his left arm as the dragon rumbled on in bellows of rage.
“It has been many eons, worm!” Boulder declared valiantly as he stood bravely before the beast. “The Old Men of the Mountain have not forgotten your treachery, and it is time for you to release this mountain from your wrath at your own peril!” Boulder commanded with a stern voice, and the words brought new meaning to the journey. All this time, Crush had never considered that Boulder and the dragon would know each other. Actually, he would never have thought that a dragon could even speak or become acquainted with anyone to begin with.
The dragon laughed at Boulder’s declarations with a great thunderous roll that reverberated through his long, swirling neck.
“Treachery, is it now! Wasn’t it you that made me? Aren’t you the reason that I exist? Treachery, hah, my great stony bottom!” the dragon sniggered and turned its head toward the light as a slippery, spiny tongue thrust out from the mouth and licked the bleeding wound which oozed from the scale that Boulder had torn loose. The saliva boiled away on the surface of the stones, and the wound sealed up and covered over into a scar as the boiling ceased. The dragon then turned back to face Boulder as it opened its mouth wide and inhaled a gigantic breath of cavern air. Crush watched the dragon carefully fill with air, and he could see no teeth within the mouth of the beast. The light within its belly grew bright as the temperature in the room slowly rose with the stoking of the furnace, and a dread came over Crush as he watched the events unfold. The dragon exhaled, and the bright light traveled along the great serpent’s neck, winding along the twist until it reached the head where flames spewed out from the mouth in a torrent of volcanic disorder. Crush covered Simon from the heat that radiated out of the gelatinous bile which soaked Boulder from head to toe, and if he had not been hiding behind a rock, the splatter may have burned a hole through him as well. As it was, he and Simon survived the first attack that the dragon had made, but the same could not be said for Boulder as he stood tall as a burning statue before the serpent. Crush felt a sudden sense of loss as he watched his friend engulfed beneath the flaming saliva, and for the first time in many years, he felt that this may be the end of
his life’s journey. In fact, they may all die here senselessly in a conflagration of dragon vomit, and they would have accomplished nothing.
Then like a cheap flaming candle at the end of its life, the glob of burning lava which covered Boulder peeled away and fell to the cavern floor with a sizzle, and a red hot glowing man of stone wiped away the excess spit from his granite epidermis. The dragon laughed in the heat of the moment and belched more flames from the chimney of his mouth at the moving statue, but Boulder was unaffected by the serpent’s taunting. The Old Man of the Mountain knelt down into a crouch and launched himself from out of the flames. Breaking into a sprint, Boulder aimed himself at the dragon’s lowered head, and he jumped like an Olympian athlete at the dragon’s rugged dome. With a mighty crash, Boulder struck the dragon’s head with a fist of granite, and the repercussions shook the walls of the cavern. Boulder held onto the dragon’s eyelids, and he stomped his foot down hard onto the dragon’s snout. The dragon opened its mouth in anger and swung its head around to throw the man of stone from its crown, and as the smoky doorway to its gullet passed close by, Crush caught a glimpse of a single tooth that lay within the upper side of the dragon’s jaw.
“Crush! Now!!” Boulder yelled over the din of the dragon’s roar, and Crush set the monkey down behind the safety of the rocks and prepared to do something, though he knew not what. Boulder struck the dragon’s head again and smashed pebbles loose from his forehead as the dragon swayed from side to side, and Crush could find no good opportunity to jump inside the dragon’s open mouth without ending his own life. Unlike Boulder, he was not resistant to fire or heat, and he had no flame retardant clothing handy. If he were going to do something, it would have to be rash and unexpected. Crush removed the pendant from his back and let Simon hide between it and the wall. Taking a deep breath and saying a quick prayer, Crush ran out from behind the rocks and into the open field of flames. He hurdled between the lava flow and landed on the dragon’s back, and when the dragon swung its head above its back, he jumped into its open mouth. With nothing to hold onto but the one tooth, Crush fought to latch on against the slippery acidic spit, but he nearly fell over onto the dragon’s tongue in the process. The beast’s head swayed to and fro like a carnival ride gone wild, and Crush extended his claws to grip the tooth between the wet, rocky gums as he struggled to keep balance. While Crush pulled the tooth for a quick extraction, Boulder slipped between the jaws of the open mouth, and standing at the front to his full height, he pried the jaws open further with a clean and jerk. The monster roared his anger at the attack, and the head tilted up and back as a burp of smoke and spit rose through its neck and out of its mouth. Covered in soot, Crush held his breath and continued to pull with all of his might on the dragon’s molar. Using the extra space in the mouth that Boulder had provided, he pulled himself into an upside-down position in order to place his feet on the top of the dragon’s mouth. Then he used his legs, his arms, and all of his weight to pry the tooth loose. Miraculously, it worked.
