by Green Dc
‘Don’t stress.’ Bruce patted my back. ‘Scaly here’s a mass-murdering wild card whose death’ll launch Monstro City’s finest dance party. As for the 100,000 crispy butt-fried gobs? I call that a totally top-notch start!’
Greta’s hand lashed out. Bruce’s head spun.
‘Chill, mini feisty!’ The spider raised four legs. ‘I figured you forest gobs hated plains gobs! I’m … confused.’
Speechless, Greta shook her tiny fists.
I hurled my rubber belt. ‘Stuff it! This is all my fault! I caused every–’
Whack!
Something slammed into my head. I dropped to one knee, my vision blurred double.
Zorg loomed above me, good eye blazing. ‘Iz not fault of PT!’ the zombie bellowed. ‘Iz fault of Zorg!’
‘What do you m–’
The zombie scratched at his arms, drawing viscous black blood. ‘Zorg iz zpying on gang! For gobbinz!! ZORG iz traitor!!!’
Stupid Zorg? Spying? That was impossible. Wasn’t it? But if it was possible … My mind sprinted to catch up with the implications. ‘So … Mayor Viethe knows I’m really human?’
‘Not mayor, dumb PT!’ Zorg ranted, his expression frustrated. ‘Deputy Mayor! Klusk! And fat gobbin iz not caring about dumb zwamp monzter. Zorg iz having to zpy on vampire. And gobbin girl!’
‘Spy on me?’ Greta picked up a handful of gold coins and hurled them at the zombie. Zorg didn’t raise his hands to defend himself. ‘May your maggots catch diarrhoea and defecate on your brain!’
‘But why spy on Greta and Stoker?’ I asked.
Zorg sagged to his knees. ‘Gobbinz zteal family of Zorg. Zay they will be killing family of Zorg if Zorg iz not being zpy at zchool.’ He shrugged, grinding his shoulder blades. ‘Zorg not minding zchool. Zorg wanting to get more zmart. Gobbinz zay they will be giving Zorg magic bandagez. Zo Zorg can becoming like mummy! Zo Zcarab will be loving Zorg!’ The zombie’s voice plunged to a hollow-chested moan. ‘But Zcarab will never be loving Zorg. Traitor Zorg iz not being worthy.’
‘Zorg, that’s … really sad.’ My mind blundered over this suddenly-revealed landscape. ‘But this whole crazy quest was my idea! The blood’s in my footsteps!’
‘You are wrong.’
Kalthazari’s eyelids dragged open with a rasping sound, unveiling twin faded orbs networked with veins.
‘Know that you were all but pawns in a greater game. Though a far more potent queen, this one’s moves were predictable too – fatal moves she was always destined to make.’
‘But all those goblins died because of what I revealed!’
‘The Viethe mayor earned his fate. Ultimately, your revelations were irrelevant.’
Greta flared. ‘What of the innocent goblin women and children you slaughtered tonight? Did they earn their fates?’
‘There are no innocents. As a general is responsible for his or her people, so peoples are responsible for their generals. Centuries ago, the leaders of humans allowed the oceans to rise and the monsters to return. Billions of humans died as a result. Now, the Viethe leader has wrought death upon his kind. Karma may be postponed, never halted.’
‘What of the Klusk goblins who fired the magnetised missile?’
‘Regrettably, the karma train does not run to a timetable.’
‘Gnarly philosophy.’ Bruce shook his palps.
‘The karma train should park on my brain.’ I looked down. ‘I’m not fit to be a king’s boot-lace.’
‘What was your goal, youngling, when you became king?’
‘I wanted to lift the human royal finances out of debt. To buy humanity more time.’
‘Here then is your result. Know that this one shall never pay taxes. Dragons acknowledge no ruler, human or otherwise. Yet you have aided this one – the rarest of distinctions for any mortal being. Thus this one releases your kind from paying tribute to any dragon evermore. Thus your goal has succeeded.’
‘Wow. I … thanks. Now the human coffers have years left, rather than months. But that doesn’t make me a leader. Just stupid lucky.’
‘Know that this one has observed you, youngling king. Uncommonly for any ruler, you care for other species besides your own. You sojourned here with a diverse gang of monsters, symbolising more than you fathom. You risked your brief mortal existence to save the Odin-horse. You risked this one’s wrath to save the vibrating arachnid. You encouraged and organised your gang members to give freely of their essences to save this one.’
‘So, we actually did save you?’
‘A stay of execution. The missile poison is rampaging through this one’s body, tearing her cells apart one by one.’
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘There’ve been too many extinctions! I hated reading about all the amazing creatures that are no more. Pandas and elephants and eagles! You must live, Kalthazari! I hate what you’ve done tonight, but the world needs dragons!’
So faintly that I was not sure it happened, Kalthazari nodded.
A rustling sounded behind us. I turned to see Weepnot bowing. The wyvern straightened, his delicate cheek scales glistening.
‘Is it time, my empress?’
‘Aye. This one bids her little brother a final time approach her.’
‘As my empress commands.’ The wyvern snaked forward and stretched one leg towards the dragon. Jutting awkwardly from her body, Kalthazari’s shrivelled arms – more armour than substance – stretched towards him.
Claws clicked and clasped.
Whoosh!
Both reptiles glowed with a rippling golden light. Weepnot’s head threw back to scream. But no sound emerged. The golden light expanded. Engulfing the participants, it flared and vanished.
I gasped and blinked.
Weepnot was gone! Not a shadow or sulphur-scented breath remained.
And Kalthazari was changed! She had morphed into a troll-sized classic dragon, an entire phase less. Her scales had shrunk to match her body, turning from golden dragonium to purple-sheened dragonite. Her eyes still brimmed with pain, but she no longer lay helplessly on her side. Instead she sat, legs crossed – if somewhat gracelessly – and slumped.
‘Kalthazari!’ I cried. ‘What happened to Weepnot? Does this mean you’ll live?’
‘Silence. The wyvern is gone. Scant time remains, and none for grieving. Already the end-game begins. Know that a goblin army approaches Fire Mountain. They intend to plunder this one’s shining hoard – and strip her of her scales. Know that this one commands not the strength to fight them.’
‘Can’t you just nostril-fire-blast?’ asked Jaak. ‘You know, the goblins to Hell?’
‘To be able to fly one final time, this one requires several hours of meditative silence to absorb Weepnot’s life essence and isolate the poison.’
‘Several hours! And when will the goblins arrive?’
‘In fewer hours than several. Just before dawn.’
‘If you need time, Kalthazari …’ I almost skipped as a plan formed in my mind. ‘It’s yours! We’ll fight the goblins for you!’
‘Always wanted ta slay a dragon, but this’ll be the next best thing!’
24: DECEPTIONS
‘Er, we’ll fight?’ Jaak giggled. ‘You know, an army of gobs?’
‘Yeah!’ I grabbed Jaak by the shoulders. ‘The goblins must reckon Kalthazari’s dead or dying. But you’re a shape-shifter! Imagine if they arrived to see Kalthazari perched out front in her full glory!’
‘I can’t make myself! You know, that bulky!’ Jaak staggered back.
‘Can’t you make yourself hollow? Like you did when you became the fake mayor?’
‘You bet not!’ Jaak reversed so fast I had to stride to keep up. ‘To impersonate Kalthazari? Even just from the front? I’d be stretched! You know, so thin. I’d probably tear!’
‘Could you make yourself almost as big?’
‘I suppose so. Three-quarters maybe.’ Jaak, his back pressed against the cavern wall, looked doubtful. ‘Although I’d be like a sail. You know,
flappy. I wouldn’t be able to stand!’
‘Flappy sail works! We can build a scaffolding for your body!’ I spun to face the rest of the gang. ‘If we team up, we can do it!’
‘Yo!’ Bruce grinned. ‘Us spiders are the kick-butt carpenters of monsterdom!’
Greta shook her head. ‘The odds of success are microscopic.’
‘I’m with G-girl,’ Jaak said. ‘You bet. Even if my body was half-convincing? I can’t impersonate a dragon’s voice! You know, boomy and block-rocking.’
‘I recall classical music playing in Weepnot’s tunnel, implying the existence of speakers.’ Greta rubbed her chin. ‘It would be complicated to set up, though Kalthazari could speak into a microphone here, magnifying her voice through speakers erected where Jaak would be standing.’
‘You mean, where I’d be tied?’ Jaak gulped. ‘You know, to a scaffolding!’
‘Brilliant!’ I rubbed my hands together. ‘Let’s start working!’
‘This one bids you luck. Know that, if you succeed, there is much she must impart.’
‘IF we succeed, Big K, we’ll settle for a departing party.’ Bruce grinned. ‘Adios!’