The tooth popped loose from the gum line and into Crush’s claws with a sickening snap, and the smell of iron mixed with the smoke as the dragon’s blood drooled down from the empty socket. The dragon’s head quivered in pain, and losing his balance, Crush tumbled out of the dragon’s mouth to land catlike on his feet on the rocky surface of the dragon’s back. As he stood there for a moment gaining his bearings in the glow of the dragon’s light, two appendages flexed upward on either side of the dragon’s shoulders. It was the dragon’s wings that rose up from the ground, and Crush felt the dragon’s midsection begin to elevate toward the ceiling. With a desperate leap, he dove toward a cold, dry spot on the floor and rolled to his feet. Knowing he only had a small window of time to escape, Crush bolted behind the rocks where Simon lay safely hidden, slung the pendant around his shoulders, and tucked the tooth safely under his arm.
“Run, Crush! Run!!” Boulder shouted from the tip of the dragon’s mouth, and Crush tucked Simon under his other arm and awkwardly ran along the cave wall toward the long hallway that stretched out into the shadows. The field agent fled into the dark and never looked back.
The dragon was preoccupied with smashing the man of stone that now held its mouth open, but out of the corner of its eye, he spotted Crush. And his tooth! With a blood curdling scream, the dragon drew its neck back and aimed its open mouth at the escaping human. If he could not extract Boulder from his jaws, he could at least incinerate the tiny dentist. A glow of fire belched through his throat, and the dragon spewed a splash of fire and acid that split as it passed through Boulder. Sensing the danger, Crush ducked down into a ball with his back to the dragon as the fiery spit struck him from behind. The force of the blow through Crush forward, and he rolled like a fiery tumbleweed around the corner and out of sight. When he finally stopped, steam rolled off the pendant and into the air. The makeshift shield had absorbed the attack and saved his life.
Feeling the heat of the metal pendant on his back, Crush dropped Simon and the tooth and removed the shield from his body. The heat of the item was overwhelming, and he let it fall to the ground. The fiery spit covered the womanly figure in the cameo, and the background of the pendant glowed a bright green color as the round piece of giant jewelry rattled to a halt. There was no time for Crush to wait for the shield to cool, so he and Simon picked up the tooth, and they ran for the exit, leaving the cameo where it lay. Crush disappeared into the darkness of the cavern as the shield lay still upon the ground, glowing with a bright green radiance as the dragon’s fire smoldered upon the cameo. The dragon stomped his disapproval at Crush’s escape, but there was nothing the beast could do to stop the cat-man’s departure.
A strange thing then occurred as the shield sat alone, surrounded by the darkness of the cave. The statuesque figure that outlined the pendant began to quiver and to swell as a balloon filling with air. The outline of the figure grew and grew until it assumed the shape of gigantic woman, and the colossal figure was born of the tiny pendant. The shape separated from the magical pendant with a burst of white light, and the giant magical statue fell to the ground in a heap. Most statues were fragile and would have broken with the collapse upon the hard floor of the cave, but this new figure was more flexible than a granite or plaster cast. She was in fact soft to the touch, and the magical figure breathed in the stale air of the cave as the dragon roared mightily just around the bend. The giantess coughed and rolled over onto her stomach as she felt the heat of the dragon’s rage, and for the first time in countless years, she opened her eyes. She looked at her hands, she felt the cool of the stone floor, and she realized that she could feel the world around her. She was real once again. She stood to her feet and stretched the long legs that she remembered had carried her for so many years. The numbness dissipated as the tingling surged from her toes to her hips, and the staggering gave way to stability as she stood tall within the dragon’s cavern of Scalus Mountain.
Something felt wrong though, and when she pinpointed the feeling, she discovered that there was something uncomfortable under her foot. Lifting her heel, she moved the foot and reached down to pick up the tiny piece of metal that had snagged into the arch of her sole. It was a piece of jewelry. A very familiar piece of jewelry.
“Where do I know this from?” she asked herself as she held the glowing metal pendant in her hand. The heat of the dragon’s fire had dispersed with the release of the magic, but the pendant glowed with the enchantment of some far away spell. Though she thought and thought, she could not recall who she was. She could not recall where she had come from or where she was going. Behind her in the cavern, a dragon boomed in fury at some grave irritation. Ahead of her was the long dark of an unknown tunnel. Of the two choices, the long dark tunnel was her best option to find out who she was. Dragons were best left to their own misdeeds, though how she knew such a thing about the great monsters, she had no good idea. She would follow the tunnel to wherever it le
d and hope that someday her memories would come back to her.
Chapter 3
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Escape from Destruction
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 9 Page 5