I patted the zombie’s slumped back. ‘We’ll need your help, Zorg.’
‘But Zorg iz dumb traitor.’
‘With no Scarab or Stoker here, you’re our strongest gang member.’
‘Gang …’ The zombie finally nodded and shuffled towards the entrance.
Greta stayed behind to disconnect speakers and work on the sound system. The rest of us jogged through the tunnel to the plateau where we’d first landed.
A quarter moon partially illuminated the mountain. I scanned Kalthazari’s pastures. Hippocows huddled in the furthest corner, breathing heavily. I couldn’t blame the big herbivores for being nervous after all that had happened. Their fist-sized nostrils occasionally flared, inhaling the last remnants of their crispy-fried cousins.
‘We can use fence timber to build Jaak’s scaffolding,’ I said.
‘But hippocowz will be ezcaping,’ said Zorg.
‘Least of our worries.’ I pointed northwest to the constellation of flickering lights. ‘Raiders are on their way.’
We dismantled the hippocow pens. Using Bruce’s webbing, and rope from Weepnot’s chamber, we bound the wooden beams together. The main vertical beam that would serve as Kalthazari’s ‘spine’ ended up 65 metres long. Close enough. I twisted Weepnot’s post-hole borer into the earth, fear and toe-pain driving me harder than the strongest coffee. Bruce webbed two crossbeams into place, forming the width of Kalthazari’s shoulders, and a shorter beam higher up to approximate her noggin. Jaak stretched thinner and thinner, morphing into Kalthazari – well, Kalthazari if she had been flattened by the world’s mightiest steamroller.
‘You need any help?’ I asked.
‘My vocal chords? Won’t work soon.’ Jaak’s voice was already thinner than breeze. ‘I won’t be able. You know, to do anything.’
I nodded. In the east, the horizon glowed faint orange. Would we live long enough to see the sun rise?
In the opposite direction, the goblin war party was 1,000 fireflies closing in.
‘They must’ve been ready for this,’ I seethed. ‘They must’ve known what was going to happen and been preparing to attack Kalthazari for years. But how?’
Jaak rippled. I lifted his paper-thin edge. On the ‘front’ side, the shape-shifter looked just like Kalthazari. His ‘scales’ even reflected light, though nowhere near as brilliantly as the real thing. On the reverse side, tiny veins criss-crossed.
Bruce webbed the shape-shifter’s back to the scaffolding.
I scratched my noggin. How could we possibly raise Jaak to vertical? Even Zorg’s strength would be nowhere near enough.
‘PT!’ Zorg yelled. I turned, catching the rope the zombie lobbed my way. ‘Make tie to beamz! Zorg will be towing!’
My mouth fell. The ex-farmer had rigged the hippocows into a team! ‘Brilliant, Zorg! Now let’s make Jaak an upright citizen!’
Bruce tied Zorg’s rope to the highest point behind Jaak’s head. I rolled a boulder as a fulcrum beneath the main beam, wedging the lower end against another boulder. Goaded forward by Zorg, the hippocows’ hooves skidded on the rocky mountainside.
Bruce and I grabbed the rope and pulled too. Though the rope became sticky with my blood, I enjoyed the exertion of doing something upbeat and physical, of being part of the gang. I felt like a boy again, inhaling the mingled sweat of my labouring friends, rather than a lonely prince, breathing musty sky-less air. The scaffolding inched taller on the boulder fulcrum until it stood, tall and menacing, nestled in my freshly bored hole.
From behind and from the side, our chances of success seemed nought. Yet from the front, the direction of the raiders, Jaak almost did look like Kalthazari. Well, a kind of snap-frozen version.
I laid rocks along the rear side of Kalthazari-Jaak’s talons and backside, stretching him taut. ‘Good thing there’s no wind.’
‘Yo,’ said Bruce. ‘Alpha dragons ain’t in textbooks for their rippling.’
Greta emerged from the tunnel, trailing wire and dragging two speakers. ‘The sneaky sound system is ready,’ she wheezed. ‘Kalthazari will speak into the microphone at the other end.’
‘Brilliant work!’ I lugged the speakers to Bruce. ‘Can you web these to the scaffolding behind Jaak’s mouth?’
Bruce aimed his legs like pistols. ‘Sorry, primate. I’m webbed out.’
‘You’ve lost so much weight, spider.’ Greta eyed Bruce’s shrivelled abdomen. ‘Though not in the most flattering of segments.’
‘Stuff it.’ I scanned for something to kick. ‘We must have sound! I doubt a goblin army will be tricked by a dragon mime show!’
Bruce’s eyeballs darted. ‘I s’pose I could kind of hold the speakers in place?’
‘Yeah!’
‘But what if I can’t help busting out my vibrating thing? I don’t figure dragons are s’posed to tremble.’
I forced myself to hold Bruce’s gaze. ‘You can control your vibrating.’
‘Yo, totally, if I’m brutally tackled by a nut-job in a half-burned swamp suit.’ The spider hawked spit at a speaker.
‘You help everyone else, Bruce. You were the first to welcome me to the gang. You boosted Jaak’s confidence when he morphed into the mayor. You even tossed Zorg a rat.’
‘Yo.’ Bruce nodded. ‘I am the ultimate team dude player.’
‘We all need your help now.’
‘Easy for you to jabber. Humes own zilch sense of self-preservation.’ The spider sagged. ‘But we ain’t gonna live either way, huh? Is that what being brave’s all ’bout? Owning nothing to lose?’
‘It’s about having everything to lose.’
‘Why don’t you two shop for wallpaper together?’ Greta pretended to fall asleep.
‘Belt your gob, gob.’ Bruce’s shoulders lifted. ‘There’s a time to vibrate and a time to suicidally cling to a scaffolding clutching dumb-ass speakers. And this time’s option number two, give or take five minutes! Bruce o’clock!’
‘You’re an eight-legged superhero!’ I hooted. ‘You’re the spider, man!’
‘Yo!’ Bruce grabbed the speakers and scaled the main pole to Jaak’s mouth, some 60 metres up.
I flashed a thumbs-up. Bruce flashed a palps-up.
‘We’re doomed,’ said Greta.
Everything seemed ready. Yet my mind bounced over a dirt road of plan-ruining possibilities. ‘How will Kalthazari know when to speak into her microphone?’
‘Even a dying, devolved dragon possesses hearing greater than we can imagine,’ Greta replied. ‘She will do her bit.’
The horizon was a brightening smudge of bloodred orange. I walked around to the ‘front’ of Jaak-Kalthazari and craned my head. From this angle, the dragonium gold colouring was dull, flat and clearly fake. Yet as I stepped further away, the combination of pre-dawn lighting, Greta’s strategically placed braziers and th
e final glow from Sleipnir’s carriage bonfire made the shape-shifter glimmer impressively. Jaak had even formed shadows on his ‘scales’ to match the angle of the sunrise.
I felt almost optimistic, until a sullen Greta opened her cloak and handed me the field glasses she’d rescued from the carriage. Following her gaze, I zoomed in on the goblins. ‘There are thousands of them,’ I groaned. ‘They’re riding ugly-faced crones and … gleaming?’
Greta snatched her field glasses back. ‘The gleaming means these are cyborg goblins riding cyborg harpies. That means they are not Viethe’s air force, but Klusk’s finest, which in turn means we are more doomed.’ She pulled me behind the false dragon’s feet. ‘Some will possess long range vision, so we must remain hidden.’
So we hid. And sweated. With their fences removed, Kalthazari’s hippocows fled. A part of me yearned to flee also and find a dark hiding spot in Weepnot’s tunnel. But there was no way I could abandon our least-brave gang members so high and exposed above the mountain. Instead, with my first break from action since our crazy carriage ride, I catalogued my injuries (broken toes, burned hands, dented head, stabbed chest, boggled brain) and tried to chuckle at the crazy notion that Stoker was my long-lost brother.
I failed.
Greta’s anxiety was betrayed only by her slender fingers. I couldn’t help but stare at their restive drumming against her folded arms. She kept glaring at Zorg, as if expecting more betrayal. Yet after his surprising burst of leadership, the zombie just brooded, head down beside the main pole. Black blood bubbled from the bullet-hole he’d copped when we were inside Kalthazari’s pouch.
I recognised the zombie’s glum expression and wanted to cheer his mood. But I could think of nothing to make a depressed dead guy – who’d betrayed his friends, lost his family and probably lost the love of his life – break into a lipless smile. Still, I had to try.
‘Hey, Zorgie!’ I called. ‘What do you call a book that does push-ups?’ When the zombie just stared, I answered, ‘An exercise book!’
‘Iz good Zorg iz not munching PT’z brainz.’ The zombie rolled his good eye. ‘PT’z zilly brainz maybz making Zorg zick.’
